Nihongowned!

Moved!

2006-05-29T23:54:00.000-07:00

My blog will henceforth be at http://www.nihongowned.com/blog/ so update your bookmarks and links accordingly.

Building...

2006-05-07T06:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of updates for the last few days, I'm working on a few interesting things for this blog. Unfortunately, one of them isn't the Korean girl, who just wants to be friends. No idea why she acted the way she did the first time. I was hoping for something more traumatizing. Oh well. Sorry to keep you all in suspense over nothing like that. Tomorrow I have a day off and will try to organize all the last miscellaneous bits.

Crazy

2006-05-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

Things have been extremely weird the past few days, mainly thanks to a Korean woman who goes by the name of Ji Wan Yoo. I met her on Saturday night, after coming back from a white-water rafting trip which was awesome and I'll have pictures of soon (I didn't take the pics myself; I have to scan printouts that the Hokkaido Outdoor Adventure company sent my friend, who's away until Friday while I keep an eye on his apartment and cat). Basically, in our homestay now is a third person who goes by the name of Dan, an Albertan studying fashion design for a few months at the University of Ebetsu. Well, some other Canadians came as well for the same thing, and the always-eccentric homestay mother invited a whole slew of Korean girls who were also here studying. Now most of these girls were behaving like normal Japanese girls. Just making small conversation, acting impressed that I was teaching English and could actually speak Japanese, stuff like that. But not Ji Wan and her two friends. At one point I went over to the table where they and Mrs. Okawa were sitting. Now, Mrs. Okawa likes to play matchmaker, and has the subtlety of a bag of hammers to the crotch, so she starts asking stupid questions like "So many cute girls, you must be so happy! You like girls, no?"
Now what I wasn't expecting was for Ji Wan to pipe up that she likes boys. While looking at me. With a succubus smile. So after she finds out my name, age, and what I'm doing in Japan, she writes down her phone number and draws what looks like a lopsided heart with an evil-looking smiley face on it. So I think to myself, "Oh, maybe it's a bunny." I ask her. She says "no, it's my heart." I think that's the first time I was visibly WTF with a woman. So the rest of the night she kept doing the two-fingers-to-the-side-of-the-head gesture and kept saying "call me! Call me!" And then her friends joined in.
So then the evening ends, and the only thought running through my mind is "what the everloving fuck was that?" So then I think back to my training, and realize that most of it would be counter-productive with this woman, such as the wait-three-days-before-calling rule. The variant with this girl was something along the lines of "failure to call back within three days will result in waking up bound to the bed with a ball gag in your mouth as she sits on your chest in a schoolgirl outfit with a Hanzo sword held to your throat as she screams "WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME?!" in Korean over and over again." So I call her back the next day. I don't catch her at first, I leave a message, thinking maybe the bet I made with the Canadian girl that it was a fake number will actually pan out in my favor. Turns out she was just at work, and promptly calls me back. So now I have a Karaoke date tonight in Shin-Sapporo. If we exclude my bitchy first girlfriend I've only been on about 3 or 4 dates in my whole life, and this will be my first in almost three and a half years.
And with the agressiveness of this girl I fully expect to be at least missing limbs tomorrow, so I might have to type my next update with HawkingTwitcher 2.0 or something. Wish me luck!

Babies!

2006-04-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

Congratulation to my good friend Evelyne Deshaies and her boyfriend Jean-Francis Mainville. On the morning of April 27th at 6:30 a.m., Evelyne was admitted to the hospital, and on April 28th at 9:13 a.m., gave birth to Morgane Mainville, a 7-pound 4-ounce girl measuring 49 cm.

Grabassticism

2006-04-26T06:24:00.000-07:00

Work got underway a few weeks ago very suddenly and it's been kicking my ass. Two days where I work twelve-hour days due to two jobs are also the days I have to get up earliest, as I have to go to the super-boonies to teach with my replacement Simon.

This station actually only has one side, and is so small that people getting off the train heading East have to actually cross the train tracks via a walkway equipped with the same crossguards as road railway crossings.

And this is the station itself. It's very tiny. Also, it doesn't seem to have an automated ticket-checking system and I think instead uses the honor system.

Simon's considering getting a bike to go to work once I'm gone.

Here at Homac, they have 6 trillion identical silver bikes.

A little further behind is the more Potter-esque transportation.

This is the horror that awaited us when we arrived at school. It's going to be a fun few weeks.

That being said, the most interesting thing happened on Thursday. After a stressful-as-hell week, just when I thought Japan had thrown everything it could at me, they unleashed the Mormons. Yes, THOSE Mormons.

At first I thought it was some guy wanting to survey foreigners for some reason. He was dressed all in black. Alas, I saw his name tag had the title "Elder" and I recognized the kanji for religion. Still, I was thrown for a loop when the name John Smith came up. I kept playing along but my mind was wondering how the fuck Mormonism made it in Japan, being such an American religion. But I kept talking, and they eventually gave me (for free) this:

The Book of Mormon, Japanese version, in all its splendor and glory. Actually a well-printed book, all things considered.

The inside of the Book.

Here's the Shimakawa group I tutor holding a "drive carefully" flag for national driving safety awareness day or something they made the teachers do in Japan.

Here's my bad-ass cell phone. The drummer boy was a gift from the Shimakawa group.

And here's the cell phone when it's open. That pic I posted earlier on my blog.

Flipping the screen the right way auto-converts the cell into a camera, with the same button layout and functions. Three megapixels, bitches.

It has a barcode scanner as well, which can scan URLs from magazines or anywhere you can reasonably take a picture. A very nifty feature.

And as if that's not enough, it has Street Fighter II. Yes, THAT Street Fighter II.

Colonel Sanders in a baseball uniform. I don't think any further explanation is required.

This is a series of books with a main character called David. David doesn't appear to be a cooperative little boy. In fact, I think he's a rat bastard. That middle book where he's shaking the fish bowl's table is called "David, NO!"

DUCKS!

And finally, the inevitable literal conclusion of grabassticism.

I'm slightly less alive

2006-04-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

Man, today is the end of an ass-ramming week. So far being 25 has sucked tremendously. Been working long hours and just about everything I've looked forward to fell through in the last two weeks. Girl I met at a bar last Friday seems to have lost interest in me after looking very promising at first. Tonight I really needed to drink myself into a coma, but the bar I usually go through was having a private function. Shitcock. That being said, I was very surprised to find a sudden surge of interest in my blog. Thanks, Kotaku! Accept this full-res NES Tree pic as a gift. I bought some webspace from Dream Host and can thus get around some Blogger file limitations. Even more interesting stuff coming soon. I have the next 3 days off, so I can get some backlogged shit organized in that time, but for now I'm going to drink myself into a coma in the relative comfort of my homestay room off of cheap Seicomart beer.

I'm alive...sort of

2006-04-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night I was called and told I had to work the next morning at 8. Way to be organized, city of Ebetsu! I had a nice drinking party last night with Josh and Simon the new guy, though. I'll elaborate more later, just confirming my aliveness and failure at being dead.

