Tiny sniper - Wink your future!

The Fate

2008-10-01T23:12:00.002+09:00

A wise man once said, “All we can do until time kills us, is kill time.” So yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing this past week. Thanks to the glorious invention of the three-day weekend back in 1785, I have been able to attend one concert, one tradeshow, and one mountain, although quite how you actually attend a mountain is frankly beyond me at this point.

But first! A long meandering discussion about Fate. Or Coincidence, if you prefer. For last night, on our way back from the Mountain, we stopped in Yokohama for some Chinese food. This is a good thing to do. Not only was the food good, but it was complemented by the appearance of Yoko-san, who works at the company I did my thesis at. Said company is abour 20 miles away from Yokohama. This got me thinking about other chance meetings I’ve had the pleasure to experience in the past - queue flashback music and blurred picture:

1) Last night, on our way back from... Ok, did this one already.

2) One week ago, in Shibuya, at the Hachiko-crossing (“The busiest intersection in the world”, according to those who want it to be the busiest intersection in the world), I’m out with a couple of friends when I am distracted by someone actually pronuncing my name correctly, at very high volume, nonetheless. Queue Norwegian friend Sigrid, who is back in Japan for a month, training with MTV to present a show on Norweigian TV3. So a celebrity, no less!

3) Back in July, I was having dinner with some friends from work near Tokyo station, when Aya-chan, whom I am on a sort of friend-of-a-friend status with passes by and waves enthusiastically. She was moving to Osaka in a couple of weeks, just a little FYI.

4) Then we have the work-people: I’ve run into one guy both in Nakameguro and in Shibuya, and another time I’ve run into Ie-chan from work, also at Nakameguro, this time at the station. So 4) should really count as 4-5-6).

7) The really freaky one happened in December 2003. Tomo, Caroline, Alexandra and I thought it would be a good idea to spend three weeks travelling three thousand miles across Australia. And it was! At the start, when we camped on the World’s Largest Sand Island (Fraser) by night and bumped around in a landrover by day; a couple of Germans, an English guy and two girls of the same nationality also joined in. This was around December 20th. Our group split up on reaching the terra firma of Australia proper a day later, and we thought that would be the end of it. Ten days and 1500 miles later, without any communication of any kind, we’re celebrating New Year’s at Mrs Mcquarie’s Point in Sydney, when English girl #1 show up and happily greets us with a fairly gorgeous "Hello!"

8) Ok, I have one more, about running into a Korean guy I met in Gifu in Tokyo two weeks later, but after the Australia-story, it’s kinda hard to work up the enthusiasm. Never mind.

Now that that’s all taken care of, lets get down to the triple mentioned at the start of this post, before it got all verbose. The Concert:

Ah, the Sound of Music.

If you think Japanese people are mild-mannered, polite, and just people who don’t indulge in crowd-surfing and thereby shoving their feet and other even less preferable body-parts in your face, then you obviously weren’t at this shindig. Which is a shame, because it was what the early ninties would refer to as a blast. Did you see the purple lights, well, did ya?!

Next up: Trade Show! This was not the first time I’d made the trek (by train) out to Chiba, but it was the first time that crowd-control had gotten it into their collective hive mind that it would be a good idea to make 70 000 people walk around the entire building (a one-mile walk, thank you Google Earth) before allowing them to gain entry to the show proper. The length of the queue at it’s peak? Estimated at a mile and a half, which, yes, is almost an entire mile longer than the shoddy half-mile deal H&M managed to pull together when they opened in Ginza last month. Also, here’s what it looked like, from back-stage:

Look ma, people!

Then the triple to complete the crown. Nothing quite like a show about cars to make you more interested in Nature. A while back, I’d seen an episode of Top Gear (look it up!) where three English gentlemen travel to Japan to see what can get them from point a (Sea of Japan) to point b (Mt Nokogiri in Chiba) the fastest: a Nissan with more bhp than the spaceshuttle, or public transportation - bullet trains, that sort of thing. A story of sat-nav failiures and getting-on-the-wrong-train-’cause-the-signs-are-in-Japanese hilarity ensues. Eventually, the car option wins, by about three minutes.

But that’s not the point. The point is that Mt Nokogiri is a gorgeous place. I shall demonstrate this now:

A gorgeous place.

So a mere one hour on different trains, a 40-minute ferry, a 15 minute hike to the ropeway station an hour-long hike to the top, and we were there! Which was very much the prefered option to “here”, at least at the time.

The “we” who were “there”.

Also there? Japan’s biggest stone Buddha, a cliff sticking straight out of the (other-) rock with just a neat-o 100 foot drop straight down (“peaking into purgatory”, they called it, and yes, going up there was not completely un-scary), and a sunset.

You guessed it.

Final note: the thing that will stay with me from this trip, possibly more than any other? Two Japanese guys, who going up the trail as we were going down, went “Ninja! Ninja! Ninja!” to... get in to the spirit of things? Whenever you need a little extra energy to keep going, just exclaim that quietly to yourself. And no, I don’t know why.

Beverage of the Week #14
Name: Sprite 3G
Catchphrase: "Look at us, we've named our new softdrink after that next-gen mobile phone tech that was so hot four years ago"
Price/volume: 147 yen for 500ml
Place/time of purchase: Circle K, somewhere, 09:55
Particular Point of Interest: The 3G’s are: Glucose, Green-Tea-Caffieine, and Guarana. And yes, they call it Glucose because a) “Sugar” doesn’t have the ring it used to, and 2) calling it “Sugar and 2G” or possibly “SGG” was just not an option.
Taste: Like Sprite. Or maybe 7-up, I can never tell those apart.

Overall score (package/taste): 5/B

The Desperation

2008-09-26T20:57:00.001+09:00

You might imagine there have been goings on over the past seven days, and you would be right.

Not quite as many as you might think though, take it easy now. First of all, there’s all the crazy “I didn’t see that one coming” type-deals. For example, Autumn! I mean, what the h****? See, that extra asterisk makes it completely impossible to tell which word I’m aiming at. Could it be “helix”, or maybe “hello”; surely not the obvious answer: “helve”?

Yeah, I’ll just go play scrabble now.

Ok, back now, hope you enjoyed the break in our regularly sceduled programming. So yeah, autumn. Really? Does this mean I shall have to take out some sort of coat to wear to work? Surely not! This is Japan, and while they have yet to perfect the one-person electrical heating system (surely by next winter, though!), there is no need for a coat yet. The reason for this is that Japanese autumn, thus far, is a wuss. I’d say “sissy”, but that’s one of those words that by taking it in your mouth and making it your own, you sort of become that word, or what it means, rahter. Kind of like “extraneous”.

Man, I thought I was all scrabbled out, but apparently I was mistaken. Sorry ‘bout that.

Getting back on track (not that I can remember getting on track in the first place, but yeah), you have not lived until you have witnessed a middle-aged Japanese man in a suit try to parallel-park a Hummer H2. Yes, I know it’s the “tiny” model, but if that was your first thought, they you do not realize the magnitude of this situation. The entire population of Sweden is gathered here in a 35-mile radius from my house (and no, I don’t mean all my neighbors are blond, blue-eyed, and have a strange affinity for the outdoors and eating fish eggs on hard bread). Nine million people. Approximately 34 parking spaces for them to share. Which means that when I said before that the rent on a parking space by my building is pretty much what I paid for my 920 square feet apartment when I was a student in Sweden, I am not kidding. Supply and demand, my friends, or at least demand. Supply apparently took the day off, and was last seen heading towards Cancun. He was never spotted in the lower 48 (or at least Japan) ever again.

Sadly, I didn’t have the cohones to actually take a picture of the situation, so if you have problems visualising, feel free to use Google, or maybe that newfangled YouTube (you see, it kind of sounds like “You too!”) that them thar rotten kids are always screaming at me (?).

---

Yes, it’s the return of the three dashes to mark a new section! Yay! And in this one, I shall examine... vegetables! And ham! For you see, on my way home from the gym, I stopped off to have some vegetable tempura (look at me, being all healthy and aware-like! Probably won’t happen again. Ever). I also did some other shopping of the food kind. Now, putting aside that one banana is like two bucks, and that the money you’d have to spend on four tiny tomatoes could allow some people (me) to live the good life for a fairly long time, the story of the day is the ham. For you see, people are starting to see this whole overpopulation of the Earth-thing as a problem. To paraphrase an old teacher of mine: imagine a world with six billion humpback whales. Not much room for anything else.

But yeah, that’s not the point (surprise!). The point is that, the boffins (God, I love that word!) have figured out that you can feed more people if said people eat veggies instead of meat. For years, the meat-lobby has stood firm, arguing... well, basically not arguing anything, since people still love their meat. But now, change is coming. After my delicious veggie tempura, I tried to get back to my normal over-consuming self by purchasing ham. And what is written on the pack? “Vegetables are tasty” Seriously! Do I not feel bad enough already? Do you have to remind me that not only am I missing out on eating something that’s a) good for me, 2) good for the Earth (or comparatively less bad, anyway), but also something that’s actually tasty? Three darts is too much man, indeed.

---

Finally, this has nothing to do with Japan at all. But I found this blog the other day... It’s kind of freaky. Have you ever had that feeling, you know, walking around town, looking somebody in the eye and immediately think “Whoa, I’m sure that dude is actually an American expat living in Sweden, writing about his experiences of Sweden and Swedishness just like I’m living in Japan, writing about my experiences of Japan and Japaneseness. ” Ever get that feeling? Maybe it’s just me. But there are loads of expats writing about loads of experiences in loads of countries. So to spice things up further, this guy is from a place I am going to visit in a couple of months time, and he’s now living in Linköping, home of my dear University. Still not freaked out? Then your heart is made of stone, there is nothing more I can do here. Bet you didn’t cry when your mom told you that Mr Wiskers was just going on a long vacation in the country either, huh?

That, my friends, is essentially your kettle of fish. Except for:

Beverage of the Week #13
Name: Aquarius
Catchphrase: "Hey man, it’ll stick around for approximately 2150 years. Either that, or we named it after what we thought that catchy 60’s tune by The Fifth Dimension was called. We were apparently mistaken."
Price/volume: 98 yen for 500ml
Place/time of purchase: Foodium, Musashi-kosugi, 20:48
Particular Point of Interest: Aquarius is an (surely not “the”?) official drink of the International Olympic Commission. And no, I did not just make up “Foodium”.
Taste: Like if I had brought this climbing Mount Fuji, I would still be able to drink it, unlike Pocari Sweat. And yes, the whole point of that sentence was to inform you that I have climbed a very high mountain in Japan. Mainly by buss, but come on, it’s the 21st frikkin’ century!

Overall score (package/taste): 7/B+

The Typhoon

2008-09-20T00:14:00.001+09:00

You might imagine there have been goings on over the past four months. And you would be right.

But instead of that, let’s live in the now, and just get on with it, yeah? The problem with that is that I don’t quite know where to begin. Which means this is probably going to end up being one of those list-type posts. With numbers and crap! Here’s the official Only-In-Japan-Kids-list for the week of September 22, 2008:

1) The last time I was going to go see a movie, we got to the theatre seven and a half hours late. That’s actually not the point. Nor is the point that there was a typhoon raging outside - it hadn’t even impacted the screening scedule! However, upon choosing to have dinner instead, we discovered exhibit a) Fresh towels in the entrance for people to try to make themselves less dripping wet. It’s a grand concept, almost up there with Hello Kitty Toilet Paper.

2) Hello Kitty Toilet Paper. I’m not sure, but maybe somebody, somewhere, crossed The Line when I wasn’t watching. I mean, really?

There you go.

3) Pen-twirling. It’s the next big thing. Or the last one, damned if I know. But it’s still big enough to warrant its own display in the fabulous Tokyu Hands store in Shinjuku, They’re not taking any chances on letting this thing pass them by, I can tell you that much. Of course to begin with, you need to acquire the probper technique. This is not easy. Thankfully, people have been bored in class/meetings/while meeting the in-laws for the first time for a while now, meaning the field has been extensively researched. Now you too can enjoy the fruits of those last 10 000 years of human evolution, as long as you have a Region 2 DVD-player, and 2940 yen to spare. But of course, what use is a DVD, if you have nothing to practice with? For that reason, the boffins (damn you, boffins!) have developed special twirl-friendly pens that will allow the user to... make a strong statement to everyone around that he’s (women have better things to do, at least that’s what I’d like to imagine) so boring he’s even practiced his being boring - or at least bored - at home. Here you go, this one’s for you:

Further explanation redundant

4) There was a show the other night on TV (if you by “the other night” mean “May ‘07”, and by “TV” mean “TV”) where they were doling out legal advice on what to do, should you be falsely accused of groping someone on the subway. Apparently this is a major social issue in the country I live in. There are “women only-cars” on the trains during rush hour - I double dare you to break the social convention and actually ride in one (given that you, dear reader, is a man; it wouldn’t really be that big a deal if you are of the fair sex)! But yes, the problem has escalated so that people who get unjustly accused of groping are standing up, and with one voice, they scream from the top of their lungs: We want a portable subway strap for five bucks that shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are innocent; our hands were busy carrying this stupid plastic thing around, so there’s no way we could be groping! I still say the guy on the right could hold his files with his elbow and get a free feel in, but maybe I’m being too cynical.

Look out!

5) Ok, maybe I don’t really have a five, but have I ever ended a list with an atual entry in the list, and not one of these stupid things to use as filler? Thought not.

And that’s your kettle of fish for the week/next four months. But before I go on my merry way and try to publish this thing (which probably won’t be as easy as I hope it will), there is something I should direct your attention to. I tried finding it on YouTube, but for some reason it’s not there, and the site it’s on won’t allow me to embed it here, so I’ll just have to link it the old fashioned way. I’m sure it’s meant to be funny, but maybe not in the way it actually is. And somehow, it must have been officially sanctioned by The Company, given the environments in the video. But no, you don't have enough spare time to waste by watching this.

Beverage of the Week #12
Name: Café Use blend coffee
Catchphrase: "It’s coffee"
Price/volume: 430 yen for like 150ml
Place/time of purchase: Café Use (well duh), Shimo-Kitazawa, 16:02
Particular Point of Interest: The first café in all Japan I’ve been to that makes a point of not putting sugar or milk in the coffee. Also the first café in all Japan I’ve been to that plays music with the main lyrichs are “Sugar in my coffee”. Depending on who you ask, this could teach Alanis Morisette a thing or two about irony.
Taste: Like I could actually get used to drink coffee if it tasted like this.

Overall score (package/taste): 6/A

The Tomato

2008-05-11T19:13:00.007+09:00

Sure I'm a week late. Or am I? Maybe you were just a week early? (And it turns out that, no, you're not, and yes, I am)

In other news, I know this girl. This may come as a shock to those of you who actually know me, but it's true. What's so special about this girl that she deserves being mentioned here? Well, she owns a book about avocados. And one about tomatoes. This, to me, is absolutely gorgeous. It gets better. For you see, this weekend, I went with her to Odaiba. For those of you not in the know, allow me to inform you that not only does Odaiba host one of metropolitan Tokyo's two beaches (swimming not recommended, according to Wikipedia, so I've never tried it) and a replica of the Statue of Liberty, it also contains a Toyota showcase. Where there's a car that looks like a big tomato. With several small tomato-touches to increase the level of tomato-ness.

Sadly, it doesn't run on Bloody Marys. Apparently

Of course, the tomato-loving girl in question was overjoyed at the sight of this thing, and it's not hard to understand why. I mean, I eat a tomato every morning (as well as other things, preferably on bread) but without being a complete tomato lunatic, I could see it's appeal here in the land of, well, lets just say Japan and leave the rest up to your imagination.

Now I'm sure you think I'm going to spend this entire post blabbering on about tomatoes. Nothing could be further from the truth! I shall, instead, blabber on about other things. Like global warming, and - in an increasingly rare moment of actual segueing - cars/commuting. From the last post! For you see, there are a few reasons why I don't own a car, despite quite often ending up in really-really-wanna-buy-ville, population one. I'd like to say the main one is global warming, but of course it isn't. Not really. It's more the combination that getting a parking lot here would add US$200/month to my rent. And that gas is hitting US$1.60/liter (yeah, that tops six bucks a gallon), meaning I could get a car, but then I'd actually have to live in is as well. Have you any idea how hard it is to cook spaghetti in the back of a Prius? Thought so. Anyway, the other reason is that there are trains here, and trains that work well, run on time, that whole thing. Sure, they're overcrowded and full of ads, but that applies to the roads as well. Enter pet peeve #1783: The rolling advertising trucks clogging up downtown Shinjuku/Shibuya on any given weekend.

Like advertising trucks in the night

Now I can accept that a certain amount of physical distribution needs to go by truck, or at least need to go by truck if I'm too cheap to pay for somebody to ride a bike and get it for me from the port of Yokohama and too lazy to do it myself. But having these - by Japanese truck-standards - massive things cruising around making a nuisance of themselves for no other reason than "we want to sell ice cream using pictures of scantily clad ladies, but billboards cost too much" or "we want to sell whatever that second truck is selling using a picture of a fairly well-dressed smiling guy, but billboards cost too much" just irks me, for some reason. I'll just go ahead and lie down for a while.

That's better. Before I head off into the sunset, allow me to present you with this: It's a picture from Odaiba, which has in no way been altered by in-camera or in-Photoshop filters. Or any other such digital trickery! It just reminds me of a simpler GameBoy era, when everything was either green or grey. Or maybe, maaybe, black and white as well.

Fuji Television

And now: The beverage of the week!

Beverage of the Week #11
Name: Fanta Furufuru Shaker
Catchphrase: "Will you carbonate? You know, Jell-O? Will you? Really?"
Price/volume: 120 yen for 190ml
Place/time of purchase: Unknown, it was a gift
Particular Point of Interest: It's carbonated orange Fanta. So far so good. But it's also Jell-O. So you have to shake the can "at least ten times" before opening. Then you can suck down gelatinous chunks of... something, to your hearts content. At least if it's content with 190ml. Which, and I speak from experience here, it will be.
Taste: Like the illegitimate child of orange Fanta and, well, Jell-O. Not too bad, actually.

Overall score (package/taste): 6/B+

The Commute

2008-04-30T10:10:00.006+09:00

I know it's not Sunday. Even in Hawaii.

You may feel the need to vent this frustration on someone. Or something. I suggest the morning commute. Ok, so maybe it's not solely responsible for me being three days late with the post, but it plays a large part.

For you see, as with most things, the Japanese like to go big with their commuting. Lots of trains, lots of stations, and above all, lots of people using lots of trains to go to lots of stations. In theory, this is all very well and good. I mean, if you've got all these trains and all these stations, it would be a shame if nobody used them, right? But this beautiful theory has a fatal flaw. All of the lots of people want to go use not lots of trains to go to lots of stations; they all want to use the same train to go to the same station. At the same time. More importantly, at the same time as you.

For the commutationally impaired masses living outside Tokyo, but for some reason still earn their daily croissandwhich in said metropolis, this is (probably) a problem. Me, I commute in the other direction, so I get to sit (sit, I tell you!) and smirk at "the other people" feeling justly superior in my choice of domicile. However. Upon changing jobs, it has become necessary to sometimes go in the opposite direction some mornings, crossing through downtown Tokyo and come out the other side, if you will. This is painful. How painful? Allow me to demonstrate:

The train.

Now I forgive you for thinking "Hey, that doesn't look too bad. It's just a lot of people on a platform, waiting for the next train." Have a closer look. At the doors. They are in a state of semi-openness, not because of my superhuman photographic timing skillz (although superhuman they may be!), but because there is not a single square inch of free space inside the train, and some people just can't live with waiting for the next one, so they squeeze in anyway, prompting the men in white gloves (not the ones with white coats, but close) to with all their might forcibly push the extruding salary man flabbyness (or, in my case, just general flabbyness, I guess?) into the train. And then they try to close the doors, the above is an example where someone is still in the way.

The funny thing? This behavior is what keeps the universe from imploding. For you see, if that final salary man had not tried to mutilate your groin with his shapely attaché case, he would have had to wait for the next train. And setting aside all the micro- and macroeconomic consequences that would have, it would mean one more person trying to get on the the next train. Which is gonna be pretty f-ing full as it stands. So we're all saving the world in three easy steps.

It's a good thing the powers that be have spotted this problem and are now doing everything in their power to alleviate the sitation. The first logical step, introduction of a new SuperHero!

Hey kids, it's Mr. Business!

The final thing that causes my life to be slightly less than 100% perfect? Going shopping on the other side of tracks as everybody's coming home at night. This means you have to face the human tide, equipped only with an (admittedly gorgeous) SAAB-bike. While going shopping back home used to be a physical challenge due to various hills, inclines or whatever you call them, doing it here is a mental one; try to get back before going insane from internalizing the anger at all these people going in the opposite direction, keeping you from your goal. Really, what is the problem with some people?

And now, a Tiny Sniper Special Event! I sure didn't think we'd ever reach this stage, but here we are. History in the making. Standing on the shoulder of giants, or whatever. The 10th Beverage of the Week!

And no, I'm not telling how you can get ten beverages of the week to take seven months.

Beverage of the Week #10
Name: Kinokuniya Omo
Catchphrase: "No way did we just put tap water in here!"
Price/volume: 120 yen for 350ml
Place/time of purchase: Aoyama 1-chome station/12:50
Particular Point of Interest: Kinokuniya is mainly a bookshop. Very good selection, I especially recommend their 6th floor.
Taste: It's water. Sold at a ridiculous price to people who really should know better. Tastes like, well uhm, water. Reminds me of my history teacher telling me we drink the same water that the dinosaurs pee-peed.

Overall score (package/taste): 4/B-

The Concept

2008-04-20T12:49:00.006+09:00

It's not every week that you buy a new umbrella.

There have been two main events with which I wish to regale you this week. T-shirt shopping and breakfast with the prime minister of Sweden. In that order, though sadly otherwise without any relation to each other.

The first, and thus most important(?) - T-shirts! Finally, we are in that time of year when people realize that all their short-sleeve garments are soo 2007, and go out and buy new ones. Now I'm not one to care about other people, but it does mean that various stores try to profit from this. Now I'm not one to care about profit (or, indeed, "various stores"), but it does mean that they bring out new t-shirts for me to drool over. And then hand wash 30C, no tumble dry.

Now that I've (hopefully) got you thinking t-shirts, I've probably got you thinking Harajuku, fashion capital (well, one of them, anyway) of Tokyo. Either that, or you're thinking 990-yen cheap-ass white-tees from Uniqlo. If you are, however, combining these concepts, you are the winner of our little quiz.

Behold, the future of t-shirt shopping!

Or, indeed, the future of shopping, in general. See, a little less than a year ago, Uniqlo introduced this "concept store" (which is marketing-ese for "it's a really cool idea that's gonna cost a f-ton of money and will never ever make any noticeable ROI, but we see it as a tax-deductible brand-capital investment") where - and here's the kicker - all the clothes are t-shirts! Wait, that's not it... Where all the clothes are stuffed in plastic cylinders! Except for the jeans, that would just be silly.

Yes, when purchasing a t-shirt here, it's like you've traveled back to a vaguely 60's inspired retro-futuristic vision of "how people will consume goods in the 00's". Pretty cool stuff, then! I loves me some of that retro-futurism, big time!

Behold, the close-up of the future of t-shirt shopping!

It is at this point that I'd like to make a segue into the breakfast meeting, but regardless of how "with it" I am (enough with the retro-futurism, already! And that doesn't even make sense!), I did not head off to meet prime minister Reinfeldt wearing a t-shirt from the Uniqlo store in Harajuku. I did it in a plain white one from a Uniqlo, bought for song in Nagoya back in 2005. Good stuff. I also wore a shirt (and suit, underwear, etc; I even brought an umbrella!), but that's beside the point. The point(s), then:

1) I got to cross off another prime minister from the Grand List. Not like I spent hours one-on-one with him discussing how to tackle global warming (or how I opened the door in the face of his predecessor, and almost went to jail, as previously reported), or anything, but I still feel it counts as an achievement. Did I mention I wore a suit?

2) I learned that had he not gone into politics, he could so have ridden the Seinfeld wave in the 90's and gone into stand-up. He was genuinely funny at one point, and that was something I didn't expect.

