So, I came home after work to find a snail crawling on my mailbox. I felt pretty lucky. Work continues, and I’m actually having some reassurances that I’m doing an okay job. That’s truly thrilling. Pretty soon some of my work will be visible to the world outside of non-disclosure agreements. Roko has decided that she has no realistic choice but to return to Japan, probably as soon as tickets to Tokyo get cheap after New Year’s Day. We’re both trying to be optimistic about our pretty uncertain future. Yes, we have considered getting married, but we agree that it’s not yet time to do that. Anyway, I hope something good will happen.

Here’s the man himself. Shishka, Rayme, Christina, Aaron, and I had an excellent time at the launch party. We played some Halo 2, which feels to me like a less-friendly Timesplitters 2. Shishy and I enjoyed Shirley Temples. We all sat around and talked about Xenogears and Xenosaga. After the festivities, Rayme and Christina and I went back to Shishka’s apartment for games while Shishka himself was helping tear down all the dozens of XBoxes and TVs. Apparently Christina is a Sakura Taisen fan, so we shared some geeky memories. I held my own in a few rounds of Guilty Gear XX#Reload even on the XBox and even though it had been months since I’d played last, mainly because Rayme and Christina had only picked up Guilty Gear recently. All in all it was some of the best fun I’d had in quite a while. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to hang out with geeks of my own flavor. It’s looking more and more like Rayme will probably move in with me once Hiroko leaves the country. I guess that if nothing else, at least I’ll have someone to help me learn OpenGL. Apparently he’s quite well-versed in that arcane stuff.

Here it is, the famous symbol of Seattle. I passed right under it on my way to the Halo 2 private launch party at the Science Fiction Museum. Hm, I guess it’s time to tell you the story of Shishka. Way back in 1998ish, I had just discovered an online comic-art community called [yoU aRe Drawing!][1]. There I met a guy from Alaska, who went by the name of Shishka. For some reason we got along quite well, talked quite often, and sent each other our drawings. He’s one of the main reasons I started playing Xenogears, which became my favorite game of all time. He convinced me to stop buying dubbed Evangelion tapes and to go for the subtitled ones instead; this indirectly led to my interest in the Japanese language, which pretty much shaped the last five years of my life. Now I’m here in Seattle, working a job I always wanted, and I’m kind of in charge of that little yoU aRe Drawing! thing. I hadn’t talked to Shish much in the past couple of years, and was only vaguely aware of his situation. Then, one night, I got one of the weirdest phone calls of my life. A strange voice asked “do you know who this is?” It was Shishka. He’d moved to Seattle, and had visited my apartment that very day, but I wasn’t there. Apparently he’d been in Seattle for a while; he moved here and within 48 hours had a job at the legendary [Bungie][2]. Yeah, the Microsoft-owned guys who released one of the most anticipated games of all time just yesterday. We’ve gotten together a couple of times since then and re-became friends, this time in real life. Anyway, Shishka’s role at Bungie includes being a fan-community relations guy, which means he gets to fly around the country to big LAN parties and conventions and such being a Halo celebrity. The night of Halo 2’s launch, he was to work at the crazy fan event and following private Bungie event. Our long-time mutual online friend Hitomi from California, Shishka’s best buddy Rayme from Alaska, and I, were invited. I drove over to Seattle Center and made my way to the Science Fiction Museum. On the way there I ran into a blackjack dealer who was looking for the same building so that he could deal at some _other_ Microsoft party that was going on at the same time. We looked for the building together, and for some reason he ended up telling me about the Biblical screenplay he’s working on. Whatever. Before going into the place and meeting up with everyone for a raucous good time, I captured this moment. [1]: http://urdrawing.com [2]: http://www.bungie.com

I got renter’s insurance. The terms and conditions read like an outline for the apocalypse.

So. The people in our country voted last week. I think I’ve given up having any political opinion other than that I’m sick of having the rest of the world hate us. I don’t really feel qualified to claim to know what’s best for the country, or what we should do to other countries. Call me when we return to tribal life, the only human cultural system that seems to work.

This monster has been my hobby for the past few weeks. I’m working on a site, which I’ll host from the machine itself, detailing all of the nastiness I had to go through to get it to run a modern operating system, talk to our AirPort Express and the internet, and do all of the other things I wanted it to do.

I couldn’t let this site remain so ugly any longer. Please let me know how this new design suits you. Well, I’ll be surprised if anyone but Ann notices most of the changes, really.

In 1984, Apple had two computers with GUIs: The Macintosh, which has gone on to be the most pleasant computing platform in the world, and the Lisa, which most people have never heard of. The Lisa was even marketed as the “Macintosh XL” for a while, before it was finally canned once and for all so that its little brother the Mac could take center stage. Legend has it that all of the Lisas Apple couldn’t sell are piled up in a landfill somewhere. This photo was taken at the computer museum tucked into the back corner of [RE-PC][1], a treasure trove of nearly-useless computer junk just south of downtown Seattle. For some reason I ended up buying a Power Macintosh 9600/233, circa 1997, from the $20 as-is mystery pile. The adventure to turn this relic into a Mac OS X server/router deserves its own entry, heck, its own site. [1]: http://www.repc.com/

One of Piroko’s favorite comics is _Beck_, the story of a small-time rock band from Japan making it big. Apparently at some point some characters end up in Seattle, and they visit this statue of Jimi Hendrix. Roko has never heard a Hendrix song in her life, but she insisted that we come visit the site, so Stefan (who we’ve been dragging around the city with us these days) brought us to see it. Meanwhile, I’ve been working, reading comics, collaborating with Jules on Project Soft Landing, and trying to enjoy my time with Roko before she has to split back to Japan for real. I should mention this. Apparently because of some visa limitation crappiness, if she doesn’t get work within the next couple of weeks, she’ll have missed her chance to get a working visa at all, and she’ll have to go back to Japan. This truly sucks, and I have a feeling the complete suckitude of it has yet to even occur to us. The good part is that it’ll be easy for her to get work and build up experience and savings so that she can come back and marry me in a couple of years. The really, really bad part is that we’d likely see each other for a total of like three weeks over the next three years. Uh, I’m 23 now. Max old.

One Saturday afternoon, Hiroko and I ended up running into my coworker Stefan at the [Tom Bihn][1] shop downtown, where I’d recommended he look for a new backpack. The three of us ended up spending the whole day together. We wandered around downtown, checked out the malls, and had lunch in this food court where I found these young gentlemen and their friend. That night we went to the midnight showing of the director’s cut of _Donnie Darko_, which I knew absolutely nothing about before entering the theater. It was one of the better movies I’ve seen, and considering what I’ve heard about the original, I feel lucky to have seen the director’s cut first. This movie has my recommendation, for whatever that’s worth. Work is awesome, but I probably shouldn’t talk much about what goes on there. I suppose that’s why I haven’t posted a lot lately; work is most of my life now, and I can’t really write about or photograph work. Hopefully I’ll get out and photograph more ridiculous crap soon. [1]: http://www.tombihn.com

This city is a wealth of photo opportunities.

Life continues in Seattle. Work is pretty excellent. Hiroko is pretty stressed out about what she’s going to do with herself for the next couple of years. She could end up back in Japan if she can’t find something to do here. Being here is kind of cool and kind of weird. We’ve got shops that carry Japanese videos (I finally found episodes of Pussuma for rent), comics (finally got my hands on untranslated _Planetes_ and the latest _Yesterday wo Utatte_), and food (actual honest-to-goodness tonkotsu ramen can be had). Good Korean, Chinese, and Japanese (and Thai, and Vietnamese, and Indian, et cetera) food abounds. The local Kinokuniya even had several copies of the special edition Evangelion volume 9 with Robo-nami inside. Um, I don’t know where I’m going with this. Seattle is weird.

