C. Buddha's Hasty Musings

6. Life is flowing like water through my fingers. Time running out… Must adopt harried writing style. Also sentence fragments. And abrvi8… No wait that’s 13375p34K. So immature. Maybe I’ll just clean up my act and post only about politics.
6a. Nah, fuck that.
7. Why is it still so hard to surf true-believer political blogs and not feel slightly depressed afterward? (I bring this up because I suspect it only gets worse with age.)
7a. And why do politicians giving speeches on TV still look so much better when Hollywood does it? Can’t we get someone who sounds smarter than an actor on the fucking stage and in charge of really important shit that affects every aspect of our lives?
8. Car insurance gets cheaper in Japan when you turn 30. This is actually the second of two discount age levels for anything above legally required coverage. The first one is when you turn 26.
8a. Now this is not a huge amount of cash I’m talking about here, but with most people bitching at me to slow down (or to stop tailgating Porsche weenies who drive under the speed limit) all the time, it’s nice for someone to finally acknowledge my spotless driving record. Monetarily. The ironic thing is that I need to get coverage for all ages anyway if Adam wants to drive my car when he moves out here (later this week, BTW).
9. On balmy summer nights, Astrocreep 2000 is still the undefeated champion of impulsive gas pedal stomping on moonlit stretches of open highway.
9a. No I’m not shitting you. White Zombie was a great band, and Astrocreep 2K was absolutely phenomenal, although a couple of their songs on that album got way overplayed. This is how MTV and hit charts poison good bands (can anybody say “Frogstomp?”).
10. Mondays still suck, the people around me are still idiots, and in my ten year visit to this country, I have now sworn under my breath (in English so as not to be understood) at someone during a conversation approximately a hundred thousand million billion times.
10a. I’ve only been caught doing it a few times, once by a lady cop who was writing me up a bullshit parking ticket and apparently understood the words “fucking bitch.” I’d never been so scared my whole life as when she replied in perfect English, “what did you just call me?”, then called for backup.

1. Beer is still best served ice cold (amazingly, I had anticipated this one).
2. Your older friends weren’t just joking the whole time, they really are happy you’ve joined their middle-aged ranks.
3. Guitar solos still sound better when you’re wasted.
3a. People still call it Teenage Wasteland.
4. You still hate it when the pitifully drunk basket case comes to relate their newest tragedies.
4a. “…cause no one else cares”
4b. It’s still too fucked up to reply, “Either do I”
4c. But it’s still fun to fantasize about.
5. People still come to see what you’re doing on the computer (in a bar for chrissake!) and because you don’t want to even begin to try explaining what blogging is to the average drunk non-geek, you just tell them you’re “reading mail.”
5a. And perhaps you still suddenly feel very self-conscious and cut your post short.

As I spend the last hours of my youth at sea, on a ferry to Osaka to be precise, I can’t help but think with much pride that I’M STILL IN MY TWENTIES!!!!!!!