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Apple is going to tank in the next 5 years.

The great thing Apple had going 2 years ago with the Mac is on its way out. Even as I bought my very own Mac, I had the sensation that Apple's newfound awesomeness wouldn't last long. The famously rock-solid OSX is now buggy and unstable, the hardware is cheap Chinese-made garbage, and that's just the computers.

iPods are now harder to use and the software crashes. The AppleTV just isn't good enough when compared to what you can do with an Xbox 360, and the iPhone - while awesome on paper - is open to tons of problems outside Apple's control, such as AT&T's poor network management and billing headaches.

Apple's plan for world domination isn't working out like they hoped. The soon-to-be-famous MobileMe fiasco shows that they can't quite enter the 'service' market like they hoped.

Sorry, kiddos, but I can no longer recommend you Apple stuff like I've been apt to do for the last couple years.

Aroon and I have been big fans of the TED Talks - an enlightened conference for the world's most powerful, innovative, and soulful people - ever since he introduced them to me a bit over a year ago. Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Al Gore (including the premiere of his second global warming slideshow), music industry pioneers, famous architects, Larry and Sergey (the Google founders), Johnny Lee (the CMU researcher made famous by his construction of a multitouch whiteboard using a Wiimote and an LED), Bono, BMW designer Chris Bangle... really, the list goes on, and on, and on.

Honestly, it's the most purely high-brow and interesting thing on the Internet today. So when Aroon linked one related to the problems with the world's food supply, I obligingly watched, already made aware of the details of the problem by the current issue of Wired magazine.

But this guy's approach is totally different. This guy is a food critic for the New York Times. His advice, in one very strongly put word, is "Eat." There are one or two strings attached, but I've never heard the advice put so simply:

After just 20 minutes of this very convincing case, I've decided to be a little better to myself. I had already cut back on red meat and started eating more sushi as a result of living in Japan, but I was convinced to take another step forward. Indeed, still less red meat. Indeed, still more plants. And absolutely no more ordering comforting American junk food from Costco Japan.

Aroon had forgotten to tell me that he had gone vegetarian 6 months ago. And my mom told me over drinks on her first night in Tokyo that she was contemplating making the switch as well (she already doesn't do beef or pork, and she's tired of chicken).

So join us! Be like me and take baby steps - drop your junk food purchases little by little, learn recipes one by one. I'm not giving up red meat anytime soon, but I am happy to report that my intake of it is down by maybe 40 to 50% since I got here 10 months ago.

Truth be told, it's not even really a sacrifice. Just eat.

In the 2004 election, I was a mad crazy hyperblogger sent from outer space to convince college campuses everywhere that everything the Republicans said was a lie, and you should STFU and vote Kerry because he wasn't part of that collective.

I stand by my statements, but this time I'm a bit more relaxed, if only because the media circus is mostly on my side this time. So this time, I'm going to focus on one tee-tiny thing Bush screwed up on:

Holidays.

Bush proclaimed Jesus Day to be sometime in the spring, like March or somewhere around there. Patriot Day was proclaimed on 9/11 to rouse our support in the War on Eurasia (or was it Eastasia?). In both cases, Bush made a vital flaw in his calculations.

In the case of Jesus Day, he neglected that Jesus Day already exists and is big enough to determine the fate of the American economy over the course of an entire fiscal year.

In the case of Patriot Day, he failed to realize that war cannot be declared on nouns.

Once elected president, I promise to rectify these missteps by proclaiming truly amazing holidays. No, no Pirate Day, no Ninja Day. Those who wish to pursue Pirate/Ninja Day or any variant thereof should go back to watching Napoleon Dynamite for the 90th time and continue to call their friends "broheim." I'll loan you my copy of Superbad if you just go away.

Anyway. At the start of my epiphany, I was thinking we needed to give American holidays a touch of class. Enough days related to war, the military, or Christianity. We need something that's unabashedly American in the unhealthy-but-can't-resist kind of way. Like Miles Davis Day. That's just the kind of inspirational character America needs - genius, did great things, but flawed.

"Wait," said the other half of my near-schizophrenic inner monologue. "Didn't Miles Davis like, severely beat his women?"

Well, that won't do. We're going for class here, and beating your lady is just not gentlemanly. One of those flaws that won't play out well in the political world.

So, we're on to Coltrane. Like Miles, he was a genius, did great things, and was a flawed man - and, as a bonus for the super Christians, he found God! So they can enjoy that, and the rest of us can appreciate the whole body of Coltrane's work and contributions to culture and we can make a new holiday tradition out of drinking scotch on the rocks in dark rooms filled with that bittersweet alto sax sound.

I'm really trying to avoid being one of those people who graduates from school and decides they've "grown out" of writing their own stuff. It's one thing to get too busy to do it, but 90% of people who shut down their accounts on Xanga/Blogger/Wordpress/etc. do it out of lack of interest.

Weak sauce, I say. If you want to bring down the number of entries, great, but I think few people have compelling enough reasons to stop being as expressive as they were before. It's cool that newer outlets are making people *more* expressive, too: my brother was never publicly read until he started writing Facebook notes and in just a few entries he's shown himself to be sophisticated, funny, and stylistically very talented. His stuff just screams "diamond in the rough," as if those same parts of his brain got used towards being a musician instead of honing his writing style.

