You might be wondering what might inspire me to teach my students the meaning of the word "boo-boo," and to your question I present exhibit A. This incredibly "delicious and appetizing" piece of sushi is known by the amazingly improper name Kani Miso. Actually the brown shit is called Kani Miso. I don't know the proper name for this sushi.

What is Kani Miso?

If you live on the coast I am sure that you have at one point or another encountered one of the raw ingredients of Kani Miso. Take a crab and crack the shell off. That black stuff inside is what you are after. The part that I have discarded for years is saved here and mixed with miso paste.

That is it. The black shit in the crab is mixed with some deep brownish red shit to form this shitty looking concoction. Yes. I ate it. It didn't taste as dradful as I thought it would but I don't think it is something that I will be trying again.

Rain Rambling

The rains of the Japanese summer are becoming a bit of a myth to me. A legend if you will. I always see the signs of rain. Cloudy skies, wet sidewalks, hordes of brain dead girls dragging umbrellas behind them, but the actual rain never comes.

Well let me revise that. About a week ago I was awoken by strong wind and loud thunder entering through my open window. Of course it was raining. It was also 4:30 in the morning. That didn't stop me from standing my naked ass outside in what was arguably the best weather of my summer vacation.

Today, the sky never made good on its promise of rain. I'm not really sure who I should file a complaint with, but something has got to change. I don't have the funds to set up a system of rain alerts for myself. Is that even necessary?

It might be.

I don't want to go dancing in the rain or something. I just want to enjoy the sound and the peace. Some of my most wonderful thoughts came to me while it was raining. Actually that reminds me of a story.

When I was in the tenth grade I met my first boyfriend. He was great; Intelligent to a point, funny within reasonable limits, and not dead set on getting into my pants. Actually he was but I silenced him with a few well placed blow jobs. Unfortunately he was destined to never get into my drawers.

During my year my parents decided, mostly because the couch in the den had sprung a leak, to get new furniture. I saw no reason to for them to completely dispose of the all of the old furniture so I negotiated with them for custody of the old love seat.

That was either the most intelligent or most unbearably stupid thing i had ever done. As I said the couch had sprung a leak. My father and I somehow squeezed that humongous thing in my room, and then I immediately started thinking of ways to stop the damn thing from spewing foam all over my room. I eventually went with the pick all the shit up and stuff it back into the couch approach. It worked for a good while.

The condition of the couch really isn't the point of this poorly constructed story though. I won't even get into the true hideousness of its early 80's inspired brown shit designs. (It was unforgivably ugly!) I had great memories on that couch. My first blow job was given and received on that couch. I got spanked on that couch. My sister burned a hole in it and eventually I realized that my first boyfriend, as "wonderful" as he was, was really not good for me. If I had stuck with him there was a chance, albeit small, that he could have dragged me down into whatever hole he was slipping into.

I don't even know if he was truly slipping anywhere. We were just growing apart. It happened over the course of about two years. He just gradually slipped out of my life. I went to university one year and when I came back he was completely gone. I have no idea where he is now. I actually would like to talk to him again, but knowing my current mindset I am more than likely to fall madly in love with him again.

Actually that mindset is why I'm currently avoiding Jun. He tried to stay over last night. I know he just wanted a blow job or something. I actually think that on some level he actually feels lonely. Like he works all the time and is just surrounded by his coworkers. You would think that would create some kind of family for him, but this the land of the 4 layers of yourself. I would go into those layers, but will jut sum it all up by saying that the layers never actually complete a picture of yourself. The image actually ends up being something society friendly and overtly heartless. Dangerous. Not to be trusted.

I think I can trust Tomo though. I actually made a nickname for him recently. I would write it here but I think I would feel a little silly when SemiSpecial started to tease me about it. I know Peanut might "try" to hold his tongue until he had something truly funny to say.

