Friday, September 30, 2005

Crackbabies Unite

Yeah, I've uncovered a ninja conspiracy.

I know ninja obsession is kinda 2003, but I've always had a soft spot for ninjas. I like to think I was a ninja fan at the grass roots level, growing up with Cobra Commander and Michael Dudikoff. (Just for the record, I always thought Destro was way cooler, especially when he's doing something sexy..

Oh yeah, and I live in Japan. Ninjas come from Japan, so they don't have an expiration date here.

My friend seems to've seen the ninjas too. He noticed the other day that the construction workers in his building were wearing split toe ninja shoes (which is what all Japanese construction workers wear) and that they were running along the top of the cubicle dividers. You know, like 6 feet up in the air and an inch wide. Clearly this indicates high level secret ninja school training.

We've also noticed a lot of fishy things on the way to the station. There's a stretch of road from the gate near my place to the station, about a 5 minute walk. Lately, something weird always happens. The other day we were walking, and a man said to us, "I DON'T LIKE THAT KIND OF TIRE." So we stopped and looked at him, and again, he exclaimed con mucho gusto, "I DON'T LIKE THAT KIND OF TIRE.". I looked at my friend and said, "Thank God we've found something we can all agree on," and we walked on.

Then a dog ran by with a dominos pizza flag-on-wheels attached to it.

I was walking down there on Wednesday to go up to Tokyo for work, and this guy started shouting at me, "HALLOWEEN DISNEY, GO JANG GO! HALLOWEEN DISNEY, GO JANG GO! yoroshiku!" It was either "Halloween" or "following" -- they sound similar when they're being screamed at you by a fat Japanese dude. The second word was clearly Disney, and "go jang go" doesn't mean anything as far as I know. Yoroshiku means yoroshiku. Hard to translate. Maybe like, "...carry on" or "...ok then" or "..fine then" or something.

My friend also got accosted by a Japanese meth-head chick trying to pawn electronic goods.

Additionally, while completely separate from weirdo avenue, a guy in my department follows us around the gym and waves to us every 3 seconds. It's like I have a retarded helper monkey chasing me around the gym, muttering in Japanese, and waving to me.... but here's the thing -- he's a blackbelt in Aikido. Yeah. No shit. Aikido instructor.

You do the math.

Ok, I'll do it for you...

.......we've decided that he's the ringleader of some strange ninja group. For whatever reason, they've infiltrated everything, and are doing surveillance ops on the street leading to the station. Their insane behavior is just a cover for something much, much bigger.

  • Condition Orange until further notice. For Chrissakes, don't get caught in the white.
  • Utilize SDRs.
  • Brush up on your bicycle IA drills.
  • Primary comms is burp-talking; pig latin for encryption
  • Challenge is "Crack", reply is "Baby"

    This has been your Going-to-the-station Brief.

    Anyway...

    Uncovering this conspiracy will open a lot of doors in the future, and by "open doors," I mean that we as regular citizens will be able to get away with a lot more. The reason is simple: blame everything on ninjas. Who's gonna oppose you? No one. Why? Cuz if a ninja attacks you, what can you do about it? Nothing. Everyone knows they tend to swarm on you, and unless you're Chuck Norris, you're completely fucked. Here are some examples of what I mean.

  • Scenario 1: You've overslept and are late for work.
    Boss: Why are you late?
    You: Got attacked by ninjas on the way over.
    Boss: Ah, ok. Yeah that happened to me last week.

  • Scenario 2: You're shitfaced at work
    Boss: Are you drunk?
    You: Naw, ninjas broke into my house, drugged me, and interrogated me all night..
    Boss: Again? Wow, you must know some pretty important information. Good luck bro. Next time just take the day off.

  • Scenario 3: You blacked out at a bar and woke up in bed with a strange man
    Boss: Why are you walking funny?
    You: Well, ninjas kidnapped my family and held them for ransom until I delivered a secret scroll.
    Boss: But why are you walking funny?
    You: They made me carry it in my ass.

    I dunno what I'm trying to say here, folks, but just be careful. You never know when this guy might fly through your skylight and totally wreck your shit.
  • Thursday, September 22, 2005

    Memories and Green Turtles

    Well, I just got back from a conference back in the states. All in all, it was a good trip, because I got to see a lot of my friends in DC during the weekends on the front-end and the ass-end of the trip. Good stuff. Here’s what happens:



    Oh yeah, another thing that happens is my friends get launched from a bar in Fell’s Point, Baltimore. I don’t think they’ll be requiring our patronage at the Green Turtle in the foreseeable future… I’ve seen a lot of weird things in bars, but I’ve never seen someone (James) throw take someone’s hat off and throw it across the bar “on impulse.” But jesus, the guy man-shoved my friend for dancing around and giving him a playful bump. Yeah, you’re tough, man-shove a tall gangly skinny guy and back down when someone waaaay smaller than you takes your hat off and chucks it across the bar. And pretend you don’t remember when you leave and we’re all hanging around outside giggling. Quote of the night: when asked to leave by the bouncer, Mr. James says, “if you touch me I’ll punch you.” The whole time I, of course, was giggling like a retard.

