I think I'm turning .. into a consumer

hmm, it just occurred to me that I'm living in Japan.

No, not like "ooh, it finally sunk in that I'm in the place I always wanted to come to," more like, "hey, maybe I should take advantage of the fact that I'm over here now, since I won't be forever, and start doing things other than what I'd be doing normally."

So, at least once a month for my remaining year or so, I'm going to travel somewhere within the country (or maybe even nearby) I haven't been to before. Next month I'll go to Hokkaido, the next I'll spend a bit of time in Kyoto, in the spring and summer I'll hit the southern islands, & of course I'll have to fit Mt. Fuji in there before September ..

Not doing touristy shit, oh god no. I'd mostly do it because I feel obligated to, but I also enjoy the act/feeling of traveling, especially with no real purpose.

Other than traveling around, what can I do to take advantage of this situation? I don't know, whatever you can't do elsewhere. I started by going to Mos Burger, the fast food burger joint they've got over here that most people get hooked on from Day One. It's no wonder, either .. the Mos Burger itself is delicious in a way that can only mean it's killing you somehow. The Mos Rice Burger, on the other hand, besides having an amazingly cool pair of compressed rice-patties for a bun, didn't do much for me, since there was this fried pork cutlet thing in between, gaaack. Gradually I think I'll try everything on their menu, just because. Supaa-saizu mii!

Step 2 involved the purchase of a PSP along with 僕の私の塊, "Me and My Katamari." I figure, if I'm going to be traveling all over Southeast Asia, might as well have something to do on the trains and planes, right? Plus, I never really do anything to "unwind" lately .. and what could be more relaxing than rolling towns up into a ball?





I could do a full review of this game, which might be a good idea since it doesn't come out in the US till Spring, but for now I'll just say it's fucking Katamari and you know what that means. (unless you are one of several people reading this who have no idea what that means) I will say, though, that a lot more attention is paid this time around to the King's package.

Yeah, so the PSP ... I love some handheld electronic devices, and this thing does more than any I've ever owned so far, to the point where the thing probably needs to be maintained regularly, like you have to download updates for its OS and shit. It goes a lot deeper than I'd care for it to .. I just want to roll things up and be done with it, but if I don't use every feature this thing has (again, a lot), I'll feel like it's a waste, you know? So I dropped about 10 albums into it and felt pretty good about that.

Speaking of albums, I came across a bunch of live Bjork CDs and Pre-Millenium Tension by Tricky this weekend, so right now it is all about the weird electronic shit.

Time to compress 5 hours into an instant by going to sleep ..