Category: Chillin’

…from the land of inflatable neck-stretching kits!
This is CB signing off for 2004 – PEACE!

Sometimes, late at night, I swear the internet is speaking to itself.

I have two brick planters out in front of my house (approx. 1 ft. x 5 feet total planting space) where the future of Yoshida Papayas, Ltd., lies. Last summer, on a whim, Nam threw some papaya pits on the soil we’ve seen trying to enrich for the past few years (it was rock-hard dirt when we moved in), and much to my surprise, sprouts appeared after a couple weeks. By fall, they had grown into 3 foot saplings and sprouted very healthy and broad tropical leaves. I became quite fond of them because they looked so out of place in my old neighborhood; vibrant green in a sea of brown and aging wooden houses. I began referring to them as my “papaya forest,” and cleared away all the other plants we had out there.
When the first frost came with winter, they perished in a very ugly fashion – eveything turned black and mushy, and I didn’t even have to clear their corpses as they melted into the earth. I was sad. However, I have had similar experiences with jasmine and other warm-loving, beautiful, wimpy plants in the past, so I knew it was just a matter of trying again this year.
Since we already have learned to transfer the jasmine into pots and bring them in for the winter, I figure it should work just as well for the papaya trees, although they are a bit deeper rooted.
I asked my brother to transfer the papayas today, but I’m secretly hoping he forgets. I miss the feeling of dirt under my fingernails and the moist earth drying on my palms.

Come to think of it, the vampires had nice tits, too. Also, the vampire lord looked just like my friend Osaka Bill, with strandy Robert Smith hair and all. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes hearing other people snore during $20 million scenes.

Is it just me, or is God doing his best to wipe us pesky humans off the planet this year? This week’s typhoon (the swirly white butthole above) is called #22 in Japan and my guess is that they ran out of semi-real name sounding names and are just making random shit up now because its official name is “MA-ON.” Come on weathergeeks, that’s not even trying. “MA-ON” sounds like what an oppressed Vietnamese sweat shop worker moans the morning after a full bottle of Mekong whiskey or something.
Speaking of which, I recently received a bottle of Johhny Walker Red as a gift. Some gift, huh? Maybe I’ll dye the label blue and pass it off to some unsuspecting teetotaler as a housewarming gift or something… I won’t even use bad scotch for cooking meat, that’s how highly I rate Johnny, Chivas, Pipers, and the rest of that crap. And for all you Asian Scotch hounds, I must ask one question: If it tastes so fucking wonderful, why do you dilute it with water?
Real men drink Spirytus.

Yes, I’ve been watching too much Band of Brothers again. All I can say is, what a damn fine series. Along with 24 (go Kief!), Freaks and Geeks (/lament), and Firefly (/sob), this series on DVD helped keep me a bit saner this year.

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.

This weekend, when asked to describe a burrito to a SE Asian man (probably my future father-in-law, if such things matter), I described it as a “Mexican springroll.” Sometimes I just have my moments.
That got me hungry, so I made fajitas for us all.
In the age of Teflon-coated, feng shui-infused, drop-forged-in-space cookware, cast iron griddles still kick ass. However, my newly-purchased titanium wok (purchased at Jusco, 2000 yen) positively 0wnzz0rs for black bean sauce stir fry, garlic chicken, and the assorted curry dishes I have tried cooking in it. It heats faster than steel and is light enough to perform street tricks with (I’ve tried the Jive Nelly and an inverse limp-wrist 720 sinkgrind-to-deadfish ollie fazer and although splattering myself with excess olive oil, actually managed to land both tricks! Don’t try this at home, kids.). I also suspect it could be used as a conveyance back in time if one could be bothered to hook up some spare power lines to the clock tower one stormy night…
Fresh limes are the fulcrum of a kick-ass grilled meat dish.
Fresh limes often cost a dollar each in Japan, and are sometimes smaller than a “D” battery (“D motherfucker, D!”).
The first person who correctly guesses the origin of the quote above gets a fajita in the mail; leave a mailing address in the comments as well as your meat preference (chicken, pork, or fugu).
*If you live outside of Japan, I’m sending it by surface.
**If you live in Japan, just come by the house sometime.

Although me and mine (thx Kev) were unscathed, I saw a lot more damage around town as I drove to work today than I thought there would be. Some roads were being repaired, with fallen trees and bicycles being removed first, then the actual paved surfaces being refilled in areas. As seen above, many cars can be seen with broken windows patched over by cardboard or trash bags. In the gravel parking lot I use for work, there were piles of window glass and shattered sideview mirrors all over. I feel kind of sorry for the owners of the cars, but they really should have known not to leave their cars there during a massive typhoon. Around town, many store windows were broken, and – thankfully! – my neighbor’s annoying-as-hell wind chime appears to have been blown away.
Typhoon #19 never even touched us as far as I can tell, so we came out just fine this round. Everybody is really nervous about the next big earthquake, though.

Everything is OK.