Beverage of the Week #9
Name: Ribbon Citron
Catchphrase: "Ribbon City, population: Flavor"
Price/volume: 120 yen for 300ml
Place/time of purchase: Ebisu station/16:11
Particular Point of Interest: I wonder if that little red kid on the bottle has a name.
Taste: Like every other "cider" (lemonade?) in Japan. With a faint, but noticeable twist of lemon.

Overall score (package/taste): 7/D

The Rain

2008-04-13T11:13:00.007+09:00

I always thought that finding the work/life balance just meant working as little as possible to maintain the fun parts of life. Until I got this gig.

If you do a Google search (and who doesn't, really?) for why we talk about the weather you get around six million hits. Ok, sure, if you're all smart and use quotation marks to weed out undesirables, you get 577. But that's still a lot! So I thought I'd add one more (?).

See, it's been raining this past week. This is... not the way it's supposed to be at times other than that lovely rain month that is June/July. And while I am generally a fan of rain, it's a sort of passive fandom. I suppose it's like being audited for tax evasion, I wholeheartedly agree that it should be done, just not to me (and no, I've never missed the filing date for my Form K4, thank you).

The good things about rain even when it's really cold and happening as you are outside are:

1) You get to play the power version of SalaryMan Bingo. For those of you joining us for the home game, this is a powered up version of SalaryMan Bingo. I guess the name kinda gives that away. Anyway, SMB - the kidz love to reuse their old acronyms - basically involves getting on a train at non-peak-rush hour, and guessing at which stop the two SalaryMan (looks like a superhero name, but yes, that's still the correct plural) sitting across from you discussing how easy it is to find the warp zone in the old SMB are going to depart the train. A seasoned Marunouchi-line traveller always bets on Kasumigaseki. But yes, the power version is basically the same, only this time, you get to take into account the extraordinarily mundane umbrellas they carry, to match their very likely far too expensive suits.

(incidentally, I had a Hillbilly moment this week when I told a colleague I had to get my suit dry cleaned for an event next week. So what if I only have one!)

2) You get to pass Chiyoda sushi, and have what the internet of five years ago would have called a Lost in Translation moment. Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was my pronunciation. Maybe the clerk was hearing-impaired. Either way, when you have chosen your take-out sushi for the night, she asks "Chopsticks and soy sauce?" requiring input on if you have said articles at home, or would like some of theirs to bring with you. Being the proud owner of a pair of "Man Chopsticks" (I kid you not), and also being generally cheap, I ask for "only soy sauce, please". Having made a choice of three fine dishes I expected to be granted the standard three small packets. And I was. And then I was granted 20 more. I have no idea why, but I imagine it was because it was raining.

Another example of West Shinjuku trying to be like London. Wait, what was this post about again?

3) I can't really think of anything else, but in order to make a list, you really need three things, so here we are.

That's pretty much it, I guess. Short and sweet, just the way I like it. Be sure to tune in next week when I will have had my suit dry cleaned and had breakfast with the prime minister. 'Tis the truth, I tell you!

Beverage of the Week #8
Name: Kirin Nuda
Catchphrase: "No added sugar, no fruit juice" (then what the h*** is in there, really?)
Price/volume: 150 yen for 350ml
Place/time of purchase: Circle K /21:31
Particular Point of Interest: Looks invitingly like cheap sparkling wine, with a name to match.
Taste: You'd think a drink named something which is almost "nude" would be too good to be true. In reality, it's just not too good.

Overall score (package/taste): 6/F

The Job

2008-04-06T14:11:00.010+09:00

Too good to be true.

To most people, working seven days in a row seems a bit much. Not cripplingly so, just a bit more than you'd really like, the same as when the guy comes in and tells you that you can get a free refill of Kimuchi with your Bibinba. No, I did not make either of those up. But yes, I'm on something of a Korean kick at the moment, at least a culinary one.

The reason for this "working week" is, as you are no doubt aware (surely!), that I have a new job. At my old job. Which is kinda cool. Or actually really cool, but I'm not sure I'm able to judge that after only having worked there for four days so I'll just drop it. For now. You have been warned. Instead, I give you this:

The Sakura goodness.

This, as they say, is Sakura. You may know it from how it seems to make every foreigner in Japan take random pictures of trees every spring. But you see now, in the words of Murray Walker, "they think it's all over, and it is." Because today is the second day of summer. Logically enough, the first day of summer arrived yesterday, what with yesterday being the first day that I spent outside that didn't necessitate wearing a sweater. Or a wool overcoat, for that matter. If it's almost twenty degrees at the start of April, you can imagine what it's gonna be like here by... mid-April?

This next picture is just here 'cause it looks freakishly similar in composition to the one above, but instead of trees, it prominently features various electrical cables. How very post-industrial of me! In the future, there will be no room for trees, due to all the wiring. And such.

A not uncommon sight. In the FUTURE.

---

Now, though, I'd like to talk to you about advertising. Sadly, it is not that this blog has been purchased by what is basically a giant grocer, but rather since I'm now at least partially into that most definitely evil field of work, I feel it is important to update the people around me on how they do things here. For today's presentation, I shall use two examples, one image, and zero added sugar.

First. When I went to the movies a while back with my good friend Tomo (As I've stated elsewhere on the internet, "there's a delicious pun in there somewhere, but not good enough to learn Japanese for"), I bought a drink. A soft drink, quite naturally, as I prefer to keep the hard liquor out of the theater. Now this soft drink, which shall remain unnamed (except to say that it was Coke - not New Coke, not Classic Coke, not C2, just plain Coke) came in a very handy cup, in order for me to be able to imbibe it when I saw fit, and not having to bring the entire Coke-machine into the place with me. However! The cup came with a lid. The lid came with a tiny-@$$ CD squeezed in there, complete with flash-ads for the cinema I was currently visiting, as well as ladies underwear. A fine combination. It is, and I quote "turning the lid into the perfect marketing tool." Another possible slogan might be: "LidRock® - It's no wonder we still haven't cured cancer."

Second. LidRock is all well and good, but you have to first realize there's a tiny CD there, then actually be dumb enough to bring the thing home with you and play it in your CD-ROM-drive (whatever happened to those things, anyway?) of choice. A far simpler solution would be be to have your prospective target register his/her commuter card (Suica) in advance, and then, when he or she sees an ad poster on a train that features something he or she would like to know more about, he or she can just hold up his/her commuter card (Suica) to the poster, which reads the card, consults the database for the registered email address associated with said card, and sends you an email about the product. Or you could just, you know, access the website. It's probably not that hard.

Suica registration is a beautiful thing.

And that was supposed to be it. But as I wrote that, the little ticker-thing I have at the bottom of the screen informed me that a US man just got 2.6M$ for the domain name pizza.com. It all feels very late-nineties, somehow.

Tune in next week as I will have worked all week! Again!

Beverage of the Week #7
Name: Pocket Juicer Stand Kiwi Smooie
Catchphrase: "As if you still don't have enough crap in your pockets"
Price/volume: 120 yen for 300ml
Place/time of purchase: Heiwa Park /15:00
Particular Point of Interest: The second in a series of two exclusive PJS-tests
Taste: If you really want that much kiwi, you should probably consider buying one. And possibly moving to New Zealand.

Overall score (not an average): 7/D

The Wait

2008-03-28T15:47:00.009+09:00

It has been brought to my attention that a great deal of my posts start with the word "so".

In order to justify the fact that this post is tagged with "toilet cleaner, F1, exhibitionisms", I shall proceed to proclaim the following: I went to baseball. On a Wednesday.

For you see, it is not every day that the World Champion Boston Red Sox - and yes, that little bit of extra arrogance still bothers me, despite it probably being true - face off with the Oakland Athletics (which, by the way, is the far superior name for a baseball franchise). Ok, maybe it actually is every day, I don't know. But apparently the A's are moving to some place called Fremont, prompting affluent white young Bay Area Volvo-owning Americans to protest.

But that's not the point. Either. The point is that it was all on in Tokyo dome, filled with 55296 random people, and three guys I know from work. Upon arrival, half an hour before the opening toss, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd walked in on NHK filming a special... I don't know, I honestly have no idea why you'd fill the entire infield with people doing their very best to convince the world they live and die by Bushido.

In the words of the entire internet, formal attire ftw wtf!

But all was not lost, or won, for that matter. There was still the little matter of watching the game. You'd think paying a quintuple digit amount of any actually existing currency for a seat would pretty much guarantee interest enough to pay attention, but no. It just guarantees that you have enough cash to buy the ticket so that you can proceed to watch the game. On your phone.

Sorry 'bout the flash there, buddy

I can understand how when - watch me name-drop corners from the Suzuka Circuit - sitting in the Spoon curve you might want to keep appraised of lap times and leader boards by, say, bringing along a tv and a frikkin' satellite dish. But at a baseball game? Where the action's always right in front of you and the scoreboard is right there? You might think it was for the color commentary, but the guy's not even bothered to produce his ridiculously tiny headphones. And no, that screen is so small that it sure ain't to watch the close-ups.

Sanctioned usage of television at sporting event

Now, though, there is but one thing left to do. And that is to say I went to Ikebukuro prior to the game. Once upon a time, I was there quite often, having to do with me living a mere hour and seventeen minute bike-ride away. Lately, though, living not-there has changed my Ikebukuro habits to the extent that I only ever go there to catch the night bus. Which, lemme tell ya, ain't that often, see? But this time, it was not for the bus. Nor for the sushi. Although that was good too. Hell, it wasn't even for the Bic Camera, despite the very convenient bathrooms. No siree, it was for Café Pause.

Which is a great name for a Café. Given the chance to get side-tracked, I'll jump at it with the strength of ten men and the sleepiness of a koala bear. For you see, it is not only in Sweden that hair dressers have "funny" or "funny" names:

I'm not sure this is a good thing

Anyway, back to Café Pause - and watch as I stick to just one subject all the way down to the rest of the post! There is currently an exhibition there. It's actually running for another week, so you still have time to make the money for the ticket, pay the fare, and go. Kinda. If you like ok latte and pretty pictures, it's definitely worth the trip. I went for the pictures, but I ended up staying for, well, for the pictures. It was really uplifting to see something genuinely beautiful, and genuinely depressing to come to the understanding that some people just see things in this world that I don't. And genuinely uplifting that those people are nice enough to show it to me. And I'll stop now.

Beverage of the Week #6
Name: Pocket Juicer Stand White Natadekoko
Catchphrase: "As if you don't have enough crap in your pockets already"
Price/volume: 120 yen for 300ml
Place/time of purchase: Heiwa Park /14:59
Particular Point of Interest: The first in a series of two exclusive PJS-tests
Taste: The first comment upon drinking this was, and I quote "why did they mix these white cubes of coconut with toilet cleaner? And why did I then proceed to purchase it?!"

Overall score (not an average): 7/F-

The Addiction

2008-03-23T13:46:00.007+09:00

There's no way this can be healthy.

For the second time in what mere mortals refer to as a week, I have returned to the internets! But the last post was kinda different, so lets not count that one, and just get on with it. The reason for the getting on with it is that I've got a job!

Ok, before you go all nit-picky and try claiming that that's been true for all of the mighty fourteen months since I left the cradled world of university life, let me expand by introducing a modifier. I've got a new job! For those of you noble enough to have read the comments on the last post, I hinted at this opportunity there, and it has since come to fruition. In what's probably the fastest turn of events ever, I applied on Monday, got the call to come to an interview on Wednesday, had the interview on Thursday, and got the news I'd passed on Friday. In retrospect, Tuesday was quite uneventful.

So now that we've taken care of the important things, let's get down to what really matters, which in this case would be me detailing how wonderfully strange life in Japan is, and how small the world the world can be sometimes.

Exhibit A) In many cities, especially the ultra-urbanized city-centers, the issue of graffiti is one that has caused many a mayor sleepless nights. Whatever the basis or rationale for it, it is a fact of life in many cities. This is the part where I tell you about how ridiculously clean and efficient Japan is, because they've... abolished spray paint? Sadly however, this is not the case. I present you with the following evidence that in their heart of hearts, Japanese kids also just ache to take to the streets, chanting "Vi vill ha en lokal". (And yes, you are certainly entitled to ask what's the point of this thing being in English if I insist on making Swedish in-jokes all the time)

Ok, it's a crappy hard-to-read shot, but look close enough and I hope you'll agree Japanese graffiti lacks the punch of its American or even Swedish counterparts

Exhibit B) The other day, on one of my travels, I came across the following, which basically informs people that at this particular Pachinko establishment, patrons are not allowed to automize the process of losing all their money by fixing the handle in place.

Lots of Japanese squiggles, and a big STOP, basically

Update! Upon consulting my knee-deep-in-Pachinko mafia connections, it turns out that if you manage to fix the handle in the exact right place, you can just keep feeding the machine quarters or balls or squirrels (or whatever it is you feed it) and keep winning, well quarters or balls or squirrels, basically. Serves me right for only having played once (borrowing 500 yen and turning it into 5000 in five minutes is still my prime - and, sadly only - gambling achievement).

Exhibit C) Bet you were expecting me to change it up with a humorous "Exhibit 3" instead, huh? No dice, continuity cops! Instead, before the Beverage of the Week makes its celebrated return, I shall offer you this: It's the first ever - surely! - Japanese sighting of what nine million people know and cherish as Lösgodis, something which is best - though certainly not most accurately - translated as "loose candy" with a definite promiscuous air about it. The sighting took place in Roppongi (where else, really?), and upon reading the fine print, you'll see that getting 200g of the stuff (normally the prescribed amount for going to a non-romantic movie) will set you back 630 yen. Which is more than six $US. Which back in 1961 would have netted you 2437 yen. Which today... Yeah, I kinda lost me too.

(Not) Only in Japan, kids

So yeah, there you have it! And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for: A tirade about Copenhagen Airport. No, not the actual facility itself, but the album it's spawned. Normally, I'd think it was funny enough to have come across a find such as this at my local Tsutaya (think Blockbuster if your American, Patriks Video if you're not), but it doesn't end there, oh no! For you see, upon consulting the track list, one notices that there are several tracks there by a band called Physics. Which is all very well and fine, until - dadadaduuuum - you realize that that's the same Physics that my first Swedish Japanese teacher (hah!) played in. And probably still does, for all I know. So this means one of two things:

1) Either they've really made it big, are already famous from Tirana to Tashkent, and I'm just late to join the party (surely impossible!). OR

2) The world is really, really small. Which is kinda the point I'd like to make, so bear with me. First of all, the series of events that conspired to me living in Tokyokohama in the first place are kind of what the 80's kidz would call "whack". No less "whack" are those that conspired to have me walk in to Tsutaya with enough time on my hands to check not only movies, but also music. Not to mention those that had me find a two year-old album partly by a band my old teacher belongs/ed to, named after the airport that almost always takes me home and back. That's just freaky.

And now, your international moment of Beverage:

Beverage of the Week #5
Name: Hukkokudo Cream Cider
Catchphrase: "Add vanilla to your carbonated cream"
Price/volume: 120 yen for 300ml
Place/time of purchase: Heiwa Park /14:58
Particular Point of Interest: Something must have made me try it?
Taste: Carbonated cream is the next New Coke

Overall score (not an average): 7/D

The Fissel

2008-03-18T10:52:00.002+09:00

So yeah, it finally happened. It was bound to, really, sooner or later.

Just a word of warning, this may very well turn out to be one of those (very, very few) posts which aren't so much fun for you to read as they are for me to write. It's all about catharsis, or something. It doesn't even have a Beverage of the timeperiod-since-the-last-post! Or pictures! Go on, treat yourself to something fun instead. I know this great little place called YouTube.

On Thursday, it's Vernal Equinox Day here in Japan. "But of course, they don't call it that, they call it" uhm, 春分の日, which just looks plain weird, wouldn't you say? For average Joa Tanaka (name changed to protect the actual identity of the caller), this is a day to revel in the arrival of Spring, and that his language is far more succinct than English with reagrds to Equinoxes, be they Vernal or Autumnal! And no, I did not just look that up.

It's also a day of mourning. For all the people who miss the winter here, with its let's-see-if-we-can-make-it-colder-inside-than-it-is-outside approach to global warming. I am not one of them. I can't be sure anymore, but I imagine I liked Swedish winter marginally better than the Japanese one, mainly on account of insulation being present in the buildings. But if my Swedish self heard me say that, he'd probably be all like "Yeah, you love the slush and rain, don't you, slush-and-rain-lover!". Apparently, my Swedish self is about seven years old.

Now, as I have previsouly detailed elsewhere, spring is a time of new beginnings, especially here in the land of 2 000 000 vending machines. The school year starts, the cherry blossoms do their thing, and everybody starts going to the park on Sunday because nobody else will probably have thought to do that yet (Yes, they will also be terribly wrong). And so, given that it feels kinda silly to go around in jacket made of actual winter (or should that be made of actual summer?) when it's 15 degrees out, our young hero dons his spring ditto, and heads out into the world.

The first thing you need to in spring is renew something. It's just the spirit of the thing. So instead of renewing things like my apartment (which would cost money) or my pledge to join a gym (which in an of itself wouldn't cost anything, but were it ever to be honored would cost heavily in percentage of body fat), I decide to go look for a job. At the company where I work.

Allow me some build-up-to-the-fall backgroundish reveling. I have never failed to get a job I've applied for. I leave it up to the all mighty Intranet to decide if this is indicative of me only applying for jobs anybody can get, or actually being infused from birth with magic, job-getting powers. I have, on occasion, been offered two jobs at the same time, and - not being ambitious enough to work 80 hours a week at one job, much less two - been forced to cherry-pick. It's all quite stressful. But as it turns out, monkeys apparently do fall from trees (much more colorful than "the sun has its spots", yeah? Joe Tanaka 2, Rest-of-world 0). Not all the time, though, that would just be silly. Also, it would eventually make them stop trying to climb the damn things in the first place, one would hope.

The most annoying thing about - queue overly drammatic Danny Elfman tune - faililng? I have nothing to complain about! The rationale behind the decision is solid, the way the news was delivered was considerate, and as far as I know, the guy deciding is - shock, horror - nice! How am I supposed to work around that, I ask you?

So esentially, for all intents and purposes, this has been a very roundabout way of saying excuse me while I go wallow in chocolate. And then head to the park. It'd be a shame not to, really, on a day like today.

The Logistics

2008-02-21T13:49:00.007+09:00

A lot of things can happen in, uhm, four months?

So yes, I'm back! By actual public demand! With exclamation marks! Now you may be thinking that this hiatus occurred because so many interesting things happened in my life that I just did not have the time to write about them. Or, you may be thinking, that so few interesting things happened in my life that it took all this time to scrape together enough stuff to fill this post (which so far isn't really about anything at all, further strengthening that theory). You would, however, be wrong.

Damn it, what did my creative writing teacher say about not being rude to the audience? Come on, focus!

I guess what it all comes down to is that circa October/November 2007, when the entire Western World congregated on Facebook, and the entire Eastern World (which obviously exists entirely of the Islands of Japan) did the same on Mixi and 2-chan (at once!), what little relevance this thing used to have went out the window. The Personal Blog is Dead, and all that. But you know, it's just not. So now that Global Warming has smiled on me to the extent that I was able to sit on the balcony and finish off a book this fine morning, I think it's time again. Feel free to bear with me, if you care for puns of that particular nature.

Snow! In Tokyokohama!

That being said, the picture is the view from the very same balcony mere days(-ish) ago. And I did go snowboarding ten days ago. If by "snowboarding", you mean... Here, the old - or rather, young - me would have gone with something like "if you mean falling on your ass much to the merriment of all around", but boarding actually went pretty well. I guess my extensive surfing experience - having failed spectacularly at it on two separate continents - really helped. Not like I was instantly transformed into *pauses to google "world famous snowboarder"* Terje Haakenson *curses at realization that the article is three Olympics old* but by the end of the first day I could turn, and by the end of the second, I could imagine I looked like Terje Haakenson doing it. Naturally, pausing to imagine that broke my concentration and made me fall on my ass, but there you have it.

While the above alone would easily qualify it as one of the top three ski/board-trips of my life, there was more. Logistics, for instance. Now I did not major in it, and I guess it showed. For you see... Taking it from the proverbial top, the story goes: Our hero gets on the night bus in Ikebukuro at 23:00 to arrive in Hakuba at 07:30 the following morning. Only he doesn't, because the tour operator somehow "misplaces" his reservation. A full hour - I shit you not - of the one guy in the suit calling somebody else - probably not wearing a suit, given the hour - and I'm on the bus. Groovhey.

Logistics-failure #2. The first night is spent with friends who came up from Gifu. Unfortunately, they had to cut the trip short due to a slight relationship/communication SNAFU, meaning I was left on my own for the second day. No matter, the second team of friends were incoming to rescue me from riding lifts with Japanese people who, when I told them I was from Sweden, asked which country I was from. At least they had the courtesy not to believe it was Spain. Or Switzerland.

Logistics-failure #3. The second friend-team had also split up on that day, one half heading home. This in and of itself was not a failure, it was part of the original plan. What wasn't, however, was that the driver's cornea would start to come loose. This, as I am sure you can imagine is not entirely pleasant. So having joined up with team #2, we pack it up and start heading back to Tokyo to take over the driving, to much protestations from the gallant driver. Thankfully though, his condition stabilizes and nothing happened on the way back.

And now, having suffered three logistics-failures in one trip, the sun finally shines. As I'd rented my board and gear in Hakuba, with no way of returning it in the middle of the night when we unexpectedly left for home, I had to return it someway. But to the delight of everyone, the fact that I now knew the Japanese word for cornea meant I could explain things to the rental-place, who let me off without even having to pay for the extra day it would take to return the gear via Kuroneko Yamato ("black-cat ancient Japan", basically Fed-EX. Not UPS!). Thank you Japan, good night!

Feel free to tune in next week - which if the past is any judge will occur sometime in mid-June - as I will have gone to Disneyland! Or I could just be making that up.

Beverage of the Week #4
Name: Ambasa Sour White
Catchphrase: "Ambassaaaaa!"
Price/volume: 120 yen for 300ml
Place/time of purchase: Bus station in Kawasaki /22:12
Particular Point of Interest: It's Ambasa, does it really need one?
Taste: Heavy on the White, light on the Sour

Overall score (not an average): 7/B

The Escape

2007-10-26T22:12:00.000+09:00

A lot of things can happen in two fortnights.

I knew it was too ambitious. The project was doomed from the start. It was one of those things that seemed like such a good idea on paper, that once it was realized it would change the world. Not unlike the entente cordiale or possibly chocolate covered macadamia nuts. I am of course referring to the Beverage of the Week, the incredible new (going by the actual number of posts) old (going by the amount of time since the first one) feature of this here blog. And today, as ever, it's a doozy.

However, as I sit here in my increasingly cold apartment (I have got to get in on that space heater action, soonish), there are other things that weigh on my mind. The first? Escape the cold. It's all very Maslowian. Now, to escape the cold (without resorting to purchasing a space heater or wearing actual clothing), you can, well, escape. This, in turn, provides you with two options: North or South. Not a very big idea to escape the cold by running East or West, although I guess it is colder in central Siberia than it is in Stockholm.

So? I tried it. But since I can't really decide on a direction, I figured I go for South-western Tohoku (again, "there's a delicious pun in there, but certainly not good enough to warrant extensive Japanese language study"). Or just Tohoku, whatever. There's a place there called Matsushima, which is one of Japan's "Big three sights". They do love their lists here, or so says Lonely Planet of five years and three editions ago.

Who knew? There are green, flat things in this country!

Day 1: Weather not great. Sights? Definitely top three

Day 1: Weather improved. Sights? Certainly not top anything

Now there are also some quaint features of heading out into the countryside in Japan. Like how you have to push a button to open the train doors (we almost missed our stop! What's next, manually having to push it open?!), or how you can actually smell salt in the air. Once. But it still counts. Don't get me wrong. Coming from a metropolis of 8500 souls, I should not be one to mock the laid-back country lifestyle. Especially when they've got elevators like this:

Welcome to 1984

So yeah, that would be the first attempt at escape. The second one? having tried all directions at once, I decided to stay in and unpack. My entire life. With bits slightly broken and tattered, but overall ok. For you see, I am once again the proud owner of all my junk. And some exciting new junk as well, so that I can display my old junk properly. It's the greatness! Took a fair while to get it all together, though, but at least it is now done (except a tiny pile of things that just don't seem to want to end up anywhere but on the floor, for some reason. Think I'll keep it there).

