The Job

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.

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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