Breaking News!

I just left Aikido (martial art) because I had a bit of an accident when someone was trying to flip me, and now I have blood coming down my forehead. The cut is in the shape of a zig-zag lightning mark, and it's just above my right eyebrow. I hope it turns into a scar, because then it would look socool!

My pole-dancing girlfriend

I went and saw Batman Begins the other day at Virgin Cinemas in Roppongi Hills. I don't like to think too much about the movie, because the more I do so, the more I come up with things I didn't like about it, and I prefer to be blissfully ignorant (like I am about many things in my life). Anyway, the lady at Virgin Cinemas gave me a discounted ticket for only 1000 yen when even high school students have to pay 1500 yen, and every other mortal my age has to pay 1800 yen. Here was me thinking that my superhuman good looks now had a fiscal value to it, but it turns out that this is the price they charge all exchange students... why? I don't know, but they do, and I ain't gonna complain.

Anyway, on my way home, I was trying to make my way down the stairs of a train station along with the human wave of passengers rushing to get to other areas of the station. Me being the lemming that I am, I just followed everyone else and crossed my fingers and hoped that I would eventually find my way home. The two guys I went to see the movie with were behind me and were talking about some lady who had passed out at the top of the stairs and they seemed a bit concerned about her. Guessing that she only had a short time before getting trampled to death, and being the hero that I am, I decided that we should go back up and check to make sure she was ok.

My superhuman ability in pushing people out of the way came in handy in making my way back up the stairs into the oncoming traffic of grumpy commuters. When I got to the top, there she was - face down on the ground, and limbs all askew. She started to push herself up, and I went to help her up. At this point, an old guy walking down the stairs who had been monitoring the situation, but apparently did not feel so inclined to help out, looked me square in the eye and said "You must care for her!" and then disappeared off into the throng of masses below. Having just watched Star Wars the night before, and having listened to Yoda for a good 2.5 hours, I instead heard him say "Care for her, you must!", and I found it all terribly amusing...


Anyway, I couldn't smell any alcohol on her, but she was clearly intoxicated or high on something because she threw her arms up in the air and asked me "Do you wanna come home with me?" "Maybe you should sit down for a bit", says I. "Nah! I'm going home - and you ain't coming with me!" says she. Its a little difficult to explain what happened next, but imagine, if you will - She then pushes herself up by leaning on the concrete column behind her, lets go of my arm, grabs the metal pole next to the column, missteps and places her feet at the base of the pole, and be it either momentum, inertia, gravity or the will of the cosmos, she successfully managed to swing herself full-circle 360 degrees only to come smack-face-first with the other side of the concrete column she had just been leaning against. I gotta say, though, she would have made any seasoned pole dancer proud. Anyway, she bounced off the column, and landed squarely on her arse. My friend had since managed to go and get the train station staff for help, but it turns out that they were the reason she was there in the first place - they didn't want her on the train platform, and thought she would be better off decorating the floor outside the train station.

[Me] But what if she falls over?
[Compassionate Train Staff] She'll be fine.
[Me] Not if she falls down these stairs, she won't.
(At which point she is stumbling down the stairs)
[Compassionate Train Staff] She'll be fine.
[Me] Not if she falls down these stairs, she won't.
(She stumbles and slides down the wall slightly before recovering)
[Compassionate Train Staff] She'll be fine.
[Me] Not if she falls down these stairs, she won't.

Tired of this fun conversation with the Compassionate Train Staff, I decided to help my new pole-dancing girlfriend down to the bottom, and which point she stumbles off into the crowd... never to be seen again... dammit! I didn't even get her phone number...

Generic Post #291

I thought that I should celebrate Bloggers introduction of an easier "Add Image" system by adding some images that I've been meaning to post, but haven't got around to doing.

-----[left] They can't make up their minds if you're allowed to park there or not-------

------------[right] This man hates bikes-----------

----------[left] "Used Lady's"... I'll take three, and can you wrap them to go?---------

----------------[right] Hamberger friend - I feel happiness when I eat a him----------------

Finally, there is the The Book of Bunny Suicides. This is a book I discovered back in Sydney, and I've only just stumbled on some of the pictures on the internet. Its just a collections of drawings of cute bunnies attempting to commit suicide - its dark, but some of them are kinda funny. It's not for everyone, though. Here is a sample...

