The Tokyo Beat

2006-05-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

Hello from the trenches

I've been keeping a low profile the past few weeks as I get my shit in order. My 2DK of Solitude is nearing completion. Soon it will be operational, to quote a character from a movie that was reworked 20 years after the fact into something that makes a part of me die every time I think about it.

I got a nice fairy blue carpet to cover the tatami in my Japanese-style room. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I can't fucking stand tatami. It's absolutely horrible. I heard it's supposed to trap heat in winter and be nice and cool in summer, or some such. Well, that's a crock. My old guesthouse room was balls cold in winter, and balls hot in summer, and the only thing it trapped was the smell of my own body all season long. Fuck tatami.

The carpet is of the short-trim persuasion. Not so short that I can see the outline of the tatami underneath, but definitely not shaggy. And did I mention it's the color of a baby boy's nursery? I think I may have some subconscious desire to live like a kid, because I just ordered a pure white book shelf and I'm springing for beanbag cushions too. All I'll need to complete the look will be a TV with some Nintendo games constantly playing on it.

Lucy recently - and finally, I'll add - bought some bath and makeup products to store at my place, which has made spending nights over easier. On another note, I've started to map out the area around my place in Gotanno. I ran down past Ueno to scout the first leg of what will soon be my run to Shibuya, and I've also run out to Kameari, where there's an insanely cheap grocery store. It takes me 18 minutes at a cruising pace to get there, contrasted with the 30 or so minutes it takes by train. I've actually grown accustomed to running shirtless to shops nearby, waiting a few seconds for sweat to dry out, then putting on a shirt and walking inside to buy stuff. To say I disrupt the wa of a store is an understatement. I'd be willing to bet I cause these stores to lose customers.

I've also finally gotten off my ass and started studying up on writing Kanji. Over 2 years ago I had a course on writing Kanji, which was essentially the only time I've ever really spent studying those characters. Right now I've got the first 2 Joyo grades down (it really helps when you've been reading them for 2 years) and I'm working on the 3rd. I was actually a little surprised at the speed with which I picked up those 2 grades. I had them down in less than a week of studying on the train. But I've seen grade 3, and it's a break from the simple everyday characters I've been dealing with before.

World Class has a new blog up that will chronicle his 59 day run across the length of Japan over 20 years ago. I think it's going to be essentially 2 pages, with the meat of it devoted to him talking about how he cheated and rode the bus all the way to Wakkanai.

I know I can't get away from an update without mentioning my job, which is where I'm posting this from. A month or so ago they hired a new guy to "assist" me. He's supposed to be heading out to one of our other sites at the end of the year, and until then needs to be trained, or something. In the meantime, he has been charged with taking over half of my class, completely.

At first I was happy because I thought it was just a temporary thing - a couple weeks at most while my boss was out of town on business. But it'll actually end up being a 6 month stint. And I know damn well that his hiring was one reason I didn't get a pay raise in April. All of a sudden I'm only doing half the work training-wise, and the same amount of work development-wise. Well, actually that's false. The hardware I need for development hasn't even been picked out yet by my boss, so I'm stuck in limbo there too. About all I'm good for right now is updating lectures and quizzes. Work is incredibly boring right now.

I'm going to start dabbling in DoJa again. I finished my Kanji dictionary, which puts the Kanji dictionary from that contest I mentioned to shame. It allows searching by Kanji, stroke count, SKIP code, grade, radical, pronunciation and meaning, and for the last two you can do an all/any/exact search. It's helped me a lot on the train when I'm reading ads and see a Kanji I don't recognize. I can just plug in the SKIP code and have at it.

That's about it. I have to get back to work now. I'll post again in a bit regarding the new object of my simultaneous interest and loathing, Dan Brown.

2006-05-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

In which I write my semi-annual update

Hot damn, work is rough this week. My boss is out of town for a week or two so I get to take care of the runts. Just my luck, the new round of students just started, so I have 4 hour lectures every day for my own students, in addition to his. I'm having a blast.

Compounded to that, today I had to wear my last remaining button-down shirt. It's the last one I have for a reason - it's missing a button right smack dab in the middle. So when I move around, my bare, pasty chest is exposed. You'd think my tie would cover it up, but my sinister tie, no doubt upset over being washed numerous times before I wisened up ("Oh, do not put in washer!"), keeps moving out of the way. Some girl was staring at me in the elevator just now, and it took me a full 10 seconds before I realized she could see my nipples.

Now, normally I wouldn't have this kind of problem. I have other shirts lined up. But I just last night at 11pm set up my new washing machine, and I don't have a dryer, so despite my best efforts, when I woke up this morning my dress shirts were still damp and wrinkled. Apparently hanging outside when it's drizzling isn't the best thing to dry clothes.

Oh, right. I moved.

I'm now up by Ueno, near a little part of town called Kita Senju. I'm about an hour from work still, but it's an awesome place to live. The foreigners there are just as cheerful and not-psychotic-looking as anywhere else in Tokyo, which is to say that they all look like they're marching off to take on a biker gang that killed their respective families. Maybe the same biker gang. Wouldn't that be something.

But I digress. I've got an awesome river a couple minutes from my place, and it's lined with a wide bike/running path that's at least 13.1 miles because I ran it in March. And there's plenty of places along it to either play pick-up sports (which I won't do) or have a picnic (which I'd do, but not until all parties involved sign an NDA).

I'm about 4-5 minutes from the station, which is in turn 1-2 minutes from about 5 grocery stores, all of which are balls cheap. For those of you not up on current ForEx prices, balls are practically being given away these days.

Which brings me to my new home. I managed to get some J-cred at the housing agency and they found me a great place. See, I brought my good Japanese friend who now lives 4 minutes from me. Despite the initial "Oopsie-daisies, foreigners can't live here!" moments we all shared with a wink and a smile, they actually got me settled in a very spacious 2DK for under 80,000 yen. It looks brand new, and no longer has that godawful new tatami smell it did last week when I first moved in. No, now it has the smell that makes guests crinkle their nose and invariably ask where I've hidden the body.

So I learned a lesson last week I'd like to share with everyone. It's a mistake to carry all of your belongings 90 minutes via train when you can just stuff it in a box and have it shipped through Lawson for like 4,000 yen total. I destroyed my upper body, which has been decomposing anyway since I left America.

Then after I'd moved in, I found that there are a few necessities that a normal apartment needs that I didn't have. Just off the top of my head...

refrigerator
microwave
rice cooker
water heater
washer
futon
bed
curtains
table
microwave stand
slippers
iron
ironing board
carpet for the tatami
plates
glasses
stove

Yeah, 2 years in a guest house will make you forget all those things you take for granted. Luckily there are 2 recycle shops nearby and they deliver same day. I picked up a wicked fridge, double-sized bed, microwave, rice cooker, and iron from them, though the damned iron is one of those ceramic-plated obscenities. Who the fuck decided that was better than good old steel?

All of those items were dirt cheap compared to new prices, but the thing about Japanese recycle stores is that the items themselves are all practically new anyway. The bed is 3 years old, the fridge is 2, the microwave is a little over 1. I managed to save a bunch of money that way.

I've still got to go back out this weekend to finish up shopping, and I don't yet have internet, but I'm relatively settled in. I've even got pink slippers and a blindingly magenta towel for my partner in crime to use. Should we ever break up it'll be a little awkward to explain to the future girlfriend why I have those lying around, but one step at a time.

For those who are wondering, we're still together. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but she told me a couple weeks ago that she was sticking with her job so that she'll have enough vacation time to accompany me to Lake Tahoe for a week of Aces Family Fun. This is a job she hates, and she was actually intending to quit. So I think that's a good sign.

The only problem is that, due to the turbulence of the 2 weeks since she first told me about our relationship woes, I now am very jumpy about really small things. In the past 2 weeks there have been times where I can swear a breakup is coming because of something stupid I imagine I did, or the way she writes an email to me, and then it turns out to be nothing. The feeling's going away, but not soon enough.

That's enough for one post. I've been taking these extra-long lunches this week since my boss isn't here, so maybe I'll have time to post again later in the week.

2006-04-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

Movin' on up (to the East Side)

I appreciate everyone's comments and emails last week. I didn't mean to leave you all hanging, but I figured it would be better to wait until the dust had settled before I made an update on the situation.

And now, and update on the situation.

It was a very rocky week, but Lucy and I talked quite a bit and got back on track. I reiterated (or just plain iterated, since I'm pretty sure it was the first time) my commitment to our relationship - something I wasn't able to do with The Student or The Herbalist - and shared with her some very personal thoughts and experiences and whatnot. I'm not going to go into too many details of course, since I still retain some semblance of privacy in my life, bloody boxers and tales of hookers notwithstanding.

For now, on the relationship front, things are progressing nicely. We're closer than before, that's certain. Thanks to those who voiced support or advice, or some combination thereof.

Of course, I also gave up my Fortress of Solitude's secret location, and some time in the next couple weeks she's going to be visiting these hallowed pages. Then I get to explain to her why her name is Lucy and not Jessica, as in Alba (short answer: she doesn't have blonde hair). I'm pretty sure there are other things I've written that I'll probably be a little embarrassed to share, but hey, I don't write to impress people. Hell, sometimes I don't write at all, as many* of you noticed and emailed me about. I write to amuse (myself only, all too often) and put things together in my life. And since I've got an absolutely horrible memory, this also serves as a kind of record of what I've done and how I've handled stuff. I never want to forget how to deal with a smelly old man who thinks the handles on a train have more germs than the rancid death being dealt in gas form from his mouth, leaning into me and rubbing his foul body odor all over my suit. I build calluses on my elbows that way.

My other problem, that being my distinct lack of confidantes or good friends, is resolving steadily as well. One of my friends is helping me find an apartment before my current abode gets demolished and turned into an old folk's home. Where he lives, East Bumfuck (I'm in West Bumfuck) is a couple minutes closer to work, but a hell of a lot cheaper, and we've been looking at places there. As an added bonus, it's only 25 minutes from Lucy, as opposed to the current setup, which is about 80 minutes in either direction.

We looked at places on Saturday, and I got to remember what really pisses me off about Japanese society (hah, there's a rant in here, fuckers!): the nonchalance with which many people accept racism and discrimination as a fact of life.

