Who doesn’t love Nakagawa Shoko? With her well-documented fondness for cosplay, anime, the internet and, of course, cats, Shokotan’s eccentric charm has captured the hearts of oily, overweight, bespectacled virgin fanboys everywhere.

And so what better vehicle for her to capitalize on her appeal among the geek demographic than an advertisement for a video game? Earlier this year, Japanese game development firm Banpresto released Super Robo Taisen W for the Nintendo DS and gave Shocotan the starring role in a pair of TV commercials, which are conveniently available for your viewing pleasure in a single video linked below:

[AVI, 2.2MB]
YouTube

Anyone else a little disappointed that she didn’t put the DS in her mouth?

To those looking for some hot cat-in-mouth action, I invite you to check out the clip of Shokotan appearing on the Pochitama program here [AVI, 17.8MB] or here [YouTube]. (I must warn you: it’s pretty dull until about the two-minute mark.)

Now, let the pussy-eating jokes begin. . .

Longtime monarch of the Japanese Kawaii Kingdom, Sanrio, has recently released what is quite possibly the MOST AMAZING PRODUCT EVER CONCEIVED: the Banana Case.

No longer must people duck and dart in fear whilst carrying around their bananas. Made of seemingly indestructible polyester cloth, the Banana Case provides impenetrable protection against any sort of danger imaginable: household pests, natural disasters, IEDs, wild animals including blood-thirsty hybrid species cultivated by rogue geneticists, wheelchair-bound limbless homeless men with laser beams shooting out of their gaping, toothless maws, and even the occasional occurrence of being left in the backseat of a car on a hot afternoon.

The Sanrio Banana Case is not only eco-friendly compared to other alternatives, but it also comes in two eye-searingly cute designs guaranteed to make fine additions to any arsenal of adorability.

I swear, what a great, great, amazingly marvelous product! The only thing that could possibly be any more incredibly awesome would be if bananas could somehow be genetically engineered to grow in their own protective coverings that could somehow be removed or “peeled” before eating. . . but such a thing is surely so outrageously inconceivable that it enters the far-out realm of science fiction!

Do you want to know one thing that I don’t miss at all about Japan? It was something that I didn’t even realize I wasn’t missing until the other night when I was out and happened to pass by a group of slovenly teenagers seemingly doing all they could to look “cool.” Their clothes were baggy, their hair was shaggy and in each of their grubby mitts was a cigarette. At that moment, I realized that it had been ages since my nose had been assaulted by the acrid stench of cigarette smoke—an ever-present nuisance in Japan—and I didn’t miss it one bit. In fact, I was absolutely overjoyed to be free of it (well, at least until that particular moment).

Back to the teenagers, though. The fact that they seemed to be consciously attempting to direct their exhalations into the faces of passers-by was abhorrent enough; however, when I saw each of them proceed one by one to flick their butts onto the street, I could only thing of one thing:

That’s right, Japan Tobacco’s beautiful Smoking Manners campaign! And guess what? They’ve added 30 new ads to their website! The focus of these latest additions seems to be the importance of carrying portable ashtrays and the admonitions against littering in general. Somewhat mundane subject matter, perhaps, but their playful designs and esoteric charm definitely shine through.

Click here to go to the Smoking Manners gallery (the new entries are on the second page).

Aah, the misheard song lyric; that humorous phenomenon that leads to poor saps misguidedly singing along to lines about locking the cash box and bathrooms on the right. Leave it to the Japanese, naturally, to take such an everyday source of mild amusement and turn it into entertainment gold: Soramimi Hour, a short segment on Asahi TV’s Friday night staple, Tamori Club, hosted by the honorary blind man himself, Tamori, and his “Soramimist” co-host, illustrator Anzai Hajime.

The formula of Soramimi Hour begins with viewers submitting examples of songs by non-Japanese artists with lyrics that sound like words or phrases in Japanese. Short music videos—often no more than mere seconds in length—depicting the “misheard” Japanese lyrics are created and viewed on air by the hosts, after which Tamori awards prizes for the entries based on his assessment of their quality (in ranking order, the possible prizes are a hand towel, ear pick, t-shirt or jacket). The result of this process is nothing short of outright hilarity.

Strangely enough, despite having lived in Japan for five years, it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I first learned of this highly entertaining television gem. It wasn’t like I had a glamorous social life that kept me out and about until the wee hours every Friday night (8 o’clock at Gusto, anyone? Drink bar’s on me!); yet, somehow, to my utter shame, I managed to be completely out of the loop.

Fortunately, there are dozens of Soramimi Hour clips available for viewing on YouTube, so I encourage anyone who might possibly be as lame as I am to have never heard of it before to surf over there and search for ’soramimi’ and/or ‘空耳’ and get ready to laugh. Some Japanese ability would definitely be an asset, but for many of the videos, the visual images alone are enough to summon a guffaw or two.

For those so lazy that even searching YouTube is out of the question, I’ve linked below a sampling of clips that I happened to find particularly amusing (yes, my sense of humor resides firmly in the gutter). Enjoy!

Happy New Year, everyone!
明けましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします！

Image courtesy of here.

Lamest thread title ever, I know.

I’m sitting here in an internet cafe in Shinagawa, sipping overpriced ice tea and wondering where the time went.

Five years.

Unfortunately, after having slept only a few short hours last night thanks to one particularly obtuse friend who took the pleasure of using my computer for several hours to apply for jobs online while Judy and I scuttled around him, organizing the last of our belongings and thoroughly cleaning the apartment, I’m not exactly in a frame of mind to wax sentimental. I probably will at somepoint, though, so consider yourselves warned.

I seriously can’t believe we’re leaving Japan tomorrow. A new life awaits us. . . here’s hoping it’s a good one!

One day in the advertising department of Japanese pharmaceutical company Hisamitsu:

Advertising Executive: “Have you come up with any ideas for advertising the new Salonpas easy stick-on transdermal patches?”
Indentured Underling: “Well, I gave it a lot of thought. . .”
AE: “And . . .”
IU: “And, yeah, I was thinking that we should do something that makes the patches seem exciting.”
AE: “That sounds good. What do you have in mind?”
IU: “Well, I was thinking of something like, ‘Let’s stick it on!’, you know, ‘Harou!’”
AE: “That’s a fantastic idea! Tell me more!”
IU: “Well, I was thinking about it and — isn’t it sort of funny how ‘harou’ kind of sounds like ‘hello’?”
AE: “Haha, you’re right! That is funny!”
IU: “Right, so I was thinking that we could work around that, you know? Hire a foreigner and—”
AE: “Wait just a minute! We can’t go around featuring foreigners in our commercials! We’re not selling cars here, you know! Our products are for Japanese people! Everyone knows that Japanese and foreigners are physiologically completely different! If we start showing foreigners using our products, the public is going to think that our products are made for foreigners and not for them! Our sales will plummet! My god, man, use your head!”
IU: “Sir, I’m terribly sorry! There is absolutely no excuse for my utter stupidity. Shall I go commit ritual suicide now for the great shame that I have brought upon myself and our beloved Hisamitsu?”
AE: “No, not yet. First, you must help finalize this idea for the commercial.”
IU: “Yes, sir.”
AE: “Let’s see. . . how about instead of a foreigner (*shakes head in disbelief*), we get a well-known Japanese talent and put him in a silly suit with a blond wig and a huge fake nose—”
IU: “Sir, that is an excellent idea!”
AE: “I know it is, that’s why I thought of it! Anyhow, he’ll come on screen, act all crazy and speak really weirdly accented Japanese and yell ‘Hello!’ a couple of times while introducing our easy stick-on Salonpas patches. Yes, that will do quite well.”
IU: “Sir, if I may say so, I am truly in awe of your brilliance.”
AE: “Thank you. However, rather than simply marveling at my astounding and, frankly, unparalleled genius, I would prefer that you also try using your own worthless puddle of a brain to think up some ideas of your own.”
IU: “I’m sorry, sir.”
AE: “‘I’m sorry’ is nothing but words! I want to see action! Go out there and make me the best gosh-darned ‘Harou!’ commercial the world has ever seen!”
IU: “Yes, sir! I will give every effort that my poor, feeble mind is capable of giving!”
AE: “Good. Oh, and on your way out, please call in my secretary. It’s time for her to earn her ‘weekly bonus,’ if you know what I mean. Heh heh.”
IU: “Yes, sir!”

Four months later. . .

Click image above to view the ad [MPG, 777KB]

Sorry once again for allowing real life to get in the way of blogging (for shame!). Actually, I’ve been away (I still am) and haven’t had much time to sit down and vomit on to the keyboard to create something to post. Everything’s been going well, though — last Monday was my last day at work, we’ve nearly packed up/gotten rid of most of our belongings and we’re now trying to enjoy the rest of our time here in Japan. Oh, and it’s freakin’ hot. Thank goodness I no longer have to wear a suit and tie every day!

Well, I’ve got to run. Here’s a typical “Ooh-Japan-is-so-like-spiritual-and-enchanting” photo since it’s the only one I had available at the moment. Will try to post again soon!

My apologies again for the lack of posts. I’ve been pretty busy recently. With only one week left at work and only one month left before we leave Japan, things have been pretty hectic. We’ve even begun the monumental task of going through all of our stuff and deciding what is to be sold/given away/thrown away (most of it) and what is to be shipped back across the ocean to the States (as little of it as possible).

Will try to post again soon, but in the meantime, I offer you yet another crappy photo:

Nakagawa Shoko loves cats. She really loves them.

Just how much does the 21-year-old ‘Akiba Idol’ love cats? Click below to find out.

(more…)

Well, Judy and I have finalized our departure date: August 22nd. It’s so hard to believe that we’ll be leaving Japan in less than six weeks. Today was Judy’s last day of work and I’ll be leaving for the first of my farewell parties in about 20 minutes. It’s so strange to think that it just a few months we’ll be living completely different lives: new jobs (hopefully), new apartment, new friends, new car (ugh), new everything. As you can probably imagine, our feelings about leaving are pretty mixed; on the one hand, we’re excited about moving on to the next chapter of our lives (to use that clichéd line for the billionth time), but on the other, it’s going to be hard to leave Japan, our home for the past five years. We’ve made an agreement, though: if, for whatever reason, things fail to turn out well after giving it an earnest go in North America, we can always come back to Japan.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to enjoy free food & booze!

My apologies, once again. I’ve been incredibly busy recently both at work and at home and thus haven’t had the time to scrounge around in my ass to find something worth pulling out and posting on this site. I’ll try to post again soon, but in the meantime, here’s a photo of a very jolly train!

Yeah, yeah, you’ve read it all before — “Japanese TV commercials have sexy girls in bikinis in them, hyuck hyuck.” However, before I finally drop this topic for good, I’d like to present a poll on the matter. Well, not a true poll — unfortunately, I’m a bit too stupid to figure out how to get the poll plugin to display properly — so let’s just call it a question for you to ponder.

Instructions: Carefully review the following two examples of babes-in-bikinis-based advertising currently airing on Japanese television and answer the multiple choice question below.

Advertisement #1
Commercial for Marui department stores’ summer swimwear sale

Click image above to view [AVI, 6.1MB]

Advertisement #2
Commercial for part-time job placement agency Mobaito.com

Click image above to view [WMV, 6.6MB]

Don’t forget to use a #2 pencil!

After our somewhat less-than-enjoyable red-eye flight from Tokyo to Honolulu, Judy and I managed to move our connecting flight to Kauai up a few a few hours (with the guy at the check-in counter stating no less than three times, “I’m supposed to charge you to change it, but I’ll wave it for you.”) and finally arrived at the Kauai Marriott Resort in the city of Lihue at around 10:00a.m.

We had requested early check-in since we knew that we would be arriving in the morning, however we were disappointed to learn that there were no rooms available when we got there. Having some time to kill, we headed down to the poolside restaurant for breakfast, but we hardly had an appetite in our state of exhaustion. We also looked quite ridiculous sitting at a poolside cafe in Hawaii wearing long pants and sweaters, with winter coats resting over our seatbacks. Eventually the desire to sleep became too strong, so we ended up spending the next few hours dozing off at various locations around the hotel, including on the beach, in the garden and on a couch behind the big Christmas tree in the lobby (where at one point we awoke to the sound of a little boy asking, “Mommy, why are those people sleeping over there?”). Finally, a room became available and we were at long last able to take a shower, take a nap and begin our vacation.

Looking back, our four days in Kauai are a bit of a blur. The majority of our time was spent finalizing everything for the wedding: meeting with the wedding coordinator, getting our marriage license, preparing decorations and gifts, ironing all of the last-minute details, etc., etc., etc. However, despite all of the running around, we did manage to enjoy ourselves quite a bit. We were able to spend time with the various family and friends who made the trip out to join us, we took a dip in the ocean, played volleyball (albeit horribly), relaxed on the beach. . . and, oh yeah, and we also got married!

More to come soon! For now, here are a few photos!

Generally speaking, Japanese television doesn’t do much for me. Sure, there are a few programs that I find mildly entertaining, but one can only watch so many shows about cooking and/or eating food, silly trivia and mundane, formulaic dramas. However, the one merit that Japanese TV has over, say, American TV, is the possibility of encountering random, sheer draw-dropping absurdity while casually flipping through the channels.

A case in point is something I stumbled upon last Wednesday night: a contest on a comedy variety program called Haneru no Tobira (Hanetobi for short). Basically, the game involves five Japanese comedians in a kaiten-zushi (conveyor-belt sushi) restaurant in Roppongi, an area in Tokyo known for its high concentration of foreign residents. Why Roppongi? Well, according to most Japanese people, it’s a universally-known fact that the Japanese invented chopsticks and people of other nationalities are inherently incapable of mastering their proper usage (resulting in every non-Japanese person being asked “Can you use chopsticks?” at least once per conversation with every single Japanese person they ever meet). Thus, in order to achieve absolute authenticity, the contestants in the game each came costumed to represent members of different foreign nations. Let’s meet them!

THE AMERICAN

Tsukaji Muga as Tsukageorge

_

THE INDIAN

Itakura Toshiyuki as Itachai

_

THE CHINA GIRL

Abukawa Mihoko as Abuchan

_

THE RUSSIAN

Akiyama Ryuji as Akibachof

_

THE MEXICAN

Kajiwara Yuta as Kajikaras

Wow, there’s nothing quite like offensive racial caricatures to get things off to a good start, eh?

The game began with all of the contestants taking a seat along the counter in front of the sushi chef, played by fellow comedian Nishino Akihiro, and engaging in witty banter on the sole topic of their foreignness, complete with exaggerated body language and heavily-accented Japanese.

Once the sheer hilarity of the fact that they were dressed as foreigners had died down a little, the game got off to a start. Small plates of sushi and other food items (e.g., a whole raw squid, a slice of honeydew melon, etc.) were sent around on the conveyor belt one-by-one, and the object of the game was for each contestant to use chopsticks to scoop each item up off of the plate and into his/her mouth without dropping it before the plate passed them by.

The only catch that the contestants were required to use their chopsticks in — say it ain’t so! — the proper form (i.e., grasping the top chopstick like a pencil).

One by one, each contestant did their best to pick up each item and put it into their mouths without incident. Those who succeeded were rewarded with the succulent taste of the whichever delicacy they managed to grab.

Those who failed, however, were greeted by unpleasant visitors: two ripped Japanese guys looking to mete out some fierce punishment! (Look familiar?)

Yep, at this particular kaiten-zushi joint, customers who fail to pick up their food from the revolving conveyor belt must face some revolving of their own.

As you can see, inadequate chopstick-handling is not without its consequences.

By the end of the game, whichever contestant managed to escape being spun around at the hands of the Chopstick Etiquette Enforcers was declared the winner. In this particular episode, it was the Chinese girl. Go figure.

Now, while it’s easy to imagine non-Japanese people who happened to view this program getting all up in arms with indignation over the stereotpyical portrayal of foreigners (I know I did at first), one thing worth noting is that the program is actually making fun of Japanese people’s inability to use chopsticks properly. The ironic truth of the matter is that many Japanese themselves people don’t hold their chopsticks “correctly;” most simply continue to use whatever method they found easiest as a child without regard for the proper form. In fact, the topic of how people hold their chopsticks pops up in conversations with surprising regularity here (at least among some of the dull people I work with, who always seem to bring it up after “o-hashi jouzu“-ing me for the gazillionth time in the many years we’ve known each other).

There’s certainly no denying the fact that the Japanese comedians dressing up like ethnic caricatures is nothing short of an old-time minstrel show, but for what it’s worth, it’s not like similar things haven’t been shown on TV in the West. I suppose some issues to consider are the nature of the humor as well as how it is received by the intended audience.

Hanetobi airs Wednesdays at 7:57p.m. on Fuji TV.

After last Saturday’s post about nihonjinron and the comments that followed, it was quite amusing to see this week’s Crisscross Japan PopVox, in which eight Japanese folks were asked what they think of Japan’s notably lackluster performance in the Word Cup thus far. One 19-year-old female respondent calling herself P-Chan offered this gem of a possible explanation:

I’m not sure why but the national team doesn’t know how to be aggressive or put on pressure in a game. Maybe it’s because of our ethnicity as an agricultural people. Physically we are small.

One can often hear the “Japan-is-a-small-agricultural-country” mentioned as the reasoning behind just about any possible shortcoming of Japanese society. Soccer team isn’t doing well? “We are a nation of small farmers.” Defeated in WWII? “We are a peaceful farming nation.” Increasing crime and weakening social fabric? “Western influences are destroying our small, harmonious nation.” Am I exaggerating a bit? Yes, but I’m not pulling it out of my ass completely. Click here to read someone else’s rant on the matter over at Japan Reference.

It seems that I left out a prime example of babes-in-bikinis-based advertising in my earlier post on the matter. Just the other night on TV I caught an ad for Japanese skincare giant Kao’s Sofina Perfect UV brand sunscreen featuring South Korean model Youna prancing around on the beach wearing — you guessed it — a black sequinned bikini.

The ad has apparently been running since April, but I guess lately I’ve been slacking on my duty to seek out commercials on Japanese television featuring women in revealing outfits and write about them on the internet. For shame.

Based on the similar ads for Allie and Anessa sunscreens, can you guess how this one ends??

To see Youna in the Sofina Perfect UV ad, click here [AVI, 2.0MB] or here [YouTube].

I didn’t mention it in the Zuiikin English post, but one of the videos contained a great little nugget of nihonjinron that’s definitely worth noting. The video in question — which Claytonian has already duly pointed out — is apparently the final episode of the series and the producers, in response to requests from non-Japanese viewers, decided to devote it to teaching Japanese phrases instead of English (sadly, they also replaced the Zuiikin Gals with three freaky Caucasian geezers).

To anyone who can’t be bothered to watch the video, here’s a quote from the introduction to the lesson, which was narrated over scenes of a toned Japanese guy doing various exercises:

First of all, our muslces and those of the Japanese are basically built differently. For example, their constant bowing and tendency to maintain a low posture results in well-developed lower back muslces. Squatting on the floor instead of sitting on chairs developed different leg muslces. So, by teaching such muscles Japanese, you, too, can begin speaking perfect Japanese.

Nihonjinron isn’t something that I hear people spouting off on a regular basis, but every so often during conversation I do encounter statements such as “You foreigners are so tall because traditionally you were hunters, but we Japanese were traditionally farmers and so we are short because we we were always bent over rice fields,” “You can’t truly appreciate the taste of sushi because foreigners have different taste buds than Japanese,” and so on. Of course, rational argument and evidence to the contrary do nothing to diminish people’s belief in such nonsensical notions, so all I can do is just roll my eyes and change the subject.

I just had to mention some great videos currently making their way around many Japan-related websites, lest anyone miss out.

Apparently in 1992, just before the burst of the Japanese bubble era, Fuji TV created an innovative morning program combining light aerobic exercise and English conversation lessons, entited Zuiikin English.

The result was nothing less than sheer brilliance.

Rather than focusing on standard textbook phrases such as the infamous “This is a pen” line, which to this very day can still be frequently heard shouted out by drunken middle-aged salarymen towards unsuspecting foreigners, each episode of the program was centered around a specific theme or situation and offered relevant (albeit often somewhat bizarre) phrases that would supposedly come in handy in such instances. Each phrase was repeated by a trio of leotard-clad women, dubbed the Zuiikin Gals, who provided accompmanying body movements over a bouncy and irritatingly catchy electronic beat.

There are a number of wonderful Zuiikin English videos up on YouTube thanks to a generous soul by the name of SkillfulAbbot. Each video is undeniably priceless and provided me with lengthy fits of uncontrollable laughter (much to the chagrin of my wife, alas), but favorites were no doubt this one and this one.

Let’s Zuiikin English!

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If you liked these videos, be sure to also check out Let’s Sexy English! for another wacky example of unconventional Japanese English education.

What happens when American King of Pop Michael Jackson pays a surprise visit to Japanese Pop superstar group SMAP on the set of their SMAP×SMAP TV program?

To watch 9 minutes and 52 seconds of astonishment, bewilderment and awkwardness, click the image below!

On trips to Shibuya on separate occasions over the past two weekends, two visitors from abroad — my friend Josh and Judy’s mother — both commented on a particular billboard currently on display on the side of Tokyu department store. The billboard in question, which I had hitherto paid little notice, is an advertisement for Unilever’s Dove brand featuring a group of Japanese women in their underwear.

“Old news, chump,” I hear you say. Yes, Dove has been running their “Campaign for Real Beauty” in the States for over a year now, and although I read about the hubbub that it caused at the time, as far as I know it didn’t make its way over to these shores until recently.

For those who may not be familiar with Dove’s campaign, it was originally launched with a series of ads featuring “regular” woman of varying sizes and ethnicities cheerfully posing in plain white underwear (it has since expanded in scope, apparently). According to Dove’s website:

For too long, beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling stereotypes. Women have told us it’s time to change all that. Dove agrees. We believe real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages. That is why Dove is launching the Campaign for Real Beauty.

Dove’s global Campaign for Real Beauty aims to change the status quo and offer in its place a broader, healthier, more democratic view of beauty. A view of beauty that all women can own and enjoy everyday.

Here is a picture of one such ad shown in the US:

As you can see, there are women of different sizes, shapes and colors. One of them even has a prominent tattoo. Of course, not all ethnicities are represented (where’s the love for the Asian fatties?), and the women aren’t that big given today’s widespread obesity, but it’s an interesting campaign that brings attention important issues such as body image, ideals of feminine beauty as portrayed in the media, and so on.

Now let’s take a look an ad from Dove Japan’s “Real Beauty” campaign:

Hmmm… Women of different sizes? No. Shapes? No. Colors? No (unless you count the towels they’re holding, anyhow). As far as I can tell, the only obvious differences between the seven women are their hairstyles. And I can’t even imagine what sort of sick, misogynistic individual would even for a moment consider those women to be anything other than thin. They may not be models, as Dove purports, but they’re certainly not representative of the average Japanese woman (as much we might wish they were).

To be fair to Dove, though, the focus of the Japanese campaign is a teensy bit different than that of the American one. Rather than “Real women have real curves,” the Japanese slogan is (roughly) “I won’t hide my skin anymore.” The intended message, obviously, is that Japanese women should feel proud of their appearance and have confidence in themselves, even if they don’t conform to society’s image of beauty.

Of course, it seems that Unilever Japan did their market research and realized that if they came out with a campaign in featuring “fuller-figured” women, they would be immediately labeled as the brand for fatso’s and would thereupon lose any hope of appealing to fickle, extremely brand-conscious Japanese consumers. So, rather than “real women,” the Japanese public gets “women who are not models, but who are thinner and more attractive than 95% of the female population.” Interesting, to say the least.

Sorry, have been a bit busy these past few days. Judy’s mother and sister are visiting Japan at the moment and came up to Tokyo on Saturday, so last weekend was another busy one. Will try to post again soon!

My friend Josh and his girlfriend Wei Wei came out to Tokyo from Taipei this past weekend, and Judy and I did our best to give them The Tokyo Experience. We only had a few days, but we tried to see/do as much as possible during that time, and as a result, despite it now being several days later, I still have yet to fully recover.

I’ll try to put up some photos from the weekend within the next few days, but in the meantime here’s one of a scene we came across while passing through Ginza on Sunday:

The model dressed in geisha garb was on the street for less than two minutes, during which time nearly every single person in the vicinity in possession of a camera came rushing over to snap her photo [that’s Josh & Wei Wei on the right]. As is usually the case in such instances, almost immediately one of the photographers in the front began shouting that it was a private photo shoot and telling everyone else to stop taking pictures. Within moments, the model and main photographers quickly departed and everyone else continued on back in their respective directions, bringing with them a slight smile.

Sadly, I only managed to get one clear pic amidst the bedlam and the composition and lighting suck.

One thing I love about living in Tokyo is that you never know what you might come across during the course of any given day.

With the last of the cherry blossoms having long since fluttered down to the earth, bringing to a close the glorious hanami season and thus signifying the end of the symbolic representation of the transient beauty and ephemeral nature of life or some such nonsense, it appears that summer is well on its way to Japan.

At least that’s the impression I’m getting from the commercials on TV these days. That’s right, the summer advertisement season has begun. Generally speaking, Japanese summer-themed commercials usually tend to feature one or more of the following components: 1) the shrill drone of cicadas, 2) people frolicking on eye-pleasing, non-concrete-lined beaches, and 3) women in revealing two-piece bathing suits.

Please allow me to focus on the third item today (as if there was any doubt that I wouldn’t). Although TV ads featuring women in provocative outfits or poses tend to draw a lot of controversy in the States (”OMG, she’s, like, eating a hamburger in a bathing suit!!1“), in Japan, no one seems to bat an eye at such blatant displays of sexual imagery utilized in attempt to sell goods. In light of the imminent arrival of summer (once that pesky rainy season passes, that is), I thought I would share some babes-in-bikinis-based commercials currently airing on TV to those people not fortunate enough to have access to Japanese broadcast television and all it has to offer. Behold!

Anessa Sunscreen
Japanese cosmestic giant Shiseido’s recent commercial for Anessa sunscreen has been getting quite a bit of attention among geeks on the internet, both Japanese and foreign. The ad features popular CanCam model Ebihara Yuri (aka “Ebi-chan”) taking a shower, diving into a pool of water and basically just enjoying being wet while wearing a bikini, culminating in her removal of the top piece of said garment. I believe the intended message to women consumers is “be sure to put sunscreen on your baps” or something like that.

To see Ebihara Yuri in the Anessa ad, click here [WMV, 6.4MB] or here [YouTube].

Kirin Lemon Soft Drink
What better way to advertise Kirin’s lemon-flavored carbonated beverage than by showing Urban Agency model Brenda in a bikini splashing about under a stream of water. The quick cuts and gratuitous close-ups really help impress upon the consumer the refreshing flavor of the drink and the fact that it has 27% less sugar. I honestly can’t even begin to describe how thirsty it has made me.

To see Brenda in the Kirin Lemon ad, click here [WMV, 1.2MB] or here [YouTube].

Allie Sunscreen
Cosmetic maker Kanebo’s new commercial for their Allie sunscreen features current advertising It Girl, CanCam model Yamada Yu, enjoying an afternoon on a yacht and partaking in various activities, including going for a swim, toweling off and then applying the advertised product to her glistening body. Similar to the Anessa ad, it closes with Yamada sans her bikini top, indicating to me that this iconic image must surely help sell sunscreen to women. . . right?

To see Yamada Yu in the Allie ad, click here [WMV, 3.4MB] or here [YouTube].

Canada Dry Ginger Ale
Although not summer-themed, Yamada Yu is also currently starring in a TV spot for Canada Dry Ginger Ale, which I believe is at least worth an honorable mention. The ad features Yadama in a glittery gold gown (yikes!) from which the sequins begin to rapidly flutter away before her entire body suddenly explodes in a burst of bubbles. This one also made me thirsty.

To see Yamada Yu in the Allie ad, click here [WMV, 2.8MB] or here [YouTube].

So there you have it: further proof that the commercials are perhaps the most entertaining aspect of Japanese TV (at least to us ignoble lechers, anyhow). Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go buy a carbonated beverage to quench my thirst and some sunscreen for the missus.

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UPDATE: More swimsuits for sales

From today’s Mainichi Daily News:

School girl hit in head with hard object while walking home

KASUKABE, Saitama — A high school girl was hit in the head with a hard object by a man as she was walking home on Thursday night, police said.

The 15-year-old student was coming home from school alone in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, when a man approached her from behind at about 8:35 p.m. and hit her in the head as she entered the compound of an apartment complex.

She suffered injuries that will require two weeks to heal.

“I was hit with a hard object,” officers quoted the girl as saying.

Wow, talk about lazy reporting. All that’s missing is:

Doctors who treated the girl reported that her injuries were consistent with being hit in the head with a hard object.

And possibly:

Police have announced that they will undertake a thorough search of the area in the vicinity of the attack for hard objects. They also stated that, if apprehended, the assailant would be charged with using a hard object to hit someone in the head.

Unfortunately, the Japanese version of the article isn’t much better, although it does mention that the man ran away after the attack.

Talk about a scoop!

Last Friday was Judy’s older brother’s birthday, and to celebrate, his girlfriend planned a surprise dinner for him and invited the two of us join in. The festivities took place at a restaurant called Tooth Tooth in Ebisu, a pretty nice place with an eclectic aesthetic, smooth ambiance and a French-inspired menu. However, the coolest thing, without a doubt, that the restaurant had to offer was what we discovered upon entering the party room in the back:

THERE IS NO NEED TO ADJUST YOUR MONITOR.
YOUR EYES ARE NOT DECEIVING YOU.

Yes, that’s right: The centerpiece of the party room at Tooth Tooth is a freakin’ life-size replica of an Imperial Stormtrooper (!).

Now, as one can imagine, as all of us in attendance that evening were in our mid-twenties to early thirties, the effect of being in the same room with such an awe-inspiring object was of pants-peeing proportions, especially amongst the males in the group (the women were predictably less impressed). Thus, it was only natural and, in fact, inevitable that following the consumption of numerous alcoholic beverages during the two-hour all-you-can-drink period, we would gravitate towards the figure, much like the Millennium Falcon caught in the tractor beam of the Death Star. Poses were made, photos were taken and a good time was had by all.

For about ten minutes. Then we got scolded by a waiter who told us that we’re not allowed to touch it. It was fun while it lasted, though.

Hola, amigos. ¿Qué tal? I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I’ve been on holiday. Not away on holiday, mind; just basically sitting around on my fat bony ass, being a lazy bum. Last week was Golden Week and I had the whole of Monday through Friday off from work. Although we ended up staying in Tokyo, Judy and I were actually pretty busy (well, occupied, anyhow) most of the time. Unfortunately, I only managed to accomplish about 50% of the things on my to-do list (the unaccomplished 50% including posting on this site), but I had a good time relaxing, going to the gym and taking care of some long-overdue errands and chores.

Anyway, it’s late and tomorrow’s another day back at work. Today was quite possibly the slowest-passing day I have ever had the misery to trudge through. Tomorrow I’m thinking of soiling myself after lunch just so I can at least have the clean-up and amusement from my coworkers’ reactions to help kill some time.

Due to the complete lack of any worthwhile content in this post (”What’s new?” you say), here’s an equally un-worthwhile photo of some trees or something from Hibiya Park:

¡Adiós!

I’ve been a bit busy lately and now that the weather is getting warmer I’ve been spending a lot of what little free time I have outdoors, so my apologies for the dearth of posts this month. Since it’s late and my brain doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with me at the moment, rather than write a proper new post, I thought I’d revisit and follow up on a few posts from the past. So, in no particular order or relevance, here are some updates:

Jesus & the Gosperats
Just as announced, Bubble Aota’s sacrilegious new single, Jesus, was released last Wednesday (a video of her performing the song can be found here). On that same day, the Gosperats — the Japanese soul group composed of members of the former 80s groups Gospellers and Rats&Star — also released their self-titled debut album. The group is perhaps best known for the unique appearance of its members, namely the fact that they perform in blackface.