I had a brief discussion with Tomo about why foreigners might be afraid of the police here in Japan. He thought it was because they didn't speak the language, and in truth that is true. There is more to it though. The police, actually a large part of the population, is racist. Or irrationally distrustful of foreigners.... sometimes violent.... exceptionally rude.... bitches to foreigners. I told him about the case of an African man who was denied medical treatment for a broken leg for 10 days by the Tokyo police. The police would not allow him to be treated until he signed a confession. You can read about it here. The case is going to court soon.


This rant is going for way to long.

There's an outlet mall near the airport in Osaka. I went out there one day to pick up a new pair of shoes. As you can imagine, buying shoes in Japan is damn near impossible for me. I wear somewhere around a size 13 US, which translates into 30~32 centimeters Japanese. I used to go into a shoe store, browse around, find a shoe I liked, only to ask about the sizes and find that they only had up to 28. Eventually, I wised up, and before even looking at one pair of shoes, I'd go directly to the store clerk and ask if they had my size.
Me: Um, excuse me, but do you have a size 32?Clerk: ....EH?!?! 32?!?!?! I'm terribly sorry, but...Me: Okay, well, thanks anyway.Clerk: (as I'm walking away!) Holy FUCK, 32? Was that a human that just came into our store, or a Big-Footed alien?!
Most times, when my shoes are getting worn, I have mom send me a new pair from America. She's got decent taste in shoes, and I've found that it's MUCH easier to ask Mom to send shoes than to send condoms. ...Though I have to wonder, what does poor Mom think?
Friend: Hey, what's your son doing in Japan?Mom: Judging by the care packages I send him, going on massive walking treks, and having lots of sex apparently.
This time though, I didn't have time to put in the Mom request, so I headed out to the outlet. As they import straight from America, and considering the proximity to the airport, they actually do have a decent range of sizes. I bought myself a nice size 32 pair of Timberland's, at a pretty good price.
Interestingly enough though, none of this is actually relevant to the point of this article.
I went with my girlfriend. We went by a train line called Nankai. And that's how we expected to come back, but as we arrived in central Osaka, we found ourselves at a JR station. How, exactly, this happened, we have no bloody idea. I can only say that its Japan, and apparently, trains will just up and change lines for no apparent reason. I think this is why Japanese people have that "wake up at my stop" super power, because if they didn't, they might find that their train has stopped in Russia.
This might have been fine if we were using normal tickets, but of course we weren't. I had my magical sensor card, and my girlfriend was using a pass card. As far as train lines go, JR is retarded, and they don't accept our specific type of magical sensor card and merely ordinary pass card. What this meant was that we were going to have to have to pay out of pocket the JR price, and then get a note from the JR station that the unsettled balance on our rail cards was, in fact, settled, for the next time we wanted to use the cards at the 1.37 billion other train lines in Japan that aren't as retarded as JR.
My girlfriend and I lined up at the gate. She explained our situation, and the JR station guy began to fill out a note for her while she paid the ticket price. While standing there, a light bulb went off in my head - you don't have to pay the ticket price. Just Gaijin Smash this dude. I'm not sure why I came to this conclusion - perhaps it was the way he refused to look directly at me? And while you might argue that he was just focusing his energies on the current patron, the guy did manage to look everywhere else. The look in his eyes too resembled that of prey, hoping that if it didn't make eye contact with the circling predator, maybe, just maybe, it would turn invisible.
So after my girlfriend paid for her ticket...I simply smiled at the guy, and walked through the gate. The guy returns my smile, and says nothing as I pass through. My girlfriend is shocked. "What the hell?! You didn't pay! And he didn't even care! What in the...?!"
I realized then that, in all our time together, while she's been witness to a lot of the other Gaijin Super-Powers, this was her first time seeing a Gaijin Smash.
I repeated the Gaijin Smash at the next train station. Since I hadn't paid at JR, I didn't have the little note saying I'd settled the balance on my card. My girlfriend is freaking out - "You can't do that, they're going to arrest you!" She worries. Maybe, if I was Japanese. But not with the Gaijin Smash on my side! I handed the card to the guy, and in the clearest, most perfect English I could muster, said "Oh, I made a mistake on this card, can you erase it?" Of course, I could have said "I like pleasure spiked with pain and you can be my aeroplane" and it would have been all the same to this guy. He looks at me, blinks a few times, takes the card, and promptly erases the old charge.
The girlfriend is amazed. "Wow, you just rode all the way to the airport and back, totally for free! And just because you're a Gaijin?! Man, I wish I was a Gaijin..."
Though the powers of the Gaijin are great, the burden and responsibility are also much to bear. It is our blessing, it is our curse.