The agent told my friend that not a few of the selections I had made were going to be difficult because the landlords don't take kindly to my type 'round these parts. The guy didn't even bother to ask, just flat out stated that for'ners were forbidden. But the language he used was very matter-of-fact and sort of "what can you do, eh?" I know I'm not breaking new ground with this, and I've written about it before, but it's something that always ticks me off. It's this laissez-fair attitude toward a lot of things that is evidenced anywhere you want to look. It's changing, but not before I have to move myself into a concrete structure with plenty of space that doesn't have roaches keeping my bed warm.

Owing to my indecisiveness and the fact that the realtor had no clue how to operate his own computer to do timely searches, we ended up making final selections a little late, and so he didn't want to schedule an apartment viewing. My friend got him to agree to just one, a place literally 1 minute away. But when the realtor called the landlord, her daughter answered and said that she wasn't sure if gaijin were permitted, don't you understand, so I couldn't come over. But next week she'll ask her mom and we'll find out for sure if the thought of a white guy living on her land keeps her from getting a good night's sleep.

Another development this week is that one of my friends from college, The Lesser Half, is in Tokyo for a week on business. I call him that because we share the same first name, and he was my senior at work, so he started referring to himself as the greater half. The truth is now we each call ourselves the greater half, and someone's got to be the lesser. Until we find a 3rd mutual friend whom we can dump on, we have to deal with this bit of ambiguity about who's who. We'll see each other one or two days this week, and I'll relentlessly hammer him for job recommendations.

I'm sure there was something else I was going to say, but the earlier talk about trains got me all worked up. All these new shain this month have made it hell. They all seem to instinctively know which car gets out right in front of the stairwell at Ikebukuro and Shibuya, knowledge I had thought was protected by me and about 30 others. Well, one of those Judas' flipped sides and ratted us out, and now you've got to fight just to keep one foot on the ground. My pant leg got a little rip already, and it's not even the end of the month. Luckily nobody in Japan eats fish and pickled vegetables for breakfast.

*maybe 2 or 3

2006-04-10T19:55:00.000-07:00

If you can find the good news in this, tell me

It's been a very long while. I don't expect many are reading the page anymore. Hell, I haven't really bothered to either, so I can hardly blame any of you.

When last we spoke, it was almost White Day. For those of you who care, I got my girlfriend a nice array of chocolates and a sexy thong with a chain across the front. The kind lady at Marui convinced me it could do no wrong, and indeed she was correct.

That was 3/14. I had my run (Arakawa Marathon) on the 19th and beat my previous time by 20 minutes. It was absolute hell because we had a head wind the last 21km. Compounded to that, I was sick and had a runny nose, making it difficult to breathe and damned near impossible to drink while running. Lucy was supposed to come, but overslept on account of it being that womanly time of the month. It might sound stupid, but part of what kept me going was the thought that she'd arrive and be waiting for me at the finish line. It didn't happen like that, but I finished nonetheless.

Other things happened - my guesthouse is being torn down and I have to move out by 5/31. The message is written on a bulletin board nobody checks in sloppy Japanese, which I think is not the nicest thing Yaji could have done. There are undoubtedly going to be a couple people who are completely unaware, or who simply can't read the Japanese. I'm planning on moving out east near Ueno.

I had a horrible incident at work that had me literally ready to quit the week of 3/27. By that Friday I was a nervous wreck and had a splitting headache. My coworkers were angry with me, other people in the office were, and still are, ignoring me completely. I had put off looking for another job for months, so I was acutely aware that if I had to quit, I would be living very spare for a few months. But I forgot about dealing with all that when I hung out with Lucy that weekend.

I bring this up because yesterday I was caught completely off guard when Lucy told me she just wants to be friends.

She'd been thinking it for a couple months now, but never broached the subject, and instead just let it sit inside her until it was too late to change anything. I can't fault her for that, since it's exactly what I would do, and have done. The very dark humor in all of this is that the list of things that I had done, or more correctly not done, are all things that I wanted very badly to do.

She mentioned how I don't talk about work with her as much as with my only other good friend in Tokyo. He was a student of mine and quit, so we have lots of common ground. But truly I thought that constantly complaining about work to her would be too boring and negative, and I figured that she wasn't interested in hearing about it anyway because she never told me about her job either. And I'm sure you can see the cycle - neither of us talks about something we want to talk about, because the other isn't talking about it. Such a simple miscommunication.

There were other things, most of which she couldn't explain to me, but had apparently discussed with friends. They had all suggested she talk to me about it, but she didn't. She said that when she gets sick and calls me to say she can't meet - 1 or 2 times a month - she feels that I don't seem to care or say words of encouragement. I was always frustrated when she got sick because I couldn't go to her house and sit by her while she slept - she had never brought me to her house or introduced me to her parents.

I tried to explain all of this to her - how so much of it was a miscommunication, and how my actions stemmed from such and such an experience. She said she hadn't come to a decision yet, but she also was unresponsive while we were waiting for the train, and at one point she cried, though I wasn't supposed to see it. The verdict was in before I arrived, and anything I said just made it harder for her to tell me.

The loss of a girlfriend is not something that would normally have me so down. It's something I realized on the train this morning that has had me furtively drying my eyes all morning when I think nobody is looking. In a week, I will have only 1 friend in all of Tokyo. And that friend isn't yet someone I can tell everything to. Even these thoughts are filtered, albeit poorly, before I write them down. I don't like to deal with anger - too much of that in recent memory - and committing something to an archived medium like the internet makes me pause before finalizing a thought to see if it's actually semi-rational and reflective of me. It's a lot of work to strain your feelings so that they don't offend or cause unwanted judgement when talking to people, as I'm sure everyone is aware. Now that I want to talk about everything going through my head, I realize I'm missing a friend to talk to.

And ironically enough, Lucy told me last night that one of the things she had wanted from me was more openness on my part, and more talk about what's kicking around in my brain. Then we broke up. There's a word for this, I'm sure.

I'll try to update again. I make that promise so many times, I know. This weekend I might be going to the Nagisa Music Festival in Odaiba, so hopefully I'll even have a story to write about.

2006-03-07T01:02:00.000-08:00

Killer App

Sorry again for the absence. I had a drought of interesting things to say. You know, because usually I've got tons of awesome shit going on. Last week? I had nothing.

Japan is as ever Japan. Work sucks, just like usual. I've been spending my time at work trying to figure out new games or utilities to make. You know what sucks ass? There was a DoJa development contest recently - 1st one - where programmers submitted non-commercial applications that they had created for Docomo phones using one of the old overseas versions of DoJa. I didn't submit anything because I figured I'd be blown out of the water, and I didn't have much time anyway. Ideas I was throwing around were a full-featured dictionary using Jim Breen's EDICT database, or a good semi-3D game.

You know what won? A pared-down Japanese dictionary. You enter the number of strokes and the pronunciation, and it gives you the kanji and the meaning. Seriously, unless I'm missing something, that's pretty lame. It shows you can parse the database file, but no one needs that lookup feature. How many people know how many strokes a kanji has, but can't remember what it looks like? And if they have a phone and know the pronunciation already, they can type it in and convert it automatically, without this program. He could have just skipped to the end - giving the meaning.

Second place was a horrible-looking "3D" tunnel game. No textures, I'm actually reasonably certain it wasn't true 3D, just a bunch of rectangles superimposed on each other. He won a laptop.

Third place was a Sudoku solver. It's not even unique - I can write one for the phone today if I want to, since there are a million open source solvers available on the web, many written in Java and not requiring any special libraries. He got a digital camera.

Goddamn. I guess next year I'm submitting something. I need a piece of this DoJa pie. And apparently it was only foreign contestants, because if you look at any one of the many i-appli sites in Japanese, they're leagues ahead. On that note, I was disappointed to find that 2 games I was willing to attempt - Bomberman and Nectaris - are both developed already and put out by Hudson. Motherfuckers. I'm quite tempted to download Nectaris. That game dominated. If it was open source...

My Sudoku is officially complete. I've got everything the way I want it to be (kind of had that 3 weeks ago, but made a few minute changes). The only thing I can think of adding is support for custom-entered puzzles, but I don't have time to figure out dynamically adjusting the scratchpad size, if that's even possible, and I've got enough puzzles anyway.

So now I'm looking for a new game. I want a puzzle game, but at the same time some kind of puzzle/action would be fine. Of course, I can't figure out how to draw a simple 3D quadrilateral to provide a game board, so I'm stuck at the moment. It's a pretty sad place to be stuck, I admit. I just know I want a 3D board. After that, I'll figure out what kind of game goes on top of it. Maybe 3D checkers. Hehe.

2006-02-21T18:54:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Civilization

World Class pointed me to a little blurb in the Daily Yomiuri that I thought was quite humorous. Apparently, in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing is going to institute a new "civilization" program aimed at making it, well, more civilized I guess. One of the things they're going to do is encourage people to stop spitting on the streets...by putting up garbage cans on the streets for you to spit into.

Is it just me, or does that seem like they're avoiding the real issue?

"Senators, in light of the fact that last year thousands of people died as a result of drunk driving, I propose that we make sure all cars from now on are equipped with big spongy bumpers. Also, pedestrians should have rocket belts."

Here's an idea - ask your citizens to stop spitting on the goddamn roads. It's disgusting. What the fuck are they eating anyway that causes them to have so much spare mucus? I've eaten all sorts of unhealthy, middle-of-the-road and organic shit - the entire spectrum of food - and I never felt the urge to hack loudly and spit on someone's shoes. The only thing bad that ever happened to me as a result of eating Chinese food was a 48 hour case of the Hong Kong shingles. You'd need a bigger trashcan, and I'd appreciate a triple-ply dispenser nearby.

I suspect this is a cultural thing, much like Japanese salarymen pissing on streets, and teenage brain surgeons riding bikes while talking on a cell phone and holding an umbrella. The solution isn't to make sure these poor salarymen have a specially designated Urinal Tree every 50 feet. It's to call them names or push them into their own puddle when you walk by them, then mutter "Gomen ne, oshikko-sama." Goddamn.

I suppose it is admirable that they at least recognize it's a problem and want to correct it in some vague, unhelpful way. I thought it was funny that it was being called the "civilization" program, though whose name that is - Yomiuri's or Beijing's - I don't know. Now if only Japan would institute one of those programs. I imagine it would be something like this:

(1) Free public showers near every train station
(2) Toothpaste and scope booths at each intersection
(3) Amnesty from police if you beat someone for stopping on an elevator or being a nuisance because they were reading their keitai email while walking.

Now that would be a goddamn program to be proud of.

