Okay... a Harry Potter fan I am not. But a few train stops from my house is "The Making of Harry Potter," a Warner Brothers Studio Tour Theme Park, the Tokyo version. (The original is in London.) The park opened three years ago to much success and, while I have never been inclined to visit, we had a houseguest who was yearning to go. And so off we went! Just in time for a Harry Potter Halloween.

This death by a thousand techno cuts has gone on for decades and was the inspiration for the 2014 Japan Times humor column below, which aims at payment cards, a form of e-money. Is high tech leading us ahead or pulling us back? Whichever, the noose is too damned tight. Below, then, is a bit of old coot fun involving my rebellion against a system that has been slowly killing me for years.

The new foreigner in my neighborhood is… Me. Yes, I’m new! At least from the chin up. Not so long ago, I wrote a column about losing my hair. Well, I've found it. On my face. I have grown a beard. I now look like Yosemite Sam. I even have his beady eyes. How this came about is not nearly as interesting as the effect it has had. After over three decades in Japan, I’ve been reborn as a foreign resident.