Of course, that stunt didn't prove effective for very long, before you knew it, I was back in reality again. So if escaping didn't work, and not escaping didn't work, surely escaping again would, right? Flawless logic. Which is why I shall be traveling to the tiny Pacific island of Saipan with someone very dear to my heart, in what is practically only a week's time! Ten glorious days of, and I am quoting here, "Sola och bada, pina colada". And no, I can't be bothered to make the squiggly thing above the "n". Won't be drinking that anyway.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! Or at least the lead-up to it. Kind of a theme, this week. Is it any wonder I chose to live in this country, where the donut-ads are 8-bit throwbacks and the soda made from RPGs? (and no, I don't work at Fox News; it's not that kind of RPG)

Mr Donut will be crowned King Donut based solely on this ad. At least he should, damnit!

Beverage of the Week #3:
Name: FFVII Potion Limited Edition (Tifa version)
Catchphrase 1: "Guano bowls, collect the whole set!"
Catchphrase 2: "Gotta catch 'em all!"
Price/volume: 200yen for 350ml
Place/time of purchase: Maruetsu/16:36
Particular Point of Interest: You're never gonna find one with Aeris on it. Also, it's prime ingredient is "Royal Jelly", something sure to turn the stomach of any Futurama fan
Taste: Way better than you might think, given the packaging and, well, concept in general

Overall score (not an average): 9/B+

The Wedding

2007-09-29T09:24:00.000+09:00

A lot of things can happen in a fortnight.

I know, I know, I it must have been horrible to go a whole extra week without "Beverage of the week", so just scroll down and there you'll find it. In other news, I have been back to Saitama with one very good friend, attended a trade show with 190 000 other people (some friends included, no purchase necessary), and been to a wedding. Not my own. I think.

But, time is of the essence, as ever. The reason for this is that I have to go to work. On a Saturday. This sucks in a not small way. "What cannot be changed, must be endured", and all that honkey. Anyway. Why would you go to Saitama? Aside from the obvious reasons of "why not?" and "I'm all out of Skittles", the main reason for me and Tomo was that we "studied" (yes, I'm intentionally trying to make this paragraph the most quotation-mark-intensive one since 1998) there what is now a full four years ago. So we basically pottered around up there for a while, getting all nostalgic about things people usually get nostalgic about. Like supermarkets where the one gallon whiskey-jugs are now placed slightly across from the bikes and tvs, but at a price; you can't get puppies there anymore.

To further increase your amusement (anything for you!), here are some random pictures from Saitama, spiritual home of... Something, I'm sure.

The Happy Road. On what we who have lived up there know to be the right side of the tracks.

The bad news: Fresh bars so students can't sneak back onto campus at night to party wildly anymore. The good news: they haven't done anything about the four-foot hedge being the only thing barring entry on the north side.

In the grand tradition of this blog, guess the place where the warning sign was posted, and win absolutely nothing.

One grand tour and a baseball game later (which Chunichi embarrassingly lost by one, despite me having purchased impossibly over-priced cheering paraphernalia at the event), it was time for the big ol' yearly event out in Makuhari. It was... much like it was when we were there in 2003. If you happen to be one of the 6.7 billion people who was not there in 2003, let me sum up the entire trade-show experience in one picture:

Why this sign was not present at Hultsfred, I will never know.

Finally, there was a wedding. Now, some things of this nature you just don't see coming, whereas others can be spotted a mile (or eight or so years) away. This falls into the latter category. I guess it's pretty uncommon for people to come away from a wedding thinking "this'll never last", but in this case, I feel fairly confident in saying that these two were made for each other. If you had been there too, you would agree. On this you shall have to trust me.

Now, I had never been to Japanese wedding before, so I was probably the third most nervous person there (after the staffer who saw this random foreigner approaching, probably to spoil the party, and the guy at the back who quenched all his nervousness in liquor, making him scream out humorous things at well-chosen times throughout the ceremonies). This is a whole different level compared to the informal Swedish one I'd been to. Things I had to do to get ready:

1) Get a white tie. No, it's not a funeral, but that's the deal here.
2) Borrow a suit, since my own suits have only just now arrived in Yokohama harbor with all the rest of my junk.
3) Get a special envelope to give the tradition wedding-present: cash.
4) Learn that you can't give an even number of bills, as that would imply that the couple too would be divisible.
5) Get new bills. No old money here.
6) Get a special pen to write on the special envelope.
7) Spend two hours on the internet learning what to write on the envelope.
8) Spend another hour trying to write that, legibly, and failing horribly. Why use regular Kanji for numbers when you can write them like they did back in the old days?
9) Spend on sleepless night worrying I might screw up all the proper polite phrases used especially for weddings. Ok, so I slept fine, whatever.

Not my computer, but the fine penmanship is indeed mine.

Once all this was accomplished, the ceremony was held, I realized I could probably have gotten away with a lot less worrying. It was a grand ol' time, with waterworks from pretty much everywhere. I won't post pictures of the couple since they're off doing what they're doing and I'm not sure it would be kosher, but I'm certain you can imagine the scene: two happy Japanese people in fancy garb, surrounded by lots of other happy Japanese people. And a half-Japanese guy, some people from Taiwan, and me.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

Beverage of the Week #2:
Name: Lifeguard
Catchphrase: "Because no other beverage looks this good in camo"
Price/volume: 130 yen for 500ml
Place/time of purchase: Saitama Univeristy/15:16
Particular Point of Interest: The World's First "Bionic Drink" (possibly)
Taste: Like it's probably gonna be the World's Last "Bionic Drink"

The Lemons

2007-09-11T14:06:00.000+09:00

Across from my apartment, there is a lady who is not cleaning her window. That is not to imply that I think she needs to clean her window, merely a statement of fact.

If I make my way down to the first floor, turn left, and walk for 15 minutes, I end up in... not Shinjuku, as was once the case, but at least Kappa Sushi. Which ain't bad, really. However, the Gods do have their fun with me from time to time. For you see, I have now for all intents and purposes moved to my place of permanent residence. But I still don't have a bed. Or a frying pan (or, as a sign in the place I stayed before said, "this pan suitable for flying"). That will all come later, or hopefully sooner, as it's currently winging its way across what I'm hoping is a very pacific Pacific. Or at least Indian.

The Gods do not only keep me from my crockery, they can also be a little over-zealous in their concerns for my personal hygiene. Like just now, when I went out to have Ramen-noodles (which is pretty much like saying "CD-skiva" in Swedish. Or French, for that matter): The noodles were the best I'd had since getting here - Yayaya is not opening in its new location for another month - but when we were getting ready to leave, the heavens opened and water came flowing down. I suppose that means that there's a large reservoir of water above the heavens, which might not really be the case, but the thing is, we got really wet. In the tropical sense. Not in the Amazon-sense, but pretty frikkin close. And of course, when we get back through the thunder and the rain, it all decides it's had enough fun, and stops. The joke, my friends, is on me. Again.

There is much rain in Japan. And traffic signs.

So yes, I am now "settled in", whatever that means for a person typing this on a collapsible chair. It might mean that posts become at least a little more frequent (the opposite would be hard to imagine), and since I now have The Internet, they may even get their picture-element back.

Right now, though, I'm far too busy (have to watch tv!) to continue these blog-shenanigans. I shall leave you with this, what I intend to make a weekly recurring segment of the show. The Beverage of the Week! Why would this be of any interest whatsoever? Hey, I only provide the questions. Socratic method, and all that jazz.

Beverage of the Week #1:
Name: Lemon's Lemon
Catchphrase: "Because it isn't just anybody's Lemon"
Price/volume: 120yen for 140ml
Place/time of purchase: Okurayama Station/22:04
Particular Point of Interest: Contains 50 Lemons' worth of vitamin C
Taste: Like it contains 50 Lemons' worth of vitamin C

Overall score (not an average): 6/B

The Retard Rodeo

2007-08-07T22:01:00.000+09:00

No, I don't mind that much. I might even have gone, had one of my (two) soccer-crazy friends mentioned the event more than ten hours before... tee off?

Yeah, the rodeo's in town. That town is Shin-Yokohama, and the rodeo takes the shape of approximately five point eight billion fans of Barcelona. Don't really know what that town has done to deserve all that love, but I suspect it's all to do with Henke Larsson. Anyway, when I get back from my new place (to the place I'm staying in until the appliances I've ordered get delivered on Sunday), I'm greeted by at least half of the five point eight billion soccer fans, and also five hundred random Chinese people all with the same type of luggage, all moving "up-stream", as it were, away from the station. Throw in a couple of "public safety officers" trying their very best (i.e. their very loudest) to guide said public, and you have a recipe for if not disaster, then at least humor of a kind very few people actually appreciate.

Oh dear, my A.C. just started making strange sounds. In the middle of Japanese summer, that's right up there on the unpleasantness scale with the stewardess kindly informing you - half way over Siberia - that your side of the aircraft is having some electrical difficulties. Good thing, at least the other half will survive us plummeting thirty thousand feet to our frozen doom.

But yeah, I'm getting off track. What has indeed happened since the last time I posted anything, is that I've moved to Japan. I've got the little stamp in the passport to prove it. I have found an apartment... Well, let's not be bashful, it's actually a "designer mansion". Ok, so maybe 40 sqm doesn't seem like much of a mansion to you, but that's your loss, frankly. In Japanese, it's a "mansion", and a designer one at that. I, my friend, am living the high-life. Currently, it contains one A.C. and a couch. Or sofa, of you swing that way. More stuff will fill that place by the end of the week, though, take my word for it.

So that's pretty much what's been taking up all the time I haven't been working. Once I get reconnected to the internet at my new place in a short-short 12 days' time, I might even post some pictures. Yes, I shall live without access to the internet, something mankind has not done for any long stretch of time since the days when it was spelled with a capital "I".

Ok, I'll go and... pretend to be busy with something over there now. In the mean time, ponder the fact that the internet may be the best invention since I was born (fine, I'm not that old, whatever). Except for Pizza Hut's sausage crust pizzas. You take all the wholesome goodness of a hot dog and combine it with the nutritious explosion that is a pizza, and there you have it. Walking heart-attack? I'll take two, please.

The Pack

2007-07-13T18:06:00.000+09:00

Last night, I went out to get a pack of what cigarettes. Because I'm moving to Japan.

Of course, they weren't for me. There are far too many great as-yet unknown ways of contracting cancerous tumors for me to spend my time attempting to procure one by pursuing that particular old-fashioned route. While I have been given a pack by a young woman who came all the way from Tokyo to Nagoya "just to give you this, since I saw you on TV", I have never actually purchased any myself. No, they were for this man. I shall call him Ken, because that wasn't his name. He was at my house. With what I can only assume was if not a friend, than at least a colleague, in the shape of Toby. Which wasn't his name, either. But still, two random guys were at my house. Which, yes, technically isn't my house. The lies!

Anyway, they were movers. Now I have some experience in dragging loads of stuff back and forth to Japan, but for all the times I've done it, I've never felt compelled to employ the services of two men and a huge truck. Well, ok, felt compelled, yes, actually done it, no. So it was me, Ken, Toby, and the truck. Which was stuck. Obviously.

It doth be in there good. Or bad, as it were.

Due to recent actual rains and various deities giving it the old college try to rain on my parade in a more poetic sense, Ken backed up over a patch of ground which, it turns out, wasn't really ground at all. Man, was that truck at an awkward angle while we waited for assistance in the form of a great big tow-truck.

The not-quite-right way up. And no, that's not my crap in there, thankfully.

None of this, of course, explains what I was doing purchasing saran-wrapped cancer on a stick. Or would that be in a stick? I'm not quite sure. Either way, they were for Ken, an excuse that when given to shop keepers across the land by nicotine-craving 13 year-olds has fallen on deaf ears. For me, it worked like a charm. Maybe it was because the old lady behind the register was busy screaming "If you're not going to make a purchase, just get out!" at what I can only assume was a group of nicotine-craving 13 year-olds.

So yes, the moral of this story kids? Stay in school. And while you're in school, feel free to say a prayer (as I imagine people in schools do) for all my junk, which is now slowly winging its way East. I hope. Maybe some of it will actually arrive, and some of that might actually not be broken. Hope, as they say, springs eternal.

---

However, the above does little to explain my absence from the intertubes over the past month. That, you see, has to do with vacation, a subject surely far less interesting than that of trucks at weird angles, and also, cigarettes. So it follows it won't get as much space here. Suffice to say, vacation, in all its many, many forms, kicks ass. Seriously. If you haven't tried it, you really should. Sometime soon. It is, as they say in Japan, completely frikkin' お奨め.

I went to a place I had not been in a number of years that can only with the utmost difficulty be counted on one hand. And it was, as they say in Ireland, grand. And yes, I'm very much word-dropping to show off my globe-trotterianism. Anyway, here's what it looks like. One of these was shot during the day, the other was shot at sunset. For once, he tells the truth!

Sunset or midday? You be the judge!

Midday or sunset? It can't be both!

So now, as the sun sets on my time in Sweden (see what I did there? That's was what they call in Sweden a P3-segue) for what in all likelihood be almost a full year, I sit here, wondering... Not about the big questions, really, but more practical matters like how do I end this post? If you have any ideas, feel free to contact me, you do know the number. In the meantime, I'll be busy starting another new life in Japan. This time it's for real.

The Business

2007-06-17T19:23:00.000+09:00

Say what you will of the French, but no people have gone further in mastering the art of the incredibly annoying Nokia ring tone-alarm-wakeup-thing.

Indeed it does, my friends.

So yeah, I've been away. You may have noticed. You may not have, that's entirely up to you. But a couple of months ago, I received in the mail a silver-tinted card, officially making me a member of my chosen airline alliance's middle-tier bonus club. Which was nice of them, although I do agree with research that suggest those who end up third are generally happier than those who get second place ("Yay, I made the podium!" vs "Bugg'rit, missed out on winning. Again"). But this induction into the carbon polluters secondary hall of shame meant I of course had to do something with the point-things.

By the way, I really miss the days when I could sanctimoniously scoff at pretty much most other people just because I didn't have a car. Now it seems I can't get on a plane without having an attack of carbon-conscience. Somebody should just take matters into their own hands and disinvent fossil fuels altogether.

Anyway, back to what might resemble a story. What to do about the points? Fly, of course. Where? I have two (or possibly three, now) entirely separate friends in Ireland, lets go see them! (this may or may not in fact have been the primary motivation for the trip, but it seems so much globetrotterian to go the other way). However, even after payment, there would still be some points left. They were about to go bad, just like that piece of soft cheese I've just blatantly ignored in the fridge since its purchase back in times ancient. So yes, since I am now a working man and will likely have less holiday-days a year than you can count on one finger, why not go the whole nine yards and do things in style: Business class. Oh yeah.

Things are very much the smoothness on my flight out, but the return journey? Can-fucking-celled. Technical difficulties. While part of me - yes - can appreciate the fact that the airline took time out of its schedule to check it wouldn't kill us all this time, I can't help thinking the Karmic Gods are laughing their collective behinds off. My second ever business class trip turns into a re-routing via Switzerland, and a six-hour delay in arrival. But being the one and only (Chesney Hawkes!) business passenger from Zürich made me appreciate the reverse of that Seinfeld skit where he imagines what the look back from the stewardess closing the little curtain means: "If you only tried a little bit harder, I wouldn't have to do this to you, you know".

Also! While apparently I am naive enough to believe the guy who told me the EU allows airlines to not give out monetary compensation when flights are grounded on technical grounds, I was generously treated to lunch at the airport. Who says there's no such thing as a free lunch?

Really, it tasted better than it looks

On the flight, reading the staple of the business traveler, the Financial Times, I find this little piece about China and India. And visas! You see, they're not really happy with each other about some random land somewhere. China wants it. India kinda wants it too. Same old, same old. But instead of taking the active option - just invade and get it over with, one way or another - India negotiates sending a team of negotiators to China to talk it over, and possibly have some tea. But these meta-negotiations... crash and burn. You see, China refused this one guy an entry visa. This is a valid reason for getting upset, I feel. But the reason was that since the guy was from the disputed area, China thus considered him to be Chinese, and not in need of a visa in the first place. Now as a guy who's been through his fair share of visa-related crap over the years, let me just tell you, negotiator-guy, don't be an idiot. You take that ball and run with it as far as you possibly can. One less visa-requirement in the world will only make it that much better a place to pollute by flying frivolously around it.

The Financial Times

Now that the actual journey has been covered in excruciating detail, I can leave you with incontrovertible proof of my having been on the Emerald Isle. Or at least ofbeing able to find things quickly on Google Images. I present you with the greatest phallus symbol there is in all the land, located in downtown Dublin, no less!

A giant... thing

You didn't honestly think this post would include stories of merriment with friends in an exotic land, did you? If you did, you are forgiven. Come back soon, as I will have gone on a boat. In an ocean!

The Barbaridad

2007-05-28T22:38:00.000+09:00

There's not much else to say really. That's it, game over.

As you have by now no doubt noticed, the streak of timely Sunday-updates has come to an end. There are reasons for this, and they can exclusively be spelled "working the f***ing weekend". If I were in the mood to elaborate on that particular point, I would spell it "working the f***ing weekend, starting at 06:00 on the Saturday and ending at 18:00 on Sunday". I would then be guilty of a lie of omission since I did in fact not work that entire time. In between, I slept, ate, and... balanced my checkbook? That I don't have?

So yes, this means that a) you should all be feeling very, very sorry for me (as is generally the case), and b) I can't even get away with the tired it's-still-Sunday-in-Hawaii line, because quite frankly, it's not. Let's just accept this and move on.

However, all is not lost! As compensation - there is always compensation - I had Friday off, and I have today off. Part of one of those days was spent watching a sporting event I had been unable to watch live - thank you, mighty powers of the great Intertron in the sky. Now I'm not a huge sports-nut ("possibly even a slightly smaller nut than most. Cashew?" - Queue canned laughter), but this particular sport I have been known to enjoy on occasion. But the mighty powers of the great Intertron in the sky saw fit to play a prank on me. Having successfully procured the material online, I set about watching it. And proceeded to be yelled at by none other than three separate Spanish people for about two hours. And I kinda enjoyed it.

Now, my grasp of Spanish is as good as guy who took two years of the language in high school and then promptly forgot all about it over the next, say, seven years. Not so good, then. But by the end of the event, I finding my way back to my old latin-lover self, which is basically just a warning to those of you who might be unfortunate enough to meet me in the coming week - just turn the other way and run when I come along screaming "Qué barbaridad!" and other things, the meaning of which completely elude me. I'm pretty sure that would be most people's gut reaction anyway, but I felt I should still point it out. Call it public service.

ANFSCD!

As filler for this post, I have a gorgeous anecdote about the process of moving to Japan. Back when the moving company said they were going to rise to the challenge of bringing all my knickknacks over - upon having lovingly wrapped them in bubble paper, surely! - they were nice enough to send me some documents detailing what I wasn't allowed to bring in to my future country of residence. These included:

Firearms. Which is a shame, 'cause now I'll have to put up my gun-rack in my new apartment, sans guns, at least until I can go out and get some in Japan. Is that hard? Memo to self: find out.

Swords. Now this seemed a little protectionist to me. I know they're all very proud of their swords and whatever, but what if I wanted a Swedish sword to... put in my gun rack, in liue of actual guns?

Pornography, or "other materials endangering public morals". Which is a great rule to have, and is also one that shows just how little people who make these regulations have gotten on any subway train in the entire country in the last fifteen years. Or been inside a 7-eleven. Or... been alive in Japan? Maybe it's another one of those protectionist things, I don't know.

Narcotics. While I don't have any snide remarks to make about this (wait for it!), it does remind me of those little green notes you get when flying into the U.S., where you have to declare you're not running drugs. Which to me just seems like overkill. I mean, if you catch a guy running drugs, do you really have to go after him for lying on his little green entry form as well, isn't he in enough trouble already?

Straw. Yes, because you see... What the hell?! Straw? Seriously?

Straw products. Because these are terribly easy to manufacture without using the active ingredient known as straw. So this means I can't bring my great big goat made from straw and then put it on fire at or around Christmas? What kind of a democracy is this?!

Yeah, so that's pretty much what's up with me. What about you? In what has become known as Kumadude-tradition, I shall present you with a picture of a road sign which leads to the place where - I believe - the people writing the above regulations sit. Or rather, their managers. And man, somebody ought to talk to them about the poor job they're doing.

If you need to manage your retardation, be sure to come and enjoy beautiful Tsunashima, home of world class retardation... managers?

Be sure to tune in next week, as... Do not make me have this argument again, I will stop this car right now, so help me, mister!

The Triple

2007-05-21T03:19:00.000+09:00

Surely there must be some mistake. Three weeks in a row with a timely update? Things are... afoot? Rotten? All of the above?

When I leave my home, I have to cross a tiny metal bridge to get out. It's bit like living in a medieval castle, except that my moat is probably not more than two feet across and one foot deep, meaning my attackers would probably have little trouble gaining entry even if I went apeshit on the bridge and threw it down into the dark chasm below. It's also a bit like not living in a medieval castle since I've got far too little of both meed and the compulsory henchmen around. Knights and whatnot. Also, the insulation in this place would kick Camelot's behind any day of the week. Including Wednesday!

So yes, construction has come to my neck of the woods, and from the looks of things, it would appear it's here to stay. At least they haven't yet begun starting work at four in the morning. Yet. I bear no illusions that that state of pleasant laziness will last much longer, sadly.

Also, I just ran into someone who did something which was, for want of a better description, very "me". I was taking the trash out. In the very boring, very literal, very much not at all the Chuck Norris kinda way. As I approach the trash... building? Palace? Gendarmerie? Either way, approach it I do, and this lady comes from the opposite direction, also carrying something that my astute powers of observation immediately recognize as what the French call "garbage" in that wonderful accent of theirs. We exchange a perfunctory greeting from fifteen feet away, and arrive at the door almost at the exact same moment, me beating her by a couple of seconds (score!). As I contemplate if I should play the gentleman and let her in first or be my actual self and just forget about all laws of civil interaction, she walks right past the door, seemingly oblivious to the bag in her hand. I am quite baffled by this, throw my stuff where it belongs (remember kids, Kumadude's all about the recycling!), and as I am about to exit, she comes rushing in, throws her one bag, and darts out, leaving me to lock up. It was like she tried to give me the impression that "This is not garbage in my hand. I am not going where you are going" in order to avoid the three seconds of forced social interaction inside that shed, then realized it was a pretty childish thing to do and changed her mind.

When I said at the top it felt like a very "me" thing to do, this is what I meant, only I would not have darted back. I would have hopped on the train, rode one stop, and then walked all the way back in order to ensure nobody would be at that shed when I got back, so there would be no risk at all of any sort of social interaction. That's the worst kind of interaction, you know.

---

Intermission!

Radio's come a long way. I used to listen to it wirelessly on my, uhm, radio. Now, I listen to it being wired through the intertubes, through my wireless modem which sends it the final ten feet to my computer, which in turn pumps it out through wires connected to the same speakers my dad got me for christmas all those years ago that used to fill the house with far too abnoxious tunes. Possibly Hits 4 Kidz 53. Anyway that circle, too, doth be complete. As circles tend to be. I mean think about it, a circle that's not complete? In all the ways that matter, it's just the letter "u" with a serious inferioity complex.

---

Third subject of the post? Already? My, how time flies. But yes, here we are, about to broach the treacherous area that is photography. It is one of many things I am not very good at. My dad was a hot shot in his day, though, and I have friends (yes, it is an amazing enough statement all its own) that know their way around a lens cap as well, making it all the more painful I kinda don't. So how to fix that? Why the Internets, of course! And they told me several things:

A1) You should aim to take the best possible picture when you take the picture.

This seemed fairly obvious to me, so I skipped down to number A34b) (does that even qualify as a "number"?)

