Legumez

If you ain’t down with the fibrous protein, best take it up with my boyz in blue, yo.
(Taken at a store in Ikebukuro, proving that I-Town is still keepin’ it real…)

Speed up your snail mail

Everyone knows the internets are the fastest way to get things done these days, but sometimes you still have to rely on the post office. Recently, I had to back-and-forth some important documentation with extreme haste, so I made use of the post office’s 速達 (sokutatsu) express delivery service, and it really came through for [...]

The 300-yen Man

A shit day at work. Political, Big Brother-type bullshit of the sort that reminds you how big companies have a way of turning adults into blighted, idiot children.
Ikebukuro Station. Chuhai in hand, my third I think. Hacking away at a sobriety that refuses to know when it’s not wanted. My other hand holds a printout [...]

A typical day

9:30 a.m.
I walk into the neighborhood supermarket. The guy exiting gives me the evil eye for no reason.
Walking past the pharmacy section, I hear a cheap ’80s-era boombox blaring the jingle the supermarket always plays on the weekend.
“Today is double-point day! Double-point day! Oh, such are the chances for savings that can be had today [...]

Novel ways of fighting organized crime

I passed by this poster in the station for a week or so before taking a good look at what it had to say … and then I was pulling out my cell phone and snapping a photo.
It’s a poster released by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police concerning 暴力団 (boryokudan), or the organized crime syndicate. It [...]

To surf, perchance to Google

I do a lot of bitching about life here, dear Reader. Frankly, it’s quite easy to rant about the zombie-like freakwads that seem to make up most of Tokyo’s populace.
But today, an uncharacteristic bit of praise.
My internets have been giving me some trouble recently. Today, the connection was so slow that webpages simply refused [...]

Chotto…

Sunlight. Birds twittering excitedly.
The muffled sound of the occasional car passing below.
Sunlight?
“Shit! Shit!”
I spring out of bed, flip open the cell phone that doubles as my alarm clock.
Why didn’t my alarm go off?!
I look at the time as it’s displayed on the phone’s digital readout: 4:27.
Four-fucking-twenty-seven am.
Hey Japan — You might want to think [...]

Identity theft, redux

You are walking down the street drinking a beer.
There is nothing unusual about this: Since having become unemployed, it’s been pretty much a given that if you are walking down the street — hell, if you are engaged in any ambulatory act whatsoever — you will be drinking a beer. Today’s beer is a sweet, [...]

Fast times at Ojisan High

This is my first entry into the Japan Blog Matsuri. Thought I’d give it a shot.
You are in the bathroom.
You’ve been in Japan for just over a week. Having studied the language before you got here, you’ve been able to at least navigate your way around this new environment … but to say that things [...]

The caption says it all

I have no idea how we did it, dear Reader, but somehow we have managed to pull off the coup of the century.
After a month and a half of unemployment freefall, yours truly has landed a new job. That would be cause for celebration in and of itself, but said job also happens to be [...]