ハードゲイマスターベター

Fairly warned, be thee, this is going to be long, and it will include some things from a previous post which got deleted and I didn't bother to re-post, since I didn't like it.

Anyway, even though it gets old after a while, there's still some amusing Engrish over here, such as sandwiches with things like "Let's enjoy the tasty, with this SANDWICH!" printed on the labels. My favorite so far is "This sandwich is fresh, delicious and homemade. We want you to try to eat this sandwich." I tried, and was glad I did. What does homemade mean anymore, by the way? Not made by a robot? I'm a little disappointed with the lack of robots over here .. there was one cleaning the floor in the assembly area at work, but it couldn't even talk (or find Sarah Connor).

In addition, people always want to say things to me in English, the most common of which is "How tall are you," which I now answer with "one point nine four." The reaction is usually "heeeeeeeee" but at work the other day, some girl responds with "you are like volleyball player!" Hey, that's different! But who the fuck says that?? Another guy said I was "like a viking" at lunch, because of the amount of food I ate, or because of the fact that I'd just plundered his village. Hmm, that doesn't sound so good.

Oh, and apparently that thing about them using the term "hard core" to mean "gay" over here was misinformation .. the term is actually hard gay. I found this out today when, at work, one of the young guys had undone his belt and was re-tucking in his shirt (I have to do this about 50 times a day .. this is why I don't like tucking my shirt in), and one of the older guys picks him up and yells "Dan! Rape!!" Taken aback (and not afront), I yelled "Why are you doing that??" and he responds with "He is HARD GAY!!" I choked on my delicious iced coffee and ended up spraying it all over my uniform. Soon we will find out how well synthetic fabric made out of recycled plastic bottles repels stains!

More amusing than that is my new nickname. During today's lesson we learned about the Master Beta Drawing (Not the Beta drawing, the Master Beta), pronounced in Japanese as mas'taa beitaa which, when said aloud, sounds just like ... I forget. Anyway, everytime the instructor would say "Master Beta," I'd have to try really hard to not burst out laughing, because A) I was tired, and B) I am 12 fucking years old. People started to look at me because I was biting my lip and turning purple by the eighth consecutive mention of the term, so I finally explained it to them, and they thought it was so funny that I am now referred to as Master Beta by pretty much every member of the training group. I go with it, but periodically remind them: I am not always.

Lately I've also been talking to people outside of work, which is good. Last weekend I took a train to Osaka, just because I'd never been there before. My goal was to wander around and possibly see a show or go to a club; I got to do all of those things, woot. I ended up hanging out at a venue called Nanba Rockets and seeing a few little bands .. later I went to a club connected to that venue called Saomai and danced around to some fairly bland "techno" music. There was a girl there who kept trying to introduce me to all the other foreigners there, and I was just like .. stop that. The club got old at about 4AM, so I went outside to some public square where another band was playing and some guys were skateboarding (skateboarders are actually good over here!), and practiced hacking till I could barely move my legs. Before heading back to Yokkaichi in the morning, I talked with the headlining band from Rockets called "406," and told them I'd try to make it to their next show in Nagoya.

Ugh .. suddenly I don't feel like typing anymore. This was all last weekend .. this week involved some inadvertent hitchhiking in Toyota City, as well as some late night driving around & getting lost with the members of the aforementioned group 406. I should have warned them, that's what happens when you hang out with me ...

I will continue after I've gotten more than 3 hours of sleep in a row. Will you be there?

Oh yeah, and so I guess New Orleans is pretty much done for (per Maletas' request), eh? I didn't even find out about that till 小林 told me this evening. Too bad about the flood and all, but man, people are fucked up!