Some may call it that, but I call it sweat. And man, in the throes of this Tokyo summer I have been sweating like never before. Take the quantity of sweat produced by the entire population of the Kentuckiana area on the most humid day of summer 2003, multiply by a mole, and there you have the quantity of liquid my pores produce in any given Tokyo minute. I'm exaggerating only slightly.

Unrelatedly, this guy (the one to our left, here -- in the ND hat, not to be mistaken with the convincingly blonde mermaid) has a birthday today. You may not know who he is or why he's pretending to be swarthy in this photo, but whatever. Happy birthday, papa. Best wishes!

And a little 24-hours later addendum to fill up what I discovered was unsightly trapped white space*: Monday was Marine Day in Japan. I found, however, that most Japanese paid little to no respect to all things marine on said day. The holiday is, in fact, one of the many holidays set by the Japanese government within the past few years to reduce stress for businessfolk. Japan has almost twice as many public holidays as the states. Or maybe it's one-and-a-half times . . . either way. Nice.

*Maybe the only thing I remember from eighth grade journalism -- thanks Mrs. Walker!