It’s strange how our dreams — the result of nothing more than brain activity in the unconscious state — can affect us as much as, or possibly even more than, our actual conscious experiences. Recently, I’ve been having lots of dreams in which people I used to know but have lost touch with — old friends, classmates, significant others — make appearances. Although the dreams haven’t been particularly remarkable or perplexing, I usually wake up in a funk and remain that way for the rest of the day.

Lately, there have been two guys in particular who keep showing up in my dreams. One is a guy named Adam, who I knew from about grade 2 through my junior year in high school (grade 11). He was probably one of my closest friends in elementary school, but we started drifting apart once we got to high school. He got involved in drugs and was eventually kicked out of school for getting in too many fights. The last time I saw him, he was drunk and had apparently stolen one of his friend’s parents’ gas cards, and he came by my house and offered me free gas and cigarettes (I declined). I last heard that he had had a few run-ins with the law, but has since cleaned up his act and is now very active in the volunteer community through his church.

The other guy is named Jason and we were friends ever since the day I met him during the first week of kindergarten and later came home and discovered that he lived in the apartment block just across the street from my own. We were tight all the way through elementary school, junior high and even high school, and the childhood experiences we had together are countless. After we graduated from high school, I went off to university and he stayed in California and did some schooling and later started working full time. Even though we weren’t all that great about keeping in touch while I was in university and especially after I moved to Japan, every time I went back to my home town to visit he was always around and up for hanging out.

However, two years ago when I went back to California for a visit, I was mysteriously unable to get a hold of him. None of his phone numbers worked, and I eventually learned through the grapevine that he had moved to the East Bay. I tried to get a hold of him again when I went back at the end of last year, but I failed. No one seems to know where he is now or how to reach him. The last time I saw Jason was in June of 2002, when we hung out at our friend Gilbert’s house for an afternoon. Tossing around a football at a local park, it was like old times: reminiscing about experiences when we were younger, talking about our plans for the future, and just hanging out and having a good time. He was someone I always thought I’d know forever, so it’s strange to think that I might never talk to him again.

Okay. . . before I ramble any further and start quoting lyrics to old Beatles songs or whatever, I’ll STFU already. It’s just that with all of the weird dreams I’ve been having lately, those guys (and a few other people) have been on my mind. I guess I just wonder where they are now and what they’re up to. . . .

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Today I finally had time to put up the first batch of photos from my trip to Asakusa earlier this month. They’re all pretty dull, typical tourist photos and I’m a bit disappointed in myself for taking such drab pictures, but I figured I’d put ‘em up anyway. I have quite a few more, so I’ll probably put some more up when I can make the time (although they’re equally as crappy).

Today’s photos are from Sensoji (also known as the Asakusa Kannon Temple), which is the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo, and is also considered by many to be the most impressive. It was especially crowded on the day I went, so it was tough squeezing between the tourists (both domestic and foreign) to get around and explore. Anyway, here they are:

I am so glad this week has finally come to an end. . . it’s been a long one.

This afternoon just after lunch, my boss came to me with a request to translate the lengthy minutes from a meeting he attended earlier this month into English. “Can you finish it within today?” he asked in such a way that make it sound like a demand rather than a question. I figured I was up for the challenge and immediately went to work on it.

Seven hours later, I was nearly finished and looking forward to saying “osaki ni” and getting the hell out of the office, when all of a sudden, the telephone rang. It was boss, instructing all of us to pack up and get ready to go out drinking. My coworkers promptly began shutting down their computers and tidying up their desks. Five minutes later when my boss came strolling in, everyone was putting on their coats while I remained seated at my desk, frantically trying to finish up the translation. My boss came over to check on my progress, and upon seeing that I was nearly done, he said, “Good, please email it to me when you’re finished. I’ll send it off tomorrow.” And with that, he and all of my coworkers headed out to go drinking, leaving me behind, alone and feeling dejected in the empty office. Eventually, I finished up the translation, send it off, locked up the office and headed home.

It was a bit of a depressing way to end the week, but at least tomorrow’s Saturday, and unlike my coworkers, I won’t have to spend the day in the office finishing up work from tonight.

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I haven’t yet had time to go through the photos I took in Asakusa last weekend to see if there’s anything worth putting up, so in the meantime, here’s a photo of a defaced political poster featuring Hideko Murakami and Shintaro Ishihara (the governor of Tokyo) that’s posted on the side of a building near my office. There’s a high school in the area, so it was probably some of the students who did it, but I’m sure if Ishihara were to ever see it, he would likely blame it on the evil foreigners.

I think it goes without saying that Japan is a nation obsessed with breasts. From titty mags displayed at children’s eye level in convenience stores to women nonchalantly sizing each other up on TV, breasts can be found everywhere (even on actual women!). Forget about the rising sun, Japan is the land of perky, bouncy, delectable boobies.

Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. Despite the fascination with all things mammary in this country, Japanese women are unfortunately known for having rather less-than- ample bust sizes. In this environment, as any economist will tell you, the shortage in supply of big knockers combined with the insatiable demand for them only increases the value of this precious, precious commodity. As a result, even if a woman has the talent and the personality of a pile of rocks, if she happens to be blessed with a bountiful bosom, she has the potential to become a famous celebrity simply due to the size of her “assets”. Conversely, the abundant supply of tiny ta-ta’s and the accompanying low demand leave many women with smaller chest sizes feeling inadequate.

Well, if there’s anything that unites women worldwide above and beyond having vaginas and going through a menstrual cycle and and all that, it’s undoubtedly an unfounded insecurity about their bodies. Japan is, of course, no exception, however rather than implants or other surgical methods of augmentation, Japanese women tend to rely on more “natural” methods in their attempts to enhance their busts, the most common of which are usually excessive padding and push-up bras.

However, as it is human nature to never be fully satisfied with anything, Japanese women continue to search for other ways in which to not simply make their breasts look bigger, but actually grow bigger. Naturally, enterprising companies are more than happy to capitalize on this desperate desire by offering a wide range of “enhancement” products with promises of bigger, fuller breasts in minimal time.

Just last week, various Western media outlets reported on one such product, which is advertised as being able to help enhance the size, shape and tone of women’s breasts. What is it? Why, it’s chewing gum! That’s right, B2UP, the makers of Bust-Up Gum, claim their product not only will provide a bigger bust, but also improved circulation, reduced stress levels and anti-aging effects. The product has grown so popular with significant interest from outside of Japan that B2UP has recently announced plans on its website to set up online shopping (in both Japanese and English) to try to meet the demand. Of course, larger, firmer breasts don’t come cheap. A single bottle containing 50 pieces runs about ¥5800 (US$55).

As odd as it may seem, Bust-Up Gum is actually only one example of many products on the large and ever-increasing “bust up” market. Swindlers Health product companies are offering everything from breast-enhancing capsules and rub-on gels to bras that supposedly utilize atmospheric infrared radiation and ultrasonic waves to increase the size of the wearer’s tits. Do any of these products work? I don’t know, and I seriously doubt it. However, if anyone has ever tried them, I call on you to kindly submit before and after photos for the purpose of, um, further research into the matter.

Together we can help make a difference in the fight against flat-chestedness.

What’s worse than having to work on a national holiday?

How about having to work late on a national holiday?

Yes, while most people in Japan were off enjoying the first day of spring, yours truly was stuck in the office with the rest of the worker drones until the late hours of the night. Even the slave drivers who share a building with my company and whose employees never seem to go home had the day off today (the lucky bastards). My colleagues, of course, toiled on, silently patting themselves on the back for being “hard workers” for working on a national holiday. I, however, could not enjoy the same smug satisfaction, as I don’t subscribe to the typical Japanese belief that working longer = working harder.

Anyway. . . the weather was pretty nice last Saturday, so I headed over to Asakusa to play the part of a tourist and do a bit of sightseeing. I took way too many crappy photos, and I’ll probably put a few of them up later this week (consider yourselves forewarned).

In the meantime, here’s a photo of a tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) shop in my neighborhood that, through a humorous example of poor planning, appears to share neon sign space with a soapland offering bath play for ¥10,000 (about US$95) plus a discount for early morning customers (doors open at 7:00am).

[For anyone who doesn’t read Japanese, the two red portions read ソープランド (= soapland) and とんかつ (= tonkatsu).]

It appears that the nightmare that was the WordPress 1.5 upgrade has come to an end.

After a few more hours of browsing through the support forums and going through code line-by-line, it appears that the main problem with regard to the comments section was that the wp-comments.php file that the upgrade instructions say to import from 1.2 is, in fact, just not all that compatable with 1.5. Sure enough, many other WP users reported similar problems.

Anyhow, the site appears to be back to normal as far as I can tell, however if anyone happens to notice anything out of the ordinary, I’d appreciate it if you could let me know. It probably would be a good idea for me to go ahead and do a complete redesign, but seeing as I’m naturally inclined to be a lazy bastard, I think I might put that off for just a little longer.

I had seriously envisioned myself spending the entire weekend in front of the computer trying to sort things out with the coding, so it’s such a relief knowing that I can now spend the time pursuing other, more enjoyable activities. Lock your doors, folks!

Well, I gone done it now.

I broke my blog.

Today I decided to take the plunge and try to upgrade to WordPress 1.5. I had hoped it would be a smooth transition for the most part except for a little bit of tweaking here and there in order to accommodate the bento layout that I had made originally from scratch. Boy, was I wrong.