Here’s where I-90 meets the Columbia River, near Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park. The rest of our trip back was pretty uneventful, and Piroko is settling in as well as can be expected. It’s strange to have Beatrix Potter prints on my bathroom walls, and to have fresh laundry folded and stacked for me when I get home as if I’m living at home with my parents again or something. And with Piroko the Chief of Interior Decoration Affairs now present, we can actually start furnishing the place.

Driving from Green Bay to Seattle for a second time was surprisingly easy. This time I ended up doing about 97% of the driving, but didn’t really get too tired. We got to see prairie dogs, which pleased Piroko, and we even saw a couple of real live buffalo. Here’s a surprisingly cool shot of me at the restaurant where I tried a buffalo burger. It tasted exactly like a normal burger.

Once I was settled at Omni, it was time to return to Green Bay to tie up loose ends and collect Piroko. I booked a surprisingly cheap plane ticket, considering how close it was to the travel date, and made my way to the airport by bus. Actually, I missed the first bus, then got kind of lost downtown until I met this girl from Singapore, Wei, who was also looking for the bus. The two of us found the correct bus stop, and were joined by an old couple from Wyoming and a 20-year-old army soldier who’d recently returned from Iraq. I was a little flabbergasted to personally meet someone younger than me who had recently been shot at and nearly blown up, especially because I’d recently seen _Fahrenheit 9/11_. On the bus, Wei and I chatted a bit about places around the world we’ve visited or in which we have friends. At the airport we parted ways. Uh, I told myself I wasn’t going to tell anyone this, but I guess it’s too stupid to ignore: the auto-check-in machine wasn’t accepting my information, so I had to wait around to talk to an actual Alaska Airlines person. As it turned out, the reason my plane ticket was so cheap was that it was for _September_ 20th, not August 20th. Yes. Try to imagine my thoughts when I realized how much trouble I was in, and how little there was I could do about it, because it was completely my own fault. Awesome. I don’t even want to detail the exquisitely crappy couple of hours that followed; eventually I ended up with a ticket to Milwaukee, connecting in Atlanta. As I trudged to my gate, I considered how funny it would be if I ended up on the same flight as Wei. I did. She was pretty alarmed to see me walking up to her, hours after I was supposed to be on my plane to connect in Las Vegas. We talked a bit more, and she introduced me to a girl she’d met, Ari, who recently returned from missionary work in Africa. Wei herself is going to grad school for social work, after which she’ll go to help kids in Southeast Asia. Between the two of them and the soldier, I almost felt embarrassed to be nothing more than a mere technical writer. I finished my book and started reading Quinn’s _The Story of B_ (much more about that later), then when I arrived in Milwaukee Hiroko and Sangik were there to pick me up, and I slept much of the day away. Anyway. During the few days before I returned to Green Bay, Jon and Ben and Piroko kept making reference to this Nick character, who in my mind seemed to be just that: a character. They made him out to be this big, aggressive, stereotypical military guy, and I was looking forward to meeting him to verify that he indeed talked about guns and swore a lot, and that the huge boxes of candy and sweets indeed came from his mom who works at some food distributor. The whole time I was at Ben and Jon’s house, he didn’t show up once. Apparently he spent all day at the casino (winning), which just improved the caricature in my mind. When I looked in what had been my room, I found such a mess that it was hard to believe any truly existent human being had made it. The assortment of items and the way in which they were strewn about seemed too well planned, like a movie set of someone’s room painstakingly arranged to look messy in a way that exposes their character. I never did meet him; perhaps he really is just a specter fabricated by my friends while I was away.

There’s a very popular bike trail running through Seattle, that happens to start in my neighborhood and pass through the backyard of Omni’s building. The first day I rode my bike to work, I discovered that the western Seattle sky at sunset is a lovely purple. The second day I rode my bike to work, I fell off and ripped up my right hand into a bloody mess. I couldn’t even play my new _Gradius V_, _Guilty Gear Isuka_, or _Sakura Taisen Monogatari_. While it heals, I’ve been driving to work while listening to Robert Jordan’s _The Eye of the World_, since Jon fulfilled his end of the book-exchange by reading not only _A Game of Thrones_, but also the other two books in Martin’s series!

Here’s the graffiti on the walls of the Portland Coffee House, where I spent a morning trying to finish up a submission for Tokyopop’s Rising Stars of Manga contest. K of [greeneyes][1] wanted to enter, and I got the happy privilege of toning, translating, lettering, sound-effecting, laying out, printing, slicing, packaging, and mailing the entry. In all I think I spent about 40 hours on it over the course of about four days. It was a nightmare. [1]: http://greeneyes.metalbat.com

It’s pretty surreal to see people you’ve always known in one context, brought into some other context you’ve always seen without them. Seeing Jeff Melody, a guy I always hung out with during high school in Chicago, here in Portland, where I have been exploring with Wisconsin friends, is one of those situations. Anyway, here’s a nice photo of a nice couple.

Back when I was still planning to move to Portland, my good friend Jeff and his girlfriend Jackie bought tickets to come visit me. So the weekend before I started work at Omni, I drove down there to hang out with them. Jeff and I had a good time reverting to our high-school-days styled joking, making fun of the _Macaroni and Cheese du Jour_ or discussing intricacies of video games while poor Jackie looked on helplessly. Here’s a nice photograph from our visit to the Oregon Zoo. Looking at all of the animals helped drive home some of the points in Dawkins’ _The Blind Watchmaker_, which I was reading at the time.

Uh, if you don’t know what this is, I don’t even know how to explain it to you. Anyway, I got the job.

Well, you are looking at the setting of my life for the past week or so. I was sitting outside the Apple Store using their AirPort network when an employee came out to have lunch. We talked a bit and he recommended that I talk to one of the other employees who had moved here from Chicago. I did, and she gave me some recommendations about neighborhoods to check out. I ended up wandering around Ballard, an old Scandinavian fishing town that has been assimilated into Seattle and has even turned semi-hip. I bumbled into an open-house on the third floor of this little building on an out-of-the-way street, took one look at it, and phoned the manager, who as it turns out was born in Wisconsin and grew up in Chicago. Within two hours I had the key in my pocket. After two trips to the hotel to move stuff and one trip to Ikea to pick up essentials, I was as settled as I’ll be until Hiroko is here. This is my life now. I’ve jumped through a couple of more hoops for Omni Group, and am still awaiting their decision. Piroko and I talk on the phone for several hours each day. Most of the rest of what’s been going on with me can be illustrated by purchases I’ve made, so I’ll list significant purchases I’ve made since arriving. * Dawkins’ _The Blind Watchmaker_, Luk Chun Bond’s _The First Sixteen Secrets of Chi_, _Fuyu Monogatari_ volumes 1 and 2, and (major score) the first two _Sakura Taisen_ comics, at Powell’s in Portland. * _Inside Bjork_ DVD, at the record shop across from Powell’s. * Comcast cable internet service. I could complain about their crappy service but I’m tired of complaining about big companies’ crappy service. * Futon, sheets, shower curtain, and wastebasket at Ikea. * _Shinseiki Evangelion_ vol. 8 comic, and _Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou_, at Kinokuniya in Seattle. * A Giant Cypress bicycle, which has helped me discover just how hilly Seattle really is. * Buckwheat-husk pillow, at some new-age bedding shop. * AirPort Express, at The Mac Store. Uh, I think that’s it.

Maybe the lifestyle or diet is getting to me, but this strikes me as really hilarious. It seems to me like someone commissioned [the Brothers Chaps][1] to design their silica gel packet. [1]: http://www.homestarrunner.com

This car passed me as I was looking for a parking spot, and luckily when I got out to visit Uwajimaya I found it parked where I could get a photo of it. Apparently it’s for sale. I can only imagine what kind of story is behind this thing.

