Obligatory Japanese News Link of the Day

If you’re a Japanews Bloghound, you’ve doubtlessly seen this article linked to no less than five times today:
More Japanese men prefer sitting whizzes
I just want to know one thing: If you think so many Japanese men are sitting on Western-style toilets to take a leak, WHY DO I SEE SO MANY OF THEM PISSING ON THE STREET FOR JUST ABOUT EVERYONE TO SEE?
Then again, maybe I’m just seeing imaginary, urinating ojisans.

Hospitales

Ouch. This person obviously chose the wrong career – I’m thinking Corrections Officer would have been more appropriate.
My second year in Japan, I got in a fairly serious accident while riding to work on my motor scooter. A small car ran a stop sign right in front of me. I crashed into its side and flew over the hood into a drained rice field, gasping for breath as the wind had been knocked out of me. I passed out and woke up during the ambulance ride to Tenri Hospital.
All in all, I felt relatively uninjured. They looked me over in the ER, checked especially for head trauma, and everything seemed fine until the doctor brought out the helmet I had been wearing and said I needed additional tests in broken English (I still couldn’t speak very much Japanese at the time). Looking at the helmet, I agreed: It had probably saved my life. The doctor took the dented, deformed hunk of plastic out of the room, and told me to follow him. When I asked where we were going, he looked back at me, dead serious, and said a single word: “Lobotomy.”
To this day, I have no idea if that fucker was joking or not (maybe – just maybe – he meant something else?), but at the time the shit wasn’t very funny.

Black Beauty RX7

rx7spoiler.jpg
Someone should just sit down and figure out the exact equation detailing the relationship of [number of times dropped on head as child] to [height of rear spoiler on car]. By the way, people with cars this expensive should not be spotted in the parking lots of recycle shops… A more affordable solution for cash-strapped Fast and Fuuurious wannabes is a haxx0red copy of Gran Turismo, aight?

The voice in my head just said, “Run away!”

A month or so back, my brother and I found a spot from which to escape from people. Most everybody, that is. It’s a dam up in the mountains just a few miles off a major road, but apparently not very well known. We went there both Saturday and Sunday for a few hours of fishing and just to get away from it all. Saturday I caught a reallyreally small largemouth which attacked a lure not much smaller than itself – and that was it as far as our catch for the weekend – but it was enough. Being out on decently sized lakes with no one else in sight was a reward unto itself. Last week was kind of a tipping point for me, you see. I’d had just about enough of the world, I think.
It all started out on Sunday, when I watched an old man collapse in a pool of his own blood and guts on a white tiled floor. I looked into his eyes after calling for help and saw neither fear nor acceptance – just confusion. That disturbed me on a level I hadn’t experienced since thinking about post-death consciousness every night when I was ten or so. His wife cradled his head and sobbingly pleaded with him to stay focused for the twenty minutes it took for the paramedics to arrive. When they came, they put on surgical masks and gloves before touching the old man. When they left, they tracked bloody footprints out the door. I left out the back exit and felt strangely sick when the sunlight hit my face.
Tuesday I left for a business meeting in Osaka as documented in my previous post. I feel more and more apologetic as the years go on for having to explain why so many of my fellow countrymen are brash, ignorant, racist dunderfucks. On a side note, do you know how much compensation I get from the company for having to spend a night away from home plus 6 meals? Around ten bucks. Ten bucks, as in, fuck me, may I have another? Fuck me. The really sad thing is, it used to be around twenty bucks and people feel really cheated about it having been cut in half. Shit, the last time the union reps came around, I contemplated throwing a handful of pennies at them and saying, “dinner’s on me, assholes.”
Wednesday I came back from said business trip on a bus directly through a fairly major typhoon. Luckily, I was tired as hell and the huge bus windows amplified the lightning into a trippy ambient light show. I zoned out to this and stopped watching the realtime destruction reports on the TV mounted in the center aisle. Crossing over the longest suspension bridge in the world to my island in heavy winds was kind of tense, though (Bus driver on radio to dispatcher: “Advise others to turn back. Brakes are sluggish and we are moving forward even though I’m not using the gas.”). Cool.
Thursday, the pipes under our kitchen sink decided to burst. Fortunately, my girlfriend and my little brother took care of it and I only saw the aftermath: Everything previously under the sink on my kitchen floor, cupboards being dried out with electric fan. Yes, Nam and Adam handled the crisis and my late arrival/presence was superfluous. Genuinely cool.
Friday I got in a huge fight with my girlfriend, but I sucked it all up because I was so tired and in a “gee this isn’t fair, but beat me up emotionally anyway” state of mind. (By the way, the whole fight was probably all my fault, even though I’ll never admit it.)
So by the time Saturday and Sunday rolled around, I was ready for 12-hour slumber sessions followed by the Nature Boy routine. Our new hideaway did not disappoint. Bunny rabbits, deer, and baby bass. And on Saturday, I even forgot to take my cellphone.

Wendy’s

Out of all of the American fast food franchises in Japan, I prefer to go to Wendy’s because it is relatively cheap, and their burgers are more palatable than the other option (McDonalds). I rely on the 150 yen menu, Japan’s version of the 99 cent meal, . Using components from this menu, you can make some pretty badass combos:
Frosty Fries:
I can not take credit for this, as it sprung as a collective idea between me, my brother, and my sisters while cramped in the back of our Dodge Ram Prospecter, most likely headed to or from a vacation to Mammoth. Although counter-intuitive, the best way to enjoy french fries is dipped in a Frosty.
The Chili Bacon Cheeseburger-
Wendy’s is the only place I know where you can make a Chili Cheeseburger in Japan. Unlike In-N-Out, you can not order this because they don’t have a secret menu. You have to assemble it yourself.
Buy a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, extra packs of ketchup (not only does this improve the taste, but it also contributes to filling your stomach- something I was always trying to do in college), and a small chili. Load the burger with ketchup, and spoon chili on your burger with each bite. Not only is this a fun and less messy way to enjoy chili in your burger, but it maintains the integrity of the ingredients (doesn’t sog up the bun or wilt the iceberg) until you are ready to eat them. Why doesn’t Wendy’s sport a Chili Bacon Cheeseburger already? I don’t know, but they’re missing out on a great untapped market with great potential.
The only other way to obtain a chili cheeseburger is to go to Mos Burger (although chili cheeseburger-esque, a mos chili cheeseburger’s components qualify neither as “chili” nor as a genuine “burger”) or to make it yourself.
If you happen to find yourself in Kumamoto City, craving some good genuine American food, drop into Masa’s and you won’t be disappointed (huge burgers and even locomoco!).

All Dressed Up But Nowhere to Whore

I’m on another business trip. It’s late, I’m sweaty. In a suit. Wasted from a day of picking up on the subtle nuances of Japanese corporate doublespeak, flipping the sentences backwards and into another language, then funneling it down the client’s ear.
Now I’m back at the hotel with several hours worth of work ahead of me and the shrill ring of an alarm clock not mine own to look forward to in the morn.
Time to sign off, folks, but before I go, let me give you the Buddha’s One True Way to get an annoying fat gaijin perv in a middle management position to leave you alone and quit dropping hints like, “so what are Jap girls like?,” and, “so what’s the deal with those hostess clubs we passed earlier?” over a business dinner:
When he gets all drunk and alco-sentimental with your boss later on and lays pictures of his kids on the table, echo everybody’s remarks about how cute they are and what a lovely family he has, then lean over the table and hiss, “God hates sinners.”
Note: It’s all in the angryasianman.jpg