Although I followed the upgrade instructions to a T, there must have been flaws in my code (I had always assumed there were) and I encountered some problems — numerous annoying, enigmatic problems that were hard enough to identify, let alone solve. After a few hours of fiddling with things, I finally managed to get the layout to appear almost as it should (albeit a bit wonky), however the comments section is still being difficult and is refusing to display.

At this point I’m seriously regretting trying to upgrade. . . one of these days I’ve simply just got to accept the limitations of my intellectual capacity. I’ve reached my wits’ end and it now appears that the only viable solution will be to completely redesign the bento layout into a “theme” compatible with WordPress 1.5, or find an entirely new theme altogether. Hopefully I can get this all sorted out within the next couple of days, and the upgrade will ultimately be worth it. In the meantime, I hope you can bear with the current jacked-up state of this site. You have my sincerest apologies.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go hit the sauce. . . .

A master photographer will never think twice about taking a daring risk in order to capture the perfect image on film. Whether it be crouching behind the shell of a bombed-out vehicle in the middle of a war zone or perched precariously on the face of a mountain thousands of feet above a rocky ravine, a photographic artist will stop at nothing to obtain that one consummate shot that will make all of the hardship worthwhile.

Now, despite camera skills that can barely be called rudimentary at best and the “artistic eye” of a one-eyed palsied cripple with glaucoma, there are occasionally times when I, myself, am struck with an overwhelming inspiration that propels me into perilous circumstances in seek of a photograph — which more than often turns out to be wholly unimpressive in the end.

Thus was the case this past Saturday when Judy and I passed through Yoyogi Station on our way to pay a visit to her brother in northwestern Tokyo. While waiting for the train, I was seized with inspiration and quickly retrieved my camera from my side bag. Positioning myself on the edge of the platform, I attempted to take one of those pretentious pseudo-artistic photographs whose final result is not praise, but rather nothing more than ridicule for the photographer, all the while with my darling fiancée off to the side muttering, “You’d better not fall onto the tracks.”

Wow, unimaginative and uninspiring — perhaps I ought not quit my day job just yet.

Nothing much going on today except that it’s still cold and wintry, and everyone I know is feeling miserable (stupid Seasonal Affective Disorder).

Anyway, here’s a bathroom sign that gave me a bit of a chuckle when I saw it in a department store a little while back:

If that doesn’t cheer you up, then maybe some Japanese vacuum porn will (or, conversely, make you even more horribly depressed. . .).

At work about six months ago, I received a call from someone in the General Affairs Division who asked me to write up a brief blurb about my experience working for my company. She told me that it would be for job seekers looking for information about what it’s like to work there. When I asked her what the guidelines were, she told me, “just write whatever you want,” and requested me to please kindly complete it by five o’clock that afternoon. Seeing as I didn’t have very much time to think about it, I did what any person would do under the same circumstances: I pulled a bunch of bullshit out of my ass, smeared it over a sheet of paper, handed it in and promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to earlier today when some of my coworkers were talking about the shinnyuushain (new hires) who will be entering the company on April 1st. Amongst the jokes about looking forward to getting them drunk and bringing them to hostess clubs, someone mentioned the recruit page on the company website.

“Oh Jeff,” he said, “your message was very cool, very American.” It took me a couple of seconds to realize what the heck he was talking about, and before I knew it, he had pulled up the website for everyone to see. Sure enough, there I was, amongst the many faces on the “Message from Associate” page.

Unfortunately, unlike the table manners guide on the company intranet site, this time my ridiculous posturing is available for the entire world to see (well, the percentage of the entire world that is capable of navigating the Japanese version of website). It’s nothing special of course, but it’s kind of embarrassing considering how shockingly little effort I put into the endeavor. (And yes, I am, of course, aware of the irony in mentioning it on this site, thus making it even more available for the entire world to see. However, at least this way I’m pointing out firsthand the fact that I’m an idiot.)

Anyway, here’s a screenshot from the company website if you’d like an idea of truly poor my bullshit-writing abilities are (as if this blog wasn’t enough evidence already).

It’s been long established that Japan is a nation of sexual perverts. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, as it certainly makes things more interesting. However, there is one genre of sexual imagery here for which even I have been unable to gain an appreciation: tentacle rape porn (or shokushu in Japanese).

How anyone could get any kind of arousal from watching doe-eyed cartoon characters being furiously violated by slimy alien tentacles is beyond me. My assumption had always been that the reasoning behind the creation of this particularly peculiar genre of anime was to attempt to bypass Japanese censorship laws that forbid the depiction of genitalia, however, it appears there is a historical precedent for this kind of artwork.

Behold, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife (1814) by renowned ukiyo-e artist Hokusai (left) and Abalone Fisherwoman with Octopus (c. 1880 – 1890) by an unknown artist (right):

Who knew that tentacle porn had such a long and storied history?

For the sake of comparison, here are two examples of modern shokushu found via a Google image search:

Hot stuff, eh?

