TheLeong.com Blog

MTV sucks

2009-07-01T00:52:00.003-04:00

I'm back in the US. It's been pretty good so far: lots of great food, being able to go places without having to rely on trains, stuff costing closer to what it should, etc. I'm definitely leaning towards moving back here sometime in the next year or so, whether to St. Louis or somewhere else.

Oh yeah, so I complain a lot of times about how bad Japanese TV is, especially since 90% of programming in Japan consists of the same stable of untalented "talents" overreacting to food porn. But I was sitting here working on Monday afternoon with the TV left tuned to MTV and my god, I think the shows on there (of course they don't play music videos) have gotten even worse than before, and even beyond bad Japanese shows. I watched about 10 minutes of this show called "Parental Control" and it was just so bad in so many ways I couldn't turn it off. I'm hoping that none of you are familiar with this show so here's what I can gather about it: it's a dating/reality type show where a guy's parents aren't happy with their son's girlfriend. Each of the parents set up the son on a blind date, and the parents and current girlfriend monitor the date from the living room with a TV monitor. At the end of the episode, the guy decides to stay with his girlfriend, or he can choose one of the other 2 girls.

First off this show had the same style, music, and feel that all MTV shows have had for the past 10-15 years. It was just sad how the shows on that station haven't changed at all in so long, yet I'm sure they still have a steady audience of pre-teens who don't know any better. Next, contestants on MTV shows are always the same type of people: obnoxious, stupid loud, rude, and suggestive. On this show the parents were also like this, which made it super creepy, especially when the dad brought his girl out for his son to date, and wouldn't shut up about "how hot she is." Where does a married guy in his late 40's or so find a 20-something girl who wants to be on a TV dating show??

The answer, of course, is that he didn't, and she was provided by MTV, but it was still super creepy.

And almost like clockwork, when things starting "heating up" during the date, the current girlfriend started getting all uppity and then was arguing with the parents, expletives flying and the censor beep being used just a little too much. The show was just obnoxious and repetitive, although I did laugh a few times. These times were when the son was on camera (a lot) since he was probably in his early 20's, seemed to have an IQ equal to his age, and was going super bald but still insisted on spiking his hair up a lot. Har har.

Quote so bad I had to make a note of it #1: "Since we went rock climbing, I brought you some rock candy!"

Quote #2, by a girl who got rejected because she was mega butch: "You know what, I am manly, and if I ever see you on the street I'm going to kick your ass!"

Ugh. I hate you MTV.

Also I'm tired of seeing "professional" poker on ESPN. Mainly just the guys with sunglasses, because that's obnoxious.

Seriously, I'm having a great time in the US, but a lot of TV here is just amusingly bad.

Rocket Monster KIM

2009-06-23T01:21:00.000-04:00

Found this image on some weird Japanese video game fan art page. This is by far the best one:

Summer US travel plans

2009-06-16T14:09:00.000-04:00

I'll be heading back to St. Louis this summer from June 26 to July 17, and after that I'll be in LA until the afternoon of the 20th. Will be back in Japan on the 21st.

Airfare was really cheap so I'm taking advantage of my flexible schedule and coming back to get some real pizza and Mexican food. If you're going to be around, let me know and we can meet up. There's also the possibility of a drive out to Indiana if there's enough demand.

LJ, NNJ, and leaving Japan

2009-06-16T01:11:00.000-04:00

I remember once upon a time I wrote things occasionally on this blog that were funny or interesting, but recently I feel like I haven't been posting anything but boring LiveJournal-esque stories about what I ate for lunch or what color socks I'm wearing*. I should try to change that, but I think a big part of the problem is that my life has been so mundane lately there isn't much else to write about. I don't even have as many complaints about Japanese culture or society because with the whole working at home/flexitime thing these days I'm not getting exposed to the public as much as before. That is not necessarily bad.