Yes, despite it being 21st century, this kind of thing still flies in Japan with nary a whimper of protest. To capitalize on the clearly untapped market for ethnic tribute bands, I’m thinking of starting a rival group called Tojo’s Troubadours, which will feature five white guys in yellowface with eyes taped back who sing about ninjas, geishas and robots. Whaddya think??

“I’m soakin’ in your onsen of love~”

Take that, ya old bag!
Last week, the Nara District Court sentenced noisy whackjob Miyoko Kawahara to one year in prison for “inflicting injury” on her neighbor via a three-year barrage of nearly non-stop aural assault. I’d love to see this case result in legislation against the widespread noise pollution that plagues nearly every inch of Japan, but sadly I know that would never happen. For now I’ll just have to stick with my personal grass-roots effort of flashing my bits to every offender I encounter.

Ah, DS Lite, my evasive friend
The Nintendo DS Lite is still next to impossible to get in Tokyo. I’ve heard reports of electronics stores out in the boondocks with shelves full of the little buggers, but here in the city the only place where they can reliably be found is on the Yahoo! Japan Auctions site, where they’re still going for over ¥20,000 apiece. With Nintendo’s latest game releases (including a J/E dictionary with the ability to look up kanji by inputting them with the stylus), I’ve actually been considering getting a DS Lite, but due to the fact that I’m an unrepentant tightwad, I absolutely refuse to pay anything above the list price. Oh well, it’s not like I have time these days to play it anyway.

The return of Cool (Biz)
With the arrival of spring, retailers throughout Japan have put Warm Biz to rest and now light blue Cool Biz displays can be found in department stores and clothing shops everywhere. My company finally got around to fixing the broken air conditioning in our office last October, so hopefully I’ll be able to make it through this summer without ending each day in a puddle of my own perspiration.

Well, that’s it for now. . . time to hit the hay. Be sure to tune in next time for even more pointless, incoherent drivel!

I love how pretty much everything in Japan comes with helpful illustrations. Everywhere you go, there are pictures of cutesy characters warning you about various dangers in your midst, everything from closing elevator doors to molesters on the prowl.

Recently, I came across this fire prevention billboard for the Takanawa Fire Station:

I have no idea who the orange alien fella on the right is, but the message is clear:

Battered shrimp + Flame = Fried Shrimp or OMG the house done caught fire!! ?

Cigarette + Flame = Smoking or OMG the house done caught fire!! ?

Great stuff.

Once again, tonight after coming home from work I plopped my fat ass down and watched some TV. I ended up catching the end of a 3-hour special episode of London Hearts, which used to be one of my favorite programs on Japanese TV (meaning that it was one of a few that I could actually stand). These days, the show usually features a regular lineup of woman talents ranking each other based on certain criteria (e.g., ‘Most likely to have sex on a first date’, ‘Least likely to do housework’, etc.) and harshly insulting each other in the process, but tonight’s special was different. Cohost Tamura Atsushi set about to help one of the show’s regulars, former-gravure- idol-turned-short-lived-80s-pop-star Aota Noriko (pictured), achieve her dream of reviving her singing career.

To accomplish this, Tamura went to famed music producer Komuro Tetsuya and received an unproduced single from his back catalogue. He then went to one of Komuro’s most successful acts, pop/ dance group TRF, for help with choreographing. After nearly a month of voice training, dance lessons and intense exercise, Aota — performing under the stage name of Bubble Aota — gave a live concert before 2,500-strong audience, including Japanese impersonators of Madonna, Michael Jackson and Robert De Niro (Teru from comedy duo Doyo).

Sounds pretty uninteresting, right? Well, consider the title of the song: ‘Jesus‘. No, it isn’t a religious hymn praising the Lord and Savior of Christianity or whatever; it’s actually bumping dance track about seduction and the bearded fellow from Nazareth, with a nutty chorus of “I wanna kiss Jesus’ power & soul.”

And no, this isn’t a joke. The single — with album cover featuring Aota’s driver’s license photo, no less — will be released next Wednesday, April 19th. Praise Jesus!

UPDATE: A video of Bubble Aota’s live performance of Jesus at Makuhari Messe can be viewed here [AVI, 40MB] and on YouTube here. Enjoy!

Last night when I got home from work, Judy was watching Zubari Iuwayo! (I’m Gonna Say It Straight!), a variety TV show featuring comedy duo Cream Stew (Ueda Shinya & Teppei Arita), pop singer Takizawa “Takky” Hideaki and author/fortune teller/evil wretched hag Hosoki Kazuko.

I don’t usually watch the show because it is literally impossible for me to sit through more than 10 seconds of “Hosoki-sensei”’s self-righteous claptrap before I am overcome by a violent urge to throttle her fat neck whilst simultaneously stabbing her in the face with some sort of pointy object. The program usually features celebrity guests who, after a brief introduction by the Cream Stew boys, are thrust before Hosoki to face her sanctimonious wrath, usually meandering rants involving an odd mix of piano- backed inspirational encouragement and fiery condemnations, most notably “You will go to hell!,” if guests dare question her advice.

However, on last night’s episode, the producers had invited into the studio 50 NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) youths — young adults who refuse to enter the workforce and instead live a life free from responsibility on their parents’ dime — to face off against the imperious crone herself in a confrontation that had explosive potential. Also in the studio were 50 shakai-jin (or ‘members of society’) — average job-holding, tax-paying folks — in order to discover the differences in mindsets between the two groups. Throughout the course of the show, questions were posed to both groups and the responses were tallied and discussed.

I jotted down a few of the questions and thought I would post them, as they are somewhat insightful into the state of Japanese society today. Here are few of them:

I actually laughed out loud when these results came on the screen. The shiftless layabouts who have been declared a bane of Japanese society are in fact much happier than the Average Taro, two-thirds of whom are apparently displeased with the state of their existence. Of course, Japanese people are indoctrinated from childhood to believe that life is suffering and that honor is derived from persevering through misery rather than trying to overcome it, so I suppose it’s not exactly a shocking revelation.

I was actually a bit surprised by this one. Maybe it’s because I come from a land of lazy, responsibility- shirking miscreants who aspire to become prosperous through as little effort as possible, but my first thought was “Who wouldn’t want to earn money through very little effort??” Although the majority of the shakai-sha sided with the NEETs on this one, it was interesting to note that almost a third of them actually preferred to make money through gruelling exertion and hard work. I suppose this is admirable in a way, but I can’t help but wonder whether baseless obligation to maintaining the image of “the hardworking Japanese” and clouded the honesty of those respondents.

As you can see, the responses here were nearly opposites from one another. While the working folks were primarily worried about job stress, the NEETs were mainly concerned about their poor diets (it’s a well-known fact that many of them subsist entirely on conbini bentos ). For me, the only interesting thing about this particular topic was that they introduced one of the NEET girls who secures most of her victuals by finding guys on the internet to take her out for free meals. Apparently there are websites out there for lonely men to meet impoverished women who willing to keep them company for the duration of a meal as long as they don’t have to pay for anything — on the condition, of course, that there will be no hanky-panky. I honestly don’t know what this world is coming to. . . (although I suppose it is a less deleterious form of prostitution).

Not surprisingly, both groups admitted to having experienced failure in their past. The shakai-jin once again related tales of disheartening hardship at work, while the first NEET girl they spoke to offered this pathetic account of her own experience of failure:

“I, like, tried to get a job at Don Quijote [a K-Mart-like discount store chain], but they told me that, like, I couldn’t work there with my dyed hair and facial piercings. . . I guess that’s kind of a failure, right?”

When the show neared its end, I was anticipating a typical Hosoki-style vehement harangue, but after only a few sharply-worded comments about how the NEETs are members of the human race and must have a spirit and a drive to do something with their lives, the soft piano music began playing and she embarked on an uplifting speech about how each and every one of them has positive qualities and talents and that they can make something of themselves — all they have to do is try.

Yes, I nearly vomited from watching that and was thoroughly disappointed by the lack of shouting and crying.

In the end, they did one last poll of the NEETs with the question “Will you go and look for a job tomorrow?” The results: 37 out of 50 said yes, revealing that they’re not necessarily inherently bad people, they’re just in need of guidance. It’s a shame, then, that not once was the topic of parents’ failure to instill any sense of values in their children addressed. Yep, in what some would argue is typical Japanese fashion, the problem was dealt with purely on the surface level, while the real, underlying issues — inadequate parenting, oppressive societal pressure, lack of support for social health issues, etc. — were conveniently ignored. Way to go!

Learning a new language can be an incredibly frustrating experience. You’re forced to suffer through tyrannical instructors, dispiritingly dull textbooks and an excessive focus on things like grammar and verb conjugation, while all you really want to do is go out and use your newly- acquired language skills to swear at people and pick up foreign chicks. If only there was a way to make learning a new language more interesting and, even more importantly, more entertaining.

Well, leave it to the Japanese to come up with the solution. Combining their renowned love of pornography with their reverence for education, some ingenious visionaries have created a way to make learning English fun by making it sexxxy. The result, a video entitled Mina-san no Daisuki na SEX wo Tsuujite Eigo wo Benkyo — roughly Studying English through SEX — not only teaches practical vocabulary that everyone can use, but also provides unintentionally hilarious skits to demonstrate the lesson material.

So what are you waiting for? Take a gander at the most effective English learning tool ever created, starting with Lesson 1: Sexy Words. Let’s Sexy English!!!

[AVI, 15.8MB]
This video can also be found on YouTube here.

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Note: While the video doesn’t contain any nudity, it probably wouldn’t be considered work-safe. Also, although the beginning is a little slow, be sure not to be miss the ending!

Tokyo is home to many highly exclusive restaurants. The kinds of places that put in place certain measures to keep the riff-raff out: exorbitant “seating charges,” guest lists, entrance through invitation only, that sort of thing

This place is apparently so exclusive that it’s only open for a single hour each day.

I wonder how they manage to stay in business.

I was walking in Ginza a few weeks ago, when I stumbled upon a curious sight:

Tables were set up along the sidewalk and a group was offering free stress tests to anyone who was interested. Perhaps unsurprisingly, interest was indeed high; a crowd had gathered around the tables and people were patiently awaiting their turn.

I suspected that something fishy was going on; there had to be an ulterior motive. And sure enough, there was:

It all became clear: The folks giving the tests were Scientologists and those stress testing machines were actually E-meters, the useless device favored by whackjobs for evaluating their level of whackjobbery.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. These days people don’t seem to shut up about how stressed out they are (yes, I realize the irony of me saying such a thing), and Japanese folks are particularly notorious for this. You can literally see them beaming with pride when they make categorical and oft-repeated statements such as “We Japanese are hardworkers,” “We Japanese are always busy,” “We Japanese have a strong, fighting warrior spirit, unlike you fat, lazy American scum who just love to sit around on your fat asses, being fat. Fatso!!”

In addition, Japanese people are generally quite trusting and tend to be a bit less cyincal and a bit more gullible than their Western counterparts. Combine these two factors and you’ve got a population ripe for the picking by con men and scam artists (religious or otherwise) looking to take advantage of the unsuspecting and make a quick buck.

Well, after getting several nasty looks by the Scientologists for taking photos of their racket selfless service to public, I continued on my way. I suppose an upside to being a cynical and apathetic bastard is that it’s relatively easy to avoid getting caught up in silly things like cults, schemes, politicking or even human relationships, for that matter. Yes, being lukewarm about nearly everything certainly has its advantages.

I’ve been working a lot of overtime recently, often being the last person to leave the office at night. As a result, I’ve been pretty brain-dead for the past two weeks or so, walking around in a daze and hardly taking any notice of my surroundings.

So you can imagine the little jolt I received this morning when I came into work and saw this hanging on the wall:

Yep, it’s the flag of the present-day Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, although it’s perhaps more widely recognized as the flag of the former Imperial Japanese Military and a symbol of Japanese nationalism. So what was it doing hanging up in my office? Well, it seems that today is the anniversary of the establishment of the Japanese Imperial Navy, and my slightly eccentric bucho (who, incidentally, is now my de facto boss) is apparently somewhat of an ardent nationalist and felt the need to celebrate.

I suppose the equivalent in America would be someone decorating his/her office with a Confederate flag, but I doubt that would fly in most workplaces today. Although nearly every visitor to our office gave a startled reaction when walking through the door, most of my coworkers just giggled uncomfortably and played it off as just another one of the bucho’s wacky antics (last autumn he adorned the intercom with several persimmons tied together with twine).

Perhaps the funniest moment of today came when one of the managers from the General Affairs Department upstairs, whom I had never heard speak a word of English, came down to our floor to make some copies, saw the flag, chuckled and then said to me in heavily-accented English, “Remember Pearl Harbor.”

Last Friday night, Judy went out with her friend Sachiko to watch the latest Kwon Sang Woo flick, while I, after being the last person to leave the office, went home and plopped myself down in front of the TV to watch the least dreadful of whatever rubbish could be found on Japanese network television (yes, the exciting life I lead astounds me too at times).

Anyhow, around 10:00pm, Judy called and said that she and Sachiko were heading to an okonomiyaki restaurant in Ebisu and asked if I wanted to meet up with them. So I finished up my beer, dusted the chip crumbs off my shirt, put on some pants and headed out. Thirty minutes later, I arrived at the restaurant and greeted Judy and Sachiko (whom I hadn’t seen since the wedding) and met Sachiko’s boyfriend Makoto for the first time.

We consumed loads of monjayaki, okonomiyaki and probably a bit too much alcohol, and in short, had a gay old time. At one point, Makoto revealed to us that, in addition to being able to draw a mean sketch of a car on a napkin while drunk, he also has a far more amusing talent. Announcing that he was going to do an impression of the “Japanese royal family,” as he put it, he turned his back on us, removed his glasses, messed with his hair a bit, and then turned back around to show us this:

Judy and I promptly pissed ourselves laughing, eventually leading Makoto to tell us that we were laughing too much and to stop it.

So what do you think?

Nintendo released the new DS Lite in Japan yesterday. Although they had originally planned to simultaneously release three different color variations, the company, citing “manufacturing problems,” later announced that only the Crystal White version would be available on March 2nd, and the Ice Blue and Enamel Navy versions would not be released until March 11th.

Upon the start of the business day Thursday, reports of stores selling out their entire stock of DS Lites began coming in almost immediately. People who had spent the early morning queuing outside of electronic stores were disappointedly turned away within minutes of the stores’ openings. Information later surfaced that Nintendo had only shipped out a limited number of units, and there were (anecdotal) stories that even the larger chain retailers had only received around 20-30 units each.

I stopped by Bic Camera in Shibuya during my lunch break yesterday to check out the scene and was surprised to see quite a number of people arriving with the intent of getting their hands on a sleek new DS, only to leave dejected and empty-handed. Fortunately, I was able to inspect the new model and play the demo display (which, for some odd reason, most people seemed not to notice). Here were my initial thoughts:

• It’s smaaaall — Nothing like the GameBoy Micro, of course, but a nice compact size wider but thinner than the Gameboy Advance. Perfect for an on-the-go hand-held gaming system.
• It’s sexxxy — Not only is it small, but it’s incredibly stylish as well. Sleek and simple.
• It’s bliiinding — The screen is almost shockingly bright. No need to squint while looking at this baby.
• It’s fuuun — Well, for someone who has never played an original DS, the dual screens and touch pad are exciting novelties with potential for new and varied game play.

Of course, there were also a few points about the DS Lite that I coundn’t help but find disappointing.

• It’s expeeensive — Well, not that expensive, but I’m a cheap bastard. With all stores sold out, units are going for upwards of ¥35,000 (US$300) on auction sites (I even saw a few go for ¥45,000 (!) last night), so it looks like I won’t be getting one any time soon.
• It, um. . . appears easily dirtieeed — I’m really anal when it comes to electronics and keeping them looking neat. The plastic on parts of the DS Lite (namely the L & R buttons and the hinge area) seem to be made of an easily-tarnished softer plastic material. The model units in the store, which had only been on the shelf for a few hours, were already quite grimy in the aforementioned areas after being molested by all the grubby hands of people like me.
• It might be a little bit toooo small — Although it fit my hands just fine, I would imagine that someone with larger mitts might find the buttons a tad small and too close together.
• It’s sold ouuut — This doesn’t have anything to do with product itself, but it’s disappointing that Nintendo has botched things up this badly. Although I’m not one to buy a product on the first day/week/month of its release, the timing and reliability of future shipments remains uncertain, which makes me concerned about whether I might actually be able to pick one of these things up in the next couple of months if I did actually decide to get one.

Okay, I admit that the above is a pretty half-assed list, but this is coming from a complete non-gamer who still hasn’t even beat the original Super Mario Bros. and likely never will. Although I might consider getting the DS Lite at some point (heck, even my wife has been showing interest in that darn DS Training game), as always, I’ll probably wait to hear reviews from the early adopters, cuz, well, that’s just how I roll. If I do decide to blow my hard-earned moolah on this particular bauble, with any luck I’ll hopefully be able to just stroll into any electronics store in a couple of months and pluck one off the shelf.

Unless, of course, Nintendo continues to screw things up. . . .

So here I was, innocently believing that nothing stranger had happened in Hawaii than my being recognized in the Honolulu Airport. . .

Then I saw this comment left by someone calling himself “hawaii guy” with a link to this photo.

*Cue me soiling myself in shock*

Seeing that photo literally left Judy and I speechless. . . I mean, what kind of world are we living in where some pencil-necked schmuck with absolutely zero claim to fame is somehow recognized by a complete stranger thousands of miles away from home, for the mere reason that he spends too much time sitting behind a computer? It’s madness.

The photo itself reminded me of that feature in Us Magazine that shows photographs of various celebrities going about their daily business along with silly captions pointing out how, despite all of their fame and riches, deep down, movie stars really are “just like us” (e.g., “They take out the trash!”, “They get speeding tickets!”, “They throw extravagant drug-fueled orgies at million-dollar mansions with women more beautiful than you could even imagine!”, and so on). Yet somehow, I just can’t see that voyeuristic fascination extending to the world of blogging.

Click to see larger size

Obviously, there will never come a time when bloggers will hold any near a prominent position in the eyes of the world. Despite however much some of the people out there pounding on their keyboards may wish it so, the reality is that the general public wants absolutely nothing to do with us (heck, even I don’t want anything to do with us most of the time). That said, it is rather amusing when the little internet world spills over into real life.

Seeing as it’s already been over a month and a half since Judy and I returned from Hawaii (and in light of the outright demands kind requests I’ve received of late), I figure that it’s about time I actually mentioned something about the trip here on this site. The truth is that I’m still exceptionally busy these days with work, looking for a job, filling out immigration paperwork and so on, so I haven’t had the time to post anything other than mindless fluff in a desperate bid to keep people coming back to this site in order to provide some sort of pathetic validation to my otherwise fragile ego.

Okay, frivolous run-on sentence out of the way, let’s carry on.

Our trip to Hawaii began with a six-hour overnight flight plagued not only by an exceptionally dire selection on in-flight entertainment, but also EXTREME TURBULENCE FOR NEARLY THE ENTIRE DURATION OF THE FLIGHT. The meal service was stopped, flight attendants were running down the aisles, and the plane shuddered and swayed much like I do on the toilet after an evening overindulging in the dangerous combination of alcohol and sashimi (huh?).

After managing to survive our version of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (minus the hairy creature on the wing, which surely would have been flung off during this flight), we finally made it to solid ground at the Honolulu airport. Whilst retrieving our baggage in a sleep deprivation-induced haze, I was startled by the sudden sound of a voice behind me that said, “I like your blog.” I turned to identify the source of this strange statement and came face to face with a pretty woman with short hair who appeared to be facing my direction. Now, despite my natural eloquence (ha) and charm (double ha), I only managed to confusedly stammer out a feeble, “Who me?” before the woman disappeared into the crowd.* Needless to say, I was quite surprised to discover that an actual human being reads this website, let alone one of the female variety. Who knew?

“Stewardess, it’s that guy from conbinibento.com!”

Anyhow, despite our (literally) shaky start, the remainder of the trip turned out to be a complete blast. We visited the islands of Kauai, Oahu and Maui (in that order), each of which provided its own unique sights and experiences. Furthermore, the gods were certainly smiling down upon us, as we fortunate to enjoy nothing but sunshine and warm weather for the entire duration of our time on the islands. It was almost enough for me to put aside my inherent aversion to clichés and be tempted to use the word “paradise” to describe them (although I have thus far refrained from doing so).

Well, I think I’m going to stick in a “To be continued” right here with a promise for an update along with some photos in the very near future (cue someone asking where the rest of the Korea photos are…). Stay tuned!

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*The woman in question has since identified herself and is well on her way to recovering from the close-range exposure to the overwhelming stench of my body odor.

The weather was pretty nice this weekend (considering it’s the middle of February) and so Saturday afternoon Judy and I decided to slide out from under the kotatsu and actually venture outside to take a walk around the neighborhood. Our neighborhood is pretty unexciting for the most part, but every once in a while we encounter something interesting, either as a source of wonder, a chuckle or what have you. Yesterday, it was this:

I love it when Japanese governmental organizations go through the trouble of creating English signs, pamphlets or other materials, conceivably for the benefit of foreign residents living here, without bothering to even double-check whether they make any sense. In this case “No Unauthorized Dumping” becomes “Don’t Waste Garbage.” Classic. They even put up a second sign with a phone number for inquiries, which I can only imagine people call up in order to ask about the meaning of the sign.

I’ve been so busy lately, it’s ridiculous. I hate it when actual things that need to get done get in the way of my inherent lazyfatbastardness. I haven’t forgotten about this site, but it’s been hard to find the time to write up anything worth posting. I’m still planning to put up photos from Hawaii, too, but in the meantime, here’s a photo of idon’tknowwhatthehell for no reason what so ever:

On Saturday, Judy and I took a trip up to Omiya in Saitama to have dinner with some friends. We arrived early with a couple of hours to spare, so we decided, despite the freezing wind, to take a little stroll around and revisit some of our old haunts. Naturally, the place we headed first was our old apartment.

I’ve written previously about the many tribulations we experienced while living there, but it was still nice seeing the place again. The shitty “brick pattern” plastic siding concealing the original rotting-wood-and-damp-paper structure beneath, the mailbox where I received approximately five pieces of mail over the course of an entire year, the window through which a burglar came in and robbed me of all of my valuables, and so on. Oh, and my old bicycle, which has since become an extremely dusty trash bin.

Yes, that’s right: I abandoned my bicycle when we moved to Tokyo two years ago. I am a very bad person.

But please allow me to explain. There are basically three ways to get rid of an old bicycle in Japan: 1) arrange for it to be taken away and properly disposed of for a fee, 2) leave it outside of a train station or other busy area to either be stolen or taken away by the city, or 3) abandon it in a nondescript location to either be stolen or eventually become part of the landscape of urban decay. I hadn’t intended to do the latter; in fact, I had originally planned to take it with us when we moved, but there ended up not being enough room for it in the mover’s small truck, and so the two guys from my company who lived nearby and were helping us move (one of whom had actually given me the bicycle, third-hand), told me to just leave it behind. And so, with a lack of time and more favorable immediate options, I did.

And to this day, there it sits; a gradually deteriorating eyesore, its former road-weaving glory long forgotten as it gathers layer upon layer of dust while now acting as nothing more than a convenient receptacle for passers-by to deposit their garbage.

I wonder how long it’ll be before someone decides to have it hauled away. . . .

Saw this last night in the drug store down the street from my apartment:

It might be a little difficult to discern, but here’s the deal: On the top shelf, individual refill packages of Dove body wash are priced at ¥298 each; on the bottom shelf, special two-package sets are available at a price of ¥598 each — ¥2 more than the cost of purchasing two individual packages(!).

Apparently, in Japan, there are instances where buying in bulk is actually more expensive than buying items individually.

Shop in Japan and watch your savings grow!

In Japan, the knowledge of how to perform a bow in the proper form is absolutely essential for the inevitable and no doubt countless occasions in which Japanese people will be upset with you for a perceived slight ensuing from something you had previously thought to be completely innocuous, such as putting your hands in your pockets or asking what time it is without sufficiently polite inflection.

For that reason, the masters of cultural omniscience who brought us The Japanese Tradition: Sushi also created an insightful instructional video about dogeza, the act of bowing in supplication to ask forgiveness for wrongdoing (likewise handy for facilitating the release of gas from the bowels). Click below to view The Japanese Tradition: Dogeza.

[WMV, 4.92MB]

This piece isn’t to the same level of brilliance of the sushi one, but it’s funny enough. In lieu of subtitles, the video has an additional English audio track, however it’s not of very good quality and it fades in an out and at one point disappears completely. Regardless, I’d say it’s worth a watch for a chuckle and for the opportunity to obtain valuable insight that anyone with relations with Japan will undoubtedly have a need to utilize someday when forced to beg for forgiveness for blowing his or her nose one decibel too loudly.

I had an amusing experience this morning that enlightened me as to a rather humorous way to wreak a little havoc in a train station during rush hour. As I entered the station, I noticed some commotion as I approached the escalator leading up to the platform. As I came nearer, a woman coming down the adjacent stairway brushed past me and I felt something tug at my jacket. I turned and looked at the woman, who, in turn, turned around to look at me with a mix of confusion and anger, and it became clear that we were both somehow entwined with some sort of thread (which I had immediately assumed had come from her coat). She tried to pull away with even stronger force, at which point I realized that I wasn’t actually bound to her, but rather she was bound to something else further away and I had merely walked in between.

Stepping over the thread, I made my way up the escalator, passing at least a dozen other people franticly trying to untangle themselves at the base of it and another half a dozen doing the same at the top. And there, rolling about on the top step of the escalator, was the culprit: a spool of plain blue sewing thread. This innocent little item had, likely by accident, forced a large number of people who otherwise pass by one another every day without so much as acknowledging each other’s existence to suddenly find themselves entangled together, all fighting to break free in a frenzied moment of panic and confusion. The looks on their faces were priceless (as likely was the one on mine).

So there you have it: one spool of high quality thread + loads of people moving about quickly in a confined space = a nice recipe for introducing some subtle chaos to the daily commute. Of course, I certainly don’t advocate anyone carrying out this prank themselves (especially not in the U.S. — you’d probably be charged with terrorism, if caught), but it was a humorous diversion from the dull morning routine, nonetheless.

One night last week I took a different route from my office back to Shibuya station in order to pick a couple of things up from Bic Camera. (And yes, to anyone who might be curious: they’re completely sold out of Nintendo DS’s.)

As I crossed the street and approached the station to head home, I heard the sound of some very funky grooves in the vicinity and followed my tone-deaf ears to an area off to the side of the station building. There I came upon a trio composed of the following members: a drummer, a bassist and — rather surprisingly — a tap dancer. The bassist was playing a succession of different grooves, to which the drummer was providing a funky beat, to which the tap dancer was providing tap the accompaniment — all combining to create one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed.

Now, I normally wouldn’t associate tap dancing with “coolness” or anything even remotely funky, but the tap dancer tapping away that night was nothing less than amazing. Watching the trio perform made me wish longingly that I had been born with any discernible sense of rhythm, instead of the whatever-the-hell awkward whiteboy anti-rhythm that I’ve been cursed with, leaving me completely incapable of any sort of musical output or the ability to get down in a non-spastic manner.

After standing around watching for about ten minutes or so, I took out my camera and took a bit of video of the performance. Unfortunately, my memory card was nearly full with photos from Hawaii, so I only got about 20 seconds of it. Even more disappointing, the tap dancer was by that point clearly extremely exhausted (in fact, he stopped dancing and doubled over to catch his breath about five seconds after I stopped filming), so what I did manage to film barely manages to capture the awesomeness of his talent.

Anyhow, anyone interested in seeing the short video clip can find it here. [AVI, 5.34MB]

Well, Judy and I are back from Hawaii. The wedding and the honeymoon were more incredible than could ever have been imagined and the time absolutely flew by. It was so great being able to see our families and friends again; I only wish that we could have had more time to spend with everyone and catch up.

I’m planning to write a bit about the wedding and the trip as a whole, plus I have a ton of photos to post, but right now I think my mind is still processing all that took place. That, and I’ve been incredibly busy since we got back — not as busy as before we left, but pretty darn close.

My apologies for the three-week absence without so much as a “Hi, I’m in Hawaii and it’s warm and sunny so neener-neener-neener!!” I had originally planned to set up daily random photo posts as I have when I’ve been away in the past, but I didn’t even have the time to do that. I’ve got a few ideas for new posts in mind that I’ll put up as time permits, but for now, here’s a small sneak peak of some of the photos to come:

Gosh, how cheesy can you get, right?

J-Pop superstar Otsuka Ai released a new album earlier this week. Continuing the theme of her previous releases, Love Punch and Love Jam, the new album is said to be her most personal to date, providing fans with a definitive message of what the singer is truly all about.

Apparently it’s been generating a lot of buzz.

Wow, just when I thought Japan’s kawaii culture couldn’t get any weirder, Jon from Overoften discovered this:

Meet Colon-chan! As friendly playmate to Stomach-kun, the companions enjoy all sorts of wild gastrointestinal adventures together. Her favorite food is bran muffins, she enjoys long sits on the loo and on special occasions she likes to treat herself to a yummy chocolate enema!

We hope you to appreciate the tender friendship harmony of these chums for life!

With the wedding now just over a fortnight away, Judy and I have been scrambling to get everything ready in time. All of the main arrangements have been made, but there are still about a million loose ends to tie up before we hop on the plane in two weeks’ time.

With a “to do” list about 10 pages long, I haven’t had much time to even think about this site, much to my great regret. I’m hoping to put up a few more posts before we leave, but realistically, I’m not sure how that’s going to pan out. Anyway, I’ll do my best.

For today, I thought I’d put up another Smoking Manners sign that I discovered on the platform of Gotanda station a couple of weeks ago. It’s not as poetic or esoteric as the others, but this is one ad to which I wish more Japanese people would take notice.

Personally, I don’t understand the appeal of smoking whilst urinating and/or defecating, but it seems to be quite a common practice around these parts. Telltale cigarette burns can be found on the toilets/walls/floors of just about every public restroom, and many even have ashtrays or similar receptacles available for those wishing to have a puff while pinching one out.

The unpleasant result, of course, is that bathrooms commonly reek of stale cigarette smoke to the extent that one’s eyes burn and it becomes difficult to breathe. That said, however, I suppose one has to consider whether the cigarette smell might actually be somewhat more favorable to what would likely be there otherwise: the overwhelming stench of poo from all of the unsightly splatter surrounding the average squat toilet. But then again, perhaps if people focused more on doing their business instead of trying to get in a few more hits of nicotine, they might be able to get all of their “output” into the proper destination in the first place.

So there we were, Judy and I, last Friday night on our way home after having dinner with my second cousin and her husband from England who were in Tokyo for a single day on their way back from a trip to Australia. Transferring from the Hibiya line at Ebisu station, we walked up the escalator to the crowded Yamanote line platform, where who should we happen to see, but…

(more…)

How about some more shoddy pics from Nikko?

These’ll be the last, I promise.

Judy and I had a very “Japanese” weekend this past weekend. On Saturday, we took the 2.5- hour train ride up to Nikko to see some of the sights and take a bunch of crappy photos of the autumn foliage. Despite the fact that it was rather bone-chillingly cold to the extent that we had to plaster our bodies with heating pads in order to avoid losing limbs to frostbite, we had a pretty nice time up there.

On Sunday, we went to an enka performance in Shinjuku starring enka god Hosokawa Takashi. The first half consisted of a play of some sort, but I’ll be honest: I gave up trying to follow the archaic Japanese after about five minutes and spent the rest of the time fighting to stay awake. The second half was a solo concert by Hosokawa, which, to my complete surprise, I actually found kind of entertaining. That guy can do some wild stuff with his voice, let me tell you!