2006-02-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

Guest House Blues

Man, things in the ol' guest house are heating up a bit. It seems people are becoming more and more annoying. When it was just the Vietnamese guys, I could write it off as their deal. Now more people are jumping on the bandwagon and making the place suck, so I'm almost thinking it's an issue with me instead.

Almost, but not quite.

Let's cover some familiar territory first. The Vietnamese guys. I hate them. I can't stand to be near them. They make those open-mouth chewing sounds, gums smacking gums, every time they eat. And they make sure at least one of them is eating at any given time. Always some kind of long-dead fish they dredged up out of the septic tank, smelling 5 kinds of awful and looking the part.

The computer is the same. They'll monopolize it, typing away, and they only get off when another of their number walks in to the lounge. The thing is, they don't even say anything to each other (a rare occurrence). I'd expect the newcomer to say "Oh excuse me, Mr. Ding (I'm not making that up) can I use the computer?" Instead one walks in, and the other just gets up knowingly. They hold the seat for each other seemingly just so I can't use the damn thing.

That's when they want to use the lounge computer. Periodically they bring their laptop in as well - yes, they have a laptop and still feel like using the public computer. The problem begins when they want to connect to the internet, and do so by unplugging the lounge computer. Since all 3 or 4 of them can speak maybe like 5 words of English among them, it's a chore to try to convince them that no, they don't need the internet for an hour, and yes, they should stop being douchebags.

The other day I went to use the computer and found it to be conspicuously unconnected to the internet. 5 feet away, clicking away on his laptop, was my old nemesis - Vietnamese guy from last year (friend of my arch nemesis, Vietnamese guy who snuck into my room like a crazy unmedicated dildoid). He tried to sputter out the words to tell me what he was doing and settled on, I believe, "I use."

I don't want to generalize, but every Vietnamese guy who has lived in this house has been unable to converse in either Japanese or English. Please, just learn one of the fucking languages! If you're here for a week I'll understand if you have no language ability, but after half a year you damn well better know how to make a simple sentence. Especially if you are inconveniencing other people. They have to know they are being annoying, because most of their truly bad behavior is universally unacceptable.

After struggling with a dialogue for a minute or two (such highlights from me as "Unplug from the internet. Write your email. Plug in. Send." and "No, 1 hour is too much. You've been sitting there for an hour already") we reached an agreement whereby he would watch porn on his laptop and I could use the internet, and then at 10pm he would get on the computer to chat with his wife, Roger.

If that was all, I wouldn't have brought it up. The thing is, other people at the house are acting strangely now too. We have a...meaty...Italian girl who loves wearing tight pants and lounging around the place all day. Her voice is loud and nasally, so I can hear her when I go to bed (my room is above the lounge) and it keeps me up some nights. Though I bitch about that here, understand that I don't mind it much on its own because I recognize it as a superficial complaint.

What I do mind is her attitude. She expects other people to translate Japanese <-> English for her, even though she was majoring in Japanese until last year. That's a practice that really irks me, since I get picked on to do it too sometimes. It's one thing to not know a language. The Vietnamese guys don't know English or Japanese (or Vietnamese probably. Bastards are probably making it up as they go along). If you have trouble in it, the solution I've found that works best is to (1) minimize the amount of talking/listening you have to do by not being a bother or inconveniencing anybody, and (2) asking politely for a translator when (1) fails.

This girl, as well as the Vietnamese and a few other people who've lived here before, they all think that it's your job as a bilingual to translate anything and everything around them. World Class was in the lounge eating, with her watching TV, when one of the Korean guys walked in. He asked World Class in Japanese if he could change the channel, and WC said he doesn't mind, but he thinks she might be watching something, so ask her.

He tried to talk to her in English, but couldn't get the words out, and I guess despite her studying Japanese for years she hasn't made much progress. So they both stared at WC - minding his own damn business - expecting him to both be listening intently to their conversation and also to see that he should be translating for them. Eventually she understood that he wanted to change the channel, but afterwords told WC that he wasn't a nice guy because, I assume, he isn't a goddamn psychic and she was too much of an ass to ask him nicely to translate.

As I said, it's happened before, and will happen again. Saying "please" really does make all the difference in the world.

Yesterday the circuit breaker tripped because the Vietnamese were using the microwaves and both toasters, as well as the water heater and a rice cooker. The Italian girl and I were also in the lounge when it happened. I waited for 10 seconds in darkness before deciding to flip the switch back. On my way out the door, she yelled out to me that I had to unplug the rice cookers first or else it would turn back off. She made no movement to get up off her ass, just yelled it to me. I said to her that I wasn't using any of that shit, but it should be alright anyway. Usually it is.

Well, 10 seconds after I flipped it, the lights go out again. She raised her voice to me and said, accusingly, "I told you it would happen again! You have to unplug the cookers!" This whole time the guys and her are just sitting on their asses, not even attempting to help out, expecting me to go to each appliance and unplug it because they want to stuff their faces with rice and shit-fish. So I told her, "Why don't you get up and turn it off yourself? I'm flipping the switch. You guys turned all this shit on, the breaker tripped, now you turn it off." Then I motioned to one of the guys - "Hey, could you unplug the rice cooker? Thanks." She didn't talk to me the rest of the time, but I can't say I missed the tender sound of her voice.

2006-02-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

Kamisando

I just made the best goddamn sandwich I've ever eaten. I'll take a picture next time. I would have taken one today but I couldn't put it down long enough to get the camera (6 inches away from my left arm).

Ingredients:
Avocado
Cheese (regular old slice)
Chicken (steamed in a frying pan with karashi)
Eggplant
Green pepper
Lettuce
Olives
Onion (lots, chopped)
Pickles
Spicy mustard
Tomato

I have so much shit going in there I have to hollow out the roll so it's just the hard crust, a little bit of soft bread, and a whole garden of vegetables. I think it costs me like $10 to assemble a half-roll. Goddamn. One of the girls in the guest house saw me making it one day (before I added olives and eggplant to the list) and tried to make one herself. She said it was horrible.
So apparently only I have the skill to make these vegetables come together, grab your taste buds from behind and pound flavor into them. A culinary gang-bang, if you will.

2006-02-16T21:44:00.000-08:00

Debu Me

I wrote earlier that everything between Lucy and me was fine on Valentine's Day. I mean, I was a little surprised there was no card for the gifts, but my understanding is that here in Japan it's optional. It makes no sense to me. And neither does the practice of telling your friends exactly what you want for your birthday, and knowing in advance they will get it for you. But hey, I'm not Japanese.

One thing did stand out about that night. She was idly staring at her thighs while we were sitting down, when suddenly she said she was getting fat. I peeked under the table to check* and saw she was mistaken, and just gave a sort of chuckle. She's definitely not fat. I'm amazed at how women seem to be able to notice every additional ounce of body weight that they may or may not have gained. I think you ladies are bullshitting, to be honest.

*Even though I knew people would maybe stare and wonder why the guy was peeking under the table at the girl's legs, I figured it would pale in comparison to what I did 5 minutes earlier, when I unzipped my pants and showed her that I was wearing the London Subway boxers. They are easily identified by the big bullseye that straddles the window, which thankfully was mostly closed.

So no sooner do I say that then she volunteers, "You're fat too." I laughed it off because I figured it was a joke, but she reiterated it in different words. Sadly, my weight, or more appropriately, body shape, is something I'm fairly sensitive to, and so her telling me that at first made me second-guess myself and wonder, "Damn, I guess I am fat. Fuck."

I'm 6' even and 70kg, or 156lbs. I would say that I qualify as "thin" in most people's books, so I should have realized she was on crack right there. That and the fact that this girl just told me she's fat too, and she's got stick legs. If anything her judgement is slightly impaired.

Vain motherfucker I am, a couple minutes later I had to ask her if she meant it, and she said yes with no hint of a joke. It's the ass, I thought. Must be. I don't have any fat on me except possibly there. That's from my mom. I initially began running because even when I don't eat substantially for a week, I still have some chub on my pasty globes. Running fixes that, see.

So I went home that night and thought, "Fuck that. She thinks I'm fat? I'll be in wicked shape by...Saturday!" You know, because I'm getting naked and rolling around in the hay with her Saturday. I want to be able to lean back and have the light catch on my wicked abs. I plan on leaving the window open so doves can sing to me about how awesome my body is. That'll show her.

I had a head start, actually. I had run distance Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Tuesday when we met was my only day off this week. She couldn't have known this, but I've actually dropped almost 1kg since Saturday, bringing me sub-70. What she saw on Tuesday was a transitory Aces. Literally the day after, and especially today, I was back in anorexic shape.

Last night, however, I pondered this. I realized that her calling me fat was enough to make me run Wednesday and Thursday (I skipped the mornings and intended to not run them, but ended up running anyway after work). And probably I'll run again today, and tomorrow morning before we meet.

But then I thought about another meaning of her calling me fat. She's still dating me, right? So if it's not for my tight ass and manly chest, it must be for something less superficial. I almost want her to call me an ugly son of a bitch so I can cross off "model good looks" as a reason she tolerates me. Then I'd just wait for the other shoe to drop (rocks the futon bomb) and I'd be set.

I've figured out the way to turn an insult into a reassurance. I'm a compliment alchemist, dammit. Of course, it'd suck if on Saturday, right when I'm about to pretend it's too hot on the train and tear off my shirt in front of her, she says she can't date fatasses and, well, dumps my fat ass.

Man that'd be embarrassing.

2006-02-15T23:07:00.000-08:00

Prey

Man, I absolutely plowed through Michael Crichton's latest techno-thriller*, Prey. I think I finished the damn thing in 7 hours or so, which means either I broke my own personal reading speed record (previously 500 pages in "never") or I have no concept of time.

*I count Prey as his latest book. That air one sounds like it flosses with my ass hair, and his attempt to take on global warming I hear is pretty laughable. Maybe not in the conclusions he draws, but in the idea that environmentalists wield some sort of power over governments. I think it has been well established that the kinds of people who fake cough when they see someone smoking (whether it's in person or via satellite) aren't zipping around town in a limo made out of solid gold driven by a senator.

But I'm not that into politics, so what do I know.

What I like about Crichton's novels that don't suck, like Sphere, Jurassic Park, Terminal Man and Lost World, is that he gives you so many branches of science or math and just shoves them all together, so even though you know what he's saying can't be possible, there's no way in hell you'll ever find anybody specializing in neuroscience, lion mating rituals and WW2 dogfighting who will be able to prove him wrong.

