I had to work late tonight in order to finish up a translation for one of the directors at my company. In return, he treated me to dinner & booze at a small mom & pop izakaya that he always visits every time he comes to Tokyo. These kinds of places can be found all throughout the city, usually tucked away down side streets and embellished with little more than a small, unassuming sign and tattered noren. After consuming the best yaki-nasu (grilled eggplant) ever I’ve ever tasted plus an entire bottle of nihonshu, I saw the director (who by that point was rather sloshed, as he had consumed a much larger bottle of shochu) off at the station and stumbled on home, where I now sit.

And now, in light of my inebriated state silly mood, here are a pair scans of some purikura that Judy and I recently took. As you can see, actin’ the fool is what we do best.

For the most part, Japanese network television is pretty darn unremarkable. If one were to flip through the channels at any time of day, one would likely find:

• A variety show featuring a roomful of mindless “talents” who are completely and utterly devoid of any actual talent whatsoever
• A cooking program
• A cooking program featuring a roomful of mindless talents who watch food being cooked and then sample it and loudly and repeatedly exclaim “OISHII!!!“
• Some kind of quiz show
• A quiz show featuring a roomful of mindless talents demonstrating just how mindless they truly are
• A sappy documentary about someone somewhere in the world who faces some sort of adversity (e.g., is looking for a job, is living in a brutal war zone, was born without legs, a combination thereof, etc.) and who Tries His/Her Best® to overcome the hardships of their situation
• A variety show featuring a roomful of mindless talents watching a sappy documentary and providing their horribly forced reactions to the hardships (tears) and the overcoming of the hardships (more tears) for the sake of the television viewers at home who have to be instructed how to react since they have neither souls nor a capacity for empathy

Once in a while, however, when you’re mindlessly browsing through the various offerings on each of the eleven channels available to you, something utterly insane and beyond comprehension to the mere non-Japanese mind will catch your eye and you’ll freeze, remote in hand, mouth agape, temporarily incapacitated with both shock and amusement in a profound moment of WTF.

A relatively recent example of this phenomenon is the outlandish TV persona of one Masaki Sumitami, otherwise known as “Razor Ramon HG.” Meet Hard Gay:

Known for his revealing black leather S&M outfit, incessant pelvis-thrusting and frequent exclamations of “WOOO!!!”, Hard Gay made a splash on the talent scene earlier this year and has quickly become the man of the moment on Japanese television. Despite his flamboyant personality and outrageous appearance reminiscent of the biker in the Village People, Hard Gay is not only not an actual homosexual, but his forays on television thus far have primarily been based on the wholesome concept of yonaoshi, or social improvement (although in recent appearances he has begun drifting into other territory involving his newfound celebrity). His TV segments usually feature him walking the streets and attempting to help out those he perceives as being in need whilst making jokes rich with pun and innuendo and thrusting his crotch with abandon, often to the horror and embarrassment of the subject(s) of his attention. While his antics may push the envelope at times, Hard Gay’s controversial moniker and appearance belie his good humor and affability.

There is absolutely no doubt that Hard Gay would never even make it onto television in the United States or any other nation of religious fanatics, however he’ right at home here in Japan, where most aspiring talents resort to adopting unique gimmicks — ridiculous outfits, silly catch phrases, stupid haircuts, etc. — in order to distinguish themselves from the competition. Hard Gay might be at the top now, but it’s debatable whether he will be able to stick around for long. While it’s undeniably difficult to resist imitating his pelvic thrusts and loud whoops (my exasperated fiancée can certainly attest to my own fondness for doing so way too often), basing one’s celebrity on a single gimmick can surely only last so long (can anyone say “GETS!“?).

For anyone interested in seeing Hard Gay in action , I’ve collected a number of clips from his appearances on the TBS program Daibakuten and they are linked below. Additional clips can be found on this Japanese site, however they take approximately forever to download. Alternatively, a torrent file of many of his clips (including the ones linked below) can be found here, courtesy of some guy who originally posted the link here. Enjoy!

	Hard Gay lending a hand to those in need [WMV, 5.50 MB]
	Hard Gay running a ramen shop (part 1) [WMV, 2.19 MB]
	Hard Gay running a ramen shop (part 2) [WMV, 1.56 MB]
	Hard Gay working at a gasoline stand [FLASH, 19.7 MB]
	Hard Gay drying a child’s tears [FLASH, 17.8 MB]
	Hard Gay cooking for kids (part 1) [FLASH, 35.2 MB]
	Hard Gay cooking for kids (part 2) [FLASH, 16.1 MB]
	Hard Gay cooking for kids (part 3) [FLASH, 21.2 MB]
	Hard Gay at Yahoo! Japan [MOV, 31.1 MB]

Let’s killing my bandwidth, WOOO!!!

