Author: Justin

Going with the flow.

There’s this special needs/mentally challenged/invertedly endowed/lugubriously entertaining/whatever the fuck the PC demigods are calling it this month (I’ll just use “retarded”) guy working in my building who worships me because I stood up for him my first year here. Some newly-made manager/fucknut wanker was just letting loose on the poor guy for stacking boxes wrong or some such bullshit, and went so far as to slap him around a bit, at which point I intervened and shoved said fucknut on his ass and told him to shut the fuck up. Long story short, the retarded guy really took a liking to me after that (I never got in trouble even though everybody in the company heard about it; the manager got shipped off to Bumfuck, Kyushu to oversee a 3-person production line for replacement AC parts a couple years ago. Ha-ha.).
Now I have a problem because my retarded friend has started expressing this affection in a physical manner – by hitting me. At first it was just a soft jab in the arm or a friendly tap on the shoulder, but homeboy must be watching Rocky movies at home or something, because he punched me in the kidney this afternoon after lunch and I doubled over, nearly crying out for my mommy.
You see, this guy’s job is to move boxes of product around the factory by handlift all day long, which requires a lot of heavy lifting and the like. He is muscular and fit; the reason he didn’t unload on the fucknut manager guy that day long ago, or any of the apparently numerous times before that, was not because he lacked the physical capability to do so. It is just that he frightens like a small child, and can be cowed into submission by tiny-pricked little bullies even half his size, because he is so sweet-natured. Even so, I know one day he might actually hurt me with an unluckily-placed strike. Yet I feel guilty doing anything to prevent this rite of male bonding.
The way I see this going is that one day he’ll break one of my ribs while playfully socking me with that big shit-eating grin on his angelic face, and then I’ll have to show him who the big dog is again. After I’m done crying, of course. I just hope nobody’s around to watch me slapping a retard at work- oh, well. Life has a funny way of running things out the way they are supposed to be, and who the fuck am I to change that?

25 SIGNS YOU HAVE GROWN UP

This week seems to be List Week for some reason. This one’s from Osaka Bill:
1. Your houseplants are alive, and you can’t smoke any of them.
2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you go to bed.
5. You hear your favorite song in an elevator.
6. You watch the Weather Channel.
7. Your friends marry and divorce instead of “hook up” and “break up.”
8. You go from 130 days of vacation time to 14.
9. Jeans and a sweater no longer qualify as “dressed up.”
10. You’re the one calling the police because those %&@# kids next door won’t turn down the stereo.
11. Older relatives feel comfortable telling sex jokes around you.
12. You don’t know what time Taco Bell closes anymore.
13. Your car insurance goes down and your car payments go up.
14. You feed your dog Science Diet instead of McDonald’s leftovers.
15. Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.
16. You take naps.
17. Dinner and a movie is the whole date instead of the beginning of one.
18. Eating a basket of chicken wings at 3 AM would severely upset, rather than settle, your stomach.
19. You go to the drug store for ibuprofen and antacid, not condoms and pregnancy tests.
20. A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer “pretty good stuff.”
21. You actually eat breakfast food at breakfast time.
22. “I just can’t drink the way I used to” replaces “I’m never going to drink that much again.”
23. 90% of the time you spend in front of a computer is for real work.
24. You drink at home to save money before going to a bar.
25. When you find out your friend is pregnant you congratulate them instead of asking “Oh S*$# what the hell happened?”
Bonus:
26: You read this entire list looking desperately for one sign that doesn’t apply to you and can’t find one to save your sorry old butt. Then you forward it to a bunch of old pals & friends ’cause you know they’ll enjoy it & do the same.

Reclaiming Anazarbus

I have decided that the future capitol city of my empire shall be named Justinopolis.
City Codes of Justinopolis (work in progress)
1. Stupid people shall be shot on sight.
2. Second verse, same as the first.
3. Piracy – a serious problem (from a certain point of view) that we refuse to treat with ineffective laws (or confuse with terrorist activities).
4. Robots are cool.
5. Speaking of which, all AI scientists will be guaranteed a girlfriend.
6. Hacking good.
7. Faking bad.
8. Ministry of Information: D. Chappelle (he needs a new job)
9. Speaking of which: Independent reporting good.
10. Bicycles also good.

20 THINGS IT TAKES (insert variable) YEARS TO LEARN

Originally by Dave Barry, I believe, but mailed to me from a friend in Singapore. Universal truths are indeed universal:
1. Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”
3. There is a very fine line between “hobby,” and, “mental illness.”
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours.
5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
6. You should not confuse your career with your life.
7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
9. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
10. Never lick a steak knife.
11. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
12. The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.
13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
14. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.
15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
18. A person who is nice to you, but is rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.
19. Your friends love you anyway.
20. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

Remembering Hiroshima

…has been postponed for the time being in lieu of:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
Celebrations started early this year, and I have one last party to get to before the night is over. I’ve completely recovered from the heatstroke/food poisoning/mid-life crisis barfing thing the other day, so thanks to all those who wrote.
Nam performed Thai dance at the Awaji Westin today, perhaps for the last time, and I took around 500 photos with my new DSLR, so I’ll be posting about that soon.
Until then,
Justin Yoshida I
King of Awaji Island and Benefactor of Surrounding Territories

PETA, Rejoice!

… for I will never eat sharkfin soup again.
Yesterday I was in Himeji on a business trip. After our meetings, we went to the top of Himeji castle in the miserable heat and walked our clients a fair distance to their posh hotel. We then walked to the inconveniently located and much crappier hotel that we were staying at (a pox on our financial dept.), changed out of our dripping-with-perspiration dress shirts into casual ones, and immediately headed out for Chinese food back at the client’s hotel restaurant.
I was on my third small glass of beer before the food came, and had just finished my bowl of sharkfin and crab soup and a couple of light entrees when I felt the rumbling in my stomach. An ominous rumbling.
To make a long story short, I suffered from either:
A. Heatstroke
B. Dehydration
C. Food Poisoning
D. Thermal shock, or
E. All of the above
I did not make it to the restroom in time.
Cupping my hand over my mouth only resulted in directing the explosive stream of sour vomit all over my shirt and slacks. My shirtfront was covered with semi-digested bits of crab meat and black fungus from the soup, plus other sour beer-smelling detritus.
I finally made it into a stall, got lightheaded, and almost dunked my head in the toilet before I realized there was an unflushed turd in it. This made me purge even more, after flushing a few hundred times (even I cannot sink so low as to puke on another man’s turd).
After I washed off my face and most of the puke off my clothes, I attempted to dry my shirt so as not to make it immediately noticeable that I had lost my cookies when I returned to the table. I fooled nobody for very long, since I turned green after smelling the greasy Chinese food again.
I excused myself before the next wave of nausea hit, weakly stumbled to the hotel lobby and hailed a cab outside. The cabbie was being a fucking cunt and seeing my still-damp shirtfront, asked if I’d been drinking. I said “what’s it to you,” and he threatened to stop the car and kick me out. I threatened to puke on the floor if he stopped before we reached my hotel… Thus I got back in a precarious state of stalemate.
I collapsed on the hotel bed and the world went away for a few sweet, blessed hours. I woke up before midnight feeling completely restored, and was unable to sleep again. I took a walk on the empty streets of the city, swearing off sharkfin soup and remembering the most important things in life.
With work, I am disenchanted.
The most important thing in life, at any given time, is not to be puking your guts out.