Judy was given the tickets for free and the person from whom she received them even arranged for us to meet Hosokawa after the show, which actually turned out to be far less awkward than I had expected. We had a brief introduction, posed for a photo and then he wished up happiness in our upcoming marriage and we said goodbye.

It’s been a while since I’ve put any new photos up, so I thought I’d post some of the aforementioned crappy photos from Nikko, even though they’re really nothing special. One of these days I’ve really got to take a photography class or something. Or just give up trying. Anyhow. . . .

Well, The Japanese Tradition: Sushi and Hard Gay videos are all back online. Generous thanks are due to one and only Daniel Drucker for kindly informing me of the existence of Coral Cache, which has allowed me to put the videos back online and (hopefully) not have to pay any more than the $16.61 in extra bandwidth fees that I’ve already been charged.

Oh, and just in case anyone thought I was joking about the inordinate number of visitors recently finding their way to this site via web searches for “gay,” here are the Search Query graphs from my web host’s stats from the past three days:

November 14

November 15

November 16

Interesting, to say the least.

I’ve actually come to find quite a bit of enjoyment in discovering what sorts of search keywords lead people to this site. While I don’t check the logs as often as when I first began polluting the internet with textual excrement, doing so always offers me a fascinating and highly amusing look into the depravity and licentiousness that define the human race, and honestly makes me feel pretty good about myself due to the fact at least I’m not as whacko as some of you are.

I’ve previously posted some common search words that frequently bring visitors to this site, but in light of the recent gay video searches, I thought I’d go through the list that I’ve been keeping for the past year or so of the most disturbing and revolting queries this site has received and post a few of the gems. Behold:

· nude meteorologists

– I don’t know why, but something about the combination of those two words totally cracks me up.

· where to find girls who like to give men blow jobs

– Along with the origin of the universe and the meaning of life, this must surely rank as one of most pondered questions in mankind’s external existential quest for truth.

· why do men find breast fondling interesting?

– Yet another question of the ages.

· i want someone to fondle my breasts in vancouver

– Don’t we all?

· effects of excessive breast fondling

– Hmm, I’m sensing a theme here.

· nude pictures of girls with camel toes

– Wait a minute, if they’re nude, how can they have camel toes?!

· old jap nipples

– I honestly don’t know if I can think of anything more disgusting than this.

· pictures of old fat women in bikinis

– Oh wait, yes I can.

· drawings of nintendo girls in panties

– Ooo, Princess Peach, sexxxy.

· morning musume using the bathroom hentai pictures

– I don’t know about you, but I certainly can’t think of anything hotter than cartoon drawings of young girls emptying the contents of their bowels. (NSFW!)

· forced salad tossing

– Toss my salad, bitch!

· what is reaming the anal area of women?

– A good time.

· photo sex women between 10-12 years

– This one came from Saudi Arabia, no less.

· photos of naughty celebrities wearing schoolgirl outfits

– Gee, cliché much?

· sexual fantasies about matronly middle aged women

– Paging Dr. Freud…

· scaring the shit out of your wife at 2:00 am

– Now this guy sounds like a fun person to live with!

· how to become a slave in japan

– Get a job at a Japanese company. (*rimshot*)

Man, there is nothing quite like entertainment at the expense of those who are even more fucked up in the head than you are.

Update: The Hard Gay videos are all back online.

Update: The sushi video is back online.

Well, it finally happened. A combination of that sushi video I posted in July suddenly being direct- linked on dozens of blogs and forums and an inexplicably enormous number of people recently finding their way to the Hard Gay post from September via Yahoo!/Altavista video searches for “gay” has nearly sucked my month’s allocation of bandwidth dry.

Now, seeing as I’m not exactly thrilled about the idea of paying for additional bandwidth, I’ve decided to temporarily take the videos offline. I apologize for the inconvenience, but with the wedding (and due date for payment thereof) now nearly a month away, I’ve been trying to limit extraneous expenses. The new billing cycle begins on the 25th, so I’ll put the videos back up on that day and hopefully by then everyone will have decided that I’m a total prick for taking them down and will have subsequently vowed never to return to this site, thus solving the bandwidth issue.

To anyone who hasn’t seen the videos yet, I’m sorry; I promise I’ll put them back up on the 25th. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated.

As are very large monetary donations.

Just kidding.

As for the folks relying on Yahoo! to find videos of “gay,” I really feel that I must inform you that there have got to be at least a gazillion better places on the internet to find gay porn. Of course, being the glorious specimen of heterosexuality that I am, I don’t have a clue as to where, however I might recommend refraining from furiously masturbating over short grainy clips of dudes reaming each other in the ass for a few minutes to educate yourself about BitTorrent technology and, for crissakes, Google.com. You’re very welcome.

Japan’s cultural obsession with cute characters is known the whole world over. From popular icons like Hello Kitty and Gloomy Bear to lesser-known but equally ubiquitous corporate mascots, the general attitude seems to be: if you want people to look at something, stick a cutesy face on it.

During my recent visit to the hospital for some x-rays, I happened to spot of an example of this that really pushed the limits in terms of the kawaii-ification of something otherwise exceptionally mundane. Meet Stomach-kun:

Okay, I made the name up, but this is a real character found on an instructional poster for a barium x-ray exam (for those lucky bastards allowed to drink the stuff instead of having it forced up their nose). Now, I’ve seen lovable, doe-eyed characters in product instruction manuals, rubbish disposal guidelines and even insurance forms, but this is the first time I’ve witnessed this phenomenon extended to something so patently un-cute. But heck, who says internal organs don’t deserve to be adequately represented in kawaii culture? Now that I know how cute my digestive system can be, I feel much more inclined to take better care of it. I don’t want poor Stomach-kun to suffer!

This past Saturday, Judy and I headed out to Chiba to check out the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show. I suppose it was just as was to be expected: insane crowds, girls in skimpy outfits, creepy men with fancy cameras taking photos of nothing but the aforementioned girls in skimpy outfits, insane crowds, and did I mention the insane crowds?

Oh, and I think there may have been some cars there or something, too.

Truth be told, it was a bit disappointing. The first time I went in 2001, I had been in Japan for two months and it was a really exciting event for me (just as pretty much everything else was at the time, including mundane things like going to the supermarket and discovering a porn vending machine). Now that I’m no longer that wet-behind-the-ears young lad with eyes filled with wonder and have since withered into the miserable, embittered bastard who posts on this site, enduring the typical tourism-in-Japan routine of pushing my way through a throng of thousands of Japanese people in order to get a quick look at something that isn’t all that great in first place has kind of lost its excitement.

I suppose that the most amusing moments of the Motor Show were had witnessing particularly brazen examples of creepy men reeking of desperation unabashedly snapping dozens upon dozens of photos whilst the subject of their attention, some vinyl-clad race queen, stood in awkward pose with an incredibly forced smile concealing her seething contempt for the pathetic, ill-smelling lechers crowding just inches around her. I swear, degenerates can get away with so much in this country.

I’m not going to bother posting any photos from the Motor Show since everything I took was crap (crappier than usual, that is). For anyone interested, photos of the cars can be found here and photos of the girls can be found here. Enjoy!

I find myself perpetually amused by the level of cluelessness demonstrated by middle-aged men in Japan. Clueless geezers can be found in every country, of course, but societal factors in Japan seem to leave the average middle-aged guy in a position in which the majority of his needs are met by those below him in the hierarchy (his wife, children, underlings at work, etc.), with little need to expend any effort on his part, resulting in an awfully high concentration of grown men completely incapable of completing the most basic of tasks. This phenomenon isn’t something that only punk-on-a-lark foreigners such as myself gripe about, either; in fact, characterizations of stereotypical oyaji featuring the requisite cheap suit, thick glass and bad comb-over, have a long tradition in Japanese comedy routines and on television.

I bring this up today as reference to an amusing incident that took place in my office this afternoon. The bucho (department manager) got up from his desk and walked over to the corner of the office where the coffee maker and electric kettle sit and lamented out loud the fact that there was no tea and that he didn’t know how to prepare any. Immediately, the youngest guy in the office jumped up from his seat and offered to put more water in the kettle, to which the bucho responded with the a mere grunt and went back to his desk.

About 30 minutes later, the bucho once again got up and went over to the corner, at which point paused and said, “Oh, I see you didn’t make me any.” The young guy raced over to the corner and apologized for the fact that although he had put water into the kettle to boil, he had failed to thereafter prepare a cup of tea for the bucho. The bucho, however, responded, “I don’t want tea, I want coffee,” prompting chuckles from other people in the office who had heard him not half an hour earlier explicitly ask for tea. Now, this young guy can be a bit cheeky and has a good rapport with the bucho, so he quickly pointed out that the he had indeed asked for tea.

The bucho, never one to admit a mistake, came back with this gem of an oyaji-ism: “When have you ever seen me drink tea, you idiot?! I want coffee!”

The confusion cleared, the young guy then went about preparing a fresh pot of coffee while the bucho went out to the balcony for a cigarette.

- - - - - - -

And with that, I have wasted three minutes of your time. Thank you for playing, please come again.

Imaginary Friend: Happy Halloween, Jeff!
Me: Thank you, my imaginary friend. Happy Halloween to you, too.
I.F.: So, did you do anything fun to celebrate?
Me: Well, only if you consider having a tube shoved up your nose and worked down your esophagus, through your stomach and into your small intestine to be “fun.”
I.F.: Yikes, that sounds rather unpleasant.
Me: Indeed it was.
I.F.: Have you ever had tubes inserted into any other orifices?
Me: Why yes, I have.
I.F.: Really, where?
Me: Well, let me just say that it would take less time if I were list the orifices in which tubes haven’t been inserted.
I.F.: Oh. . . ew.
Me: No kidding.

Happy Halloween!

I have a goddamn confession to make.

Well, actually, I’ve already made it.

Son of a. . . .

Last night while sitting at home folding the laundry (yes, I lead an incredibly exciting life) I caught part of a program on TV featuring various talento competing to come up with the best excuses for getting out of sticky situations. The talents, grouped in teams of three, faced off against the quick wits of the host, punch-happy comedian Shimada Shinsuke, and all submitted answers were ranked in terms of believability by some sort of university professor “expert” with a bad haircut.

Now, seeing as uwaki (cheating) seems to be quite a popular activity in Japan, many of the situations dealt with husbands being questioned by their wives about some sort of suspicious behavior or discovery. Perhaps one of the best suggested responses came from Shimada himself concerning a situation involving a man who had been seeing another woman every Wednesday after work suddenly being asked by his wife why he had recently been coming home late on Wednesdays.

So, what’s the best thing to say to your wife to explain your unusual schedule as of late? Give her a wink and say, “Honey, you’ll find out on your birthday.”

Eeeevil.

Of course, after using that line you’ll have to go through the trouble of actually planning something special for her birthday, but at least you’ve warded off the discovery of your affair for the time being.

“The lipstick?… Uh, you’ll find out on your birthday?”

I was watching a bit of the London Hearts special on TV Asahi last night when I happened to catch a commercial advertising a new line-up of Chinese-style dishes at Mister Donut featuring none other than Lazer Ramon, aka Hard Gay.

Sadly, Hard Gay doesn’t actually appear in the commercial, nor, to my even greater disappointment, is there any thrusting of pelvises in the 15-second spot. The commercial merely features Hard Gay’s notorious “WOOO!!!” accompanying visuals of family members being literally “blown away” by the new menu.

It’s even lamer than it sounds.

However, anyone bored enough to actually want to watch it can simply click below.

[WMV, 595KB]

After an incredibly exhausting week at work, it’s always great when you walk out of the office on Friday evening and know that that you have the entire weekend ahead of you to relax, hang out with friends, pursue hobbies and burn effigies of ex-girlfriends who left you because they couldn’t handle your overwhelming manliness (*cough*). Anyway, despite my high hopes for this past weekend — especially since it was the one three-day weekend that my company affords us scummy, miserable employees — I ended up being nearly as busy as I was at work in the five days preceding. Judy and I had an entire list of things to accomplish both in and outside of the house, and in the end we were left with very little time to kick back and be the lazy bastards that we are wont to be (okay, that I alone am wont to be).

Well, in betwixt the numerous chores and errands, Judy and I found the time to cash in on the many points that we have accumulated over the past four years with our respective mobile phone carriers (DoCoMo for me, Vodafone for her) and get new cell phones. Completely ridiculous, I agree, but with the points and other various discounts, I ended up paying next to nothing for my new phone, and Judy literally did pay nothing for hers. Pretty sweet deal, although completely and utterly frivolous.

For the sake of absolutley nothing in particular, I took a [very half-assed] photo (edited to remove wear) of the three phones that I have used during my time in Japan, below. The one on the right is the newest — ain’t it purty??

I’ve been working a lot of overtime recently. I was the last person to leave the office every day last week, and if today was any indication, I may be the last one every day this week as well. In the days leading up to a big business trip to North America by the top management, there’s always a ton of correspondence, presentations and all sorts of other documents that need to be translated into English, which means that I, presently the sole native English speaker at my company, have to translate and/or proofread all of it. At least they’re leaving at the end of this week, so hopefully I’ll be able to take it easy for a bit after that.

About a year ago, I wrote a post on this site about a manager at my company who came back to Japan after a year in the U.S. shamefully addicted to Coca Cola. Well, as it turns out, he was eventually able to miraculously overcome his addiction, but not before spreading it to several other people in the office. How the heck does one “spread” an addiction? Well, seeing as he’s a pretty high-ranking manager and therefore gets whatever he wants, he requested that our office start stocking cans of Coke for the employees to drink. Sure enough, two days later, the first in what would become a steady stream of deliveries arrived.

Since that fateful day, I have watched several of my coworkers succumb to this ravenous addition. They can be frequently seen furtively leaving their desks at intervals to head to the kitchen area for a fix of 160ml of fizzy, sugary goodness, often going through 4 or 5 cans a day each. I wish there was something I could do to help them, but to confront them directly would be madness! I am but one man. . . .

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:

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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!).

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. . . .

South Korean actor Bae Yong Joon arrived in Tokyo yesterday, setting hearts aflutter and loins aflame amongst Japan’s middle-aged female population. Over six hundred people — mainly women well beyond child-rearing age — were present at Narita airport to catch a glimpse of the star, known affectionately as “Yon-sama” among Japanese fans, who is in town to promote his latest film April Snow.

Upon entering the airport arrival area, Bae, dressed in a spiffy and not-at-all-homosexual pink shirt, was confronted with the sight of hundreds of wrinkled, saggy-bodied women, most old enough to be his mother, screaming and jumping up and down like giddy teenagers.

Afterwards, airport employees no doubt spent several hours mopping up the vast lagoon of groin gravy left behind by the graying, sex-starved crowd.

Click the image below to see a news clip of Yon-sama’s absolutely thrilling arrival at Narita [WMV, 3.76MB]. It’s just like Beatlemania, except there’s only one guy with a moppy haircut and the women are all twice as old!

Judy and I are still finishing up the wedding invitations, so unfortunately I don’t have time at the moment to write a proper post. The goal is to get the invitations out by Wednesday the 31st, and it looks like we’re hopefully going to finish in time.

Anyhow, here’s a photo of the creepy building that houses the Akasaka Jewelry Design School, which Judy and I stumbled across while walking aimlessly from Shibuya to Akasaka one day last spring. At first I thought it was some kind of cult headquarters, but in fact, the camels have nothing to do with the Korean church next door. Just a completely random choice of building design.

From the Fabricated News Dept.:

Japanese Gov’t to Abandon ‘Cool Biz’ in Favor of Sweaters, Long Underwear

TOKYO - Following a rash of reports of complaints and lawsuits stemming from the failed “Cool Biz” campaign, which aimed to reduce energy consumption by encouraging business people to forego suit jackets and neckties, the Environment Ministry announced on Monday that it was summarily abandoning the summertime initiative, and would launch a new campaign for the autumn and winter months, dubbed “Warm Biz,” on October 1.

Environment Minister Yuriko Koike announces the termination of the “Cool Biz” campaign.

“It is regrettable that the ‘Cool Biz’ campaign, which held considerable promise for the reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, must be terminated at this time due to the failure by certain individuals to exercise proper moral judgment and self-control,” stated Environment Minister Yuriko Koike. “As pleased as I am that central government offices were able to successfully reduce electricity usage by 0.5% during the months of June and July, the increasing uninhibited exposure of bare skin — especially by the middle-aged male population — led to the creation of uncomfortable working environments nationwide.”

Both the public and private sectors saw a sharp increase in the number of indecency and sexual harassment complaints following the introduction of the “Cool Biz” campaign in June, leading many firms to abruptly discontinue the initiative and reinstate previous strict company guidelines for employee dress. Toshihiro Tanaka, president of a Tokyo-based architectural firm, said that although the campaign initially got off to a good start, “As the weeks went by, employees became more and more relaxed in their choice of clothing,” resulting in several instances of disciplinary action against those who took their casual attire too far. “There’s a difference between not wearing a necktie and not wearing pants.”

Even some women in Japan have gone as far as to work topless for the sake of keeping cool.

Hitomi Sato, a 28-year-old office assistant told of similar circumstances at the Yokohama Internet services company where she works. “At first, the men in my office started wearing short-sleeved dress shirts, then it was T-shirts, and eventually they just started going without shirts altogether,” she said with frustration. “After a while, they began to pressure us women to start doing the same; I didn’t think it was appropriate, but several of my female coworkers had no problem with going topless in the office.”

Under the Environment Ministry’s new “Warm Biz” campaign to be introduced in October, office workers will be encouraged to wear layers of clothing including long underwear, sweaters and headwear in order to reduce the use of heaters, especially electric and kerosene space heaters, which are used widely throughout Japan due to a lack of proper insulation and adequate heating systems in most of the country’s commercial and residential buildings. The Japanese government is confident that the new campaign will be far less problematic than its predecessor and is optimistic that it will lead to a significant reduction in energy consumption.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi models an example of “Warm Biz” attire to show his support for the new campaign.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was once a strong and vocal proponent of “Cool Biz,” told reports at an outdoor press conference Tuesday that he fully supports the new campaign and will faithfully follow the new dress code recommendations. “You can expect to see me dressed like this every day in a few months,” he joked, while visibly perspiring in head-to-toe heavy winter attire, including a down jacket, gloves and snow boots. “Yes, as soon as the first of October arrives, all of my Cabinet ministers and I will bundle up in thick wool knits and flannel-lined trousers, regardless of the actual temperature outside, in order to demonstrate Japan’s strong commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.”

Following the press conference, Koizumi was rushed to the University of Tokyo Hospital where he received treatment for severe dehydration and heat stroke. He is expected to be discharged and return to official duties next week.

My apologies, I’ve been a bit busy lately addressing wedding invitations. I’ve got a few things in the works, though, so hopefully I can get some stuff up on the site shortly.

In the meantime, in honor of Typhoon Mawar, which is expected to hit Japan some time within the next 48 hours or so, here is a photo of a garbage can filled with umbrellas that have accumulated after being left behind at the restaurant on the ground floor of my company’s office building.

Who knew people were so forgetful?

This past week, Nintendo announced the date of the upcoming release of their new portable gaming device, the GameBoy Micro. The release, slated for September 13th here in Japan [the 19th in the US and Nov. 4th in Europe], coincides with the 20th anniversary of the release of the original Super Mario Bros. for the Famicom in 1985. The Micro will feature a full-color backlit display with adjustable brightness level, a variety of exchangeable faceplaces, and will be housed in a compact metallic body smaller than the controller for the original Famicom/NES (!).

Please allow me to take this opportunity to make the following public announcement:

You see, not only do I share the limited mental capacity and obscene body odor with mankind’s closest relative, the chimpanzee, but I am also just as easily attracted to small shiny objects. Indeed, I am exactly the kind of hopeless sucker than Nintendo is marketing the Micro to: a guy who is simpleminded and superficial enough to want to buy an electronic device just because it’s sleek, oh-so sexy and can fit in his pocket. Never mind the fact that has exactly the same processor as the GameBoy Advance SP that came before it, or that the unprotected, likely scratch-susceptible 2-inch screen will surely make me go blind; my first thoughts upon seeing the new device were purely animalistic: “MUST BUY! MUST OWN! MUST RUB AGAINST GENITALS!”

Seeing as not only am I a parsimonious miser, but I also still haven’t come to a conclusion with regard to the PSP vs. DS debate from last year, I imagine that I will eventually be able to suppress my base impulses and overcome my present pathetic desire to purchase the Micro. Furthermore, I also have a perfectly good GBA SP that I received as a birthday present two years ago from my darling fiancée, who would surely be hurt were I to brazenly cast aside her kind and generous gift for something that is just barely a step up from its predecessor in terms of technology. Therefore, I firmly believe that it is highly unlikely that you will find me in roughly three weeks’ time standing in line with the rest of the “image-conscious” fools to be the first to purchase one of these things. That said, however, just looking at it makes my bathing suit area tingle, so I don’t think I’m ready to put money on that juuust yet.

Well, Judy and I are back in Tokyo after our short excursion to Korea. Overall, it was a very nice trip — we saw some sights, enjoyed some of the local cuisine, learned a bit of the history and culture — and the very minor challenges that we did encounter were so insignificant as to be a source of amusement more than anything else.

Rather than give a play-by-play overview of our trip (since I sincerely doubt that would be of interest to anyone), I thought I’d try to keep my usual verbosity to a minimum and just mention a few points about our time there.

The Package Tour
After looking around at different airfare options to Seoul, we eventually decided to go with a package tour offered by a travel agency that included the airfare plus accommodation due to the low price. The only catch was that while we could select our days of travel, we had no choice with regard to the flight times, nor could we choose the hotel. Thus, our fate rested in the hands of the knavish rapscallions at the travel agency.

A week after making our reservations, we were informed of our flight schedules and the name of our hotel. On the appointed day, we made our way to the airport and departed on an evening flight, arriving in Seoul shortly after 10:30PM, where we and the other members of the tour were met by a member of the local branch of the travel agency.

Now might be a good time to point out that the primary reasons for which most Japanese people visit Korea are as follows:

1. To buy foreign brand-name luxury items that are only slightly less expensive than those sold in Japan;
2. To eat Korean food that is exceptionally more spicy than that found in Japan; and
3. To indulge in wholly unnatural and unhealthy obsessions derived from watching way too many insipid, melodramatic Korean television dramas.

Thus, the 45-minute high-speed bus ride from the airport to our hotel was spent being verbally assaulted by the travel agency rep, who gave a non-stop recitation about where to buy this-and-that and where to eat this-and-that and so on, all the while I was secretly hoping that our vehicle would hit a pothole and send the rep and her stupid microphone through the front windshield.

As we hadn’t signed up for any of the tour-related activities (being taken to buy overpriced brand-name goods, being taken to eat overpriced Korean food, etc.), our relations with the travel agency and fellow passengers ended upon our arrival at our hotel. That is, however, until we were picked up on our day of departure to be transported to the airport. On the way there, the bus made a detour and all passengers were taken into a shopping complex staffed with middle-aged Japanese-speaking Korean women who proceeded to feed us sample after sample of different kinds of kimchi, after which they looked us in the eye and motioned to their wares, essentially saying, “Okay then, which will you be buying?” Now, seeing as most Japanese people have an innate aversion turning down others outright and the resulting loss of face, the only recourse our fellow passengers had to appease the vendors and extricate themselves from the predicament was naturally to purchase something. Strangely enough, while I considered the entire ordeal to be akin to a subtly-performed shakedown, most of our travel companions seemed to revel in the opportunity to have one last chance to shop before reaching the airport (where they would no doubt go on to shop at the numerous duty-free shops as well as on the plane back to Japan itself).

The bottom line: I am never taking a Japanese package tour like that ever again.

The Hotel
As I mentioned previously, we were given no choice in the selection of our hotel and thus all we could do was cross our fingers and hope for the best. As a result, we found ourselves staying at a place called the Poong Jun Hotel, which is depicted in the image at right. Unfortunately, the person responsible for the creation of that image took some rather blatant artistic liberties, as the hotel looking absolutely nothing like that (hint: replacing those pretty trees with shitty, run-down concrete buildings might provide a more accurate representation).

To our surprise, the hotel room itself was actually quite large (at least compared to what we’re used to on our ghetto budget), but it was also quite old as well. The walls and carpet were stained, the bathroom was moldy, the bedding showed considerable wear and the decrepit hair dryer was just laughable. However, what is most worthy of mention about the Poong Jun Hotel is that, despite having striven for the past 35 years to be “the leader in the frontline of Korea’s tourism industry,” they apparently missed the memo about English having become one of the most widely-used languages in international tourism, and thus none, yes none, of their staff could actually speak it. Unfortunately, we didn’t come to realize this until about halfway through our stay, when it became quite obvious that no one was actually understanding anything we were saying. For example, when I kindly inquired whether it would be possible to borrow a functional portable hair dryer to use during our stay in lieu of the antique monstrosity on the bathroom wall, the woman at the front desk responded by telling Judy and I that there were taxis queuing outside. After about five seconds of the two of us staring at each other in confounded silence, it finally dawned on us that the clerk had apparently misunderstood “dryer” to be “driver.” The worst instance, however, was when regular visitor to this site and all-around good guy, Marco, telephoned the hotel in attempt to reach me in order to make plans to meet up for drinks, but was hung up on not once, but twice by the front desk staff because they couldn’t understand him. Finally, they acquiesced to take a message, however they wrote down the wrong phone number, and as a result, my tentative plans to hang out with Marco (or “Mark,” according to the message from the front desk) were not realized.

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Well, I’ve clearly failed in my attempt to avoid my typical circumlocution, so I think it’ll be best for me to split this entry into to parts, as my eyelids are growing increasingly heavy as I write this. I’ll try to get part two of this uninteresting adventure up within the next couple of days, but in the meantime, here are a few preliminary photos from our trip:

I admit that it’s a bit dull, but this is the view from the roof of my apartment building. In the background you can kind of see part of the Sony global headquarters, a surprisingly unexciting campus composed of several drab, uninteresting buildings. I had expected something a bit more high-tech. . . it could definitely use some robots or something.

A couple enjoying the view of the Mermaid Lagoon at DisneySea.

I wonder what they’re thinking about.

With the overabundance of taxis in Tokyo, it seems that the drivers often have a lot of time to kill while waiting for a fare.

Indeed.

An interesting thing to note is that, unlike the US where the vast majority of taxi drivers are “foreigners” (cue stereotypical image of turban-clad East Indian gentlemen sputtering unintelligible English), nearly all taxi drivers in Japan are old Japanese men.

This is an interesting-looking flower that I saw at Tokyo DisneySea.

Anyone know what kind of flower it is?

Salarymen aren’t the only members of the Japanese workforce who exist in a continual state of exhaustion. Those in the working class need to take some time to recuperate every once in a while, too.

A view of the concrete-lined and heavily polluted Meguro River at sunset.

Well, here it is. . . another random photo post.

I had been hoping to put up some actual new content on this site over the weekend, but unfortunately I ran out of time. As a result, I guess it’ll just have to wait until after I get back from Korea. In the meantime, I present you with the first in a series of assorted photographs, all of more or less equally mediocre quality. As with in the past, looking ahead in the galleries is cheating and shall be punished my means of a horrible voodoo curse, the manifestation of which is far too unpleasant to be mentioned here.

Now, as for that photo:

Yep, she’s the same girl as in this shot. The one above was taken nearly four years ago. It’s one of my favorites.

I had incredibly grandiose plans to put up quite a few posts this week, but unfortunately my situation at work has been completely insane recently with big things going down concurrently in both the States and in South Asia. Thankfully, tomorrow is the last work day before the summer holiday, which means that I’ll finally be able catch up on some much-needed R&R.

Seeing as it’s quite late and I can barely make sense of what’s appearing on the screen in front of me as I type this, I’m just going to post one link and one photo and then call it a night.

The link is to a list of common giongo, which are Japanese onomatopoeic words. Giongo are used far more often than their English counterparts; in fact, most people tend take advantage of any and every opportunity to use them instead of actual words, which is mighty frustrating to the beginning Japanese learner, who has no idea what those seemingly silly sounds mean [yikes, where’d that alliteration come from?]. Anyway, here is the list, courtesy of the good doctor known as Dave, conqueror of Tokyo and shooer of cats.

Now, on to the photo. The other day I realized that I had completely forgotten about the Tokyo Disney Resort gallery that I set up last month, so I’m going to try to prepare some additional typically boring photos to stick in there in the near future. For today, though, I offer you a photo of one of the brazing furnaces at my company’s plant in Ibaraki. Were you to stick your hand in there, a-chi-chi-chi!! would probably be the giongo you would use as the flesh was seared from your bones in a matter of seconds.

And with that, I sleep.

Any ladies out there looking for a job in Tokyo?

I stumbled upon this little doozy today on the Jobs in Japan website:

We are looking for some female staff who does not mind being lightly sexually harassed during working hours. Our team is composed of male and female in equal proportion. We are located in central Tokyo. Duties: net surfing. Part-time ok.

Gee, I can only imagine the sheer number of women who must be lining up around the block for the chance to fill that position.

In a way, though, I suppose that company deserves some credit at least for laying its cards on the table and being honest about what it’s looking for. I think I’d like to see more of that:

Leading market research firm seeks professional, highly motivated executive assistant. Candidates must have a minimum of five (5) years relevant experience, perky breasts and a willingness to provide sexual services to members of the executive team. Competitive salary and generous benefits package provided.

Just kidding (sort of).

Anyway, for any women out there who might be interested in getting paid to surf the net, and who don’t mind being “lightly sexually harassed” while doing so, this just may be the job for you!

Today while browsing through Tower Records in Shibuya, I happened to pick up a copy of Metropolis magazine. Metropolis is a local English-language weekly featuring passable content such as film and restaurant reviews, as well as a large classifieds section containing a mass of personal ads from sleazy foreign men seeking skanky Japanese women for “casual encounters,” lonely 30-something Japanese women searching for foreign partners in a last-ditch effort to avoid dying alone, and African men looking to meet Japanese women with big butts (I’m as perplexed as you are about that one).

The main feature of this week’s issue is a series of profiles of several young non-Japanese women who participate gothic lolita scene in Tokyo. The women’s bland responses to the markedly unprobing interview questions, which touched on topics such as their preferred reading material (Harry Potter is a favorite), the cost of their silly costumes striking ensembles (all over US$200) and their impressions of Tokyo, all substantiated the obvious truth that members of the goth crowd, despite their claims of being “unique” and their “like, so cooler than you” attitude, are just as vapid and image-conscious as everyone else (if not considerably more so).

However, what really caught my eye was a quote attributed to the 21-year-old Taiwanese- American lass pictured above (nicknamed “Tiny”), who had this to say about her opinion of Tokyo:

“I like the Tokyo night life, food and fashion but I hate the muggy pollution and I’ve seen too many male genitals in public.”

Hmm, it certainly makes one wonder how that young lady spends her free time. . . .

At lunchtime today, I headed out to get something to eat and happened to come across a homeless man peeing on the street near my office. Of course, that in itself is hardly worth mentioning; one can find homeless men peeing on streets in every city of the world. What struck me about the situation this afternoon was the realization that it was the very first time that I had seen a public urinator in Japan who was actually homeless. Up until today, in the nearly weekly occurrence of seeing old men relieving themselves on sidewalks and in doorways in plain view of everyone passing by, all of the perpetrators have been relatively normal-looking guys!

The practice of public urination is called tachishoben in Japanese (literally: “standing urination”) and seems to be the unofficial pastime among the nation’s sizable population of sleazy old men. While the activity is frowned-upon by the general populace, not once in any instance of witnessing men openly spatter the contents of their bladders on the street have I ever seen someone admonish the offenders, let alone offer a disapproving “tsk” in the direction of the individual with his penis in his hand, unabashedly directing the stream of his urine towards a nearby surface.