A34b) If all else fails, you can fix a lot of you half-assed mistakes in post production, possibly using a legally purchased license for a recent version of Adobe Photoshop.

But you see, that would seem to imply you need to know actual things about that program. Hmm. Once more, the InterTubes came to the rescue!

B1) You should aim to know actual things about that program.

B2) If you don't, here's a 14-step tutorial on how to make your crappy shot look like it's not quite as crappy anymore. And a bit like it was in a movie shot in poor lighting conditions!

So I followed the advice, and a mere 14 simple steps (the fastest five and a half hours of my life, I can tell you that), I arrived at a result. Which I shall show you! But first, just for the sake of argument, let's show the original picture, taken when I was Down Under with my good friend Dr Tiki and cohorts Caroline and Alexandra. Five points to anyone who can name the island. Hint: it is the world's largest sand island. (Master Class difficulty: no checking that link, or where it leads, Google/Wiki it yourself!)

The Original, complete with Land Rover goodness

Now, feast your eyeballs on the digital imaging revolution that is the result of... the internet's guidance:

The slightly not-so-Original, complete with way OTT vignetting effects

The reason I put you through all that? I don't... honestly... know. It killed a part of my Sunday, so now I'm having my revenge? Guess that's the part that's fun for me. Tough nuts, and all that. But to try and make up for it, I shall leave you with the following, which was snapped at what I am sure is the Shibuya branch of perennial favorite vendor of useless things, Loft:

Mobile ashtrays. Implying that they tend to be stationary?

Be sure to tune in next week, and see if I can keep the trend alive as I go for a record fourth straight on-time post!

The West

2007-05-13T19:52:00.000+09:00

No, that's not the tired East/West Eurovision-thing.

What it is, in fact, is a fine direction to travel. Personally, over the past few years, I've been more inclined to go in the opposite direction, but to balance my carbon-emitting karma and spread some heat-death-love the other way, I figured what the hey, packed my bags, and rode off into the sunset. Well, packed my one overnight bag and got in the back of a white sedan with surprisingly little rear legroom and got driven off into the sunset, but that's not something I'm overly proud of.

For you see, I have now been on the first business trip of my soon 26-year existence. And it was kinda nice. Not nice in the "work two hours over brunch and then get back to the jacuzzi"-way, but still nice. My fine 9.5 square meter hotel room overlooking... a parking lot did what it was supposed to do, even though I was allowed precious little time to enjoy there. Just as well, probably. By now, I'm sure you're all wondering where I went, what was this mysterious westerly destination? Not that westerly, considering you could get there and almost back again on a tank of gas, but still. But I don't think I want to spoil the surprise by letting you in on it, feel free to talk it over amongst yourselves. Possibly around some sort of water cooler, what do I know?

Over the course of my four days at the now secret location, I... worked? Looked at things? Spoke to people? Did businessey stuff? Had far too much food, far too little of which was actually nutritious? That sort of thing. But all in all, it was a pretty nice time. Managed to meet up with Koray too, who's busy doing almost what I'm doing, but in a different place, only for us to join up at the "final" destination (as if such a thing existed) in mid-July. So yes, I can wholeheartedly recommend you do the same, get your boss to put you up in a tiny room on condition that you can mooch a ride off people already going in the same direction. Experience the luxury that is business travel the IKEA way. That might have come out a bit harsh, since I'm actually just happy I got to go at all, but such is life. Live it, love it, and enjoy it, and if there's any time left over, do some homework. Ah, 80's sictoms, where have you gone?

So! What else? Surely other things must have transpired? And transpire they did; if one were so inclined, one might even take a bite out of that thesaurus and possibly imagine that they conspired to transpire. And then go home, knowing that some people shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard, or books containing actual words, for that matter. Ever.

But yes, transpire they did. To prove this to you, I present you with photographic evidence, exhibit A:

A Chinese restaurant?

Granted, my Chinese isn't really all that great (which is a nice way of saying I took one evening course four years ago and that's pretty much it), but I think this place needs to decide if it is a Chinese restaurant or a Japanese one, and then assign it with a name befitting its culinary direction. Then again, it might just be one of those combo-places. Back in my happy uncomplicated youth (as compared to my current happy uncomplicated 25-year-old-ness) in Linköping, there was a restaurant called Tokyo Roma, which happily set about combining raw fish a pizza into a very successful concept. Well, give it's current bankruptcy it might not have been all that successful, but it was certainly... a concept?

Also! Upon going through my files, I discovered the following, taken on what appears to be a mildly overcast day in times past. As I am a simple soul, it made me laugh. I believe this effect will only appear in one other human being on this still-green Earth, so for that reason alone, I shall end this post with it. And no, I'm not laughing at Volkswagen. Although I suppose I could, but that's just a post all its own.

Number plates are good.

Be sure to tune in next week as I will have... had time off? Yay!

The Name

2007-05-06T02:48:00.000+09:00

You may now call me Master. And yes, there's a very real risk (or chance, as I see it) that this post is going to be a bunch of incredibly egocentric drivel. No change there, then.

There are a great many things I have been called. Thankfully, not all of them are derogative adjectives bent on my destruction; some of them are actually quite bearable (spot the pun!). A summer soon six years in the past, my current alias ("Kumadude" for those members of the audience who just can't seem to pay attention) was coined on a distant rooftop by someone who's last name was a slightly idiosyncratic version of the Swedish word for "rose". Doesn't that just have a lovely hint of promise in it, like there's some sort of back story there, possibly leading up to several quick cuts back and forth to people doing fun things with weird hairstyles and way too much makeup? In the 80's? Maybe not.

So yeah, Kumadude's been around for a while. However, at work on chill March morning, a Japanese colleague of mine couldn't really be bothered with the added burden that is -dude, and promptly declared in front of a whole meeting of his peers what he and "The Kuma" had been working very hard this morning. His grasp of English may not have been the best, or perhaps that's exactly what it was. In that case, I take it as a compliment. This is my first time being a "the", and I think I like it. And I'll just have to sue the ever-lovin' crap out of AMD for this.

Pause for a bit of flower-porn. It will be explained below. Possibly far below.

But you can't let too long pass without getting yourself a new name. It just wouldn't do, you see. So a week or so ago, I got a letter in the mail. It told me I had a letter to pick up. I love it how the Post Office, bless it, tries every little thing to increase the volume of mail. However! On that not-so-chill April not-so-morning-but-rather-afternoon, I went and humored the P.O. by picking it up. And I was rewarded by a piece of paper instructing me to stand that little bit straighter when I look in the mirror in the morning. Because, as I am about to announce to the entire internets, I am now a Master. Yes, I realize it would have been better to combine it with the above to make me "the" Master, but one step at a time.

So you see, I have now officially graduated university. Took me long enough, but at least I got there in the end. And the dinner I was treated to (by someone completely unrelated to the university, but still) was certainly good enough to make up for my six years of... slacking off, with a final or two thrown in there at arbitrary intervals. Given the deliciousness of the dinner, I would graduate more often. If only it didn't involve so much actual work. At least that's over now.

Yet more flower-porn! What the h's going on here?!

---

And now, a slight excursion to soften the segue into the whole mess with the flowers. A one-paragraph perfectly pretentious post-within-a-post I like to call:

It's amazing how giant fusion reactors in the sky can almost kill you.

No, I'm not talking about some random thought experiment of the Sun blowing up now, or possibly mad scientist types... doing mad science? No, I'm talking about how actually seeing the night sky riding my impossibly trusty and equally old bike home from a friend's place the other night very nearly made me run into a lamp post. It's frightening. I mean, when was the last time you saw the night sky, for realz? Having spent much of the past whatever of my life in either large cities or at least places where there's light at night, actually seeing the stars was almost... Well, it was nice. This despite the fact that there were some party-crashing lamp-posts, lamps included, working and everything. Did I mention I almost ran into one? Either way, I wholeheartedly recommend it - the stargazing, not the lamp-into-running - to anyone with an accurate enough sense of balance. But yeah, the last time I was that moved by the simple act of tilting your head back and not allowing your eyelids to close for a short while was quite a while ago. Senior year of high school, in Lithuania, if you'll believe it. Escha, you know of what it is I speak. No, not the vomit comet or the rowing to Russia, the other thing.

Final bit of flower-porn, right there!

And now, at the very end, the rationale for all the pretty pretty flowers. It's a 2003-promise to someone who really wanted to watch the Sakura bloom in Japan but couldn't hang around long enough to watch it actually happen. Also: I needed filler to make it seem like I wrote a lot. So anyway, sure, she might be biking around NZ right now, but I'm sure the GPS on her bike gets this blog. And quite possibly Soviet-era UHF-transmissions too, but that's a story for another day.

Be sure to tune in next time as I will have completed a long road trip with two people who know an awful lot about kitchens!

The King

2007-04-14T20:19:00.000+09:00

Or maybe that should be "The Kuma". I'm not sure. I'll get to that part at a later date.

As promised in the last post, I shall do my utmost to top the post I did the last time I was on a flight home from Japan. As I have already passed Babarovsk, I have but one card to play. That of fame, glitz, glamour, and champagne. And free candy, as it were.

Now I don't consider myself to be the type of person who is impressed by celebrity or celebrities. But of course I am. So when I got the invitation to head on over to the ol' Swedish embassy right there in Roppongi, I accepted with all the grace of stir-fried tuna. On Sunday, I went there, had a pretty nice time drinking a bit of champagne with some of my friends, chatting about this and that. As a pure bonus - and yes, I would call it coincidence were it not the most ridiculous lie ever conceived by man - we were not alone in our hob-nobbing. It just so happened that H.R.H. King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden and H.R.H. Queen Silvia of the very same Sweden were there too. Talk about a small world. So we hang out, I give him some tips on where to go for music in Shibuya, talk to her about H&M opening in Harajuku, and... Well, ok, so I stood in line with 30 other people to get to introduce myself in a rather brief fashion, shake hands and that was it, but if wishes were fishes...

When I got back, I informed my girlfriend of the above. Her first question, and I am quoting here, was: "So when you introduced yourself, was his reply 'Hi, I am The King'?". I found that hilarious. Maybe it was the champagne, did I mention the champagne?

Come to think of it, I don't really remember his exact words, nor those of the Queen. I do remember his "impromptu" speech right at the end of the hour-long mingle-fest, which started with the words "This is the King speaking". That was kind of funny, too. Seems like a pretty relaxed guy, once you get to know him.

For you see, quite apart from teaching his elder daughter how to fold a paper boat a couple of years ago, I have spent much more time with him than many who were at the embassy that night. In fact, he's sitting right next to me as I type this. At least if by "right next to me", you mean "some 29 rows and two curtains ahead of me". But it's all good. For you see, of course, having felt the same connection I did during our meeting at the embassy, I'm sure he decided to catch the same flight back to Sweden as me. Strange, didn't see him on the train on the way to the airport, though. Guess they must have taken the bus or something.

---

So yeah, this is me leaving Japan. Again. It happens with an alarming frequency, but one that will hopefully decrease after this time. It all feels a little... grand, or something. The reason for this inflated feeling of self-importance is that in pretty much every Japanese movie ever made, things always begin in the end of March, right when the cherrytrees are in full bloom. Also, things have a nasty habit of ending at the same time, albeit one or more years later. Guess they like the metaphor. "Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end." The whole country is surely whack for old emo-bands from Minnesota. Getting back on track: If you're gonna leave Japan, it's a pretty nice time to do it in. A bit like quitting while you're ahead; getting out while the gettin's good, and whatknot. Get to see nature at its most beautiful, while not having to stick around to endure the inhuman temperatures of... mid-April?

Finally, before I say goodbye to Japan for now, a question: Why on all the Gods' Green Earth is North Shinagawa station located SOUTH of the regular Shinagawa station? You know the people who named it have seen maps and quite likely even a compass or two in their day, I'm just saying.

---

If I had been any less of a lazy-ass (in the denotation of the early 00's, "lazy-@$$", for those who were around to enjoy that particular time), I might have posted the above as soon as it was written. But I'm not. I'm exactly the amount of lazy-ass that I am, so here we are, two weeks later, and one vicious blog-challange is on the edge of being lost. So! I finally get around to posting what is - in all ways that count - old news. Good on me! But to try to cancel that out and leave off with some actually new news, I'll inform you that I survived Friday the 13th (as I have a habit of doing). And that in the future, I expect people to rewrite the calendars to fit the Japanese way of numbering things: 11-12A-12B-14. And no, that's not my hand in there.

The Question

2007-03-26T21:29:00.000+09:00

When the world ends, it will not be in a cacophony of fiery explosions, nor will massive numbers of people scream unintelligible... things at the top of their lungs. No. Instead, it will be accompanied by the voice of a cheerful young woman politely explaining that "This is the end of the world. Please don't forget to take all your belongings with you as you exit this plane of existence." Or maybe I've just been in Japan a bit too long.

Not that that has anything to do with anything, really. If you haven't caught on yet, that's kind of the way we do things around here. Welcome. Anyhoo, in stark contrast to the previous post, I actually have some sort of... thoughts, one might even go so far as to call them "plans" for this post. I'll start by bitching about random things, and then move on to some pictures. After which come the explosions, obviously.

Complaint #1) Me. Some people apparently spend their Saturdays relaxing, or possibly even socializing (or so I hear). Me, not so much. No, instead, I go apartment-hunting. Of course, I won't actually be moving for several months yet, and Tokyo/Yokohama does in fact - in stark contrast to for example Stockholm - have loads of empty places just looking to become un-empty. Ok, so I started out thinking "I'll just look at some places in Hiyoshi, that'll be it", but of course, things happened. I had a brainwave. "The next station isn't that far away, I might just as well leg it." I had this brainwave nine more times throughout the day, and my calves will never forgive me for it. For those of you who know your Toyoko-line, I walked Hiyoshi - Motosumiyoshi - Musashikosugi - Shinmaruko - Tamagawa - Den-en-chofu - Jiyugaoka - Toritsu-daigaku - Gakugei-daigaku - Yutenji - Nakameguro. To those of you who don't know your Toyoko-line, that's eleven stations, "cities", if you will. 16 kilometers, in Google Earth-years. 10 miles, and no, I don't know how many calories. Not doing that again anytime soon.

Complaint #2) Me. I only get off the escalator at the floor for classic music at the Tower Records in Shibuya to go the the bathroom. This makes me feel disappointed. I really want to know things about classical music, but I just never seem to reach enough wanting to step over the boundry into actual doing. My threshold energy is thus... great?

Complaint #3) Traffic lights. Bet you thought it was gonna be "me" again, huh? Just keeping you on your toes. Maybe it shouldn't be listed here since my traffic light karma has seemingly improved over the past week or so, but the lights by the station must be the worst invented by mankind. Ever. It's like the God of Traffic Lights ("Jeff", to his friends) just took the day off and played... that there Playing Station the kidz are all talking about? I don't know, whatever. At least I've finally managed to get from the station to my home without having to stop at either of the five lights. Traffic Light Bingo, as we refer to it.

Complaint #4) Me. For actually finding a recent song entertaining. At one point, the singer goes off on a wild tangent and excitedly claims that "I'm a crazy crazy rainbow star". I would imagine so. Do you know any sane rainbow stars? Ok, sure, but do they right music? Well, do they?

Complaint #5) Japanese TV. Usually it's right at the top of my non-complaints-list, but when you wake up on Sunday to a show where celebrities have to guess how much the plastic surgery cost that turned these five men into these five very female-looking males... Maybe it was just pre-Monday-crankiness setting in, I don't know.

---

And now, pictures! First of all, there is one of a Porsche. It's a fine car. You may wish to guess where I had to go to take its picture. If so, by all means, indulge yourself. Winner gets a free cupcake.

An old Porsche.

Hint #1: The Porsche was not parked near here. (5 points)

Hint #2: The Porsche was parked near here. (3 points)

Hint #3: The Porsche was parked nere here. As well! (1 point)

Now as if that wasn't enough of a picture overload, here are some others I found taking up space on the ol' HDD. Triple points!

Why do you need the second sign? Do we really want people who can't remember a direction for five meters actually riding the subway?

What's wrong with this picture?

Who would win a pie-eating contest, the Japanese or American NBA?

Nah, I don't have a question about this one, I just thought it was... funky.

Suppose that's about it, really. Wow, first post since I got here that didn't involve Fuji-san in any way. Kinda. Good to see I'm finally getting over that frikkin' mountain. Anyway, be sure to tune in next week as I try to top my previous post about Russian mountains secretly harboring wishes of redistributing wealth. It's got a shocker finish, let me tell you!

The Inconsistency

2007-03-16T20:09:00.000+09:00

Well isn't this awkward. It's a little like meeting a friend you haven't met since elementary school, only it's not a friend but a blog and it's not since elementary school (because back then, computers didn't exist) but three weeks. So yeah, I guess it's not really anything like that.

There have been developments. I don't know what your personal image of Japan is, but chances are that it will fall into one of two categories. Most things tend to, really. The first one is the image of a very efficient society, all cogs working together, firing on all cylinders, that sort of thing. This perception is usually predominant among people who have never been here. For some reason, if you've spent any length of time here, you begin to notice things like four people refilling a soda-machine. And no, it doesn't take a fourth of the time it would have taken just the one guy.

The Guys

Nah, I'm joking! Or am I...? Intriguing.

---

And now, some crowd-pleasing from the depths of the oh-my-that's-just-wacky-wacky-I-tell-you-archive. Ok, so it's not that wacky, but it is posted on the wall above my stove, and I hear there's a huge interest in things like that, so here you go:

I'm so taking it out for a spin once I finish writing this. Can you take flying stoves out for spins, though?

Also! It will soon be officially springtime in Japan. In Sweden, it's apparently spring when the average temperature has been above 10 degrees (Celsius, what did you think? Seriously?) for seven straight days. Here, it's when the cherry blossoms, uhm, blossom. And this year, the hype may be more intense than ever, possibly thanks to Al Gore. Spot that connection! But yeah, some people are worried because the frikkin' things are blooming before they planned for them to bloom. These people are mainly tour operators who are booked full for the first week of April, when they thought the blooming would reach its peak, and are now faced with calling a lot of disappointed customers to say they're very sorry they couldn't control nature. This time. I would suggest they check this. Man, the Googles, they've got everything! (for those not daring to look, it's a Google Map of where the things are blooming, complete with pictures! Fan. Tas. Tic.)

Did I just spend an entire paragraph talking about not only flowers, but cherry blossoms? I must recover my masculinity, somehow. So! Toilets. For at least three years now, there have been models available where you bring music on an SD-card, plug it in, and beautiful stereo sound erupts from the built-in speakers. And yes, the seat is heated, of course. We're not barbarians, after all. If they could only figure out how to use insulation to keep heat in/out of the houses too, the entire country would probably just implode under the pressure of utter perfection. Oh, and there's a jacket made to help people who have to sleep standing on trains. I'm so getting one.

Closing out the section: I have cereal for breakfast sometimes. And yes, I felt a whole lot of grown up when I got the turbo-fiber ones instead of the turbo-sugar ones. And no, it wasn't an easy choice. But maybe I should take it easy. The package I got, all 450g of it, says it's for "industrial use", like for company kitchens or restaurants. Eating like a factory worker might be bad enough, but eating like an entire factory of workers? Maybe I should look into that diet thing people keep talking about.

---

And now, for something completely different! Over the past couple of weeks, there have been changes to my future life - something a lot easier to deal with than changes to past lives, it must be said. Anyway, these changes have then been changed (a sort of meta-change, I would assume?), but the end result is that I've finally found out what part of the company I work for that I'll actually work for once my training is over in July, where I'll work, and where I'll train, too. If you're reading this, chances are you'll already know, so I won't waste any more key-presses on it. Ok, I will. It has to do with furniture.

Incidentally! The other day - at said place of work - I heard someone call my name. This happens now and then. Only this time, it was a person of Thai origin. This doesn't happen very often. Even less often, it's a Thai person I studied together with three years ago, only for her to go back to Thailand, graduate, come back to Japan to work in Osaka, then come to Yokohama and run into me. It was, as they would have said three weeks ago, "kewl".

Thailand? Travel. Multiple segue points: I've been around a bit myself, too. Some Yokohama here, some Shinjuku there, and a freak visit to Yotsuya only to find my reason for going - the Best Ramen in the Known World, Yayaya - closed. And some other places, but I certainly wouldn't want to bore you. So! Spot that holy mountain, and the... holy-hell-that's-a-lot-of-red-bricks/taxis?

A holy mountain, and a girl who's actually taller than it

Red brick warehouses, housing fine exotic goods for centuries. Like avocado burgers

So sue me! Again! I like the lights of Kabuki-chou. And taxis. Surely I am not alone in this?

And in grand tradition, I shall close out the post with a little something about food. I guess I might have mentioned it up there with the cereal, but as you are no doubt already aware, if I were king, my motto would probably be something along with lines of "to hell with consistency". Or possibly something about donuts. By now, you must surely be wondering why I have not died yet. It is a combination of two factors:

Things I have not eaten:

The Fugu. Potentially extremely poisonous blowfish for you and your special lady friend, sir?

Things I have eaten (wihout chewing?):

The Yamachan. Potentially extremely thirst-enducing spicy chicken wings, Nagoya-stylee. Note: Actual chicken wings may not be present in the above picture. Void if removed, no purchase necessary.

To paraphrase a formerly underground British pop act: Beer always tastes better with a man dressed like a chicken printed on my glass. That will be all.

The New Black

2007-02-21T21:11:00.000+09:00

I'm amazed at the velocity at which my body can create rather large amounts of mucus. If only it could manufacture Volvo saloon cars at a similar speed. I would so retire to... somewhere.

Yeah, I'm kinda sick. But it's all good. I'm just sick enough to feel sorry for myself, but not so sick that it actually registers, unlike some people I know. These people who have had surgery today after somebody stepped on their left arm. And that was actually in an attempt to set the bone right! Damn, these Japanese physicians and their... feet? Anyway, get well soon, Mr Tiki!

---

A lot's happened since last we met. Not only has this thing gotten brand new sparkling threads in a vain effort not to give up too much distance to Mr Da Pete in our vicious blog challange, but I've also spent a day opening 19 bottles of champagne. Well, it didn't really take that long, but it was quite fun. I've also been to Shinjuku, Takadanobaba, Shibuya, Kamakura, and that's not even mentioning where I actually live, despite me having been there too. And! In one of those places, I met someone named Jeanne D'Arc. That's a fine piece of naming-devil-may-care on behalf of a couple of parents, right there. I applaud them for it! But I digress...

From the top: Attentive readers will no doubt (?) have noticed the new little list right there on the, well, right. It makes a pretentious claim about me liking "A rainy Shinjuku". It makes several other pretentious claims too, but I shall only justify that one, at least for now. So to do that, I offer the following: How can you not like a place that looks like this:

The Rainy Shinjuku of which I speak. Or spoke, at least.

And now, for something completely different! Construction worker sadism. Why is it that the people trying to build something across the street from me absolutely have to do their loudest work when I am trying to get my best sleep? On a frikkin' Saturday. I do not want to wake up at eight a.m. I did not call the front desk to ask for a wake up call, not that there is one to call. Nevertheless, these people see fit to wake me (me, I tell you!) with their... building. And just when I've given in, just when I've realised I'm not going to get any more sleep after half an hour's intensive banging, they stop, content in the knowledge that I am awake. Self-centered? Surely not!

Anyway, I'm sure they've all had this for breakfast. That surely must be the root of all this evil.

---

So, work. Aside from the champagne, one interesting thing happened. I was standing outside the entrance, and then I hear a pretty impressive crashing noise, see some pretty impressive sparks, and react way to late to the tire rolling away from the Merc at rather impressive speed. Thankfully, I was about two meters away from its path, and equally thankfully, it was stopped by the door or a taxi and not the flesh and bone of a someone. But it was kind of... rad.

Find the missing wheel, win a prize!

I know this post's a bit picture-heavy, but all this multimedia hoo-hah of late means I have to give the kidz what they want. And that's not text. No siree. They want pictures. They really do. Actually, I'm sure they'd prefer the new-fangled type of moving pictures, but somewhere I have to draw the line. Anyway, what follows is what you can find in the fine coastal city of Kamakura, once proud capital of the nation:

A bamboo forest

A traditional Japanese avocado burger. From Hawaii.