~From GaijinSmash.com

Curses

I have found recently that a curse can be anything. It can be a good wish from your mother or the most evil hope of a child. The source does not change its power. What changes or makes its power good or evil is your personal perception of the curse. Even non-believers end some strength to any curse placed upon them.
I am a non-believer. Years ago I was told by a woman in a God inspired fit that I would one day be a preacher and for years I thought her crazy. If God, the God, wanted me to be a preacher he would find ways to make my way in life a little more acceptable. That is what I thought, but tonight I found myself doing something strange. I do not consider myself a christian, but I found myself telling my roommate to think of her problems as Satan. Not Satan as in some evil entity outside of herself, but Satan as in everything that appears as a problem in your life. Satan is something to stand upon and move forward and upward from. Satan is something to use as a platform into a better life.

I think that may be considered preaching. Is that what that sweaty woman meant all those years ago?
I don't know.
But it feels like I did the right thing and I don't really mind doing it again to help someone who may need it.
How is that for a curse?

YAY!

Create Your Own PaloozaHead - Visit Lollapalooza.com

Gay Breakdown

gay breakdown [gey-breyk-doun] -noun
(see GAY MOMENT, HOT FLASH, "I'm having one of my days, girl.")

1. the sudden appearance of gay or agreed upon gay traits in an otherwise straight or straight acting man or woman.

2. the total loss of the ability to maintain the ability to appear heterosexual

3. suddenly and with no provocation waxing poetic over your love and need for a new, CUTE bag while going down an elevator in crowded department store.

ex. Oh my gawd! I think I'll have another gay breakdown if you show me any more bags, shoes, or things that you can do with your tongue. LAWD!!!!! (followed immediately by a fainting spell)

interesting video

GAY - AZIS - No Kazvam ti stiga (complet)
Uploaded by jief75

I love this picture

I am Happy.

That has become my catch phrase as of late. When people ask how I am I always say, "I'm happy." When I think about it saying something like that sounds a bit strange. Like you're trying to convince people that contrary to what they have heard you are happy and it also seems like you're trying to convince yourself that contrary to what you know you are happy.

I am happy though. It's true... I think.

My happiness as of late comes primarily from dating this wonderful guy, Tomo. He's great. He makes me feel really good, but I'm trying to curb the happy frenzy that I know I can easily slip into. Sometimes I can get so happy that I start to gloss over all the things that are bad. Like, um, a guy who you have great sex with 15 percent of the time, but during the other 85 percent of time he makes you go on this insane emotional roller coaster. Up and down and up and down until you're just a bobble headed doll.

No mind. Just response. I'm trying to avoid that with Tomo. The aftermath of a roller coaster is seldom pretty, and I never want to have to feel aftermath with him, but then that is my happiness talking again.

Anyway, my happiness is the result of the best movie in recorded history... well the best I've seen this month: Transformers.

It is very rare that a movie dealing with something that is mildly important to my childhood is done right. I actually can't think of that many movies that I would consider based on things in my childhood.

Street Fighter. Shit.

Mortal Kombat. OK.

Mortal Kombat 2. Painful sideways shit.

Dead Or Alive. Recent shit.

Captain America. Weird shit.

Fantastic Four. Weak shit.

X-men. Not quite shit, but not quite OK.

