Hi, Mitch!

I frequently find it hard to decide which book to read :-)

I am not familiar with Yoshimoto Banana.  I haven't read any of Fitzgerald's work, but am familair with him as an author otherwise.  Gordon's title sounds familiar.  There was a movie within the last few years, "Under the Tuscan Sun", which starred Diane Lane.  It was really good.

Manga and anime is really popular over here now.  I was involved with an anime convention for a few years which was heavily attended.  We used to call anime Japanese Animation, but now use the French term.  We can find manga in bookstores like Barnes and Noble or Borders.  It's gone mainstream.

I enjoy reading primarily science fiction, but also fantasy and non-fiction.  I enjoy reading Robert Heinlein, JRR Tolkien and many others.  I also rely on Dummies books, and their competition, for basic knowledge about topics that I don't know well.  That might be economics, Alaska or exchange traded funds.  I also subscribe to many magazines from astronomy to investing.

We buy lots of books throughout the year.  Can't read them all.  One day I hope to catalog them so I know how many and what :-)

<== Mike ==>

Hi, Mitch!

Glad you enjoyed Banana's novel.  I did see 6th Sense which I thought was very good.

I have not seen the translation of Nodame Cantabile.  I will have to look for it.  Thanks for the recommendation.

My wife and I are listening to an audiobook by George RR Martin.  It is a collection of his short stories read by voice actors.  One of the actors is Adrian Paul who played the Highlander in the television show and some of the movies.  Another is Claudia Black of the movie Pitch Black and the tv show Farscape and Stargate: SG1.  My wife likes some of them, but not all.  I like them all to some degree or another.  It is easy to listen to audiobooks while we drive around.  We just made two trips to Tucson (120 miles southeast) for an annual gem and mineral show there.

I see you're visiting Ken in Hawaii.  I hope you have a great time.  We hope to visit there in March, but we're still not sure of our ability to do so yet.

<== Mike ==>

Hi, Mitch!

You should have a great vacation with Ken and Hawaii!  Ken and I still have not met yet, but one day.  If my wife and I can visit in March as tentatively planned, then we might make that happen depending on all of our schedules :-)

I remember reading about Japan in Lonely Planet's guide.  This helped quite a bit.  It contained all of the little nuasances of Japanese life, culture, society, how things are done, etc.  I learned that many businesses take only cash, but major chains (Hilton, department stores, etc.) take credit or debit cards.  I was surprised to learn about the difficulty of using ATM machines at banks.  Apparently, the post office there is a good place to use international credit or debit cards.  We got around all that by exchanging money at the airport in advance and using cards where they were taken.  Here we have many banks with many ATMs which take almost every network card.  Some charge you a fee for using their machine if you don't have an account with them (such as using a Chase bank card at Bank of America's ATM).  Most of our banks charge to use cards out of country and that gets expensive, usually 2% or 3% of the transaction.

I don't know if you know the difference, but debit cards deduct money from a pre-paid account, such as a checking account, while credit cards advance funds on a line of credit.  Some of our debit cards can also be processed as credit cards which further confuses the situation since some businesses don't take debit cards or some don't take credit cards.  We also have businesses who only take Visa or Mastercard, some also take American Express, some also take Discover cards.  Very few take Carte Blanche or Diners Club cards anymore.  I do see JCB logos here and there, but they aren't prevalent.  Most hotels require a credit card to check in without having to prepay your stay in case you want to eat in their restaurant or order room service, want your phone turned on, etc.

Here in the US almost everyone takes cash, credit or debit cards.  I would suggest that you exchange money at the airport for operating cash.  We now have colored money!  The government introduced subtle colors into our $20, $10 and $5 bills.  Try not to use anything larger than $20 since many businesses don't take $50 or $100 bills due to counterfeiting problems.  You can use the larger bills at grocery stores (major chains), department stores, banks, etc.  Tipping, yes, very different.  What I do is take the subtotal, add 15% to the total, then pay that.  If the service is really good make it 20%; if the service is really bad make it 10% or less.  Never leave 0%.  If the service is absolutely the worst you've ever had, then leave one penny $0.01 which will tell them that you really thought it was bad.  Many server positions get paid less than minimum wage because it is understood that they will make up the rest on gratuities (tipping).  Some states don't allow this discount, such as Nevada.  Some do, such as Arizona.  Ken can probably fill us in on Hawaii.  An example of eating out means you'll have a beverage, an appetizer, an entree, a dessert, then tax (usually state, city, possibly county).  Some states don't have sales taxes; most do.  The subtotal is the amount of the bill before tax; that's what I use to calculate the gratuity :-)

Hope this helps.