    It was awesome to see my friends – two of them flew up, and I was hanging out with people I hadn’t seen in longer than 4 years. That’s always a good time, especially when nothing about hanging out with them changes. It was hard to get used to the whole “bars closing before the sun rises” thing, which I’m sure I’ll never get used to. I think Hawaii was a happy medium, with bars closing at 4am. However, I never welcomed the gauntlet of homosexuals sharking the streets of Waikiki and asking if I wanted to “hang out.” Or following me around in their cars.

    I was pretty eager to get back into my routine here, and I think I have pretty well. I’m taking today off from physical activity ‘cuz I didn’t do anything for 10 days, and I don’t wanna fuck myself up. Plus my body hurts at the moment.

    I was looking through some pictures I’d forgotten that I had from Afghanistan, and I never posted them anywhere for some reason I think they caught my attention because they were taken the day before and the day of my birthday. The first one is of me and the owner of a bar called The Lighthouse, which was just down the street from our compound. I was quite drunk at the time, and she eventually passed out on the bar. We used to go there sometimes and hope the Nepalese guys wouldn’t tell on us when we got back, which they always did, and there would be a shit storm the next day. Keep in mind, it was a 3 minute walk, and we all had either asps and/or pepper spray and/or berettas.



    This one is one of the South Africans named Craig. Before we went, he kept saying how he was just going to blend in and behave himself ‘cuz he was married and he didn’t want to “stand out.” He forgot that some time before trading shirts with one of the waitresses (which made him look pretty sexy huh) . Notice the look of unmitigated joy spread across his face.



    This one was particularly reminiscent for me, ‘cuz it’s how I spent almost the entire month of October. I remember thinking that that was an amazing month, because I literally worked a total of about 10 hours the entire time. Otherwise, I was doing exactly what I was doing in the picture:



    Notice:
  • Gun laying on the floor
  • CNN on TV
  • Spit bottles everywhere (god bless you, Copenhagen)
  • Door wide open (our lights didn’t work)
  • Me wearing a jacket (it was really chilly)

    This one was on my 28th Birthday, when Sam and I were taking warlord pictures. Like the keyboard under my laptop? Yeah, the really important keys on my laptop keyboard decided that they didn’t wanna work, so I bought a wireless keyboard at the Italian supermarket. God bless you too, Cianos! (I guess the lights worked that night.)



    And let’s not forget Afghanisam in full force. Notice how the book Imperial Hubris is sitting on the bed. Irony?



    And finally, the view right outside our room. Good thing they put up that “sniper net” to protect us from potential snipers on rooftops, eh? Ahahahah



    Ok, so that’s all for now. I haven’t been posting much ‘cuz I’m uninspired I guess. Aah well.
  • Sunday, September 04, 2005

    Wow, killer abs!!

    Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand guess who made an appearance last night??? You guessed it!!



    My inner retard!!!!

    Fortunately this guy didn't come out.



    That's right, my inner Chris Farley auditioning for Chip'n'Dales. Even more fortunate is the fact that the two didn't come out at the same time. That's been known to happen.

    OK, so yeah, I haven't been drinking a lot lately, but old habits die hard, i,e. even though I haven't been drinking, I drank like a seasoned Irishman. Also, since me going out is kinda rare, my friends were feeding me shots. I can honestly say that I got "Okinawa Drunk." I wasn't quite Guam drunk, but I was definitely Okinawa drunk. The only cool thing about the night is that I spent less than $20.

    So yeah, as I write this I feel pretty pathetic. I'm proud of the fact that I can get blackout drunk for under $20 in the most expensive city in the world. That's right, for the low, low price of 2000yen, Mr Paullystan can drink close to a bottle of vodka, tell his friends to "go fuck themselves" for no reason, torture his friends' girlfriends, pass out on the stairs, and dry heave all morning.

    But what a killer ab workout!

    So I crashed at my friend's house, and he had to go to work at about 10 so I was left to my own devices. I had absolutely no idea where I was, 'cuz I don't remember the trip home at all, nor did I remember the walk home. I was even surprised to find out that he lived on the 3rd floor, cuz I didn't remember walking up stairs. The only thing I remembered was that for some reason there was a unicycle sitting outside his apartment. Funny what sticks in your mind. Anyway, I left at about 2pm, and instead of wandering around aimlessly I asked some people where the train station was. An old dude on a bike gave me shitty directions and rode off, so I asked a lady and she was more helpful. I have no idea how old she was, but she walked with me part of the way. I was pretty chatty and started telling her about how I had no idea where I was cuz my friend went off to work. That's one of the things I miss about the USA -- in Japan, there really isn't that much small talk. People who don't know each other don't chitchat ever, so it's kinda lonely sometimes. A lot of times you ask someone a simple question and they look at you like you have horns coming out of your head. Or they insist on speaking broken English, so it takes 10 minutes for them to spit out something simple. I think I'm gonna start chitchatting with people just because I know it freaks them out. And by "people" i mean "hot chicks". hehehe

    Anyway, it's labor day weekend. Am I gonna go out tonight? I dunno. I'd kinda like to be somewhat productive tomorrow, but there's a reeeaalllllyy good reggae party that I kinda wanna go to. I dunno.

    More later.