A Review of BitTorrent Magazine, or how to get the MPAA to your door in 5 minutes or less.

2006-04-09T02:38:00.000-07:00

In a lot of Asian countries, the standard of living is quite low, and piracy runs rampant because legal CDs and DVDs cost the same as in Canada but a good salary is maybe $150-$200 a month. Also, in China, only 20 movies are allowed to be imported from other countries every year, so the only way to see the bulk of films in China is through piracy. Japan has largely avoided that, though. You can even rent music albums here (although lately they tend to have those stupid anti-copy errors on them). They have an ad similar to that "OMG YOU'RE A CRIMINAL" ad moviegoers and DVD owners love more and more each time they see them in the US/Canada, although theirs is less accusatory ("Save Our Movies" is the basic message). There is absolutely no enforement online, though. How bad is it? Let me tell you a story...

So I was in Posful browsing the magazine stand when something caught my eye: a magazine-sized guide called "Bit Torrent." For those who don't know, Torrents are tiny files that you download that connect to a central tracker, allowing you to download files associated with the torrent file from others. It's basically a decentralized equivalent to Napster.

So I thought "Hmmm, what kind of useful things are they teaching people to Torrent? Is there some Public Domain scene in Japan I'm not aware of?" so I pick it up and browse through it. Within about 4 seconds I knew I had to buy it, take pictures and review it. So 1000 yen (well, 999 yen) and a 20-minute walk home later, I take the requisite pics. So what was in this guidebook?

This guide teaches you how to be everything the MPAA doesn't want. EVERY single aspect of pirating movies and TV shows is in here. Where to go to get torrents, torrent software, movie playback software and burning software.

So this is the front cover. Pretty innocent so far.

This page explains what Torrents are. Fine, no biggie. But wait, what's that torrent file up in the corner? Maybe one of the following pages will show us...

Yup. Shane's World College Invasion 8 in ripped form. And for bonus illegality, it's uncensored, which is massively illegal in Japan. Fun! Oh, but it gets better. So much better.

Here we're shown where we can go to get porn and movies.

And here we're shown how to use Daemon Tools, a CD/DVD drive emulator for using disc images without having to burn them. So what disc image did they go with?

A screening copy of Chronicles of Narnia, a movie that just came out in Japanese theaters. And this is a screening copy, at that, the ones they give to Academy Award judges and video store chain owners so they can preview the movies, and highly illegal to distribute.

But wait, they blurred the screenshots of the movie playing so they...couldn't get sued? You just told people how to get all 200 000 frames of the movie for free, and its audio? HOW IS HAVING ONE THROWAWAY FRAME FROM THE MOVIE IN THE MAGAZINE "SAFER"? IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!

And it ends with a list of all the best torrent sites, including the now-shut down Suprnova.org.

So I am now the proud owner of a magazine that would get sued into the ground if it so much as touched a map of the United States. So now if the police come to my door in Japan, I'll just say this guidebook from Posful made me do it.

Accidental Proposal, or why I'm teaching English in Japan

2006-04-08T01:03:00.000-07:00

So today I had another lesson with Sachiyo, which was surprising in numerous ways. First of all, she bought me a present. To be more specific, she bought me cake. To be even more specific, it came in this box.

Now given the fact that I damn near scared her off earlier inviting her to a movie I figured there was some kind of mistake here. Sure enough, she didn't know what "sweetheart" meant. Whoops. Very good cake, though. Different kinds.

I went out drinking last night and made a few new drinking buddies, so I'll probably head out again next Friday. Tomorrow is my birthday; I may go out tonight, but I'll more likely stay in and get caught up on some projects of mine. I also picked up a second Famicom, and this one is super-mint in the box and everything. It's insane how good the condition is. I also picked up Dragon Quest II, III and IV. It's good to have money again. Speaking of...

Bling bling! That's 80 000 yen, roughly $800 Canadian. And that's just the 10 000 yen bills; I have more in other denominations and in my bank account.

You have died of dysentery

2006-04-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know where my title is from; kudos to you if you do. If not, I hope you're at least smart enough to have figured out that this update is about disease.

My friend Sarah has been afflicted by something that's pretty much inevitable when you start teaching and don't have children of your own. Children tend to be lacking somewhat in hygiene, and teaching several of them automatically exposes one to all kinds of nastiness; new teachers who've never had children generally catch something within about a month of teaching.

Here in Japan the health system is pretty funky. Pharmacies are directly linked to hospitals here. Health insurance generally only covers 70% of any medical bills incurred; my working students are very impressed with Canada's "they don't even tell us what it would theoretically cost" system. That said, hygiene standards in Japan are quite good. It is customary to remove your shoes when indoors, which shouldn't surprise anyone, but for most workplaces you're expected to have a set of "work" shoes. You know how during the winter you wear your boots to work/school and then change them? Same principle here, but the weather has nothing to do with it. Schools provide slippers for visitors and have foot lockers for students and staff. Amusingly, one of my school's principals wears a full-out business suit, like most principals, but within the schools wears tennis shoes. White tennis shoes. With a dark grey business suit.

Japan is a culture obsessed with the concepts of "soto" and "uchi" (literally "outside" and "home"). In Japan, when a child misbehaves, he isn't sent to his room; he's sent outside of the house. As I mentioned before, students don't act out very much here because of the importance of maintaining their "uchi" or social standing, as being an outcast in Japanese culture is extremely difficult.

Hospitals here also started a system which has apparently been in Europe for quite some time and I'm scratching my head as to why we haven't been doing this for hundreds of years; physically separating contagious and non-contagious patients. They actually have a separate entrance and waiting room for people who have something like a bad flu and someone who's just injured or just waiting for a check-up. It makes a lot more sense that way.

On the subject of diseases, Japanese condoms are of an extremely good quality, mainly because until very recently, it was the only legal form of birth control; while couples in America and most countries phase out condoms after a while in favor of more practical contraceptive methods (the pill etc.), until I think 5 or so years ago in Japan it was condoms or nothing, so they had to work and work well.

Unlike most of America, Japanese people are very paranoid about rain; the slightest chance of rain and everyone brings their umbrella. Many stores also sell cheap umbrellas in case you forgot yours (we're talking $1,50 cheap here), and others provide little cylindrical plastic bags so that you don't track water all over the store as it drips off your umbrella.

Blowing your nose in public is a faux-pas not unlike farting loudly here, too. Remember this for when you dine with Prime Minister Koizumi.

The terms used for diseases are quite interestingly constructed, and generally are very long words consisting entirely of Kanji, with construction rules similar to those in English. For example, Ulcerative Colitis is 潰瘍性大腸炎 (kaiyouseidaichouen) and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children's made-up Geostigma is 星痕症候群 (seikonshoukougun, literally Star-scar syndrome). Basically, if what you have needs kanji to write out, it's bad and will probably kill you. Many medical terms come from German, though; during the Meiji Restoration and military era of Japan (1868 - WWII's end) Germany led the world in the medical field. Similarly, some terms for certain fields come from varying languages in Japan; some cooking ingredients come from French, as does their word for bread.