Now, while it is obviously an objectionable practice, I don’t wish to condemn tachishoben — (what man among us is innocent of ever covertly dampening a darkened alley during an evening spent partaking in spirituous refreshment?) — I am merely undertaking a therapeutic exercise in writing about my unsettling experience in order to cleanse my psyche of any lingering detrimental effects of the memory of being presented with the sight of crusty homeless man penis while on my way to satiate my hunger with a mid-day collation.

Of course, the only thing worse than observing the flagrant depravity of a public urinator is to bear witness to the wanton turpitude of his reprobate cohort, the public masturbator. While I personally have yet to encounter this detestable creature, Judy, alas, has not been so fortunate. An occasion about two years ago saw her fleeing in a panic after happening upon a gentlemen “hard at work,” so to speak, on the side of the road at six o’clock in the morning on a fine winter’s day. Oddly enough, he was standing astride a bicycle at the time. . . .

It’s pretty amazing how much traffic the Smoking Manners gallery continues to draw. Last Saturday showed 15,000 (!) unique visitors, which is a bit more than usual to this humble site.

Since many of the people who visit conbinibento.com don’t speaka ‘da Japanese, I thought I’d mention that the Japan Tobacco website has a Smoking Manners screensaver available for download. It’s a continuous montage of many of the ads and will no doubt bring you loads of success with the opposite sex. Enjoy!

My apologies once again for the lack of posts over the past few days. I was stricken with a mysterious illness that left me with a 40.5°C/105°F fever and vomiting like it was going out of fashion (even at work, which is always pleasant). I’ve recovered for the most part by now, but my reflection in the mirror and my disappointed fiancée both tell me that I lost a bit of weight as a result of not being able to eat anything while I was under the weather — weight that I unfortunately cannot spare to lose. Alas, I fear that my long-aspired dream of escaping from skinnywhiteboyhood shall never be realized.

Anyhow, a bit of personal news: Judy and I will be taking a short trip to Seoul, South Korea in two weeks’ time to do a bit a sightseeing and visit a friend of mine from university. As has become tradition, expect a week of nothing but crappy photos during our absence. In the meantime, we’re still trying to figure out where to go and what to do, so if anyone (*cough* Marco *cough*) has any suggestions, we’d be very happy to hear them.

Let’s see. . . in keeping with the trivial nature of this post, in other insignificant news: Judy and I recently bought a rice cooker.

Yay.

Sushi, with its aesthetic fusion of exotic tradition and simple sophistication, may be considered to be the quintessence of Japanese cuisine.

These days, it seems as though nearly everyone has at least heard of sushi and many have even enjoyed first-hand its culinary delights. However, how much do people outside of Japan really know about this paragon of haute Japanese fare? Click the image below for a rare opportunity to learn everything you could ever possibly hope to know about the time-honored practice of visiting a sushi restaurant in Japan, courtesy of a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek instructional video entitled The Japanese Tradition: Sushi.

(Japanese with English subtitles; WMV, 30.4MB)
A torrent of this video is also available here.

Naruhodo, samurai no kuni desu ne.

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UPDATE: For anyone who might be interested, The Japanese Tradition: Dogeza can be found here.

Judy’s been talking about possibly getting a new cell phone recently, so this afternoon while out running some errands we stopped in a Vodafone shop to check out their selection.

Vodafone acquired the Japanese mobile company J-Phone a few years ago, and has since done little more than repeatedly demonstrate their utter lack of understanding of the unique Japanese market. While rivals DoCoMo and au have been constantly putting out a diverse range of new models with various designs, sizes and features to keep up with the fickle whims the rapidly changing market, Vodafone seems to be content releasing only a couple of new models each season and focusing their main energies on promoting their 3G technology in Japan, regardless of the fact that the infrastructure is spotty at best, and market demand nearly nonexistent. Although consumers are hungry for increasingly smaller and lighter handsets with sleek designs, Vodafone models are only getting clunkier, heavier and, quiet frankly, uglier, which makes it no surprise that their sales are steadily declining and their customer base rapidly shrinking.

Under these circumstances, Judy and I were certainly amused today to see Vodafone’s latest attempt to try to attract customers: the kigurumi-keitai, featuring a selection of twelve creatively-designed “costumes” for the new V501T model made by Toshiba, which was released this month. Here’s the line-up:

While some of the covers are admittedly pretty neat (especially the bull one), the V501T handset itself is exceptionally large (even larger than my TV remote!) and boasts no notable advancements in terms of features or technology.

While this latest gimmick may attract a few customers drawn to the kawaii factor of some of the “costumes,” I have sincere doubts whether it will do much to pull Vodafone out of its slump. The reason why most foreign companies fail miserably when trying to enter the lucrative Japanese market is their complete failure to understand the driving forces behind it. While American consumers may be interested in “super-sizing” and getting more bang for their buck, Japanese consumers place far greater importance on design and functionality and have few reservations about dropping loads of cash on something that suits their fancy. The companies that take the time to try to grasp the idiosyncrasies of the Japanese market in order to appeal to it stand a fair chance of success, however those that think that they can simply barge in and set up shop based on their standing overseas will face enormous challenges, as Vodafone is no doubt learning.

Well, it’s getting late, so before this senseless blather starts sounding any more like a retarded thesis, I think it’s time that I shut up and head to bed. . . .

This past Saturday, Judy and I headed to Tokyo DisneySea for the second round of her birthday festivities. Although I hadn’t been to the Disney Resort since our previous trip last year, we’ve probably gone at least half a dozen times during our nearly four years here in Japan (a fact that I am somewhat loath to admit). As hard as it may seem to believe, the Tokyo Disney Resort, especially the relatively new DisneySea park, is actually quite a popular dating destination for young Tokyoites, so we felt absolutely no qualms about spending the day mingling amongst grade school children and departing with wads of cash in exchange for overpriced baubles and scarcely palatable food items. Nonetheless, we actually had a pretty good time.

Well, I’ve returned from my brief leave of absence from the internet. The reason behind my furlough lies in the fact that last Thursday was Judy’s birthday, and thus it was necessary that I dedicate my time to the preparation and implementation of a memorable birthday experience.

And, as would be expected, I failed miserably.

Okay, it wasn’t a total snafu; however, there was one particular mishap that threatened to derail the otherwise enjoyable evening. As we returned home to our neighborhood following a lovely dinner downtown, I led Judy into the confectionery across the street from the station from which I had days earlier ordered a decorated cake for the day’s festivities. I presented the sales clerk with my order receipt, and Judy and I then spent the next several minutes perusing the shop’s enticing delights while we waited. Eventually, the clerk returned with a slightly abashed countenance and timidly informed me that they had apparently forgotten to prepare the cake that I had ordered, thereupon shattering all of my lofty preconceptions about the reported unparalleled wonder that is the Japanese service industry.

I turned to Judy with apprehension to ascertain her reaction, however, as a testament to her fine character and graciously tolerant nature that reinforce the fact that she is clearly far too good a person to be engaged to a good-for-nothing galoot such as myself, she responded with neither disappointment nor displeasure, but rather with unfettered amusement. The shop clerk was unremittingly apologetic and, partially restoring my faith in the reputation of Japanese customer service, offered us a choice of any of the shop’s fine desserts — gratis.

Thus, Judy and I returned home and concluded our celebration of her birth in a somewhat smaller, yet in no way diminished, fashion.

Note to self: Avoid posting when in a literary frame of mind and severely sleep deprived to boot.

Nothing much to say here. . . .

The life of a Japanese salaryman is rough. You’re expected to dedicate your very existence to your company and toil away all of your waking hours for a mere pittance, with little appreciation or satisfaction gained in return. You’re also endlessly exhausted, and thus never hesitate to try to grab a few winks at any opportunity.

Nope, I’m not on vacation. I’m actually going to be a bit busy in the next few days, so I thought I’d put up a couple of random photos in hopes that the fickle blog-reading public won’t go elsewhere for their insipid rambling fix.

Ah, who am I kidding? No one visits this site anyway.

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Recently, a building down the street from my office was torn down. The steel frame of the new structure that will replace it is already being (noisily) erected, but during the brief interlude when the lot was bare, I snapped this photo of the back of the building immediately behind it. I’m quite curious what’s on the other side of those doors.

A little over a year ago after I first set this site up, I wrote a post about a comment made on a television program (about Harry Potter of all things) on which one of the show’s guests used the word gaijin, a rather controversial Japanese word for “foreigner”. Not feeling like opening up that particular can of worms at the time, I wrote the following:

Although I won’t go into depth about my thoughts on the word gaijin at this time, I’ll just say that it’s a discriminatory term and there’s really no need for it to be used when their are several other inoffensive alternatives. While some may argue that gaijin is simply an abbreviation of gaikokujin (foreign national), the true meaning is quite simply “outsider” and carries derogatory connotations. Despite this, many Japanese people continue to use the word freely despite knowing that many non-Japanese people find it offensive.

I received an email recently from a Japanese person asking me to elaborate on my opinion of the word. After procrastinating for a while, I finally stayed up late one night and tried to write out my thoughts on the matter. Well, today I figured I’d go ahead and put that email out there for public consumption, essentially just for the heck of it, since I can’t imagine that anyone would especially care to hear about what some suburbanite punk on a lark has to say about a particular word in a language that he can barely speak.

Anyhow, the email (slightly edited) is below. I apologize in advance for the length; regular readers should know by now how long-winded I can be at times.

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My basic view about the terms gaijin and even gaikokujin is that they are both highly overused. Not only are they used in instances when people’s names and nationalities are already known, but also when nationality has no relevance to the situation at hand. For example, I have heard Japanese people talk about their “gaijin friend” or “gaijin neighbor,” when there are other much more appropriate (not to mention more specific) descriptors that can be used, such as “my friend, Paul,” “my neighbor from Canada,” etc. Also, I have had experiences in shops when I am referred to as “gaijin-san” by the staff, rather than “okyaku-sama,” as all of the other [Japanese] customers are called. The word “gaijin” singles people out for not being part of the “group” (i.e., Japanese), and in most instances, there’s no need to do so. A friend is a friend and a customer is a customer, regardless of their nationality or appearance.

Another issue I have with the word gaijin is that it is used to indiscriminately clump together groups of people who otherwise have no relation whatsoever, other than the fact that they happen not to have been born in Japan to Japanese parents. As a result, people with different ethnic backgrounds who don’t share a common culture or even speak the same language are often considered one in the same by some Japanese people.

Even worse, many Japanese people often tend to assume that everyone they consider to be “gaijin” all share the same characteristics, behavioral tendencies, likes and dislikes, etc. For example, I would imagine that every foreigner in Japan has at time or another heard statements such as, “Gaijin eat bread, not rice,” and “Gaijin are very loud,” as well as been on the receiving end of questions such as, “Can gaijin eat sushi?” and “What do gaijin think of Japan?” Similar statements and questions are often said/asked about “gaikoku” (foreign countries), as if all countries outside of Japan are identical [I like to refer to it as the The Magical Kingdom of Gaikoku]: “Gaikoku is very dangerous,” “Gaikoku don’t have four seasons like Japan does,” “Do you have cars in gaikoku?,” etc. (Yes, all of those are actual statements/questions that I have heard spoken by supposedly educated Japanese people here in Japan).

In my opinion, what makes words like “foreign” problematic is that they emphasize non-membership. For example, if I mention that a friend of mine is Brazilian, it expresses that she belongs to the Brazilian group; however, if I only say that she is “foreign,” it expresses that she doesn’t belong to any group, which may give the impression that she is somehow less significant than a member of a group.

Many people argue that gaijin is merely an abbreviation of gaikokujin, the official word for foreign national. However, if one examines the history of the term, one would learn that long before the arrival of visitors from other countries to Japanese shores, gaijin was used to refer to other Japanese people from different regions or villages. In this regard, the meaning of the word is a literal reading of the kanji characters — “outside person” — and has inherent exclusionary and somewhat disrespectful connotations.

Also, as I mentioned previously, it is not a necessary word — there are countless other more specific and more appropriate words that can be used in its place according to the context, such as, “John,” “the British guy,” “the guy in the gray sweater,” “the friend I made when I studied abroad in university,” etc. Although there are a few words to express the concept of gaijin/gaikokujin in English — foreigner, alien, etc. — in my experience, they are rarely used outside of situations relating to official immigration matters. In fact, outside of such circumstances, I hardly ever used these words before coming to Japan.

I think that the most compelling argument against the use of the word gaijin is that regardless of whether some Japanese or non-Japanese people disagree, many people do in fact consider the word to be offensive. Because of this alone, it seems only proper to try to avoid using it.

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Well, that’s my imbecilic rant on the word gaijin. As you can see, it was neither well thought-out nor particularly coherent.

Just for the sake of clarification: I’m not some sort of neo-colonialist rabid anti-Japanese crackpot. I love living here and hold in high regard all of the people that I’ve been fortunate to get to know here. As a non-Japanese person living in Japan, gaijin is a word that I hear with relative frequency, and thus the issue surrounding the use of the word is something to which I have given a considerable amount of thought (well, I meant to, anyhow).

By the way, I doubt I’ll be sinking to such depths again to actually write another pseudo-serious post any time in the near future. I’ll try to put up some new high-quality low-brow content in the coming days. In the meantime, here are a few hardly relevant links:

* Gaijin glasses
* Gaijin newscaster disguise
* Some might argue that we bring it upon ourselves

How many Japanese people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

↓ CLICK ↓
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Earlier this week, Japundit reported that Miyoko Kawahara, the 58-year-old Nara woman who harassed her 64-year-old neighbor with incessant shouting and loud music day and night for nearly three years, recently pleaded not guilty to the charges of inflicting violence and injury on her neighbor.

Trouble started when Kawahara developed a grudge against her neighbor in 1989 after the older woman’s family moved in but did not come over to greet her, as is often the custom in Japan. A light that was reportedly too bright, a car that was parked the wrong way, and other incidents Kawahara perceived as slights added fuel to the feud over the years, apparently driving Kawahara over the edge and firmly into the realm of battydom.

Kawahara’s antics really have to be seen to fully appreciate her utter insanity. A video (WMV, 16MB) can be downloaded by clicking below. Enjoy!

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By the way, for anyone who is unfamiliar with Japundit, I highly recommend checking out their site. Quality content, frequent updates, and a big ol’ rising sun logo. What more could anyone possibly want?

Well, it seems that innovation just doesn’t stop over at SolidAlliance, the makers of the wonderfully appetizing SushiDisk USB drives. They’ve taken their unique designs to the next level with the creation of a new, thumb-shaped drive called the “YayDrive”:

According the company, the inspiration for the design was the apparent practice in the West of referring to USB drives as “thumb drives,” something that results in frequent confusion for Japanese businessmen when interacting with their Westerner counterparts. The YayDrive was created to help eliminate this purportedly common communication problem and also to give Japanese people a clear image of why Westerners use the term “thumb drive.”

As for the name of the product, it appears to be based on SolidAlliance’s humorous suggestion for how one should respond when asked for a “thumb drive” by a foreign colleague:

Foreign person: “Do you have a Thumb Drive?”
Japanese person: [whips out the device] “Yay~!”

Uh. . . yeah.

The YayDrive is definitely much cooler than the cheap-o looking ones that were selling on eBay last year. Modeled after a real thumb, not only does it look neat when plugged into a computer, but it can also be decorated to one’s liking as well as used for silly magic tricks. Can you do that with your USB drive?

LINK

Wow, there has been a huge influx of visitors to this site recently. Just within the past few days, the Smoking Manners gallery has been linked on over 30 100+ other blogs and message boards, drawing traffic of nearly fifty times the usual average. The funny thing is that aside from the seven new ads added last week, the gallery itself has been up for nearly a year now already.

A lot of people have been asking whether the ads are real, and the answer is yes. They can be found throughout Tokyo, and I would imagine in other cities as well. It really is a great campaign — it’s a unique way to present the anti-smoking message, and the unintentional hilarity makes it a joy each time one encounters a new ad. It’s obvious that a lot of time and effort were invested into making them, as they are the first (that I have ever seen, at least) to feature grammatically-correct (albeit slightly odd) English. Who wouldn’t love a job writing copy like that, eh?

Anyhow, I just wanted to clear that up. To any new visitors: Welcome to the conbinibento.com and thanks for stopping by. The photos here suck and the writing is even worse, but please feel free to browse the rest of the site if you haven’t got anything better to do.

One of my coworkers was scolded by his boss today for not wearing a tie. The guy was just sitting at his desk quietly doing his work, when all of a sudden his boss started telling him off, saying, “When you’re at work, you must wear a tie!” and “If we were called to an urgent meeting, we’d have to wait for you to put on your tie!” My coworker apologized profusely and proceeded to retrieve the tie that he keeps in his desk drawer and put it on.

I guess that means my company has officially rejected the Cool Biz campaign.

It serious is ridiculous, though. All day long, the AC is blasting, yet we’re all sitting around with our sleeves rolled up and ties loosened, sweating like pedophiles on a playground. What’s a person got to do to cool off around here?

Something I’ve never fully understood is the phenomenon of the sex doll. What a person could possibly find sexually arousing about a “woman” with a fixed vapid expression, plastic breasts and a hairless minge, I do not know (and yes, I am aware that I also just described the average American porn “actress,” but I don’t see how anyone could find them attractive either). It would seem to me that the only people who would be interested in pounding away at an inanimate object with the anotomical appearance of a woman would be 12-year-old boys (since, frankly, most would probably hump a mound of warm mud given the opportunity), however most kids that age don’t have the thousands of dollars necessary to buy a sex doll.

As one would likely imagine, Japan seems to have a relatively large market for sex dolls (which the natives call “Dutch wives”) even to the extent that there are companies offering sex doll rental services (ew). Recently, while browsing the ol’ interweb, I happened upon what is probably one of the strangest examples of a sex doll that I’ve ever seen. Behold, possibly the world’s first headless, armless sex doll:

Called the seikan kusshon (erogenous cushion) in Japanese, but also possessing the English moniker “Baby Doll,” the doll is composed of 90% powder beads and 10% cotton, all housed within a skin made out of waterproof “wetsuit material” (talk about sexxxy). The doll features independently posable legs, bean bag tits and a drawstring pussy (which has got to be one of the funniest combinations of words ever), and when purchased, arrives packaged in a manguri-gaeshi pose, somewhat resembling the headless hooker I found in a cardboard box behind a dumpster on my eight birthday (yes, I’m kidding).

Variations of the Baby Doll include an underage schoolgirl version, complete with flat chest, white panties and smaller labia; an entirely limbless torso-only version, also marketed as a sleep companion; as well as a version consisting only of a cushion with orifices, which, according to the website, has a fairly large buttocks, allowing for “violent fuck” (hageshii fakku). Prices run about US$550 for the basic model, $400 for the underage, $230 for the torso and a mere $100 for the orifice cushion.

To anyone with a fetish for making sweet love to headless stuffed animals, this is the doll for you.

Well, only six months to go until the big day. I’m pleased to report that we are on schedule with the preparations (although it feels like we’re ridiculously behind) and have been making steady progress with all of the necessary arrangements.

Judy has been going dress shopping the past few weekends with some friends and was allowed to take photos at a few of the shops she visited. Thus, this past weekend I was granted a special one-time-only sneak preview of the radiant vision that I will next see walking towards me down the aisle six months from now. Behold:

Doesn’t she look exquisite?

One would think that the world’s adults would see it as their rudimentary duty to keep the minds of their children pure and free from hatred, malice and all other forms of prejudice that have plagued humanity since time immemorial. Sadly, this is not the case in any part of the world, as we all know too well.

Case in point: These drawings made by South Korean school children that depict strong anti-Japanese sentiment. Certainly amusing on the one hand (especially the one with the rabbit plopping out a smelly Japan-shaped turd), but also terribly saddening on the other. There is definitely a long history of past aggression against the Korean peninsula at the hands of the Japanese, in addition to the current conflicts over Dokdo/Takeshima island, Japanese textbooks and Yasukuni shrine, but I suppose that it would be foolishly idealistic to wish that people would have some perspective to realize that relatively trivial issues such as these are no excuse for polluting the minds of innocent children.

Oh well. . . at least it’s good to know that artistic creativity is still alive and well; some of the drawings reveal quite a bit of talent.

. .

Remember that “Smoking Manners” campaign that Japan Tobacco launched about a year ago? Well, I happened to stop by the JT website today and noticed that there are a few new advertisements up, so I ganked them and put them in the gallery in the interest of preserving this great campaign that will eventually some day be discontinued and forgotten.

Here are the new ads in all of their Engrish glory:

I think I like the ski one the best.

So there I sat, at my desk. It was late, far later than I had intended to stay at work. The office was silent except for the constant hum of the air conditioner and the occasional shuffling of papers by my equally-exhausted coworkers.

I had just spent several hours straight working on the translation of what I was told was a very important letter. After a long series of rewrites and revisions, every word, every subtle nuance of the original Japanese had been skillfully transcribed into English, leaving nothing ambiguous. I printed out the final version, took the stairs up to my boss’ office and handed it to him with a weary smile. I would soon be going home, where my lovely fiancée would no doubt be waiting.

Five minutes later, the silence of the office was broken by the ringing of the telephone on my desk. I answered with slight hesitation. It was my boss, informing me that he had decided to rethink the letter and therefore he wouldn’t be sending it out tonight after all. “Let’s continue this tomorrow,” he said. “Have a good night.” As I replaced the receiver, I couldn’t help but chuckle at my pitiful plight. “Ah, the life of a translator.”

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Yes, I know, you’ve heard it all before. Nothing’s changed and nothing ever will. If only I were paid by the word or by the hour, rather than the paltry flat fee that I receive for my unwavering obedient servitude.

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I haven’t taken many photos recently. Although I’ve never really had an eye for photography, I’ve always at least made an effort to try to take interesting photos (”interesting” in this case meaning “crap”). However, lately everything I snap seems so dull, so uninspired, so out-of-focus. The truth is, though, that words alone obviously can’t keep this site afloat, so here’s an example of an aforementioned dull, inspiring and out-of-focus photo:

And with that, I sleep.

With their intrinsic convenience and relative affordability, it’s no surprise that cell phones are beyond ubiquitous in Japan. From teenagers who accessorize them with a bulky array of straps and trinkets to middle-aged men who clip them to their shirt pockets or wear them proudly around their necks, cell phones have become so integrated into society that it seems strange for a person not to own one.

Nearly all keitai models released within the past few years have come equipped with an email option, which many people (including myself) tend to rely on nearly exclusively for communicating with friends, since one can send an email to any address for a mere fraction of the per-minute cost to use the phone to actually make a call. However, the huge number of subscribers nationwide combined with an incredibly annoying junk mail problem (requiring frequent address changes) has resulted in the tendency for people to select extremely long and convoluted email addresses, usually comprised of a combination of elements such as their nickname, birth date, random cutesy English word, kaomoji verticons, dimensions of their genitalia, etc.

Anyhow, this is all background information for a conversation I had recently with a friend after exchanging keitai email addresses. The friend’s name is Sachiko, and thus, following the formula outlined above, the address she had chosen was the following:

A clever little portmanteau there, no?

After taking nearly a full minute to write it out, she admitted that the address was tad long even by most standards, and therefore she had shortened it when she set up a web-based email account a few weeks ago. When I enquired as to just how she had shortened it, she wrote down the address as follows:

You know those times when something so unintentionally hilarious happens, that without warning you instantaneously let loose a loud guffaw while a few droplets of urine escape into your underpants? Well, that’s exactly what happened at that moment.

With a quizzical expression, she asked what was so funny and I was thereupon obliged to give a brief impromptu lesson on the variety and versatility of English slang, all the while stifling giggles like a schoolboy on the first day of sex ed. Upon discovering that her email address was likely to give the impression that she is one of the HOT YOUNG SLUTS!!1 that, if spam mail content is any indication, apparently make up the vast majority of the people on the internet (and are just gagging to meet a hot stud like me), Sachiko’s face turned bright red, she thanked me for the explanation and informed me that she would be no doubt changing her address post-haste.

Talk cultural exchange at its best, eh?. Maybe now she’ll be able to see the humor in this.

I caught the end of the music show Hey! Hey! Hey! last night, and one of the episode’s featured guests was the pop-rock group Orange Range. These guys have made a career out of ripping off chord progressions from countless other musicians who possess actual talent, slapping them together to loosely form what might be considered a song and then trying to pass it off as their own original work “with influences.” Their target audience — airheaded junior high school kids with an apparent proclivity for sniffing glue — is completely clueless about the source material and sadly couldn’t possibly even care, and thus, the barely pubescent boys of Orange Range continue to find success, rake in the dough and inspire the creaming of their underage fans’ panties.

Just to set the record straight before I incur the wrath of any Orange Range fans (as I did with that Otsuka Ai post last year) — I have absolutely nothing against Japanese musicians or the practice of sampling in general. The entire hip-hop genre wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the sampling of beats and breaks from earlier songs and incorporating them to create something new and fresh (I’m referring to old school hip hop here; the state of the current scene is pitiable). Whether or not Orange Range properly licenses the riffs they “borrow,” I don’t know, nor is that all that important to my point. I’m also not claiming superiority over naiveté and ignorance of the average Orange Range fan. I myself was young(er) and stupid(er) once; in fact, I clearly remember the first time I played the MC Hammer CD that I won for my performance of Young MC’s Bust a Move in a lip-synching contest. When my favorite tune at the time, U Can’t Touch This, came on, my music buff father commented, “Oh, that’s Rick James [bitch],” to which I rolled my eyes and idiotically replied, “No it isn’t, Dad, it’s MC Hammer” (feel free to laugh at me to your heart’s content, I certainly do).

However, as I see it, the sampling of riffs and breaks for the composition of a underlying beat used to complement something hip and innovative is completely different from the ganking of a variety of melodies or chords with only the last couple of notes in the progressions changed or the rhythms slightly altered, and then sticking them together with some moronic lyrics and calling it original. It’s a thin line, I’ll admit that, but one has to look at the significance of the new, original material that ideally should compose the majority of the work.

Now, before I make myself sound even more moronic and pretentious than I already do, I hereby enter into evidence a flash animation detailing several examples of Orange Range’s complete lack of creativity here. The text is in Japanese, but one will no doubt recognize several of the original riffs lifted from Western artists such as Queen, Bon Jovi and Kiss, Japanese artists such as Mr. Children and Spitz, and even Dr. Mario (!). In addition, here’s an article with further information about the band and their “mix of influences.”

Just so I don’t come off as a complete crotchety bastard, unlike the generic Boy Bands whose fifteen minutes I wish would hurry up and end already, the guys in Orange Range actually do play their own instruments, so despite their inherent wankertude, I have to at least give them some props for that. They also seem to be quite adept at plucking their eyebrows, too.

This past week, the Japanese government kicked off its new “Cool Biz” campaign to encourage central government officials to shed their suit jackets and neckties during the summer months. The campaign, launched this past Wednesday, was designed to help employees work comfortably following new air conditioning restrictions put in place to reduce electricity consumption and carbon dioxide emissions to aid in the fight against global warming.

Despite strong support from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the public response to the campaign thus far has been somewhat lukewarm, especially among the more traditionalist members of the population. Most Japanese businessmen feel that suits and ties should be worn at all times — even during the hot and humid summer months — and that casual business attire reeks of unprofessionalism and poor manners. In addition, many still carry bad memories from the fashion nightmare that was the short-sleeved suit, which arrived on the scene following the 1979 oil crisis and was promoted heavily by former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata.

While I definitely agree that it’s beyond ridiculous to have to wear suits during the stifling Japanese summer, unfortunately I don’t see the “Cool Biz” campaign gaining widespread support, especially in the private sector. In a society rooted firmly in ceremony and tradition, in which every member must wear a uniform (literal or symbolic) to identify their status in order for social interaction to be possible, it’s going to take more than a government initiative to get people to change. I would imagine that even if the ozone layer depleted to the point that the sun’s rays literally scorched the earth, Japanese business men still would not leave their post-apocalyptic subterranean dwellings without first donning navy blue jackets and paisley neckties over their radiation suits.

In my office today, the thermostat was set at a cool 22°C (72°F) and all employees (myself included) were wearing suits and ties as usual, as we will be for the rest of the summer. Even if we underlings were to take it upon ourselves to dress in a manner appropriate for the heat, a swift admonishment from our superiors would no doubt follow, and all of our ludicrous notions of comfort and a perspirationless-free work environment would be immediately abandoned.

I swear, it would likely take an act of almighty Godzilla himself — the total destruction of all formal business attire in Japan (perhaps through collaboration with Mothra) — to get Japanese salarymen to even consider changing their dress habits. Oh well, at least they look passably presentable most of the time; I suppose that’s all that matters (to them).

Well, as hard as it is for me to believe, an entire year has now passed since I made the very first post on this site.

At the time, I had no idea in what the heck I was going to write about (I still don’t), but I’ve certainly had a good time pulling 145 posts’ worth of fluff out of my posterior over the past 365 days. Of course, conbinibento.com likely wouldn’t even be here anymore were it not for the hundreds handful of readers who stop by regularly and skim the uninteresting and poorly written entires and browse the overexposed and pitifully dull photos.

Thanks, everyone.

Yikes, this sounds like an acceptance speech or something. To be honest, right now I’m mainly just surprised that I’ve actually managed to keep up with semi-regular postings for an entire year. For a chronically lazy bastard like myself, that’s no petty feat!

Anyhow, if anyone has any ideas, suggestions, criticism (constructive or otherwise), etc., about the site, I’d be more than pleased to hear it. I aim to please.

I took the day off from work today. For some reason, I haven’t quite fully recovered since my trip to Nara last month, and this morning I woke up with a fever and felt like crap so I called in sick. Although it was great being able to sleep for most of the day and to relax during the time that I wasn’t sleeping, I honestly can’t say I feel that much better. Oh well, it was nice not having to go to work, at least.

My apologies for the lack of posts recently. I haven’t been feeling well, work has been quite busy, and I’ve been a bit occupied with other things. Hopefully I can get back into the flow of posting again shortly.

In the meantime, here are three photos of typical Japanese countryside views taken in Nara earlier this month:

Last week, my company installed a time card reader in the office where I work, effectively allowing The Man to monitor my every move (those goddamned fascists!). Lame jokes aside, the introduction of the use of time cards has allowed me to bear witness to a certain curious behavior that I had seen in previous offices here in Japan, but had completely forgotten about: people getting up out of their desks at the official end of working hours, swiping their time cards, and then sitting back down and continuing on with their work.

You see, ever since I’ve been working here, the powers that be in the upper echelons of my company have been trying to reduce the sheer amount of overtime that is racked up each month. The continued stagnation of the Japanese economy has left nearly all firms looking for ways to reduce costs, and with labor costs being most companies’ largest expenses, they are the primary target. However, the catch is that while employers are eager to reduce the amount of overtime wages they pay, they don’t want their employees to actually work any less.

The result is what is known as saabisu zangyo — “service” or voluntary unpaid overtime. Japanese law forbids companies from not giving compensation for overtime work, however despite the fact that the average employee works anywhere from 2-5 hours of overtime each day, companies don’t want to have to pay for it. Thus, the employees, demonstrating their fierce loyalty to the company and reflecting the comprehensive conditioning they underwent during their formative years, take it upon themselves to limit their documented work hours, all the while working far beyond the conditions stated in their contracts. It may sound utterly ridiculous to the average Westerner, but to the employee of a Japanese company, the benefits of such behavior (being seen as a team player, a higher likelihood of promotion, good comradery with colleagues, etc.) far outweigh the downsides (less contact with family members, increased stress, reduced personal time, etc.).

Of course, none of this actually applies to me, since I’m only a keiyaku shain (contract employee) and thus my contract is similar to that of a manager (i.e., the work must get done no matter what), meaning that all of my overtime is saabisu. However, the positive side of my situation is that I exist somewhat outside of the standard company organization, so unlike everyone else, I don’t have to dedicate my entire life to the company. It sure would be nice to get paid for the full amount of work that I do, but on the other hand, I have a life outside the office, which is more than I can say for most of my colleagues.