Peter and I drove down to Portland so that he could check it out for his own future moving plans. Having been there briefly before, I was able to show him around a bit. We stayed at an international hostel, which is something neither of us had done before. The atmosphere was very inviting and friendly, as if we were staying at a friend’s house. Here’s a guy preaching to some semi-disinterested people at Portland’s Pioneer Square. In the past week or so I’ve run into a lot of zealous Christianity: this guy, the creepy teenager-oriented evangelism show Generation Church on late-night Washington TV, the bewildering guys at [Christian Anime Alliance][1] (“We believe all other religions and religious movements other than Christianity are sinful and wrong.”), and the nearly-too-ridiculous-to-be-for-real [Dr. Richard Paley][2] (about OS X: “to open up certain locked files one has to … type in a secret code: ‘chmod 666’. What other horrors lurk in this thing?”), who simultaneously attacked Apple, probably my favorite company, and Richard Dawkins, now one of my favorite writers. Wacky stuff going on. [1]: http://www.christiananime.net [2]: http://objective.jesussave.us/propaganda.html

Peter found an Ethiopian restaurant listed in the first guide book I bought, and having seen something about it on the TV show _Arthur_ (“having fun isn’t hard, when you’ve got a library card,” etc.), expressed interest in checking it out. We made the long walk there and had a nice time scooping up piles of stuff with shreds of flat bread. I even had half a glass of Ethiopian beer, just to be able to say I’ve had Ethiopian beer.

Through 2000 miles and six states, hundreds of bugs gave their lives to our car’s front bumper, grill, headlights, and windshield. I wonder if a knowledgeable entomologist could reconstruct our trip’s path just from analyzing the layers of bugs encrusted onto the front of the car.

After the interview, I had some time to kill before Peter showed up. I eagerly latched on to a nearby cafe’s wireless network and caught up on three days of computer geekery. eBay transactions, e-mails, IRC friends, blogs, and loaded RSS feeds were waiting for me. The next several days we lived by bouncing between open wireless access points. When we first arrived in Seattle, though, and wardrove through downtown with a “ting” sound to alert us to open wireless networks, there was a ting every two to three seconds. This is an unwired town. In fact, this very shop contained eleven customers, _ten_ of whom were using notebook computers. By the way, I think I could get used to this whole Seattle coffee thing.

This is one of my favorites.

I was amazed at how much of Washington is just nothingness. It’s harder to tell from this picture, but while driving along this road it felt we were on a narrow strip of land extending out into emptiness, surrounded by emptiness, driving into emptiness. Mostly this is just a picture of bugs smashed into the windshield, though.

One of our more fortuitous stop-offs was in this Idaho town. I don’t think either of us had any substantial previous images of Idaho except that it produces potatoes, but wow it’s gorgeous.

This is Ghost Cave, one of three main caves at Pictograph Cave State Park in Montana. Artifacts have been found dating back five thousand years, and ancient paintings covered the cave walls. Sadly, vandalism and erosion have ruined most of the interesting stuff here. The rock formations themselves, and the stories of tens of thousands of years of human activity, however, were cool enough. Reading Richard Dawkins really gives me an appreciation for the huge time-scales over which life on our planet has developed. His books are about what is probably the most interesting and significant stuff in the whole world, or possibly the whole universe, so you might want to check them out.

WELL DID YOU

MapQuest, in its infinite wisdom, told us to take I-90 east to Seattle. The phrase “east to Seattle” somehow didn’t seem quite right to us, and we stopped at a semi-abandoned cafe and rock shop in the middle of nowhere Montana. This dog came out and befriended us. Behind the shop was a house, and inside the house was a kindly old lady with a road atlas. She ran the shop until a local resident turned her in for having styrofoam in the ceiling. The cafe is shut down for now, but she and her husband make a living selling homemade lamps around the area and on eBay. By the way, the correct way to Seattle is I-90 _west_.

Apparently the badlands extend into North Dakota, and Theodore Roosevelt spent some significant years here. We took a walking trail that I’m surprised people are even allowed to use. It was interesting, exciting, and a little perilous; usually the general public isn’t trusted to take care of itself in such situations. After enjoying the views and the fresh air, we settled down for some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Yes.

This is what much of North Dakota looks like. It’s pretty refreshing to see just how much of our country is still just wide open. Peter and I took shifts driving, overused inside jokes, fluctuated between silence and pretending to hate each other, and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Peter’s mom and aunt had provided us with a startling amount of food, random items of which we occasionally reached into the back seat and discovered. PBJ was our main sustenance for three days. We even used a Burger King’s outside table to have a PBJ picnic.

Last Monday night, I took a couple of hours off from work to say goodbye to local friends. I’d been feeling crappy since the night before, though, and ended up taking off the rest of my final night at work. The part of me that likes to believe in kismet thought my sudden illness might have occurred in order to prevent me from getting the job in Seattle. When I started feeling better while on the road, that same part of me thought the illness came just to get me out of my last day of work so I could pack up and still have time to rest. So the next day, Peter and I loaded my car to the bursting point and set off for the wild frontier. On our first day we made it all the way across Wisconsin and Minnesota, and well into North Dakota. We met a stereotypically cynical teenaged girl at a Fargo gas station. That night we parked at a Jamestown, ND gas station and slept in the car. Every half hour or so we woke up, thinking, “this is a bad idea”. Taking a picture while driving through a tunnel like this is pretty much a free ticket to a cool-looking photo.

This photo is from about three months ago; I just needed something to post with this possibly long and dramatic entry. This has been one of the most (positively and negatively) stressful weeks since I came back from Japan. About a month ago I submitted my resume and a rather heartfelt cover letter to The Omni Group, a company I’ve fantasized about working for since about five years ago. Just last week, a response came asking how soon I would be in the Seattle area. Say, next week? To make a long story short, I have a phone interview today and if it works out I am going to Seattle next week for a real interview. If that works out, I’m settling down in Seattle for good(ish). This is huge in that it marks the end of the Wisconsin II chapter of my life, the beginning of the Pacific Northwest chapter, and the first time I might actually feel like I’m doing the vague “something awesome” I saw myself doing “when I grow up”. There are still two very formidable and non-obvious-solution barriers in front of me (the phone interview and the real interview), plus all of the logistical problems of moving myself 3000 kilometers, so right now my main emotions are nervousness, trepidation, and Max-Nervousness. In addition to this stress, I am under the influence of stress related to the following things: having been moved to the day shift, where humans are milling around distractingly, the phone rings more than once every three hours, and there is a nearby star visible outside the window; having formally quit my job, making relations strange as I work my final shifts; meeting my own replacement and having to train him (luckily he is a cool guy); finding out my brother is engaged to be married; celebrating Piroko’s birthday in Wisconsin Dells; having drunk about 110 ounces of caffeinated pop today due to aforementioned stress. Right now I should be sleeping but this relentless bout of stomach-butterflies won’t allow it. I’m not sure if, after the phone call, I’ll be relieved or even more distraught. You know you’re getting anxious about a phone call when you imagine you feel your right leg vibrate as if the cell phone in your pocket were ringing, even though you’re not wearing any pants.