Today is my last day of poverty; from tomorrow on I'm rich, RICH I SAY!

Final Fantasy XII Intro (Note: intro spoilers within)

2006-04-03T19:24:00.000-07:00

The introduction for Final Fantasy XII, like its predecessors, thrusts you into a world with no real context, with its own rules and technology, and part of the intrigue of the series is learning the unique elements of the worlds. Imagine Star Wars with no scrolling text at the beginning. This game goes one step further, with incredible cinematography thatès much faster-paced than the previous games. Gamers have gotten more impatient, it seems.

And so we begin with views of a beautiful morning.

Humanoid creatures are shopping at outdoor markets when their attention is diverted.

A huge wedding procession of royal importance, complete with Moogle percussionists, parades through the city.

And so, Asche and Lasler (NB: name spellings are best guesses and may vary in the final English version) are married. The religion in this game seems to use "Fahram" instead of "Amen."

However, all is not well in the kingdom. In fact, it's war. Neighboring countries are seriously fucking shit up, and when General Basch bursts into the war room with news of a recent sacking, Lasler fears for his father's fate, and demands to fight in the war to avenge his father.

The king permits him to do so and arranges for him to be bestowed a great sword in a huge public ceremony to boost morale. While it's not specified I'm guessing Asch is a princess and Lasler married into this whole royal shin-dig.

Basch is armed with a bow and arrow and is Legolas-deadly with it, and also has a sword handy for close-up skirmishes. He's accompanying Lasler and both are riding War Chocobos, which have a far more serious and realistic look to them than the cartoony squawkers (warkers?) of games past; those who've played Final Fantasy Tactics on the original PlayStation may feel they look similar to the ones in the CGI intro to that game.

In a nearby tower, wizards are maintaining a force field, when they're...interrupted by enemy soldiers not too happy about their preventing the B-wing style attack ships from penetrating into the city.

Lasler, pissed off that the shield defending his country's city has fallen and high on vengeance, fails to notice this guy. Basch, however, does not, but in an unfortunate Han-shoots-first scenario, while Basch successfully hits the soldier, the soldier manages to fire his arrow a split-second earlier and hits Lasler in the chest. Basch rides next to him and lays him on his own War Chocobo, but he's quickly surrounded by enemy soldiers. Fortunately, an airship is shot down and the ensuing explosion gives him an opening, allowing him to bring Lasler's body home for a proper funeral.

And finally, here's a shot of the gameplay and a brief explanation of how it works:

The main character, Lex (or Rex), is on the right of that ship, and I'm controlling him directly. The others are mostly A.I.-controlled, but follow me around and assist me. Whenever enemies are present I can press O and pick from the battle options (attack, magic, item etc.) If I pick attack that action is automatically repeated when my battle gauge fills up (the red meter in the bottom center of the screen). I can move around if I want to adjust distances for one reason or another, but since the attack speed is locked into the battle gauge I can't make things go faster by mashing buttons, so in this sense it's different from Kingdom Hearts.

I'm going to screw around with the game a bit more and probably go into greater detail about the intro; there's still a little bit that happens after the funeral, including a huge-ass block of daunting narrative text that'll take me a while to figure out and translate. But for now I'm off to work.

Thank goodness for Chef BoyarDave

2006-04-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

To all you non-believers, behold my cooking skills:

Not only can I cook pizza, and cook stuffed-crust pizza, but I can cook it while drunk off my ass (part of the reason why I'm covered in flour more than I should be).

Josh and I basically decided to celebrate my birthday a little early since yesterday was a day we were actually both free, something that isn't terribly likely to come up again for a while. It was a very last-minute decision too, which is why I'm not wearing the right clothing for baking. While it was just me and him, we had quite a lot of fun, and he taught me many important survival skills, such as how to pour Guinness properly. I also crashed on his couch, which, it turns out, is deceptively comfortable and made for a very good sleep.

We also went to a snack bar and did a little karaoke. I'm told I can do karaoke quite well, but then trusting someone who's very, very drunk is generally something I take lightly. I also don't know many songs, and most of them I know from weird sources. You get one guess where I know Gene Kelly's Singin' In The Rain from, droogs. I also sang Electric Light Orchestra's Twilight (where I know that from is harder to guess), Ray Charles' Hit The Road Jack (which I know from the YTMND soundtrack courtesy of this YTMND), and Mötley Crüe's Girls, Girls, Girls (which, of course, I know from Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. Unfortunately, both Josh and I were colossally drunk and while I asked him a few times to take pictures of me singing it turns out he never did. So here's him singing:

Denki Saved!

2006-04-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

The law has been repealed!

Woo!

Yes, I've been gone a while. A lot's been going on, and I'm also very lazy. It happens :P Yes, the FF12 update is coming, and other deliciousness. The weather's finally getting nicer, and I found NATURE TRAILS! They're still snowed over, though, and look rather nasty because of its meltiness, but I'll get better pics when the snow clears for good.

Today's secret ingredient is Doom!

2006-03-23T16:41:00.000-08:00

Click for animated

Japan is a very safe country. If you forget your digital camera in the front basket of your bicycle all day, odds are pretty decent it'll still be there when you get back. Also, if you lose your wallet, it'll likely get sent back to you. On the other hand, Japan has natural disasters, notably earthquakes, volcanic events and typhoons, all of which can seriously ravage certain areas. Take, for example, this city I went to last year with Joshua.

This sign empirically shows the earth literally fucking the city. Fortunately, it was a residential area and this happened when everyone was at work, so there were no casualties. Properties were smashed, though:

as were the roads:

This chunk of road is jutting up a good 4 meters above where it should be:

Near the destruction zone, some people had set up shop. Keeping with the hot lava theme, this ice cream stand sold wasabi ice cream. Not tastes-like-wasabi, as in actual strong-as-fuck wasabi. You take a bite, and you get the cooling sensation of ice cream, which is quickly countered by the wasabi rushing up your nose. Fun stuff.

Incidentally, this is Joshua:

And on the right here is his Alla, trying to take a picture of him:

On the left is Linda, a girl who arrived from New Zealand to teach in Ebetsu last weekend.

This picture was taken in Noboribetsu, which is best known for huge statues of demons:

- Daaad! I want a frosted human skull!
- No! You'll spoil your appetite!

A storefront selling masks so you can blend in and get into all the secret Oni clubs.

Noboribetsu is a mountain of sulfur, so everything's steamy and smells like ass.

Doom signs:

I think this says beware of falling snow, like sliding off a roof. Why they went with a dead snowman as their picture is a mystery, though.

This sign says "Caution: Squirrels." No, I don't know what their problem with squirrels are. Then again, there's no pluralization in Japanese, so this could just be one giant squirrel. Pozu, destroyer of worlds and ravager of 300 virgin schoolgirls 100 years ago to this day.

Bonus Doom:

This is my uber-rare Alien Head DVD set from the front:

McDonald's is training Japanese children to shoot laser beams from their hands like in Dragonball and take over us all. Don't believe me? Check out my happy meal bag:

and here's me driving a RICE HARVESTER!