Anyhow, it’s the end of the week and I’m beat. Too much zangyo, once again. To anyone who’s interested in reading more, here’s an article about unpaid overtime in Japan, as well as one about what it’s like as a foreigner to work for a Japanese company. Fun stuff.

Love food? Love naked women? Well, if you’re looking to combine the two for an exceptionally titillating dining experience, don’t go to China:

China’s State Administration of Industry and Commerce issued a notice this weekend banning meals served on naked bodies, officially canceling the service offered by a restaurant in southwestern China that served sushi on unclothed female university students, a Beijing newspaper reported Sunday. [LINK]

The practice of eating raw fish off the body of an unclad woman is called nyotaimori in Japanese, and despite the fact that it’s apparently a rich Japanese tradition, opportunities to partake in this lovely cultural marvel are now quite scarce. I certainly haven’t had the good fortune of dining off the succulent bare flesh of a ravishing young nymph — actually, the closest I’ve ever come has been dining on the succulent bear flesh of a ravaging young cub (*rimshot*). Most likely, just like no-pan shabu-shabu, the few remaining establishments have gone underground, and one must have the contacts and the moolah (both of which I am sorely lacking) to indulge in their services.

Here’s one of the few articles about nyotaimori that I could find in English (although I imagine most of it is blatantly made up), and here’s a Japanese site with a veritible shopping list of what one needs to partake in such a feast as well as some diagrams detailing how to aesthetically arrange the food on a woman’s body.

It’s a shame that the Chinese government had to go and ruin all the fun. “Insults people’s moral quality,” blah blah blah. I honestly don’t see the harm, as long as all parties are willing participants and proper hygiene is observed. Stupid commies.

One of the great things about living in Tokyo is that you never know what you might find when you wander around the different districts of the city. Something that I’ve always enjoyed doing on days when the weather is nice and I don’t have any plans is donning my jodhpurs and pith helmet and setting out with my trusty elephant gun at the ready to valiantly explore new neighborhoods. A cracking good time, I tell you.

One particularly fun place to visit for an hour or two is Kappabashi Dogu-gai, located in between Ueno and Asakusa, where one can find block after block of restaurant supply stores selling everything from kitchenware to neon signs to plastic food display models. There you can wander in and out of shops overflowing with anything a person would ever need to open up a restaurant (well, aside from actual food, that is), as well as seek out the many depictions of kappa (a kind of folkloric water creature) scattered throughout the area.

Judy and I made a visit to Kappabashi relatively recently (I gave my stalwart mahout the day off), and here a few photos from that afternoon:

Amazingly, although I was extremely tempted, I did manage to make it out of Kappabashi without having purchased any of the plastic food models. They’re actually quite pricey, and frankly, there’s not much one can do with an incredibly realistic replica of a piece of tempura shrimp other than try to trick people into eating it, which would probably get old rather quickly (I have a hard enough time making friends as is, on account of my ungodly body odor and chronic incontinence).

I’ve mentioned previously my fianceé Judy’s unhealthy endearing addiction to Korean dramas, and the subsequent obsession with all things Bae Yong Joon-related that developed as a result. Well, fans of the genre will be pleased to know that she has since been branching out to dramas featuring actors other than Yon-sama (most recently, Stairway to Heaven, starring Kwon Sang Woo and Choi Ji Woo), as well as starting to explore the wider arena of Korean cinema.

Thus, over the weekend, we hit the video store and rented the 2001 romantic comedy My Sassy Girl on the recommendation one of Judy’s friends. I hadn’t even heard of the film prior to renting it, but based on my past experience with Korean dramas, I figured that it would be just another sappy melodrama filled with forbidden love, overbearing parents and lots of tears.

Well, actually, all of those elements did play a part in the storyline, however, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the film was vastly different from what I had expected. In fact, I found it to be downright entertaining! Sure, there were certainly moments bordering on melodramatic, but the barrage of comedic scenes coupled with the superb acting on the part of both Cha Tae-hyun and Jun Ji-hyun made the quirky film thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end.

Now, seeing as this film is already four years old, and as I’m not one to blather on about plot lines, dramatic intent or any of that, I’ll just say that I recommend this film to anyone looking for something different from the usual Hollywood schlock. Sure, it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for fans of Asian cinema, I believe it’s definitely worth a viewing.

Incidentally, while reading up about the film after watching it, I learned that Dreamworks has already purchased the US remake rights, and the American version will be directed by Bend It Like Beckham director, Gurinder Chadha, and possibly star Rachael Leigh Cook in the titular role. Like most American remakes, I imagine that the end result will likely be a steaming pile of doo-doo (see: The Office), but that’s Hollywood for you (i.e., pander to the lowest common denominator by including as many explosions, tit shots and fart jokes as possible).

I’m tempted commence with a rant about American audiences’ inability to appreciate subtlety, but I reckon that it’s about time I shut the hell up. Therefore, I shall do just that, and leave you, dear readers, with the pitiful photos below taken recently at a kaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi) joint here in Tokyo. Kaiten zushi shops are one of my favorite places to eat in Japan, as they’re quick and cheap, yet oh-so delicious (assuming it’s a decent place that serves fresh fish).

Actually, I could really go for some sushi right now. . . .

If there is any one thing for which Japan can be said to be the most abundant nation in the world, it is surely old people. No matter where you go in this country — from the busiest train station in Tokyo to the smallest village in the most remote countryside — you are bound to see droves of elderly citizens wearily shuffling about, their hunched frames and bow legs a harrowing reminder of what inevitably lies in store for all of us (well, those of us who subsist on a substandard diet, anyhow).

Naturally, as people age and their bodies wither and their minds deteriorate, many often come to require assistance from professional caregivers. The challenge therein lies in the fact that most people eager to establish a career in geriatric support services have little practical experience with the responsibilities involved, such as touching weird old people skin, listening to stories about life in the days before the invention of the automobile, and cleaning up “accidents.”

Thankfully, Sakamoto Model, one of Japan’s leading providers of medical training equipment, has a unique product that allows individuals studying to be caregivers the opportunity for hands-on experience without having to interact with actual old people. Say hello to Koharu-san:

According to the manufacturer, the doll, which features a highly realistic detailed appearance, composition and range of movement, was designed “to help people understand the necessity of tenderness and affection when nursing.” Of course, to individuals such as myself with the maturity level of grade school children, the most amusing aspect of Koharu-san is the following highly-advanced feature:

It is possible to practice not only assistance in excretion using a stool or toilet, but also in removing excrement from the anus.

Tee hee.

The full details and specifications of this wonderful training apparatus can be found here.

Sadly, having intimate knowledge of the truly abysmal depths of the depravity of human nature, I have no doubt that someone, somewhere is putting Koharu-san’s “durable yet easy-to-handle skin material,” Kung-Fu grip, and widely opening hip joints to use in a manner other than the one intended. A “mature” love doll, if you will.

Ew.

Now let’s all share a collective shudder and do our best to erase any images that may have developed in our mind during the reading of the paragraph above.

Well, I’m back from Osaka. Actually, due to a last-minute change of plans, I ended up spending the majority of the time in nearby Nara prefecture, but that worked out just as well.

The people I went to visit are basically my family here in Japan. . . my family in the States has had a relationship with them for over forty years, since my mother and the father here in Japan became pen pals when they were in primary school. Letters and gifts have been exchanged, various relatives have visited back and forth, and since coming to Japan, I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know them quite well, and they are all incredibly wonderful people.

The reason for the change in plans, however, was due to a rather unfortunate accident. Late one night last month, the father was walking along the side of the road, returning home from a reunion with some old friends, when he was suddenly struck down by a drunk driver. Luckily, the extent of his injuries weren’t as bad as they could have been, but he did suffer from a shattered kneecap, tibia and fibula, as well as a broken tooth from when he landed on the windshield. I visited him in the hospital several times during my visit and he’s doing quite well. After having to wear a cast covering nearly his entire leg for the past month, he’s now undergoing rehabilitation and is expected to fully recover within a year.

In addition to the hospital visits (which were actually kind of fun, since his entire family seems to find it hilarious that he got hit by a car, and everyone, including him, cracks jokes about it), my holiday was spent hanging out and relaxing, and playing with the adorable granddaughter (who seemed to regard me only as her personal plaything à la Richard Pryor in The Toy). The high points of the trip were probably the day Judy visited from her grandma’s house in Kobe, the afternoon spent digging up bamboo shoots in the forest behind the mother’s family home and the night out at karaoke with two of the daughters.

The low points were the terrible cold that I caught right before the holiday that left me with the runniest nose that I’ve ever experienced for the entire duration of the visit, and my drunken rendition of The Real Slim Shady by Eminem at the repeated urging of the youngest daughter during the aforementioned karaoke night (luckily the obscene amount of alcohol consumed that evening has left most of the memory gone from my mind, however what remains shall haunt me with unescapable shame until the end of my days).

As was expected, since returning to Tokyo, I’ve been absolutely swamped with work. In addition to my usual tasks, I’ve just been assigned to be actively involved with our operations in India in response to some recent developments at our joint venture over there, and this has left me busier than ever (I’m in need of another vacation already).

Thanks for putting up with the random photos while I was away. . . perhaps I’ll just do that again on occasion when I can’t be arsed to write a proper post. For the time being, however, I’ll try to keep up with regular posting as time allows, despite the poor quality that you’ve all no doubt come to expect.

And here is the last of the random crappy photos:

Hopefully I’ll come up with something to write about after I get back from Osaka (although it will no doubt be the customary worthless drivel).

But for now, it’s time to get some sleep before I catch the shinkansen tomorrow. Adieu!

A complete waste of film:

Sometimes you just can’t help dozing off on the train.

It’s embarrassing when you’re snoring loudly with your mouth wide open, though.

I don’t care much for cats. There are far too many of the mangy varmints slinking around Tokyo.

Uh, yeah. . . don’t have much to add to that. I’m sleepy.

A scene from Sogo Park in Koga, Ibaraki during the peach blossom season.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the hanami season in Japan is a time for people to get outside for the first time in months and drink themselves silly. A good time is had by all.

Of course, people — especially those of the aged variety — also enjoy activities that don’t involve soiling themselves in public. Here are some examples:

Okay, this is the first random photo that will be posted while I am on holiday. Let’s hope it works.

The photo is of a public toilet in a small park that I happened to pass on my way home after retrieving my confiscated bicycle (for the second time).

In case anyone was wondering, no, I didn’t, um, put the facility to use. The smell was bad enough from where I stood to snap the photo that I dared not get nearer.

My apologies once again for the dearth of posting as of late. My boss is on a business trip this week, and while I thought that would mean a breezy time at work, in fact it has been quite the opposite. Not only have I been swamped with several big translations all due tomorrow, but my office is also being host to a new intern from Thailand this week and I have been assisting with her training.

In addition, I recently downloaded obtained by legal means (*cough*) the full three seasons of The Family Guy and have been amidst the throes of an unrelenting addiction. I haven’t laughed this hard in ages! However, the culmination of these and additional factors have left me unable to fulfill my duties as the operator of this infantile and wholly inane weblog, and thus I hereby regretfully submit my resignation.

Just kidding.

Actually, starting this Friday, the Japanese holiday season known as Golden Week will be upon us, and I will be taking advantage of the much-needed five days off from work to get the heck out of town and live a little. Thus, I will be heading down to Osaka for the duration of the holiday and likely will not have an opportunity to update this site due to a combination of the following factors: inebriation, exhaustion (sexual or otherwise), lethargy and the fact that I probably won’t have regular access to a computer.

Therefore, I’ve decided to try to set things up so that a new random photo will be posted each day for the duration of my time away, starting Friday night at midnight (Japan time). Hopefully it will work as planned. Of course, one could just go take a peek in the galleries and look ahead at the photos that are going to be posted, but I certainly hope that people will refrain from doing so because that’s just no fun at all. No one likes a spoilsport.

While in Osaka, I’ll be spending my time with some family friends who live in the region, the youngest of whom is this precious angel:

The last time I paid the family a visit was Golden Week 2002, so I’m definitely looking forward to catching up. I’m hoping that my Japanese has improved sufficiently since then that communication will run far more smoothly than previous visits. One can only rely on body language so long.

Well, it’s late and I just got back from the kangeikai for the new intern so I really should take a shower to remove the stench of cigarettes and booze from my body and then head to bed. I’ll be back again with the usual tripe next week. Until then, I hope you’ll enjoy the mediocre photos!

I’ve been a bit short on time the past few days and I’m not feeling particularly loquacious at this late hour, so I think I’m going to forgo the usual poppycock tonight and just post a photo.

Here is the headquarters of Asahi Breweries, located across the Sumida River from Asakusa:

The taller building on the left is the Asahi Beer Azumabashi Building, and was designed to resemble a glass of beer complete with a nice head of foam. (Don’t see it? Me neither.) The low black building beside the glass of beer is the Super Dry Hall, built to commemorate Asahi’s best-selling product, the semi-palatable Super Dry Beer. Of course, more so than the actual hall itself, the first thing that most people see when they first encounter this sight is the unique, WTF-inspiring structure resting atop it.

Designed by French architect Philippe Starck, the Flame d’Or (Golden Flame), as it is officially known, was created to represent the fighting spirit of Asahi employees, whose introduction of the Super Dry brew in 1987 was a smashing success when the product quickly became the company’s top seller (as it remains to this day).

Clearly Mr. Starck had consumed a few too many of Asahi’s fine products when he set to work to design the structure, as the enormous golden squiggle is said by many to more closely resemble a gilded piece of excrement than a burning flame. In fact, many Tokyoites affectionately refer to the object as the Ogon no Unko, or The Golden Turd. However, regardless of whatever the sculpture can be said to more closely resemble, it certainly holds a special place in the Tokyo metropolitan area, where it sits beside the banks of the Sumida River like a small bit of feces being subjected to the gentle current of a bidet.

And, with that appallingly atrocious simile, I’m off to bed for some much-needed sleep. Good night, folks!

The musical Cats returned to Tokyo last year for the first time since its initial run ended eight years ago. Despite all of the hoopla, I truthfully could not have cared less, as there are few things I dislike more than watching people sing and dance about in a gaily fashion (a colonoscopy being one example).

Seeing as my neighborhood doesn’t have much to offer besides a bustling seedy red-light district (which I assure you I have never patronized), one can likely understand the surprise that I experienced when walking home one night from a different direction and encountering this:

Yes, that is the Cats Theater, home to Tokyo’s production of Cats and located only about a hundred paces from my apartment building. I can only presume that this particular location was chosen due to inexpensive land prices, because there is absolutely nothing else in the vicinity worth visiting, especially for the type of crowd that I would imagine is wont to attend musicals. Nonetheless, it has proven to be a popular attraction and at fixed intervals throughout the day, the street in front of my building floods with a mass exodus of women in their 30s leaving the theater.

The show has already been in production for nearly six months, but I never bothered to snap a photo of the theater until this past weekend. I’d like to say that the presence of an acclaimed Broadway musical has introduced some much-needed class or culture into my neighborhood, but sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, the only noticeable difference is the ubiquitous presence of stupid Cats posters on every fucking flat surface within a five-mile radius. For some reason, the expression on the face of the ginger woman on the left really gets on my tits.

The other night I was watching TV for the first time in ages and happened to catch a pair of car ads that gave me a bit of a chuckle. Apparently, in February of this year, Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third-largest automaker, launched a new ad campaign to promote the excellence and design of their model line and encourage people to visit their neighborhood showrooms to experience for themselves the fine quality and the feel of the materials used in each Nissan vehicle.

Staying true to the common practice by Japanese car companies of using English slogans in advertisements, Nissan created the following tagline for the new campaign:

(Wait for it. . .)

“Touch your NISSAN”

That’s right, seemingly innocuous yet potentially teetering on the edge of risqué (depending on how dirty one’s mind is), Nissan has provided the world with another Engrish gem. While it’s possible that no one at Nissan recognized the giggle-potential of their tagline, it certainly caused me to do a double-take, and I somewhat doubt that I was the only one.

Touch your NISSAN is actually strongly reminiscent of the Nintendo DS Touch! campaign that has been ongoing since October of last year. (Nintendo has recently taken the pun one step further with their new “My First Touch!” promotion featuring video clips of people’s first experiences playing the DS.) I, for one, would love to see the explosion of a trend featuring the use of double entendres in ad copy. Perhaps other automotive companies can follow suit with similar suggestive slogans of their own. Wouldn’t be great to flip through a magazine and see ads featuring lines like these?:

Feel your Mazda
Caress your Mercedes Benz
Squeeze your Suzuki
Pet your Volkswagen
Fondle your Honda
Stroke your Toyota
Rub your Mitsubishi
Palpate your Oldsmobile
Spank your Jaguar

Okay, I admit that those are incredibly lame, but I think the world definitely needs more of this. But, then again, I am the guy who was admonished by the teacher in my grade 12 Economics class for creating an ad for a fictional top-of-the-line luxury pen featuring a scantily-clad model above the tagline “I love a man with a big pen,” so perhaps it’s best that I not be listened to.

Continuing my office’s grand tradition of going out drinking in the middle of the week, last night my officemates and I hit the town for an evening of drunken revelry. Originally scheduled as a hanami party, the noticeable lack of sakura turned the event into a second kangeikai for the new guy in our office. This time, however, all staff were present, including the top managers and the mighty shacho himself.

Over a bland meal at a Chinese restaurant off of Aoyama Dori, we quickly and merrily descended into the pits of drunkenness by means of numerous pitchers of beer and more shoukoushu (Chinese rice wine) than I want to even think about. Naturally, things became a tad rambunctious as the evening progressed. Two of my coworkers who had both spent a few years in the U.S. as university students soon began making use of all of the colorful obscenities that they picked up during their time there, much to the chagrin of the older staff members who were proficient enough in English to understand what was being said. Here’s an example of one of their heavily-accented exchanges:

Drunk Guy 1: “Why the fuck aren’t you drinking, bitch?”
Drunk Guy 2: “Man, what the fuck you talking about?”
Drunk Guy 1: “You know what I’m fucking talking about, bitch. You keep filling everyone else’s glasses, but you aren’t drinking shit!”
Drunk Guy 2: “Don’t fucking talk to me that shit, motherfucker! I’m drinking more than you are!”
[Continues ad nauseam]

After the meal, the majority of the revelers departed for home, leaving just six of the most wanton of our group to head to the nijikai (second party). There’s a particular Chinese hostess club in Akasaka that my boss is apparently quite fond of, so lo and behold, that’s where he said we would be going. The place was decent enough — it had the archetypical dim lighting, velvet couches and middle-aged salarymen busting out old enka tunes — but the slightly haggard appearance of the women in their sleazy outfits combined with the fact that the only thing to drink was cursed mizuwari (whisky diluted in water), the experience was far from enjoyable.

Thus, in order to pass the time while my boss was living it up chatting with his favorite hostess and the two drunk guys were busy carrying out a new series of energetic exchanges based around the words “bitch,” “shit,” and “motherfucker,” another coworker and I set to work flipping through the karaoke songbook and picking random songs to viciously butcher to the displeasure to our fellow patrons in the bar. Finally, after a number of pitiful pop tunes and a utterly horrible rendition of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?,” my boss declared that it was time to go. We made a quick stop at a nearby ramen shop for a hearty dose of hangover prevention before hopping into cabs and heading home, where I sleepily arrived shortly after 2:00 a.m.

As one might expect, it was pretty quiet in the office today, as many quietly nursed hangovers and we all fought to stay awake following last night’s adventure. The total tab for evening came out to be about US$680 for dinner (for 16 people) and another whopping $1000 (yes, one thousand) for the waste of time at the hostess club, of which my share was calculated to be $10 and $70 respectively. Thankfully, they chose to break down everyone’s share in terms of rank (one of the few benefits of living in a rigid hierarchal society), and thus the managers had to foot the majority of the tab. Had that not been the case, I just may have had to resort to blackmail, taking advantage of the crappy keitai pics that I drunkenly snapped of my boss getting friendly with one of the hostesses. I guess now I’ll get to save that for another occasion.

Oh, sweet irony. How you make me chuckle with glee and cry with misery at the same time.

Here was the scene yesterday morning:

It was about 8:30 a.m., and I was on the Yamanote line heading to work. As the train neared Shibuya station, the usual announcement played, stating that the doors would be opening on the right side and that there is a gap between the door of the train and the platform, so proper caution should be taken when exiting the train. At that moment, the following half-thought popped into my otherwise haven’t-had-my-coffee-yet brain-dead mind:

“Why do they always announce that there’s a gap between the door and the platform? Surely, everyone on this train has ridden on trains countless times before and is well aware of the presence of the gap. Is it really necessary to announce it at every single stop?”

As the train came to a stop, I made my way through the crowd towards the door. Suddenly, at the precise moment that I placed my left foot on the metal edge of the doorway (which was wet with rain) in preparation to extend my right towards the platform, I received a sharp shove from behind by an impatient fellow commuter. My foot promptly slipped off the edge of the doorway, and sure enough, down into the gap my left leg dropped. My body fell forward and a loud thwack! resounded as the palms of my hands hit the ground to stop my fall, sending my umbrella into the legs of the man in front of me.

I quickly stood back up without missing a beat and noticed through the corner of my eyes that every head in the immediate area was turned in my direction. At that point, I did the only thing a person can do in such a situation: hobbled away as quickly as possible without looking anyone in the eye.

Upon reflection, I realized that perhaps those “mind the gap” announcements aren’t such a bad idea after all. Now, if they only they had a “NO PUSHING, YOU MISERABLE CUNTS” announcement to go along with it, my commute might be slightly less unpleasant.

Ask any Japanese person what first comes to their mind when they think of the season of spring, and they’ll answer “hanami!” Ask any Japanese person what first comes to their mind when they think of hanami, and they’ll answer “getting sloshed and passing out in the bushes!”

Yes, the hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season arrived in Tokyo this past week, and everyone and their mother was out enjoying the rare temperate weather and having picnics beneath the beautiful pinks and whites of the cherry blossoms in bloom. Many Japanese regard hanami as the quintessence of Japanese culture, the intricacies of which are too complex for the simple foreign mind to comprehend. To the Japanese, the beauty of the sakura is found not only in the delicate colors and the serenity of the gentle falling of the petals, but also that the blossoms epitomize the ephemeral nature of existence and the impermanence of life. Thus, at this time of year, people throughout the country get together in parks and other outdoor areas to celebrate the fleeting exquisiteness of nature by getting shitfaced drunk and littering the parks with mountains of garbage.

As the weather was exceptionally nice this past weekend, Judy and I decided to go check out the sakura in the Yasukuni/Chidorigafuchi area, as recommended by one of my coworkers. Apparently about one-fifth of Tokyo also had the same idea, as when ascended from the subway exit we were flabbergasted by the sheer number of people scrambling about for an unobscured view of the trees. We first took a walk through Yasukuni Jinja, a shrine infamous for the 14 convicted WWII Class-A war criminals housed within and the visits made by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that continue to infuriate Japan’s neighbors in China and Korea. Yasukuni was crowded as well (no surprise), but we did manage to walk around a bit and enjoy some of the fare from the stalls that line the walkway to the shrine.

Afterwards, I suggested to Judy that we go walk along the Chidorigafuchi moat to look at the cherry blossoms close-up, but she informed me that if I wanted to do so, I would be spending the rest of the afternoon by myself, as there was no way she was going to try wading through that crowd. So instead, we walked in the opposite direction from the crowds and spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the city, which is, in my opinion, the best way to find the hidden gems that Tokyo has to offer.

Sadly, Sunday’s strong winds combined with today’s rain have all but washed the sakura away, bringing this year’s hanami season to a premature close.

I guess that’s life.

Ever since the advent of the computer age, the unyielding speed of technological advancement has been nothing short of astounding. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before this progress extended to the world of smut (about five minutes, to be exact), where prospective applications stand to provide endless benefit to the world’s awkward and perverted. Geeky losers who would never have a chance of achieving physical contact with actual members of the fairer sex are hard at work on the development of computer-generated women, with the goal of one day realizing their ultimate dream of the creation of a virtual sexual experience where a willing human partner becomes redundant.

With a society that inexplicably breeds an inordinate number of socially inept men, Japan continues to lead the world in the development of advanced virtual sexual technology in an attempt to bring to life ideas conceivable only in the wildest imaginations. MetaDoll.com is a prime example of just how far this technology has come within the past few years alone. The site features images of nubile CG beauties in a variety of outfits and poses, as well as a number of animations and interactive games. Access to most of the content requires a membership, however there are a few select features accessible without one, including this great Shockwave game jovially titled “Play with My Boobs!” [hint: keep clicking for additional options].

As the innovation of this progressive technology continues, one can only imagine the potential applications when it will be inevitably combined with Japan’s advanced wanking technology. The possibilities are endless!

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Psst ↓ ↓ ↓

username: vip08
password: A01-4415-0822

Google is your friend.

Last night, some of my officemates and I went out for an informal kangeikai (welcome party) for a guy who was transferred to work in our office in Tokyo. As our decision to go out was a bit last-minute, none of our usual haunts had room for our group, so we ended up going to a chain izakaya near Shibuya station called Kaasan. Kaasan means “Mother” in Japanese, and the chain markets itself as providing homely fare prepared with a motherly touch. Accordingly, the kitchen and wait staff are composed entirely of matronly middle-aged women who dote on customers with a maternal demeanor whilst supplying them with large quantities of alcohol and reminding them to finish their vegetables.

Since it was a Monday night, we all decided to limit our intake of alcoholic beverages, but achieved varying degrees of success. It’s actually a tad difficult to keep track of how much nihonshu you’re drinking when someone refills your cup after every sip. Nonetheless, we all made it to the station afterwards without anyone puking or passing out (which is quite an accomplishment in itself), and parted ways.

Upon returning to my apartment to find Judy sound asleep, I realized that I had to return a DVD to the video rental shop before midnight, and so I headed back out and managed to get the DVD into the hands of the cashier with about three minutes to spare. As I walked past the station on my way back to my apartment, I happened to pass by a guy who I’ve seen many times playing the saxophone and trumpet (albeit not at the same time) beneath the elevated train tracks. Feeling somewhat chatty after my numerous beers and countless glasses of sake, I greeted the guy asked him, “Do you play here often?” (which, in retrospect, does indeed sound like a cheesy pickup line, much to my dismay).

We chatted briefly about our respective backgrounds and time in Japan, and I learned that he was originally from New York and had spent the past 15 years in Tokyo. Unfortunately, within minutes the conversation quickly took a turn towards one-sidedness and the guy began to rant and rave about everything from the film industry to the American government to the lamentable prevalence of ignorance among the youth of today. He seemed like a rather intelligent guy, but he was definitely on a different level than most “normal” folk. I’m hesitant to just pass him off as some whackjob, but when people advocate the overthrow of the government and say paranoid things like “Don’t you see? They don’t want you to know what’s going on!”, it certainly makes one wonder about their mental stability. I barely managed to get a word in edgewise the entire time, but since I’m not the type to rudely interrupt others when they are speaking, I ended up standing there for over an hour listening to his tirade.

Since then, after having thought a bit more about some of the things that he was saying, and considering the depth of his knowledge and analysis of each issue he mentioned, I’ve come to realize just how intellectually inactive I’ve become in the last few years. I definitely felt more socially aware when I was in university (although I forwent the traditional scraggly facial hair, “Free Mumia” pin and other clich´s), but in the years since, while my knowledge and understanding of social issues and world events have increased considerably, I’ve found that my priorities have shifted a bit and I no longer focus as much energy on them.

Could this be due to disillusionment? To laziness? To having become complacent from living in a society regrettably known for its ignorance and shallowness? Perhaps it’s just from growing older and now being in a position where I’m relatively comfortable enough to enjoy the small pleasures in life, rather than dwell upon the inequalities and injustices in the world. Or maybe I’m just a bad person.

I suppose my biggest question is: Why do my coworkers insist on getting soused in the middle of the week? My head hurts.

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My apologies for the particularly inane ramblings as of late. I promise I’ll be back to writing about boobies and eccentricities in Japanese society and whatever else shortly. In the meantime, why not take a peek at this video of J-Pop super-group and fodder for Japan’s legion of pedophiles, Morning Musume, squeal and squirm as they watch a clip from the Japanese film Ringu.

Apparently there are few pleasures in life comparable to that attained from scaring young girls.

Today is the first day of the Japanese fiscal year. All throughout the country, fresh-faced shinnyuushain (new hires) attended their first day of their first full-time jobs with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. Uniformly dressed in ill-fitting new black suits, they roamed the streets in packs on their way to and from the company that many of them will serve for the rest of their working lives. No doubt, a momentous occasion for those involved, but for someone like me who’s on the outside, it’s like watching fresh meat heading to the slaughter. The next year of their lives will be filled with suffering and hardship as they learn what they must do to fit in and toe the company line. And, thus, the loss of their youth, the crushing of their spirits and the death of their souls will duly commence, followed by roughly 38 years of ardent devotion to the national cult of salarymanism until they finally retire at the age of 60, at which point they realize that they’ve wasted their entire lives in the office and have no idea to do with the remainder of their time until the arrival of death.

I wish them all the best.

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My apologies for not posting in the past few days. The end of the fiscal year is always an extremely busy time. Hopefully I’ll be able to find more time once things get settled within the next week or so. In the meantime, here are a few more photos from my day in Asakusa in March. Yes, utter crap, I know, but whattayagonnado?

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.

I really don’t like cold weather.

Growing up in the San Francisco bay area, it never really got cold. There was “cool” and “chilly,” but never “I’ve lost-feeling-in-my-testicles” cold. Of course, when living outside of Boston during my university years, the weather certainly became “my-scrotum-is-an-empty-sack-because-my-
testicles-have-retreated-into-my-body-cavity-and-are-now-socializing-with-my-kidneys” bitingly cold, but there was frequently snowfall to accompany it, which made the temperature somewhat bearable because everything was white and purdy-like.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t snow sufficiently enough in Tokyo to stick on the ground, let alone allow me to temporarily ignore the fact that all of my appendages are atrophying due to frostbite. It’s actually not even that cold here anymore, but the overall dreariness combined with the lack of suitable insulation anywhere makes me utterly and inescapably miserable. Thus, during the winter season, each day is spent in a semi-catatonic state as my mind and body shut down all extraneous operations in order to conserve energy and cocoon myself from the bleakness of reality. I feel drowsy and distant all day long, and I can’t even remember what the sensation of “hot” feels like anymore.

Thankfully, February will soon come to a close and hopefully spring will make a timely arrival. In the meantime, I’ll just have to put up with the bitter cold and the oppressive melancholy and try to keep my spirit warm with copious amounts of booze.

Over the weekend I was looking at some photos from a warmer time and figured that I might post some for the sake of. . . well, for the sake of what, exactly, I don’t know, but for some reason or another. The photos were taken last spring at Shinjuku Gyoen, the park that Judy and I visited last November. However, in the spring I visited the park alone and, as such, was able to spend way too much time talking ridiculously awful photos of the scenery. Here you go:

Bicycles are a very common form of transportation in Japan. Teenagers use them as a primary means of transportation, housewives ride them to the market and back, and many salarymen ride them in between their homes and local train station as part of their daily commute. Despite their ubiquitous presence, however, most cities and towns in Japan do not have the necessary infrastructure to accommodate heavy bicycle traffic. Hardly any roads have bicycle lanes, and this forces cyclists to ride on the sidewalk, often resulting in collisions with pedestrians. There is also a noticeable lack of bicycle parking facilities, which leads to dense rows of illegally parked bicycles on sidewalks and roadsides that hinders pedestrian and even road traffic.

In response to the widespread problem of illegal bicycle parking, many local governments throughout the country have established anti-bicycle brigades, which carry out frequent raids around town to collect illegally parked and abandoned bicycles and haul them off to large storage facilities where they are held until their owners come to retrieve them.