Breaking news!

BREAKING NEWS - just got my Japanese language exam back and I got 89%. Not bad for no study... But I reckon the sensei was wrong on one question, so I may be able to get bumped up to 90%. Plus, the teacher is kinda cute, so if I flirt with her, I could get full marks. Should I use my superhuman abilities and good looks to charm and befuddle mere mortals for self-benefit, I wonder...?

It's just not funny anymore

I am so busy, it's not funny. There was a time when it was funny - I'd laugh and laugh, and sometimes I'd laugh so hard I'd cry. Oh ho, the carefree hilarity of it all... But now, it isn't funny anymore. It's downright terrifying. And try as I might, hiding under the covers of my bed just doesn't work. Take this morning for example - I lay in bed, staring up at my blanket for a good 3 hours, but strangely enough, the paper I had to write summarising the varying theories on criminal justice in Japan ('benevolent paternalism' versus 'crime-control model' versus 'I-have-no-bloody-clue-but-it-seems remarkably-like-the-first-two-theories theory') did not materialise out of thin air.

So I find myself with a dozen books that I have to read AND understand, and only 2 months to do it in. Then after that, I have a conference to attend - I have made the extraordinarily silly move of submitting a paper proposal for a law conference for which I am hopeless underqualified, on a topic I only pretend to know something about, on an area of law that I'm too embarrassed to tell my law professors about because they've ridiculed me about my interest in it... I just can't escape the feeling that I'm standing infront of a firing squad. The remainder of this year does not look good the protagonist of this little melodrama...

I'm so excited...

It really doesn't take much to get me excited.

For example, I got excited when I found out that the Seven Eleven down the road sells Ramune in a can (traditional Japanese soft drink). I got really excited when I went to buy a laser printer on friday - I've been dying to print out my notes and research. It didn't bother me that I had to spend 10 minutes hunting down a salesperson to get them to get one for me out of storage - I was too excited about getting my printer... It didn't bother me that it took him 30 minutes to find one - I was going to be printing out notes until the early morning... (or as Loz suggested, I could use it to print out porn, but I don't need to print it out - I can just buy a Playstation Portable for that) It didn't even bother me that it ended up weighing 400 kilograms by the time I got it home... after carrying it home through the rain... without an umbrella. What did bother me, however, was, after this whole ordeal, realising that the cable necessary for connecting it to the computer was missing. The swear words came thick and fast, and the printer box was physically traumatised - it now sits by the door in 5 pieces awaiting the day I could be bothered taking it to the rubbish bin, and there are little pieces of foam lying here, there and everywhere, in places I've yet to discover - and that is saying a hell of alot... I can't stand packing foam - touching it, smelling it and hearing it rub against something... anything... drives me crazy. I specifically asked the moron if the necessary cables were included - to which he responded with a resounding "Of course!"

BREAKING NEWS - just had an earthquake... just a little one though - we get them occasionally. The freaky thing is that I still feel like I'm moving...

But what I'm really, REALLY excited about is HANABI (fireworks). Hanabi is one of my three favourite times of the year in Japan. Unlike Sydney, where the only fireworks you see are during the NYE celebrations, the Hanabi Festivals in Japan go all out. Everywhere has their own special firework festivals, but my favourite one is back in town I lived in when I first came to study here in high school. They're held on a little island in the middle of a river that runs on the outskirts of town, and everyone just sits on the riverbank drinking beer and eating fried noodles, and ice-Slurpy like products.

Back in the day, I went there with a friend of mine, and we decided that we weren't close enough to the action, and after a few beers, we decided that it was high time that we drank some more, and after drinking all of that, we made the somewhat inebriated decision to walk though the 7 foot reeds to the very edge of the river. And so we did. I wasn't so sure that cutting straight thought the reeds was the very best idea, but my friend said it would be ok, and so I sent her into the reeds ahead of me to see how far it was to get to the other side. She walked a few metres, declared that she could see the sand on the other side, and so I, with a six-pack of beer, started to do my best Indiana Jones impression and cut myself a path through the reeds with my imaginary machete. It took a good five minutes of both of us getting caught in the reeds, falling over, and laughing, getting lost, getting up, and falling over again, before we reached the other side. When I reached the other side, I realised that I had left the beer in the reeds when I had fallen over - so I got out my machete again and ventured back in. Another 5 minutes later of groping around in the dark, with only the occasional fireworks to light my way, did I manage to escape with my alcohol firmly in my grasp.