Update on Denki Saving: Japanese Protesters ahoy!

2006-03-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

While I got most of the stuff I was looking for, about a week ago a protest was held in Tokyo, mostly by collectors of musical synthesizers and other vintage musical equipment. Apparently the exact extent of the law is still being worked out and some exceptions may be made, but I applaud my old-school electronics brethren. Wriggle your tentacles and slide your mice across to this link here for photos of the protest (note: protesters' signs say "We love used goods.").

As for other updates, I went hiking two days ago, saw Aeon Flux with Japanese subtitles in theaters yesterday and am currently hard at work on a very tasty Final Fantasy XII update I promise will be worth the wait. However, right now I have to go to work, so those'll come later.

I'm Playing It Before You: Final Fantasy XII First Impressions

2006-03-19T02:01:00.000-08:00

I finally received my copy of Final Fantasy XII in the mail today. Yes, on a Sunday. I fucking love some things about Japan, like their 7 days a week mail delivery service. And now, let's talk about Final Fantasy XII, the first serious Final Fantasy game in a long time.

This game is absolutely fucking epic in every sense the game can be.

Not only do the cinematics look very good in a CGI sense, the camerawork, direction and editing are incredible. It looks like you're watching an actual theatrical presentation, and not like some CGI demonstration. The intro begins with an epic wedding. Nerds everywhere are going to want their brides to wear this dress. Mostly because, well, they're nerds, but in all fairness it's a very nice dress (I'm going to get game screenshots up once some downloads finish and won't fuck everything up; in a day or two, most likely). Following this is an epic war scene akin to Lord of the Rings goodness, and we finally see War Chocobos used effectively.

And now, we move on to the new battle system, which is a sort of Kingdom Hearts/classic FF hybrid. Basically, battles are now handled in the main game world and don't throw you into a separate "battle room" like every other FF did. It's not action-oriented like Kingdom Hearts, though. When you're within range of something you can attack you can press O and get the classic battle options (Attack, Magic, Items, Piss self, etc.). If you pick "attack", the game will keep attacking for you when the battle meter fills up assuming you maintain attack range. Of course, staying in attack range generally means you can be attacked to.

I must say I was really looking forward to this approach to Final Fantasy battles, as now where you end up in battles actually does have an impact on the outcome. You can use scenery and obstacles to your advantage, and if you're attacked in a dead end area you really can't escape.

I haven't played much of X or X-2, but I get the impression that those games were "full voice." This game is not; voice is restricted to cutscenes now, possibly due to DVD-ROM memory constraints (4 gigs isn't as much as some would have you believe these days). This storyline being more serious in nature also means that the script comes out less like ass, like some of the previous games did. While not perfect, the voice acting is above and beyond what it was in the previous two games (and yes, I'm comparing with the Japanese versions of those games). If we're lucky the English version of FF12 won't be screwed all to hell.

Adding to the theatrical experience is the way scenes and locations are introduced, using fading subtitles like in theatrical films. Another interesting touch is that all cinematics use the same Japanese subtitle font as American movies shown in Japanese theaters do, which might add a certain something for native Japanese playing this game.

So that's everything I gathered from Power On to first save point. Once I free up a few dozen gigs on my hard drive I'll start video capturing and taking screenshots.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a robbery. Now dance!

2006-03-15T19:15:00.000-08:00

Long ago, I read a tale about a cat who could speak excellent zebraic, and would shock zebras with his linguistic ability so much they'd be fit to be tied, which the cat would promptly do before eating them. But then he tried his stunt with a storytelling zebra moments after said zebra thinks "wouldn't it be interesting if a cat spoke zebraic" and is able to kill off the cat. This is largely how I feel with most western media. Almost every popular show, including ones I enjoy, have been relatively predictable. The same cannot be said for Japanese media. Now let's imagine that you have the following possible locations for a dance video. Which do you choose?

A. Fairview Shopping Centre
B. The surface of the sun
C. School
D. An armed bank robbery

As I've shown in a previous post, C has already been covered by the Japanese, and given the skin tone of Ganguro girls it's probably a safe bet B's been done at some point in time. But they went right ahead and did D.

Yup, men in ski masks show up with guns to a bank, fire shots into the ground to show they mean business.

Some people do the "normal" thing and cower in fear, obey, things like that. But some others...well...

They WON'T STOP DANCING! Even when hostages are being taken.

Also note the return of an old favorite, whom I've dubbed "Brokeback Spiderman."

His role in Spontaneous Eurobeat Academy (yes, that's this group's name if you translate it from the Japanese 'gazen parapara gakuen') is as an occasional backup dancer, but usually he's left to his own devices to just show up mid-dance unnanounced and start annoying people. Like your little sister who knocks on your door and asks "whatcha doin'?" when the honest answer to that question involves being really close to an amazing orgasm. But his methods are a little more...Japanese than mere coitus interruptus.

At first I thought "Oh Jesus, this is fucking ridiculous," but then I realized that this would probably be a pretty effective counter to an armed robbery. I mean, seriously, if you showed up at a bank, armed, and demanded money, and the tellers AND customers all broke out into Japanese pop dance while Eurobeat just as suddenly starts playing through the bank's intercom, how the hell could you counter that? Those unbroken, smiling faces, so happy they make you want to kill yourself because you know you'll never see anyone that happy ever again. If no one broke their routine, you could only kill a few of them before freaking out and either running into a corner and whimpering or beginning to dance yourself.

Honestly, it's hard to tell the difference between those two actions sometimes. The robber on the left, enslaved by the rhythm, loses his mask...

This one loses his mask AND his pants...

And now they've all lost their freedom and are arrested, but not without a farewell DANCE!

On Books in Japan

2006-03-14T06:55:00.000-08:00

For starters, here's the Book Off logo.

And here's my Japanese book collection.

From left to right, they are the first four Harry Potter books, Anne of Green Gables [akage no an, lit: Red-haired Anne], Le Petit Prince [chiisana no ouji], and the complete Chronicles of Narnia [narunia koku monogatari, lit: Tales of the Land of Narnia]. Now some of you math whizzes out there will say "But Sensei Dave! You said you had only four Harry Potter books when there are clearly five!" to which I'll remind you that you're forgetting an important point: shut up. Furthermore, Japan does something very strange with large (and occasionally with not-so-large) books; they break them up into smaller books. The most obvious reason is they make more money that way; the Harry Potter books cost exactly $19 each, meaning from Book 4 on they could double-dip and get $38 for the complete book. The less obvious reason is that people spend a LOT of time on trains in Japan here, and generally people do one of three things: sleep, listen to music, or read. This keeps you from having to carry around a giant ass-fuck book and allows more manageable "chunks."

The Da Vinci Code is sold in THREE volumes at $5,50 each, and they're small enough to slide easily into a pocket/rectum should the situation demand it.

Tome 1 uses the kanji 上 (ue/jou) meaning "top," the middle tome (if present) uses 中 (naka/chuu) meaning "middle," and the last uses 下 (shita/ka) meaning "bottom." Apparently The Lord of The Rings is nine books in all, as each original book is cut in three.