X-men 2. OK.

X-men 3. Wonderful.

Transformers. A-fucking-mazing!

Transformers gave me what I needed. What I've always needed: big giant robots tearing the fuck out of a semi major city in a fight that humans happen to get squished in. There were so many explosions and fights and transformations and cool robots and Optimus knifed a bitch through the neck.

I am so happy. I must see this movie again. I felt worried though. I got the same feeling I got when I watched Matrix 3. There was a scene in that Matrix when the sentinels flooded the Zion dock and kinda started to swarm like a great big giant angry snake. In that moment I thought the movie was over. There was no more point. The humans were fucked.

In Transformers I got the same feeling. The robots were so big. Their weapons were so amazing. They were so almost completely impervious to our attacks. I was actually frighted for the human race, but, of course, in true Hollywood fashion the humans ended up luckily destroying the robots with the help of their great friends, the Autobots, who had managed to learn English (American English) through the use of the world wide web. They actually said it that way, " the World Wide Web!) I haven't heard any one say the actual name in years. It made me laugh a little.

At any rate the movie was excellent and I am tired. it is now 2:12 am and I am tired. This was officially day one of my two week vacation and I spent it by playing video games, studying for the GRE, reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, watching the freaking amazing Transformers movie, and then drinking beer and other things. So I am officially tired. At least my brain is. Night.

One Hour At the..

...WORLD COSPLAY SUMMIT!!!!

Recently I went took a small trip to one of the most bizarre places in the world. The World Cosplay Championship. Naturally some of you are not really well versed in what exactly cosplay is, and , to be honest, I was exactly an expert in the beginning either. As far as I could tell "cosplay" was just something that people lamer and geekier than myself did to make their lives seem a little less lame and expendable. (That was a mean sentence wasn't it?)

At any rate I started my cosplay education by first having the word explained to me. Luckily I live in Japan, the land that graced the world with Dragon Ball Z and Gundam (WHOO!!!), so finding the correct definition of the word was as simple as asking my 46 year old junior high school gym teacher student; who just happens to be a female pimp. She has two boyfriends and says that she has no plan to get rid of either one, because "two is better." She explained to me that, "Cosplay is COStume PLAYer. The people are really weird. I think dressing up like anime characters gets them excited.) I admit she didn't say it as eloquently as that, but, yeah, she basically accused them of dressing up to get off.

When she mentioned "excited" I was immediately reminded of another group of people who like to dress up like... things.

The Furries are so cute and horribly provocative. Dressing up like lions and tigers and bears to get their jollies. *shudder*

Luckily Cosplay is not like that. They, the totally uncrazy and not lame, um, players? dress up as their favorite anime, manga, or video game characters. I imagine it makes them feel closer to God. At the world competition competitors were required to appear in full costume and do a 2 or 3 minute scene from their chosen thing. I have crappy video that i will load later of this chick beating down a chick to some really bad music. Actually the music isn't that bad. It is Requiem for a Dream. Well the theme music from the movie which goes by the same name.

Cosplay is totally pc and boring. I went to the convention on last Sunday and was bored out of my mind. Actually I'm lying. I was exhilarated. For once, since I've come to Japan, no one was staring at me. I was surrounded by blue, pink, and green hair. I saw a really unsensible robot totter into a McDonald's. I gave evil looks at a pair of meandering junior high school love cat children. I even saw Fran from Final Fantasy 12. What? You don't know Fran. Well take a look at this.

This is Fran. I saw a little Japanese girl dressed as her and cried a little before laughing hysterically at the perverted men who wear eating her up with their eyes.

I was gonna write more but I'm out of ideas. Basically I spent an hour at the W.C.S. being bored out of my damn mind and trying to ignore the fact that the dude packed in behind me kept touching my butt. HE was cute. I allow certain things.

Here are some pics that I was able to get before My boredom overwhelmed me and caused me to leave with Mr. Pokey Ass.

Sexy