I, on the other hand, have no excuse other than a job situation which is OK with me *reading* anything on a computer, but frowns upon me being communicative or expressive on work time, because that's a giveaway that I'm doing "private things" at work as far as my Japanese superiors are concerned. That alone makes me look forward to getting an American job in a certain respect.

Moral of the story: this blog ain't dead, and while I'm a bit short on epiphanies these days, I'm challenging myself to step up and be interesting.

So, in an homage to my older blogging days, here's what I'm consuming, and maybe you should be too:

What I'm listening to
Lots of hip-hop at the moment. In the last year we've had new albums from Common, Talib Kweli, and Lupe Fiasco, and they're collectively a bit darker, a bit funkier, a bit more grittier than their respective earlier records. But they're all good, so go get them.

What I'm reading
Wired.com is the best reading material I've come across in a while. It's a great mix of internet culture, tech news, and Silicon Valley Doings that's all written by a pretty accomplished collection of contributors. I especially recommend the Autopia, Gadget Lab, and Threat Level blogs within the site, and the online postings of magazine features each month.

What I'm playing
My game habits are thrown out of whack, since my multiplayer abilities are limited out here. If I were in the States, it'd be solid Super Smash Bros. Brawl. But instead, my Japanese Wii looks forlorn as I give more attention to my PS3 (and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue), and even more to my Xbox 360 (Halo 3 is still the multiplayer king). I'm looking forward to getting home so I can catch up on a lot of co-operative games and throw a gaming party or two.

In the meantime, I'm getting some rare single-player quality time. I finally finished the Halo 3 campaign. Call of Duty 4 was the best game of last year. Super Mario Galaxy is a 9 out of 10 - a massive improvement in recent Mario years, but it still doesn't outdo Super Mario 64.

Also, I did something I never do: I preordered a game. Grand Theft Auto 4, the American version, is to be delivered to my doorstep sometime in the near-ish future. I'm going to be massively sucked in.

Where I'm going
Mom's coming to visit me in Japan! It's going to be a whirlwind week and a half covering Tokyo and Kyoto, and long story short we'll basically be seeing everything that you can catch a glimpse of in Lost in Translation. We're even staying in the same hotel. At first, I was unspeakably excited about living like a rockstar with Mom for the trip. She hasn't had a vacation in something like 15 years, so it's all 5-star hotels and first-class tickets. If you know my mom, you get what's going on here. Then it hit me that it's pathetic to be excited for stuff that my mom's money is buying, and I should be much more excited that it's Mom and she's coming to see me. And I have gotten excited about it. I'm happy to be really sharing Japan with someone for once. Konnichiwhoa might be interesting to read once in a while, and the pictures might be cool, but it's a world apart from constantly having to explain things you see on the street, explaining random cultural idiosyncracies, translate everything from ads to restaurant menus to what shopkeepers say. And out of all the people who've had to put up with my Japan fascination, she's had to bear more of it than anyone - she paid for my degree in Japanese, and I had to fight for that. It's going to be an awesome, fun-filled, classy week and a half.

This weekend, I resolved to leave Japan at the end of my contract and come home. Here's the rationale, as I wrote to my old friend (and designer of this site) Emily:

Long story short, "the life" in Tokyo proper is for the rich, or for the people who work themselves to death enough to be rich. The average Joe in Tokyo actually lives in the distant suburbs. And for me, it'd prove to be only slightly less lonely than life out here in rural Japan. I'm still separated from my friends by lots of geographical distance, too much Internet distance to play most games together, and too great a time difference to be able to communicate with most of my friends save for messaging and email. And the girls I come in contact with are basically whores for foreign dudes, and the fun of that quickly wears off and leaves you longing for actual companionship in the times you're sober.

The job thing also became a major factor. I'm REALLY sick of teaching English and while I'm technically qualified to be a translator, my Japanese isn't where it should be to be any good at it. Meanwhile, back in the States I've got a vision for a marketing boutique firm I want to launch, and I've got a little experience to get on the road to making that happen (speaking of, I'm looking to get hands-on marketing experience in someone else's house first, so if you know anyone looking for an intern let me know :3 ). In the end, the prospect of a fun job and being nearer to my friends won out. If my career takes a different turn or if my biz miraculously turns profitable, then great, I can take a vacay to live The Life in Tokyo that I still want to some degree. And if I'm broke and miserable, then I'll come back here.

Honestly, I think I just needed more time to work things out. It's hilarious when people ask me "well why didn't you apply for a job-type change?" (meaning, I could keep my awesome salary and benefits and switch to being a translator.) And I always end up yelling at them for asking me, because the deadline for that was back in like January, and it's ridiculous to think I'd have that stuff figured out after 6 months on my first job.

I was in Tokyo this weekend. On Sunday morning, I was chilling out on a second-floor Starbucks balcony overlooking a city street lined with cherry blossoms in full bloom. In Japan, this is a rare treat, and the kind of picture that makes wall calendars. Even still, in my happiest of happy places, I had no problem calling home to Mom and saying "OK, I'm coming home."