While the Potter books are an exception and can only be purchased "together," you can usually buy just one book, meaning if you want to "trial" a book or pay in installments that option's available to you as well, although they do have libraries here too.

Here's the Japanese version (top) next to the English (bottom). The Japanese version reads top to bottom, then right to left. Some books read left to right, though, and still others read horizontally in the Western style.

And finally, here's the best English ever on a pastry shop's bag:

Our little friend "TOMTE" use magical secret-power for delicious BREAD that. Well enjoy in next morning. Children who living in NORTHERN EUROPE tell us secret that just baken BREAD. Yes...TOMTE's secret. Hokuo as. BREAD country SAPPORO is very similar to TOMTE's land.

Dave Presents a DVD Screencap update: Japan's Best of WTF Volume 1: Everybody Dance!

2006-03-11T17:31:00.000-08:00

Super Kitty Tech Support

2006-03-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

So yesterday my Alaskan buddy Joshua calls me up, needing some computer help, specifically a bigger hard drive. In exchange he taught me how to make garlic sauce and apply it to certain foods. My Iron Chef training has begun.

This sign is just above the road and while it's not clear from the picture, there are lighted boxes indicating where there are parking areas. The lights can be green, yellow or red, indicating, respectively, capacity, almost full, and full. Very useful so you don't waste time dicking around for nonexistant parking; you know right away where there's space without even having to stop driving. We should be this lucky back home.

This is the inside of a vending machine-style parking garage. The yellow frame is attached to a giant loop where all the parked cars are stored. When you're ready to retrieve your car, they punch in the code associated with your parking pass and the loop rotates around until your car is in the bottom position. This means the entire garage space is used for cars and not for space where cars can drive. Again, less bullshit.

As seen from the outside.

Josh's cat Tigra supervises my hard drive installation, and occasionally attacks the IDE cable I'm holding like the 40-headed data transmitting snake it is.

After the successful install, Tigra sits atop the bookshelf and stares into my very soul, plotting my inevitable doom as cats tend to do.

I'll likely be going skiing and/or whitewater rafting with Josh in the coming weeks, so that should be entertaining, and his Russian wife Alla is an expert on Japanese breakfasts (which is rather hard to distinguish from other meals; they eat rice, miso soup and fish for breakfast) so I may learn a thing or two from her as well.

Next week the homestay family leaves for Hong Kong, leaving me to fend for myself. I will then break out the cookbooks and probably try okonomiyaki, a Japanese pancake/pizza monstrosity my friend Sam insists is good, so if I poison myself it's her fault.

And I now leave you with my favorite translation mishap, courtesy of Alla when she was just learning English:

"How many penises does it cost?" (after misreading "pennies")

Game on, bitches

2006-03-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

That Super Mario 2 video tempted me to give the game a serious go. While I don't have a Famicom Disk System or the disk of the game itself, it WAS ported to Game Boy Advance and released as part of the Famicom Mini series (the American equivalent being the NES Classics series). Basically the cartridge has an encoded emulator and the game on it, and plays exactly the same as its full size counterpart, just with a slightly modified resolution and some extra options if you press L and R (reset, sleep mode etc.) It had been out of print, but I picked it up last year for about $40. Last night I went ahead, but miscounted the lives I earned so I actually continued with only about 40 lives. Whoops. I DID, however, manage to get to 8-4, which is a major accomplishment.

But I only had three lives, so the princess had to get molested by Bowser that night when I promptly lost those.

Not one to leave things unfinished, though, I retook my Famicom-color GBA SP tonight, got the life count working right, and despite having to battle with some twitchiness and general nerves I made it to Bowser's castle with about 40-50 lives left. About 15-20 lives later Bowser was no more and the Princess gave me 1,5 million points for my efforts. Nice.

And so, I finally got around to taking pictures of my newly-acquired Final Fantasy cartridges.

And here is everything I've acquired Final Fantasy-wise in Japan so far. The top row is the PS2 titles, the far left being a box of the original releases of Final Fantasy X and X-2, and the right being the International versions. Basically, Japan has such a huge boner for English and English actors that after the games were released in North America with English voices, the games were re-released in Japan with the "International" monicker, containing English recorded voice and Japanese subtitles. They also had a few extra goodies not present in the original games; Final Fantasy X-2 has an extra mission or something to that effect.

This may be my favorite piece in my collection, a complete boxed copy of Final Fantasy III for the Famicom. As of right now, this is the only Final Fantasy game that has NOT been released in North America or remade on any system. Final Fantasy I and II were both remade for the Bandai Wonderswan, Playstation AND Game Boy Advance (the GBA version being the most thorough). Currently, a Nintendo DS remake with graphics like the Playstation Final Fantasies is underway, with interesting plans for the sytem's stylus and touch screen, although we don't yet know what those plans are.

These are from the "superdeformed box art" era. Also worth noting is that Final Fantasy I, II and IV have misleading box art. Neither of the first two Final Fantasies have Chocobos, and the characters on the FFIV box art are rehashed from previous games. Still, the Final Fantasy I and II combo cart is especially rare and was a great find, and Final Fantasy IV is definitely one of my favorite Final Fantasies (it was released as Final Fantasy II in North America, although this version is heavily censored and dumbed-down). A Game Boy Advance port was recently released and is excellent. Final Fantasy IV Advance is a must for Final Fantasy fans.

Here are the cartridges for the Famicom FFs. Although the Final Fantasy I and II cart is larger (it holds two games), technically the number of bits for both cartridges is the same (four megabits). Also there is the strategy guide for the first two FFs which came with the combo package.

And here are the Japanese Super Famicom titles, Final Fantasy IV and V (I already own VI back home so I didn't purchase a copy here) with their manuals. Interestingly, unlike the Famicom/NES which had different pin layouts, technically the cartridge boards and connectors were identical and theoretically inter-compatible with the Super Famicom/Super NES, but the systems were deliberately designed with different plastic outer shells to make connecting the games to their other-country's system impossible. Funnily enough, though, making Japanese games "fit" in a North American Super NES was simply a matter of removing two plastic tabs that only exist to prevent the Japanese games from being connectable. A good set of pliers or a rasp coupled with patience and strength make this one of the easier system "hacks," and since the tabs are inside the cartridge flap it doesn't affect the system's outer appearance.

The Motherload

2006-03-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

After a recuperative weekend and busy last couple of days, I've paid my rent and am now in saving money mode. What happened to my Denki saving? Well, I'm pretty much done thanks to a little trip to a Book Off way far into the heart of Ebetsu:

Here it starts. Better than a $2 hooker, we have a $4 Playstation, immediately followed by a Super Famicom, Sega Saturn and $12 Neo Geo CD system. I'd already busted a nut, but there was more. Much more. What's this?

It's an original Famicom! Sure he's dirty and is a little chipped in the front, but he looks like he's still got a little game left in him (there were two others, but both looked like they'd been to hell and back). I took him.

Awww. He's smiling.