Tonight at work I made a really dumb mistake that caused several people to have to be awakened, and created a lot of extra work for some people. I’ll probably get in trouble for it soon. On one hand I feel terribly guilty, like I misread a bomb-defusing manual and cut the pinkish wire instead of the cyan-colored one. On the other hand I don’t feel anything at all, probably because I’m tired of being here and it feels like I’ll never again do anything truly exciting outside of a book or video game. I want to team up with Qiang and medically research the ailment that afflicts people who have seen Tokyo life and then returned to the mundane. I may sound like a broken record but that’s probably because whatever record I was playing broke when I left Tokyo. Two weeks ago I became ill. It wasn’t even the mixed blessing of an illness that knocks you down into a position where only sleeping, reading, and playing video games are possible. Instead, the oppressive, ever-present headache prevented me from comfortably doing any of these things. It was painful while I read my Cryptonomicon or played my Xenosaga Episode II, and then while I slept it twisted those excellent escapes into frustrating code-cracking and dungeon-crawling nightmares. Hiroko took very good care of me; she came over every day, even staying over one night, and cooked for me what I can unequivocally call the best soup I’ve ever eaten. Finally I went to a doctor, who told me it was hepatitis, and to call back for my blood test results in a few days. I did, and they told me that whatever it was, it wasn’t hepatitis. It then went away. A famous-among-Xeno-geeks [review][1] of the Episode II premium box tipped my impulsive-buying scales and caused me to order the special Evangelion volume 9 with this Ayanami Rei figure. She is called Robo-nami by people nerdy enough to give nicknames to dolls that come with comic books. I continue to glide along, working, eating, sleeping, seeing Hiroko, joking with Ben and Jon, occasionally having sparks of fun with Oshkosh people, not getting called about a job, and trying to get myself into situations where it’s okay to just read my book or play my game for several hours. [1]: http://www011.upp.so-net.ne.jp/pony-hp/XENO-BOX.htm

The trip to DC was a fine opportunity to meet up with Tom and Leah, some friends from my Tokyo-life. Tom recently became employed at Mythic Entertainment, makers of the popular MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot. Between demoing various quirky and nichey games to one another, watching the fine Millennium Actress, and eating bad-for-us snacks, Tom took us to see his workplace. It was actually really reminiscent of YesTrader, the startup dot-com I worked at in Chicago. I guess we all perceive game companies to be these big glamorous fantasylands, when they’re just dinky offices in normal neighborhoods like any other company. In mundane news, I’ve been asked to stick around at ShopKo for a while longer. I guess it’ll be nice to have income until I can find a job, and to be able to split at a moment’s notice once a new job finally shows up. It’s hard to find computer jobs with minimal Microsoft exposure.

In our adolescence, family weddings were a very special time because they allowed all of us overflowingly creative and adventurous cousins to gather and hatch schemes. A tradition was revived this time: the Shirley Temple contest. After six glasses each (and a couple of very, very confused bartenders), we started to question the accuracy of our previously claimed record: 14 glasses. Unrelated: I discovered roomie Jon’s [Europe Journal][1] (RTF file). Some bits are inspiring and some bits are simply hilarious. The file also gives me a lot of new insight into a friend I’ve had for years but could conceivably never see again. [1]: http://rubicon.cx/~vertigo/journal.rtf

The wedding was DC-themed, and took place in this historical Presbyterian church that was apparently attended by several presidents (my crappy memory has forgotten which ones; maybe Lincoln). I had Zinn’s _A People’s History of the United States_ along, which lent the US-history significance of my trip a pretty interesting twist. The more history, news, and culture I consume, the more I dislike large associations of humans and the more I like individual humans and small groups. It’s also getting harder for me to accept nearly anything I read, even things supposedly “on my side”. I almost always find inaccuracies and bias when reading about things I’m familiar with; who knows how much exists in subjects in which I don’t have the benefit of that familiarity? This all just strengthens my AT Field (see _Evangelion_).

The 17-year cicadas are out this year in the USA, and they’re everywhere, flying around, chirping a lot, and crunching underfoot. I read that the reason such periodical insects tend to have prime-number periods is to avoid overlapping periods with potential predators. Evolution++.

I went to DC for the weekend to see my cousin’s wedding. DC’s Metro system is pretty impressive; the subway stations are in these huge, cavernous, dramatically-lit spaces underground. The trains come often and are quite modern and clean. DC seems like a city I wouldn’t mind living in some day.

Every major turning point in my life (Marist, St. Norbert, Sophia) was a pretty definitely positive one, bringing nice eustress and an exciting new place to explore (Chicago, Wisconsin, Japan). The trend ended with my _return_ to Wisconsin a little over a year ago. I’ve been whining about this for a while but finally I’m approaching another turning point and it looks to be a pleasant one. Wait, I should probably try to look at this past year more fairly. Firstly, I’ve been able to become closer to a lot of pretty excellent people: Hiroko’s at the top of that list in huge Sharpie. I got to reconnect with cousin Stephen. Also Jon and Ben, Peter, Oshkoshians hachi, Ann, and Brian, random Green Bay geeks Matt and Don, various IRC folk, including most recently and quite especially [Jules][1]. One of the major reasons for my recent relative happiness, outside of excitement about moving, is Project Soft Landing, a really mind-bending exercise in geekiness between Jules and me which you’ll be hearing about later. In addition to all that, I suppose this time has been a decent rest from adventures, and has allowed me to figure out what’s next. Had you asked me a while ago, I would have wanted to stay in Tokyo forever. I admit that’s still an alluring idea, but it’s likely that disenchantment would occur after living there for a couple of years. Indeed Hiroko seems right when she suggests that an annual visit to Japan would keep it fresh and appealing more than would living there. Seeking out new places would be better, and being here has let me find out which new place is next: Portland. I have been emailing back and forth with a guy about a low-paying but apparently otherwise rewarding Python programming job in Portland. I gave myself a crash-course in Python (which incidentally has made Project Soft Landing possible) and put together a demonstration for him. That situation could still go either way. But even without a job, I’m going, and Peter has pinky-sworn to come with me, at least on a trial basis. The moment he did, much of the apprehension I’d had about moving disintegrated. Hiroko and Ann both plan to come join me as soon as they can. It’s going to be excellent: having a challenging job, taking the rail around town, listening to my favorite music, shopping for obscure Japanese things, reading my book in one of a bajillion parks, working on code in some wireless-enabled joint. It’s good that I have a trip to DC, two RUSH concerts, and lots of planning to keep me moving around until then. Well, that’s much of what’s been going on in my head lately. It’s kind of nice to type it out. [1]: http://www.livejournal.com/users/julsey

Here’s another lovely warning sign for your collection. I imagine one sadistic guy grinningly sitting in front of a copy of Illustrator cranking these things out every day for various companies. It was pretty impressive to watch Hiroko’s parents interact with all of these cool people here in the USA. Rather than just a sightseeing-tour of tourist attractions, we also gave them a friendship-tour of really great people. First my parents, then Betty and Steve, then Peter’s whole family when we went to their house for a barbecue after the graduation, welcomed them really warmly and became friends right away. Interpreting was fun, and I gained a refreshed appreciation for every person involved.

Well, Hiroko’s parents came to the USA to see her graduation, and I took some days off from work to cart them around. Hiroko worked out a packed itinerary for their five-day trip, including driving to Chicago and back twice. When they arrived we visited the Art Institute, then took them to my house to meet my parents, have a mini-Thanksgiving dinner, exchange gifts, and be interpreted back and forth between Japanese and English by Hiroko and me. The next day my Nissan Maxima whisked us away to Green Bay, where Hiroko’s parents presented me with a lovely white Segasaturn and a copy of Xenosaga Freaks, _with_ the bonus preorder disc! **GET!** That evening we met up with Hiroko’s friend Betty from her art classes, who is actually a semi-pro artist and who, with her husband Steve, just bought 70 acres of land way out in the Wisconsin countryside. They took us there to let Hiroko’s dad enjoy some gun-shooting and to wander around in the woods and get covered in ticks which we’d be picking off of ourselves for days to come. Here’s a random deer skeleton we found in the woods when Betty and Steve’s dog started trying to chew on it.

I knew I needed a US-version PS2 for when we moved out and I could no longer use Jon’s to play SSX3, Timesplitters 2, or R-Type Final (OMGWTF teh R-Type funz0r :D~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~). I wished all the cool-colored Japanese ones had been out when I bought mine, so that I could have two distinct PS2s. How pleasantly surprised I was to find out that there was a Limited Edition out in the US as well, including this attractive white model. I eBayed for it and won, at a premium, shortly before normal black PS2s (with network adapters, urgh) dropped to $150. Was it worth it? I’m not sure yet. It _is_ very cute. All I need now is the pink Dreamcast…..