I can't wait for the Hanabi to start.

Generic Post #857

Despite my love of all things dull and dreary, I thought I might do something a little different and share something I found to be both novel and interesting that I noticed in the English newspaper here in Japan, the Japan Times.

Not long ago, a train derailed in Japan when going around a curve at 50km/h over the 70km/h speed limit - killing over 100 people. In response to this, the train company have taken some measures to prevent this happening again - one of which is to reduce the speed limit to 60km/h - I find the logic of this decision baffling.

Birthday suit

The clothing situation is becoming distressing again... This time, its not because I didn't wash my clothes, but I left them in the dryer and forgot to take them out - which, normally, wouldn't be a problem, but the dryers in the dormitory don't dry clothes, so much, as it spins wet clothes around really slowly.

I just went to retrieve my clothes from the dryer, and just as I thought, they're damp. On the way back to my room, I saw Tweedledee & Tweedledum again... Who are these two? They're two guys on the same floor of my dorm who leave the door to Tweedledee's room open, and sit in their underwear all day playing network games. They've lined their laptops next to each other and ALL DAY they play their bloody games. I'll be coming home from the city at 1:30 am, they're playing their game... 3pm - coming home from uni - still playing their game... 7pm - going out to dinner - still playing their game... For whatever reason, it annoys the hell out of me...

So my clothing situation was getting slightly desperate the other day, and I was going through my room and found a whole stash of shirts and stuff I had completely forgotten about - I had put a bunch of clothes in a drawer when I arrived in Japan, and had ignored that drawer until now. It's almost like a treasure hunt - I wonder what other surprises I've left myself lying around the place. I found a $50 note in one of my pockets the other day, and I was getting really excited about it until I remembered I wasn't in Australia anymore, and if I were to give it to a Japanese person they'd use it as monopoly money. So now it sits in a drawer in my desk, crying "spend me, spend me", patiently waiting for the day I decide to do my annual room clean and discover it, get excited about finding money, then remember its useless in Japan, and so the cycle continues...

But I have found some clothes that I want to get -

---"Hey! You! will you take my car? Will you try the highest riding comfort? You get highest feelings---

---[left] Birthday Suit [right] Live Well. It is greatest revenge ---

Alternatively, there is this shirt that I found on a guy at a university festival the other day. Poor guy - I ran up to him and near tackled him to get him to stop moving. I then gave my beer to his girlfriend so that I could take the photo and got her to hold his shirt straight so I could capture it in its full Engrish glory... Poor guy...

It says "Kill the conduckter. The train is forward & backwords Laws of Mamouth T."

Saint Kallun

I often think that I'm something of a nice guy - partially because that's what girls tell me when they "just want to be friends", so much so that I reckon that I'm next in line for sainthood. I've also arrived at this conclusion because it's not unusual for me to commit random acts of kindness.

For example, the other day when I was walking along the gauntlet, I encountered another foreign student dragging his new computer along behind him the rain. It reminded me of my 400kg TV, so I decided I'd be a Good Samaritan and help him out by carrying it all the way back to the dorm...

With this in mind, and my impending canonisation as Saint Kallun, it honestly didn't occur to me yesterday, when I was helping a lady by carrying her baby and stroller down the stairs of the train station, that it would probably have been a good idea to ask her if she wanted me to help her. Instead, I stroll up to her, compassion and kindness plastered across my face, pick up her kid in the stroller and bolt off down the stairs into a crowd of people... I can only imagine this poor lady must have thought some random white gaijin (ie: me) had just kidnapped her baby.

It would be great to go one day without committing a felony of some degree....(sigh)

A little older, a little wiser

After the past weekend, I'm a little older and a little wiser. And the sum total of my accumulated wisdom over these two days amounts to - If you need to catch the 8:23 train into the city to get to the airport by 11am, don't drink beer and bourbon & coke solidly from 9pm the night before to 4 in the morning... any other cosmic wisdom I may have attained in that period drowned in the copious amount of alcohol consumed.