Last Thursday I happened to witness one of these raids and snapped this photo:

I, myself, actually had my mamachari (granny bike) confiscated twice when I lived in Saitama. Both times I had to make the trip out to the pound and pay ¥1000 to get it back. But hey, the combined fines were cheaper than the ¥2500 that I would have had to pay per month for a spot at the only bicycle parking lot in the area — half-way between my apartment and the station.

When you’re a kid, every bit of information you hear on the schoolyard is considered unquestionable and undisputable fact. Way back when I was (slightly less) naive and impressionable, the things that I heard about from my friends and classmates about Japan never failed to awe me, such as: the women are all sex-crazed goddesses with a penchant for housework and the culinary arts; the men are all geniuses and don’t need to do any physical labor because they’ve created highly advanced robots to do it for them; and there is absolutely no crime because police officers are all bad-ass martial arts experts who lay down the law by dispensing justice indiscriminately and without mercy.

Now, while the first example turned out to be true (and how!), the same unfortunately cannot be said for the other two. While automation might be slightly more advanced here compared to the West, the mental superiority hypothesis quickly died the moment I first heard a Japanese person espouse the oddly ubiquitous assertion that Japan is the only country in the world that has four distinct seasons. As for the Japanese keisatsu (police force). . . well, let’s just say that they’re not quite the ruthless, uncompromising badasses that I had envisioned in my youth. In fact, in reality, Japanese police officers seem more adept at sitting in the koban (police box) sipping tea and occasionally giving directions than at fighting crime and catching bad guys.

Take, for example, an incident that occurred earlier this week when Tokyo police arrived at a scene in which vehicle had slammed into a building in the Daiba waterfront district. When the police approached the vehicle, the driver emerged brandishing a metal club, at which point the officers reacted like little girls and promptly ran away as fast as they could (!). The police finally managed to capture the assailant when he tried to flee in a police vehicle, the keys of which had been left in the ignition.

The incident caused quite a stir in the media after the prime minister himself commented that it was “embarrassing” and called for increased training for the national police. Of course, had the episode taken place in the US, the driver would have likely been shot the moment he charged in the officers’ direction.

Anyway, video of the incident is available here and is definitely worth a look for comic value.

Of course, this recent incident is only one in an endless series of embarrassing and criminal acts perpetrated by Japan’s finest. From drunkenly assaulting shop employees to taking photos up schoolgirls’ skirts to forcing women to touch their naughty bits, these men in blue have firmly secured their position as the laughingstock of the world’s police forces. Way to go, guys!

Tonight when I passed through Shibuya station on my way home, I looked up and noticed this new advertising gimmick by Levi’s Jeans:

Yes, those are real pairs of jeans hanging from the ceiling. This is kind of campaign is something that would never work in the US; within minutes, all of the pants would be gone and the homeless guys who sleep in the station would all be sporting new 501s.

I’d like to take a moment to digress from my usual asinine ramblings in order to make a little announcement. Visitors to this site who know me in real life are already aware of this, however for anyone else who, for whatever reason, might possibly care, here goes:

After being together for five and a half wonderful years, Judy and I have decided to get married!

While I truly regret the insufferable loss that the world’s single women will undoubtedly experience upon the realization that they will never have the good fortune of having me as their husband [ha], I couldn’t be more excited about the idea of spending the rest of my life together with a woman who intrigues and captivates me so, and whose kind-heartedness and compassion are an inspiration.

I can only wonder why she would want to throw her life away by marrying a schmuck like me.

I actually proposed to Judy six months ago while we were on holiday in Okinawa, but held off on mentioning anything here on this site until we had the chance to let all of our family and friends know first, as well as select a date. Thus, for the past six months, we’ve been trying to figure out the logistics for a wedding ceremony in which the bride’s family lives in one country, the groom’s family lives in another, and the bride and groom themselves live in yet a third. Needless to say, it’s been a bit complicated.

However, last week we confirmed the date and location: Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i. We’re planning on keeping the ceremony small and simple, but I’m sure it’ll be special. It’s really strange to think that we’re getting married, or even that we’ve reached the age at which one would even consider getting married, however it actually feels kind of natural (somewhat surprisingly). I guess when you find the right person, everything just sort of falls into place.

Well, that’s the news. . . we now return to our regularly scheduled blogging.

Japan is widely known as a land of somewhat “unique” sexual practices and perversions. From bukkake to severe bondage to wild costume fetishes, no matter how extreme or absurb a sexual feat you try to imagine, there are likely thousands of Japanese people engaging in said act at this very moment. Of course, Japan has not always been so sexually advanced; back in simpler times, relations between the sexes were far more innocent and generally quite akwkard. Whenever a young man and a woman would first get together to express their affection for one another in a physical manner, the activity would generally only progress as far as a handshake and pat on the back before the couple would break into a fit of giggles and give up.

In order to get young people acquainted with the physical characteristics of members of the opposite sex as well as the technicalities involved in intimate relations, the leading minds of the day came together to create the quintessential guide to the art of lovemaking. With pens and clipboards in hand, they spent countless hours examining reel after reel of nature films depicting reproductive practices in the animal kingdom (because observing actual humans would be obscene) and toiled night and day in order to compile detailed instructions for every aspect of sexual behavior, from courtship to copulation. Thus, the Wakai Hito no Seiten, or Sex Manual for Young People, was delivered unto the citizens of Japan with great fanfare.

Not only does the comprehensive guide cover the basics, including hand holding and breast fondling, it also details other more, er, unusual practices, such as grooming, test tube handling and ways to simulate intercourse with posable wooden manikins. A virtual treasure trove of valuable information all contained within the pages of a single book, colorfully decorated with a photograph of a woman proudly displaying her unshaven armpit.

Thankfully, unlike an old man’s ability to achieve an erection, this incredible document has not been lost to time. Thanks to Tokyo Damage Report, a wonderful selection of pages from this classic text are available for your viewing pleasure here. Enjoy!

Like the countless other bastardized generic Western traditions, at one point in time the Japanese adopted the holiday known as Valentine’s Day and made it their own. No longer is it a day for a man to spend ridiculous amounts of hard-earned money on flowers and chocolate for his special lady in hopes of getting some good lovin’ in return in order to express his heartfelt feelings — instead, the Japanese took it upon themselves to combine the made-up day of buying stupid crap in the name of love with the eternal playground favorite “opposite day” and created a day in which women give gifts to men.

Great idea, isn’t it? Women in western countries are spoiled silly — birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Valentine’s Day — if you don’t spring for something nice on each occasion, there’s no guarantee your sweetheart won’t walk out the door and never return. Not once is the shoe ever on the other foot, so to speak, and we men receive unreciprocated gifts from the women in our lives. However, here in Japan, the 14th of February is a day especially for women to indulge men. From store-bought chocolate to home-made goodies, women throughout the country take the time to do something sweet for the ones dear to them.

And then there’s giri choco — combining the bitterness of obligation (giri) with the sweetness of fermented, roasted, and ground cacao seeds combined with a sweetening agent, giri choco is what Japanese women give to the men in their lives (friends, coworkers, etc.) out of nothing other than pure, unadulterated social obligation. Sure, it sounds silly and completely unnecessary, but then again, so are most social customs. Whether people like it or dislike it, all that matters is that they buy chocolate and make the chocolate barons even richer.

Of course, in Japan, obligation isn’t truly obligation unless it’s mutual and never-ending. Thus, the confectioners in Japan created a completely new holiday in order to keep up the indebtedness cycle, and White Day was born. Exactly one month after Valentine’s Day, men who were lucky enough to receive gifts on Valentine’s day (giri or otherwise) now have to give gifts in return, at often two or three times the value. In other words, White Day is a terrible, terrible holiday, and I’m lucky that no one likes me enough to give me giri choco in the first place.

Now excuse me while I go cry myself to sleep.

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Yesterday while browsing through the prepared food section of my local department store, I saw this and just had to get it. Behold, Valentine’s Day themed sushi:

Earlier this week, Tokyo police released figures indicating that the number of reported groping incidents on Tokyo trains has risen threefold over the past eight years. While it’s likely that the reported increase is mainly due to the simple fact that more women are filing complaints with police, there is no doubt that Tokyo’s chikan (gropers) still be gettin’ they grope on. In fact, a survey last year found that 64% of women in their 20s and 30s admitted to having been groped on trains, subways or at transit stations in Tokyo.

So what is being done to combat this problem? Well, in typical fashion, not very much. Several train companies have introduced “Women Only” carriages at peak times, namely late-night trains when people are returning home after drinking, however an unexpected side-effect of this is that any women not in the “Women Only” cars are seen by some deranged souls as willing targets for groping.

However, the fact that more women are reporting these incidents rather than suffering in silence is a positive sign that things just may be starting to change. Each year, more than 4000 men are arrested in Japan for groping on trains, and that number is rising. Furthermore, in a surprising break from the traditional Japanese societal norm of not interfering in the affairs of strangers, bystanders are increasingly stepping in to assist women who are being assaulted.

With all of the increased public attention and action against wandering hands, perhaps there may come a day when gropers will no longer be able to get away with fondling supple young bodies on their way to and from work. . . which means I’ll probably have to find a new way to pass the time during my commute.

No worries though, men who have a hard on for putting their hands on unreceptive women can always visit one of the countless imekura (image clubs) caterting to fancies of Japan’s chikan, where women stand around in rooms decorated like train carriages, just waiting to be groped unabashedly in the lewdest manner possible. Sure, it’s not the real thing, but at least the women give blow jobs afterwards.

Last week, I had to go up to my company’s main plant in Ibaraki for several days of meetings with visitors from an American firm. Although I probably shouldn’t admit this, the meetings were painfully dull and reminded me of just how overwhelmingly NOT cut out I am to be a businessman.

I had heard that a new intern named Jason had arrived last week from the States to work at my company’s head office, and so I organized a small, informal kangeikai (welcome party) after the final meeting in order to meet him and to hang out with some of my old coworkers I hadn’t seen in a while. Well, as typically happens, the four-person dinner quickly tripled in size, and once alcohol was thrown in the mix, madness ensued. However, rest be assured, it was good madness (like mud wrestling). Even better, since no managers were in attendance, not once did any of the several conversations taking place concurrently ever turn to the topic of work.

Unfortunately, being the only person who had to return to Tokyo that night, I had to duck out early and just managed to catch the last train back. But for everyone else, the party continued until late into the night. The next day brought hangovers to all (except me), and Jason, the guest of honor at the festivities the night before, called in sick.

Good times.

Here are a few photos from the welcome party, but please excuse the poor quality — my skills with a camera are even worse after I’ve had a bit to drink:

There was a humorous article on the Japan Today website yesterday about what Sanyo Electric is doing in response to financial losses suffered this year:

Sanyo asks employees to buy company products to cut losses

OSAKA — Sanyo Electric Co has asked all domestic group employees to buy Sanyo products of up to 2 million yen per person by the end of March to help reduce losses stemming mainly from damage caused by earthquakes that struck Niigata Prefecture last year, company sources said Saturday.

Division chiefs at the home appliance maker were asked to buy up to 500,000 yen and rank-and-file employees 200,000 yen, they said. If each Sanyo group employee satisfies the company’s target, the group will boost its sales by about 16 billion yen, they said.

For anyone not hip to the foreign exchange market, the amount that Sanyo is “asking” (read: forcing) each employee to spend is roughly US$2000 ($5000 for managers). I can only imagine what it must be like to be a member of the Sanyo group right now. . . big posters up in every office declaring “Let’s buying Sanyo goods!,” daily reminders announced every morning, a chart on the wall tracking which employee has shown the most “dedication to the company” by dropping the most cash. . . madness.

Sure, it sounds like an incredibly ridiculous business plan, but is it really that crazy? I suppose the question is: would you rather be laid off, or receive what is effectively a two-grand salary cut? At least this way everyone gets to keep their jobs AND gets a houseful of new appliances to boot. Plus, they might even be able to make a little cash back by selling off their old appliances to the local Hard Off.

On Sunday, Judy and I went up to Omiya in Saitama to spend the afternoon with some friends. From November 2002 through January 2003, I lived there in a tiny one-room apartment about 10 minutes from the station (Judy joined me in September after she switched jobs).

Unfortunately, the majority of my time in Omiya was marked by a number of troubles, especially involving my apartment, such as: the fact that it had paper walls and zero insulation, meaning during the winter it was colder inside than outside; the robbery in June 2003, resulting in the loss of not only all of my valuables, but two years’ worth of digital photos as well; the Humidity Incident of August 2003, during which everything in my apartment became covered with mold; the two ladies of the night who moved in next door and woke us up every day at 4:00 in the morning when they returned from their “exploits”; and countless others.

Yet, despite all of this, when we were back there this past weekend, I actually found myself feeling somewhat nostalgic for the time I lived there. Strange, in a way. All in all, I suppose Omiya is a decent place to live for a person who works an hour and a half outside of Tokyo, but as far as I’m concerned, nothing compares to living in the big smoke (sure, neither place has much in the way of charm, but what whuddaya gonna do?).

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Here are a few older photos taken at the Hikawa Shrine, which is about a 20 minutes’ walk from Omiya Station:

The food replica business is thriving in Japan — a visit to nearly any restaurant in any region will confirm this. In the front window you will likely find highly detailed replicas of a sampling of the shop’s dishes intricately made out of plastic or wax . Of course, food replicas aren’t limited only to storefront displays; one can find a wide range of objects, from keychains to rubber erasers, faithfully crafted to resemble popular food items.

Well, it appears that it was inevitable that this trend would be taken one step further to see the melding of the replication of culinary delights with state-of-the-art technology. Solid Alliance, a Yokohama-based company, has done the incredible and created a line of USB memory drives hand-made in the form of popular types of sushi. Never before has a portable disk drive looked so darn tasty.

Solid Alliance also makes rubber ducky USB drive as well.

Sure, it’s nearly February, but for anyone still without a 2005 calendar, fret no more. The folks at the Engrish-laden guide to oddball tourist attractions in Japan, How to walk of Japan, have given the world a glorious gift in the form of the 2005 “Love Position of Animal” calendar!

That’s right, 12 months of CorelDraw-produced images of various animals engaging in the magnificent act of procreation! While I’m not an expert on the intricacies of animal mating practices, I can say with near certainty that most of the depictions of animals coupling in the calendar appear to be physiologically accurate! (Except for the kangaroos, who, as this infamous photo has taught us, don’t hump face-to-face.)

The calendar is available for free download, so there’s no excuse not to have this stunning work of art hanging in your bedroom or office cubicle. Proudly display your love of nature and fondness for gettin’ freaky together with this one-of-a-kind calendar. You’ll be the envy of all your peers!

I went to see the doctor yesterday. During the countless hours that I spent in the waiting room with absolutely fuck-all to do, I got to thinking about the differences between the procedure for visiting a doctor in America and the procedure for visiting a doctor in Japan.

Now, I’ve been to see doctors here in Japan a number of times, but I can hardly be considered an expert. However, to anyone curious about what a typical visit to a Japanese hospital is like, the following should hopefully give you a basic idea [and to all those people who couldn’t care less, feel free to go back to looking at porn now].

For the sake of comparison, here is the typical procedure when seeing a doctor in the States:

1. First, you make an appointment for a specific date and time (i.e., Thursday, January 26th at 1:45pm)
2. On the day of the appointment, you go to the hospital about 10-15 minutes prior to the appointment time in order to register
3. You go directly to the department in which you have the appointment, register and pay the co-payment, usually $10 to $20, depending on the type of insurance you have (assuming you have insurance, that is)
4. Then you sit down in the waiting room and flip through old magazines
5. About 10-15 minutes later, a nurse will call your name and lead to you a small private examination room
6. You will then sit and wait for another five minutes or so
7. Shortly thereafter, the doctor will arrive and will carry out his/her examination in complete privacy
8. If you require medication, the doctor will illegibly write out a prescription for you on a little pad
9. You then part ways and go to the pharmacy, either inside the hospital or elsewhere (if necessary), where a pharmacist will give you your medicine and offer you a private consultation if you have any questions about your medication
10. OK, you’re done!

Now, here is the procedure at a typical Japanese hospital:

1. First you make an appointment for a specific day, however whether or not you can schedule a particular time depends on the hospital — many only have “Reception Hours” (i.e., generally between 11:30am and 3:30pm), the only time during which you’ll be able to see a doctor
2. On the day of the appointment, you go to the hospital and register at the front desk, after which you’ll receive a print-out with your data on it (again, the procedure varies by hospital — some use automated machines, others make you stand in line to deal with an attendant)
3. Then you go to the department in which you have the appointment and give your print-out to the attendant there
4. You take a seat in a (magazine-less) waiting room and wait for anywhere between 1 to 3 hours
5. During that time, you will likely fall asleep and dream about sexy Japanese nurses giving you a sponge bath
6. Just when you reach the point when you’re ready to start randomly taking out other patients in order to shorten the line a bit, you will hear your name being called over the announcement system, requesting you to go sit in the hallway outside of the examination rooms
7. There you will wait for another 20-40 minutes
8. Finally, the doctor will call your name and you will enter the examination room (which isn’t even a “room” per se, but rather a three-walled space, behind which is an open area that connects all of the other adjoining exam rooms)
9. The doctor will carry out his examination while nurses bustle past you in and out of the room
10. If you require medication, the doctor will print out a prescription for you on the computer on his desk
11. Afterwards, you will head back to the main entrance to the payment counter to pay the bill for the day’s visit in total — in cash
12. You can then go to one of the many pharmacies surrounding the hospital (if necessary), where a pharmacist will give you your medicine and loudly ask intrusive questions about your condition in earshot of all of the other people waiting
13. At last, you can finally go home, feeling far worse than you did when you first arrived at the hospital

Yep, there really wasn’t a point to that, except to say that time does not pass any slower than when you are sitting in a hospital waiting room surrounded by elderly Japanese folks who have nothing better to do than stare at the foreigner in their midst.

Oh, and let it be noted that the world can never have too many sexy Japanese nurses!

Anyone vaguely aware of the existence of a world outside of their own shitty little backwater town is likely to know that Japanese people are inordinately obsessed with the concept of cuteness. Hello Kitty is probably the most widely-known iconic example of this affixiation, however, from ridiculous outfits for dogs to colorful comics graphically depicting the symptoms of colon cancer to hentai rape videos, absolutely nothing in Japan is safe from “cuteification.”

Just as one would expect, this obsession extends to children as well, and these tiny versions of people are one of the hottest commodities in the cuteness market. However, this can lead to unusual and even dangerous general attitudes towards children. For some, children are just another fashionable accessory; an object of the most extreme level of cuteness, which can be decorated and posed to the parents’ (read: owners’) liking. The realities of raising a child are often not considered when the decision to have a child is made (assuming there is any kind of decision-making process in the first place), occasionally resulting in tragic consequences.

I can’t tell you the number of times that I have seen kids wandering around crowded public places wailing for their parents who are nowhere to be found; kids being left in locked cars in parking lots while their parents play pachinko; and kids jumping around in the front seats of moving vehicles while their mothers pay more attention to the conversations they are having on their cell phones than the road ahead.

Of course, things like this happen in every other country as well, but for some reason offenses seem especially flagrant in Japan. Take for example the following seemingly innocent photo, which I stumbled upon on the site of the owner of a liquor store in Ibaraki:

Sure, it’s kind of a funny picture, but who in their right mind would place their infant child on the back of a live swan?! One of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood was the time that I was chased and pecked at by one of those things at my neighborhood park when I was about three years old. I would never put a child of my own anywhere near one of those filthy beasts.

But somehow I doubt the notion of any such risks passed through the minds of the parents when they plopped their first-born baby on the back of a live and potentially dangerous creature floating in a filthy pond. Nope, to them it was probably just too kawaii a pose to pass up.

Pure class.

That’s what I strive for with every personal and professional endeavor I undertake in my life, as well as what this site is all about. That is why I feel it is my pleasure — nay, duty — to share with you a site that I stumbled upon by means of a completely innocent Google search:

Märchen Kingdom

Now, seeing as it is not my intention to offend anyone, I think I’ll refrain from posting any samples of the work created by the highly talented and clearly mentally disturbed artist who runs that site. However, if drawings of young girls defecated profusely or sporting raging erections are your kind of thing, I would definitely recommend a visit.

Class of the highest calibre, indeed.

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WTF? Redux

Many people are aware of Japan’s love for excessive packaging.

Behold a particularly ridiculous example that Judy picked up at the supermarket the other day:

On Saturday, Judy and I met up with a couple of my officemates to go bowling. It was the first time that I had been bowling in several years, and the first time that Judy had hung out with any of my coworkers ever. Despite the hour-and-a-half wait for an open lane, the rest of the afternoon was a lot of fun and we enjoyed three games of bowling and one slightly poorly-received joke about “superior ball handling skills” (it seems the expression doesn’t translate very well into Japanese).

Afterwards, we went to dinner and, in the Japanese tradition, imbibed a number of alcoholic beverages. As this was the first time for these particular coworkers and I to spend time together outside a work setting, we were able to get to know each other on a more personal level. At one point, the conversation turned to the topic of work (surprise surprise) and I was amused to hear some my officemates’ opinions about our company and some of the other people we work with. It was definitely a relief to learn that I am not alone in some of my gripes about working there. Apparently Japanese offices are miserable places for Japanese people to work, too.

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Here are two photos from the bowling alley, one of my coworkers and the other of the funky Japanese bowling shoes we were wearing:

Some people seriously have way too much free time on their hands.

I haven’t even been back at work for a full week yet, but I’m already starting to slide back into my old routine of working 13-hour days. I cannot let that happen.

The reason for my overtime tonight relates to a little something known as “the challenges of cross-cultural communication,” also commonly referred to as “dealing with gobbledygook-talkin’ weirdos who smell funny.”

You see, two years ago one of the managers in my company — my former boss, in fact — was dispatched to our joint venture company in the States to help improve operations. Yesterday we received a letter from the American president of said venture containing an extensive list of employee complaints against the manager from my company; apparently he has been undertaking his role as Executive Vice President a bit, shall we say, “unconventionally.”

I’m not at liberty to get into specifics, but as I read through the incident reports in preparation for helping to draw up a response from our side, I couldn’t help but chuckle at how poorly the Japanese management style doesn’t work in America. Sure, you have sucessful management practices that took the business world by storm in the 80s, such as just-in-time production, kaizen (continuous improvement) and the 5S, but beneath the stoic exterior of the typical Japanese businessman lies an uncharacteristicly immature and erratic underbelly.

Therefore, whereas the American side of our joint venture decried actions such as shouting at and shoving employees, throwing objects and wildly striking machinery with a hammer as “unacceptable conduct,” I see them as what they are: aspects of Japanese management that are little-known outside of Japan (well, except for the hitting-things-with-a-hammer part).

By now, most of the world is familiar with the rigid hierarchy in Japanese society. The adherence to theis hierarchy is even more severe within a Japanese company: underlings kowtow to their superiors’ merciless demands and superiors berate and scold their underlings like misbehaving children (mid-level managers can go from superior to underling and back within an instant without even so much as a bat of an eye).

While I personally have never been on the receiving end of such treatment (I reckon I would react in a most un-Japanese of ways), I have beared witness to maniacal displays of managerial tyranny time and time again throughout my company. There’s nothing worse than sitting quietly while your coworker is subject to a five-minute public tirade. . . um, except maybe being on the receiving end on one yourself, I suppose.

Anyway, my company finally created a generic response to the letter, which of course had to be translated by yours truly (once again, despite the fact that my company has an official translator and it’s not me). None of the people on the Japanese side seem to have any problem with the manager’s behavior, but rather are trying to focus on why he chose to act in such a manner, i.e., what the American employees did wrong to evoke the manager’s reaction.

Ironically, during the course of the entire year that I worked under that manager, not once did I ever see him put on a display such as those mentioned in the list of complaints. Maybe he’s just dealing with culture shock as a result of being forced to live in the midwest.

It’s funny how you can be away from work for a few weeks on holiday, but as soon as you get back it feels like you never left in the first place.

Despite the piles of work that greet me each day, I’ve been making a concerted effort to spend less time at the office. So far I’ve only been marginally successful, but I’m going to keep up the fight. I can’t go back to spending all of my waking hours at work.

Must not. . . become. . . Japanese!

Anyhow, I’m kind of short on time at the moment, so I’m just going to throw up a few photos from my trip back to California. Even though I carried my camera with me nearly everywhere I went, I regrettably took precious few photos.

Here are a few that I actually managed to snap of some friends:

Meet the latest and greatest example of superior Japanese ingenuity — the Men’s Som!

No longer is it necessary to expend excessive amounts of energy in order to bring yourself to climax by manual stimulation — simply insert your member into the patented Kung-Fu Grip sheath and sit back to enjoy the smooth adjustable-speed wanking motion of the Men’s Som!

Now you can revel in the rapturous delight of self-pleasure without having to break a sweat or divert your eyes from your pornographic material of choice. Moreover, the Men’s Som completely eliminates the risk of damage to your favorite adult magazines because it leaves your hands free and clean to turn the pages at will. Never again will you suffer from annoying slimy fingers or painful “pincher’s wrist!”

Order your Men’s Som today and discover the incredible sensation of sexual contact with another human being! (Well, almost.)

Operators are standing by!

Only ¥35,800 plus shipping & handling.
Warning: As with any electrical device, there is a risk of electrical shock when using the Men’s Som.
Robo-Wank, Inc. is not liable for injury or disfigurement resulting from the misuse of this product.

Well, I’m back.

After a hectic couple of days running last-minute errands and saying goodbyes to family and friends, it was time for me to catch my plane back to Japan. Despite the delays, it seemed that the 11-hour flight was going to be relatively smooth as usual. That is, until the plane took off and I got acquainted with the man seated beside me.

His name was Phil and he was a tugboat sailor in the US Navy on his way to Thailand to assist with the tsunami relief effort. He seemed like a nice guy at first, but after downing seven or eight consecutive complementary cocktails he became increasingly belligerent and decided that he wanted to talk to me — very loudly — for the entire duration of the flight. Cue a succession of one-way conversations about highly inappropriate and offensive subject matter, such as the fact that the woman two rows ahead of us wasn’t wearing a bra and “forgot to turn off her headlights,” the joys of “bumpin’ uglies” with curvaceous South American women and utterly insipid (yet extremely detailed) tales of drunken sailor revelry. The glares from the other passengers around the cabin had no effect on him, nor did my feigning sleep every time he got up to go to “take a piss” (as he loudly proclaimed each time). Thanks for reinforcing all of my stereotypes about people in the military, Phil!

Judy and I met up in the Narita airport (as she had arrived back from Vancouver about an hour before I got in) and we made the journey back to our apartment. We had a great time catching up, sharing stories from our respective holidays and making plans for what we want to do in 2005. However, by dusk the following evening we were both coming down with a cold. Damn that recycled cabin air!

So now it’s back to the daily grind. Every day since I got back to Japan has been a cacophony of new year’s greetings, as it is the custom in these parts to exchange an “akemashite omedetou gozaimasu” with everyone you know when seeing them for the first time in the new year. It’s fun with the first five people or so (well, not really), but eventually a mumbled “ak’shtebuhb’busssss” is all one can muster.

As always, my time in California went by way too quickly; I wasn’t able to see everyone I wanted to see, to do everything I wanted to do nor eat everything I wanted to eat. But, nonetheless, I had a wonderful time. I’m not one for sappy reminiscences, so instead here’s a boring photo of my hometown of Cupertino (well, part of it) and the surrounding Santa Clara Valley:

I’m not sure yet when I’ll have a chance to go back, but hopefully this post-vacation glow will stay with me for another few days before it’s sucked out of me by the oppressive drudgery of my day-to-day life.

Happy New Year, everyone!

It’s hard to believe that 2005 has arrived and so has my time to return to Japan. I’ve had a great time back here in California — spending time with family, hanging out with friends, eating lots of food, sleeping way too much, speaking English — but now it’s time to go back to my life in Tokyo (and yes, I am excited about it).

All night I’ve been saying goodbye to friends, but now I’ve got to try to find a way to fit everything into my bags and hopefully even get a couple of hours of sleep before it’s time to leave for the airport in the morning.

I hope you all had a fun New Year’s Eve!

Wow, I can’t tell you how goddamned wonderful it is to see a country for which I once had pride and respect being overtaken by right-wing conservative whackjobs. Way to go America!

Sarcasm aside, this country is seriously headed in a dangerous direction. The last time I was back here visiting, the big story on the news was the momentary exposure of Janet Jackson’s nipple on live TV — one of the most un-noteworthy non-events ever broadcast on national television. I saw the flash when it originally aired during the Super Bowl and it was nothing more than a brief WTF moment providing a bit of a chuckle in between ads featuring a horse releasing flaming flatulence on the face of an unsuspecting woman and old dudes talking about their rock-hard, multi-day-spanning boners.

Earlier this week, The Smoking Gun posted letters received by the FCC in response to the aforementioned nipple-revealing event. With a good number of them beginning with the line “I’m not a prude, but . . .”, the letters reveal just how brainwashed so many Americans are with nutty puritanical beliefs.

For example, one writer decries the national news media as being “anti American, anti Christian, [and] pro death for babies and seniors” and another laments about the entire halftime entertainment show consisting of “songs about Scotch, Methadone, Pimping, F–cking, and partying and having sex with anyone you can find” (which simply sounds like a fun Saturday night to me).

Further revealing the lunacy and perversion present in the mind of the average Bible-thumper, another writer proposes, “Maybe next years Superbowl can include Dr. Ruth and a discussion on group sex and Madonna humping a football.” Another writes “It starts out with just one boob at the half-time show and in a few years half the population will be walking around naked” (the religious right sure do love their slippery slope arguments).

The funniest aspect to me was that many of the writers expressed their concern that the rest of the world will think that the United States is a nation devoid of morals, yet ironically, America is one of the most religious countries on the planet, rapidly approaching Taliban-esque levels of religious extremism as the years go by.

There were also a number of letters from people expressing their outrage over the outrage over the Super Bowl boobie exposure, one of which managed to mention not only “galloping gazungas” and “camel toes” in a single sentence, but also ended with the line, “Pull the pine cone out of your collective butts, you bunch of misguided uptight puritans.” Even more humorously, one letter even posed the question, “Aren’t breasts a major food source for young children?” (in addition to being a source of entertainment for males of all ages).

The Smoking Gun website also features letters to the FCC regarding an episode of the daytime talk show Oprah on the topic of teen sexuality, in which the act of salad tossing (or “oral sex with the butt” as one angry viewer described it) was discussed in graphic detail. There weren’t as many comedic gems to be found in those letters, however the most hilarious one by far said simply this:

The Oprah show described with graphic detail a sexual term known as “tossing salad.” It was so offensive that my child’s head literally exploded. Please ban free speech so this never happens again.

It’s good to know that at least some people in this country still have a sense of humor.

You make the call.

The evidence for consideration: this video of a Japanese game show in which contestants play rock-paper-scissors and the winner tries to douse the loser with a bucketful of hot wax.

Words simply fail me.

Merry Chrithmas!!

‘Twas two days before Christmas,
And my friend Cary had volunteered
To collect donations for charity
And spread some Christmas cheer

When he told me he would do this, I had to ask why.
“It’s for the Salvation Army, won’t you stop by?”
“Sure thing,” I said. “I’ll do that for you.
“It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

At the supermarket, I arrived at ten past ten,
And there I saw Cary, my old friend.
Bursting with cheer, “Good morning!” he said,
With bells in his hand, a Santa cap on his head.

He was ringing the bells as people walked by,
Yet they paid him no attention, not even a “hi.”
We chatted together for twenty minutes or so,
But into the kettle, not one cent did go.

“Hold this,” he said, handing me the bells with a wink.
“I’m going inside to get something to drink.”
And with that, he turned and walked away,
Leaving me alone in the middle of the fray.