I'll try and come up with better material one day, but don't hold your breath. This blog has still and always will be for myself and my own amusement, slightly adjusted for friends to read and perhaps waste a few minutes of otherwise productive time wasted browsing the interwebs.

Quick story: This is about one of the hobos here in my city, who I guess I've started calling No-Nose Joe on account of a bandage or duct tape always covering his likely frostbitten/missing nasal organ. This guy has a very impressive collection of hobo junk, usual stacked on his tiny (child's?) bicycle, which he is usually seen creeping along on near Chiba station or Yodobashi Camera. I say creeping because I've seen earthworms move faster than this man. I was pretty surprised a few weeks ago when I saw ol' No-Nose Joe in the supermarket near my house, where he was creepin' along with a shopping cart rather than the usual bike chariot. He was, of course, in the liquor aisle, mentally debating which carton of cheap booze to buy for the night while at the same time doing a great job of repelling other customers from the aisle because, let's be honest, hobos don't smell great**. I too was trying to avoid him, but after making my rounds in the store and completing all my other shopping, I still needed a loaf of bread and Joe was still blocking the bread shelf, which is in the same aisle as alcohol. I took a deep breath, gripped my basket, and headed into the aisle. . .

I don't know what I did to this man, in this life or a former one, but somehow he is deathly afraid of me. As soon as he spots me entering the aisle, his eyes open wide like a deer in headlights and he goes off in the opposite direction. I don't mean he creeped away at his usual 1mph - he RAN away from me as if I were charging at him with a bloody machete. I was of course startled but more surprised at the fact that this normal slow-moving homeless man had apparently channeled into Usain Bolt. End.

So yeah, other boring stuff.

It's been just over 4 months since I left my last job at a Japanese company and started working for this American start-up doing business development and stuff. The job is great: I have a lot of freedom, work at home, and even get to travel sometimes. I have control and responsibilities that I never even got close to having at my last job. The problem (well, not really that bad) lately is that I've been given so much freedom and open-ended goals that it's difficult to get myself focused. Of course I like having freedom, but sometimes I do slightly miss more concrete direction and specific assignments. It's a lot like running my own business, so I guess I just need to get more used to working like this.

It's been almost three years since I graduated from IU and headed out to Japan to work. I've changed jobs a few times, done a lot of fun stuff, met a lot of good people, but I'm finally starting to see that it might be time to leave Japan. It's not that things are bad here at all, but I feel like it's time to move on. It would be more beneficial for my work for me to be in St. Louis as well, and I'm definitely looking forward to having an apartment again that has space for furniture and a giant computer station like I used to have. Japan is great but if there's no specific reason for me to be here, I don't think I should stay. One reason I didn't leave immediately after starting this new job was the chance that I'd be starting up business here in Japan, over in China, and other places in Asia that would make it advantageous to have someone already in the region. That possibility's not gone at all, but I personally haven't been focusing on it much yet, which means that the company's not either. I'm thinking that if I get some solid reasons to stay in Japan, like with work, then I could definitely stick around for a bit longer. But on the other hand, if I don't end up doing that, then it's probably time to head back to the "real world." I'm thinking I'll give myself until next spring.

*white, if you really want to know

**of course, if you don't have a nose, you probably don't care what you smell like. NNJ ftw.

Wish I had the Epoch

2009-06-08T02:31:00.000-04:00

Short yet nerdy post.

The MicroSD card that I'd been using in my R4 died somehow a few nights ago. I was using it just fine one night, and the next day it wouldn't work. I tried it in both the DS and on my computer several times using different readers, but no luck. The card was corrupted or something. Thus, my Chrono Trigger save file was gone Ugh. I was playing that game for quite a while and had just gotten the Doppel Doll, ready to go get Crono back.