Like with Prey. He goes way off the deep end with technical talk I don't have hands-on experience with, then gives us a good helping of genetics, swarm and pack behavior in animals and human psychology. Even if something he says is patently false, there's still the idea that, "Well, maybe if that other stuff was right - and I'm not a psychologist so I don't know - it would work...hm..." The guy's a genius.

At least, he is when he's not creating a book that will turn into a movie that stars the guy from The Fast and the Furious whose voice makes me want to murder babies. Goddamn that fucker. I honestly thought he was gay for Vin Diesel and just using his sister to get closer. Shit, I would.

Anyway, the book. Crichton has this wonderful way of writing. It goes like this:

1. Write 5 pages of dialogue and/or action
2. Write 5 pages of character history that will be useful to know in 20 pages
3. Write 5 pages of dialogue, continuing where (1) left off
4. Write 10 pages of intellectual masturbation on a topic only 10 people in the world know about, who also don't speak English so they'll never be able to call bullshit on you, that will make the reader pop a knowledge boner and think about how wonderful you are, you smarmy geriatric fuck.

I don't have anything against the man, really, and as I said I enjoy his novels that weren't named by him doing a word association on the smell of his own flatulence (Eaters of the Dead?).

But reading Crichton novels makes me feel so...inadequate. Like, why does this guy know so much about everything under the sun, and I know jack shit? His bibliographies are like 20 pages per novel. I haven't read that many books in my life, and I'm counting every goddamn Berenstein Bears, Babysitter's Club and Nancy Drew (I wasn't a Hardy Boys fan) I ever opened.

Today I realized I need to pick it up some. I can't call myself an engineer or computer scientist if I've only ever read textbooks and a few of the popular tomes. So I went up to Amazon and spent an hour adding book after book to my wishlist. How do you like that, Crichton? I've got 50 books totalling $4000 just waiting for me to tear through them, after of course robbing a bank. And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to write a novel about time-traveling Viking nano-dinosaurs under the motherfucking ocean, because thanks to you that's all I know now.

Goddamn.

Oh yeah, get the book.

2006-02-14T18:16:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day

So yesterday was Valentine's Day, as I'm sure many are aware, happily or painfully. I received a box of chocolates which I polished off last night and this morning because I'm a chocolate fiend. I also got a tie, which is odd but somehow quite relevant because every tie I own has been through the wash many, many times. It's the source of quite a few jokes at my expense by World Class. In fact, yesterday the tie I was wearing was literally coming apart, so Lucy's gift came not a moment too soon.

It is the second clothes-related gift she's given me. The first was a pair of boxers from London with the subway map on them. I have to wonder if maybe she's sending me a hint - your boxers are filthy and your tie is a loose knit of wrinkled threads, please wear something I won't be embarrassed to be seen with. Subtle hints, see. As I recall, the boxers were a very prescient gift as well.

This is just what I want, however, because now I have carte blanche to get her whatever undergarments I want her to wear, and I can't be called a skeezy perv. My defense is that I just wanted to reciprocate. I'm thinking edible panties or those bras with holes around the nipples that one might see around Dogenzaka if one is ever in the area.

I'm not sure how Valentine's Day usually works out in the States - do all couples just shack up for the night, or what? I do know that I definitely got nothing yesterday. Which reminded me of some complaints I've heard from guys in general in the past few months. Namely, it seems as if most couples screw at least 4 times a week, if not more, and anything less is considered to be unacceptable. A lot of people seem to think that 2 times a week means the girl is turning frigid towards you.

Now, to be honest, I don't understand how this is possible, unless you and your girlfriend are both unemployed and/or students. I only possibly get to be alone with Lucy 2 days a week, and if we aren't at a hotel or my place, pants are staying on. During the week there just isn't any time for that kind of stuff between when I get off work and last train, and even if it was possible it would mean only getting 5 hours of sleep max for that night. How do you do it!?

No, seriously, if you have a job and live in a big city and manage, you must tell me. It's goddamn mandatory.

I've actually been thinking about that quite a bit lately. Last weekend I very retardedly overanalyzed things that had been going on between me and Lucy. To be fair to myself, they all seemed to happen at once, so it was quite a coincidence, but I know that's part of the overanalyzer's problem - he only thinks everything has changed.

Basically, I was a little peeved that she never called me to ask me to hang out, appeared to make excuses for why she couldn't come over to my place or spend the night, and only seemed to tolerate hand-holding and other public displays of affection (important because we have so little private time together).

Turns out she had valid reasons for pretty much each one of those. She doesn't call me to hang out on the weekends because she assumes we always will, and if I don't call by Saturday she will. I just always ask about plans first (usually the week prior). Thinking back, she's right - one time I didn't call/email on Friday, an she woke me up on Saturday to ask when we'd get together.

She couldn't spend the night because she would have had to carry her 泊まりセット and a gift for her friend's birthday (Sunday) to the Shinnenkai she had on Saturday. Makes perfect sense.

Unfortunately I found that out only after spending Saturday night with her, both of us barely talking to each other and certainly not holding hands. I figured that was just more evidence I was right - she really didn't want to engage in any PDA, and something was bothering her. She wasn't talking because she sensed something wrong with me. Communication's a bitch.

We ironed it out before going home, and I felt pretty stupid. I went to my club for an hour after she had left, and got nampa'd by some manner of jailbait with the same name as Lucy. She missed her last train, and I realized I had to leave soon to make mine. She asked me where I lived, and I said Nerima. It was clear where she was going with this. Then she and her jailbait friend went to get their coats and whatnot. While they were gone I split. I was a little down, but I'm not fucking retarded. Two underage girls at my place, especially when I have a girlfriend, is a recipe for some kind of disaster that probably involves sharp objects and deportation. It was an ego boost though.

The next day I was able to make up for Saturday's boring date with Lucy. I took her to see a photography exhibit in Ginza, which as you may know immediately doubles your value to the opposite sex. Every girl loves artsy guys, but they're too much baggage, flaky, and they don't take showers often if the ones at my university are anything to judge by. Motherfuckers smelled like high hell. I was able to provide that artsy intellect and other-sidedness while also being hygenic. I imagine that to Lucy, I'm now somewhere between "Sexual Dynamo" and "Bedroom Evel Knievel." We're going again next week to another exhibit, and then back to my place. I'll have to remember this if I ever get in an argument with her or something. "Oh, Lucy, this weekend I'm going to an exhibit on 17th century Ukranian trapezoidal architecture using balsa wood and dung. Care to join me?" Putty in my hands.

2006-02-12T20:43:00.000-08:00

Lady in Red (Part 3/3)

In fact, I didn't hear from her for a week after that. When she finally emailed back, I was very happy, and we set up another date. We went back to the same hotel, which conveniently gave out discount coupons (sadly I threw them out because it seemed too tacky to use them with other girls), and played around once more.

I've written extensively on our 2nd date, and you've no doubt seen a nice colorful example of the fragile nature of my spongy tissue, so I'll leave out the blood story. Suffice to say that after date 2 I thought for damn sure she'd be scared off. Here's a guy (me) she's known for 4 hours total, and suddenly he's leaking precious plasma for no apparent reason. If that's not a bright tattoo on my forehead saying "I have an STD - guess which one?" than I don't know what is.

Still, we managed to eek out a few more dates. Now, around this time I was romancing the Student, hoping to get a relationship in there. Since we hadn't progressed past the friends stage just yet, I felt no moral obligation to stop my weekly encounters with Lady in Red. Or Stairs #1. Or Shiri. Or Nightshift. The stars had aligned for me in January and February of 2005, I suppose.

One of the problems with having multiple partners (admittedly not the biggest) is that you have to make sure none of them start to get attached. I knew Shiri had an expiration date of the day after Valentine's, Nightshift and I were exclusively sex friends, and Stairs #1 was just that - a girl I would occasionally see in the stairwell of my favorite club. If the Student and I would start dating, I could end things with these women with no hard feelings.

But lady in Red was different. I pieced it together gradually by the little things. She was always more than willing to show affection in public in Shibuya, so either she wasn't worried about her other boyfriends seeing us, or she had no others. Then one day, completely out of the blue, she asked me if I wanted her to make a private landscaping change, since she noticed my own personal grooming.

As a side note, I have some aesthetic tips for other guys. Now, I've only come across other men's genitals incidentally - porn, public showers, and morons who stand 5 feet away from urinals. But I hear guys all the time talking about women who don't shave/wax/laser from orbit, and I have to say - a guy's ungroomed groin is infinitely more disgusting than a woman's. There's no risk of slicing something important unless you're using pinking shears or you have a tumor growing on a nut. Additionally, all that "it itches" crap means nothing because as a dude, you already scratch down there every 5 minutes anyway. And it'll never bother you unless you run 20k or more after a week of au naturel. Then you're fucked.

Anyway.

This question was kind of odd. I had assumed she was with other guys based on how we met, but it's unlikely one of them wouldn't notice the change. Then he'd wonder why she did that, and the gig would be up. I was a little wary now because Valentine's was creeping around the corner. With 5 girls and only 1 I actually wanted to date, I had to start distancing myself from the other 4.

Now, when you have nothing to lose, you take a few risks you wouldn't normally take. For me it was bringing my Sony T3 to a love hotel with Lady in Red and suavely asking her if I could photograph us. I figured whatever happened, I'd have a story out of it. Surprisingly, she was pretty gung-ho about it. That really scared me because I was starting to think she saw us as more than sex friends. I know, it sounds odd because to me we never even had enough non-naked time to develop an actual relationship, but I've seen some fucked up things here, so it wouldn't exactly be surprising.

And just let me say that it's damn hard to keep your hand steady enough to take non-blurry photos in dim light while having sex.

Sadly she made me delete the best photo, and most of the others were too dark for me to keep. I still have 2 on this work computer, tucked away somewhere.

Then there was Valentine's Day. I managed to fuck things up with Shiri, Stairs #1 hadn't come to the club in a couple weeks, and Nightshift had, well, the night shift. I ended up going with the Student and dropping 20,000 yen on dinner because I was a sucker who didn't know in Japan the girl gets the guy shit on February 14. Afterwards, however, we were still just friends, though I could see a relationship in our future.

I met Lady in Red shortly after that day. Round 1 at the hotel was peachy. But for whatever reason, round 2 was a difficult performance for me. Maybe because I was developing feelings for the Student. Kind of like how right now, even when the opportunity presents itself, I can't bring myself to cheat on Lucy. It just wouldn't be a fun romp with a random girl. Eh, I'm strange I guess.

