Category: Exploits

I took a long walk today and snapped a series of photos with my phone along the way.
At a local construction site, I stumbled upon the Engrish Corporate Slogan of the Year:

Apparently, this is not a joke (this is the brainchild of Sumitomo Forestry Co., LTD).
Crossing one of the numerous bridges that span the Sumoto River, I spotted oil barriers in the water below:

Great schools of mullet were congregating on either side of it. It turns out that the barriers are placed there because of the construction they are doing upriver. Basically, they are trying to level out the riverbed since it got so jammed up with debris during the big typhoon last year.
Well, further up the road, I found the runner-up for Engrish Corporate Slogan of the Year:

I will fondle and grasp my Nissan without having to be told, thank you very much.
What fossil fuel depletion?

This place is giving it away.
Since the typhoon, the riverbed is just mud-ugly.

It used to be so nice and… sandy.
Let the heavy machinery pornfest commence:

I love me a good backhoe.
A trifecta:

Hitachi, Komatsu, Caterpillar
This sign explains the construction going on:

“Moving dirt around.”
(Last machinery shot, I promise.)

Single scoop, or double?
Whereupon I jump down in the riverbed to get closer to the action:

Gordon Freeman, where are you?
Vanity shot:

I love sand and shadows.
Found someone’s boat.

If my bro were here, we would take it for sure.
I have been walking for an hour now and realize I am trapped in the mudflats.

There is only one way out.
Shot taken over my shoulder:

This isn’t so bad. I’m a single jump away from freedom…
Made it!

Ah, to be 5 years old again.
THE END

Exactly two weeks to go until I put my life in the hands of JAL and escape on a ten day adventure to Southeast Asia – I can hardly wait! My pal, T, is flying to Bangkok on the 25th, and I’m out on the 27th. We’ll meet up with Nam the next day and we have no plans other than hitting up the Chattuchak street market the first weekend, them joining up with T’s ex, Natty, for a nice, dusty drive to the border of either Laos or Cambodia… I’m leaning toward Cambodia at this point; I want to much around the ruins before the next wave of kidnappings kicks off.
I was going to buy a D70 for the trip since they hit the sub 90,000 yen mark, but it seems that Nikon is bringing out a new, improved version (oh, so shiny! and new!) right around the time I leave, so I might put off buying a new camera until the next big trip. Oh well, it just means I can be more fearless with my old one (the one before it drowned horribly on a kayak outing, so there is precedence).
I love going to Thailand because I can pack ultra light and buy what I need there… The days are passing slowly, slowly.

High school dropouts, strung-out junkies, and fucked gaijin, behold:

This is all you need to jackpot vending machines in Japan.
I’ve seen evidence of it poured down coin slots of every make and model of jihanki, but passersby usually mistake it as simple vandalism rather than evidence of (usually attempted but not successful) theft. Hearsay in my college dorm was that older machines are more likely to produce coins (via return slot) than newer ones, and lengthy debates were held on the question of whether other brands of dishsoap would work as well as MamaLemon, pictured above.
Basically, the entire jackpotting phenomenon^* exists mainly because:
A. Japanese college students are unchallenged, lazy, immoral dumbfucks
B. The 500 yen (approx. $5) coin makes it worthwhile
^*Not to say this is as widespread in other areas, YMMV. Also, not everyone notices shit like this; I just have an eye for it.

If you bought a by d:sign d:1070 DVD player in Japan and need instructions for unlocking the region free function (to be able to view DVDs from other regions), look no further:
1. Open the tray
2. Press the Setup button on the remote
3. On the Selection page, press the following buttons: 1, 3, 7, 9
4. When the Region Code screen appears, change the Region from 2 to 0
5. Buy me a beer if it works!

Since I had a paid holiday to use up this week, I took the day off and slept until mid-afternoon. In truth, I had intended on waking up early to go fishing, but I got trapped in the intoxicating warmth of my blankets. By the time I got moving, the tides were unfavorable, so I thought we would go hiking up in the mountains and maybe try some largemouth bass (in Japan, “black bass”) fishing. We were not disappointed, as I hooked up with a couple 13-14 inchers within the first fifteen minutes:


What an awesome day off!

