The Question

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!