A random guy trying to steal a star.

I guess that should satisfy pretty much anyones craving of colored pixels for now. But just in case, I'll give it one last try. Final sale, everything must go! Have no fear, the holy mountain depicted below was not actually having an eruption at the time. I think. Tune in next week as I dissect every single one of the twelve plates of sushi I had at the gorgeous Kappa sushi located 10-15 minutes away by foot from my current domicile, and also: The weekend! Yes!

The Omasum

2007-02-12T16:11:00.000+09:00

I tend to talk to myself (more) when I have a cold. Maybe it's because it sounds like I'm talking to somebody else.

There is no toilet paper in my apartment. I don't think that's ever happened before. Well ok, now there is paper. I wrote that, and then finally reached the point where my need for the article in question outweighed my substantial but not infinite laziness, so I went out and bought some. Although I do kind of wonder what the lady at my local (super) market - the aptly named Fit Care Depot - thought of me when I came in to buy eight rolls of toilet paper, a bottle of Coke, and two packs of Instant Yakisoba (the "instant noodle" of the knowing consumer) while the Backstreet Boys were rocking the speakers in the store. Maybe I'll go back to ask her. Nah.

So! In order to amaze and astound, I present you with the following: A picture of a mountain I have climbed with a friend of mine whom I'm in a vicious blog challenge with, the other is a picture which has been given the honor of titling this post.

A mountain.

A dish.

Now, while I could speak at length about most things in general and holy Japanese mountains in particular, I shall focus my efforts on that... thing on the plate right there. You see, it is the "omasum", as I learned this morning when I looked it up. Good thing I didn't do that last night. Turns out (if you can't be bothered to read the six lines on Wikipedia) that it is the third compartment in the stomach of cattle and other happy four-compartmented-stomach-beings. If you aren't a vet (of the animal-loving, not napalm-dropping kind), that might not be very interesting, except that you can eat it. Apparently. At least you can at this little place in Yokohama I was led to. On the way there, one of the two people with me said we were about a block away from where "dangerous Yokohama" becomes "Dangerous Yokohama". I never did get around to asking how he drew the border so that a place that serves inside-out cow's stomach ends up in the "safe" part. As a final... something, not only do you have to pay for the privilege, you also have to cook the thing yourself. The lengths some people go to to get their omasum, I tell you. Suffice to say, I think it'll be a while before I come much closer to abandoning this carcass-centric lifestyle I'm leading than I was last night.

Moving on! In the haha-I-can-see-a-mountain-from-where-I-work category, I can mention that that shot was taken on the fifth floor of, well, where I work. Then again, I can also see a lot of dealers of pre-owned automobiles, so maybe I should downplay the location-angle.

Oh, but I have other completely non-connected pieces of news to dazzle you with:

1) In an interview on tv the other morning, a Japanese fella' by the name of Shigeru was interviewed. Questions in English, answers in Japanese, pretty standard fare. But of course, he was dubbed to English, as it was an American channel doing the producing. But of course, he was then dubbed back into Japanese again, as it was a Japanese subsidiary doing the broadcasting. If my current job doesn't end up working out, I'm so going into translating. Those folks seem to have a lot to do these days.

2) At an ATM near the near-fabulous station of Shin-yokohama, there is an ATM which, I'm near-certain, is equipped with a device that scans the vein pattern in your hand. Thumb-prints? Were you born in the year of the rooster, or what? Anyway, I'm so going to change my bank. Also, the name of the bank: MUFG. Which stands for Mitsubishi-Tokyo UFJ Ginko. And no, nobody really knows what the UFJ stands for, why neither "Tokyo" or the J in UFJ were deemed important enough to be included in the official abbreviation, or what the **** I'm doing writing about it in the first place.

3) A random Japanese person asked me about my real name this week, knowing my Japanese one. And she guessed correctly! Frightening. That's the first time that's happened. I'm so going to... I don't know? Get an even more secret alias?

In the words of a dear friend of someone dear to me: "Must drop off now."

The Change

2007-02-06T20:09:00.000+09:00

Leonardo DiCaprio was just on TV, in an ad for some random property development. This was followed by a program where celebrities learn how to re-use a paper cup in various, wondrous ways. Yup, I'm in Japan again.

They say "the more things change, the more they stay the same." I don't know who "they" are, but I do know that they are, indeed, full of crap. I mean seriously, think about it. If things change, they do NOT stay the same, no? If things stay the same the more they change, then that would mean my coming to Japan actually is the same as me staying in Sweden, Loft in Shinjuku closing equaling it staying open, the third guy at the World's Finest Rameneria (Yayaya in Yotsuya, as if you didn't know) leaving would mean him staying, and the train I was supposed to take to the airport (Copenhagen, naturally) being delayed an hour would mean it arrived on time. So no chance of that, then.

Yeah, I had a bit of a run-in getting here (which for those of you keeping score is Shin-yokohama. Or "New Yokohama." Pretty much the same relationship with regular old Yokohama as York and New York, I would imagine). It ended up with me being driven to the airport instead of taking the train. The driver was none other than Anders Borg. You may know Anders Borg as the finance minister (or Chancellor of the Exchequer, collect the whole set of chancellors and get a free petri dish!) of the Kingdom of Sweden. Sadly, while I've experienced episodes involving previous holders of that office, this kind man bore very little resemblance to that Anders Borg. But he did get both of us to the airport. In time, no less.

As a fine character in an equally fine movie once put it: "I've been here a week, I've got my name on the door, a geranium in the window, but I'm still waiting for my secretary". What, if any relevance that particular statement holds for me in my situation remains unclear.

However! I have now taken the big - and as all other big things, scary - step into the world of working men. Or 60% working women, in my case. Thus far, the only thing I can say about work is that the people are quite excellent, and that I "only know that I know nothing", or however that went. It's gonna be fun though. I think.

Now, I could regale you with tales of my first week, but I don't think you want that. In all honesty, I don't think you'll prefer the following, but as they say on the Interwebs: Tough shit. As I have been busy working this past week (did you not read the above paragraph? It say so right there), not a lot of pictures were taken. Which means I'll test your identifying skillz using the following. You mission, which you have accepted by reading this far (see the above part about "tough shit") is to either tell me the location of the keypad - somewhere in the entire known universe! - or which one of the remotes I brought with me here, and what its role is. As that is deemed to be the easier task, you will only receive 4/5ths the immortal honor by solving that one as you would the top one.

A keypad. What did you think it was? Mustard? Ok, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so, well, mean. It must be the last of the jetlag. Or maybe the proximity to fermented beans.

Five remotes. There can be only one! Triple word score to anybody who can tell me what the small white one does. I've lived here a week and I have no clue.

There, that little bit of audience participation didn't kill you, did it? Good. Moving on, I can mention that we had a magnitude 4.2 quake here a couple of days ago. I hardly felt it, but the Intertron told me it was 4.2, so there's no denying it. The reason I hardly felt it either has to do with me being a total badass, or that the house here is pretty quake-resistant. You pick.

Also, I have a new friend. He lives on the same floor as me, and can open the combination lock on my mailbox without knowing the combination. Hell, I don't even know that combination. If you ever need a lock picked and Charles Ingvar Jonsson isn't around, feel free to give me a call. I'll pass him the info.

Be sure to tune in next week as... things will have happened! Trust me on this.

The Count-up

2007-01-22T19:45:00.000+09:00

It's a frikkin' Christmas miracle.

As I can now (with some difficulty) count the number of days left until I leave for Japan and an actual Job on two hands, I spend my days doing just that, counting. Not like I did back in school, bless it's sweet heart, no. Since this is likely/hopefully the last month-long winter break I'll have before retiring, I'm counting media-consumption-achievements. How many books of how many chapters of how many pages can I read before going? How many CDs can I listen to and rate on the completely arbitrary scale of one to five stars? How many movies can I watch and how many times can I make friends have exactly the same pizza while we're watching them? How many games can I complete? How many tv-shows can I watch? How many annoying emails can I write? These are big and important questions to somebody who doesn't really happen to have a lot going on at the moment. One might also include "how many blog posts can I write in about a month", but the obvious answer to that is just one, so I won't include that.

However! It is not only I who am busy achieving stuff, far from it. Mother Nature too, has been at it. First with a storm that caused blackouts accross the known universe which for some lasted over a week, until the next storm came along. And apparently, the Swedish people (surely I'm not generalizing!) lost all sense of irony and/or sarcasm along with the power as a certain radio show host got inundated with irate emails after he'd made a joke about the size of this particular industrialized-nation problem. And yes, I did swallow a thesaurus prior to writing this paragraph. You should try it, it's not bad with a pinch of garlic and... soy?

Oh yeah, before I went off on that tangent, the above was supposed to segue nicely into the fact that the first snow has fallen, one week before I leave. About damn time, too. Curse you Global-Warming-or-natural-climate-variation!

---

New and very-much-only-tengnetially-relevant subject!

I usually try to avoid mentioning current events in order to keep this thing as timeless as possible for all mankind to enjoy for ever and ever, but as I am currently spending way too much time doing very little productive work furthering the cause of humanity, indulge me this once.

You see, one of my "achievements" is that I've been watching Prison Break. It's quite aptly named, I don't think I'll have to explain the concept to anyone who's actually read the first sentence of this paragraph. The reason I mention it is that I have rarely come across a show which causes such contradictory feelings in the viewer (that would be me, for those of you playing the home game). This may be because other than Prison Break, I only watch the Muppets and the occasional episode of the Smurfs (you see, in their language, "to Smurf" can mean anything!), but that's neither here nor there. Getting back on track: the basic moral morsel provided by the - and I'm guessing here - severely overdramatized story is intended (surely!) to make pretty much any viewer in the entire world anti-death penalty, regardless of their previous stance on the issue. If you'd, say, grown up in Sweden and thus were almost (note the almost!) that way by default but hadn't really thought about it a whole lot, it does make you think. At least a little. Because at the same time, the antagonist is... Well, I caught myself talking to the TV, and that's never a good sign. I shall not transcribe what I "said to her", but suffice to say it was in Japanese, and very much contradictory to my stance on the death penalty. I would have loved to believe that a couple of million years of evolution would have been enough to widen the gap to our instinctive reptilian brain, but apparently, it'll take another couple of generations. At least in my case.

Seriously though. If you have 14 hours left over in the space of 22 weeks, watch it. You won't get more quality time with your reptilian brain this side of the summer's "blockbuster" movies. Unless you've got the entire Smurfs collector's edition DVD boxed set with the OST CD thrown in. Don't ask, just... don't.

If you have any other suggestions, feel free to let me know.

---

Finally, for those of you who made it this far, I can (almost) assure you that this thing will see more frequent updates from here on in. I'm not saying they'll be worth your time, but I am saying they'll be here. See, paradoxically enough, having lots of free time should mean I would be able to use more of it to write about random things, but apparently I need a bit of stress to get my ass in gear, as it were. Good thing that's what's just on the horizon, beginning February 1st.

Oh, and for those of you who enjoy things which are fun, you would do well to head here. There's dinosaurs over there! Thank you Mr. Da Pete for happifying my life with that one.

The End

2006-12-30T18:52:00.000+09:00

Nobody's ever told me I have a face for radio. Then again, nobody's ever told me I have one for tv, either.

My iTunes Library with its magically crafted "smart playlists" now reflects my personality in both content and order. This is what I spend my days doing. Having managed to watch on in amazement at the Herculian effort produced by my partner in crime to get our thesis out the proverbial door not only in time, but actually almost a month ahead of said time (prompting some to proclaim it to be a true Christmast miracle, if you subscribe to such things), there's not a whole lot else to do, really.

Well, there was that thing a couple of days ago with the jolly bearded fellow with a possibly worrying BMI-problem went through close to every chimney in America and fathers across the land launched out to purchase newspapers they most certainly never ended up buying in other parts of the world, but that's about it, I suppose. For all intents and purposes, I have now "graduated" university, so what better way to celebrate that than to go back home and... make sausage and bring select pieces of wildlife into your living room?

But yeah, that only gets you halfway there. You see, as an aftershock of the health examinations for my new job, I was told to get a wisdom tooth removed. There is no logical rationale behind this. Seriously. I was not having any problems with it, and my dentist told me that we might well leave it as it is, since, well, it wasn't causing any problems. But then he upped and changed his mind and said the following, which I found startling in all its honesty: "But we might as well remove it, seeing as how you do have deep pockets." Now, I'm all for a straight-as-an-arrow take-it-like-a-man way of explaining things to the patient, but was this really necessary? Granted, he was referring to a completely different sort of pocket than the one I was thinking of when I walked out of the place some 2 200SEK lighter for it, but yeah. For my SEK-challenged friends, feel free to look that up, but know that it's basically my last month's rent. However, I should not have been surprised. Previous contact with the Swedish health care-system has left me with very few illusions indeed.

Last year's NYE. This picture will not be possible to reproduce tomorrow for a great many reasons.

So yes, this means that the last New Year's Eve I'll spend at home for quite some time, will actually be spent at home, as in not out gallivanting with my friends. As an aside, people do tend to gallivant a lot less these days, wouldn't you say? And isn't it sad? Anyway, if you're wondering who's going to be sitting at home (with a right cheek that looks like he tried to stuff a basketball in there and succeeded with room to spare) feeling very very sorry for himself at the stroke of midnight, look no further. Happy New Year to you, Interwebs, and all who visit you!

The Future

2006-12-10T19:42:00.000+09:00

Back before even the time when the internet was spelled with a capital I, there was little doubt in my mind that I'd grow up to control the launch of manned space-flight.

STS-116 mission patch. Image credit: so not me.

However, as some of you may be aware, things never quite go the way you plan them. The first Swede ever to venture past the thin life-enabling veil of the atmosphere - Christer Fuglesang - of all people should know that, having had the first launch attempt scrubbed on Thursday night. Not to mention training and waiting for 14 years just to be allowed to make the attempt in the first place. So yeah.

Me, I had some problems in the present as well. Turns out that I'd probably been overly optimistic regarding my ability to wake up, or rather mistimed my sleeping so that I was supposed to wake up while in the deepest possible sleep known to man. Or that I forgot to turn the alarm on after setting it, I'm not sure. Either way, it does suck like you would not believe. Thankfully, through something certainly bordering divine intervention, I awoke at 02:59 a.m., 12 minutes after the launch was supposed to have taken place. So I grab my pants (never mind a shirt or a sweater, there's no time, people!) and run out to the TV, turn it on, secretly hoping that they'd scrubbed the launch tonight as well so I'd get another chance later, what with the weather not being very promising tonight either. But it turns out that they did launch, and that I'd thus missed the "near-heart-stopping tension of the countdown" itself. Which, yeah, might be a good thing, since I generally prefer my heart to keep going. At least I was up and about when the first Swede ever entered orbit at 03:05, four minutes before "passing over Stockholm", something which I can only assume means he passed over my head in equal measure, at that altitude.

The launch of STS-116. Image credit: equally so not me.

I may have missed the launch itself, but man... There is no end to what can only be referred to as the gorgeousness of the situation. While the media people were busy showing pictures from the launch over and over again (for which I am grateful) and talking incessantly about the new type of yogurt they'd eat and how problematic it could be to eat bread and go to the bathroom in space (in nearly the same sentence!), they also briefly mentioned the American plan to build a permanent base on the moon, starting in the year 2020 and being permanently settled from 2024. Using experiences from there, Mars will be next, with an attempt to be made by 2030.

In my head, I realize that the above is more political hyperbole from a president who's stopped loving the idea of being "the war president" than it is actual plans, or at the very least that priorities shift over time, and political ones tend to do so quicker than most. But even if they do, what I had just witnessed was a small step on the way to one of the events I would most like to witness during my lifetime: the first human setting his or her foot on Mars. Preferably followed by setting his or her other foot on that same Mars, but that's not a deal-breaker for me personally. And yes, once more I realize it's all about priorities, and that the 16 billion dollars that keep NASA afloat every year could go a long way to easing the much more life-threatening problems of many in the world. But quite aside from all the other ways that cash could help the world or the various organisms living in it, I want them to keep going. Naturally, this has more to do with me being raised in a corner of the world where the biggest problem is getting an email on your cellphone while typing an answer to an earlier email on the same phone than some deep-seeded human desire to explore. Of this, there can be little doubt. Hell, my current main method of exploration isn't even a bike, it's walking. But the eight year old boy inside me refuses to listen. He doesn't care or even know all that much about what's going on on this planet, he's far too busy thinking about how unbelievably cool it would be to venture forth to the next one. Maybe that's why, somehow, that that something happens to me when reading what Robert Zubrin said when proposing the Mars Direct plan a few years back:

"...Someday millions of people will live on Mars. What language will they speak? What values and traditions will they cherish as they move from there to the solar system and beyond? When they look back on our time, will any of our other actions compare in importance with what we do now to bring their society into being? Today we have the opportunity to be the parents, the founders, the shapers of a new branch of the human family. By so doing, we will put our stamp on the future. It is a privilege beyond reckoning."

I promise you here on all that is holy, I won't oversleep for that one.

The Pulse

2006-11-23T04:15:00.000+09:00

Once, someone I would come to care a great deal about asked me if I understood Japanese music. I don't remember what I replied. Maybe it's not all that important.

I just spent a significant amount of time cleaning out my closet. This is one of the most exciting things to happen to me recently. Never mind the returning to Sweden, the thesis-writing, and the at times quite disgusting kitchen in the dorm I shall inhabit for another month or so, before I finally (or should that be hopefully?) graduate university. No, it's the closet, it's definitely the closet.

See, it was kinda full. So going through it in all its massiveness, I realised something. Being a self-proclaimed "Jeans-kille" (feel free to make up a meaning if you don't understand the Swedish bit), you can probably tell a lot about me over the past four years or so by the jeans lying in at the very bottom of the pile. Feelings of "wow, I can still get them on!" soon morphed into "wow, I actually wore those!? Regularly? Not to mention willingly?" But yeah, it was a fun five minutes.

Other things that have happened since coming back here include seing a shopping cart turned upside down, and put on the green, uhm garbage-disposal-pipe-thing outside my current domicile. Felt very artisitc.

Also, I was asked to take my clothes off. By a doctor, quite obviously. You see, and this is where the real point of this entry starts to become clear, I got a job. At IKEA. In Japan. Five years, starting in February next year. It's a pretty long time for someone who gets bored if there's 30 seconds of commercials on TV, but there you have it. I shall live there, I shall work there. I shall hopefully even enjoy it there, if I'm lucky. According to the old Swedish saying, "He who lives, shall see".

Anyway, that doctor. He was a pretty funny guy. In order to get the contract sent to me, the last stage is a medical examination. And a dental one, don't get me started. I'm working for a company selling furniture, not going to space here, people. But yeah. So I went and had all types of examinations known to man. I not only found out that I'd grown some .5cm at the tender age of 25, making me a hair over 6'3" (See what I did there, mixing the metric with the not-so-metric? Sit back and watch the universe explode, that's all I have to say), I also had my heart-rate checked. In various places. Such as the tops of both my feet. That was the first time that pretty experienced doctor had been asked to do that, and he did it laughing all the way at the anality (yup, that too is a word) of the form I'd been asked to get filled in.

...

I should really be doing something furthering my goals of graduating and job-starting instead of writing more stuff here right now. So yeah, I'll go and have a shower.

The Babarovsk

2006-11-01T16:03:00.000+09:00

Those are some very Russian-looking mountains. I suspect they may secretly harbour a love of redistributing wealth.

This is not the first time I'm enjoying the sight of Babarovsk, up close and personal. It's a fine city, and by my calculations, I will have had a chance to bask in its glory some 10-15 times already, with more to come, hopefully as soon as the beginning of next year.

Well, I guess that might have been a bit misleading. While it's true that I am enjoying the sight of Babarovsk, and it's true that it is indeed up, it's not really close, nor very personal. But you can trust me on the bit about the mountains looking Russian.

I've never accessed the Internet (note the capital) from 30 000 feet before. It kind of makes me feel like I'm the first person ever to do it, like I'm live-blogging some press conference from the Moon where important things have been decided by important people, possibly regarding the recent boom in cheese imports. Sadly, I realise this is not the case, but that's never the less what it feels like.

You see, I am going somewhere. At approximately 568 mph, the friendly monitor informs me (can a monitor be friendly?) Like many other places worth going, it's going to take a fair bit of time to get there. I will be served food again. I will probably not love it, but that's what's going to happen. I will eat said food, as I am now someone who spends most of his time desperately trying to convince the world around him - in this case the city of Babarovsk in Eastern Siberia - how awfully grown up he is. Deep down, though, all I'll be thinking about is that Seinfeld bit when he mocks - mocks, I tell you! - airline captains for going on the PA right after liftoff to drone on about routes and weather. "Maybe I should do the same. Maybe I should get a bullhorn and just go 'I'm gently pouring myself a glass of cola. I'm taking up the bag of peanuts. But no, I won't eat them now, I'll save them for later!'"

At a point like this, when you haven't updated a blog in say three or so weeks due to endless social interaction with others of your own species and miniscule amounts of actual work thrown in for good measure, you'd think I'd try to sum up the past three weeks, four months, or any other arbitrarily chosen period of time. But there's a time and a place for that, and none of them are either here nor now. Instead, I shall just post some random pictures that have been left unposted, for whatever reason, and leave it at that. For now.

Possibly the last twelve payphones in all the land, gathered in Tokyo Station.

The place which serves the meanest Avocado Burger in all of Tokyo. Believe me, I've been around.

Behold! The Future!

A Tower, and not just any Tower.

One small part of one fine dinner. Just missed the smoke spewing out of that thingie on the left there by about three... minutes.

A different Tower from the one above.

My lunch. If only wishing made it so...

That's it for now, I guess. Have used up half my battery already, and since I'm not in Business or First, I'm gonna have to make do without Power. That said, it's not like I don't have anything else to do to occupy my time. There's always the in-flight movies, which of course are far suckier than the ones they apparently showed on the way here. Now with extra static goodness since my side of the plane apparently has some sort of problem. With the electronics. Not exactly what you wanna hear when your rocking out over the ol' Verkhoyanskiy Mountains.

The Long Road - Updated!

2006-10-07T23:28:00.000+09:00

Right now, I'm sitting at a computer. This shouldn't come as any sort of surprise.

However, this computer is not mine. I am nevertheless surrounded by two glasses of what used to be orange juice, as well as one which still contains Oolong tea. On the table in front of my is my iPod, and not far from it, my camera. Within reach of my right arm is a magazine which appears to have some sort of exploding airplane on the back of it. I can also reach the lever which will allow me to put the fine (faux-?) leather chair in horizontal mode, granting me a few precious hours of sleep before I get up at six a.m. tomorrow, get out of the buiding, turn right, and pay 1500 yen to have a shower.

Update: My new place.

This is what happens when you don't plan ahead. And I feel it is wholeheartedly excellent. Some of you may recall that I questioned how much punk rock it was to go to eight concerts in one day, and then pay an absolute shitload of cash to get on the fastest train currently available in Japan, and go home. This weekend, however, is slightly more punk rock.

Not that I generally live by those standards, but you know. Either way, I'm back in Nagoya, city of dreams, and I'm going to sleep here, in a Manga/internet/videogame/massage-chair/magazine/soft drink-place. The reason for this is that 150 000 people, some of them Japanese in origin, will converge on a place called Suzuka tomorrow to watch men waste way too much precious fossil fuel while essentially going around in a great big circle. It's F1. You might as well stop reaading right there.

First of all, thank you for struggling on a keeping reading, despite the above. Second of all, pictures will be forthcoming. Being here means I can't upload any (the computer's not WiFi-equipped, unlike my new camera. Zing!). Third, we called three capsule hotels, six regular ones, and pretty much the rest of Western Japan, with no luck in the finding-a-room game. So here we are. Tomo, Shouta, and I. Kenta is... somewhere else. Never mind. Fourth, we walked some 20km today. This is not something you generally want to spend a whole lot of your life doing, but I have to admit it was pretty satisfying when going back from the track - looking at the cars stuck in traffic which was actually moving backwards - there was a fine feeling of both moral superiority and also just... smugness, I guess would be the word for it. Fifth, I got up at 05:20 this morning. You can imagine how much fun that was.