I thought I'd have a chance at recovering the files - I used a bunch of different file recovery programs and finally had some luck with one called Recuva. It was able to scan the SD card following a quick format to make the card accessible, and was seemingly able to recover most of the files. Unfortunately when I actually tried using those files they wouldn't work. I tried looking for a solution to unscramble those files or something, but didn't have any luck. I think I might just be totally boned on getting that save file back.

I'm pretty sure the card crapped out on my just because it was a horribly cheap, generic Chinese SD card that I got with the R4 last summer in Beijing. It was a no-namer that I'd been using fairly frequently for almost a year, so I guess it's not that surprising. Went and bought a SanDisk 2GB card at Yodobashi yesterday for like 1700 yen. (Storage is so dirt cheap these days - I'm always surprised at that.)

So in short, back up your files. Especially if you're playing on an R4 and have like 30 or 40 hours logged on a sweet RPG.

Ma'am, is this your giant bag of raw chickens?

2009-05-28T02:34:00.000-04:00

Almost forgot about this. This was the best customs poster I saw during my last trip. No, probably ever. It's from the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department warning about fines for smuggling raw meat and vegetables across the border. Or something like that (I can't read Chinese).

I don't know what's better, the fact that the old woman has a giant flannel bag full of raw chickens, or her bright velvet Rick James pants.

bj Action

2009-05-19T01:14:00.000-04:00

It seems like ever since I got back from my trip I've been pretty busy. My first day back in Japan I think I slept over 12 hours, probably recovering from the lack of sleep and ton of walking I did over in China. Friday night since Duy's been in Japan for vacation we took a group out to Y's, which was weird because we had a lot of old IES alumni and Shin-san even showed up. On Saturday I went out to Chiba Park again with Andy and Brian to play frisbee and hang out. Had a bigger group this time so that was pretty cool. Hit up Kappa after it started getting dark and pigged out on cheap sushi.

On Sunday I went to Ariake Coliseum for the first time to see the Japanese pro basketball championships. Bryan was able to swing tickets for this - and I am not joking about the name - the bj League Final Four. Yes. The professional basketball conference here is called Basketball Japan, or bj for short.

I showed up for the second half of the 3rd place game, which was Osaka vs Hamamatsu. It was strange to be watching a professional basketball in Japan, since half of the players were Americans. The crowd wasn't super into it, but it was still a fun time. The final game was much better and much more exciting, and the crowd was actually going nuts the whole time. The final was between the Tokyo Apache and the (Okinawa) Ryukyu Kings. The head coach for the Apache is Kobe Bryant's dad, and the star of the Kings is Jeff Newton, who used to play at IU, so that was kind of cool. I think Nick Roberts is also in love with him.

Even though the Kings never lost the lead the entire game, it was still sweet to watch and even though our seats weren't super close or anything they were still really good seats. I think venues in Japan are just small compared to ones in the US, so it seems like you always have better seats than you would back home. The Kings won the championship 89-82. What a great bj day.

HK Trip - double thumbs up

2009-05-18T03:30:00.000-04:00

One final post about the Hong Kong/Macau/China trip (probably). I think I covered all the major stuff I did in the overly long entries I wrote before this one. It was a great trip and I definitely want to go back again sometime. I think getting a group of people to go one day would be ideal, since we can just order ridiculous amounts of food and all only pay a few bucks.

Thinking back to HK, I think the subways and trains over there and even in China might rival if not beat the Japanese ones. If there are any Japanese people reading this right now I'm sure they're thinking to themselves "that's impossible" but it's pretty true. HK's trains seemed cleaner, bigger, and smoother. Sure HK has a lot less area to cover than say, JR East, but I was still really happy with it. I don't think I ever waited for any train more than 4 or 5 minutes. The only negative is that there are no luggage racks up top in the cars, which doesn't make sense. There are LCD screens inside the cars that show of course loads of advertisements but also some other programming. Japanese trains pretty much have only weather and stuff, but the train in China had an America's Funniest Home Videos-type show on that was pretty funny because the category was "animals attacking men below he belt."