I will say, though, that I have come to learn that kids that scream and cry on the train tend to scream and cry that little bit louder when you're hungover. So much so that one little 'precious angel' sitting four seats down from me on the train home almost found himself being flung out the window... Admittedly, its entirely possible that without manipulating the fabric of time and space, the kid would not have been able to fit through the very small window of the train - much less be 'flung' out of it. But focusing on the physical logistics of my plan took my mind of the throbbing migraine I had.

Which reminds me of one of the great things about the Japanese language - onomatopoeia. So I thought I'd do a bit of a Japanese language lesson on onomatopoeia in relation to drinking and the resulting hangover.

muka muka - to feel so woozy that you feel like you're going to throw-up
bero bero - to be drunk to the point of physical impairment (been there, done that)
kura kura - to feel dizzy and unsteady

I've got a Japanese language mid-term exam next wednesday, and if the whole of the exam isn't on drunk/hangover words, I am so screwed...

Evil Rice Cooker

My Evil Rice Cooker is still unplugged, yet it's still working, and it's still freaking me out...

I'm going on a long-weekend(ish) holiday tomorrow. I'm meeting an Aussie friend at the airport (who is living in Korea), and we're going to go out to Yamanashi to visit our celebrity friend, Lisa. So I won't be posting anything for a couple of days - but I'm sure I'll have something to post when I get back.

My name is Bond... James Bond

I am an utter genius. I am also cunning and slick, but most importantly, I am a genius. Why? With my dating/social life starting to pick up momentum, I find myself troubled by a slight hurdle - the dormitory. They've stressed - on more than one occasion in person, through numerous letter drops, and posters on the elevator doors - that we must not, under any circumstances, allow anyone to stay in our room. They say that this will result in immediate removal from the dormitory, and our university and embassy will likely be informed. Anywhere else in the world, and neither the university nor the embassy would give a toss, but this is Japan. Notifying the university alone will result in hassles of an unimaginable, unfathomable scale.

This, then, presents a slight problem - how do I get Ms. X into my dormitory without unleashing the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse? Well I've managed to work it out - thus the whole bit at the start about me being a genius.

The question that needs to be asked is - how would they know if you bring someone back your room? Well, they have guards here at night, and they lock the doors, so that you actually have to bang on the window to wake the guard up to get him to come and open the door. If you have a Japanese girl hanging off the arm, the guard will probably put two and two together, and work out that she isn't coming over here at 2am to help you with your Japanese lanaguage study. But supposing you manage to come back before the 'curfew', how would they know? They have video cameras. And this is why I am deserving of all this self-congratulatory praise - because I've just worked out where they are.

I was inspired after watching James Bond on TV to go off and do some reconnaissance. I know where some of the security cameras are, but its the ones that I couldn't see that concerned me - like one of my teachers used to say "It's not the rock that you see infront of you that causes you to trip and fall flat on your face..." This being the sum total of all that I learnt at high school, I wasn't about to readily ignore it. So I went and spoke to my friend Dozey.

Dozey is the security guard that sleeps all the time, but he can't be trusted to stay asleep and often wakes up at completely awkward moments - say, when you're trying to get a photo of him sleeping, for example... Anyway, just to be on the safe side, I wake him up with a rap on the window, he wakes, startled and asks me what I want. I hand over a slip of paper saying that some certified mail has been delivered to me and that I'm to collect it from him (which there was, I just hadn't bothered to collect it yet). As he goes off to get the certified mail, I lean over the desk and look at the security monitor - there are 7 cameras in operation, and there is a 4 second delay. I don't know why that last bit of info is important, but it sounds cool. I worked that out because a friend was on the screen at the time buying a drink from the vending machine, and at that exact time I could see him walk around the corner. Thus, using my brilliant powers of deduction and superfast calculator-like mind, I worked out it was a 4 second delay. I'm sure that info will come in handy at a later date.

At any rate, I now know how to get into and out of this dorm undetected. Let the games begin!