I’m kind of in a rush today because I’ve got to go out and try to find some magic soy milk diet cookies (or something like that), so in lieu of my usual mindless drivel, I’m just going to put up another photo from my visit to Minato Mirai last weekend:

That’s the famous “Cosmo Clock 21″ Ferris wheel, as featured in countless commercials, television dramas and adult films.

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By the way, anyone interested in reading more about the REAL Japan should definitely check out this site: MasaManiA

The writer is a former porn director with a serious chip on his shoulder about all of the bullshit polluting Japanese society. His English is quite good, but the fact that it isn’t perfect just adds to the hilarity. The entire site is definitely worth a browse, but I would recommend starting with the entry brilliantly entitled Jap pussy should be seen more, fuck Jap gov!, which begins with the wonderful line “Have you noticed that any pussy and all dick cannot be seen in Japanese porn?” (not exactly work safe, although the rest of site is).

Enjoy!

There is an extreme overabundance of pointless jobs in Japan. Outmoded and reduntant occupations such as “women who press the buttons in elevators,” “old men who wave cars into parking lots,” and “construction workers well past their prime who stand outside of construction sites and bow to passers-by.” Apparently the Japanese government would rather have a low unemployment rate and high cost of living than a lower cost of living with a higher unemployment rate. It makes sense, I suppose, but it certainly seems rather inefficient [said the guy with a degree in economics].

I saw another fine example of this last weekend while hanging out at Minato Mirai in Yokohama. This man’s job was to hold a sign advertising model rooms open for viewing at a new housing development nearby:

Working very hard, as you can see.

A pair of cinder blocks would do a much better job for free and wouldn’t even need to take bathroom breaks.

I turned 25 yesterday. Once upon a time, that age seemed pretty old, but unless I’m just particularly immature, it doesn’t feel all that grown-up.

Anyhow, yesterday morning Judy told me that she was going to cook me a special dinner that night and requested that I make it home by 7:00 at the very latest. Predictably, however, this was not to be. I ended up staying at work until after 8:00 (which means that I didn’t get home until after 8:30) because a report absolutely HAD to be sent to America before the Thanksgiving holiday or else apparently everything that my company has worked hard to accomplish in the 65 years since its founding will be instantaneously flushed down the toilet in one fell swoop.

Well, despite working far later than planned, the night turned out to be very pleasant. To my complete and utter surprise, Judy had prepared a meal of nabe and we made it ourselves at home for the very first time. Needless to say, it was delicious and incredibly filling to the point where I was unable to sit down for the rest of the night.

I suppose that it’s now time for me to grow up and start acting my age and thinking more about the future, eh?

But if you think I’m giving up my Transformer collection, you’ve got another thing coming.

Well, it’s official: just like Biggy, I’m going back to Cali.

The arrangements have been made, the plane tickets have been purchased, and miraculously, my company has approved my request to telecommute (or as the Japanese say, “slack off”) from my parents’ home in California for the last two weeks of December. Therefore, come December 11th, I am outta here!

Today, I found myself thinking about all of the things that I look forward to the most about going back to the States. Oddly enough, aside from the obvious ones such as spending time with my family and hanging out with friends, one item very high on the list is food. But the funny thing is, what I find myself craving even more than the scrumptious dishes that are apparently considered too “exotic” to reach these shores — turkey, sandwiches, low-fat milk, etc. — is American junk food. Crap like hot dogs, licorice, Cherry Coke, Sunchips, slurpees, Taco Bell, and so on — “food” items entirely devoid of nutrition, teetering atop the food pyramid whilst mocking me with their deathly delectability.

Operation Gain 10 Pounds is set for launch. T-minus 18 days and counting.

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Here are some photos taken at Shinjuku Gyoen earlier this month. Certainly not very good, but it was dusk and the lighting was very low. Well, that’s my excuse, anyhow, and I’m sticking to it.

After working 12-plus hour days for nearly two weeks straight, last night I reached my limit. I stood up, said “fuck it,” threw my laptop across the room, punched my boss in the face and then proceeded to set my office on fire.

Well, in my head, anyway.

Murderous fantasies aside, I did actually manage to leave the office at 6:30 yesterday without having to resort to bloodshed or violence of any kind. As I passed through Shibuya station on the way home, I saw this:

Yes, that’s right, soon-to-be-released Sony PSPs mounted on the wall for all to gawk at and splooge upon. Apparently, Sony has somehow managed to overcome the delays in the development schedule and the issues with battery life and whatever else to be ready for a release in a little over three weeks from now, just in time for the holiday season.