You can order audiobooks online.  Amazon carries them and I think they have a site for Japan.  I'm sure others do, too.  We used to get cassette based audiobooks.  Most are now available as CDs (similar to music CDs).  Some are now available as MP3 CDs (storing as MP3 files instead of CDA files) and some also offer downloads as MP3.  We have special equipment where we can convert LPs (records) to MP3, cassette tapes to MP3, etc.  We are gradually taking our older stuff into the newer format.  Our car (Honda Civic Hybrid) plays CDs that are CDA, MP3 or WMA (yet another audio format).  We can also plug an MP3 player into a jack below our radio and use it to play audio.  Although we have several of these we haven't tried that yet.  We did buy a pre-loaded iPod with audiobooks on it from one publisher, but haven't used it yet.

Please forgive me if I've overloaded you with information or said something that you already know about.  Take care.

<== Mike ==>

Hi, Mitch!

I look forward to seeing your Hawaii photos when you return :-)

Have a great trip!

<== Mike ==>

Hi, Mitch!

Sorry for the delay in responding.  My wife and I drove to Los Angeles (about 6.5 hours west of Phoenix by car) to attend the Gallifrey One convention.  It is a Doctor Who (British sf television show) convention.  We had a good time.  Got together for dinner with local friends on Friday at a soul food restaurant, Persian food for Saturday and with friends from San Diego (about 2 hours south of LA) for Sunday dinner.  Total trip was 800 miles (1280 km), took 13 hours round trip and we got 37.7 miles per gallon.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out :-)

Sounds like you enjoy lots of manga!  I've read some, but not a lot.  I used to read comics when I was younger, but gave them up for books.  I read both Hardy Boys (mysteries) and Tom Swift Jr (science fiction).  After those I stuck with sf and have been reading it ever since.  I see lots of manga in bookstores around here, too.

Hope you have a great trip to Hawaii.

<== Mike ==>

Hi, Mitch!

Glad you had a great time.  Sorry to hear the public transportation was inadequate for your needs.  When my wife and I have visited we have rented a car each time.

I think we've seen some of the things you saw, but not all.  We have not met Ken yet, but hope to on a future trip there.  We had to cancel our plans to visit this month due to the economy.

Thanks for the website info.  Got it in private message.  I'll check it out :-)

What was your favorite spot to visit?

<== Mike ==>

Hi, Mitch!

We'll get back to Hawaii sometime soon.  We got married there (Kaua'i, actually) in 1990.  We've been to Kaua'i, Oahu, Maui and Hawai'i (big island).  Haven't been to Ni'ihau, Lanai, Molokai or Kahoolawe (the latter being a firing range).

Good luck with the job hunting.  I'm self-employed and do multiple things, but several are tapering off for obvious reasons.  Right now is not the time I'd want to be looking for a job.  It was bad enough when I graduated from college in 1980 which was right before the '81 recession here.

Take care :-)

<== Mike ==>

Hi, Mitch!

Yes, we visited Hawaii in 1988 shortly after we started dating.  While in Kauai I proposed marriage and she accepted.  Later I asked what she wanted to do for the ceremony and she said Fern Grotto on Kauai.  So, in early 1990 that's where we got married :-)

So sorry to hear about your agency phone call.  Good luck with the next job opportunity.  I graduated college in May 1980, visited Europe for two months and started looking for work after my return.  I was hired by the State of Arizona starting Dec 1980 and stayed 15+ years.  I was quite frustrated with my job search back then and it's worse now I think.

Thanks for the audiobook URL.  I'll check it out :-)  We just finished one by Kevin J Anderson titled "Ignition" about a terrorist attack during a space shuttle launch.  We are now listening to book 3 of David Weber's series on Honor Harrington.  Space battles and all that.

<== Mike ==>

Hi, Mitch!

Sorry to hear about all of the job rejections.  I have several friends here who have gone through that as well.  One has been out of work over one year now.  Since he's turning 50 he is finding few employers interested in hiring him.  And he's not alone.

Good luck with the hotel job.  When we stayed in Yokohama at the Rose Hotel in Chinatown we had one employee there, a very nice guy working the bell desk, who spoke pretty good English.  The front desk staff wasn't so fluent and he was able to resolve several issues with the hotel for us.  We also had a few meals at the restaurant there on site.  One young woman was reasonably fluent in English and she really made our experience wonderful with help in ordering our food.

If you need an extra pair of eyes to review your resume, assuming you're doing one in English, just let me know and I'll take a look :-)

<== Mike ==>