Well, after 50 minutes or so, and being pushed out twice because the friction was too much for Lady in Red, I finally was able to wrap things up. It was kind of embarrassing. It's one thing to be a stud who doesn't blow it in 2 minutes. It's another thing entirely to not be able to blow it at all and cause your partner physical discomfort. When we parted ways, I decided I wasn't going to email her any more because screwing her had somehow lost its appeal. That and 5000 yen love hotel trips were draining my bank account (early 2005 was my "broke period")

I spent the next week or two focusing on hanging out with the Student. When I talk about February 2005 post Valentine, usually I say that's when I started dating her. In truth it wasn't officially until March 10th, which is an important distinction for me because otherwise I'd be a cheating son of a bitch. And we can't have that. First kiss (and hotel) was March 10.

Before that, however - it wasn't long until Lady in Red emailed me. She wanted to meet again despite the last time's dismal ending. I figured there wasn't any harm in going, and thought maybe my poor performance earlier had been a fluke, so I might as well try again. Also it seemed nothing I did would make her not want to see me - disgusting nasal activity, bleeding genitals, photography, way-post-mature ejaculation, and even a little bit of roughhousing (just to see how the other half lives, mind you).

We got together in Shibuya again, but this time I decided I was going to be a bit late. She always was 3-5 minutes late, which I've noticed is a rude habit of some women here - women who know exactly when each train leaves a station and therefore have no excuse other than wanting to delay a guy. So I figured I'd be 5 minutes late.

In a bit of dark comedy, I chose the wrong day to be late. It was absolutely balls cold and she never wore anything heavy. I was just checking my phone inside a cafe about 2 minutes away, so no problem for me. Finally the time came, and I went out to Hachiko.

She wasn't there. I cursed myself for showing up not late enough, because now I had to bear the cold until she arrived. After 5 minutes, I called her and asked where she was. No reply.

At 5:20 I got a call from her asking me where the hell I was. Turns out she arrived on time and had been by the Hachiko map (10 meters away), and we had just never seen each other. She was pissed. She said nothing on the way over, didn't hold my hand, didn't want to get coffee. Nothing. Straight to the hotel we went.

We arrived and got the "Free time" discount - until 10pm, 3000 yen - so we had a little over 4 hours. Unfortunately she still refused to talk to me, and instead turned on the TV and sat on the couch, ignoring me.

After an hour, I moved over there and tried to get her to talk. It was tough - lots of apologizing, but also a little bit of "why the hell didn't you call me earlier, or answer your phone?" Maybe 20 minutes later she was finally un-angry enough for me to carry her to the shower. A few minutes more, and we began.

This time, however, round 2 was an impossibility. I just couldn't do it, and in fact started to get a little soft. I'm sure she must have noticed. After 40 minutes I had to fake it and pull out because it felt awful for me.

Now, understand that I hadn't finished because I couldn't do it with her, not because I couldn't do it at all. I knew I'd have to clear the pipes or risk a mild case of blue balls (interestingly enough, while every guy talks knowingly about blue balls, I doubt many have actually had a strong case, since it truly can cripple you to the point where you can barely walk). I'll do damn near anything to avoid this. So I did what I had to, knowing this condition could be just around the corner:

I finished myself off under the covers.

For 5 minutes I sat there, one hand around her neck, the other doing the unmentionable. She looked under the covers at one point, saw what I was doing, and a look of shock came across her face. She got up and got dressed immediately. *ahem* I followed shortly thereafter. She seemed in no way inclined to wait for me to get dressed either, so I had to hurry. At one point she asked me why I was doing that, and I answered truthfully that for some reason I couldn't finish with her. The way back was stony silence.

Walking to the station, I had a big grin on my face, however. I couldn't help but laugh when I thought about what I had just done - basically said that I'd rather be stroking it than fucking her. I had found the one thing that could turn off this girl.

She never called or emailed me again, but by that point I didn't care. The Student came back from her trip to Egypt and we started dating, and I didn't have time to think about Lady in Red. She took down her profile on the page we met on around that time as well. Now, when I think about her, I've only got one regret:

I never got to tie her up.

FIN, motherfuckers

2006-02-12T03:03:00.000-08:00

Weekend Update

Apologies all around for not getting off my lazy ass and posting the Lady in Red conclusion. It's sad, really, since I actually have the damn thing typed up at work. Work is like my new toilet. I do all my most important thinking, reading and writing sitting there, and it's not at all related to what I came there to do. In that respect, my boss is probably like the guy who hands out mints and hot towels at the door, and the students are sick voyeuristic fucks stroking it to my grunting noises. Goddamn.

Anyway, I'll have that up for you all tomorrow. I'm going to have to skip the blood story with her, since I covered that once already on my old page in gory detail, and I've alluded to it so many times it's kind of cliche now. I hope you understand.

Re: the cell phone programming environment. The Docomo one is called DoJa. The latest version I believe is 4.1, but nothing after 3.5 has English documentation. And interestingly enough 4.0 and beyond are when they added some awesome features that really open up the phone for you, so that will suck if you have no idea how to read Japanese.

The game I was working on was Sudoku. There's actually a free version of it for i-appli at Sourceforge, and I took that version and cranked it up a few notches. The only thing remaining to do, if I get a chance this week, is to add some kind of graphic at the beginning to replace the misleading "Sudoku by Aces" title (I'm a liar and a cheat), maybe a feature to remember which puzzles you've completed, and the ability to download puzzles from my web page instead of having to hard code them. That would shrink the file size from 15k to 4k. Now, if anybody who peruses this page happens to be into mobile programming (which automatically means you are more skillful than me in this regard) and you want to work on a project together, I'm listening.

Unfortunately, it seems my time at work is about to be reclaimed for, well, actual work. My boss reminded me on Friday about my "objectives" - a bunch of shit that I have to do to get my bonus, but really shit that I have to do, period. I'll give you an example. One of them is "Teach students for this round." Well, ostensibly doing this well gets me 20 points closer to a good bonus. Really though, if I one day decided I didn't want to, I'd be fired. That's how I imagine I'll go out, when I'm good and ready. "Oh, you want me to teach today? Huh. I kind of thought I'd sit here at my desk, turn off all the anti-virus software we have, and see how quickly I can bring this computer to a grinding halt using any combination of malware and spyware I can find on non-English websites. I'm thinking 4 minutes. We can make a pool."

So he brought up my objectives for 2 reasons. One, well, he kind of noticed that instead of work, all last week I was doing Java and more specifically mobile programming. And he saw that the fruit of my labors was a game. Two, he saw that in 2 months my review is coming up, and I have done approximately 5% of the MP3 project, 10% of the motion tracking project, and 0% of the "Learn SystemC or bust" project. I told him I don't want to even touch SystemC because it's superfluous for the purposes of our program. Whatever we can do in that language, we can already do in C or Verilog. Maybe for big applications and designs it would be useful to have, but I'm not seeing those kinds of designs in the company's future. Strangely enough, I'm not seeing myself in the company's future either. Coincidence? I like to kid myself and think not.

But he's cracking the whip. He said that we'd swap out the MP3 project with a simple PCM octave generator (so I can make a keyboard that sounds like it's straight out of the 70's). That's like saying "Well we don't have time to build the car for you, but we'll compromise and give you a pair of roller-skates. They both have wheels." The big thing he wants is this SystemC shit though. I managed to convince him that me learning Java and programming for the Docomo environment was actually helping me learn SystemC because it's reintroducing me to object oriented programming, and SystemC is built on C++, which looks like Java if you blur your eyes. It also helps to be missing one of them.

All this just means I'll have to be more sneaky about posting to the website (which I do from work) and working on projects (which I do from work, as long as they aren't work-related).

Oh, the tragedy.

I'll update tomorrow on Lady in Red, followed by maybe a Tuesday post about last week and (per usual) my idiocy. And for extra fun, since Tuesday is Valentine's Day, we can see if what I write Tuesday afternoon is immediately reversed or reinforced on Wednesday. Fun!

2006-02-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

Eh

Not much is going on over here in my world right now. Well, actually that's a bunch of bull. It seems a lot is going on now, but I don't want to write about it until I've got something more substantial than just a quick "Today this trivial event occurred. More tomorrow!" Now, I'm one to read way too much into something. One of my friends just last week shut me up in the middle of a worrisome rant to tell me I'm an overanalyzing motherfucker. Point taken. Let's just say that I really, really don't understand the women in my life. I know what you're thinking - How could the guy who constantly makes shameless generalizations about all Japanese men and women being racist/smelly/stupid/insert-own-negative-trait be having difficulty with Japanese women? It boggles my mind too, so you're in good company.

Recently I've been shirking my job duties to do some skill-building of my own. I figure my work is absolutely raping my qualifications to work in any technical field, in the way that if you always practice low-level mediocre shit, you'll wake up one day knowing only how to do that. In my case, I now have a rock solid foundation in easy C and Assembly, and I've forgotten everything I ever knew about Java, C++, and object-oriented programming in general. In my own eyes, I'm not marketable to other companies.

So I've started dabbling in things I find interesting that also seem to have a future in the tech field. To wit, I'm fiddling around with the Japan-born OO interpreted language Ruby, as well as some Java. In fact, I'm working with the i-mode API and a bit of source code to develop some mini applications I can download onto my own phone. I do this at work in my "spare" time. I'm going to talk to the president some time this week or next about getting the hell out of hardware so that the next couple months before I quit are that much nicer (as well as beneficial to my resume).

Right now I'm working on modifying some existing code for a freeware game I downloaded. It's slow as nuts and has about 0 features, so I hate playing it myself, but once I'm finished (like next year) I'll go ahead and put it up here if anybody wants to download it. It's GPL, so knock yourselves out.

That's about it on this front. If you happen to be involved in software development, then disregard everything I just said about forgetting OOP and not doing my job right now, and hire my pasty ass. As long as I don't have to teach ingrateful snots about 2's complement and flip flops, I'll stick with your company for at least 18 months. I operate best when I'm doing something interesting and the business model survives assault by a reasonably intelligent 5 year old.

2006-02-02T20:50:00.000-08:00

I'm turning evil

It's true. If you thought I was an asshole before, well, you'll still think I'm an asshole I guess.

Every day on the train I bring my iPod. That's right, I'm one of those guys. I actually go days without it sometimes and don't have any withdrawal, but occasionally I get a song in my head and want to hear it, so it's convenient. Anyway.