Suuure they have. I’m sure there’ll be loads of game titles by available then, too.

Oh well, I reckon that the release doesn’t really affect me very much, anyway. Ever since failing to ever beat the original Super Mario Brothers back in elementary school, video games and I have had a somewhat acrimonious relationship. In fact, in the 10-year period between 1993 until 2003, I probably played video games a grand total of about five times. That all changed last year, however, when Judy gave me a GameBoy Advance SP for my birthday. I now give that thing more attention than I give her!

The PSP looks pretty nice, but I don’t see myself dropping 200 bucks for one any time in the near future. Actually, what I’ll probably do is wait until both the PSP and the Nintendo DS have been released and then compare the two. Only then can I decide which will become my new bride.

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If you’re interested, you can see a few photos from the PSP display in Shinjuku — which looks arguably cooler — by clicking here.

It’s funny how whenever you think things are really bad, they almost inevitably get worse.

My situation at work has reached the point where I am spending nearly all of my waking hours sitting my desk. I can’t even remember the last day that I didn’t work over 12 hours. I’m perpetually exhausted, I’ve been losing weight and my girlfriend is seriously starting to hate my guts because I’m never home. Last night I even dreamed about work! Ain’t the life of a salaryman grand?

When I first set up this blog, I never planned to write anything about my job unless it was about something interesting or funny that happened, like the time at a drinking party when one of the managers in my department got utterly shitfaced and donned a wig and fake breasts and spent the majority of the evening sitting in the corner caressing said appendages. Or the time when I was out drinking with that same manager, and he said the following to me (in English): “My hobby is pubic hair.”

Man, I miss working with that guy.

But I digress. The fact is that no one really cares about the crap that other people go through at work, and since I have the writing ability equivalent to that of a autistic toddler post-shock therapy, there is no way that I could make my current situation sound even remotely humorous. Therefore, I believe that a little copy/paste action is called-for.

The following was written by Stereolabrat, who so eloquently expressed what many of us feel but are unable to effectively put into words:

My company likes to piss in my mouth. It’s quite refreshing, once you get used to it, I mean who doesn’t like to drink a tall glass of piss, right? Every morning, I go to work with a parched throat, looking forward to the urine that will be waiting for me at my desk, right next to the coffee my boss ever so gently shat in.

(Read the entire thing here.)

I hereby nominate her for the title of Funniest Biatch on the Internet.

Anyway, if your spirits need uplifting, why not check out this site, which demonstrates why you should probably avoid gettin’ busy in the back seat. (NOT work safe!)

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By the way, if you’re wondering what the title of this post is all about, click here.

Last week, one of the managers at my company returned to Japan from a one year stint at one of our American offices. On the afternoon of his first day back, he announced that he was thirsty and was going to get something to drink. When he came back, a 1-liter bottle of Coca Cola was clutched in his hands. My officemates reacted with a mixture of amusement and subtle consternation over his beverage choice.

The next day, the manager once again left the office in the afternoon and returned with a bottle of the fizzy American devil water. Upon questioning, the manager admitted that he had come to like the stuff while he was living in the States and now drinks it regularly.

The bedlam that followed was insane. . . everyone in the room simultaneously launched into a tirade about how unhealthy cola is and how he should quit drinking it right away and drink only Japanese tea if he’s thirsty. It wasn’t just what they said, either, but how they said it: with a fervor so intense that one might think that he had just returned from Burma and announced that while he was there he developed a fondness for chasing the white dragon. Talk about hammering down the nail that sticks up!

I can only imagine the reaction I would receive if I were to come back from lunch one day with a meal set from McDonalds, complete with a greasy hamburger, Coke & fries! Hmm. . . actually, they’d probably just say, “yappari amerikajin da na” (”Naturally, you’re an American”).

Did you know that many Japanese companies have beds/cots on-site for employees to grab a few winks when they are forced to work overnight? Many also have arrangements for discounts at nearby hotels for employees who can’t return home because they worked so late that the trains have stopped running.

Just a little bit of trivia for you this evening, as I sit in my office at 11:00 at night, rapidly succumbing to the combination of exhaustion, hunger and stress. God forbid, I betray the company with my lazy American ways and put off anything until tomorrow morning!

Anyhow, I just wanted to let everyone [all two of you] know that last night I set up a nice sortable archives page for this site. The coding would be far too difficult for a numbskull like me to come up with on my own, so I found a nice plugin instead. You can check it out either by clicking here or on the word ‘archives’ on the menu on the left.

