a new logo

sorry for the lack of updates on this neglected blog, sometimes time passes and you forget about updating the thing. no good excuses.

i changed the logo from the hockey canada logo to the vancouver canucks logo. the mens hockey team sure did the country proud, didnt they? i watched the swiss, fin, czech, and russian games and the canadians didnt deserve to win any of them, not even close. how could a team with so many superstars only score in 1 out of 12 periods??? thats pathetic. the strange thing is that canada had its best olympics ever, over 20 medals, right there with the americans and the russians, but they blew the mens hockey tournament, so people dont know how to feel. yet the japanese did terrible in the games, only one medal, but that medal was won by shizuka anakawa in womans figure skating, probably the most prestigious event in the games, so the entire nation was happy and proud.

so ive switched to the canucks, who are pulling a canadian mens hockey team and are tanking it right now. at least they made some bold moves at the trading deadline and are now going to take over detroit, dallas, calgary and colorado with the brand new intimidating defensive pair of...um...keith carney and eric weinrich. uh, yeah. i remember when i really followed the chicago blackhawks that they were a good pair of d-men, but that was back in 1996, not 2006.

customer service

its occurred to me that ill never be able to go back to north american standards of customer service after being in japan so long.

2 examples:

when i went back to vancouver for the winter holidays i went into eb games to look at some video games. the 2 employees were this one guy who looked to be in his mid 30s with some rock band tshirt on, unkempt hair, bad facial hair, and spent more time talking to his coworker than helping the customers. i waited 15 seconds at the counter for him to help me while he was lecturing his buddy about the advantages of final fantasy over some other useless role playing game. the other guy was probably just out of high school and just sat on his stool either talking to the older guy or being rude to the customers. if i wasnt in such a hurry i wouldve asked them what they thought they were doing.

whereas here in japan, i go today to the immigration office for my work visa renewal, a government place where service is supposed to be notoriously bad. yet the people at the counter, even though they were very busy, asked kindly if i spoke english or japanese and then led me step by step through the process, no problem. always said please, always said thank you, always used polite words like could or may or kindly.

you could multiply this situaiton thousands of times over thoroughout places in north america and japan and the results would come out the same. some criticize the japanese over being too polite to the point of being fake. still, id rather take that than being overly honest and carefree to the point of being rude in my customer service experiences.