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King of Konbeni
Lawson is the foundation upon which modern lifestyles are built in Japan. I have never confirmed the oft-heard rumor regarding the Lawson closest to my university, Morimedo Lawson – that it was the busiest branch in Japan. Well, on the 26th of every month I wouldn’t dispute it…
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Brief Statement
Waiting for Bill outside of a Mickey D’s in Shinsaibashi, I was proposed by some Chinese girls who offered to do just this. Wait that’s a lie. They only offered a massage, “kimochi yoku shite ageru yo ni-chan”. Goddamn, gotta love that. Anyway, this sticker was pasted to a light pole right outside the golden arches, and the previously mentioned ladies of da knight giggled ferociously as I nerdily took a photo of it. Biotches.
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The Other Pink Meat
I wrote a haiku today, inspired by this site: Dusty desert road. Weary rocket soldier sits, opening the can. Obviously, I’ve been playing too much Generals lately. And Adam’s recent post on Spam ignited a firestorm in my gut. I was forced to recognize that I need Spam on a regular basis. Need. But it’s too damn expensive in Japan. It’s as if they still price it the same way they did on the black market after the war, but adjusted for inflation. Happy Spam thoughts: Spam is one of the few foods that taste better in the “low salt” version. I tried a can of the spicy-flavored Spam a…
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“The Panther keeps on biting me…”
If you are a mac buff, go forth: The Macintosh at 20: Interview with Jef Raskin And by “mac buff”, I mean a true OG (GFINDER) type playa. Not this new breed of iTards whose solution to everything in life is “Buy a Mac!” Yeah, buy a $2000 mac to surf the net and send e-mail you brainless chatwhores. “Chatwhores” should be my word for the day, but it’s even below my taking credit for. Note: This entry was posted by my Powerbook 190 (16-shade greyscale, although the right bottom corner of the lcd has inexplicably become a solid yellow). Which means not a goddamn thing except that I miss…
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Bust out the clay tablets already
A client just asked for a 90MB 3D CAD file data to be sent on multiple storage mediums: 250MB Zip, 100MB Zip, CD-R, 128MB MO, and split up on floppies for God’s sake! His reasoning: The workshop in Singapore uses old equipment. He will not listen to my reasoning along the lines of, “if they can open a 3D CAD file that size, I would assume they can surely pull data off a CD.” Somebody send me an IT geek with a few free hours to play the floppy insert-write-eject-label game (cuz I really SUCK at it)! Well, this is a first if nothing else. All hail the mighty morphin’…
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Tribe vs. Corporation
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.” However, in government, education, and in corporate America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as: 1. Buying a stronger whip. 2. Changing riders. 3. Appointing a committee to study the horse. 4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride horses. 5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included. 6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired. 7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse. 8. Harnessing several dead horses together to…
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Call Me Mr. Clean
I am a packrat. I am also a slob by nature, although sometimes I put on a good show of being organized when it counts. I spent the weekend cleaning out my small room upstairs and thinking, “Damn, I’m a packrat.” During my long years as an amateur geek/professional gadget junkie, I have accumulated enough electronic parts and contraptions to completely fill a six-tatami room. I’m talking boxes haphazardly stacked to the ceiling. This is a room you do not want to be in during an earthquake, which isn’t really a joke since this island was the epicenter of the largest quake in Japan in recent history. A hundred pounds…
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Fan Mail
One of you sickos deserves to die in Politically Korrekt hell… Straight from my inbox: – What Other Cultures Learn from the Media – It was the first day of school (in America) and a new student named Suzuki, the son of a Japanese businessman, entered the fourth grade. The teacher said, “Let’s begin by reviewing some American history.” Who said “Give me Liberty, or give me Death?” She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Suzuki . “Patrick Henry, 1775.” He said. “Very good! Who said ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’?” Again, no response except from Suzuki:…
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Gaijin Like You
When the president of the staffing company (5,500 employees) you work for makes it a point to see you in person by pulling you from your desk in front of the whole office, you may feel several hundred thousand butterflies moshing at the Pantera concert in your stomach as you get up and proceed to an adjacent conference room. Then, when he offers you 3,000 yen ($30) for every gaijin you can introduce that signs on to the firm with the single stipulation that “they are like you”, you can nod and say thank you. Then again, you could always point out that he is implying your own worth and…
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Autobacs Bargain Sale
This is how much a “Cool Darts” PC game CD-ROM was in a bargain bin at Autobacs. Laugh #1: It was a Daiso 100 Yen Store game, so I only saved 23 yen. Laugh#2: I paid too much for it either way. The programming was so bad the shit didn’t work after installation, and when I finally did get it to work, a little window popped up with the simple greeting, “Hello, world!” I guess the thing I want to know the most is why they were selling a Daiso CD-ROM at an Autobacs.