This is one of my favorite books of all time. About a month ago, if you were to ask me for an example of something Japanese that would never, ever get translated into English, it’s likely I would have said this comic. Even in the weird circumstances that could bring this out in English, I’d’ve expected things like MONSTER or 20th Century Boys or even Saishuu Heiki Kanojo to get here first. And yet, here it is. I can’t even begin to tell you how surreal it is to find Hitsuji no Uta books at Bay Park Square mall in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In fact, the feeling is somewhat reminiscent of the one I had when, at a Book-Off in Nakano or somewhere, I found a manga about the Chicago Bulls’ road to the NBA championship, complete with tiny little manga Michael Jordan and manga Scottie Pippen speaking Japanese. Somewhat.

Here’s a fraction of my Sakura Taisen gacha-gacha collection. I finally found a suitable display case for them, and used the multi-level bottom of the little display cases Hiroko got me at the 100-yen shop inside of this case to elevate some figures. Elmer’s Tack is used to keep them all in position. I need to get one more of these cases for the remaining ST gacha-gachas, use the remains of the 100-yen cases for the ST3 series, and then start worrying about my ~10″ figures and how I’m going to store them, and then finish building and painting my Koubu models and figure out how I’m going to display _them_. For a hobby I never consciously decided to start, this is turning into a lot of work.

Now, AT&T likes to spam me on my phone a lot, but this is ridiculous. I actually have no explanation for this screen. I only had one message.

Something that bothers me, and this is somewhat inspired by [Tom][1]’s recent “Things I Hate” entry, is when advertisements not only insult my intelligence, but insult people around me. This is a subtle thing, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t lived in Japan for a year. Let me splain. In Japan it’s really important to show respect, not only in one-on-one situations, but in group-to-group situations. You should speak respectfully of others’ families, friends, companies, or other groups, while being modest about your own. So when you see advertisements, they are always in a very respectful tone. It’s hard to translate them into English without sounding dumb, but things like “a nice toothbrush for your honorable family” are the norm. Well, that sounds extremely dumb. The point is that the companies use very respectful language, or at least avoid bringing up anything unpleasant, especially anything unpleasant about the customer. The contrast to this is commercials I hear on US radio or see on US television, or billboards I pass on the highway: now, not only are most of them very, very stupid and annoying, but in addition, a recurring theme is making fun of certain types of people. Spouses, in-laws, and other relatives are particularly common targets. The example that comes to mind is an obnoxious commercial on WTAQ here in Wisconsin, which I have to listen to at work, in which they offer to help you with challenges in your life, but insist that they can’t do anything about your brother-in-law’s disgusting eating habits. To most people this is probably funny, or at worst annoying, but to me it’s actually pretty offensive. Not only do I have to listen every thirty minutes to a guy asking for someone else’s fat and gristle to eat, I have to take the indirect insult that the radio station thinks this is what my family is like, and that I can relate to the scene. Yes, it’s a rather roundabout and oversensitive way to take offense, but for some reason this kind of thing just bothers me. Well, advertising in this country as a whole bothers me to some extent anyway. Anyway, check out this bait dispenser! Woo! [1]: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wyrdwad

Here’s a really old picture from my visit to Chicago with Stephen. Since I was very young, maybe 8 or 9, the highlight of each year was seeing my cousins Stephen and Timothy from St. Louis. Every summer they’d come to Chicago, I’d go to St. Louis, or both. Later on as we got busier with our own things Stephen and I would meet for New Year’s instead of during the summer. We’d make Hypercard games, record intricate claymation movies with camcorders, create standalone pen-and-paper RPG’s, play through video games, build things, and be generally weird and creative. Every time I saw them I’d feel that my creativity and ambition were recharged, like I’d been reminded of what life is supposed to be about. The defining part of each visit was the recording of That’s Nift, a fake radio-show Stephen and I have been making since 1990. It’s pretty excellent that we’ve been encapsulating our personalities and interactions about once a year, into episodes of pure random creativity. The Pepsi caps are from when I unquit Pepsi in order to earn free iTunes songs. These are just a few of my winnings. Now I’m in the process of requitting Pepsi, but it’s kind of sad because I had developed something of a trademark in having Pepsi at parties and such when everyone else was drinking alcohol.

**Saturday:** Quake 3 Arena at Ben’s housewarming party. Veterans like Ben and Jon, casual players like Dave and me, and various newbs clashed. > Sunday: Siren, which Ann brought up from Oshkosh. Hiroko, Ben, Ann, Brian, and I crowded around to watch Sony’s ambitious survival-horror game, much like crowds have gathered around Silent Hill and Fatal Frame II. Its atmosphere and concept were very compelling, but the game itself was too trial-and-error to be very fun. Hiroko’s tendency to get _angry_ whenever I die didn’t help. > Wario Ware, Inc., which Ben had bought for the party. Brian, Hiroko, and I fell asleep while Ben and Ann continued playing for hours.
**Monday:** R-Type Final, which I’d heard Jules mention on IRC. I played for about ten hours straight. There are so many ships to unlock, so many different weapons, so much detailed geeky stuff to get into. It’s the first game I’ve been addicted to, such that when I’m not playing it I constantly think about it, since TimeSplitters 2 or Shenmue II last summer. It feels pretty good to get engrossed in a game again, especially an old-school feeling one like R-Type Final. If you’ve got US$30 to spend on many, many hours of lovely blowing stuff up, that’s your game.

Whoa, I just almost let myself post about how sad I am right now. This is not that kind of blog. I’m here for your entertainment, not for my own whining-purposes.

If you look closely at the receipts in this picture, you’ll notice that none of the things I brought back from Oregon had any sales tax! Amazing. Hachi and I spent a while trying to figure out what happens to pennies in Oregon. You probably accumulate a bunch of them, because of things that cost $X.99, but you can’t use them very often, because most of the time things require either no pennies, or the maximum amount of pennies before you graduate to nickels, 4 cents.

This is Powell’s, the world’s largest new-and-used bookstore (or something). Imagine hundreds and hundreds of shelves like these, containing many many books on any subject you could want to think of. It’s a place I think I’ll be spending a silly amount of time, once we’re living in Portland. Oh, by the way, we’re moving to Portland.

Yes, I’m still posting photos from our nearly-one-month ago trip to Portland. Check this out: apparently some joint called Carl’s Jr. saved Hardees from extinction and as a result Hardees now brands itself under Carl’s Jr.’s identity. Or something. Anyway it’s weird to see a familiar branding with an unfamiliar name on it.

I really wish I’d had my camera while at Fox River Mall today. Not only because someone’s compact-car was on fire in the parking lot, but also because the local Waldenbooks had [Hitsuji no Uta][1] in _English_! That’s by my favorite comic-artist, and was a comic I never, ever thought would be published in English. But there it is. If you’re determined to not ever learn Japanese, I guess this adaptation is as close as you’ll get to my dearest books. [1]: http://tokyopop.com/dbpage.php?page=product&productid=2169

Here’s my first non-photo-accompanied entry. I hope it works out. So I’ve been looking around for jorbs in pr0tland. So far about two have looked really interesting: one being the IT Administrative Assistant at an all-Mac law firm, and the other being a web developer for TechTracker, best known for [VersionTracker][1], which is a site I actually use. Now, the TechTracker job is particularly interesting because this morning I went to their site to see what the company has been up to, and what should I find but a headline announcing that Guy Kawasaki, famous Mac evangelist, has come aboard as a Strategic Advisor? This is cool not only in that were I to get the job, I’d be working for the same company as Guy Kawasaki, but _also_ in that my good friend Tony from grade school _knows_ Mr. Kawasaki through his job at CDW. I’m now trying to pull some very long and tenuous strings to improve my position in the TechTracker resume pile. If [Tom][2] can get a job helping _electronic Japanese people_ out of _trees_, I should be able to get a web developer position at TechTracker. [1]: versiontracker.com [2]: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wyrdwad/