Cell phone etiquette is also totally diferent from Japan. Whereas pretty much everyone in Japan follows the rules of putting their phones on silent or vibrate in public places, HK seems to be the complete opposite. I can't read much Chinese, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were signs in the trains saying "Please turn your phone's ringer ALL THE WAY UP." There was an almost constant barrage of C-Pop MP3 ringtones anywhere you go, with people always picking up their phones and starting conversations (WEI!) wherever they are, yelling enthusiastically into their handsets. This is probably because the average Cantonese conversation is the same decibel and excitement level as a Japanese person trapped in a burning building full of children. In Japan on the train if someone gets a call you see them cupping their phones to their head as if it were a severed ear, whispering quietly, ashamed that their silent conversation might be inconveniencing someone else.

OK I think that's everything about the HK trip for now. I need to get to bed.

World Tour 2009

2009-05-18T03:03:00.000-04:00

Let me share with you some pictures from my most recent travels:

I saw the Pyramids, the Statue of Liberty, that Jesus statue, the Coliseum, Niagara Falls, the Taj Mahal, Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, Easter Island, Angkor Wat, the Grand Canyon, Stonehenge, and a bunch of other famous world landmarks. Pretty impressive, right?

Well it would be, if this wasn't all in the same afternoon in some theme park in Shenzhen, China.

Last Monday I took the East Rail from Hong Kong up to the border into China to check things out. Ari told me about this park called Window of the World that has replicas of most of the world monuments and landmarks all crammed into one park. A lot of the replicas are just small models, but there are some pretty big ones. Eiffel Tower I think was one of the largest, since it's kind of like the park mascot. The park was cheesy as hell but still a pretty cool way to spend an afternoon. I only had one day in China and wanted to do some shopping in the evening so I kind of did a quick tour of the park in one afternoon. I got to see almost everything I think.

After walking around in the sun seeing replicas of all the landmarks of the world in one day, I headed back to the station near the border where there is a giant shopping center similar to Ya Show in Beijing, full of small shops selling bootleg and fake stuff. It's called Luoho and it's this giant building immediately in front of you after leaving the station into Shenzhen. I didn't buy too much this time, some DVDs, some shirts, and a pair of shoes. Like Ya Show you have to bargain with everyone, which is half the fun right there. I got the fake shoes I bought down from 400 RMB to less than 100. The guy also offered me one of his sisters to take as my wife for free but I just wanted the shoes. Food in China is also even cheaper than Hong Kong I think - I had BBQ pork for dinner and it was like 3 or 4 bucks US.

Casino War

2009-05-18T02:29:00.001-04:00

Last Sunday I decided against just walking around aimlessly in Hong Kong (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea) and decided to take the ferry out to Macau. Macau is technically a separate "special administrative region of China," meaning that I'd need to bring my passport to go through customs. That worked for me, since my Passport is filling up fast and I want to get some new pages added soon anyway.

After taking the hotel's free shuttle to the general vicinity of the China Ferry pier, I still ended up wandering for about 45 minutes trying to find the right pier. I asked someone and their answer was "go to the shiny gold building," which made me think I was actually trapped in some kind of weird video game. Anyway after a detour through a pretty nice mall and eating Chinese-style curry for lunch, I arrived at the golden pier and hopped a boat to Macau. The guy I asked was apparently not lying. The ferry only takes about an hour, and the ride was really nice. I think I slept most of the way.

Of course the gold building is the boat to casino island.

Arriving in Macau doesn't feel like you're in a different country from Hong Kong at all. It looks pretty much the same, but they have their own currency. However this currency is pretty useless if you're only going to the casinos like I did, since all the games are played in Hong Kong dollars. Macau is a really old Portugese colony and has a lot of historical sights and stuff, but I spent most of my afternoon at the Sands Casino, which is yet another huge shiny gold building. The inside was pretty similar to what I remember from Las Vegas, only without the cigar smoke and free alcohol. Also 90% of the people were Chinese/Asian, and 90% of those people were senior citizens. I put a limit on myself for the day's gambling from the get-go, and was actually doing pretty good at one point playing roulette and $100 HKD a hand blackjack. And of course I lost most of that by the evening.