I know how loud my headphones are. I've heard them on my girlfriend in the silence of my room, so I know whether they're loud or not. They're medium. On a quiet train in the morning, you can hear a little tinny sound, but nothing over the top. It's the same decibel level as everyone else who listens to music on the train. I've never been told to turn it down, but usually I'll turn it down myself if I notice things are really quiet so that I don't inconvenience people.

I'm a motherfucking nice guy.

Well today, I was minding my own business on the train - squished in between two salarymen who don't know what 一人分 means, crowding out my shit - when salaryman #1 starts tapping me on the shoulder like he's going to ask me out on a date. Quote the man, in English:

"Please turn the volume down. It is very loud and I can hear it."

One of my pet peeves is people making assumptions about me based on my looks. It's not the good kind, either, like "Oh he must be a CEO of a company and a male model, because he's so goddamn gorgeous and his suit is weaved together from 10,000 yen bills!"

It's more like, "Oh, he's gaijin so he probably can't understand Japanese, and definitely knows English." I know, probably statistically speaking they are more correct than not in that assumption, and well I do speak English after a fashion, but still. That's why it's a pet peeve.

Anyway, I stared at him wondering what to say to this bit of rudeness. My music was most certainly not loud, as I found out when I took the headphones off and had to strain to hear it when the buds were dangling on my own neck. Meanwhile he repeats his English practice on me, a little more forcefully, while some people standing up over me are looking at how I'm going to react. So I said the only thing I could.

えぇ？えいごできないよ。だって意味分かった。

He clammed up immediately. Probably (hopefully) felt a little stupid for assuming. But he got over it, and even though I had turned off my headphones at that point he thought he needed to tell me once more, this time in Japanese, to turn the volume down. I cut him off in the middle and said I got it, prompting him to shut it for the rest of the ride. Nobody embarrasses Aces on a train, dammit!

Strangely enough, after that little exchange salaryman #2 stopped sticking his elbow in my right lung and gave me some space. I think I'm going to do this more often. It might help me score a seat on a train so I don't have to buy new shoes every 5 weeks.

2006-02-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

マジで！？

Livedoor, eh? I'll handle this "scandal."

I put that in quotes because you have to be an absolute idiot to think this isn't just business as usual in Japan. Every day - every goddamn day - I open the paper to find out which company/agency/ministry of Japan is being investigated/closed down/indicted/nuked from orbit this week. It's endemic over here. Oh I'm sure it goes on in America, and I'm sure some dolts are going to say that over here it's just reported - nyah!, trying to spin something good out of this about Japanese transparency or some oxymoron like that.

You know what? In my time here, if there's one thing I've learned it's that news shows are incredibly sensitive to the privacy of Japanese citizens when they want to be. Witness how many bad things about companies come out after that company has fallen into shit creek. They knew all the bad stuff way before it came to a head, they just waited until the green light.

In fact, a lot of what Livedoor stands accused of is accepted as business as usual in Japan. When something big like this comes along, you have to wonder why it's making the news. The smaller shady dealings you read about every day in the paper. That this one made giant headlines can be due to one of two things. First, it's possible that things are spilling over now and they just can't ignore it anymore. Not so sure about that.

Second, maybe Livedoor and some of these other guys just crossed the wrong people. I'm going with door #2 here. You've got an arrogant prick with political aspirations - we'll call this man Horie - but that's nothing unusual in any country. What is unusual for Japan is his age (early thirties). My thoughts are that he just fucked with the wrong people in this very vertical society, and probably thought due to his hubris and power that he could magically make up for his age disparity with the two aforementioned non-virtues. Probably forgot to pay the local Yak the monthly protection money.

Breaking the rules is something of an accepted practice over here, but not knowing your place will get you shut right the hell down. Lesson learned.

2006-02-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

How do you solve a problem like ~~Maria~~ Aiko

I might catch shit over this, but it needs to be said. This kind of stuf makes me want to bring back The Foreign Correspondent.

Yesterday a bunch of old Japanese men, many of whom probably had absolutely horrendous breath (sadly it's an epidemic in this country among men above 30, as it seems about this time they take to a breakfast of turd-fish and spoiled eggs) got together for an isolationist circle jerk. So what do old men wank to in Japan? Well it's one of those roleplaying fantasies, see. Old men in Japan just love beating it to women in positions of power. Specifically, the prospect of a woman attaining the royal throne.

There are 2 camps of foreigner in Japan. Camp 1 thinks everything is peachy and the way it should be, and as foreigners we have no right(s) to complain. Even if we become citizens, like Arudou Debito, we're somehow not citizen enough to demand some change. Camp 1 would suck my dick if I told them Hamasaki Ayumi had touched it (she did). Camp 1 also usually leaves after their working holiday visas expire (cheap shot? Certainly).

Camp 2 thinks that Japan, as a prominent member of the international community and seeker of a permanent UNSC seat, should get with the goddamn times and own up to some serious societal woes. Camp 2 is my kind of camp.

So join me here when I say, really, what the fuck? An actual complaint by an actual lawmaker was that having a female ascend to the throne would throw open the hellgates and let some for'ner blood have dominion over the sacred Mount Fuji. Don't take my word for it. Hear it from his decrepit peehole of bloviating:

"If Aiko becomes the reigning empress and gets involved with a blue-eyed foreigner while studying abroad and marries him, their child may be the emperor," Hiranuma told about 40 lawmakers, academics and supporters at a Tokyo hall. "We should never let that happen."

Despite the overwhelming public support for the reform, traditionalists have stepped up a campaign to quash the move -- going so far as to propose bringing back concubines to breed male descendants as was done until the Taisho Era (1912-1926). Others have argued the aristocracy, banned after World War II, should be reinstated as a way of broadening the pool of candidates for the throne.

I don't even know where to begin...

First, unless you think the woman is just an incubator for a child and men can make babies on their own (think little spermies getting together in the fallopian tubes and, when no one's looking, having raunchy sperm sex and producing a fertilized egg) you're kidding yourself if you think letting a woman be empress would suddenly cause an influx in family names like Smith and O'Brian. It's just ludicrous. A dude on the throne can screw a foreign chick and his babies will be just as mixed as if the genders were switched.

Second, this whole race purity crap is just another scoop of dung on a shit heap. It doesn't get much more xenophobic than that. A blue-eyed foreigner! Gasp! But then...her children wouldn't be 100% Yamato (now with more math smarts)! They'd have hairy backs and big noses and probably couldn't use chopsticks! There go any planned visits to Yasukuni...

Third, and perhaps most importantly for the sake of Japanese themselves, what's wrong with a woman on the throne, anyway? Afraid she's only going to be effective 40 weeks out of the year? Whether or not you agree with the effects of a half-baked feminist movement in America (which wasn't allowed to blossom fully in my opinion), Japan's current sorry state of gender equality is just horrendous. If you're in school right now and your Japanese language teachers are telling you ocha-kumi is a thing of the past, they're slinging shit bricks your way.

Honestly, if "tradition" isn't allowed as an answer to why they should be forbidden from ascension, then there is no reason. National identity was doing just fine before it was banned as a practice - no blue eyed devils running amok, that's for sure - and I don't think it's going to take a hit if they let this one through. I don't see Britain churning out weak confused generations who have no national identity.

And I don't believe anyone's going to make fun of Japan for having a female ruler, but if you want to sit at the kiddy table and make nice with someone who would use that against you, then do us a favor and drop the pretenses of adulthood.

Asshats.

2006-01-31T01:03:00.000-08:00

Hakone

Don't fret, those 2 or 3 of you waiting for part 3 of the Lady in Red saga. I just didn't have time to post it earlier. It's coming Thursday, probably. I'd like to do it earlier, but a new class is starting tomorrow. Fucking A. I found out about this new class, well, about 30 minutes ago. But that's a rant I've done already, so fuck it. I'm out of here if I have to chew my own arm off to get out of their kung-fu grip. I'd jump out the window and pogo stick on my dick if there was a job waiting for me 150 feet below. Hopefully a lucrative job in genital reconstructive surgery.

The reason I didn't post over the weekend was that I was in Hakone with Lucy. I originally wanted to do my romantic surprise for her 9 days ago, but we stayed at my place and my romantic surprise requires a nicer atmosphere and items that don't belong to me so I won't need to clean them. So my plan was foiled.

See, I told her I have a surprise, and I wanted to stay overnight at a hotel with her. This set off her shady fellow-alert and she insisted on staying at my place, as well as knowing what the surprise was (I didn't relent to that brutal interrogation). No amount of convincing would change her mind, and when we finally met on that Saturday, and she switched her tune, it was too late to go anywhere but a love hotel. And she hates those, apparently. Where I see convenience, she sees sleeping atop other peoples' skeezy fluids. Girls, eh?

So I vowed that this weekend we'd get into a hotel, reservations and all. The only problem was that she thought it would be kind of pointless to stay in a hotel in Tokyo when my place is fine too. I thought about it, and decided that we'd go to Hakone then. Fuck it, it can't be that expensive. I've never been there. It sounds romantic. And there's a hotel waiting for me to abuse the hell out of it.

Well, turns out Hakone isn't quite as cheap as I thought. I found a couple hotels that were by the lake and relatively inexpensive, and asked her to choose. Then, while waiting for her reply, I tried to go through the motions of making a reservation on one of the sites. It only had options for reservations in 2000 and 2001. The site was out of date. I figured the hotel had been shut down or something.

She got back to me and said she wants that hotel with the out of date site, and I was about to email her to say pick something else when, on a hunch, I googled the hotel name. Sure enough the hotel is still there. And sure enough, it's price has apparently doubled in between incarnations.

So a seemingly innocent idea had spiraled into a trip to Hakone and a stay at an expensive hotel. Oh, and did I mention that, back when I assumed we'd be sharing a love hotel or at worst a simple 15,000 hotel in Tokyo, I told her not to worry about the money because I'd pay for it all?

Also "apparently," one does not simply get a train ticket to Hakone and stay inside all day. One must purchase the 7000 yen free pass so one can ride boats and buses and ropeways. One's bank account takes a nosedive towards the red. One cries.

But I brought along my gear so I could do what I originally intended to do. I figured I'd make the best out of this situation. Those plans, naturally, were crushed when first a prerequisite of my surprise was not met. Namely, she's extremely ticklish. I know that already, since it makes taking her bra off feel like a game of Operation. But I didn't think she was ticklish everywhere, Christ.