This is a view from the walkway that connects two parts of a three-building mall downtown. These streets reminded me much of [Sapporo][1], which is appropriate, I suppose, since Sapporo is Portland’s sister city. I’d love to provide tons more lusciously detailed musings but I just stayed up 5 hours later than I should have in order to add RSS support and photoless entry support to this site. Woo. [1]: /index.pl?706

To get to the Garden, we had to take a train to what’s supposedly the deepest tunnel in the country. We got out in the center of this big hill, and took an elevator up from “16 million years ago” to the present. This picture doesn’t really convey the depth involved, but you can see over the city to Mt. Hood, which is a really spectacular sight. I’m always awestruck by mountains, but Ann had never even seen one before. The way this site works is kind of odd. I take pictures, and every now and then I’ll post one online. It’s kind of like a blog in that I’m recording things that go on in my life, but most of the time I’m not mentioning things like “I’ve been reading Akagawa Jirou’s _Futari_” or “Had two hot dogs with mustard”. Also, there’s often a pretty wide delay between when I take the photo and when it gets posted. This photo was taken 12 days ago already. I’m not sure if I like it better this way or whether I’d rather have a more spontaneous and indulgent blog like, say, Tom’s.

Dang, this scene could be right out of our trip to Nikkou or Okutama. We visited the Portland Japanese Garden, which claims to be the truest Japanese garden outside of Japan itself. Apparently the area has a pretty significant Japanese population, so there’s a lot of stuff like this garden, the Kinokuniya bookstore, and lots of sushi joints. It’s the kind of place where we could get a taste of Japan whenever we want it. That’s pretty huge, considering I’ve longed to return to Tokyo every single day since I left it. Hiroko, wanting to stay in the USA for its livability, suggested visiting Japan every year or so, but never moving back there. That way we could stay connected to it while avoiding the difficulty (expense) of living there, and it would stay magical for us. Portland seems like a place that could keep us content while we can’t be in Tokyo.

The first amazing thing about Portland is how nice it looks. It seems too clean and attractive to be a real city. Bus-stop shelters have pretty patterns in the glass, crosswalks are red brick, and sidewalks are lined with flowerpots. The trains and buses are clean, and have very friendly signs that say things like “Hang bike here. Thanks for riding.” While I was there, I kept thinking “This would never last in Chicago. This would get vandalized within three days. No one in Green Bay would ever do it that way.” I don’t mean to disparage my origins but blast if it isn’t more appealing to me than anywhere in the Midwest. This is what a typical downtown Portland street looks like: cool little shops, the train tracks right on the street, lots of trees, and lots of little free publications on the corner. We picked up a ton of apartment-finder and job-finder books and newspapers.

One night a few months back, I was at Hiroko’s and couldn’t sleep. For some reason I kept thinking about how I’d gone to Japan for an adventure and had the greatest year of my life, but then I’d come back and just sat around Green Bay doing not much of anything. As I’ve said many times before, going from Tokyo to Wisconsin is pretty non-thrilling. I got up out of bed, opened my PowerBook, and came on IRC. Ann was there, and she admitted that she too worried about her life never going anywhere interesting. Then, on a whim, she suggested that we, with Brian and hachi, could start our own company and/or move somewhere interesting. Like, say, the Pacific Northwest. Say, Portland. A few months pass and I’m sitting on a gloriously Tokyo-like train into downtown Portland, Oregon. Hiroko, Ann, hachi and I had done the research and made the plans to go there and check out the area for two nights and two days; the next few entries will be my photos and impressions of that crazy towne.

For some reason they light up this building green at night.

Here’s the courtyard of a little old church right on Michigan Avenue among the shops and such. While Hiroko was taking pictures, a happy bride burst out of one of the doors and walked back into another door while we stumbled to get out of her way.

Hiroko and I came down to Chicago for the weekend again, for her to take photographs. She got some nice pictures of downtown Chicago, and I got some nice pictures of her getting some nice pictures of downtown Chicago.

Oshkosh folks have been coming up here to hang out with us Green Bay types. Lately this has meant playing the mini-game Anaconda from TimeSplitters 2 for a very long time, and then settling into a session of [1000 Blank White Cards][1]. This is my highest Anaconda score yet. [1]: http://www.google.com/search?q=1000+blank+white+cards&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

This is a picture out the window of our workplace, for people living in snowless or snow-challenged areas of the planet. Look at what you’re missing.

Here’s the sunset over Green Bay Correctional Facility. I often forget that we live so close to an actual prison. It’s just sitting there, full of bad guys, right in the middle of town. There are even some houses just next door. That is weird. Sometimes I half-expect some guy in a black-and-white striped uniform to hop over the wall. Heh.

Our coworker Ben bought a house, and Jon and I moved into it with him. Moving all of our stuff out of the apartment and scrubbing the place clean with frighteningly acidic concentrated citrus cleaner was quite a bonding experience for Jon and me. Jon has a huge lot of books, and I have a fair number myself. One room in the basement was designated the “used book sale” because of how all of our books looked stacked randomly on the tables. Living here is pretty nice, even if it’s farther from work and farther from Hiroko. We all have plenty of space to go off by ourselves and sit in the dark staring at a screen, which is pretty much all any of us does.

Here’s [The Angel][1] practicing in a friend’s basement. This is the first I’ve seen the Angel in years. They’re amazing, and now have a full-length CD out on a real label. I’m often tempted to say that I used to be in this band, but because they have a new name and don’t play any of the same songs they did when I was a member, I can’t really say that with honesty. [1]: http://shatteredangel.com

Piroko picked up these Korean snack-desserts at the Koreana grocery in Appleton. They’re terribly delicious, but what cracks me up every time is the slogan IT’S NOW! Hey, look out! It’s Now!!

I’ve been getting a disproportionately large number of very pretty photos from just outside of work when my shift ends in the morning. It’s kind of nice after 12 hours of getting bombarded by CRT radiation to step outside and see something like this stretching from one horizon, over my head, to the other horizon. I think I’ve figured out one key point that I can use to describe the difference between life in Tokyo and life in Green Bay: Trains versus cars. When riding trains around, you get a nice little walk to the station, then while on the train you can read, listen to music, play Game Boy, email on your phone, or just enjoy the scenery. Then you get another nice little walk to your destination. During these walks you can stop by any little cafe or bookstore that seems interesting, or just walk around and explore. Driving is much more deliberate: you get in your car, and fifteen minutes later you’re somewhere else. You may as well have teleported there. In a train culture, things are there to be discovered. In a car culture, you already have to know where you’re going. Well, this train versus car thing is probably just something I’ve made up because I’ll probably never live in Tokyo again and I don’t want to think that I’ll never have that kind of life again.

An unfortunately placed sign changes Badger Wood Products’ name to… this. I’m not sure if this is hilarious or if I’m just losing my mind.

I got into the car one night and found these wacky ice patterns on all of the windows. I guess there are some nice little things to be found in the miserable Wisconsin winter.

The student discount, developer discount, work’s reimbursement, and resale price of my old PowerBook, made a new 12″ PowerBook G4 1GHz with SuperDrive only $650. I couldn’t really pass it up. Besides, Hiroko needed a new Mac to do her graphic design work on, and my old PowerBook would be a perfect match. I went ahead and ordered it. Here I’m rearranging the keys on my old PowerBook from Dvorak back into QWERTY for her.

These lights outside of our building keep turning on and off at random, shining in Jon’s eyes. They’re very annoying. One night, though, in the freezing-rain, they were actually rather pretty.