The games were pretty much what I expected, but baccarat seemed to be predominant. Also sic-bo and some dice game that I have no idea about. There was also War, as in the card game played by kids who can't play real card games. Except in the casino the minimum bet is $100. There were also dancers on the bar most of the time (wearing clothes of course), but during breaks they were playing a BoA DVD. It felt weird to be sitting in China listening to a Korean girl sing in Japanese. Quick note: the McDonald's inside Sands sells Egg McMuffins at any time of day, which is amazing. The HK ones do too, but this was where I made the discovery initially.

I started and ended my Macau trip at Sands, but in between I also walked around the Fisherman's Wharf area there, which was mostly tourist traps but with some cool buildings. There was an old-style Chinese castle, a volcano, some funky stone gates, and a bunch of Babylonian architecture that was part of another casino. The volcano had an arcade in the basement that was dirt cheap so I played some Street Fighter there in the wrong aspect ratio. I felt like I was in high school through since you have to buy tokens to use any of the arcade machines. (Exhilarama in Crestwood Mall was pretty cool the first few years.) I also went over to the Golden Dragon casino, which is super local with almost no English signs or instructions anywhere, and almost exclusively baccarat. Also I'm pretty sure that everything in the building above the 5th floor was some form of brothel. Karaoke in China (KTV) is not the same as karaoke in Japan.

After getting the 9:30PM boat back to Hong Kong, I checked into my second hotel (cheaper and more stuff in the area). It was pretty late so I just went to Temple Street and got some awesome food at a street restaurant. Beef chow fun (乾炒牛河) might be one of my favorite noodle dishes ever. Also this whole big plate cost me like USD $3.

Up, up, and away

2009-05-15T02:59:00.000-04:00

Saturday in Hong Kong I woke up early to go do some sightseeing with Sunny. I was staying on the Kowloon side, so I had to take the Star Ferry to the Hong Kong side, then from there I took another ferry to Lantau Island. I don't think I've ridden on a boat in a while so it was pretty cool. The first one was only about 5 minutes, then the second was about a half hour.

After getting to Discovery Bay, met up with Sunny and her boyfriend at the pier and we got dim sum at some restaurant overlooking the beach. If memory serves me right, the place was named FAGORA or something funny like that. They had good chicken feet. DB was a pretty cool place, like a little resort town with a lot of expats and higher-end residents. We sat on the patio facing the bay, and it looked more like Hawaii or some tropical island; pretty different from where I was in Kowloon the day before where it seems to not be a requirement to wear shoes, but it was a definite rule that you have to spit on the sidewalk a lot.

I just realized that these Hong Kong blogs might have a lot of pictures. Oh well.

After brunch we took a bus to Tung Chung, where we were going to take the "cable car" up to the area where the Big Buddha statue was. For some reason I was expecting like a trolley that you'd see in San Fransisco: a slow crawl up a hill with a lot of old ladies all humming the Rice-a-Roni theme song. No. Instead I see a long cable going up a tall-ass mountain with little metal and glass cars speeding along it. Holy crap. So we ended up taking this 25-minute cable car in the sky up the mountain to the area with a tourist village, a monastery, and of course the giant Buddha statue. The cable car is called the Ngong Ping 360, since the cars are made of glass and you can look out from every angle. Of course, the key direction to pay attention to is down, since if you're looking down and it seems to be coming very fast towards you, then you're falling and you will soon die. Luckily every time I looked down the ground was staying about the same level vertically, and I did not plummet to my death. Luckily.

The above pretty much sums up my feelings during the ride. OK so I'm exaggerating a little bit; it wasn't that bad.