Update: Central Japan on a Saturday night. Betcha Alonso felt right at home.

So yeah, I'll try to get some sleep now, and update this thing tomorrow. Or maybe a day when I will actually be able to stand up straight.

---

The Update follows!

Ok, so maybe it's not what passes for "tomorrow", but it shall have to do. In the grand scheme of things, it was a grand weekend. To celebrate it, I shall present you with a picture of the place we didn't stay at, and a place I always take far to many pictures of whenever I'm anywhere near Nagoya:

The JR Towers. Complete with vignetting goodness.

But lets try to start this update in a somewhat chronologial order, shall we? I can inform you that sleeping in that chair you see in the first picture was definitely not bad. Whlie I don't give the legroom five stars, the fact that you could surf the intertron essentially while you were asleep is a major bonus. I may very well go back there.

Also, the bath/sauna-place the next morning was quite gorgeous. I shall leave it at that.

What about the race, I heard this trip was supposed to be about some race or another, yeah? Well, it was... loud. And it turned out almost exactly the way I'd been hoping for it to turn out, so that's basically two for two right there. Getting back home, however, was another matter entirely. Trying to leave a raceway through what amounts to something like three regular size doors along with 150 000 other people all trying to go through the same door at the same time can only amount to chaos, at least had this not been in Japan. Here, when the race ended, we all got up, and did the lemming-thing, walking off a cliff together.

"Vuxna män gör saker tillsammans"

Suppose that about covers it. A fine way to spend a fine weekend with fine friends, walk far too much, have way too little to eat, and... enjoy the countryside? Not so much perhaps, given that the cars could be heard from the station, six kilometers away. But yeah.

The Age

2006-09-25T19:27:00.000+09:00

I guess it's just that time of the week again. Monday, that is.

I generally don't care much for them. Not only do they signify the start of the working week (at least they do for me), but they usually tend to be the days I work the longest hours. So good then, that I'd had the foresight to spend a weekend which - were I to be magically transported to the end of the 1980's - would be called "killer".

If you don't have the same passion as I do for games involving people batting at balls and then trying to run to bases, taking pictures of giant... things, and standing in line with about 80 000 Japanese people, this post might be a little hard to grasp. And I'm not joking about the 80 000, believe it or not.

It all started out on Friday, as weekends tend to do. This one, kicked off with a visit to an arena where baseball is played, and also watched, by for example me. Being there, watching, I got to see "my" team... hammer? Crush? Oh, why not just go out and say it, discombobulate the oppostition. And no, that last one doesn't mesh well with the other two, so sue me. Either way, a Grand Slam by Woods in the fourth ensured victory, which eventually would stretch to 9-1. If you can imagine a better PG13-rated start to a weekend, let me know.

This has nothing to do with baseball, although I guess you could play it on the lawn. If you watch out for the trees. Golf, maybe?

And so the World turned and Saturday came along. And it came to be that I ended up following all those 80 000 people to a place far far away. Well, I didn't follow all of them, it's not like I was last in line, or whatever. Never mind, that place? Makuhari, they call it, in the language of men and - let's be politically correct here - women. My reasons for going had less to do with the fact that it was there and more to do with the fact that they had the future on display in huge booths in even huger halls. I like the future, and got my fill of it during the day.

And thus, as Worlds do, it turned on me again. Yes, this week, too, had a Sunday, and this one was spent with my girlfriend out in Odaiba. Or maybe that should be "over in Odaiba", I don't know. Either way, The Official Kumadude List of Things You Can Do There includes - but is in no way limited to - the following:

1) Take pictures of random Gaijin trying to swipe a race-tuned Toyota Supra

2) Take pictures of random Japanese people trying to climb a giant phallus symbol.

3) Take pictures of random stars descending from across Tokyo Bay.

That's basically what you do in Odaiba. Ooh, and there was this Mexican festival going on too, meaning free tacos, fajitas, and Corona for everyone! If by free you mean "for the small sum of 500 yen".

So that's it. As the World turned yet again (damn it!) and decided it was about time for me to stop fooling around and get back to work, I was so ready to just, you know, not. Join me next week as I discuss... something or other. At great length.

The Sweet Spot

2006-09-16T22:14:00.000+09:00

I was afraid I'd missed it. But apparently, I'm just a lucky bastard sometimes.

You see, there's this thing in Japan. They call it "weather". It's probably available where you live too, check your local department store for details. Anyway, this "weather" can be described using adjectives. Good, bad, warm, hot, hotter, hotter-than-hell-on... -on-a-day-when-it's-really-hot-ok? Of course, cold is also an option, but not so much right now. But the thing is, Japanese summer, vintage 2006, is coming to an end. As usual, I'd been looking forward to the Four Days when summer has ended and dark-and-grey autumn has yet to rear its ugly head. You know, the Four Days which come along but twice a year here, when you can go outside in a t-shirt, and not sweat to utter death, nor shiver like you got paid to do it. It's a good Four Days. I like them. A lot, actually. So imagine the horror when it started raining and generally being cold at the start of the week. Fearing I'd overslept my Four Days, I... couldn't really do a whole lot about it, but still.

But yeah, it stopped raining, and we're right in the middle of fantastically "Lagom" weather. If you think that random Swedish word destroys the whole point of this being in English, so be it. Look it up. Learn a language. Live a little, you know? Contrary to many other things my junior high teachers told me, learning can be fun. Trust me on the sunscreen, and all that.

So yeah, that's one Sweet Spot. Here's the story of another. Gotta love my segue/title-setting powers.

Next week, I will have see two of Japan's Prime Ministers in the flesh. The first one was of course Koizumi, but since he's stepping down on Wednesday, I figured I might as well go and see his successor, Abe Shinzo. You know, "collect the whole set", and that whole malarchey.

... which of course is complete and utter bullshit. I mean, I'm as politically interested as the next guy - possibly slightly more, even - but me finding out where a rally was being held for a person I can't even vote for, and then going to attend it is borderline absurd.

Rather, I was sitting in Starbucks at the good ol' scramble intersection in Shibuya, reading the latest issue of TIME (all capitals! Look, ma, I'm cultured!), which I had purchased because Abe was on the cover, and I knew nothing of him.

Having consumed my chocolate chunk cookie and orange juice, I leave, only to find myself surrounded by random people, and more random people being really loud about politics. So I ask this equally random guy if perchance Abe will be joining the show, and get the reply "Yeah, in 20 minutes". So I wait around, get to see him, hear him, and then go home. And eat pasta.

---

But enough politics. Other things have happened this week as well. They tend to do that, the damn things.

For example, I've been to see a movie. On Thursday, I think. And just by accident managed to squeeze myself on to the last train heading where I wanted to go, after said movie ended. It was quite full. I have no idea why all these people chose seven minutes past midnight as the time to go where I was going, but I wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

Yeah, it's derivative and repetitive and whatever, but I like taking pictures of lots of people in trains. Is that so wrong?

Also, I've seen a really cheap-ass building. I really thought Japan was better than this, I really did. But apparently shoddy construction has spread all the way to these shores. Since land is still ridiculously expensive, you wanna make the most of it, yeah? Build high. But then there's the risk of earthquakes, so you can't build too high, or it'll cost another ton of money to make it "earthquake proof". Solution? Build the top half of the building like a Potemkin facade (so what if I like Wikipedia! Sue me!) facing the all-important railway, just so people passing by will believe how rich you are/were. And yeah, it says Microsoft right there on top, too.

Tune in next week as... something happens. It always does, you know.

The New Grey

2006-09-11T19:00:00.000+09:00

Like they used to say - or hum, rather - in the 80's: Everybody's working for the weekend.

The last Friday I've had the unmitigated pleasure of living through was a pretty good one. Mainly in a mind-numbingly boring, work-related way. Well, partly because it was payday, and partly because I got word that I'd passed the first interview for a job I think I might not suck at. Not that I really know what said job entails, really-really, but the deal is fair, the people seem nice, and it would enable me to sustain some sort of Tokyo (or, God forbid, Kobe!) lifestyle for an appropriate time. So here's hoping they don't stop liking me before the end of the second interview.

I'm sure there was a lot of other stuff going on as well, but I'll just not mention any of it. Why? Because just as surely as sunshine follows rain (or is that the opposite? I can never remember that), Saturday follows Friday.

Saturday, the word, actually originates from the latin Saturdae, for "sit your lazy ass down and watch a movie or something". Which of course means that I spend part of my Saturday "helping" - yes, those quotation marks are there for a reason - Micke move from a snazzy part of Tokyo to another snazzy part of Tokyo, across a great big road, and some smaller ones. It took quite the driving feat - signed Mr Tiki - to navigate through that warren of streets, but it was, as they say, all good. The following is a picture of a place which is not-there.

Yes, tall buildings and people crossing roads in front of them still impress me.

After lunch, we left Micke to sort through all of the belongings I hadn't managed to completely destroy (yet!), and headed back north to return the rented Suzuki Swift (which, in accordance with the laws of advertising, is anything but). Of course, this being Tokyo on a Saturday afternoon, things didn't really go according to plan. What resulted, however, was a fine drive through a fine city. We also got to see the great-big-gigant LOVE-sculpture-thing outside the office building where my girlfriend works on the 23rd floor. Hell, we were so taken with that sculpture that we got to see it twice, just to make sure, or something.

But yeah, it was a fine drive. However, it was about to be topped by a musical performance on Sunday. Sure, some people would place those two in different categories, but not I.

For you see, that evening, in a tiny club in Otsuka, just a stop or so away from that haven of... something which man calls Ikebukuro, a band called LAB4 (yes, the letters have meaning) were about to take the stage for the first time ever. In a complete contrast to last weekend's Riot, this was... nice. Last week was "nice" too, but in a drastically differnt sense of the word. This was nice in a more grown-up and sensual sort of way, if you'll allow it. The performance surpassed all expectations, the talkie-bits in between contained actual entertainment value, and no, I'm certainly not biased since I know one of the people in the band. Feel free to guess who. Wow, 25 years on this Earth and I've finally made it. I am now a groupie.

Also, in stark contrast to the Greatest Riot, this did not make my ears ring for six straight days, for which I am very thankful.

And you just have to love the sign which welcomes everybody back.

That's all, folks! Tune in next week to see if I get sued by Warner Bros for using their catch-phrase, and also... other things.

The Greatest Riot

2006-09-06T19:36:00.000+09:00

And no, that's not just a title trying to be clever. Nonetheless, my ears are still ringing.

Did you ever feel like you were in the Truman Show? By this, I don't mean to ask if you've ever thought you were Jim Carrey, or indeed if you've thought of driving to an unfinished bridge and hitting tiny white balls with great big club-things. Never mind. Waking up this morning, I was entirely positive I was in the middle of an earthquake. Not The Big One, mind, but still. Do not take this lightly, I've been awoken by earthquakes before, and while I can't really think of anything that can get you out of bed and ready for a brand new day as quickly as an earthquake, it's not really something I'd recommend.

But yeah, it turns out that there was no earthquake. Or at least nobody's willing to admit that they felt it too. Not even the ever-lovin' INTERNET seems willing to admit that there's been one. It's a cover-up of near-epic proportions. Well, there's always the slight (slight, I tell you!) chance that I dreamt the whole thing up, on the back of the actual magnitude four quake we had about a week ago. Whatever.

So I'm pretty much planning to blame the lateness of this post on earthquakes, but in reality, it's more the fault of... something. Over the weekend, I undertook a drive (by which I mean "riding shotgun and messing with the satnav so we almost got lost") to Nagoya, a place where I used to live for most of last year. It's kinda strange going back to a place you used to live, as a tourist. But I'll leave that for now.

The reason for the trip was not to see Nagoya again, but rather Toyota. The city. Yes, they renamed it after, well, I think you can see where I'm going with this. What's in Toyota, aside from Priuses? A stadium. And what can you do if you have a spare stadium? You can gather some of the GREATEST BANDS OF ALL TIME, and make an event of it. And call it The Greatest Riot.

And it really was. Well, the riot part was carried out in traditional Japanese fashion. Upon arrival at the scene, Yasu and I were greeted with a 50-minute line. For merchandise. T-shirts, towels, that sort of thing.

Goodness, gracious me. The actual concerting took place from 12:30 p.m. (no, that's not a typo, the Japanese like to get an early start to their riots) to 8:30 p.m., when the last of the eight bands left the stage. They left after another traditionally Japanese riot... thing. See, people were starting to get a little rowdy in the front (we had tickets for section A5, which will put you close enough to the right-hand speakers to make your ears ring for, and I speak of experience here, four days. And counting), so the organizer goes up on stage and... Apologises for the bad planning which has led to this, asks us all to take care, and promises to plan better next year. In Sweden, they would have told us to possibly "Back. The fuck. Off". As a former classmate and current Nagoyan would say: Only in Japan, kids.

Before that however, the following band performed gorgeous music. Triple point score to anybody who can name the band (not to mention any of the actual band members). Three words, strung together just so, starting with "Yum", and followed with another "Yum". See how close that stage is? Consider the fact that my camera has the zoom qualities of tuna fish, and you realise... something.

But yeah, the concerts ROCKED, one might say, if one were so inclined. Incidentally, I cannot imagine a warmer place on God's Green Earth than bumping (welcome back to the 1950's!) around at the very front of an open arena while the Japanese sun (which kinda refuses to acknowledge that it's actually supposed to be autumn by now) tries - and succeeds! - to bake you. Over the course of the first two concerts, I consumed 1.5 liters of water. As if that were anywhere near sufficient.

After it all ended, I used my supreme train-navigation-skillz to get me back to Tokyo on the very last Shinkansen available that night. Ok, so maybe pay ten gazillion dollars for a one-way Shinkansen-trip isn't very punk rock, but you know, too much of a good thing and all that.

And no, the above has nothing to do with... well, anything, really. At least not anything mentioned here today. I intend to keep it that way. Tune in next week as our young hero will see if his ears will ever fully recover!

The Four Cards

2006-08-21T22:12:00.000+09:00

I got up at six thirty on my Sunday morning to sit on a hardwood floor for an hour and a half. What did you do?

But there are more important things than that. Such as, oh, I don't know, having mexican food with friends you haven't met in far too long. Haruka, Yukari, Naoto (and Tomo too, but you know, if I step hard enough on the floor in the morning, I end up in your place, so you're kind of in a different category), thanks for... everything, basically. I had a grand time, and I hope you did too.

For those of you who thought I'd gone nuts and started writing about sensible things, prepare to be stunned! All is well. I shall instead spend the majority of this post contemplating what information you can get from a person by the contents of his or her wallet.

No, I don't mean how much cash they carry around. I'm talking about cards. Going home today, I started developing this theory. People carry around loads of cards and crap these days, but in my simple mind, you can basically tell everything you need to know from seeing which four cards the person uses the most. This is all because of the structure of my wallet; I always place a card I've just used in the bottom of one of the pockets, making it easily reachable, strange as it may seem. So I can tell which cards I use the most just by checking the pile. Here's the top four.

1) Suica Commuters card. Not only can you buy hot dogs at furniture stores with it, but you can also ride trains. It's just that fantastic, which is probably why I can't seem to shut up about it. So what does this tell you about me as a person? That I like cards that go bleep when you touch them to sensors, and that I try to run away as often as possible by getting on various trains.

Sadly, the Suica is not valid on the Hello Kitty Bus.

2) Jexer Gym Members Card. Yes, it's completely unlike me in every way, but if there's nobody around to play tennis with and they have little tvs attatched to the bikes and treadmills and what have you, then even I can stand feeling like a hamster. I only wish they'd put generators in the things; I could power all of Tokyo for like... no time at all. Really.

What does this tell me about me? That if there's a tv involved, you can pretty much make me do anything.

3) 7-eleven cleaners card. This is a pretty straightforward one. It tells you that I'm a) lazy enough not to do all my own laundry (can't be bothered to iron my shirts in this fine establishment), and b) poor enough that I have to do get it done at 7-eleven.

4) Tower Records point card. This is actually a lie. Right now, it's my Xanadu Hair Salon member's card (possibly the most manly name ever!), but that's not really representative of the way things are. What the Tower Records point card tells you about me is that I'm desperate enough to seem cool that I'll lie about the order that the cards occupy in my wallet, or stupid enough not to change my theory to "It's cards 1,2,3, and 5 that are important". Or both, what do I know?

This is quite different from the list, had it been produced when I was in Sweden. It would then have been: 1) Visa debit card. No credit for me, thanks. 2) Driver's licence. Not that I got pulled over all that often. 3) Student ID. To get into buildings built for, well, students. 4) That's it. The rest of them were just there 'cause I couldn't be bothered to clean them out.

So yeah, what four cards do you use the most? I hope they include the member's card of a motorcycle gang of ill repute (they get the best cards) and possibly something involving ice cream. Feel free to make your own analysis, by the way.

---

In closing, I offer this, which has absolutely no connection to any card whatsoever. It's just that it looks like what I imagine that every building looked like in the 1980's Soviet Union, only that it's located in 21st centure Takadanobaba. And no, I did not just make that name up. Seriously.

The O.C.(D)

2006-08-14T22:32:00.000+09:00

No, this is not about some 21st century ripoff of classic after-school tv in the form of Beverly Hills 90210.

For those who are not so well-versed in the labyrinth of modern-day medicine, an explanation of it can be found here. In my own case, this illness does not manifest itself in me having to open and close the door 14 times before heading out, nor do I have to unscrew all the lightbulbs in my apartment before I can go to sleep. No, instead, I have to go to this town called Gifu. Pretty much every moment I get the chance. There are some rituals involved in this process, such as the climbing of a mountain, and the buying of designer denim at a store known only as Jeans RUS. Yes, that's a ripoff of a big-ass toystore, gone awry. This does not detract from the quality of the denim available for purchase at (quite often not at all-) reasonable prices.

I've been back at least once a year since I first went there in the summer of 2001. Of course, my love-affair with the place has less to do with town itself than it does with the people I know there. It's the same with everything, I guess. I wouldn't have survived the seven-month Expo without the insane Nordic people; I'd have had a miserable time in Saitama had it not been for Tomo, Kalaya, and the fine people of Winning Shot putting up with my idiocy all the time; my 31-day tour of Japan would have bit the big one without the company of Da Pete; and don't even get me started on growing up without Hasse, Escha, Hampa, and the rest. So yeah, that's why I go back to Gifu every chance I get. The jeans, the mountain, and the excellent weather? Perks, no more, no less.

Which brings us right to my Saturday morning. Waking up at 05:30 should be outlawed (if it's not already), and if you're gonna go climb something taller some really tall things, it should be outlawed once more, just for the spite of it. But such was the plan. See, if you go later in the day, it tends to get a little... warm, as the following picture from the inside of a Pajero Mini shows.

Ok, so it kind of exaggerates things a degree or two, but still. You get the idea. Yasu and I started climbing the mountain exactly one hour after waking up, and before we got to the top, we'd lost about a trillion or so pounds in pure sweat. The initial conclusion? We're getting old. Although it probably has something to do with us kicking the crap out of our best time up that beast of a pile of rubble. Incidentally, Shiho, the third member of our would-be team of mountaineers, overslept. Both the mountian-climbing thing, as well as the next engagement. This matters little, and is merely noted as something of an anecdote. Much like the rest of this, one might imagine.

Getting back down was also something of an undertaking, but eventually, we made it to the BBQ-by-the-river. Well, we had to wade across the river to get to the ultimate BBQ spot. Ever. There's a saying that crossing the stream to get water is something you might not wanna spend a whole lot of your life doing, but we figured screw it. And then there was this tiny old man who did his best Jesus-impression. Ok, so he didn't turn water into wine, or walk on said water. He did, however, walk on beer.

Basically, after incurring the wrath of every possibly deity with the above reference, rain and thunder came along, bringing their childhood friend lightning along to have a good time. Still, some BBQ-ians refused to give up the ghost. Needless to say, Yasu, Shiho, Asuka, Yumi, Kaki, Kouhei, and I headed for the cars with every ounce of human speed available at the time.

There was also quite a lot of drinking of beer at night, complete with all the fixin's, including... Well, suffice to say that every party hits a point when somebody thinks it's a good idea to hide on the top shelf of the Oshi-ire (think: "big closet"). Usually, that person is not me, but it was bound to happen sometime.

--

Incidentally, this morning, there was a small power outtage. 1.4 million homes in the Tokyo area affected. 440 traffic lights went dark during rush hour. A gazillion trains stopped on their tracks, as it were. I expect Bruce Willis was involved in some manner, possible fighting some Germans named Hans or Simon. Whatever. I knew I should have played the lottery last night.

The Homecoming

2006-08-08T21:34:00.000+09:00

There were these five middle-aged ladies tonight, sitting across from me on the train home from where I don't usually go home from. Suddenly, there are fireworks going off behind me, which sends all five sensible (I'm assuming) housewives (I can tell) into a complete frenzy. You'd think they'd been born in a fireworks-factory, but taken away from there at an early age, never to have seen actual fireworks, but still somehow never lost hope that they really were this beautiful.

This is what happened to me tonight, just replace "fireworks" with "Swedish furniture giant", and "taken away from" with "taken into". I went, ladies and gentlemen, to IKEA.

To most of you, that will mean very little. "So what, the guy went to a furniture store. Next he's gonna tell us about the time he went to Saitama to see the Urawa Reds football team play Bayern Munich". And you'd be right, since that's what I did last Monday, and I do intend to tell you about it in a while, if I can manage. But I digress.

For an Älmhultian [Wikipedia: "Älmhultian" - noun, refering to person or artifact originating from IKEA-ville, which up until the mid-21st century went by the name "Älmhult"] who's spent some two years in Japan, it's as close to a religious experience as you can get in this secularised world of ours. Instant recognition overpowers all the senses as you walk through the door, and until you leave, you just can't help but going around smiling like a retarded person. Not that I know anything about the smile-ratios of retarded people, but I hope they smile a lot. Never is looking at stuff you've grown up around more enjoyable than when said stuff is airlifted 7000 miles to end up in a huge building out in Minami-Funabashi.

I had hotdogs. They were almost as cheap as they are in Sweden; something of a miracle all its own. And they tasted fine, oh, so fine. I paid for them in the traditional... Wait, no. Here's where you start to see the changes. See, I paid for them with my commuters card, the Suica. For those of you in Sweden, the obvious analogy would be referencing the "Cash-card" of a few years back, with the only difference being that people use Suica to actually pay for stuff. There were other, more subtle differences too, but in a last-ditch attempt to keep the one reader who made it this far interested in what I have to say, I shall let them slide this time, and instead present you with:

Due to circumstances partly within and partly without my control I spent a rather fine 25 minutes (!) at a train station out in Chiba. At first, I was annoyed, but then, I noticed there was sky around, and my duty to look at it.

Continuing with the photo theme, I present you with a big building in a big part of a big city. It is a place where they keep many stores, among others the one which provided me with a Yamanote-line clock the other day. Currently, all time in my room is told along the lines of which station that little train is arriving. Right now, it's approaching "Nippori minutes to Takadanobaba". It's a fine system.

By the way, I really did go to that football game, but it wasn't really much to write home about, as it were. Urawa managed to win against a Bayern Munich whom I'm sure were giving it their all. Just that the 15 players in the team all had a bad day at once, including Olli Kahn, about whom a fine piece of music has been composed (sadly, permalink is unavailable at this time, head there fast for the full experience!). Said Olli let an own goal slip between the posts, but it was deemed inadmissable on account of a defender breaking the rules in scoring the own goal. You'd think that you couldn't really avoid an own goal by making one more error, but such are the rules. And they say people can't wrap their heads around cricket.

In the week or so since the last post, I've also been to Saitama to say hello to Japanese people I know, Swedish people I know, and sing songs I very much don't know in karaoke. It was a grand old time. It's also been a little busy since my girlfriend got herself a gorgeous new apartment only four stops away from Shinjuku, in Kouenji. For those of you following the long-distance Japanese class, that translates as "Temple of the expensive yen". Seriously.