Fun facts about the Japanese Famicom: the controllers are hard-wired to the system. You can't replace them like with the U.S. system. Also, the second controller has an integrated microphone for use in some games. No, I have no idea which, although I'll look into it.

Most of these shelves are Famicom games. Note how unlike our dull grey variants, theirs were multi-colored and festive.

More Famicom titles line the bottom.

And next we have the mega Famicom wall. I didn't downsize this pic for those who want to actually look through titles, but be warned the linked pic is one meg.

They also had a complete boxed copy of Final Fantasy I and II for Famicom. It's an extremely rare super-sized Famicom cart containing both the first and second Final Fantasy games.

A trip to Geo today net me boxed copies of Final Fantasy III, IV and V. So now the only Final Fantasy I don't own a legal Japanese copy of is IX, which I'll pick up this weekend. I'll take pics of the games some other time, I'm tired as hell now.

I Can't Believe They Put That On DVD Volume 1

2006-03-02T16:13:00.000-08:00

Citing crap weather and work, I'm going to talk a bit about really bizarre DVDs I've picked up in my stay here. I'm going to start backwards, with a DVD set I picked up yesterday, entitled Game Center CX. A 2 DVD set of what I believe to be an actual TV show, they basically have this guy who sucks at gaming, give him an original Famicom system and complete boxed copies of notoriously difficult video games, and chronicle his epic struggle against the game. Some of these games were never released State-side or only released in very limited circles due to the difficulty of the games in question. So if you could care less about video games or silly Japanese men, stop reading, but I promise you'll learn a thing or two about Japanese gaming history if you continue.

The first game some of you might be aware of is Super Mario Bros. 2. For those not in the know, the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 is NOT the same game as the US Super Mario Bros. 2. The game this DVD talks about has this title screen:

In 1986 in Japan, due to the expensive cost of memory chips (and certain manufacturing realities at the time) they were unable to manufacture cartridges that held more than 64 kilobytes. Nintendo's solution was to release a disk drive (as in magnetic media similar to 3.5" floppy disks) extension called the Famicom Disk System. Those of you who still have original NES systems lying around will actually find a hidden expansion port on the bottom of the system which ended up never being used. Basically this system allowed for games to span several disks and sides, bypassing the memory limitations, AND allowed saving, the battery back-up idea not having occurred to them yet. It also allowed games to be rewritten on a disk, so if you got bored of a game you could take your disk to a store and have a new game loaded onto it for less than the cost of a new disk with the game. Many games were released on this system, including Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and Metroid. Eventually, though, Nintendo figured out how to make bigger carts and get saving working, so they nixed the system a mere six months in and retooled certain games for American cartridge releases (Metroid, for example, originally saved your progress, while the American retooling used a password system). The Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 was never ported because it was considered to be too difficult. It was finally re-released in the States as part of the Super Mario All-Stars compilation cartridge, although by-level saving helped tremendously in easing the frustrations the game was notorious for. What we got was a retooled game called Doki Doki Panic, set in an Arabian environment, which is why the game is completely different from the original Super Mario Bros. (this American SMB2 would eventually be released in Japan under the title Super Mario USA).

An original Japanese Super Mario Bros. 1 cartridge. The Japanese Famicom (NES) was a top-loading system like the Super NES, which is much better for the pin connectors of the console (which is why all our NESes eventually degenerated to blowing in them to get them to work) Our cartridges were larger because Nintendo implemented copy protection chips which ultimately didn't work and only pissed off environmentalists not pleased that half of every NES cartridge contained the exact same chips.

The Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 was basically Super Mario Bros. 1 with slightly reworked graphics, physics, and a completely new, insanely hard set of levels. New challenges included poisonous mushrooms, wind, and warp zones that could take you backwards. The game was also single player-only, the title screen letting you choose between Mario and Luigi, Luigi being able to jump higher and farther but having a lot more trouble stopping (which turns out to be rather important in this game).

The Super Mario Bros. 2 Disk in its case.

And so we come to this dude's wrestling with the game. For each game he's issued the game's original manual as well as some form of official strategy guide. He starts the game using a godsend tactic exploiting a physics bug to allow you to stomp on the same Koopa shell repeatedly to eventually generate 1-Ups (shown below).

After finally getting it to work right after about 50 tries (seriously, although they don't show them all) it ends up backfiring on him, when he accumulates so many lives that the limited RAM in the system causes his life counter to wrap around and go into the negatives. Whoops. Once he finds out he can't go past 127 lives (go 8-bit go!) he starts actually counting the number of lives he accumulates in order to play it safe:

This is his thumb after World 4-2, which he'd warped to. I wasn't kidding when I said this game wasn't easy.

The most common things you'll hear this guy say in the video:

Kowai! - I'm scared!
Shinda! - I died!

With the frequency of both of these you don't need to know very much more Japanese.

This his him having cleared World 8-1. He's been playing the game non-stop for several hours (he was six hours in when he'd reached World 4-4, and he died a LOT there). Note the cold compress on his forehead.

Finally, we come to World 8-2, which is the highlight of the video as people who've gotten this far in the game could have told you. SMB2j has a few levels that loop. These can only be broken out of by going into the right pipe. Which pipe is the right one? It's the one that's fucking impossible to get to. Do you have to stop on three Koopa Paratroopas to reach it? It's that one. World 8-2, however, kicks it up a notch, by making it so you have to climb a vine in order to clear the level. Naturally, it's the one block that's impossible to hit, and requires bouncing off a Koopa Paratroopa below it AND not falling into a pit.

After trying and failing several times, with three lives left, they come up with a blueprint. Yes, they fucking map out that one area and come up with an elaborate wrap-around jump in order to have him clear it:

After a tense suspenseful, pre-commercial break "Will he make it?" build-up Japanese TV is famous for (side note: they have Who Wants to Be A Millionaire here, and you will SHIT YOUR PANTS at the intensity of its suspense and the insane difficulty of its questions):

He makes it.

And gets applause from his assistants...

whom he then shakes hands with.

For people who are so shitty at videogames, these guys are HARDCORE!

I also have to admire that despite the presence of the compress indicating some sort of stress, the player remains extremely good-natured and never seems like he'll go into a controller-destroying rage like most of us have, and if any games warranted such a reaction it's these. He laughs his screw-ups off even if it means a complete game over restart, like the following:

And so, after climbing the vine, he then kills himself performing a basic jump, the last jump it would have taken to complete the stage. Ha, ha!

Find this dissection interesting? Let me know and I'll write more. Other games played include Atlantis no Nazo (a Japanese-only game by Sunsoft that's pretty much as hard as platformers get), Ghosts 'n Goblins, Prince of Persia for the Super Famicom and Super Mario Bros. 3.

Games, Trains and Goodbyes

2006-03-01T02:41:00.000-08:00

Games: And so we're finally sort of back on track, but unfortunately it seems that only Geo has a collection worthy of consideration. I'll track down other locations on the weekend and see what treasures they have. GBA SPs (the flip-open ones) are $60 tax-in and the classic design (no backlight, requires batteries) are $38 tax in.