No, actually it was pretty terrifying, especially with the wind blasting the little car the entire way in every possible direction. But let's move on, shall we?

Once we got off the little hamster cage cable car, we were in Ngong Ping village, supposedly set up like a traditional village but was really a tourist trap with a lot of gift shops and little restaurants. There was even a very traditional Chinese Starbucks. Our cable car tickets included two little activities, both related to Buddha and both cartoons. It was nice to take a break from walking in the sun though. Finally we got up close to the main attraction: a giant Buddha statue that was visible from the cable car earlier, but looked a lot bigger in person. According to wikipedia, it's 110 feet tall.

Sure it's impressive, but it does feel a bit cheap knowing that it's only been around since 1993.

On the way back down from checking out Big Buddha we got some herbal jelly made with tortoise in the village (which was actually not bad, and supposedly good for you), then headed back to Central to get dinner. Had a TON of food, which was all awesome. Spicy crab in a mountain of fried garlic, a steamed whole grouper, squid, tofu, fried rice, and red bean soup. It was an awesome touristy day overall.

No more cable cars though, please.

Vacation in HK 2009

2009-05-09T03:24:00.000-04:00

I'm in Hong Kong right now. Took a trip over here (5 nights) since flights are so dirt cheap with the lowered fuel surcharges. Got in Thursday night pretty late. Talked to Spiderman but since our timing was horrible we aren't going to be able to meet up this time. He's heading to Thailand and won't get back until the day after I head back to Japan. But we'll probably get to hang out in August or September so it's all good.

Today (Friday) I spent most of the day walking around the Tsim Sha Tsui area of Kowloon, doing some shopping, having a meeting, and doing a lot of eating. Arranged a meeting this afternoon for work-related stuff, but before that had to get some dress shoes. I had planned on doing this, since it would have been a hassle to bring along dress shoes when I can buy some here for way cheap. Walked around TST a lot, went through the Chungking Mansions where probably everyone is Middle Eastern or African, and got some good HK fast food: BBQ pork and roast duck on rice, before the meeting. After my meeting got some stewed beef on noodles at a small shop near Temple Street, followed up only a few hours later by more noodles at Satay King. I was ridiculously full but it was worth it because it was cheap and way good.

That's about all I'm going to write for now, since I'm falling asleep and have to wake up early tomorrow to head out to Lantau Island. It'll be a very touristy day but should be a lot of fun.

Random HK comment: escalators here are a lot faster than in Japan, which is a good thing.

Golden Week 09

2009-05-09T03:18:00.000-04:00

Golden Week in Japan ended on Wednesday. My company's American so I don't technically get Golden Week off, but my schedule's flexible so I was able to take a few days off or did some half-days. I didn't do anything major (but I am in Hong Kong now), but Y's on Friday the 1st was pretty awesome.

Even with just 3 or 4 people Y's is always a good time, but this time we had about 20 or more, filling up the whole "usual counter."

Be My Baby

2009-05-09T02:56:00.000-04:00

A few Sundays ago I went to my first real concert in Japan, the KISHIDAN Gig at the Budokan. Bryan found out about the show a few weeks ago and we decided might as well check it out. Kishidan had kind of disappeared for about 2 years, and their last album was a lot of "solo" projects that just wasn't the same. But they're back now, and have new songs in the works and a Japan-wide concert tour this summer. 夜露死苦！

Headed out to the Budokan pretty early, but it was obvious that there was a Kishidan concert going down. There were tons of street stalls selling bootleg Kishidan stuff, mostly by old guys in wifebeaters with sweat towels tied around their heads. I'm sure they don't even know about the band, but they Google image searched it and printed out what they found on a variety of t-shirts, posters, buttons, and towels. Even more ridiculous though was the audience/groupies for this show, since at least a fourth of the people seemed to be in hardcore costumes. I guess this counts as cosplay, although there is a possibility there were some actual bikers who dress like the stereotypes that are Kishidan. Among this crowd I also saw quite possibly the biggest pompadour ever:

Pretty amazing hair.