Friend, classmate, Timesplitters 2 opponent, and Mac-fanatic-in-arms Peter has a pumpkin patch in his yard, and he allowed us to raid it for Halloween. Yes, that’s how far behind I am on updating this site. I’m two whole holidays off. Much of this year can be described in terms of my trying to play video games whenever possible. For a while, work, school, sleep, and other obligations were all just perceived as “obstacles in the way of my playing Timesplitters 2 with Peter”.

This is right outside of work, on a very misty morning.

Some construction vehicle was lifting this light pole and accidentally dropped it right on top of someone’s car. It’s been lying there ever since.

My brother Dave had a pretty huge block party, complete with this country-band. It was fun to see the reaction of our friend Sangik from Korea.

And I’m back to Mundania. This is where I sit on my butt for 8 to 12 hours a night, watching numbers on screens and making sure little green indicators don’t turn red. I’d interviewed for [the same job as Jon][1], but when I was hired they put me over here across the room instead. After about 10 minutes of sitting here thinking of how to explain my feelings about the situation, I’ve come up with nothing that I’d like to write in such a public place. My official stance right now is “whatever”. [1]: /index.pl?860

Eventually my eight days were up, and it was time to teleport back to the mundane land of Wisconsin. Busy city streets, shops open all night, and fascinating characters would be replaced by cold suburbia, lots of sitting in front of monitors worrying about backups and batch processing, and Packers fans. I’d like to pretend that I can make myself enjoy life exactly the same amount regardless of where I am, but it just doesn’t work. Japan is the most fun I’ve ever had. Wisconsin is depressing. Bleh. This customs guy was very careful with my box; he put on white gloves and gently untied the twine from it. They made Tets take the paint thinner that was in the oil-paint set I was bringing for Hiroko. The guy then re-tied the whole complicated twine getup for me. When I arrived in Detroit, before my flight to O’Hare the customs lady there also wanted to open up the box. She looked at the way it was tied, muttered, “I’m not going to be able to tie this back up for you”, took a big knife and slashed through the twine, rooted through the stuff and gave the box a shoddy tape-job. “Welcome home”, I thought.

Hiroko really wanted me to enjoy a fine French dinner, so when she was home for the summer she left some money with her parents to take me out to this French restaurant they’ve been patronizing for years. I can’t say the food was really up my alley, indeed, the food rather splattered all over the buildings on either side of my alley, without any of it actually making its way up the alley itself. It was an interesting experience, though, to try the French food she’d been raving about for years. I guess. Seeing Hiroko’s family again was quite nice; they are always so accomodating and generous. I was reminded of the weeks I spent at their house toward the end of my stay in Japan, when I was unwell and spent the days lying around reading Nijuuseiki Shounen comix. Ahh.

It’s pretty fascinating just to look at the magazine racks. Sometimes it’s kind of overwhelming to see the volume of seemingly pretty neat stuff going on, and how much of it is very involved and is followed by people passionately. Comix, electronics, television, anime, weird niche video games, music, et cetera: walking around Shinjuku or Akiba I feel like I want to get involved in all of it. I have to reassure myself that I’ve already found great stuff to get into: Toume Kei for comix, all the neat electronics I’ve already got, Pussuma on TV and whatever other neat shows I can catch, Arjuna and such for anime, Sakura Taisen and Xenosaga for my video games, Clammbon and Shiina Ringo for music. I don’t have to go out of my way to discover and involve myself in pop culture, because I’m already there, and I’ve already found some of the best stuff there is. Well, my connections to this stuff are pretty random. I found Clammbon by taking a chance on some song I saw a 15-second commercial for. I found Toume Kei by picking up a random attractive-looking comic book at the store and buying it on a whim. Sakura Taisen, well, that’s [another story][1]. On one hand, it’s these random connections and lucky chances that make my perception of the works more valuable than that of something I found under more contrived or mundane circumstances. On the other hand, their fleeting nature makes me wonder whether I’m missing out on something even greater just over the horizon, and this thought sometimes causes me to panic a bit and search frantically for something truly awesome. Eventually I come to my senses and realize that the things I already hold dear are better for me than any of these shiny items lined up on the shelves. I can try out as many quirky games as I want, but will any of them really be as good as Xenosaga or Sakura Taisen? No way. Maybe I’ll find some more neat games by chance, but I don’t need to seek them out. The same goes for comix, music, or anything else. That was a weird little divulgence. I’m currently searching for a relatively easy-to-read Japanese novel I can get engaged by. Juuni Kokki seems neat but might be a year or so above my level. Suggestions are welcome. [1]: http://jetfuel.metalbat.com/sakura.txt

This is a return to the site of an old [(out of context) picture][1]. This time Andy was with me and we ventured way up past the “do not enter” signs to the roof of the building. It was scary to be up there leaning over the flimsy railing and taking photos, but if anyone were to show up and ask us why we were up there, we could use our Gaijin License to get out of it. You can pretty much get away with anything in Japan just by looking foreign and confused. I can only imagine what went on behind the locked doors above the Gamers and the arcade. [1]: /index.pl?760

I wanted to show you what a Japanese McDonald’s looks like. Next time you’re in your fast-food joint of choice with an indignant teenager glaring at you, muttering, “what do you want”, imagine a land where attractive young women in impeccable uniforms greet you cheerfully, address you respectfully, and bow to you when you order your quarter pounder with cheese. Granted, not all fast food restaurants in the USA are so bad, and not all of them in Japan are so nice. But there’s a definite disparity. The only thing I really hate is when I walk in and as soon as they look at me I can sense their “white person alarm” go off and they pull out the English menu. I’m usually tempted to tell them I don’t know English and act all offended, but I usually just make a point of showing off my Japanese skills instead.

This is the main street outside Shinjuku East Exit that marks the front of Kabukichou. It’s one of the seediest areas of Tokyo, and yet I feel totally safe walking there by myself at 2 AM.

There are huge bike-parking areas around Tokyo, and bikes tend to be parked alongside pretty much any sidewalk you see. All of them are these old-fashioned steel jobs or tiny little portable ones, and all have a bell and a light, and usually a basket. After a couple of days in Japan you learn to listen for the telltale ringing of a bicycle bell and jump out of the way of the unassuming middle-aged lady barrelling at you.

It finally became closing time at the hostess club, and we had to leave. Then followed what is probably the most surreal experience of my whole life. I think I’ll refrain from describing it, though; some things are best not divulged to the whole world. Don’t worry, though; I didn’t do anything evil. Following absolute weirdness, we made our way to a public bath. This place was pretty classy, despite the questionable Engrish on this sign: it was several floors, with all varieties of baths, massage facilities, lounges, sleeping areas, a restaurant, and exercise equipment. Combined with the manga-kissa, it pretty much eliminates the need for a home. We checked in at about 4 or 5 in the morning, moved around between hot baths, cold baths, indoor baths, outdoor baths, saunas, and showers, ate breakfast (and shaved-ice), and took a one-hour nap. At around 10, Matsui-san left for work. It’s pretty common to work all night, go out afterwards, and stay out until it’s time to go back to work. Somehow they don’t die from it. Not right away, anyway. At 12:00 we were to meet Gou to go see Zatouichi, the newest movie from the legendary Beat Takeshi. I managed to stay awake through the (good) movie, we had some Wendy’s, and then it was time for me to meet up with Tets. I got to log some solo Japan time while waiting for Tets; it was kind of nostalgic to summon up my old walking-through-Tokyo-crowds powers and to just wander around Shinjuku with my iPod on. Tets and Mahou showed up; I could probably write a whole book about Tets but I’ll just say that he’s probably the most interesting person I’ve ever met in my life. After hanging out with that dynamic couple for a few hours, I came back to Andy’s to find Gou and him watching One Piece DVDs. Gou works at the One Piece shop in Ikebukuro, and is required to be familiar with the storyline of the comic-turned-anime. After a few episodes, Gou packed up and went home. Then, finally, we slept. Thus ended the weird Saturday night, on Sunday night.