Left: Super Famicom, original design. Right: Famicom, new design

Trains: Problems with the train system in Hokkaido today very nearly fucked me pretty badly. Train delays caused me to get on a train which should have returned me home after a long-overdue DVD shopping spree but was instead actually a train that should have already left and normally required an expensive ticket, and they had a ticketmaster to make sure you did actually purchase one. I did the best I could to apologize and explain the ill timing. I think they understood and may have a good chuckle about it with their co-workers at some point, but it's also possible I didn't do some of the things they asked me to do, so maybe tomorrow I'll find Wanted posters with my face on them everywhere. In all, the mistake delayed me a little more than an hour.

And now, we come to the over-the-top goodbyes by the students.

Group picture with group 5-1.

My last lesson.

The 5-1 class custom-made this folder...

Containing a letter from every student in that class.

Here are some letters. My translations are going to do quite a bit of paraphrasing.

Note the origami box this letter came in.

Did a boy or a girl write this one, I wonder?

To David-sensei,

During this year's lessons, I've learned many great and interesting things about English.

Thank you so much for the lessons until now. Good luck in your future endeavors.

To David Anderson-sensei,

Sir, Thank you for teaching me English until now. You won't forget about us when you go back to Canada, right? I was able to have a lot of lot of fun studying English. Please come back to Nopporo Wakaba Elementary School, ok? Thank you very much!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I have some 50-odd letters like this. Absolute fucking insanity. The irony of the whole thing is that the school wants me back for another three months. So they did all this for basically a 1 month-ish hiatus. I'm scared at what's going to happen when I leave for good.

So in my little shopping spree I picked up some zany stuff, probably the most universally interesting being a promotional CD/DVD set for Final Fantasy XII, including the Symphonic Poem "Hope" and a trailer for the game, which looks damn tasty.

I also ninjaed this pic of a hot maid outfit from Don Quijote, although I've learned I have to figure out how to disable the sound on my camera in doing so. There's a headpiece that goes with this, but it's not in this picture.

I'll be quite busy with work in the next few days, but I'll see what kind of updates and online presence I can pull off regardless. Later!

Super Happy Otaru/Tokyo Megapost!

2006-02-28T04:05:00.000-08:00

Today was my last day teaching at Nopporo Wakaba for this academic year, and the kids said one hell of a goodbye. If my funeral gets half that attention I'll be happy. Speeches, songs, letters, presents. I'll post some of the letters I received from the students, but there are a LOT of them and I want to pick worthwhile ones and I'm quite tired now. So I'm going to post my Otaru/Tokyo update, right after two advertisements of sorts.

Mos Burger proclaiming "Hamburger is my life." Amen.

Toshiba bunny. Probably the most representative pic of Japan I have. I mean, look at it!

Otaru is basically the Venice of Japan. It's a one-hour train ride from Sapporo. It has a canal, it has chick stuff stores (jewelry, etc.), and its industries are glassware and music boxes. It also has love motels and is basically where you bring that special someone whose pants you'd like to get into.

Me stoned in front of the canal.

Santa after being mauled by a werebear.

Me chilling with Santa Werebear during his break.

These are ceramic Studio Ghibli figurines. The smaller ones are about $40 if I remember correctly and they work their way up to about $200.

En route to Tokyo, Mount Fuji in the distance.

Why every non-Japanese airline is on the verge of bankruptcy.

View from Tokyo Hotel Room.

Tokyo hotel's dining room. Off-camera: sniper rifle

I'm not entirely sure what this place is, but if I were to venture a guess I'd go with a Kabuki theater. This is in Ginza, the Beverly Hills of Japan.

If you took some sort of dare to blow a lot of money really quickly, this, Mitsukoshi, is the fastest place to do it. See how full of people the store is? The cheapest thing I found in there, socks, were $60. A button-up shirt is about $200 and a full suit is $1600. With that many people in there I can't even begin to imagine how much money that place must rake in.

Darth.

I'm never sleeping again, knowing this thing probably comes to life at night.

HARAJUKU!

You watch this while waiting to get into a maid cafe, where you pay strip club money to be served fully-clothed by these and play kid's games with them, like Crocodile Dentist and Uno. And no, I'm not kidding. And yes, I could watch this all day.

Who the FUCK put Dave in charge of children?

2006-02-27T05:31:00.000-08:00

After a crazy week I took the weekend to myself and got some much-needed relaxation. This week looks to be equally busy, though, so my time hunting down electronics will likely be somewhat limited, although Geo already seems to be aware of the impending doom and have heavily discounted items falling under that category, so if you want an old portable system for $5 now's the time.

I've filled in most of the blanks in my personal info and put up a variety of links I frequent, including some humor websites, a website dedicated to beating old video games as fast as possible by manipulating luck and speed via emulators, and a friend of mine's blog, who is leaving for Australia in a few weeks and will eventually come to visit me in Japan in June.

So for now I'm going to update this blog with some older pictures, starting with pictures my brother took and finally uploaded to me last night. I'll start with pictures of me teaching.

This is me with the principal of one of the schools at which I teach. I make appearances at a different school every day; this is my current Tuesday school. Note my I-didn't-bring-my-electric-razor-cleaning-kit-so-I've-got-a-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-look beard.

Here I am with the school's janitor, probably the happiest janitor I've ever seen. Overall a very cool guy.

This is the school's gymnasium, where kids run around going crazy WITH the teachers. It's pretty surreal seeing adults being kids and not something we see enough of back home, IMO. I, too, participate in recess activities, a favorite being "Oni" (literally Ogre) which is basically "It."
Here I am teaching. My lesson for that day revolved around hobbies. I dissected phrases they'd already learned (What's your name/my name is) and taught them how they could modify the sentence to suit their question (What's your hobby/my hobby is). Being quite young and in need of non-textbook activities, I then had them draw their hobbies.

Here I am calling on someone to answer something. Then again, given my hands I could have been threatening strangulation that would shame the child in front of her ancestors, although with my screwy Japanese I probably said I'd strangle her ancestor's shame or some such nonsense.

This is a school lunch. Milk is the one univeral food product, everything else varies from day to day (today, for example, there's no rice). EVERYONE eats the same meal here, students and teachers, young and old alike. Same portions and all. While some may say this is what causes their size, I prefer this as it pretty much eliminates fussy eaters outright. My brother nearly starved in Japan due to his aversion to seafood. I have no idea how one could successfully be vegetarian in Japan; I've had school meals where everything except the milk contained some sort of seafood.
If you whip out a camera in a classroom, this is the last thing you'll see before you die.
A kindergarden class I tutored. They went from no English to being able to read and write a little in six months of 45-minute weekly lessons. Damn, that was pride-enducing.

Japanese strawberries don't take shit from anyone.

Coming soon: Tokyo or bust!

Japanese law hates my old-school gaming hobby

2006-02-24T01:57:00.000-08:00

I've tolerated a lot in Japan. The lack of English. The bars that close at 11 and the $50 covers. The homestay mother's gossip. The censored porn that's so gross it even makes ME throw up (currently, only Germany, Japan, and SomethingAwful's Metis' swap.avi are capable of this feat). But a recently-passed law is just the most astronomically retarded bullshit this country's handed me. Fuck the BR Act, this one's the real horrorshow.