Budokan definitely seemed smaller than I expected, since it's so famous. I have no idea the actual sizes, but it seemed almost smaller than Assembly Hall at IU. The stage was in the middle of a round arena, with 4 jumbotrons and a rotating platform on the stage.

There was a lot of machine-made fog in the arena so the picture above isn't so good. Also you're not supposed to take pictures inside Budokan, so immediately after I took this picture a staff workers popped out of nowhere and told me to not take pictures. Oops!

The show was awesome, pretty straightforward music and some talking, without skits or other stuff in the middle. Out seats were pretty high up, but since the venue's not that big I thought we still had a great view. Also we were originally set up behind the drum kit, but since the stage rotated a lot during the show it wasn't a problem at all. The creepiest thing about the concert was the audience though, in a kind of "cool if you're in a cult" way, since everyone seemed to know all of Dragon Voice's dance movies, and they did them the entire time. You know how the wave is cool at a baseball game because you have so many people in a somewhat synchronized move? Imagine that for a 4 hour concert, only with intricate arm movements and a lot of "whoooo!"s. It seriously felt like we should have spent a good three months before this concert rehearsing the dance moves.

It was sweet when Kishidan debuted a new song though. Not only was it a good song, but it was funny to see the audience looking around confused and screaming to themselves "I don't know the dance moves!!!!"

Too fast to live, too young to die.

SMAP FAIL and Utahiro heist

2009-04-23T18:22:00.000-04:00

I'm going to do something I rarely do on this blog, and talk about the news. Actually two stories! With links! What is going on? And no it's not because I can't think of anything else to write that actually has something to do with me. That's just part of the reason.

So first off, the big news of the day all over Japan is one of the SMAP guys, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi (left), getting arrested last night for running around totally drunk and totally naked in a park in Tokyo. HAHAHAHAHA. Yes that's right. A member of SMAP, one of the most annoying "boy bands" on the planet got drunk and stripped down, running around in a park making weird noises described by a witness as roaring like "aaaa!" and "aaaaamou!" about 3AM this morning.

For those of you who don't know SMAP, they're this "boy band" in Japan that's been around since 1988. Yes, that's right. They have been a boy band for over 20 years and are still famous and active. According to Wikipedia, they started out as a group of backup dancers for another boy band and were promoted to their own group. They're not good singers at all (at least one is actually terrible), they play no instruments, they write no songs, yet they're one of the most famous bands in Japan. Odd, right? Oh and they're also hosts of a bunch of TV shows, star in movies, and pretty much sell themselves out like every other famous person in Japan.

So anyway it's personally been pretty awesome to see this all over the news, seeing that people are appalled that the "nice guy" of the group would do something like this. Sure I guess it's not that big of a deal (he didn't assault a police officer after a hit-and-run like fellow SMAP member Goro Inagaki did in 2001), but for a lot of the people I've seen on Japanese TV they're acting like it's the end of the world. This guy definitely has one of the tamest images of the SMAP guys. One time he played a mentally handicapped zookeeper on a TV show, which was believable because he looks kind of retarded. Kusanagi's also one of the main spokesmen for the Japanese transition to all digital HD broadcasts, with a lot of lame commercials targeted at old people trying to get them to upgrade their sets in time. It looks like he totally lost that campaign, with the president of that group on the news earlier talking about how pissed he is about a man he can only think of as "a despicable human being." Posters with Kusanagi are also being removed immediately. He also lost a Toyota commercial contract.

So take that SMAP! I've hated you all so long and it's great to see one of you fail like this. I know in a few weeks you'll be back like a horrible rash, but for this bit of time let's enjoy everyone not freaking out about how cool a group of tone deaf 40 year olds are.