Matsui-san finally did call us at around midnight and we made our way out of the manga-kissa and down the street to meet him. He showed up, a surprisingly tiny little dude for how important he is, and I did my best not to seem like a complete dork in front of him. Walking around Shinjuku late at night with him made something very unusual happen: all the flashing lights, all the shady little establishments, all the guys coming up to you trying to get you to go to their theme club, suddenly stopped being just distractions and cultural curiosities and started being actual entertainment options. With important video game creators on your side, anything is possible. So, for the first time ever, when a toady scavenger guy came up to us with a clipboard for a hostess club, we actually listened to what he had to say. Matsui-san asked questions about the place. We actually had a conversation with the scavenger. “What’s the atmosphere like? Is it too loud? Lots of these places are too loud.” “Oh, no, sir, I assure you it’s very peaceful. You’ll love it. Please follow me.” And wouldn’t you know it, we did just that. We followed the guy down the block, into a building, into a tiny little elevator, and up to the top where we emerged into a tiny, very, very loud hostess club. It was near-impossible to hear anything over the din. We were seated at a cluster of tiny tables, and three hostesses were sent out to sit with us. The girl assigned to Matsui-san and the one assigned to me were both very friendly and immediately struck up a conversation with us. Andy’s girl was kind of seated on the periphery and wasn’t able to get into the conversation much. Of course Andy’s fluency in Japanese language and culture was the focus of the night, and all of the girls made sure to tell him how amazing he was. They also told me how amazing _I_ was, because that’s their job, but I could tell they were genuinely impressed at him. “My” girl was named Maria, and I found her to be really quite nice compared to the other girls. I like to think she was putting on less of an act, but it’s hard to tell when you’re in a situation designed to make you think you are very cool. Andy and Matsui-san were enjoying alcoholic beverages, and I knew it would be pretty awkward socially if I tried to weasel out of having to drink. Luckily Maria was accomodating enough to make my drink about 95% water without too much of a fuss. After about half an hour of ego-massaging, it was time to rotate. Andy explained to me that the way it works is this: they keep rotating the girls out until you find one that you like, and then you can ask her to stay. This costs more money, though, which presumably goes toward the girl’s earnings. I was pretty comfortable with Maria, and so while the other two girls left, I asked her to stick around. Andy’s new girl looked very, very bored, and said less than ten words during her entire shift. She spent the whole time staring at nothing, waiting until her time was up. I was glad I’d stuck with the friendly and semi-honest-seeming Maria. I spent much of the time telling her about my girlfriend Hiroko, as if to inform her that I was in the club strictly for the experience of having visited such a place. She told me how she’s trying to become a pro bowler. Awesome. Andy and I did some karaoke, both _Bohemian Rhapsody_ and _Stairway to Heaven_. The whole place seemed pretty impressed, though I think they would have clapped madly for just about anything. “Good pronunciation!”, they said.

Here’s our private little booth at the manga-kissa. We opted for the special booth that lets two people sit together. Most of the booths are for a single person. Andy and I enjoyed several hours here while waiting for Matsui-san to call. We speculated that one could probably get by without having a computer, a TV, or any form of entertainment or communication whatsoever at home. Every night one could stop by a 24-hour manga-kissa, use the internet, read a bit, play some video games, have a few melon sodas, even take a nap, and then be on one’s way. WIth the ubiquity of mobile phones, a land line at home wouldn’t even be necessary. The manga-kissa truly could act as a home in everything but meals and bed.

The beginning of our weird Saturday night. Andy has befriended one of the more important people at Tecmo, Matsui-san. Much of my trip he’d been telling me “Matsui-san this” and “Matsui-san that”, and hoped to get us all together for a night on the towne. Saturday night was looking the most promising, and we went into Shinjuku to hang out until Matsui-san called to let us know whether he’d be able to come see us. First we wandered around and did some shopping, then made our way to a Mister Donut to have some donuts and bottomless coffee. At the Mister Donut we sat at the little bar facing out the front window of the shop, and there was a stereotypical kogal-type leaning up against the glass in front of us for about half an hour. She called a number of people on her cell phone, fidgeted a lot, took of her shoes, socialized with some guys who she may or may not have known, got her butt grabbed, got a phone call, and left. Through all this I kept trying to get a photo of her bare feet on the concrete or her charm-adorned cell phone, without seeming like a _tousatsu mania_, or “hidden-camera freak”. I couldn’t get one. We got a call from Matsui-san, still at work at 21:00, saying that he might be able to come out in a few hours. We made our way to a _manga-kissa_, a “comic cafe”. These are just a few of the shelves and shelves of comix available there. They also had PS2 games, movies, and unlimited drinks. We picked out some good comix and settled into our tiny little booth.

Here’s someone doing caricatures outside of Shinjuku’s East Exit. I used to meet with my RPG group right around here. A few feet away, one band is playing in front of the “do not perform here” sign, and another band is patiently waiting for their turn to play.

Shiina Ringo: some IRC people, particularly Jules, recommended her music to me, and I picked up one of her CDs at Book-Off for cheap, not expecting too much. I kind of forgot about the CD for a while and then put it on while working on something to see what it was like. After about 30 seconds I realized that I’d gotten into something really special. She’s probably the only artist I’ve really started liking a lot within the last couple of years. This poster is for her _Seiteki Healing: sono san_ music video collection DVD; I picked up all three of her DVD collections on this trip. Her music and her videos are pretty dizzyingly eclectic in a Bjorkesque kind of way.

I’m not entirely sure what is going on in this graffiti. au is one of the theree major mobile communications companies, and DoCoMo is another. My phone when I was in Japan was a KyoCera-made au, and I really preferred au phones over the other companies, but I guess someone didn’t agree with me and vandalized this shop. You can’t imagine the weird looks you’ll get when photographing closed shop doors after midnight in Shinjuku.

Ah, bentous. If Andy and I actually get around to eating before 21:00, we’ll probably get these. They are especially good for when we are tired or we have something important to watch on TV (like The Practice or Pussuma), because we can just make the 2-minute walk, order, and come back to eat them in front of the (huge) TV at Andy’s place. The food looks really tasty, because it’s totally fake. All those dishes are plastic. Maybe you’ve heard that most restaurants in Japan have fake-food displays to better show what kind of meal you’re getting yourself into. This is invaluable for newly-arrived foreigners unfamiliar with the language and culture. There are whole shops of fake food, and many people make their living trying to take stuff that’s not actually food and make it look as much like food as possible. On a side note, this site should now display “correctly” in Internet Explorer for Windows. This is by no means an endorsement of any kind for Microsoft products, but instead a reluctant response to their [continued neglect to properly support the superior, free PNG image format][1] or to [correctly implement the float attribute in CSS][2]. Thanks to Kristen for testing the changes in her IE and for listening to me complain about Microsoft for like an hour. [1]: http://redvip.homelinux.net/varios/explorer-png-en.html [2]: http://www.digital-web.com/features/feature_2003-02.shtml

I find gachagachas more appealing than, say, big ol’ $100 garage-kits because they’re, oh, about 1/50 the price, you actually get to assemble them yourself, and if you are lucky enough to find them while they’re still in the capsule machines you get to play the collecting game. Plastic models also seem like a great value to me because for only 2000-3000 yen you get hours of enjoyment and relaxation, and when you’re done you have something you made yourself that also reflects your loyalty to a series.

Yes Madam, an entire shop of gachagachas. Ikebukuro turned out to be quite a geek-haven. After visiting the Taishou Romandou, we came here in my quest for Sakura Taisen gachagachas. I was actually rather surprised at how hard it was to find what I was looking for. You’d think that in a store like this, something as relatively popular as ST would be all over the place. “But to no avail, it didn’t work”. I would learn later that eBay is one’s best bet, even for stuff this weird.