Even then I was going to continue, but I realized something else: with her, any attempt at romance always, always leads to intercourse. There is no exception. If she and I kiss on the lips, there better be a bed around. If there isn't, she will simply refuse a liplock. I asked her about it and she said it's a habit. But it means for me that I can't kiss her unless I'm prepared to do the whole damn thing, and we certainly rarely kiss in public. The one time I tried that in Shinjuku, she had to stop because, in her own words, やりたいから、いやだ。 So I'd have to jump into my routine with her completely cold, and then it would lose its romantic aspect. I'm currently scheming a way to work in some kissing and whatnot, but somehow not lead in to sex, and rather to my surprise.

Long story (above) short - I paid 45,000 yen to not do what I intended to do.

But enough about that. How was Hakone?

Fucking cold. Goddamn, it was so cold I could only piss in the bathtub because anywhere else my dick would freeze with a jet of urine ice attached to it. The onsen in the hotel was nice. I'd never been in one before, or worn a yukata. I don't know what other new guys to Japan are smoking, but nobody looked at my johnson while I was in there. And don't give me any "That's because it's so small" bull, because while they didn't look, I certainly did, and I was king of the hill.

Other than that, Hakone really wasn't that impressive to me. Maybe it would be if I had grown up in a big city. I suppose the shock of seeing so much nature is dulled in me. All the places I've lived in - San Rafael, Ithaca and Sometown Pennsylvania - had mountains, grass, woodlands, lakes and snow. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely nice to be around all that, but it isn't worth the price tag in my opinion. It was something to check off on my list of things to do in Japan before I'm deported, though, so that counts for something.

This post is littered with pictures I took. Observe the magnificence of my photography. Or don't. Eh.

2006-01-25T20:55:00.000-08:00

Lady in Red (Part 2/3)

I was surprised that one actually worked, but now I was charged with finding such a place. I knew only to look around Shibuya, but I had no idea where except for the vague area "Dogenzaka." We caught the next train and went searching around anyway, eventually finding the hotels by luck. For future horny generations, there are two paths into the Shibuya hotels, diverging at 109 and then reuniting about 150 meters later on the left and 300 meters later on the right.

Now, my time with Lady in Red was certainly not without incident. Our first night together was in late December. The day after Christmas, I believe. When it's cold out I get a runny nose and sniffle a lot, and that day was no different. I also was coming down with a cold, which I would later find out was actually tonsilitis, so I had some bad hacking coughs and a throat that burned with each one. In the hotel, I was trying very hard to suppress both the urge to snort and to violently cough out a ball of unsexy phlegm. It worked for a little while.

However, while we were performing our erotic dance, I suddenly had to sniffle. I was on top, looking down, so my snot was threatening to fall with gravity and hit her smack on the chest. I saw she was closing her eyes, so real quick-like I reached up and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. I then wiped my hand on the bed (her side, obviously). I was safe, for now.

But later, in a more complicated position, it happened again. This time my hands were occupied. I had only one choice - cover for the snot. In the sexual context here it means I had to disguise the nose-drip as something else so she wouldn't notice, because the fluid free-fall was imminent. The only thing that came to my mind was saliva, but that would mean I'd have to lick something that would normally be licked so as not to appear out of place. I picked a breast, and began. After a few seconds, I gave up holding back the viscous nostril fluid and let it run. She figured I was just being sloppy.

That's right - I snotted on a girl's nipple.

Later, when we were cuddling, I suddenly had to cough really badly. But I knew it would come out sounding awful, so I held it in. This led to my lungs rapidly contracting and relaxing as I forcefully held back what should have been an involuntary action. She could feel my ribcage fluttering for 5 minutes, and thought I was nervous and inexperienced. I suppose strangely enough she was correct on both accounts, though for the wrong reason. And I still ended up hacking up a lung laying next to her anyway.

We ended the night a little afterwards, and I figured that was the last I would see of her. Luckily, I was mistaken.

2006-01-24T23:06:00.000-08:00

Lady in Red (Part 1/3)

Sit down around the campfire kids. Aces has a story for you.

I've written about Lady in Red on occasion, and I had a few stories about her on my old page, scattered about. This is the complete Lady in Red Anthology.

Towards the end of 2004, early December if I recall correctly, I signed up on an internet site dedicated to helping people meet other people for intimate encounters. Or sloppy sex. I forget if there was a filter for that or not. In any event, during my 1 month subscription period I probably sent an email or 50 out to various women, some who had pictures, others who didn't, in the hopes of getting laid.

As a side note, I developed an awesome strategy for mass mailing girls depending on their preferences - I had canned emails in Japanese and English, and one that was from mild-mannered Aces as well as another that was signed by So-you-wanna-be-bound-and-gagged-eh?-Aces. I could do all my emailing in 5 minutes. I digress.

One girl in particular, who we all know now as Lady in Red, showed up on my radar because her scant personal description was in Spanish and her photo was just a shot of her almost-bare chest. My radar, if you haven't noticed, is very primitive.

Intrigued, I Babelfish'd the Spanish. It said simply, "Who will tie me up? I am very submissive" This was a job for my sinister alter ego's email! A day later she actually replied, and said only, "Would you like to date?" I was getting off to a good start. We emailed a couple times and set up a meeting in Roppongi. It was her choice, not mine. I knew through (at the time) second hand knowledge that Shibuya or Shinjuku were where the love hotels were. Didn't know where exactly, but I figured that if we were going to Roppongi there wouldn't be any action.

So we met at Roppongi Crossing, and I thought she was stunning. I'll say this now even, having become accustomed to the Japanese face and no longer thinking everyone here is gorgeous, unlike some people *cough* anime fanboys *cough*. In her own right, she was quite attractive. I was glad I didn't send her my fake photograph - Arnold Schwarzeneggar's body, Brad Pitt's face, and a big black dick. She might have been disappointed to find out I have none of those.

Not knowing how these meetings worked, I asked her if she was hungry. She replied in the negative. In retrospect, that's typical of Japanese girls. They will never tell you they're hungry unless not eating in the next hour will cause them to collapse. I play a game called "I bet I can last longer than you without eating." After half a day together, they start asking every 30 minutes or so, "Aren't you hungry?" while I reply that I'm just dandy. Finally they can't take it and break down, admitting their hunger. Meanwhile my pocket is full of candy wrappers, because I'm a cheating bastard.

Anyway, I asked her if she wanted to go to karaoke, or a movie, or a club. She said no to all of those.

I was worried that this date would end before it even started. I suggested a cafe as a last resort, which she agreed to, and off we went. Oddly enough, she held my hand on the way there.

When we got to the cafe, we chatted for about 30 or 45 minutes over tea. I was quickly running out of things to say, and my list of things to do was even shorter. I suggested a couple other ideas, all of which were shut down. In a last ditch effort, half-jokingly, I said, "Well, I guess that only leaves a...love hotel..."

Her eyes lit up.

"Ok!"

(continued tomorrow)

2006-01-22T21:06:00.000-08:00

How I spent my Friday

I'm many things - an idiot being chief among them - but I'll never ever be called unbreakable.

2006-01-19T19:37:00.000-08:00

Japanese for Winners

A few days ago I alluded to a rather immature activity I'm especially fond of - my habit of making up new Japanese words or phrases by translating directly from English. I gave a couple examples even, my favorite being "butt pirate" because I really am that childish that euphemisms for homosexuality amuse me.

I sat down and thought about all the phrases I use (sadly) on a fairly normal basis. You can think of this as a Japanese lesson. Guys taking a class in college can floor their professors with their newly acquired knowledge. Or get politely asked to leave. I suppose it really depends on the prof. Good luck!

Because my mind is always in the gutter, let me begin with some sexually charged phrases.

Last year, when I had my run in with one of those blasted social diseases, I had to get myself checked out. Well, truthfully, before that I did a bit of the old research online to figure out what Uncle Aces had come down with. My hope for "superhuman strength and agility" was dashed rather quickly owing to the localized itching, swelling and pain. I didn't remember whether the Hulk suffered discomfort during urination on his path to becoming super, but it seemed unlikely.

Anyway, once I self-diagnosed myself I had to find a clinic in Tokyo to get checked out at. I went online and browsed any number of Japanese pages, at work of course, trying to find an STD clinic. I'm no doctor, and technical words in Japanese confuse me, so I had to use a fair amount of Babelfish to understand whether the place was going to do a standard STD test or administer a coffee enema. You can never be too careful.

One translation I found absolutely hysterical was "Urethra flame" for what most people describe as agony while draining the lizard. I wanted to incorporate this word into my fake vocabulary, but there was seemingly no way to do it properly. Until I remembered the type of clinic I went to...

The clinic is called 泌尿器科, basically the department of urology. It's pronounced Hi'nyoukika. But the last sound, "ka," can also mean other things - home, flower, song...and FIRE. My new word, 泌尿器火, is literally Urinary Organ Fire. I think it's a faithful rendition.

Of course while at the clinic you learn about what kind of nasties are out there waiting to hitch a ride on your Pillar of Hercules, or as I call it, my ズボンのへび. You can get things like かに and はくしゅ, to name a couple. I'm not too certain about any that affect the 家族の玉, but I'm sure they're out there.

Tokyo might be a really safe city, but occasionally you may have occasion to throw down (not recommended, of course, but stay with me here). Maybe some parfum-soaked gel creature is hitting on your girl. So you 目を上げる. He sees this and makes a move. Now you have two options - you can run away, or you can 彼に彼の穴を渡す. The latter will no doubt land you in jail or deported, but I'm sure your girl will wait for you. Unless she's a 金掘り出しやりまん. Can't win'em all.

On second thought, maybe you shouldn't repeat any of these in mixed or polite company. If you have any additions to make, please let me know. I love learning Japanese.

Oh, and I'm well aware of the real words for "painful urination," "crabs," "the clap," "testicles," and the colorful phrases listed afterwords. However, if you have another way of saying "gold-digging slut" I'm listening.

2006-01-18T00:23:00.000-08:00

Extra! Extra!

So I've got a bit of news in my life. No, not a new job. No, not a new apartment. I'm not the recipient of a large cash prize, nor am I being recognized for my genius in some public forum (damn).

I am, however, going to be rocking the proverbial shit out of another blog in addition to all the sexy bombs I'm dropping on this one. It's called Metroblogging. Particularly the Tokyo section. Maybe you've heard of it before. It's basically a big amalgamation (I love that word) of blogs about cities around the world. I was asked to write for the site because ~~god must really have it in for them~~ someone liked my writing style. Word.