I couldn’t believe that he could be so cruel.
“He’d better come back soon, that rat-bastard fool.”
I stood there uncomfortably for a moment or two
And then did the only thing I knew I could do.

My palms all sweaty, my heart filled with dread,
I picked up some antlers and put them on my head.
I forced myself to make a smile, clenching my jaws.
“Ah, what the heck — it’s for a good cause.”

And so I swung those bells with feeling, with grace,
And even managed to keep that stupid smile on my face.
Cary soon returned and joined me in the throng.
He picked up more bells and began ringing along.

At that moment and to our sudden surprise,
Up came a child with joy in his eyes.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out some change
And dropped them into the kettle with a deafening clang.

And before we knew it, people passing began to stop
To make a donation on their way out of the shop.
First pennies then nickels then quarters and dimes,
The next thing we knew, people were putting in fives!

And so it went, until the end of our shift,
People giving from their hearts, what a nice gift!
At first I had been hesitant, but I gave it a try.
Hey, what can I say? I’m just a nice guy.

Earlier tonight I was looking through the website for a party that some friends are planning to attend up in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve, and being the unproductive guy that I am, I wasted a good amount of time browsing through some photos from last year’s event. They’re pretty standard party shots for the most part, but one or two certainly give the impression that some fun was had.

Especially, it appears, by the guy on the far right in this photo:

Damn, coppin’ a feel on two women at the same time — now that is what you call a tru playa fo’ real.

Today I met up with my friend Gilbert, who I’ve known ever since the fourth grade. Out of all of my friends, he was the first one to get married, the first to have a kid (well, his wife, anyhow) and the first to buy a house way out the in the middle of nowhere (just kidding, man).

Thus, in the morning I headed out for my epic journey 80 miles northeast to check out his new place. The drive up there wasn’t that bad; sure, I missed one exit ramp, but we all make mistakes. During the course of the day, we caught up on what has happened in our lives since we hung out, ate some delicious carne asada prepared by his lovely wife, watched Dodgeball on DVD and even played a selection of games on his Xbox. Good, harmless fun.

Or so I thought.

As I bid farewell and drove towards the freeway, I was surprised to see just how much fog had come in since my trip up in the morning. Once I entered the foothills, I quickly became enshrouded by cloud cover and had to struggle to make out the lane lines on the road ahead of me as I desperately tried to follow the twists and turns of the freeway. At one point I even contemplated pulling over to the side of the road just to get my bearings, but the visibility was so low that I couldn’t even see whether there was any space on the shoulder.

It sounds ridiculous, I’m sure, but for a guy who hasn’t driven in nine months, it was a pretty harrowing experience. Thankfully I made it home alive. . . although I probably wouldn’t be missed, my parents would have been rather upset had their car been totalled.

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been back in California for a week already. During the past seven days, I’ve had some time to reflect upon things here a bit. Here are a random assortment of thoughts:

• Jet lag — I still have it. I’m sleepy all day long, but when I lie down in my bed at night I can’t fall asleep. It’s frustrating and I really need to hurry up and adjust my sleep schedule already.
• Brrr — It’s so frickin’ cold. For some reason, my parent’s home in California is colder than my apartment in Tokyo. I’m freezing all the time here and my mom keeps telling me to put on a sweater.
• Vroom — Driving is fun. I hadn’t driven for the past nine months, so it’s exciting (but at the same time, I feel lazy for driving everywhere).
• Make the voices stop! — It’s weird being able to overhear other people’s conversations. In Japan, I usually have to make an effort to keep up with what people are saying in Japanese, so it’s easy to block out conversations taking place around me. Here, I don’t have the luxury of doing that and have realized that people are having pretty banal conversations out there.
• Wide load — Americans are kinda big, eh? I don’t just mean the seriously obese ones either; everyone seems to have a bit more pudge than I’m used to. Or maybe I’m just a skinny, pencil neck loser. Anyhow, when did wearing low-rise jeans with shirts that barely reach past the navel come into style? That roll-of-fat-hanging-over-the-pants look certainly isn’t very flattering.
• White sneaks — Have middle-aged white guys always worn white running shoes with jeans? Am I some day going to wake up with an overwhelming desire to buy all-white Reebok shoes to wear with some Levi 501’s? My God, I hope not.
• “Do you have this in medium?” — It’s great being able to talk to salespeople in English. Back in Tokyo I can make simple inquiries in Japanese, but anything more than that requires more effort than it’s worth. That said, however. . .
• “What do you want?” — Many salesclerks here are impolite. I haven’t seen too many that are overtly rude, but the disinterested attitude and the lack of eye contact leave much to be desired. I hate to break it to you, but working at the mall doesn’t make you cool.
• Supermarket — Holy crap, supermarkets here have everything! A trip to Safeway is like a visit to an amusement park. I must look like an idiot wandering through the aisles with a slack-jawed expression of wonder on my face.
• VH1 — Wow, when did VH1 start showing entertaining programming? The last time I watched it, it was like the Michael Bolton and Celine Dion channel. Do they even show music videos anymore?

Anyway, as you can see, my time here hasn’t exactly been put to use in a very productive way, but hey, what do you expect? I’m on vacation.

Tonight I was going through some old folders on my parents’ computer and I happened to stumble upon my crowning achievement of the summer of 1998. Back at home after my first year of university, I took summer courses at a nearby community college and spent my spare time (well, my spare time when, um, not fighting off the ladies) with an HTML 4.0 book in hand, designing my first website. I initially started off with enough animated GIFs to make even your average Geocities member cringe, but I eventually settled on an ancient Egyptian theme of all things and created the following monstrosity:

Hosted on my mom’s Earthlink account, I think the site got no more than 20 visitors in total during the year or so that it was up. I even had a guestbook, too, filled with comments such as, “WTF is up with the Egyptian theme?” and “You told me to sign your guestbook, so I’m signing it. Happy now?”

Pretty dreadful, eh?

Well, I made it back to California safe and sound. After a hectic morning of packing and tying up all of the loose ends, I bid a sad farewell to Judy and headed to the airport. Like many people, traveling always puts me in a foul mood. The urgency and expected delays aside, there’s just something about being in such close proximity to masses of people that really rubs ones face in the true pathetic nature of human beings.

Maybe it’s because I’m in a state of complete exhaustion and barely awake, but I just have to get a few things off my chest about people’s annoying behavior when traveling (please bear with me):

• When boarding a plane, the idea is to get everyone inside as quickly as possible. Therefore, you need to stow your carry-on baggage as fast as you can and get the fuck of the aisle so others can pass. I don’t care if you absolutely need to get your neck pillow, your bottle of water and your favorite paperback out of your bag before you can sit down; the reason that the people standing behind you waiting to get to their seats are giving you looks that suggest that they hate you is because they do.
• Despite the fact that you get to stay up late and watch movies, an overnight flight is not a sleepover party. There’s no excuse for grown adults to go about in public in pajamas and stocking feet.
• If you need to get up to go the lavatory right before the meal service begins, don’t come back and force the flight attendants to move their cart 10 feet back so you can get to your seat and then demand your meal. It’s not their fault that the aisles are so narrow; maybe if your ass wasn’t so damn fat, you might be able to squeeze past them.
• Don’t be the asshat who opens his window shade in the middle of the flight while everyone else in the darkened cabin is trying to sleep. I don’t care how pretty the cloud are, if you do it again, you will get hurt.
• To the people who jump up out of their seats the moment the plane touches down on the tarmac, I have one question: What the fuck is your hurry? You know damn well that it’s going to be at least another 15 minutes before they even open the doors, and besides, us poor folks in the back aren’t going anywhere for a long time.

Okay. . . now that I’ve got that out of my system, I’m pleased to say that it’s good to be back home. Today I was able to chat with my parents for a bit and catch up, drive a car for the first time in nine months and even eat some yummy Butter Rum Lifesavers. Life is good. It was hard saying goodbye to Judy, but in a way it’s fun to talk on the phone again like the old days.

All right, methinks it’s time for me to go back to sleep. It’s a quarter past seven in the morning and I’ve been up since 3:30. Jet lag sucks balls.

Why is it that the time leading up to a vacation is so incredibly stressful?

I leave for California tomorrow, yet my bags have not been packed, my nengajo have not been written and I haven’t even told a few of my friends over there yet that I’m going back.

Tomorrow is probably going to be one incredibly hectic morning and afternoon, only to be followed by nine hours of sitting deathly still inside of a cramped airplane cabin. Although I’m seriously tempted to heavily overindulge in complimentary cocktails, I’m not even sure whether the cocktails are complimentary anymore. I guess I’ll just have to get loaded before the flight.

Okay, off to start packing. . . .

While many people around the world are currently enjoying the gleeful Christmas season (or perhaps, more appropriately, the Christmas shopping season), we here in Japan are now in the midst of the slightly less-enjoyable nengajo-writing season. Nengajo are special New Year’s postcards that people send out to literally everyone they know, and are delivered on the morning of the first day of the new year.

Commonly decorated with images of the Chinese zodiac character of the upcoming year (2005 is the year of the rooster), they usually contain messages expressing appreciation for kindness received during the past year and well-wishing for the year ahead. Like the distribution of Valentine’s Day cards in elementary school classrooms throughout North America, innumerable acres of forest are destroyed each year as a result of this ultimately frivolous custom.

In order to ensure timely delivery on January 1st, nengajo must be deposited at the post office by December 25th, however, since I will be returning to California long before then, I have just three days to write out approximately 40 more of those dastardly cards. With such little time, I’m seriously tempted to just print this out and send it off. I wonder if anyone would even give it a second glance.

In the middle of a last-minute Christmas shopping marathon weekend, Judy and I headed over to Matsudo last Sunday to visit the Bandai Museum on the recommendation of one of her friends.

Bandai is the third largest toy company in the world and is responsible for introducing the world’s children such wonderful toys as Gundam, Ultraman, Power Rangers, Tamagotchi and those little pink M.U.S.C.L.E. figures that I was unhealthily obsessed with in the second grade (the absolute best-smelling toys EV4R!) , among others.

Now, with a such a diverse and widely-known character base, I was expecting the Bandai Museum to be nothing short of amazing — in other words, the kind of place that brings smiles to the faces of young children and slimy goo to the underpants of children slightly older.

Thus, you can imagine my surprise when the “museum” turned out to be little more than five floors of gift shops, all selling the exact same selection of toys (mainly cheap Ultraman figures). Signs all over the place indicated that there were a couple of special attractions of some sort, but after our initial disappointment, we couldn’t be arsed to spend the extra ¥300 to see them.

Oh well, at least I got to take a photo of Judy chillin’ with the man himself:

Well, I found out the results of my TOEIC exam today. Unfortunately, despite being a university-educated native English speaker, I did not receive a perfect score. Hence, from this day forth until the day that I cease to exist on this earth, I will carry around the shame of my failure like a severely disabled evil Siamese twin whose encumbering mangled form frightens small children and eliminates all chances of intimacy with members of the opposite sex (or the same sex, for that matter).

Thankfully, however, I did manage to get the highest score in the company. . . so it looks like I at least still have a job (I hope).

Actually, because I got the highest score in the company, I was contacted by the General Affairs Department and asked to write up a brief statement offering my advice for the best ways to go about studying a foreign language to be sent out to everyone who took the exam. So yes, because I got a relatively high score on a test of THE LANGUAGE THAT I HAVE SPOKEN MY ENTIRE LIFE, I am now the expert on studying foreign languages. Funny how that works.

Well, all I can say is that it’s a darn good thing that no one in my company knows that there’s also a Japanese proficiency test. . . .

Despite nearly constant exposure to it, one aspect of Japanese popular culture that I have been unable to gain any appreciation for is J-pop. To say that I can’t stand the crap is a gross understatement; words simply cannot describe my extreme loathing of this genre of so-called “music.” In fact, the only thing that I could do to adequately express my feelings about this scourge on the earth would be to systematically smash in the faces of each and every talentless, squeaky J-pop “singer” on the planet.

However, the full brunt of my hatred of J-pop is reserved for one particularly annoying wench by the name of Otsuka Ai. Her whiny, nasally voice and her “Ooo~ watch me tilt my head and make a pouty face — aren’t I so cute?” poses inspire such a murderous rage inside of me that just the sight of her makes me soil myself.

Or maybe that’s an unrelated bowel problem — I can never be sure.

Anyway, on Monday night I was walking through Shibuya after work, and while stopped at a crosswalk I glanced up and saw a large billboard advertising a new Otsuka Ai album that was released a couple of weeks ago. Curiously entitled Love Jam, the album cover depicts Otsuka Ai’s face covered in what appears to be strawberry jam, evoking images of the fine Japanese tradition of the bukkake special.

Pure class. I’ve definitely got to give a pat on the back to whomever came up with the idea for that one.

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.

Working 12-hour days suck.

I was at the office until after 9:00 last night and then later stayed up until 2:30 in the morning making golf clubs out of cardboard boxes for Judy’s students (don’t ask). Today again, I worked until 9:30.

My brain stopped functioning long ago, and I think I may have soiled myself some time around 8:00 or so.

Okay, this isn’t the latest I’ve ever worked by far, but TGIF, you know what I mean?

I hope you all have a Happy Halloween. Why don’t you celebrate by watching Japanese girls bitchslap one another? Amateur vs. Actress!

Last night, instead of going to sleep at a relatively reasonable hour like I should have, I stayed up to see if anything interesting was on TV. Lo and behold, among the plethora of programs featuring celebrities eating and badly dubbed American infomercials, I discovered yet another example of WTF-to-the-MAXXX!

On Tuesday nights on TBS there’s a variety show called Dragon & Ball Hour starring the combined members of the comedy duos Drunk Dragon and Football Hour. I hadn’t seen it before, but it seemed to be pretty standard fare as far as Japanese comedy shows go — bad wigs, cross-dressing, corny jokes and a peculiar fondness for smacking people over the head — except for one segment.

Unfortunately, I only caught the last few minutes of it, but it basically seemed to go something like this: a group of 20 or so women were standing on a stage, and each comedian was given a chance to make a guess about some criteria the women might possess (for example, one comedian asked if any of the women owned garter belts). If there were any women among the group who met the criteria, they would remain standing while those who didn’t meet the criteria would sit down. The next comedian would then get a chance to make a guess about the remaining women standing. In the end, if one comedian narrowed the group down to one last woman, he would win a kiss.

. . . Or something like that. I apologize for the shoddy description, but I’m sure you get the idea.

Anyhow, in the last round, only two women remained standing. The comedians made their guesses, but one-by-one, they failed. Their fate: The Punishment Game. What, pray tell, is The Punishment Game? Please allow me to illustrate with the following images:

(Yes, I had my camera handy while watching TV. Yes, I know that’s pathetic.)

Here, Tsukaji Muga of Drunk Dragon (bottom left) makes his guess. [BTW, I have no idea why the woman on the right is wearing a crown and robe.] Unfortunately, I didn’t hear what Muga said (I had the volume turned down because Judy was in the next room sleeping), but whatever guess he ventured was FALSE!

The sound of the buzzer brought the arrival of. . .

Three ripped black guys in briefs!

What followed next was madness. The three guys proceeded to strip Muga of his clothes, spread his legs in the air and slap him around like a little bitch. Observe:

Um. . . yeah, that pretty much left me speechless.

Last Friday morning Judy came down with a cold and ended up spending all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday in bed with a fever. I, being the tender, loving, caring boyfriend that I am, faithfully stayed by her side to answer her every beck and call. Of course, that left me unable to do much else, but after putting a new batch of games on my GBA flash card, I was set.

I hadn’t played video games for hours on end since I was nine years old.

After her condition failed to improve by over the weekend, this morning we went to the major hospital near our apartment and tried to see a doctor. We arrived at 8:30 in the morning, and after registering, were told that Judy we would be able to be seen between 10:30 and 11:00. Unfortunately, as was to be expected, Judy didn’t get to see the doctor until after 12:30 — nearly four hours after we arrived. (Even if you have an appointment, the wait usually ends up being between 2 to 3 hours.)

After a brief 5-minute consultation, she was sent to get a blood test (another 30-minute wait) followed by another hour of waiting before being able to see the doctor again discuss the results. In the end, even after additional testing, the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her and so she was given a bagful of medication (general antibiotics) and told to come back if they didn’t work.

Japan’s medical system is world-renowned, and although the care is generally top-notch (instances of gross malpractice aside), the system is still wrought with inefficiencies like you wouldn’t believe. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to get into it at the moment (nor will I likely ever), so I’ll refer anyone who’s interested in reading more to start with this article.

Anyway, back to continuing my bedside care. . . here’s hoping Judy’ll get better soon!

I took a peek at my logs last night and noticed something disturbing interesting. Among the many recent search queries that have brought visitors to this site, several stand out for obvious reason, including the following:

• japanese babes
• chicken fight pool photos
• meeting kogal in tokyo
• japanese upskirts
• mazakon
• hideki matsui porno
• rorita
• upskirts of olsen twins
• water slide oops nipple
• guy with elephantine schlong

(Okay, I made that last one up)

Now, the list above either indicates that a) I am a pervert for having mentioned the above words in some combination or another, or b) that the internet is awash in licentious perverts who actively search out salacious material using the above words in specific combination.

Or perhaps, as you’re probably all thinking, it could be c) all of the above.

Well, after Tuesday’s über-serious post, I thought I would post something nice & tasteless in order to bring this site back down to the gutter where it most likely belongs. Furthermore, if this list above is any indication, it would apparently be to most readers’ liking.

Anyhow, we all have heard the hackneyed expression “sex sells.” Unfortunately, in the U.S. at least, there is an overabundance of domineering conservative “family value” groups who jump at any opportunity to launch an attack at corporations, advertising agencies, television stations, production companies, etc. who exhibit any kind of content that someone somewhere out in the world might possibly deem offensive.

Thankfully, Japan is not like that (not yet, anyhow). Although in recent years, there has been some “cleaning up” of magazines, late-night television programming and the like, this country remains as one of the few remaining bastions of politically incorrect cheap titillation.

A recent example is the new commercial for Kirea Water, which features model/actress Miyaji Mao. In the ad, she is shown rolling around in bed while “full nude” (as the Japanese say), tracing her fingers along various curves of her body, revealing a continuous line of the word tsumaranai under the caress of her fingertips. Upon reaching her navel, her fingers stop at the words “tsumaranai mizu deta“.

What the heck does that mean? Well, I — as a not-even-close-to-fluent speaker of the Japanese language (and a general simpleton to boot) — took tsumaranai to mean “boring,” as I commonly hear it used. In that case, the final line would mean (vaguely) “boring water is here.” Yeah, that didn’t make any sense to me either. A little research revealed that the ad’s usage of tsumaranai was in fact the negative form of the verb tsumaru, which means “to clog” (which would explain why it was written in katakana as opposed to hiragana). Thus, the meaning is actually roughly something like “water that does not clog you is here.”

To put it simply, this water helps you poo.

Anyway, the ad is certainly worth a look if you’re a lecherous perv (or simply don’t have anything better to do). Seeing as my girlfriend would probably murder me if I were to do so, it would probably be best if I didn’t comment on the attractiveness of the girl in the ad. . . but off the record, I’d hit that shit ’til I died of dehydration!

If you want to take a look at the commercial, go here and click on either of the top two buttons to watch the streaming video (the one of the left is 1.6MB and the right is 430KB).

Well, I mailed off my absentee ballot yesterday. Although I submitted an absentee application way back in March, for some reason the ballot was inexplicably sent to my parents’ house in California, and so they had to forward it to me here. Hopefully it will arrive at the county registrar’s office in time.

While I’m not the type to push my political beliefs on others, I thought I would take a moment to bring attention to a perspective that might not be readily apparent to those living in America:

My fellow Americans, despite what the Bush administration and Fox News would have you believe, THE REST OF THE WORLD FUCKING HATES US RIGHT NOW.

Since coming to Japan in September of 2001, I have had the chance to meet people hailing from countries all around the globe, and the one thing that has united them despite their diverse origins has been their mutual hatred of George W. Bush and his cronies. I can’t tell you the number of times that, upon revealing that I am American, I have been immediately subjected to rants and tirades against the U.S. government. Uncouth, yes, but the fact is that America’s actions affect not just the American people, but the whole of the world as well. Thankfully, I don’t live in a country where I am at risk of getting my head hacked off simply because of the passport I carry, but sadly not everyone can say the same.

I can only imagine how some people might respond to criticism from people in other countries: “Who gives a flyin’ howdy-do about what some know-nothin’ commy furriners think about us? We’re the greatest country on God’s green earth and the rest of the world can just kiss our fat asses! Ha ha ha! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

I would like to think that I’m exaggerating, but sadly it appears that in fact many people share this opinion.

Obviously, I know that nothing I say on this dinky little speck on the interweb is going to influence the way anyone will vote next month [You are going to vote, right? Riiight?], however I hope you’ll think long and hard about how the outcome of this election will affect not only the American public, but the rest of the world as well. Has the War on Terror ™ really been a smashing success? Is the world a safer place than it was four years ago? What does “stay the course” actually mean, considering the “course” thus far has been nothing but bumbling, ill-conceived operations that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi civilians?

I’ve given a lot of thought to these questions and others over the past several months, and I hope everyone else has as well. We are at a critical point in history at this moment. . . so let’s try not to screw things up even worse, shall we?

Okay, it’s time for me to crawl back under my rock now. Happy voting!

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Yes, today’s title was a stupid crack at the Japanese L/R problem, but after being asked countless times whether I’m going to vote for “Busshu” or “Kelly,” I just couldn’t resist.

One line in the article I mentioned last week in particular that made me chuckle was the part where author brought up Japanese toilets:

Not only are toilet seats heated, but toilets universally include a bidet or a more general water spray from below — your choice.

He makes it sound as if all toilets here are a) Western, b) heated, and c) equipped with space-age ass-cleansing technology. If only that were the case. In reality, while many homes are equipped with modern Western-style toilets, when searching for a lavatory while out and about — especially in train stations, department stores and restaurants — the likelihood of encountering nothing but piss-stained, excrement-encrusted squat toilets is extremely high.

That was the case yesterday when I was out shopping in Shibuya. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say there’s nothing quite as unpleasant as trying to maintain balance and do one’s business whilst perched precariously with one’s pants around one’s ankles over a small hole in a slippery, urine-soaked floor. Sure, squatters aren’t unique to Japan, but I firmly believe that the moment we humans first progressed as a species was the day an ingenuitive caveman dug a hole in the ground, surrounded it with a couple of logs and sat down to drop his prehistoric load in comfort.

This has been around for ages, but click here to see an animated guide to using Japanese squat toilets.

After a long week at work, it’s finally Friday evening and all I want to do is go home and sleep. Hooray for working life.

Here’s a photo of the infamous Godzilla statue in Ginza:

Apparently people have gone through great lengths to find it, but I happened to just stumble upon it by accident a few months ago while wandering around the area (the statue is tucked away near the Toho Twin Tower Building, not far from JR Yurakucho station).

The statue itself is only about a meter or so tall, but it’s impressive nonetheless. Definitely something I would love to decorate my living room with, had I the necessary heavy lifting equipment and a band of stealthy larcenists at my call.

Sometimes it’s downright incredible how outlandish people’s misconceptions about Japan are.

Case in point: this article, which was sent to me last week by a friend. Entitled Living and Dying in Tokyo, the author, Adam Sparks, begins with:

My mother-in-law passed away last week, and I attended the funeral in Tokyo. The five-day wake was a mind-blower in so many ways. It made me think of just how different Japan is than the United States and how, in so many ways, it is so far superior, both culturally and technologically. We have much to learn.

He then goes on to list the most clichéd stereotypes and far-fetched assertions about Japan that I have ever read. The result is pure comic gold; a mediocre work of middle school-level fiction that reads like a James Clavell novel. It’s blindingly obvious just how little understanding the author has of Japan and how clueless he truly is. Seriously, if I were to break down the article and provide evidence to refute the blatant falsehoods in each and every sentence, it would take me all week. (The irrelevant sentence about Dubya thrown in at the end was quite a doozy, too.)

The funniest (yet saddest) thing is that many people will probably read the article and believe every word of it. Incidentally, at this moment, those people are probably at home, dressed in yukata, polishing their Sailor Moon figurines and watching their collector’s edition of Akira, while dreaming of the day when they will arrive on Japan’s shores.

It really is surprising how drastically different Japan’s international reputation is from reality. Movies like Lost in Translation and The Last Samurai paint a picture of an advanced, utopian society in which all of the men possess an honorable samurai spirit and all of the women are hot, subservient babes. I suppose I myself am also guilty of having a somewhat idealistic view of this country before I arrived. However, seeing as I’ve never been much a video game fan nor have I ever watched an anime film in my life (a fact that gives me much pride), my preconceptions came mainly from Japanese toys from the 80s and The Toxic Avenger Part II.

Japan as an entity is very good at showing off only the best of its culture and society to temporary visitors, who are carefully shepherded around by handlers and guides to prevent the guests from seeing the “real” Japan. It’s easy for people to float around in a little tourist bubble for a few days and then go home with a head full of exotic memories. Meanwhile, those of us who decide to try to take root here (at least for a little while) find that Japan is not quite the welcoming land of gadgetry and geishas that it’s made out to be.

Anyhow, I don’t want to knock this country too much. Sure, like any place, it has its downsides, but if I didn’t like it I would have left a long time ago. I just feel that misleading articles like the one above tend to cause more harm than good, as a lot of impressionable people who do make it over here and try to acclimatize eventually end up bitter and jaded. For anyone curious about learning about the realities of the so-called Land of the Rising Sun, I recommend stopping by this site as well as reading a book or two on the subject.

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Here are some uninteresting photos from Shinagawa Intercity that I took a couple of months ago while wandering around killing time:

Well, the typhoon on Saturday didn’t turn out to be all that bad. By the time I left my office, it had nearly passed and there was barely a drizzle of rain, so despite Judy calling me an idiot for staying at work, I guess it was good that I did.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night for some reason and so my mental capacity today is even less than usual. Thus, in lieu of my usual inane ramblings, I’ll leave you with a photo of an acrobatic monkey:

Shortly after I took this photo, the monkey lost its balance and fell into an onlooker’s baby stroller. The baby freaked out and started wailing while the audience chuckled (”Aww, so cute”), but thankfully the kid was okay. The monkey got quite a scolding though.

Not only was I forced to come in to work on a Saturday, but at the moment a typhoon is raging violently outside.

Here’s hoping I make it home alive!

Sometimes the only readily discernable difference between two people is the color of their socks.

So last night the president wanted to go out drinking yet again, and so everyone in my office promptly and without protest sacrificed another evening with their families to appease the almighty shacho. Thankfully, I was able to get out of going to the nijikai (second party) and got to go home “early” at midnight (the others apparently stayed out until 2:30 in the morning, despite it being THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING WEEK).

Although I limited my imbibation to but a few beers and a glass of shochu, I somehow still woke up with a bit of a hangover. Normally, that wouldn’t be much of a problem (seeing as showing up for work with a hangover is a sign of pride for the salaryman), but unfortunately, the first thing on my morning agenda today was a trip up to the company headquarters two hours away for the yearly physical exam. It was pretty standard (pee in a cup, hearing test, chest x-ray), but the experience was exponentially worse than usual due to the crappiness of my condition.

Amazingly enough, however, I somehow managed to score a perfect 1.5/1.5 on the vision test (apparently 1.0/1.0 is the 20/20 equivalent). Now, my vision isn’t normally that good, so I’m left pondering whether the results were despite the hangover or because of it. Perhaps beer goggles are the way to go in times when high-precision vision is crucial: brain surgery, assassin sniper work and, of course, checkin’ out the honeys.

Yesterday I mentioned the Japanese predilection for abbreviating words and phrases, especially those borrowed from other languages, and gave “sexual harassment” as an example.

Another example is mazakon, which is short for mazaa konpurekkusu (”mother complex”, i.e., Oedipus complex). The meaning of mazakon in Japan is somewhat twofold, however: in most instances, it’s used without the sexual connotations to describe a “mama’s boy”-type character, and less frequently, it’s used to describe someone who has a thing for older women (rorikon, — short for rorita konpurekkusu, i.e., Lolita complex — would be the opposite in this case).

I bring this up because last night I saw a commercial for a new drama starting tonight on Fuji TV called “Mother & Lover” starring Sakaguchi Kenji and Shinohara Ryoko. Yes, indeed the same pair that Judy and I saw in Ginza last month.

According to the official website, this incestuously-titled drama features a theatrical troupe member by the name of Shingo (Sakaguchi) who regards his mother as “the woman he loves most in the world.” However, one day he meets an office lady named Hitomi (Shinohara) who is running late for work, and he delivers her to her office in a rickshaw. Immediately taken with one another, they make a date for the following evening.

Surely, there will come a time when young Shingo must choose between his newfound love interest and mommy dearest — tune in to find out!

Blah, typical J-drama drivel. Just like every other drama in the history of the world, this one will be melodramatic, formulaic, cliché-ridden hokum, and the following events will undoubtedly occur:

• They will fall in love at first sight
• She will buy him a necktie or some other article of clothing
• Another woman [in this case, mommy] will come between them
• They will break up while standing in the rain (sans umbrellas)
• She will try to move on with her life, but at some point will collapse on the floor in tears
• She’ll have second thoughts and try to call him, but for some reason or another, he’ll miss the call
• She’ll decide to forget about him for good and will make plans to move to a different city
• He’ll realize that he made a mistake and will reject the other woman
• In the climax, he will run through the streets at night to try to catch up with her before she leaves to tell her that he loves her
• At first it’ll seem like she’s going to tell him to get lost, but then a smile will slowly emerge on her face
• They will embrace passionately
• The entire cast, production staff and audience will simultaneously burst into tears
• I will stab out my eyeballs and pray for death

Yay, I can hardly wait!

I just found out that I’ve apparently become a verb.

Not in a very interesting way, unfortunately (such as, “I wanna jeff you all night long, baby“), but in a way that I suppose is uniquely Japanese.

You see, the language here can be difficult to pronounce at times (even for native speakers) and so it’s very common for words and phrases to be abbreviated, especially loan words from other languages as they tend not to follow the same sound system. For example, “sexual harrassment” is transliterated as sekushuaru harasumento, which I’m sure you can agree is quite a mouthful. Therefore people use “sekuhara” to describe the national workplace pastime.

Anyway, as the only native English speaker in my company, all English documents are proofread and revised by me before being sent out. I received an email by CC today written by the company translator about one assignment in which she wrote that the “jefuchekku” (”jeffcheck”) had been completed and she was submitting the final draft. I asked her about it, and apparently everyone in her office uses that term for my English checks (i.e., “Has this been jeffchecked?”).

Silly, I know, but I thought it was funny.

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Only one photo today — cute little Hello Kitty bouquets that I saw in Ginza on Saturday:

This week has seriously been The Week That Would Not End!

Last night I got home from work ridiculously late (as usual), and after eating dinner, I sat down in front of the TV to veg out a little before going to bed. Not surprisingly, there was another one of those bikini-clad-women-engaging-in physical-challenges shows on, but this one had a unique title that nearly made me forget for just a moment about my miserable existence. The name of the show?

Pooh!

Absolutely fecking brilliant, if you ask me. I wasn’t able to decipher why exactly the program was named after excrement (or the lovable bear who’s stuffed with fluff), but apparently last night’s program was the very last episode, so unfortunately it is likely that I will never know. It’s a shame I didn’t discover this wondrous show earlier, especially since according to the website, the theme on Monday nights is “girls.” How can you go wrong with that?

I guess I should watch late night television more often, eh? Who knows what I’m missing.

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Anyway, here are some photos of the Tokyo Tower — Tokyo’s “famous” (in Japan only) reproduction of Eiffel Tower.