Do you like going to used electronics shops and buying some ancient piece of history? A tape deck, record player, maybe an old video game system you regret selling at that garage sale you had as a kid. Well, a law lobbied by greedy electronics manufacturers is making it so as of April of this year, it will be illegal to sell ANY piece of electronics more than five years old.

Let me repeat that: IF YOU SELL YOUR OLD VIDEOGAME SYSTEM AT A GARAGE SALE YOU'LL GET THROWN INTO ASS-POUNDING PRISON (I don't know how much ass-pounding there is in Japanese prisons, but given the previously-mentioned porn that would probably be a blessing)

Here to illustrate the point is Einstein.

OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating as to the penalties, but this law is going to wipe out portions of Akihabara, Tokyo's nerd district renowned for its used electronics stores. This law is also indiscriminate, so video game systems no longer manufactured fall under this category, including but not limited to:

- Nintendo Famicom (both models and the Famicom Disk System expansion)
- Nintendo Super Famicom (both models)
- Every single variant of the original Game Boy, including the rare gold-plated backlit Game Boy Pocket
- Nintendo 64
- Sega MegaDrive (the Japanese Sega Genesis)
- The NEC PC Engine (the Japanese Turbo Graphx 16) and variants
- The FM-TOWNS computer system, revered for its 256-colour CD Audio renditions of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Loom and other SCUMM LucasArts games
- Sega Dreamcast
- Bandai Wonderswan, a handheld never released State-side
- PlayStation and the PS1 (not the PS2, those are still OK)

This sucks. Jesus Hentai Christ in a Schoolgirl Outfit, this really fucking sucks. I was looking forward to a Geo shopping spree on my birthday, which happens to be on April 9th, barely more than a week after the cockblock gets put in.

As such, I'm going to reorient this blog for the next month around tracking down as many interesting used electronics that will be nixed by this law (congratulations, Sarah, your name change wish has been granted). Stuff I want I wlll buy.

If anyone wants anything, either leave a comment or contact me in the usual ways. Please be as specific as possible; many game systems have multiple variants in terms of colour and design (PlayStations have model numbers), and it would also help to know if you're, for example, desperate about having the original box or not. I'm going to try and find out if this law extends to certain media, such as game cartridges, or not.

This weekend I'll start looking around and I'll also try to categorize some of the more interesting systems and models that never made it State-side.

I'll still occasionally do the general touring, but I can only do so much of that, so updates will be sporadic. But here's the one I had planned for today:

My homestay house

The Geo nearest to my house. Geo is like BlockBuster, but bigger and with a huge selection of new/used goods for sale. Video games cannot be rented, but there's an excellent after-market for them, and CDs can be rented, oddly enough.

Video Top, which is about 75% adult titles and 25% non-adult titles

Yodobashi Camera, electronics store extraordinaire. Take Canada's Future Shop, double its size, give it a garish color and lighting scheme and put salespeople everywhere and you have this place. Oh, and 10-20% of your purchase price goes to points. Within four months I was given a fully-loaded PS2 and still had points left over.

Kinoukuniya Book Store, the largest book store in Hokkaido and the only one I've found that carries English books

From the side of JR central station

Sapporo's TV Tower, which you can tour to the top

Book Off, one of many such stores specializing in used goods, including DVDs, video games, CDs, and, of course, books.

Displays in the Sapporo underground shopping district. Here's a Pika-Plane. I THINK a full-size functioning ANA plane painted like this exists.

A promotional display for the televised animated series Naruto

Japan has many gods. This is the shrine to their beer god. Current mood: frothy

Girly clothes

Girly makeup

Girly Kimonos. This store I think is secondhand kimonos and are the cheapest I've found, at about $80-$150. Other places have them custom-fitted and they can cost in the thousands.

More to come!

So bored, I became everything I hated

2006-02-22T04:13:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that's right. I started a blog. For those who found this blog by typing in random URLs and don't know me personally, I'm Dave, a mid-twenties certified video editor teaching English in a small rural Japanese town called Ebetsu, a 15-minute train ride from Sapporo. I've now been here for six months, and have another six ahead of me. A recent breakup has left me with tremendous amounts of free time, and for a few weeks I was going stir-crazy finding things to do, and finally settled on this. I might forget about this with my attention defi...ooh shiny!

And so, I just bought a Casio Exilim S600, a.k.a. the slimmest fucking camera ever. It's literally the width of my pinky and takes six megapixel pictures. So since I've explored everything in Japan already, now I'm going to do it again...with pictures!

For starters, these pictures represent my room. Those who know me are going to call bullshit for the simple fact that this room looks almost semi-clean. My room is usually actually too messy to look ransacked, and people generally cite wormholes as the only logical explanation as to how things get where they do.

Nonetheless, there's still a LOT of reorganizing that needs doing. The "desk" I have is designed with Japanese writing in mind and probably predates computing, so it doesn't allow much for aesthetics with the wiring, especially since I'm always swapping plugs. The drawers are also pretty randomly stuffed with empty boxes, receipts and clothing.

Here is my shelf of DVDs I've acquired since I started staying here. I have a collection of over 1000 back home.

Seated in my guest chair is a stuffed moogle destined to a friend of mine.

Here's my collection of portables: Nintendo DS, Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP Famicom Edition, Nintendo Game Boy Micro Famicom Edition, Sony PSP and a Japanese-English electronic dictionary.

Downstairs houses the main room of the house, a living room/kitchen hybrid of sorts. In the living room half is an old widescreen TV (yes, there is such thing as an OLD widescreen TV in Japan) with two DVD players (one's a recorder and is the homestay residents', the other is my transportable all-region player) and a cheap computer I convinced the homestay family to buy because their old one was using the buggy-as-hell Japanese Windows 98.

On top of the computer is a Japanese wireless router, which took up most of my free time configuring in the first month and a half of my stay; I didn't know anywhere near enough technical Japanese to understand what the configuration pages were talking about, and the homestay family wasn't technically savvy enough to know what it was talking about either.

I didn't take many pictures of the kitchen side because the homestay was embarassed about the mess, but here's gyoza, sort of a mini-taco with pasta instead of pita. Good stuff with soy sauce.

And here's the bathroom in all its splendor and glory, with a deep-ass bath you can sit in and be at neck-level in water.

The homestay mother, Okawa Yu-san, an ex-smoker with the raspy voice to prove it and the ability to speak something like six languages, refused a picture without makeup, but here's the man of the house, Sho-san, a hair-stylist who hits the gym, hot spring and beer almost daily.

And as if this family couldn't get any more Addams, here's their epileptic dog, Leon.

That's right, I said epileptic. Fortunately, it's not serious, but it can be somewhat freaky if he has a fit when you're in the room, especially when no one told you the poor dog had epilepsy.

And that's all for now, but tomorrow I'll actually leave the house!