Which leads me nicely to my final point. As has been known for some time, money can by happiness. I just never knew they sold it at IKEA, and only charged 290 yen for it. (For those not so well-versed in Swedish, please use your imagination)

The Week

2006-07-30T22:27:00.000+09:00

You knew it would end up being the title of a post sometime. Imagination doesn't last forever, you know.

I don't think I've had a week this busy, at least not this year. And I'm not getting any younger, much like most people I know, but still.

Monday: "Let's celebrate that guy in BDD, he's been here a month, so let's go out and eat loads of fancy things and talk and be merry"-night with the Company, as I call it.
Tuesday: "Let's take those two foreign guys in BDD to a place where they serve noodles, only it's not the usual noodle-place"-night.
Wednesday: "Let's let the foreigner who's never seen a gym before avoid working out by having him fill out forms for over an hour, until the gym closes"-night. I swear, it's harder to join a gym than it is to get accepted as a foreign national in this country, and Lord knows that takes a fair share of paperwork.
Thursday: "Let's measure everything about the foreigner who's never seen a gym before and explain to him that he needs to gain three pounds of fat, that should screw with his perception of what a gym is!"-night. Of course, they said I needed to put on eight or nine pounds of muscle-mass too, but that's nowhere near as funny. Also, I burn 1977 kilocalories on a day in which I do nothing. Don't ask me how they do it, they just know. Probably just by looking at you for two minutes, or something.
Friday: "Let's have a party at a club really-really far away from everything and make sure the foreigner almost gets lost getting there"-night. Ok, the blame for that has to fall on the Canadian ice hockey club hosting the party for the 200+ people, but yeah.
Saturday: "Let's play tennis, then eat something at a really expensive place in Shinagawa"-day-and-night. With the Company. And fun it was.
Sunday: "Hmm, it's been busy this week at work as well as in my spare time, so let's relax by walking for 238 frikkin' miles through Tokyo"-day. Yotsuya to Aoyama to Roppongi to Tokyo Tower to Hamamatsu-chou. And no, I had no idea where that was, either. Still don't, come to think of it.

So yeah. I've also seen a match or two of the premier league of Japanese floorball. The team is Shooting Stars, and I have two and a half friends on there (the half since I don't know him that well), which I suppose makes me a groupie of a male team of indoor-hockey-people. It's not bad. I even got one of the fastest shots ever, on camera. And this at a time when Shooting have only two players (excluding the goalie) on the field, compared to the opponents, who have four! Talk about a different level.

Oh, and upon crossing a, well, crossing, in Shirokanedai, I saw a tv-show being shot, starring none other than (someone I've recently been informed may very well be-) Kamenashi-san of something-fame. They were just there, filming their hearts out and keeping us from crossing the street and eventually getting almost-lost on the way to the club on Friday night, so I figured they deserved to have their picture taken.

New Topic Goodness! When I was here four years ago, doing the round-trip thing of basically all of Japan (bar Okinawa) with someone who goes by the name of Da Pete, we had access to the Lonely Planet range of guidebooks, specifically the one about Japan. This because we felt it would suit our needs far more than one of outer Mongolia. We may have been wrong, but that's the way it was. Anyway, in it, we discovered such memorable pieces of advice as "A man is wise to climb Fuji-san once, a fool to do it twice" and "Tokyo Tower just isn't worth the effort". Both of which turn out to be true, at least to some extent. If I only had one week in Tokyo, I certainly wouldn't want to spend all of it waiting in line to get to go up to the top of a tower built expressly to top the Eiffel Tower on some far-off continent, but since I'm here for a while, I figured it was about time. Besides, you get to go in an elevator! Who wouldn't pay 1420 yen for that pleasure, I ask you?!

In closing, I offer this picture, as proof that things here might not be quite like things elsewhere. I don't really know what they use their old hair-driers for in Sweden, but I'm pretty sure it's not for keeping the plants for freezing. In summer, with outdoor temperatures approaching 5 billion degrees. Celsius, no less!

The question of the day was just posed by someone close to me. "Do nomads have an address?" Do they? And if so, do they fill in their change-of-address-forms as promptly as the rest of us? See you next week.

The Delay

2006-07-22T21:27:00.000+09:00

No, that's not just a clever way of informing you that this post is a week or so late.

It's also a way of getting the subject squarely on trains. You see, trains are cool. I mean, I'm not some kind of train maniac, but in Japan, the people they do love their trains. I had a teacher in junior high who brought a video to class of his huge train-set-thing, occupying his entire garage. He'd love it here. You see, you can't imagine a Tokyo without trains. Well, you could, but it would be a city which would be dead within the hour, basically. And it's almost as hard to imagine a train that doesn't run on time. Yes, this is very much not Sweden.

So I therefore present you with the following:

For those of you into this sort of thing, you'll have no problem reading those sqiggles, but for the rest of you, this is a "Proof of delay" I got just about a week ago, coming home from... somewhere. There had been thunder and lightning all afternoon, and this had caused random havoc on the system. My train was almost twenty minutes delayed. In Tokyo! This will not stand. Any guesses to why they hand out little notes saying "Proof of delay" are welcome. Most creative, furthest-from-the-truth explanation gets a free t-shirt.

Ah, but the train madness does not end there. Instead, it reaches all the way into Shinjuku's Takashimaya department store, where they sell many things. It's what department stores do, or so I've been told. I'm not really big on Takashima, however. It's the Tokyu Hands in the same 14-story building that has wrapped me round its little finger. There, you can by stuff like this:

It's an alarm clock. Which has a little train right there in the middle. One which runs on the Yamanote-line, going round this city of ours in a great big cirlce (and thus excellent to sleep on, trust me on this). But the fun doesn't end there! It's got all the station names printed on the face, including the exact time it takes to travel between them. Thankfully, it takes just about an hour to complete the entire lap, so there was no need to invent a new system of telling time in order to fit it on the clock. And yeah, finally, it plays six different tunes from some of the stations, so you can wake up to that tune you'll hear in half an hour when you have to change trains in Shibuya.

I want that clock so badly I can taste it. And it tastes good.

More pictures!

Feel free to guess which one depicts an ice cream parlor in Shibuya named after the country of my birth, and which one depicts a completely random guy riding around on quite the bike, wearing nothing beneath the waist except a white pair of boxer shorts. As a friend of mine would say, "Only in Japan, kids".

Other than the above mentioned madness, I have spent the past two weeks doing many things, some of the including actual work. Imagine the horror. It's not bad actually, we're still very much in the start-up phase of our projects, but today I've spent a five-digit number of yen on litterature of various kinds to help me on the way. If I study it round the clock, maybe I'll catch up to Tomo. Maybe not.

I've also...
1) been to Hokkaido (the restaurant, not the island. At least not recently), followed by karaoke. 2) played table tennis, ending by skill-shootin' our only ball up on a beam making up part of the ceiling, where it promptly laid still, in an effort that defied some of the laws of physics and pretty much all logic.
3) actually not been to baseball since the last time.
4) in the spirit of my forefathers come up with a project that I shall see if I can get approved. Most likely it won't work, but I'm really enjoying trying my hand at it, and for now, that's all that matters.
5) seen a program on TV about Doga. "Dog yoga", to the lay person.
6) learned that they've changed the man on the 1000-yen bill from Natsume Soseki to Noguchi Hideo mainly on account of the latter having more hair, thus making the note harder to forge.
7) gotten the first bill for my mobile phone. It's not happy reading.
8) gotten my ATM-card. About bloody time.
9) not joined a gym. I might well do so though. Stop laughing, I can hear you all the way from this side of the Intertron.

That should do it. In closing, I present you the following:

My girlfriend went to a wedding, and got this machine that "makes beer out of beer", as a wise man once put it. It was not I. It's called Let's Beer Great, and is of great nostalgic value to anybody having been in Gifu in the summer of 2K1. As, I am sure, is this.

The Dog

2006-07-08T23:35:00.000+09:00

I so need a bike. It's not even funny.

Last year, the main part of which I spent in the fabulous city of Nagoya, I lived with two guys. And a lot of very loud Austrians, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, one of the two guys was Norwegian, no less, and went to a 100-yen shop (the slightly more luxurious version of the 99-yen shop. And no, I'm not joking) and came back with a rather ugly, and therefore insanely lovable mini-statue of a dog, promptly named Za Doggu, in proud Japanese fashion. I here offer a small tribute to Za Doggu:

And no, I have not used it to clean any kind of dog. Yet.

There are things you only do once in life. They come in two categories. One is things you'd really, really love to do again (oh, I don't know, experiencing the joy of getting up at 06:30 on your birthday to take the theoretical part of the drivers' licence test), but can't, the other is made up of things you've done you just don't want to do again (such as getting up at... yeah). Today, I did something that I with the aid of a future bike won't have to do again.

I walked from Shibuya to Harajuku to Yoyogi to Shinjuku to Yotsuya. Where I live, so there wasn't much need for further walking. I could have taken the train. There is money on my Suica commuter's card, and I have the knowledge to utilize it properly. But no. So if anybody needs directions to the Subway (the sandwhich place. Or, for that matter, the train station) closest to the Yoyogi police station that I passed on the way, you've come to the right place. The serve a mean roast beef sandwhich, if memory serves.

I took a brake though. In Yoyogi park. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. I had brought with me one very fabulous book and, it would turn out, an equally fabulous magazine. So I sit down, hoping for some peace and quiet (well, except all the people around, and the two bands trying to out-volume each other). And promptly get shit on by a bird. I'm pretty sure that's never happened before.

Right after The Incident, three guys come up to me and start talking to me because I look like a foreigner. Probably because I actually am one. But who knows? Either way, we talk for a while, and then I break out the Japanese, to much applause, and now it looks like we're going to be playing some Footsal (or is that Futsal? I should ask the guy who bought Za Doggu, he'd know) together in the future. That pretty much cancels out my anger at the world for being, well, shit on. The picture has nothing to do with that. It just has lots of people in it. It's taken at a place many of you already know and all of you must know one day.

Walking around this great city of ours/theirs, I also managed to find something that just makes me happy, somehow. Not so much the product itself, but the fact that there are people in the world who work at companies which let them produce stuff like this. And the Dog Cleaner. If you study the picture, you'll realise how I'll spend my Friday nights from now on.

I believe that, as they say, is that. I could regale you about tales regarding mine and Tomo's adventures in the Junior Suites at Tokyo Dome watching the Dragons slay the Giants this week, or possibly show which part of western Tokyo looks most like the Mediterranean (hint: it's not the Turkish embassy, despite it being located here), but I have to save something for later.

As I wrote this, I have consumed far too much of very good Swedish chocolate. Oh, and Mitsuya Cider, once quoted as being "God's gift to thirsty people". By me, quite obviously.

UPDATE! I was just informed of the nature of things by Toyomi, calling from Nagoya (where else?). She has been given a machine that will amaze some of you. Or me, and I hope one more person, at least. Let's Beer Great is all I have to say for now. Make of that what you will.

UPDATE the UPDATE! I was just informed of the nature of some other things by Tomo, calling from room 719, and it looks like... a lot of things. Never mind, I just wanted to update the update, really.

UPDATE the UPDATE the UPDATE! Yeah, he called again. Lost the charger to his phone, it would seem.

UPDATE the UPDATE the UPDATE the UPDATE! Now we're talking! And he found the charger. Hidden away in his bag, apparently.

I'm going to sleep very, very soon.

The Tokyo

2006-07-03T14:39:00.000+09:00

Across the street from me, there is a lady who is cleaning her window. The window is located eight floors above what mere mortals refer to as "ground", where there is an AU-shop. This shop sells mobile phones. I should know, I've bought mine there. But that is still not the point. The shop, aside from being located eight floors below the lady cleaning the window with a fervor that would indicate she's having inlaws over for dinner, is also located on Shinjuku-doori. If that lady were to stop cleaning for a moment, get out of her apartment, turn right, and walk 10-15 minutes through the rain currently streaming down, she would find herself in Shinjuku. The place to be, as it were.

I have never lived this near the center of, well, anything, really. Cities with twice the population of my home country even less.

I arrived last week, after a flight which left me feeling pretty good, having slept all of 25 minutes. Then I was led into the "special immigration office", feeling way too special, with the ominous phrase "there's no problem, but...". That's not what you wanna hear at 09:27 a.m. in Narita International Airport. No, you want to hear "Yes sir, all your luggage has already been sent to your specified address", or possibly "I'm sorry, only the white helicopter was available to take you into Tokyo today". But it turns out that there actually was no problem, praise the somebody! Sadly, there was no helicopter either, but I'm willing to let them go on that one.

So, six days in the capital of my own personal little world, and what have I accomplished? I've:
1) ...been to baseball twice. Once to see my dear Chunichi Dragons own the Yakult Swallows, and once to experience what may objectively be the best supporters in the sport at the Hanshin Tigers' game against the Yomiuri Giants.
2) ...had 22 pieces of sushi in one sitting. At the Kappa sushi in Harajuku, hidden though it may have been. Thanks to the magic of mobile-phone-GPS and lots and lots of love for the raw fish thing, we still managed to find it. Ha-HA!

It was not at this place, the name of which translates into "Surprise sushi". Isn't that taking the whole concept just one step too far?
2b) ...had one order of "Fresh slices of horse". Seriously.

3) ...been to Ebisu to see England have their b-hinds handed to them on penalties in the quarter final of the World Cup. I also had dinner there with some ten or so other people, less than half of which I knew beforehand.
4) ...been to Omiya, up in Saitama, not too far from where I and Tomo used to study. "Study" being our word for "heading downtown to do random shopping and have fun looking at Japanese people doing Japanese things".
5) ...bought a phone. On which you can play an arcade-perfect conversion of Ridge Racer. Oh, and use it as payment for the subway. The last time I was here, I had to have a card in my wallet and hold up the wallet to a sensor, this time I can do it with the phone instead. And I can buy stuff from convenience stores too. What will they think of next? Anyway, if you're reading this, chances are you already know the number/email address. If not, email my regular one and I'll set up up double-quick-time.
6) ...bought a lot of other stuff too. It's amazing what you can accomplish in less than a week if you put your mind to it.
7) ...started my training at Tetra Pak Japan, which is supposed to end up being magically transformed into some sort of Master's thesis. "Magically" being the key word.
8) ...gotten a fine massage from my hairdresser. This is apparently the way they do things here. It was a good one too. The conversation was almost even better, about this new Cup Noodle (r) timer. You put your cup (preferably with noodles and water in it) on there and that little sucker will tell you when they're done. See #5 about what they will think of next.
9) ...seen Jack Bauer (yes, that's his real name!) do an ad for "Calorie Mate", which is basically just space-food. A brick you eat so you don't need to eat anything else, essentially. And Tommy Lee Jones did some ad for... diapers? Something in a supermarket, can't remember what. Never mind.
10) ...not been late for work once. Thankfully, the soccer was on Saturday night, otherwise the 12:30 p.m.-wake-up the next day might have had dire consequences.

The lady across the street has now finished cleaning her window. Maybe she took my advice and headed off to Shinjuku.

In closing, I offer this picture of Tomo pretty much punching the crap out of Omiya's resident mascot squirrel. At least it looks like it, and pictures surely don't lie, much like this dear InterTron of ours.

Kumadude out.

The kidz

2006-06-20T05:35:00.000+09:00

There's nothing that makes you feel quite so old as when you are surrounded by lots of people who weren't born when you were. This is completely natural. If it wasn't, then something would be wrong with the system, and we all know how difficult those are to fix.

---

The reason I've been (more) absent (than usual) is three-fold. One is that I'm a lazy mo-fo, but that should be painfully obvious to all parties involved ny now. The second one is that I've been having yet another adventure in bureaucrazy, as I call witlessly call it.

I got my current passport three-and-a-bit years ago. It now has four full-page visas in it. I say this, of course, with a certain measure of pride. Not at some vain belief that I've "seen the world" or whatever, but rather that I've managed to get four visas at all. It seems to me that the entire process is really just a test to see how many hoops you can get a potential visitor to jump through in order to enter your country just to weed out the ones who don't care enough to compete.

The most nerve-rattling one was probably the Chinese one. Some of you may already know of my Adventures in Communism from last year, so I'll spare you the details. However, even Japanese ones can be quite taxing. Documents from four (4!) different sources, all signed and sealed? Yeah.

The tragic thing is, I don't think they really care. The embassy which tells you to do all these things just weighs your envelope and judges you worthy or not worthy of a visa to their country purely by the weight of the papers you've sent them. They then proceed to do something for a while, and send you your passport back to you with what is - in all ways that count - just a big sticker covering a full frikkin page.

But this time, I am actually indebted to them. Without me asking for it, they gave me a longer visa than I should have gotten, as well as an upgrade which may prove useful in the future. Maybe they liked my penmanship. More like they wanted to get me to stop calling every thirty minutes to see if I'd gotten my visa yet.

Yotsuya, here I come. Be prepared. June 28th is the big day. Not that that's any of Yotsuya's concern.

---

The reader will no doubt be aware that I quoted three reasons for the tardiness of this post and have thus far only given you the first two. You will no doubt be expecting me to let you off without mentioning the third and final one. Fear not! I shall write more words which will make even less sense!

Trust me on this one.

---

I went to a "festival". It was not "the festival of lights", since I'm in no way Jewish, nor was it "the monster truck festival of New Zeeland 2007" simply because I doubt such an atrocity exists in this world of ours. Also, to my admitteldly limited knowledge, it's not 2007 in New Zeeland yet. No, this is what the kidz call a "rock" festival. Three whole days, generally speaking.

The first time I went there was in 2002, I think. I remember getting a text message with the reaction from one of my friends that this was "unlike me". There was no malice in that statement, nor is there resentment in me mentioning it here. It's just plain statement of fact, and it's as true then as it is now. I don't belong there, reasons being among others that I'm not 16 years old, nor am I insanely drunk right now. Nor had I REALLY listened to an entire album non-stop that I'd bought and paid for myself before going there that first time. But I'm very glad I did.

This time was more unlike me than every before, really. I didn't plan everything carefully in advance. Hell, I didn't even know which bands were playing until the day before departure. Nor did I know how I was going to get home, since my friends ride was full. That's where not-planning-ahead comes up and bites you in the... groin. But, I managed to get back in one piece, in large part due to friends of friends who drove there in a van. I say this with reverence. A real, honest-to-God tree-killing American Chevy van. Naturally, starting the trip home, it wouldn't start. Battery dead. Luckily, they had a spare, and the knowledge to change the dead one for the new one. Unluckily, this one, too, was dead. But in the end, we got going. Until we stopped, and spent half an hour trying to get help starting it once more. And then solemnly vowed never to turn that engine off again. Global warming? Yes, that would be my fault. Entirely.

The moral of this story? Growing up, I've been surrounded by people who instead of preying on what makes me me have allowed me to "belong" without the added pressure of "conforming" just for the sake of said conforming. They have all allowed me to be a bit strange around the edges and thus not be like them in some ways, though none of those ways actually matter when it comes down to it. For this, I am eternally grateful. Chances are, if you're reading this, you're one of those people. So thank you.

In less than a week, I will be on my way to start another new life in Tokyo. I hope you will be with me.

The sunset

2006-06-07T01:57:00.000+09:00

You'd have to search far and wide before you'd find a person who's more patriotic than an expat who's either wilingly or forcibly accepted living in a country for more than a couple of months, other than that in which he was born and raised . This is not strange, or perhaps even blog-worthy. He who lives shall see.

Today is the National Day of Sweden. The reason for this? Some politicians decided it that way a couple of years ago. Before that, it was the "Day of the Swedish Flag", which just doesn't have the same ring to it. Why give an entire day of the year over to a piece of designer cloth, when you could give the same day to an entire country, be it a small and relatively cold one with lots of people going on and on about the weather and ... pizza? On this day in history in 1523, we crowned a real badass king. And on the same day in 1809, no doubt influenced by said badass regent, the then-new constitution was ratified. It was repealed some 170 years later, when it was the second oldest one in the world still in use. But in grand blog-tradition, that's not the point of all this.

Like I've covered before, we're not a terribly nationalistic people. We have what one writer claimed to be an inferiority complex towards Norway since they celebrate the living daylights (triple word score to the first one who spots the 80's Norwegian pop-reference!) out of their national holiday, whereas we, traditionally, haven't. Now this year is the first when this day is a public holiday which actually means something. Last year, it ended up on some loser weekendian day like Saturday or Sunday. Sadly, we lack the Japanese backup system of making the following weekday a holiday in case that particular disaster should rear it's ugly head at us. And scream. Possibly "Ha-HA", for all I know. So this year is the "first". And according to polls (who dreamt up this one I do not know), two thirds of the people are not planning to celebrate it. Shocking.

I say, much like that writer (why have an opinion of your own when it's just so much easier to take somebody else's? It's what most people do, anyway. And most people in my surroundings seem to be doing pretty well, what with being alive and all), screw it. Celebrate it in your own way. You get a day off work (or for me, a day off from being off) to do with as you may. Reflect on your fine country, play videogames till your eyes bleed, or go consume something. I really don't care. I spent my day reading a biography of H.R.H. the King, who's one daughter I've taught a thing or two. Believe it or not.

Ok, so the reason for that reading bit has nothing to do with it being 060606 today (ooh, number of the beast, watch as I quake in fear at the disappearance of the three zeros holding today together), but rather a distinct lack of will to unpack crap sitting in the garage. But still.

That, however, is not my way of celebrating. That would be reflecting on a fact that managed to squeak by in last night's news. Ever since a couple of years before TV was invented, they've shown this little movie on the TV news every spring, maybe once a week or so. "The sun film" is it's official name. And it's gorgeous, to use someone else's word. It tells you when the sun rises and sets, and how many minutes of daylight have been gained since last week, in three parts of the country. Yesterday, instead of "+36 minutes", it said "over the horizon". And that, my friend(s?), is the definition of gorgeousness.

Having not been back here to sample a Swedish summer for three years, I'd almost forgotten what it's like to be alive in a place where there's still light outside at 10. At night! If I were a slightly more sleepy person, or if I lived a bit more to the north, I would never see darkness. (Until winter came, but I'd be in Acapulco sipping Shirley Temples by then, surely). It kicks the ass in the most invigorating way possible. It's also a bit scary when you think it's five in the afternoon and it's past the kids' bedtime by hours. Not that I have any kids. But yeah.

So, having been an expat for a few summers in a row, I've spent my National Day contemplating the grandness of light. This in light of the news that I will once again set sail in some sort of motorized aero-thing for my adopted homeland, Japan, in a matter of days or possibly weeks, instead of months or possibly years. I shall make every effort to bring this gorgeous light with me.

The final

2006-05-30T19:20:00.000+09:00

There are lots of things which determine where you end up doing what you end up doing in this life. One of these lives in my building. He has some... issues.

To put this in perspective, let me inform you of my previous places of being. Starting out life on my own (first with one, and then two friends, kind of negating the whole "on my own" bit, but still), I lived in an apartment. Much like you, odds are. It was a fine apartment. 92 square meters , which if you include the attic and the balchony becomes over 1000 square feet! But that is not the point. The point is this: If you're going to live somewhere, you might decide to check out the place ahead of time, see that there are no bullet-holes in the windows, that there is a toilet, that sort of thing. But regardless of the result of this, most people neglect one important aspect.

The neighbors. If the laws of statistics say that you're likely to end up being surrounded by "normal" people, some of them are bound to end up being not-so-normal. This is not by definition a bad thing. There are different kinds of not-so-normal. But then there's what happened to us. First of all, we had a downstairs neighbor who was very... shall we say "noise-sensitive"? Complaints about the volume during parties I can cope with and even understand, but this guy really went above and beyond.

One peaceful Sunday afternoon, at around four o'clock, there was a knock on the door. Needless to say, I answered it. I was always the one who got yelled at, fitting perfectly with the principle of "I'm always the one you should feel sorry for". But what I heard was comical, in a very sad way. We got two major complaints:
1) We vacuumed too much. Think this through. We're three 23 year-old guys sharing an apartment. Vacuum? Really?
2) We laugh too much, and too loudly. The only way to take this attempted criticism is as a compliment. And then feel a little bad for the person who goes around telling other people off for basically being a little too happy most of the time.

And no, this guy was not living in the neighboring building, where they were attempting to "readjust people with psychological problems to a life in normal society". We never had any problem with any of those fine individuals.