I also installed an anti-spam plugin in response to the onslaught of comment spam that I have been receiving lately from a particular spammer advertising a certain online card game (the tosser). The only problem is that the there’s a chance that legitimate, non-spam comments won’t make it through the filter (as has already happened at least once). Therefore, if anyone tries to post a comment and encounters a message saying that you have been banned from commenting because you’re a no-good, stinkin’ spammer, please just email me at the address on the ‘about‘ page and I’ll try to set things right.

Okaaay, time for me to regresar a mi casa. Have a good night!

Coming from an English-speaking country, something that I had never heard of before I moved to Japan was the TOEIC exam — the Test of English for International Communication. If you don’t know what the TOEIC exam is, here’s a blurb from the official website:

The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) measures the everyday English skills of people working in an international environment. With over three million test-takers per year, the TOEIC Test is the world’s leading test of English language proficiency in a workplace setting.

TOEIC is a major deal in Japan. Despite the fact that it only evaluates listening and reading abilities (there are no speaking or reading components), the test-taking culture here is such that nearly every businessperson who is involved in international business in any way is likely to have taken the test numerous times, and has his or her job prospects, salary and advancement opportunities based heavily on his or her score.

My own company holds TOEIC exams twice yearly and all employees are — to put it nicely — “encouraged” to participate. You see, the company has a reward/penalty system in which an employee’s performance is compared to his previous scores: if he scores more than 5% higher, he gets a bonus in his next paycheck; if he does about the same, he gets nothing; and if he gets more than 5% lower, he gets a reduction from his paycheck!

Sounds a bit harsh, don’t it? Worse yet, all employee results are posted company-wide so everyone knows how everyone else did!

Up until this point, my only involvement with the TOEIC exam was limited to a two-week intensive prep course I taught at my company back in the fall of 2001. However, this year my new boss thought it would be “funny” if I were to try it, and so he signed me up. . . .

Thus, from 9:30 to noon this morning, I was in the conference room upstairs taking the first exam I’ve sat since university. And it was an English exam — yikes, talk about pressure! I don’t think I’ll be able to show my face if I don’t get the highest score in the company. Sure, I’m a native speaker — but I’m also a dumbass! The score results probably won’t come back for a couple of months, but I can only imagine the ridicule I’ll face if I don’t get a perfect score.

Well, at least it wasn’t a Japanese proficiency exam — I wouldn’t even stand a chance!

There was an article on the Japan Today website last week about the number of teenage abortions performed in 2003:

Government reports 40,475 minors had abortions in 2003

TOKYO — The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Tuesday the number of reported abortions by minors aged 15-20 in 2003 came to 40,475, slightly down from the previous year but still double from 10 years earlier.

According to its survey of clinics, the overall number of abortions last year came to 319,831. For 19-year-olds, the number stood at some 14,600, while for 18-year-olds, it came to about 11,100. There were 7,900 abortions among 17-year-olds. There were 483 abortions for those under 15, according to the survey.

A related Japanese article reported that the figures show that 1 in 50 19-year-olds and 1/64 18-year-olds had abortions last year alone. . . and those are just the reported numbers! Crazy, eh?

While it’s apparent that Japanese teenagers share their Western counterparts’ penchant for doin’ the nasty, sex education is essentially non-existent in this country. Furthermore, decades of propaganda spewed by the government have left most women (and, ridiculously, many doctors) convinced that birth control pills cause everything from infertility to cancer. Combine the lack of information about birth control options with doctors’ financial incentives to perform abortions rather than prescribe the pill, and you can see how abortion is a highly lucrative business in Japan. (From what I’ve heard, the going rate is about 1,000,000 yen a pop — approx. US$950.)

An interesting cultural aspect of abortion in Japan are jizo, stone statues depicting the Buddhist monk Jizo Bosatsu, the protector of travelers and the souls of departed children (who, according to Japanese tradition, receive devine punishment for bringing grief to their parents. . . the little bastards). Mothers who have lost an unborn child usually dedicate a statue of jizo and adorn it with clothing, toys, etc. to encourage the deity to take special care of their child’s spirit.

Back in July, I happened to pass through Zojoji Temple on my way to the Tokyo Tower and was rather shocked to see the rows upon rows of jizo statues housed there. As I wandered through the temple grounds, I witnessed a middle-aged woman and her teenage daughter cleaning and decorating one of the statues — a very moving sight.

Here are some photos:

As I write this, I am the last person remaining in my office. What is normally a noisy, bustling room is now uncomfortably empty. The only sound to be heard is the gentle hum of the copy machine.