Anyone interested in reading more about tentacle porn can find more information than you would ever want to know here.

It’s no secret that fads come and go in Japan as quickly as the little plates at a kaiten zushi joint [ha, how’s that for a bad simile?]. Something can be the the national obsession one minute and then completely forgotten the next, abandoned for some other bauble of empty stimulation providing fleeting entertainment to the masses who desperately seek an escape from the humdrumery of their vapid existence [sometimes I make up words, too!].

2004 will likely be remembered as the year when the “Kankoku Boom” rocked Japan. This sudden and overwhelming influx of all things Korean into Japanese popular culture — everything from movies to cuisine to hair styles — was precipitated by a phenomenon by the name of Fuyu no Sonata (Winter Sonata). Starring Bae Yong Joon and Choi Ji Woo, this serial television drama about an incestuous group of friends who play in the snow whilst declaring their love for one another quickly took Japan by storm, stealing the hearts and fancies of Japanese women and leaving Japanese men scratching their heads wondering what was so appealing about an effeminate Harry Potter lookalike with an ever-present vacuous smile.

The resulting mass hysteria was a Japanese marketing executive’s wet dream — a flurried frenzy of excessive consumerism, the likes of which had not been seen in Japan since footballer David Beckham had women licking toilet bowls in the wake of the 2002 World Cup. The Korea Boom is now all but over, but ironically, it did more to improve relations between Japan and South Korea in one year than had been achieved through diplomatic and economic means in the past 50 years.

Despite the fact that you couldn’t walk five feet in Japan during the past year without being exposed to Bae Yong Joon’s (or “Yon-sama,” as he was dubbed by the media) smiling mug, Judy had never expressed any interest in Winter Sonata nor any other aspects of the Korean fervor that had washed over the nation. However, last month, on a fateful visit to our local video store, Judy decided to see what all of the hype had been about and rented the first DVD of the series. In spite of my previous comments about TV dramas, in order to make an effort to partake in the interests of my wife-to-be, I committed to watching the series with her — in full (yes, I know what you’re thinking: BIG MISTAKE).

Like an inner city schoolboy after his first “free sample” from the neighborhood crack dealer, Judy quickly became hooked. Night after night was spent in front of the television, watching episode after episode of Korean actors wearing turtleneck sweaters and crying on cue. Of course, she wasn’t content with only watching the episodes dubbed in Japanese, she would also re-watch a number of select scenes in their original Korean, in order to savor the succulent voice of Yon-sama in all its glory (and also because Japanese dubbing is so craptastically bad, it makes me wonder whether I’m living in a country full of mentally deficient halfwits who need to rely on ridiculously exaggerated cartoon voices in order to tell the difference between men and women).

If any of you were wondering why I didn’t post very often during the month of February, now you know the reason. Yes, twenty episodes, each lasting over an hour, in the period of only a few weeks. Madness, I tell you, madness. Of course, the completion of the drama only fueled Judy’s obsession; she subsequently spent countless hours scouring the internet for pictures, articles, film clips and anything else she could find related to the drama. Thankfully, she seems to be coming back to reality little by little, however she recently started watching another drama starring Bae Yong Joon, entitled Hotelier. This time, however, I made the decision from the start not to watch it with her. That lesson has been sufficiently learned.

[Necessary disclaimer to prevent castration or other acts of vengeance at the hands of my fiancée, who probably won’t find the above amusing in any way whatsoever: Okay, honestly speaking, the drama wasn’t that bad, and I may have exaggerated Judy’s behavior just a little (althoughthatdoesn’tmeanthatanyoftheaboveisuntrue!).]

Well, it seems mother nature took my gripe earlier this week about the meager snowfall in Tokyo as a challenge.

Thus, today Eastern Japan was blanketed with the heaviest snowfall it has seen in ten years. While it certainly made my morning commute a bit more exciting, the snow has since nearly melted away and it’s now back to just being cold.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Last night I went to the gym for the first time since I went back to California last December.

That’s right, three months ago. I had been planning to start up again when I got back in January, but I was so busy at work that I couldn’t justify paying the monthly membership fee if I was wasn’t going to be able to leave the office early enough to go during the week. Believe it or not, a “regular” gym membership in Tokyo (meaning no access time restrictions) generally runs about US$100 per month (!). Utterly ridiculous, no doubt, but they don’t call Tokyo the most expensive city in the world for nothing.

However, seeing as I’m going to be getting married later this year, I figured I’d better try to put on a bit more muscle (okay — a lot more) so I can hopefully look slightly less scrawny in the wedding photos. Skinny white boy genes are a cruel, cruel curse.

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Here are a few more photos from my visit to Shinjuku Gyoen last spring. Yes, I know, pictures of sakura are totally clichéd and played out . . . but they looked so nice that day, I couldn’t resist pretending that I actually know how to operate a camera.