If you take a little trip over there, you'll see, however, that its style is markedly different from my own. And the subject matter is also not all that similar to things you all have come to expect on these hallowed pages. I'm not sure how this is going to play out, though clearly my own personal escapades will have to remain here. Other than that, I think it's fair game. As long as I can bring it all back to Tokyo, or somewhere near Tokyo, or an abstract city of my imagination. And I guess I also have to pump up the knowledge. Apparently people go to that site to learn something new, and as interesting as my body fluids might sound to you and I, some people really don't care to know about them. Prudes, or the smartest people on this planet? You decide <--- no you don't, motherfuckers!

And there we have it. I'm not moving, I'm just sleeping around with a different blog behing this one's back. Twice the mayhem. Enjoy.

2006-01-17T21:54:00.000-08:00

My Island Redux: Foreign Pets

In a sense, Tokyo to me is just another city. A big city, and the first and only one I've ever lived in, but a city nonetheless. It has its peculiarities, like oh, I don't know, Japanese people. But I don't see it as some mystical land where techno-skyscrapers are lined up right next to shrines and monuments to samurai warriors, which are in turn across the street from every electronic device under the sun. And anime.

(Rant initiated)

Maybe my view isn't representative of how every other foreigner around here thinks. Every day you come face to face with My Islanders who adore every aspect about Japanese society as long as it's different from the West in some manner. No wrong there I guess. But you also spy the occasional xenophobe apologist, distinguishable from the former by his notable bitching about how gaijin need to shut up about discrimination and racism. They oppose any attempts to change Japanese society n any way. By changes I mean those regarding Japanese-foreigner relationships. Rights, liberties, protections, etc. When asked why they oppose such changes, it's always, always this answer: Japan is a homogenous society and we don't have a right to say what the Japanese should do.

Translation: I wish I had a katana and could fight against the evil shogunate like they did in the good old days. Curse my white/black/brown/leprous skin.

It's so defeatist an attitude though, isn't it? You live here for years, and in some cases make it to full citizen (why you'd want to, I have no ideas, but to each his own), and people tell you that you have no right to bitch about anything here because, essentially, you don't belong. We're in a foreign country, ergo bow down to the way they do things here without exception. They must really loathe themselves for not being born Japanese (you laugh but I know many guys and girls who do, sadly enough).

I find, and this is just my personal experience, that people like this think this rock is so much better than the others for one reason: their only export, foreignness, is relatively scarce in these lands. They see other foreigners as a threat, but the biggest threat of all? Complete acceptance of those foreigners and realized equality. That throws the gaijin card right out of the deck. It's unusable, and at the same time I can guarantee that it would cause gaijin flight to Japan, diluting the gaijin power.

Frequent complaints are about one agitator in particular - Arudou Debito. I mean, gosh, he's simply got to know his place dammit! When was the last time he looked in the mirror and saw he wasn't Japanese, and didn't deserve to bathe in the same places as them? It's their right, because you gaijin don't know how to act in the "Japanese way" to "preserve the wa and harmony" and "balance two jugs of water on each outstretched palm" and "decapitate tentacled sex ogres."

And it's always you gaijin who don't know how to behave properly. The My Islander is a master of oriental disguise, you see. They know everything they need to know from watching Japanese society. Essentially, before you enter a public bath, you have to announce your move and flex every muscle in your entire body. "Pasty white bath intrusion multipass AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!" This is basically a secret handshake to the Japanese. Get an eye operation and Hepatitis, and you're well on your way to becoming a citizen.

I refer to these people as J-pets. They're the dogs that you don't let near the kitchen table, but they're handy to have around in case someone comes nosing about, or you need to read the newspaper. Like any dog, they defend their master blindly for no other reason than that the master gives them food and pets them when they don't shit on the carpet.

(Rant over...for now)

I know I've grossly misrepresented akiba-kei and other anime fans now as well as in the past, but sometimes the rant just gets the better of me.

In truth, both sides have merits. Racism and discrimination in Japan isn't a widespread plague. Some people might like to think it is, but if it was truly as bad everywhere as any one guy's experience, there's no way it wouldn't be picked up on by media outlets in foreign countries. Simply impossible. Travel agents wouldn't advise visits to Japan, ever. Japan, despite what you may think, is not as homogenous as it once was, and Tokyo is as far along as anywhere here.

But it's also not the case that everything has cleared up over here. Witness my hospital trip last year, if you can still find it online. That was a nightmare. And you bet your ass I've seen "Gaijin not accepted" signs here in Tokyo. True, many of them have been for red light establishments, but you're a fool if you think any society's red light district is separate from the mainstream. Places of vice merely expose a society's underbelly (a drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts, anybody?). I don't want to hear anybody discounting those signs on the basis that they're hung up on whore houses.

My favorite line, and by favorite I mean the line that makes me want to slap the person who utters it so hard the inside of their skull has a relief of my palm print, is that it's justified based on the actions of a few foreigners. Jesus Jones, that's shabby logic at best. That's the excuse of racists everywhere circa all history. You tend to classify people you meet against a status quo, but for whatever reason when it comes down to different races people tend to treat the outliers as rules, not exceptions, even though statistically it makes no sense. I had a geek analogy here, but I'd expose myself for a big nerd.

I think that living here does give you a new respect for what others have been put through in your own home country (and are still being put through). That doesn't mean you have to accept it here. And for those tireless argumentative types who say you should start at home before you start with Japan: Go fuck yourselves. At least for me, as stated way above, Japan is where I'm at now, and I don't have any plans to go somewhere else. If I ever return to America, maybe I'll start there, though for someone of my lowly intellect I wouldn't know where to begin.

In Japan it's cut and dried. I've got signs on street corners telling me where to begin. I've got guys in vans with megaphones planted outside of Shinjuku and Shibuya letting me know where the battle starts. The argument that one is hypocritical if one doesn't tackle discrimination in one's own home country first is just a decoy. It's what people say when they've run out of reasons to yell at you.

My stance on discrimination here in Japan? I've been racism'd by a hospital. My apartment hunt may or may not have been an example of discrimination, as commenters said. For the most part it's live and let live for me. It happens rarely enough that I don't notice. But there are some living here for whom it happens more often, or in a more serious situation, and just because I've got it relatively nice here doesn't mean we should all shut up.

Talk to me below.

2006-01-16T17:16:00.000-08:00

Not Quite Einstein

I've got to hand it to myself. Why, just last week I joked about how I'd never get Lucy to try those fancy lower body exercises. I actually put no thought into the matter outside of this page, since really it's not a deal-breaker in any way. But the lord works in mysterious ways indeed.

Yesterday I met her after work for dinner and coffee. Everything was fine during dinner, the usual conversations about work (hate it), upcoming events in our lives (none) and so on. But I promised myself, and I suppose you guys too, that I'd try to dig up more information about her. Hell, I don't even know what kind of job she had last year, or will have this year. My parents brought up that fact to me, sadly enough.

"So what does Lucy do?"

"Um, work?"

"Yeah but what kind of work?"

"...Busy...work?"

"You don't even know what she does? What do you know about her? I'm surprised you even got her name."

"Hey, Dad, I don't even know what you do for a living. In school I used to put 'consulting' down whenever we had to write about that stuff. And Mom got 'finance'."

*sigh*

So at the cafe, I decided to ask some hard-hitting questions. First up at bat was the cliched "What are your hopes for the future?" While her answers weren't exactly what I was looking for they allowed me to follow up a bit. Found out ever so much more about her. And her new job, meaning I now know more about her job than I do about anyone else in my family.

As always, however, I jumped the gun. When conversation had died down, I realized I still had an unresolved question in my mind concerning this Saturday. Namely, among other things my plans require sheets I don't have to clean and a big bathtub. Clearly we can't stay at my place. But without divulging what I wanted to do, I had to find out if she had a preference for lodging. In my ever-blunt manner, I asked her simply, "So this Saturday, we're not staying at my place, ok? Now would you rather stay at a ryokan, hotel, or love hotel?"

I'm the most subtle bastard on this planet.

Of course I asked because somewhere in the recesses of my mind I recalled her saying how she hates love hotels, which were my natural first choice. And I was correct. Then, her interest piqued, she wouldn't stop asking me questions about what we were going to do. Obviously if someone asks you where you'd like to spend the night, and mentions a love hotel as a viable option, you're going to think the plans are sexual in nature, and your mind is going to wander over to that realm. When she realized she couldn't get answers about this Saturday from me, but wanting to still ask me questions, she started with intimate inquiries.

We kept talking, and she asked such hits as:

Q: "How do you know that girls just want to be sex friends, if they don't say so?"

A: "If they sleep with me after knowing me for 1 hour, they aren't looking for a boyfriend."

Q: "Isn't it hard to do it in the stairwell of a club?"

A: "No."

And, as it turns out, she really does want to know my stories. She just figured I didn't want to tell them. From that point, it was game on. I introduced her to Lady in Red and my many misadventures, including the reason she stopped talking to me. I even told her about The Herbalist's infectious secret.

And in a serious thread, I told her about how The Student and I broke up in part because I had lied to myself about why we were dating. For many guys, when a girl is a little harder to get, they might fool themselves into thinking there's a bigger reason than sex that they're chasing the girl. You have to make the chase seem worth it. I'm not saying that it happens most of the time or that sex is the only reason to date a girl, of course. But if it is your only reason, the chase can easily make you forget that.

When I finally slept with her, the realization hit, and gradually I started losing my attraction to her. With The Herbalist, I was worried the same thing would happen, and told her as much actually. Then with Lucy, our courtship lasted 2 months, which was the longest wait thus far, and so I was really unsure if I was as genuine about liking her as I thought. Luckily the 3rd time was a charm.

As immature as my thoughts and behaviour may sound, I stand by them. Nobody wants to drag someone down because of their own problem maintaining a relationship. The Student was truly hurt when she realized we'd lost the magic, and she only stayed my friend in hopes of getting it back.

So I told all this to Lucy (if you're keeping count at home, this means I only have 1 "secret" left). But apparently when describing Lady in Red, I referred to her as my most skilled sex friend. Repeatedly. I needed a way to separate her from the others, see. Lucy asked why she was the best, so I told her.

And I'll be damned if she didn't ask me how to do those Kegels.

Though I told her over and over that she doesn't have to do it to impress me, she said she's going to practice for a month or so and try it out. I'm marking it off on every calendar I have, my cell, my watch, and any time piece I come across. The moral of the story? Honesty really is the best policy.