The mosquito-free period in Japan seems to be shrinking every year: I clearly remember having stray skeeters bumbling about the house as late as the last week of January, and I was assaulted by a particularly thirsty one again just last night. For many years, November through April were completely mosquito-free, but I guess it was just inevitable that my nemesis would eventually evolve to torture me in all but the coldest periods of the year.
And this is important to me, see, because last night, I slapped myself across the cheek in my sleep, hard. I was dreaming that a giant mosquito, like in that old-ass movie Caveman had landed on my face, so I panicked and, in my state of nocturnal distress, tried to smash it. I must have hit myself really hard, because my girlfriend woke up and said, “what’s wrong?” I glanced at the clock – 4 o’ clock? On a Monday morning? Fuck! – and grumbled, “GODDAMN….mosquito…FUCKING BIT ME.” She rolled her eyes and coyly asked if I had slapped myself again (which didn’t make me real happy at the time, but seems mildly amusing now), then promptly fell back to sleep since SHE had nothing to fear. You see, ever since I was little, anybody in proximity of me has nothing to fear from mosquitoes – my blood is like VSOP in a sea of lite beers or something.
Anyway, to make a long story short, this fucking insect tortured me until 6AM, biting me on the cheek three times and once on the ear before I decided I’d had enough and decided to kill it, no matter how long it took. Sleep deprivation coupled with a madly itching ear drove me to eat its broken corpse after I finally got it.
So, no fucking with me please today, sirs and madams, I have absorbed the power to suck my own weight in blood and cause mad itching, and I ain’t afraid to use it.

This is my state of mind after 3 days of hitting the slopes in Hakuba (quite literally, I’m afraid). It was an awesome trip, overall. Nobody got hurt too badly (although general aches and soreness are shared by all), even the little girl in the pink helmet who Taro ran into at high speed and made cry. I’m burnt a nice shade of brownish-red, and the “racoon eyes” are a source of great joy for my colleagues. (I can’t believe I brought back cookies as a gift for these bastards – they don’t deserve cookies.)

Taking a three day trip up to Hakuba with Adam and T for some boarding – I haven’t been on one that long in ages. Time to unwiiiiiind… Should have some adventures to share when I get back.

The other day, Adam saw a school of fat mullet under a bridge near my house, so we decided to try and catch them with the only bait I had around, pickled grubs.
^*Note to self: Mullet could give a shit about pickled grubs. Idiot.
The stupid fish were ignoring the bait, so we decided to use a big seabass lure as a yo-yo rig (illegal in our home state of California). I felt kind of bad about snagging them since we weren’t keeping them, but Adam, being an inherently bad person, had no such compunctions:

MulletMania Magazine Photo Contest Winner:

Mullets are ugly up close:

You kiss your mother with that mouth?
All in all, it was good fun.

Recently, the combination of late nights and wet roads evokes memories so immersive, I often find myself halfway home before realizing that it’s raining and I really should slow down. (The weather affects me more than I care to admit, I guess.) The memories I speak of all have one thing in common, that is, they are all memories of other late, rainy nights. This is my most recent one:
Around six years ago, I was driving a coworker to her house in Moriguchi (Osaka), after a company drink-up. She had passed out and my boss asked me to take her home.
It was raining pretty hard that night, and the tinted windows on my Citroen made for poor visibility out of the side and rear windows. As it was before strict DUI laws existed in Japan, I was driving kinda sloppy, mostly because the crappy driving conditions were annoying me. In fact, I was pondering so heavily on the fact that “god must hate me because it always rains on the weekend,” I almost failed to stop in time at a train crossing. By almost, I mean, you know the striped fiberglass bar that lowers when the train is coming? When I came to a complete stop, my windshield was bending it forward. The crossing bells were ringing and the train was sounding its horn, and the slow motion adrenalin rush kicked in as I threw the car in reverse and backed away from the tracks – just in time.
I think I just sat there for a while.
All I really remember is thinking, rain be damned, God Must Fucking Love Me.