Don’t you hate it when inconsiderate jerk bloggers don’t update their blogs for, like, days on end?

Yeah, me too. I’m such a prick.

My apologies, once again. After suffering through the past few weeks with barely any time to spare, when I finally found myself in a position to ease things up a bit, I couldn’t resist the urge to just do nothing for a little while. So instead of putting any time into this site, I caught up on some sleep, did some reading, frequented the gym and watched last week’s Evolution Schmevolution special on The Daily Show (a torrent of which — QuickTime/61.0MB — can be found here, courtest of onegoodmove). It was fun being a bum for a few days.

I’m planning to start posting semi-regularly again this week (hmm, sounds familiar) and I’ll do my best to keep it up. For tonight, however, here are two photos from the trip Judy and I took down to Minato Mirai on Sunday afternoon: one of some geezers taking photos of the night view and the other of the inside of the Keihin-Tohoku Line train on our way back to Tokyo. Completely not at all worth posting, I agree, but they’s all I got at the moment.

I don’t feel up to attempting a “real” post this evening, so I’ve decided to blatantly copy the successful format of Patrick’s ‘Today’s Five Things‘ blog. I certainly hope I can do justice to the original. Here goes:

1. Buy me this, and this, and this!
Judy and I recently set up a wedding gift registry via the Wedding Channel website. While at first it seemed like it would be fun to go through various online shops and basically choose anything that struck our fancy, we’ve since come to find the process to be a tad. . . laborious. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that we’re looking only at small images of products on a computer screen and trying to select items that we will be expected to use for the rest of our lives. I have a hard enough time picking out a pair of shoes that I’ll likely only wear for a couple of years; I can’t handle having to consider whether items that appeal to my tastes now will still be tolerable a few years down the road. It’s like, “Is this the particular dish that I want to have flung at my head during a heated argument with my teenage child regarding his/her performance at school?” or “Is this blanket sufficiently thick to keep me warm when my wife makes me sleep on the couch for two weeks after making what I thought was a completely innocuous remark about the perkiness of our next-door neighbor’s breasts?”

Perhaps registering for gifts would be more enjoyable were we to do it in an actual physical store where we could examine the goods in person. Plus, we’d get to play around with one of those price-scanner gun thingies, which to me seems like quite a lot of fun (in case anyone hadn’t already realized, I’m incredibly easy to amuse). There’s also the issue of being unable to shake a slight feeling of greed as we browse through and try to select items for other people to buy for us. However, I suppose that we’ll have to try to ignore this guilt, seeing as it’s probably better than ending up with three different sets of tacky napkin holders.

2. Hot & sweaty
I haven’t mentioned this before, but the air conditioning in my office has been broken since the beginning of June (!). Thus, I have had to endure the entire frickin’ summer sitting in a hot and stuffy room, alternating between fanning myself with an uchiwa and wiping perspiration from my face, while trying to fit in some actual work in between. In a feeble attempt to ease our sweaty suffering, in July a large fan was brought in to blow cool air from the meeting room next door where the air conditioning is functioning (welcome to Japan! – perhaps the only industrialized nation in the world to shun central cooling/heating); however, every time the meeting room is used for an actual meeting (several times a day), the door is closed and we lose our only source of minimal relief from the heat.

Everyone in the office has been complaining about the problem and hassling the General Affairs Dept. to hurry up and have it fixed, but alas our complaints have fallen upon deaf ears. Apparently the entire cooling system needs to be replaced, which would end up costing around a million yen (about US$10,000), so my company made the decision simply not to fix it. Hence, last month we were requested to gaman until the weather cools down in autumn. Heartless bastards.

3. What’s small, hard and gives me a boner?
Nintendo’s GameBoy Micro was released in Japan yesterday, and after work today I headed to an electronics shop near my office to check it out and play with it a little. My first reaction: “Wow, that really is small!” My second: “. . . and totally not worth the money.” Call me a parsimonious old miser, but as much as I’d love to own a Micro (and rub it tenderly across my naked flesh), for now I’m more than content with my SP. Maybe if I haven’t yet come to my senses in six months or so when the price drops a little, I’ll reconsider it.

4. Ouch
You know that it’s been a bit too long in between visits to the gym when the day after you finally go for a workout, you can’t lift your arms above your head. Putting on deodorant this morning was a bitch.

5. Zzzzz
Well, I’ve finally put up some more photos from past visits to the Tokyo Disney Resort. They’re beyond typically dull, but here they are:

- - - - - - -

You know, that was actually pretty fun. Straight and to the point, enables me to cover a variety of topics in a single post, no need to delve too deeply into anything – perhaps I’ll copy Patrick more often (although not too often, I promise!).

Well, hello there!

