Been Down Hearted Baby

So, where to begin?

I'm still in Japan. That's a start.

Today I went bike riding along Yanasegawa river. I meet an older woman who found a turtle, that she claimed was 10,000 years old. No, this was not a misunderstanding, as I seriously asked her in Japanese. She proceeded to insist that I not only take the turtle, but keep it as a pet. She then gave me very detailed instructions on how to care for a turtle.

The shocking part came when, as she was telling me all this stuff, she started to pet the things head. The turtle did NOT enjoy this, and to let her know took a huge chunk of flesh right off her finger. Seriously. I mean this woman basically should have gotten stitches. She started screaming with a turtle hanging off of her finger, running around like crazy. Her corgi dog started barking like crazy and running around also.

You may be happy to know that we released the turtle into the river, after dislodgeing it from the old lady. The corgy was not yet settled down when we left.

There are pictures of this turtle, which shall be up. Maybe tomorrow.

This is the most romanticized version of this country I've ever read. Also, point of fact, Japanese people are not efficient. For instance, it has taken me, with my spotty Japanese, more than 2 months to get internet. Changing my cell phone bill from my American Visa card to a Japanese bank transfer would take more than three. These people take forever to do anything.

So, I went into the city last night with the express intention of only having a few beers with my roommate Errin. A fifth of Jack and a few Oolonghi's definitely changed those plans. Errin ended up puking in the street, right by the cops. It was fantastic. I missed the last train, which meant that I just had to stay in Shinjuku and drink more. When we finally got back to our apartment, it was 6 AM.

I woke up at about 2 in the afternoon here, and realized that I was still drunk. Not hung over, but totally completely still plastered. However, I also had errands to run, and I wasn't going to let something so silly as being shitfaced slow me down. So I packed up my dictionary and headed down to the local department store, where I bought a bicycle.

Anyways, the highlight of my day today came as I was walking out of the store with the bike rolling by my side. I hopped on and rode like crazy. I seriously spent about 30 minutes driving around Tsuruse, plastered outta my mind. All the Japanese people kept looking at me out of the corner of their eyes. I totally couldn't control the bike for shit, and even better, it's quite small.

I can almost her them now, thinking; "Oh shit, that huge foreigner has gone mobile. We're all dead."

Damned skippy.

I just got quite an interesting phone call the other night, from none other than the good ole J himself. Why the obfuscation in naming conventions you ask? Mostly due to this gentleman's testy insistance that I was in fact slandering him on the internet.

True? Probably. Were I in the States, I would have probably laughed till I peed. But I digress...

Anyways, J did not inapproperiately touch any little girls. I invented the idea of veneral brain cancer. And this guy's cleanliness should not be counted against him when considered for future jobs.

All of that being said, someone should really tell the Google cache about this.

Point of fact; libel and slander claims have to be filed in the district in which the slanderous material is published or diseminated.

Google's headquarters is:
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
phone: (650) 253-0000
fax: (650) 253-0001

So, best to all of you. Feel free to leave a message below, as usual.

This is just too good to not link to. Not only does it give me even less of a reason to like Indiana (excpet Joel and Collin), but it also gives me another reason to dislike Wal-Mart. Kickass. Here are some pictures of some very attractive women doing some fantastically stupid things. I miss these girls. Heck, I'm not even going to get to see Kristen get married. Her and Brandon make quite a couple, and it warms my cynical heart to see them still together. Congratulations to you both! Ariella has asked that I post an embarrassing story of myself. So, I'm taking suggestions for my most embarrassing story ever contest. The person who can email me or post it up here will get something from Japan. Seriously. As Modest Mouse once said: As life gets longer, awful feels softer. Well if feels pretty soft to me. And if it takes shit to make bliss, well I feel pretty blissfully. If life's not beautiful without the pain, well I'd just rather never ever even see beauty again. Well as life gets longer, awful feels softer. And it feels pretty soft to me...

This post probably won't be long, since I really don't have much to chat about. Japan is still the most lonely place in the world. It's almost as if the more people there are around me the more isolated I become.

In the good news department, my internet service is creeping closer to being done. Japanese is still improving, and it also seems as if my cousin Molly wants to come visit me this summer. Nice points all around.

In the 'bad-news-which-has-been-around-for-a-while' department, Jes refuses to have any contact with me. Some of you may be wildly protesting my lamentations over this, frantically shouting at me to get over things, move on, etc. All I can say to you folks is that that's not really an option. I know, I'm being bullheaded beyond simple folly.

Congradulations to all of the recent Denison University grads.

Hey you all,

I've found a pirate signal way to hack into the Matrix. Basically, I walk about a half a mile from my appartment and there's someone broadcasting wireless internet access. Sweet.

This is a real concern in Japan these days. Funny, but the people who have been most rude to me have always been the older ones. Seriously, little old ladies here can be harsh.

Anyways, my Japanese is readily improving, which is kinda the whole point of this adventure. Heck, Lord knows I didn't really want to leave all of my friends and travel to the other fricking side of the world just to eat fish bread.

More good news is that my roommate is moving out. Seriously. He's so fucking nervous about being here, about living, whatever, that the guy actually asked me where I got the stapler that was in our appartment. You can never actually have conversations with him, he just asks you a series of questions. Even worse is that he doesn't listen to your answers. So, good bye to Ricci Jr. He moves out June 8th.