Also in our area, there was a kid who came out during finals week. At LiU, this comes but four times a year, but you can bet your ass, or a prized possesion that he'd be there. With a great big whistle, able to distract even the most studious of, well, students. We named him "the whistle kid" and hated him fervently.

So now, living in the far closer-to-school and far filled-with-more-students area of Ryd, you'd think I'd be safe to study for my final final (a-HA!) in peace. Not so. There is no Whistle-kid. There is no Mojk, as laughs-a-lot guy was lovingly called. However, to compensate, I have two new acquaintances. One is "Screaming jackass", the other is "Idiot". Now as most of you know, I am a pretty peaceful person, but I am also prone to dramatic overstatements of fact, so bear with me.

"Screaming jackass" is the new Whistle-kid. Regular as clockwork and twice on Mondays, he opens his window and just screams. Maybe it's anxiety over finals, or whatever. I really don't care.

"Idiot" is the guy goes ape on the ads we have delivered some weekdays. If you don't want them, you can sign your name on a little list right there by the mailboxes, but this guy (I'm assuming it's a guy, I've never actually seen the process in action) avoids that like sin, and instead throws his - and all the other ads he can find - with complete reckless abandon on the floor. Creating lots and lots of work for the people who are nice enough to get paid to clean up, and making me feel bad that I think I'm important enough not to help out and clean it up myself on my way to school in the morning.

So yeah.

Finally (uhm), back by popular demand, is this:

This is due to actual popular demand by the strapping young man in the picture. He is currently as far away from Japan as I am, but the other way around. Sort of. Oh, and remember what I said before: I will not be held responsible for breaking the Internet by laughter. Loud though it may be.

The miracle

2006-05-22T04:36:00.000+09:00

This thing is going to be about sports. If you only have three minutes before you have to leave for work, you might want to spend them elsewhere, perhaps with some professional sports-blogger-journalist-type-person. If you for some reason swing that way. I don't know. Hell, maybe you just don't care about sports at all. Although that would be shocking news, to say the least.

Yeah, I know I promised I'd be back on form this time, but that's just going to have to wait. Next time. I promise. Then again, you probably know what my promises are worth by now, huh?

---

Sweden hasn't been in a war (officially) since a "short, dead dude" named Napoleon roamed the continent. Sure, people where he was born called him Nabullione, but that's not really relevant to my point. So yeah, a couple of hundred years without anything to get all hot and bothered about. Add to that the fact that the couple of hundred years before that had been spent gradually constructing a smaller and smaller nation, giving parts to the Russians and so on...

It all adds up to a lot of pent up adrenaline. Now we could all go beserk and rage out on the streets, but that wouldn't be very... Swedish, you know? We're all so civilized. Very nearly enough to make you sick, unless you consider things like daycare for the kids and auto insurance the stuff of dreams.

But then we go and do something like this:

On top of something like this:

No points for matching which photo to which triumph. However, points to the first and last one who can tell me the given names of the three identifiable players in the top one. Master class difficulty: No Googling!

Sweden is the first nation in the history of the world to win a World Championship and the Olympic Games in the same year!

No, I'm not talking U21 bobsleigh running for people over six feet tall. I'm talking hockey. As if anything else matters. The Czechs may have robbed us of another "dream final" agains the Finns, but I'm ok with it. Lets call it a different revenge, and leave it at that.

It's like the little guy in elementary school who sucks at all the cool things like running track (was that ever cool?) or smoking behind the bleachers (not that we had any where I went to school) but is great at geography. People may think that's a pretty useless skill to have (especially compared to the smoking), but to that little kid... So what if I could name the capital of Botswana before we got to multiplication, never mind, ok! Get off my back! Geez! Anyway, the point is, we all need something to be proud of, and if you live in a small country who can't be proud about a history of parents going out of their way to make babies or guns to take over other people's babies, you take what you get. Be it safe cars, crumbling social welfare, mobile communications systems (since we lost the edge in the much sexier "mobile phones" race), or an event that's probably going to be called "people chasing a tiny black rubber thing on ice because they don't have anything better to do" by future generations.

Right now, there's a man sitting naked from the waist up, two front teeth missing, and a tatoo of something unreadble on his chest, answering inane questions on TV. And I couldn't be prouder to know he's a Swede.

The glass is there

2006-05-16T23:48:00.000+09:00

Lately, I find myself wondering. Do you remember too little, or actually too much?

As some of you know, my girlfriend (who's name shall remain hidden for reasons of intrigue and mystery. I will refer to her as "Toyomi") has been living with me for the past three months. She is not, anymore. Thankfully, this did not come about due to my inability to put down the seat, or how I never did anything but watch sports all day. Except for the Olympics, that was some fine hockey action. Ooh, and the curling. But that's neither here nor there.

The point is, that due to visa regulations and my upcoming trip to Japan to cap a career of 17 years in school with some sort of thesis right there at the end, she went home. And it got me thinking. It feels like time just flew by. This happens quite a lot, for example when you haven't studied enough for an exam which is about to start, or maybe when you spend time lying on the grass in the sunshine. But in this case, we're talking about a quarter of a year that somebody apparently just lived up, and now it's gone. This is feeling is not because "all I did was study". I have, on occasion, bemoned the fact that I had to go to school since I had a lecture that day. We've also been able to visit three Nordic capitals (points for all guesses that include Helsinki!), as well as the center of the universe, currently located in Älmhult, Småland. Population 8592. And a fair bit of more local places as well. Which means that things obviously happened. Somehow they just ended up doing it a great deal quicker than one might have thought.

I mean, if we've done all this stuff, shouldn't it feel like it's been a really long while? Thinking about it logically, this is the only conclusion. Doing stuff takes time. Ergo, doing lots of stuff takes lots of time. Right? But still, that feeling eludes me much like any deeper understanding of Laotian cinema.

Here I am, left to my own devices to come up with an answer. And it is this: It doesn't feel like "a long time" because we don't remember what happened on that Thursday afternoon eleven weeks ago, but rather because we do remember it, as well as what happened the next week, and the one after that. If we didn't, there would be nothing to compare it to. Everything would be happening "now", because we wouldn't remember what happened before. Somewhat akin to describing the distance to Cuba in nautical miles to somebody who measures stuff in "cats". Or something.

Completely nonsensical intermission time! (And no, sadly, it's not that kind of place, just a regular bar):

(If Da Pete is watching, I was looking through old... stuff, and found this, along with perennial favorite "Thanks, 40th Anniversary! Dynamic Performance of Mission!" But exposing that to the world? I doubt we as a society are ready just yet)

So yeah, in conclusion, I cannot tell you if the glass is half-empty. Or, indeed, if it is half-full. Only that you remember that it is there, and it's up to you to fill it up with stuff. Prefereably big, bulky home electronics. I like that. Better get me one of them thar American-size glasses, then.

---

If you found this post a little stranger than average (even for me), you're probably right, so I'll give you this to think about: Going home from the airport yesterday, I had apparently booked my return ticket in the wrong direction. 17 years of Swedish education: 1 - Rest of World: 0. Just to show you that I'll be back on form next time; you can take that to the bank. (Which would probably result in a lot of strange stares and awkward conversations, but that does not detract from the fact that you could take it to the bank.)

The 放題

2006-05-07T05:03:00.000+09:00

There is something which, were it spread to the rest of the world, would surely contribute to it becoming a better place. I am, of course, talking about the 放題 ("houdai"). For those of you who think that those squiggly lines are just a very complicated way of writing "houdai", well, you're right. Obviously, it is. But also, it's not. There's far more to it than meets the eye.

This is a Japanese concept, as you may have guessed, what with it being talked about by me. It means, basically "-as much as you want." Which is a pretty sweet deal, you must agree. The Houdai comes in abundant natural flavours. The original (and some would argue, the best) is the Nomihoudai, the drink-all-you-want. It's pretty straight forward, really. You pay the man or the woman at the place a flat fee, and then watch as your party desolves into drunken disorder. A process during which at one point, somebody will obviously find it a great idea to go yell at empty taxi cabs parked on the street below. At times, the not-at-all elusive Nomihoudai can be found at karaoke places, which make for a quite possibly lethal combination. Just ask your throat the next morning. You will get no reply. If you do, you'll have done something terribly wrong.

Of course, there are far more esoteric species in the Houdai family than the Nomihoudai, or even it's cousin, the Tabehoudai (all-you-can-eat. Hell, you can even find that in places which are not Japan!). Basically anything can be Houdai-ified, if you try hard enough. You might have met up with the Norihoudai ("ride", as on trains or giant coffee cups at some place of amusement), which can be very useful for going places (or indeed, around in circles). Then there's the general Yarihoudai, or -shihoudai, ("do") with the aid of which one can help even lowly nouns approach the sanctity of the Houdai. Here are two examples:

This would be the Cross-promotional-yarihoudai, for a Japanese mobile phone company, as well as a company making great big black capes and somewhat clunky armour to go with it. Then there's always the ol':

Which probably would be the Tall-building-houdai, or maybe the Cloudy-houdai. If you build something so high that it not only reaches the clouds but actually goes on to stab them right in the belly, that's probably your cue to stop, right there. Or just keep going, I don't really care. I like tall buildings, as long as I'm not the one building them. That would just be pathetic, trying to build a skyscraper on student loans using arms the girth of hotdogs.

Tripple word score to everybody who can guess what city that picture's from. Yes, even if you look at the comments after the first person got it right. Cheater. Hint: It's not the place I am from, and chances are, it's not the place you're from, either.

The reason for all this Houdai-ness? Man, do I always have to have a reason? (Hint #2: Uhm, no, just look at the rest of the posts, and you'll probably start to notice some sort of pattern forming). But yeah. The weather's good. I mean, great! I spent three hours outside today. In a row! Without my mom saying "You have to go out and play more". Not that she does, generally; that's just to make my point. Anyhoo, then I catch a glimpse of the weather on TV (yes, man has invented a thing which s/he can look at as opposed to look out the actual window), and see that Sweden had the highest temperature in all of Europe today. Feel free to make up a brand new Houdai to commemorate this day.

Think about it for a second, "The Highest in Europe". Taste it. This is big. Mainly because it's so unexpected. If you know something good's coming your way, its relative value depriciates accordingly. It follows that the opposite might also be true; if something great happens completely out of the blue, your joy is multiplied by a factor, lets call it Mike. The Mike Factor. Remember back in junior high when your teacher didn't show up for class that one time, and you suddenly had 45 minutes of free time? That's it. It was just so much more precious than the empty period you always had between math and English on Thursday afternoons, because you had no idea it was coming. It's like getting an album by a group you don't know, only to realise one of your new favorite tunes is on there. The one that's been going through your head all day; you just didn't know the name of the band.

That, my friends, is the magical power of the Houdai. The power which lets me go from Darth Vader via Swedish weather and junior highschool, all the way to a random analogy involving music. Fan-frikkin-tabulous.

Allow me to wax philosophical, for once

2006-05-04T02:03:00.000+09:00

You can never go home again.

That's what they say. It's obviously a lie, but it's still what they say. As long as you have the will, the financial and temporal means, and are in good enough health to travel, you can go home. No problem. In fact, entire businesses have been built around the concept of people going home. Perhaps not even to their own homes, but to somebody else's home. Imagine the horror. What you can never do, however, is go back.

You cannot, thus far, go back to your childhood home, the way it was. Sure, some things will be the same, some of the buildings, some of the people, some of the furniture in your old room. But the simple fact of the matter is that no matter how much you might like to go back, you just can't. Live with it.

All is not lost, however. Even if you have been fortunate enough to be allowed the opportunity to see what life is like across the county line, hell, even in THE BIG CITY, there is still a cornucopia of things to appreciate in your hometown. Yes, no matter how small, or how large the difference between it and the place you work/study/watch too much tv in. You just have to accept the fact that the things won't be the same as when you came home from junior high on a Friday afternoon to go out an play football in the glorious sunshine. You may think it will be too tiny, now that you've "seen the world", but if you have any positive memories at all from your childhood, it won't be. It'll be "quaint". It'll be "within walking distance", "close to nature", "near good neighbors", or even, shock, horror, "a good place to settle down to raise the kids".

This is human nature. For some yet undisclosed purpose, we have been given genes. They have been packed with, as far as I know, lots of stuff I don't know. But somewhere deep inside, included in every human package, is the desire to explore. It's different in all people, which is why some peolpe go to the next block while others drive buggies on the moon, but it's there. It's in your system, there's nothing you can do about it. For most people, however, this desire can be satisfied. Some people get there when they turn 17 and realise running away isn't all it's cracked up to be, some not until they hit 108. Though most reach it by then. I mean, getting there at 109 just seems silly, really.

Which doesn't make for a very good opportunity to segue, but still. The reason for the above rant is that I went home this past weekend, and everywhere I looked, it was just idyllic. Completely! Almost shockingly so. Maybe it was because I was showing it and somebody I care a great deal about to somebody I care a great deal about. Either way, it was just perfect, a shimmering pearl on the edge of toppling into the lake-with-a-name-that-doesn't-really-sound-very-poetic-in-English. Or Swedish, come to think of it.

Time to say goodbye for now. Personally, it feels like I'll hit that point where my exploratory desire no longer dictates my life at some point right in between 17 and 108. Then I'll go back again.

All killer, no filler

2006-04-27T01:42:00.000+09:00

As some of you are already aware, I was hospitalised for a grand total of eight or so hours a couple of days ago, and since I'm apparently fine, and also have nothing interesting to write before going to Älmhult (oh yeah, baby!) and Copenhagen this weekend, this is what happens:

Timeline: The Hospital Adventure, 2K6

15:12 First examination, at local clinic, by med-student-Linn. EKG taken. Watch me work my way up the ladder!

15:41 Enter, stage left: Dr Lena Trell.

15:49 Blood test.

16:10 Results are in! Back to Dr Trell.

16:45 Callback from cardiologist at University Hospital, filling out transfer forms, calling taxi to take me there.

17:35 Arrival University Hospital ER. Am told to wait. Possibly forever.

ER-observation #1: Playing "Knocking on Heaven's Door" over the PA at a place of medical care? Seriously?

ER-observation #2: The ER has a queue system. Take a number, we'll get to your gushing legwound in due time. (Although in all fairness, a note proclaims proudly that people with brething or circulatory/fainting issues should contact the staff immediately.)

ER-observation #3: TV at hospitals sucks. Maybe because it's on SVT1, which is now showing kiddie-TV.

ER-observation #4: The mechanical arm that picks up food/drinks in the vending machine has a sticker on it, saying something which roughly translates into "Adding a sparkle to your day". Yeah, right.

ER-observation #5: My wristwatch stopped working 20 minutes ago, at 17:45. This is not completely without suckage.

ER-observation #7: Yes! News on TV!

ER-observation #7½: No! Kids manage to grab hold of the remote...

19:13 Second EKG of the day, new blood test. Wait for results. "It's a busy day", or so they tell me.

23:34 Meet Dr Tilman Weissmann, who wakes me up by telling me his name, repeatedly. In my recently awoken state, I am not quite able to parse this information at the time, thinking I've been transfered to Mars. Or possibly Germany.

00:00 Despite the above misunderstanding, I am pronounced healthy as a butterball (with some form of virus), or whatever, and am promptly sent home.

And that, as they say is that, except for a small midnight adventure to find an ATM to pay for the cab home. The Swedish Welfare System pays for everything. Except a 50 SEK basic charge. Where's the (free) reverse ambulance of the future, taking healthy patients home? Guess I shouldn't complain, the ride was fast, and would have cost me more than three times as much had I had to pay all of it myself. Eat that, Swedish Taxpayer! Hah!

I could be in jail right now

2006-04-24T00:23:00.000+09:00

But of course I'm not. That would just be silly. What would I be doing there?

I was in Stockholm this weekend. In this, I was not alone. I was, for want of a more fitting description, giving a tour of the Royal Capital. In this, the houses of parliament have to be included, it kinda goes without saying. Yes, despite me spending the better part of that sentence saying just that. So we go there, check out the place, and on the way out, just the two of us, I open the door out on to the street, and am about three meters (or slightly less than ten feet, for my metrically challanged friends) away from slamming said door in the face of none other than Mr Göran Persson and Mr Pär Nuder. Prime Minister and Finance Minister of the Kingdom of Sweden.

Had I been in America, I would never have gotten so close. At least I imagine the Secret Service keeps things squared away to the extent that they don't let random tourists open the door and potentially cause G.W. to have a nose-bleed on camera. Ok, so Göran (as I know call him) isn't the head of state like G.W., but his nickname is "He who's in charge", so that pretty much settles that, as far as I'm concerned. But anyway, Sweden is... different. Had I been armed with nothing more than a cake, and ample resentment for the establishment, I could have been the one responsible for the past Finance Minister, Mr Bo "Bosse" Ringholm looking like, well, this (back in 2001, image credit Aftonbladet.se):

But then again, like I said up top, I'm not in jail, nor have I baked any cakes lately (other than a really delicious cheesecake a couple of weeks ago, you can have the recepie if you want). So I was out of ammo. But it was still an exercise in fine timing, timing our exit with that of his Göran-ness. It's just a shame I didn't vote for the guy, but you can't have it all, as they say.

Getting squarely back on track, there was also actual sights to be seen. Such as this, which is possibly the finest looking 7-11 in all the land. Of course, being positioned right next to the "Royal Dramatic Theatre" (note English spelling) probably boosts the class of the place, anyway. We never went in, but I can't imagine they sell anything other than the finest beluga caviar and Dom Perignon '58. Which is probably the worst year of them all, what do I know?

We covered a lot of ground during our time in the Royal Capital, but I'll try to leave out all the random walking/shopping/tower-climbing/museum-going (see, I'm being cultured!). Instead, I shall leave you with a picture of these guys:

...who are basically all that stand between me claiming the following as my own. Damn it!

If anybody knows when the current tentant's lease is up, let me know. I wouldn't mind living there myself. Sure, it's not a very central location, but the surroundings are fabulous, and it's only a bus-and-train-ride away from downtown Stockholm. Although apparently, living there does mean you have to pay the toll if you choose to drive downtown from home, at least according to this. A small price to pay, surely, but a nuisance none the less.

Curses! I only now realise I should have titled this "Let them eat cake" instead. If only there was some sort of tool to change things you've already written...

Consequences be damned

2006-04-19T23:40:00.000+09:00

Generally speaking, I'm not the type to "dare", even less "win". I certainly don't scream "Consequences be damned!" at the top of my lungs near often enough. This is of course because in my own personal universe, doing something like that seems a little... foolish. It would seem that it is, more often than not, not the consequences who end up being damned, but I myself. And that's not really what you're attempting with all the screaming.

Yeah, so I went to the hair-dresser-stylist-whatever-the-kidz-call-it-nowadays. The result? A significant portion of my hair being removed, as well as a significant portion of the cash I had on hand. But that's not all, oh no. Other, stranger side-effects reared their ugly head. Since I usually don't ask consequences to damn themselves, I figured I'd go ahead and do it today. Just for the hell of it. An outright lie, to be sure, but what happened is that I ended up with a new hairstyle. Which is pretty big coming from a guy who switched once in the third grade, once in highschool, and then once in university. I walked in, a hairstyle was suggested to me, and I took the bait. I was powerless to resist. Worn down by the ratrace, or whatever folks get worn down by these days.

"You look like the singer in a band. A rock band. Only one that doesn't actually sell any albums" This is the reaction from the first person I met after what shall henceforth be known as "the incident". And with a bit of imagination, I can see the way to make that appear to be a compliment. Or not. Naturally, publishing a picture might seem to be in order. I, however, harbor no wish to be known as the one who destroyed the internet.

---

This past weekend, some people thought it might be nice to give egg-sales a shot in the arm. They came up with the quite frankly puzzling concept of Easter, which seems to be a holiday dedicated to eating lots and lots of eggs while looking at cute, overly fluffed-up chickens, without letting your subconsious connect the dots.

As a rule, I'm all in favour of holidays. The more, the merrier, I say. But I like the regular kind the best, for example The Weekend. Or, perennial crowd favorite, Spring Break, which is so much better than the weekend, because the time off can be spent pointing and laughing at people who actually have to work. Easter does not fit either category. It's worse, it's the True Holiday. During which you're expected to do stuff, carry on traditions so that your offspring will also get some sort of heart attack from running around trying to get that final gift for their cousins' kids at some point in the future. And watch TV. And be "in the holiday spirit", whatever that is defined to be. This, I'm actually ok with. However, I just cannot stand the fact that at least in this country, things grind to a standstill. Why does everybody has to be allowed time off at the same time? Society ceases to function just because a jolly guy in a red suit who struggled with a BMI-problem had to go around delivering murrh to random people in stables 2000+ years ago. Or something.

Well, yeah, my main problem is that not one of the three pizza-places we tried to get takeout from on Sunday night were open. On the same day, I had managed to get my bank to call me and discuss, uhm, things. Who the hell needs to do banking on what is actually known as a "bank holiday"?! It's right there in the name! For crying out loud... I say, move all the bank-people over to the pizza industry on holidays, and everybody would be just that little bit happier.

---

Three points to anybody who can guess where I took the picture. All-comers welcome.

Here comes nothin'

2006-04-13T03:05:00.000+09:00

I went running today. It's a good a reason as any to start this thing, I guess. And I should know. Twice already, I've started things like this, the one involving a bathtub control panel and hot-sauce, the other Chubu Track and Mitsuya Cider. A fine combination on pretty much any day of the week. So yeah, that's the rationale behind starting this thing. With running.

You understand, I'm not generally the person to actually do that. Run. If the touch of highschool biology left me with anything, it's that man has been a long time in the makin'. Yes, there is a tired joke about women being longer/not as long in the making, but I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Anyway. Man has been long in the making, and this period of general creation has left us an ample amount of spare moments here and there to invent things. Things like a bike, which can get you places faster than running can. Neanderthals didn't have the bikes. Cro magnon-man? You betcha. And we all know how that turned out. So why would you actually spend precious (a gross over-estimation in my own case) free time running?

And why in some deity's name would you spend even more time writing about it here?

No, you didn't ask, but since I am physically unable to take a hint, I shall give you my view of this whole blog thing. It's a save station. In the highly likely event of my demise, all the researchers of the land will obviously want to make a new me. It goes without saying. Now, sure, DNA tech is all well and good, but it won't really recreate me, you know? I'll be a lot like me for the first couple of days, but from then, it'll be all downhill. Of this, there can be little doubt. I'll turn into some kind of street hooligan. Not that that doesn't sound appealing, it's just not me. So, said boffins will need to fill my head with something, right? Granted, Encyclopedia Britannica would be a good candidate, but that might leave me with little room for social skills. And these are very much in demand in today's marketplace. Probably even moreso in tomorrow's marketplace, which is where new-me will be doing his job-hunting. Which leads to the conclusion that they'll need to have stuff, written by me, about, well, me, to fill the new me with.

A very long way of justifying something which is, at it's core, extremely self-serving. Some would argue it's a victimless crime, I'm not hurting anybody publishing this. Think again! 1) You just read it. Just imagine what you could have done with that amount of time! You could have cross-bred some new kind of melon into existance. Been the first to circle your block on a tricycle going backwards. Hell, you might even have been able to learn how to play that instrument. When lying on your deathbed, will you truly be able to say "I have no regrets"? Don't think so. 2) Just think of the thousands of bytes I'm wasting, bytes which very well could have been used to cure cancer. Or something. Thousands, I tell you!

This is not a positive direction for this thing to take. I feel. Therefore, I offer the following, shall we say, tidbit:

My girlfriend just got back from class, which she attends with none other than Mr Mikko Luoma. You may know him as the guy with jersey #5 from such hockey teams as the Edmonton Oilers, or Tappara. If you're Finnish. Otherwise, you might know him from Linköping HC, where he's currently something of a regular. Teams are built around this man. He is the essence which binds the glue that holds the fort down. Or whatever. Sure, there's the remote, and I can't stress this enough, remote chance you don't know him at all, but I won't get into that.

See, that got us right back on track. In order to make sure that doesn't last too long, I'll present you with the following, meaning roughly "to ignore completely". I made it a couple of days ago, and it just seems to fit here, somehow.