I can’t believe how busy I’ve been at work the past couple of weeks. . . I feel like I’m slowly metamorphosing into exactly the kind of stereotypical salaryman whose pathetic existence I pity. Pretty soon I’m going to have to start chewing Lotte’s ‘No Time’ gum because I won’t be able to take three minutes to brush my teeth in the morning.

There’s actually a word in Japanese that means “death from overwork”: karoshi. Companies here are known to literally work their employees into the grave. In fact, in recent years there have been several lawsuits from families demanding compensation for the deaths of husbands and fathers sacrificed for the sake of the bottom line. Thankfully, I’m nowhere near that point (yet). Actually, if I were to reach such a level, I reckon I’d be more likely to flip out and kill someone else rather than succumb myself. I’m just that sort of “take action” kind of guy.

Anyway, back to work. . . .

I’ll leave you with the last of the photos from Kamakura. Enjoy!

Man, it’s been a long week. With two very important meetings yesterday and today, the past five days have been a blur of pre-meetings, PowerPoint presentations, business cards and cheap hookers (well, maybe not that last one).

The good part is that the meetings went well and may have laid down the groundwork for some major global expansion in the next five years. The bad part is that I’m soon to expire from exhaustion any minute now. . . a two-hour train ride to my former office in Ibaraki and a two-hour ride back, both yesterday and today. . . three hours of sleep last night because my boss absolutely needed the minutes from the first meeting by the following morning and apparently assumed that transcribing 8 hours of detailed discussion would be a breeze for me, since “Jeff, your English is so good!”. . . and then, when I went to give him the minutes I had stayed up half the night working on, he decided that he doesn’t need them until Monday after all (!).

I can’t wait to just close my eyes and sleep.

Before that, however, an aside: this week I was reminded that living stereotypes are alive and well. The guests visiting my company were all very nice people, however they completely fit the mold of the stereotypical American: they were overweight, they were loud, they ate chocolate bars for breakfast, drank nothing but Coca Cola, and despite being visitors in a country known for its exotic and tasty cuisine, opted to eat at steakhouses both of their nights here instead of sampling the local fare.

All of my hard work throughout the past three years of trying to rid my coworkers of their misconceived notions about Americans — down the drain in a mere 36 hours. . . .

To follow up on last Friday’s post (and to drag this site even further into the gutter). . .

On Saturday night I was up late, flipping through the channels on TV, when I happened to stumble upon a program featuring the aforementioned “bikini-clad models competing in physical challenges.”

In the particular challenge that was being shown, an inflatable water slide had been placed in a swimming pool and women were racing up the slide in pairs to try to grab a small flag perched at the top. Sounds innocent enough, right? However — for a reason my inferior non-Japanese mind was unable to fathom — after obtaining the flag, both contestants then went on to affix a pair of giant pink nipples to their swimsuit tops.

Yes, you read that correctly. I couldn’t make this stuff up, folks.

Fortunately, I had my camera handy and was able to take a few photos. The quality is expectedly poor, but I’m sure someone will get a kick out of the sheer absurdity of it all.

As one might suspect due to the overwhelming amount of Japanese pornography available on the internet (or so I’ve heard), sexual imagery is everywhere in Japan. From skin mags displayed in convenience store windows to advertisements depicting alluring women in revealing attire to TV game shows in which bikini-clad models compete in physical challenges, one is constantly exposed to titillating and suggestive images.

In fact, not a day goes by when I am not confronted with the sight of nearly-naked women.

But I digress. . . this post is not about my love life. (Thank you, folks! I’ll be here all week.)

The reason that I bring this up (aside from the fact that I’m a lecherous sleaze) is that last night Judy told me about something she witnessed yesterday that I thought I would share.

For those of you who don’t know, Judy is a preschool teacher at an international school here in Tokyo. One of her class’ daily activities is a walk to a nearby park for outdoor playtime, and yesterday was no different. However, when she and her students arrived at the park, she was surprised to see two youngish-looking girls dressed in schoolgirl outfits, surrounded by several photographers. The girls were playing on the slide, the swings and the monkey bars, all the while coyly flashing their panties for the cameras.

As you might imagine, the children responded to this sight with great curiosity and repeated askings of “What are they doing?”. Thankfully, due to their ignorance and naiveté (bless them), Judy was able to quell their inquisitiveness by saying, “Oh nothing, just taking pictures. Now, let’s go play over there.”

While she was naturally appalled that those managing the photo shoot would carry out such an activity in the middle of the day in a location where children were bound to be playing, she was perhaps even more disturbed by the sheer nonchalance of the other people in the park, who seemed to take no notice of the risqué goings-on just feet away.

Perhaps their impassivity was a cultural thing, or maybe repeated exposure to these sorts of occurrences simply causes one to become indifferent. Who knows? But what I do know is that if I ever happen to witness such an event, I’ll be sure to try to obtain photographic evidence.
For, um, sociological research purposes, that is.

Within the rigid hierarchy of a Japanese company, the shacho (president) is the big man on top. When he says “Jump!”, you don’t just ask “How high?”, but also “For how long?”, “What should I think about when I’m up there?” and “May I please kindly fellate you afterwards?” Needless to say, whatever shacho wants, shacho gets. We underlings exist for the sole purpose of pandering to his every whim whilst taking it up the rear with a smile.

For example, yesterday evening, my coworkers and I were all busily engrossed in our work, when the president came downstairs from his office and announced that he wanted to go out drinking. The bedlam that ensued was highly entertaining — I’ve never seen people scramble so quickly to simultaneously shut down their computers, pack up their belongings and put on their coats, all the while responding enthusiastically to every word that came out of the president’s mouth.

The nomikai (drinking party) itself was pretty uneventful, but it marked the third time that I have gone out drinking in the past 7 days. Not a record by any means, but heavy drinking mid-week tends to throw one’s routine off-kilter. The president tolerated our lowly presence until he was satisfied with the outcome of the evening and then promptly departed, leaving behind ¥30,000 (about $275) to cover the bill. Upon shacho’s departure, a coworker of mine who had spent a few years in the States when he was younger immediately spat out, “All right, let’s get the fuck outta here!”

I still can’t figure out why it’s so hilarious when non-English speakers use foul language, but there’s no denying that it is.

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Here are some completely unrelated photos from Kamakura:

On Saturday Judy and I were in Ginza, where we happened to see Sakaguchi Kenji and Shinohara Ryoko, two relatively big celebrities in Japan. Although I didn’t see any cameras around, it appeared as though they were preparing to film something, as Sakaguchi was pulling a rickshaw in which Shinohara was seated, and production staff were scurrying about telling passers-by to keep walking.

Strangely enough, it was I who recognized the pair immediately and pointed them out to Judy, rather than the other way around as I would have expected. At that moment, it suddenly dawned on me just how much of Japanese popular culture I have absorbed during my time here.

I remember one time a few months after we first arrived in Japan, Judy and I were walking around Osaka when suddenly a young, hip-looking guy rushed past us followed by a gaggle of screaming teenage girls. Neither of us had any idea who he was. Since then, however, without any conscious effort on my part, I’ve somehow become familiar with most of the talento and their particular schticks, and on the occasions when I have seen celebrities in public (Tokyo isn’t that big a place), I’ve recognized them instantly.

What I find even more interesting, perhaps, is that American pop culture is becoming almost alien to me. Whenever I go back to the States, I find that I just can’t relate to much of what’s going on around me. I find popular music to be over-commercialized and uninspiring, I think reality shows like American Idol and Survivor are incredibly lame, and I seriously couldn’t give two shits about the Olsen twins.

Of course, I feel the same way about things in Japan, too.

Has popular culture always been such a vapid wasteland? Maybe I’m just getting older. . . .

Last night I was wasting time on online (what else do you really do on the internet?), when I stumbled across this picture and nearly had an aneurysm as my brain struggled to comprehend what I was seeing:

Menstrual Dreamer by Magical Designer Mari-Chan

“WTF?” indeed.

Now, before you start thinking me to be some kind of sick degenerate who spends his evenings scouring the internet for pictures of menstruating cartoon characters, I assure you that the discovery was completely unintentional. A click here, a link followed there, and the next thing I know, the image of a nude wide-eyed nymph with multiple body piercings violently spewing forth a torrent of menstrual demons from her hairless gash is being burned into my retinas.

Only a Japanese person could come up with something as utterly-disturbing-yet-undeniably-cute as this. Gloomy Bear is another fine example of this phenomenon. If you aren’t familiar with that particular character, check out the animations here, here and here. A tad disconcerting, no? (I actually have a keychain of this one [pic here], although a numbing fear of loss of street cred’ has prevented me from using it thus far).

Say what you will about the unusual aspects of Japanese culture, it certainly can be fun!

Last Friday, some of my coworkers from my former office in Ibaraki had a nomikai (drinking party) and so I took the two-hour journey up there to join them. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and saw that nearly all of the people there were high-ranking managers (i.e., OLD MEN). However, nothing blurs class lines better than alcohol, and sure enough, as soon as the initial kampai! had sounded, we were all headed down the primrose path to drunkenness together. Insults were hurled, drinks were spilled, sensitive topics were tactlessly breached and a good time was had by all.

Sadly, being the only person who had to head back to Tokyo that night and not wanting to be stranded halfway like the last time, I was forced to depart early and miss the obligatory visit to the hostess bar. What a shame. I was, however, pleasantly reminded that a two-hour train ride goes by far more quickly when one is inebriated. I’ll have to remember that.

In order to pass the time, I took some photos of my fellow late-night commuters. They’re nothing compared to anything on Mike Clark’s site, of course, but here’s a sampling:

Proving once again that I have the maturity level of an 8-year-old . . .

hee hee

Within the past few years, “global” has become a major buzzword in Japan and popular opinion seems to be that any Japanese firm that doesn’t declare itself to be a “global company” is behind the times and destined for failure. The company I work for, despite already having over 30 production facilities around the world, has recently joined in the globalization frenzy and has been doing all it can to “think globally,” as the cliche goes.

In typical Japanese form-over-substance fashion, the first step my company took was to add the word “Global” in front of every department name. Hence, the Marketing Department became the Global Marketing Department; the General Affairs Department, the Global General Affairs Department; and so on. This was considered a major step and was lauded within all echelons of the company. Apparently no one realized the utter pointlessness of it all.

The company’s latest endeavor in this globalization pissing contest has been the creation of a “bijinesu manaa” (”business manner”) database containing guidelines for proper business etiquette for interactions with non-Japanese companies. A few weeks ago, I was approached about helping to create a detailed guide to Western dining etiquette. You see, as the only non-Japanese person in my company, I am thought be an expert on all things foreign, and thus, despite being an ill-manner clod, I was consulted on every aspect of Western table manners.

After the guidelines were created, a few of the people in my office were assembled in the conference room to pose for photos demonstrating proper and improper table manners. The guide was posted on my company’s intranet site today and the photos are so laughably bad that I just had to share them. Here are some examples for your viewing pleasure:

[Note: In Japan, X (batsu) means incorrect and O (maru) means correct (like a checkmark in the West).]

This past Saturday night I was relaxing at home after a day spent out and about, when I heard a commotion outside. I went to the window and saw two punks on the street below shouting at a young guy on a scooter who was waiting at the stoplight on the corner. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they seemed to be upset about something. Suddenly one of punks shoved the guy off of his scooter and then punched him in the eye when he tried to get back on.

It seemed apparent that the guy on the scooter wasn’t going to fight back and was probably going to get his ass beat, so in the most intimidating angry-Japanese-man voice that I could muster, I shouted down, “Oi, nani yatten da yo!” (roughly, “hey, what the hell is going on?!”). The punks must have heard me, because they backed off and the young guy quickly got back on his scooter and rode off.

At that point Judy rushed into the room to see why exactly I was shouting out the window in my most intimidating angry-Japanese-man voice. As I began to tell her what I had witnessed, I pointed down to where the action had taken place and was surprised to see the two punks now standing in the middle of the road blocking traffic. A Mercedes was stopped in front of them, and the punks’ arms were up in the air in the universal “what’s-up-bitch?” pose. Suddenly, one of the punks went to the driver’s side and yanked open the door, apparently to go after the driver. Once again mustering my angry-Japanese-man voice, I shouted down, “OOOIII!!!“. That seemed to do the trick, because the two punks backed away from the Mercedes and (peculiarly) mounted a single bicycle and pedalled away.

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After our ordeal with the typhoon in Okinawa, Judy and I took advantage of the sunshine the following weekend and headed to the beach in Zushi, Kanagawa to soak up some rays while we had the chance. Some candid photos from that day are below. (Regrettably, the many women in bikinis were forced to go unphotographed due to the fact that Judy would have drowned me in the sea had she seen my camera pointed in their direction.)

It’s well-known that Japanese people have a sincere appreciation of the four seasons. Having grown up in Northern California, where the seasons are essentially limited to two: warm and cool, I find the heightened awareness of the changing of the seasons in Japan rather endearing.

There are, however, instances in which this obsession with seasonal changes goes a bit too far. Case in point: the sheer number of people that I have met who seriously believe that Japan is unique in the world as the only country with four seasons is astonishing. Seasonal food products are another example; in Japan, seasonal items extend far beyond fruits and vegetables into things ranging from tea to potato chips to chocolate. Most of these items are hardly distinctive and tend to sit inconspicuously on supermarket shelves until their time is up and the next batch arrives to fill their place

There is one seasonal product, however, that due to its overwhelming divinity, holds a special place in my heart and a special roll in my ever-burgeoning gut. The product of which I speak (or, um, write) is none other than Kirin’s Akiaji (”Taste of Autumn”) beer. Forget about the temperature outside, the changing of the leaves or the so-called “equinox”, this is what signifies the arrival of autumn:

Yes, folks, autumn has come and it’s in the form a tasty malt beverage made from the finest ingredients and now available in your local store for just ¥218 for 315ml or ¥286 for 500ml. With a distinguished, rich flavor and at 6% alcohol, this truly is the Nectar of the Autmnal Gods.

Japan is pretty well-known for its high level of customer service. I am reminded of just how great it is each time I go back to the States and have to deal with salespeople who act like I’m some sort of rude bastard for forcing them to do their job and ring me up at the till.

Anyway, the last time I was back in California the Apple iPod Mini was released and I, unable to resist my magpie-like lust for small shiny objects, caved in and bought one. I had been very happy with it from the start, but then a couple of weeks ago the sound started becoming distorted and the music would skip whenever the click wheel was touched (even with the lock on). 0.32 seconds on Google revealed that what I was experiencing was not an isolated case, and so the next day (a Sunday) I submitted a support request through the Apple Japan website.

Two days later on Tuesday morning a courier arrived at my door, boxed up the iPod and took it away. Fast forward just one week later to the arrival of a second courier bearing a brand new replacement, despite the 4-6 week retail waiting list here in Japan. And, because it was still under warranty, I didn’t have to pay a thing.

Pretty sweet, eh?

Earlier this month my company announced that the name of my office is going to change from the Tokyo Office to the Tokyo Head Office. This being Japan, of course, the insertion of the additional word is a major affair, and thus everything from the wall plaque to the stationery to the business cards has to be updated and replaced.

A three-member team was created to prepare the new business cards: myself, a male colleague and a female administrative assistant. My company’s business cards are incredibly dull and completely unremarkable, so during the first group meeting my colleague and I discussed ways in which we could make the cards more visually appealing, or kakkoii (cool), as he put it. The assistant, however, was unable to accept the notion that such radical change could be suggested by anyone other than the management and merely hemmed and hawed equivocally until the meeting was over.

After several follow-up meetings, we came up with a slightly more sleek, modern design and submitted it to our boss just before the summer holiday. The new cards arrived yesterday, and with great excitement and anticipation (well, not really), I opened the box and removed a crisp, new card. . . .

And wouldn’t you know it, the top managers had vetoed the new design for being “too different” and no changes had been made except for the addition of the extra word.

Oh well. Here are some more photos from Okinawa:

So we’re back from Okinawa. The trip was a lot of fun, but by an unfortunate and rather astonishing twist of fate, the meteorologists actually managed to predict the weather accurately, and it rained. Well, perhaps “rain” isn’t the right word . . . during our visit, the Okinawan archipelago was subject to a fierce anal reaming courtesy of Typhoon Megi (or Typhoon #15 as it was called by the imaginative Japanese). Seriously, it must have been some sort of karmic payback for all of the times that I pissed on the seat as a kid or something.

However, as a sign that the universe may not entirely have it in for me, for some reason or another our room was upgraded to a top-floor suite with a great view of the ocean, and, on the morning of our last day there, the sun even made a surprise appearance for about an hour and half (although immediately thereafter we were caught in a sudden downpour and ended up having to change our clothes in the bathroom of the lobby because we had already checked out).

Nonetheless, despite the horrible weather, we had a great time. Now it’s back to workin’ for the man, tryin’ to make a dollar outta 15 cents and all that jazz. Here are a few photos:

Well, it looks like everything is set for our trip to Okinawa. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning — actually, it will more likely be dark and early, since we have to be at the airport by 6 a.m.

We were able to get a pretty decent deal by going with a combination airfare/hotel package, but the only catch was that we weren’t able to choose what time our flights would be. We figured that with the money we’d save, it would be worth the risk, and as it turns out, it looks like we’ll be getting our money’s worth: we’re on the earliest flight down there and the latest flight back up. It’s a nice arrangement, except for having to wake up at 4:00 tomorrow morning and then come back at to Tokyo at about midnight Thursday night, especially since I’ve got work on Friday. But oh well, it should be fun.

I just checked the weather report and apparently thunderstorms are expected in Okinawa during the next three days. Great. However, since Japanese meteorologists are notorious for being exceptionally inaccurate, hopefully we’ll still be able to relax in the sun as planned. My fingers are crossed.

The other night I was up late, flipping through the channels on TV when I saw that the 2004 K-1 World Grand Prix was on. Seeing as none of the other ten channels were showing anything even remotely interesting (late night Japanese TV sucks, too), I sat back and made myself comfortable.

Since I’m not really a big K-1 fan, I couldn’t help but find it funny how clichéd and caricature-like the fighters were. Among the contenders were the rotund former sumo wrestler, the Neanderthal-esque Eastern European, the stout Somoan, the muscled black heavyweight and even the lanky white pretty boy. Suddenly I was eight years old again, playing Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!.

Anyhow, after watching the competition, I came to the realization that on some primal level, very little ranks as high on the entertainment scale as watching two super-men beat the living shit out of each other.

On the topic of sculpted hardbodies, today’s photos are of the famous Kamakura Daibutsu (Great Buddha). Weighing in at close to 90 tons, this big bronze bad boy was originally constructed in 1252 and has withstood the tests of time (including a giant tsunami in 1495) to become the primary attraction in the historical city.

On Saturday, my friend Zach and I headed down to Kamakura in Kanagawa prefecture, where we spent the day wandering through the many temples and shrines, snapping way too many photos and getting horribly sunburned in the process.

I’ll try to put some photos up this week or the next if I can find the time. I’ve still got a few more Taiwan photos to put up as well.

My company has just announced that effective August 1st, all offices and facilities will become non-smoking.

Nice.

After nearly three years of inhaling enough second-hand smoke to most likely guarantee a future onslaught of lung cancer, this is great news.

Now I’ll just have to wait to see whether it’s actually enforced.

Recently the hot topic of “conversation” (if it can be called that) in my office is what people will be doing for the upcoming summer holiday next month. In typical Japanese salaryman fashion, many of my colleagues will spend the week-long holiday at home watching television in between daily visits to the office. They may even squeeze in a trip to the driving range if they can find the time.

Aah, the good life.

Anyhow, since I’m one of the few people who hasn’t yet finalized my plans, every person I chat with about the holiday likes to give me their opinion about where I should visit. Curiously, they all offer the same advice: “You should go to Kyoto.”

Every single one. I kid you not.

Japanese people seem to have an strange fascination-bordering-on-obsession with Kyoto. The impression I get is that Kyoto is a representation of traditional Japanese culture; a place where the Japanese spirit lives on, despite the rampant materialism and hyper-consumerism that plague Japanese society today. Or something like that.

“Yes, many Japanese temple and historic place,” they say. “You can see the Japanese traditional life.” Sounds all fine and dandy, however — and this is a big however — oddly enough, whenever I ask if the person recommending Kyoto has ever been there, nine times out of ten they’ll sheepishly admit that they’ve only been there once and that it was for a junior high school trip (which usually took place before I was born). Arbitrarily recommending a destination that one has no inclination to visit oneself . . . well, that’s just odd, isn’t it?

It’s ironic that not two hours after I wrote the previous post during my lunch break the air conditioning in my office stopped working. It’s seriously like a frickin’ sauna in here now, minus the cedar and the naked men (or women if you’re lucky). My ass has now become one with my chair.

I swear, if I hear someone say “atsui ne!” one more time, I’m going to throw them through the window. At least that might create a draft.

Screw it, I’m going home.

It’s hot.

Today it’s 38°C/100°F with 50% relative humidity. Yesterday was similar, as was every other day in the past three weeks.

The oppressive heat is inescapable. I perspire at the slightest exertion, including otherwise sedentary activities such as breathing.

My nether regions swelter like a primordial jungle. Beads of sweat roll down the backs of my legs as I stand in the crowded train. My underclothes are soaked through by the time I get to work and cling to me for the rest of the day. People in my office greet each other in the morning with “atsui ne!” (”it’s hot, eh!”), whilst wiping sweat from their brow.

My only comfort is the knowledge that this weather will only continue for another month and a half or so before the arrival of Autumn. Then I will bask in comfortably cooler weather, which — if past experience is any indication — will last about two weeks, after which everyone will start to complain about how cold it is.

As annoying as it may be for a non-smoker like me, in Japan the smell of cigarette smoke is as ubiquitous as bespectacled salarymen, sushi, karaoke, Godzilla, tentacle porn and all of the other things that people elsewhere associate with this country (although ninjas are sadly very scare). Having grown up in California, where smoking cigarettes is about as uncouth as knocking up your grandmother, it was a bit of an adjustment getting accustomed to spending nearly every waking hour enshrouded in a cloud cigarette smoke, but I am now depressingly used to it.

Surprisingly (to me, at least), Japanese people regard smoking as little more than a bad habit and there is essentially no education here regarding the many health risks associated with it. Thus, while cigarette packaging in other developed countries contains warnings labels such as “SMOKING WILL MAKE YOUR DICK SHRIVEL UP AND DIE”, in Japan the labels merely say, “There may be a risk of damage to your health, so be careful not too smoke too much.” Why doesn’t the government require stronger warnings? Well, that would be bad for business, seeing as the Japanese government is the largest shareholder in Japan Tobacco (!).

However, feeling pressure from anti-smoking activists and foreign governments alike, Japan Tobacco has implemented a campaign to increase public awareness of the dangers of smoking. Recently, I happened to see one of their new advertisements in the train during my commute:

“WTF?” you ask? Yes, in the typical Japanese “path of least resistance” manner, Japan Tobacco has chosen to focus on the “manners” aspect of smoking, rather than the harmful health risks (”Forget about cancer and birth defects, YOU MIGHT POKE SOMEONE’S EYE OUT!!”). This began a few years ago, with such campaigns as “Smoking Clean” and “Are you a good smoker?” which all focused on educating smokers on proper smoking etiquette. The slogan of the new campaign is “Anata ga kizukeba, manaa ha kawaru” (roughly “If you take notice, your manners will change”).

Um . . . yeah.

I tried to snap a photo of the ad, but unfortunately with the rocking of the train and the stares of everyone else in the carriage wondering why the crazy foreigner was taking pictures of a smoking advertisement, the photo didn’t turn out very well. So instead, I went over to the Japan Tobacco website and found several brilliant examples that are each works of art unto themselves. I promptly stole them and have set up a gallery on this site in order to preserve them for all time. Let the hilarity ensue.

When you’re in a relationship, it’s important to occasionally surprise your significant other with gifts in order to get them to touch your naughty bits show them that you care. As I mentioned previously, it was Judy’s birthday last week and so this past Saturday I put my reservations about the Disney corporation aside and we went to Tokyo Disneyland to celebrate.

Being the awesome boyfriend that I am (”haha, you wish” says Judy), I decided to make the event extra special by reserving a room at the Disney Ambassador Hotel. This took a bit of forethought and planning on my part as the hotel is booked solid months in advance, but it was definitely worth it just to see the smile on her face and the excitement in her eyes (awww . . . gagpukepissshit).

Of course, on any occasion when one stays at a nice hotel, it is obligatory to leave with as much complimentary crap as one can carry. This time was no exception, and as an added bonus, everything came in extremely cute packaging. My only regret is that we didn’t bring a larger suitcase.

Behold, the loot:

Unfortunately, in order to pay for last weekend’s festivities, I’ve been forced to whore myself out on the streets of Tokyo. Interested parties please inquire within. Me love you long time.

Wednesday was Judy’s birthday and so after work we met up in Shinjuku to check out a Taiwanese restaurant that I had heard good things about called Seiryumon: Ten to Ichi (”Seiryumon: Heaven and Earth”). The restaurant consists of two floors, each with a unique theme. Care to fancy a guess as to what they are?

We decided to go with the “earth” floor because I had heard that it was the more interesting of the two, and after exiting the elevator, we were amused to find ourselves standing before a small door next to which hung a metal gong. The hostess instructed me to hit the gong three times (actually six times, since I apparently didn’t hit it hard enough the first three times), upon which a slit opened in the door and a creepy mechanical “doorman” appeared and asked us for the password. I gave him the password and the door swung open, revealing a dimly lit cavern filled with small tables nestled about (I later found out that the restaurant was modeled after an old opium den in Hong Kong — how quaint).

Although “earth” seemed more like “hell” (which is rather true, I suppose), the restaurant turned out to be a pretty nice place. The atmosphere was a nice mixture of spooky and kooky, and our waiter was a guy named Toshiyuki Suzuki (haha, I’m such writer). Oh, and the food was pretty good, too.

Continuing with the hellish theme, Judy and I will be visiting Tokyo Disneyland on Saturday for further celebration of the blessed occasion (hey, that kind of rhymes too).

So Judy and I caught the third Harry Potter film this past Saturday. We saw it in style on the “Premier Screen” at the Virgin Cinemas at Roppongi Hills, which is essentially the cinema equivalent to the first class cabin. The seats are large and fully-reclinable, sporting tons of legroom and even end-tables instead of the usual cupholders. Also, in addition to admission to the film, the tickets also afforded us one drink apiece in the Premier Lounge with its nice view of Tokyo. It was a pleasant experience, but a tad pricey at ¥3000 (about $25) a ticket. Probably a decent way to impress a first date, but not something you’d want to do every time you felt like catching a flick. (For the sake of comparison, the standard movie admission price in Tokyo is about ¥1800 per ticket.)

As for the film itself, overall, I’d say I liked it. Some of the dialogue was a bit on-the-nose and at times the exposition was rather blatant, but the film was a solid effort and I was entertained throughout. Judy, of course, was downright enraptured. . .you know, ’cause she’s, like, the big fan and all.

By the way, if you’ve seen the film already, check out this site: Harry Potter and the Prisoner in Azkaban in Fifteen Minutes (contains spoilers). “I think I saw a porno like this once” — brilliant.

The other day I caught the beginning of a program about Harry Potter on TV. As is typical with most Japanese TV shows, there was a main host and alongside him the obligatory talento (TV personalities) — in this case, two women I had never seen before and none other than Guts Ishimatsu, the former boxer-turned-B-list actor and TV personality.

As Guts was the biggest star on the panel (a telling indicator of the crappy production budget), the host began the program by asking him what he knew about Harry Potter. It turned out that old Gutsy had never even heard of the character. Normally, this might lead one to wonder what the heck he is doing appearing on a TV show about Harry Potter, but this is Japan — “the place where logic need not apply” — and so it really wasn’t all that surprising. At that point, the chirpy woman sitting next to Guts chimed in to say that she absolutely loves Harry Potter, and that “Daniel-san is SO CUTE!!!11″ In another feeble attempt to draw attention to the “big star,” the host then asked Guts, “Guts-san, what do you think of Daniel-san?”, to which Guts replied simply “Ma, gaijin da na” (”Well, he’s a foreigner, you know”), prompting laugher all around.

Although I won’t go into depth about my thoughts on the word gaijin at this time, I’ll just say that it’s a discriminatory term and there’s really no need for it to be used when their are several other inoffensive alternatives. While some may argue that gaijin is simply an abbreviation of gaikokujin (foreign national), the true meaning is quite simply “outsider” and carries derogatory connotations. Despite this, many Japanese people continue to use the word freely despite knowing that many non-Japanese people find it offensive.

Anyway, what upset me about Guts’ comment wasn’t only that it was offensive, but that those sorts of comments are shockingly common on Japanese television and never draw any kind of controversy. Just imagine of Alex Rodriguez was asked what he thought of Hideki Matsui and responded with, “Well, he’s a Jap, you know.” There would be an enormous public outcry. In Japan, however, such comments are simply par for the course.

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In lighter news, the new Harry Potter film comes out tomorrow and Judy and I have tickets to see it. I haven’t seen a movie on its opening day since Jurassic Park came out when I was in 8th grade. Of course, Judy was the one who really wanted to get tickets for tomorrow. She’s the Harry Potter fan, not me. She’ll try to deny it, of course, but don’t listen to her.

In April, one of the managers at my company, Soumi-san, invited the company intern, Zach, and I to join him for a day trip to Shizuoka prefecture in central Japan. Shizuoka is known for its excellent views of Mt. Fuji, pleasant weather, sakura ebi (”cherry” shrimp), green tea and strawberries — and we sampled all of it.

Well, actually, make that almost all of it — despite the fact that the weather was absolutely beautiful, some haze prevented us from actually being able to see Mt. Fuji (it was on holiday that day according to Mr. Soumi). However, we were assured that the view is normally quite breathtaking. Despite that itty bitty disappointment, the rest of the day was a lot of fun.

I’ve put some photos from the trip up in the gallery, so please feel free to take a look.

I read today that Tokyo was once again rated the most expensive city in the world. That’s obviously not much of a surprise, of course, seeing as it costs an arm and a leg just for the bare necessities here, which doesn’t leave many other body parts to pay for much of anything else. I try to cope by maintaining the illusion that once I leave Japan everything will seem ridiculously cheap by comparision for the rest of my life, but even self-delusion has its limits.

Coca-Cola began selling their new C2 cola in Japan this week. They were passing out tiny cans of the stuff at Shibuya station the other morning and last night I gave it a try. To be honest, it tasted like a mix of regular Coke and Diet Coke - definitely an improvement over the nauseating regular diet stuff, but since I’m a skinny bastard and don’t drink soft drinks very often, I don’t really care about reduced calories or carbohydrates so I think I’ll stick with Coke classic.

Will C2 be a success? Probably not in Japan (where Vanilla Coke lasted all of two months), but possibly in the US, where people seem to want to reduce their calorie intake without actually having to reduce the amount of crap that they stuff in their faces.

In other news, I made an attempt to pretty up the site a bit. I think I’ll leave the layout as it is for now, but it’ll definitely remain a work in progress. If you’ve got a second, please let me know what you think.

This post is basically just filler, so feel free to skip it.

When I set out to create this site, I researched a number of different publishing platforms before deciding to go with WordPress due to its supposed ease-of-use and its “great potential” that I kept reading about. Getting WP installed was pretty painless, thankfully, however designing the layout to my liking has actually turned out to be a lot of work. I’ve had to rely on vague recollections from the few programming classes I took in university to do just about everything. There’s probably a much easier way to go about doing things, but seeing as I have cognitive abilities equivalent to those of a rhesus monkey, I’m stuck doing each step one-by-one, which has been a very laborious process.

At any rate, I’m hoping to at least get the layout all set up by next Monday (6/7), and then I’ll see about posting photos and whatnot so this site will have something worth looking at on it. Free free to send me some feedback about the site to email (at) this domain.

Well, until I get everything set up, your patience is much appreciated!

Welcome to the site!

I’m still getting everything set up, but I should have some content up within the next few days.

See you then!