Man, I hate working late. It’s Friday night, and although the mood was right and I was gonna have some fun, show you how it’s done, I ended up having to forego enjoyment, nourishment and requiescence in order to finish up my damn work.

I don’t even know why I was given a complex 5-page report to translate from Japanese to English. . . technically, I’m not even a translator. God forbid I finish it on Monday. . . Japan would surely be swallowed up by the sea were I to break the wa that badly.

You know, the “work” ethic (read: “time spent at the office” ethic) is one aspect of Japanese culture/society that I will never be able to adapt to (or even understand, really). Forget about personal lives, families, friends or getting any kind of enjoyment out of life — we cannot disappoint shacho!

I swear, the Japanese obsession with perseverance and doing one’s best seriously reaches masochistic levels. Thankfully, my cracka’ ass affords me some leeway. . . I can’t imagine living my entire life under such pressure and self-sacrifice. It certainly leaves no question as to why the majority of middle-aged Japanese men are miserable old gits. . . .

Anyway, time to go home. Have a nice weekend!

This has been making its a way around the interweb so I’m sure many of you have seen it, but I just had to post it:

Frickin’ hilarious.

Well, despite the fact that today was a Japanese national holiday, I still had to be at work and thus spent every spare moment hitting ‘refresh’ on the CNN website to keep up with the U.S. election results. It doesn’t look like the final results will be determined for the next few days at least, but I have to say that I am terribly disappointed with my fellow countrymen.

Please kindly allow me to indulge in a short rant before I go home and hit the bottle. . . .

It seems clear that at least 50% of the American people fully support the Bush administration. . . this is despite all of the lies, the misleading, the shady dealings and the rule by fear. It truly saddens me what the election reveals about my country and the current mindset in America.

In addition to supposedly being a “good Christian”, Americans apparently think that Bush should continue to head the country because he is a good leader in the “War on Terror.” They laud him for his conviction, his refusal to back down, however what they fail to realize is that the “War on Terrorism” is the biggest lie, the biggest nothing in the history of the world (excluding, perhaps, organized religion, but I won’t get into that). The “War” just plays on people’s nebulous fears of terror, foreigners and the unknown. The “War on Terror” is all about maintaining the fear.

America can never win the “War on Terror”, because no such thing exists. America can never gain any security until it examines the real causes of terrorism and stops believing the lie that “they hate our freedom”.

“They” hate us because we push them around and blow them up.

Anyhow, what I find most discouraging is that I can no longer defend my country against criticism. I can’t defend the people as not being represented by our government. If Bush is re-elected, it will have been with the support of the majority of the American people and that’s how the rest of the world will see it.

The stereotype of the ugly American just got uglier.

Four more years of Bush. . . it’s impossible to predict what will happen, and although I’m sure I come across in this post as a raving liberal, I’m not one to make hysterical predictions about a draft, which countries will be invaded next, etc. However, it’s hard to imagine a world four years from now where America is respected and thriving. Instead, I see an invigorated fundamentalist Right continuing to dictate foreign and domestic policy — again, based upon fear.

Congratulations Mr. Bin Laden, you’ve won.

Over the weekend I went to a travel agency in my neighborhood to inquire about flights back to California for the winter holiday. I told the agent my destination and travel dates and he went back to his desk to search the database, while I flipped through brochures advertising the exotic foods and brand name goods of foreign lands.

A couples of minutes later, the agent came back with a list of three different flight options. The first option looked good, but since I’m not yet 100% sure about my plans and won’t be able to make a reservation for a few days, I asked him whether there were still quite a few seats available on the flight.

“Actually,” he replied, “there are no seats available.”
“Oh. . . uh, okay, how about the second flight?”
“Nope. That one’s sold out, too.”
“Then why did you. . . .”

Yep, only the third (and most expensive) flight had any seats available. This kind of thing happens every single time I go to a travel agency. Of course, 90% of the time I’ve ended up buying tickets directly from the airlines themselves, but occasionally there are deals to be found in the agencies. It’s a shame that discount travel websites like Orbitz, Expedia, etc. haven’t found their way to these shores yet. If I were to buy a ticket from any of the American sites, I wouldn’t be able to use them. Apparently Japanese law prohibits buying tickets for flights originating in Japan from sources outside of Japan. Well, actually, it’s not against the law to buy tickets from overseas; they just won’t be accepted when you show up at the airport and try to use them.

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This photo is from back in August (which makes the context even more bizarre, perhaps) of a promotional event for the town of Kutchan, Hokkaido, complete with a giant snowman and alpenhorns.