In case anyone was wondering, yes, I am still alive (although to what extent is debatable). I realize that it’s been an entire week since I last posted anything on this site, and for that I apologize. In addition to being rather busy at work, my evenings and weekends have been filled with nothing but wedding planning and thus I have had precious little time for much else (i.e., sleeping, eating, maintaining my prize-winning collection of sock lint harvested from betwixt my toes, etc.). However, I’m pleased to report that all of the wedding invitations have been sent out, the wedding website is 98% completed and after nearly succumbing to exhaustion this past week, I am no longer afraid of death, as my great-grandmother who visited me from beyond the grave the other night informs me that ain’t half bad, albeit slightly drafty.

There was another event that occurred this past week — one that didn’t involve me screaming like a little girl and wetting myself in fright– and that is, as hard as it is for me to believe, that last Monday marked the passing of four years since my arrival in Japan. I’m not going to even bother reminiscing about experiences good and bad that have occurred or pontificating about what I might have possibly learned about myself or mankind as a whole by living amidst a foreign culture and all that jazz; however, I will write briefly (well, as brief as I possibly can be) about the plans that Judy and I have for the future (although I sincerely doubt that anyone could possibly care).

You see, upon originally landing upon this soil, the two of us figured that we would likely stay for a maximum of three years before picking up and moving on elsewhere. Although there were occasions throughout that time when I felt that I was ready (or even desirous) to leave, overall I was enjoying my experience here, and we even extended the timetable for another year after we moved to Tokyo and found life here quite pleasant.

As time went by, we realized that were weren’t quite ready to leave just yet, and thus after weeks of constant discussion (at times during which one could have sworn we were reciting lines from a certain Clash song), we decided once and for all to postpone our departure for another six months until after the wedding, at which time we’ll hopefully have a vague idea of what the heck to do next. Although I know I would be content staying in Japan even longer, inside I can’t deny the reality that I would never be able to truly settle down here due to the (at times) overbearing social pressures, highly limited career prospects and utter lack of quality Mexican food.

Thus, the week before last — just three days before my visa was set to expire — I headed down to the Tokyo Immigration Bureau to apply for an extension. If all goes well, I should be allowed to stay within these borders for another three years, although right now we are sincerely planning to depart “for good” some time next May. I admit that there’s definitely a part of me that doesn’t want to leave, and I’m sure when the time comes I’ll be second-guessing myself and lamenting my decision like crazy, but ultimately I think it’s time to move on to the next unexciting chapter of The Incredibly Tedious and Uneventful Adventures of Jeff.

As for what will become of conbinibento.com, I honestly do not know. I definitely plan to continue polluting the internet with my typical banal mindless drivel and mediocre photos (hopefully with more regularity than as of late), however I imagine that some shift in content will likely be inevitable. I certainly don’t want to become that-guy-who-used-to-live-in-Japan-and-won’t-shut- up-about-it. In the meantime, I’ll try to continue what I’ve been doing and hopefully once the current period of extreme busyness is behind me (if ever), I can get back to putting a bit more effort into the crap that I post up here.

Uh. . . so that’s that. As always, if anyone has any suggestions for improvements to this site (i.e., “Shut it down already!”), please don’t hesitate to share.

To anyone who’s made it this far, thanks for reading and I hope you don’t feel too resentful for my having wasted approximately five minutes of your life with this pointless post. I’ll try to put something semi-interesting/amusing up in the next few days; in the meantime, your patience is appreciated!

If the slight reduction in the amount of sweat that rolls down the back of my legs as I make my way to work each morning wasn’t indication enough, this past week I encountered irrefutable evidence that autumn has finally made its long-awaited arrival to this otherwise still-sweltering land.

Yes, Kirin’s Akiaji is back on store shelves nationwide in a newly-designed fanciful autumn leaf-decorated can. Mere words simply cannot describe the true significance of this blessed occasion, so let me instead imbibe this luscious amber liquid until the point where stringing a sentence together becomes altogether impossible. As may be easily ascertainable from the quality of what has been written thus far, utter incoherence is not far away.

If anyone is interested in seeing the television commercial for Akiaji that is has been airing as of late, just click below! [ASF, 593KB]

The posting of a random photo usually means that I’m either a) very busy, or b) very lazy. Today it’s the former, but if the frequency of Random Photo Posts steadily increases you can bet it’ll be because of the latter.

Anyhow, this is just a photo of a seemingly ordinary sign for a delicatessen near my office. It seemed entirely mundane and inconspicuous to me at first, until one day something occurred to me: in the area where I work, in contrast to every other place I’ve frequented in Japan, there is a noticeable lack of stray cats in the neighborhood. In fact, to this date, I haven’t seen a single one. Hmmm. . . .