JapanToday English article
Asahi.com Japanese article 1 and 2 (there are dozens on there)

On to the next news article:

A karaoke place in Chiba city was the site for a big robbery earlier this morning, with a woman being robbed of 600,000 yen (about $6000 USD). It was early this morning around 4AM at the Utahiroba Karaoke, Keisei Chiba Chuo Ekimae location. Yes, that's right. This is the karaoke place that me and my friends usually go to because it's about 10 minutes from my apartment! That's what caught my interest on the news earlier, because even though they had a lot of stuff blurred out (to protect the neighboring businesses, etc), I could tell exactly which karaoke place it was because I've been there dozens of times.

So according to the news, a 20-year old girl who works at a restaurant or bar went to karaoke with her friend after work. It was just two of them, and they had a small private room like most karaoke places in Japan have. At one point her friend went to the bathroom, and a man she didn't recognize came into the room, sprayed her with mace or some kind of self-defense spray, and stole 600,000 yen out of her purse before running off. The karaoke place says they have him on the security camera, but I guess they haven't caught him yet. The victim says that the money was her salary from work; Japanese companies often pay their employees in cash, so it's not that strange.

Two things about this: first it's weird because I go to this karaoke place all the time. I guess it is pretty easy for people to go in and out even without paying to karaoke there. I don't really see security getting any better at this place though. OK and second, while of course it's terrible that this girl got attacked and robbed, there is no reason for her to have had that much money on her. Japanese people do this all the time. They carry ridiculous amounts of cash on them because it's still predominantly a cash society and yes it is overall very safe. But it's still stupid to have that much money on you. Even if you just got paid, go to an ATM or something and deposit it. If you're walking around with more than a few hundred dollars on you, you're just asking for trouble.

It is kind of weird that the guy knew she had that much money on her, and found her karaoke room. I really doubt that it was just a random attack and she happened to be carrying that much on her. Either the guy saw her get paid at her work and followed her, or something even shadier is going on.

NikkeiNet Japanese article

Taco Truck?

2009-04-17T00:47:00.004-04:00

Saw a taco truck in Makuhari just outside of Carrefour. First time I've ever seen it out there, but it seemed like it's a regular thing. A lot better than that stupid fried bread truck I used to see on that same street closer to Room Deco. They need one of these in Chiba city (taco truck not fried bread).

It's called the King of Tacos

Prop 525

2009-04-14T20:49:00.002-04:00

It's tough to write (what is essentially) a giant research paper when you've been out of college for almost 3 years and the most extensive writing you've done since is on a terrible blog.

Oh ya, totally unrelated but I saw this being advertised at some katsu (fried cutlet) stand in Tsudanuma a while back. It's a 7-layer katsu with pork, seaweed, and mochi (pounded rice cake). I guess the ingredients aren't that sweet, but it looks pretty massive. I had just eaten lunch otherwise I would have tried it.

Who Watches TheLeong?

2009-04-05T02:52:00.000-04:00

Finally went and saw the Watchmen movie on Thursday night. It didn't come out in Japan until last Saturday, so I wasn't that late in seeing it. It was an excellent movie, but of course it strayed a bit from the original comic. Still sweet to see a movie version of it, but yeah the comic was better overall.

After the movie ended, the credits started rolling, and I did what I usually do when credits start. I sat there. Why? Well as a lot of you probably do(?), I was thinking there was going to be some special bonus clip or something at the end of the credits. I'm not the only one, right? But anyways, I'm getting really tired of it. I don't know what movie started this, but it's a pain in the butt to sit there for 4-5 minutes worth of credits just because there's a slight chance of seeing something worth it at the end. Oh, but these people worked so hard to make the movie, you should watch the credits all the way through! Yeah right. I'm already showing my gratitude enough by paying to see the movie. In Japan it's almost 2000 yen too, so that's plenty of gratitude. People who make movies don't make money just by me reading their name. And who in their right mind actually reads the credits all the way through? I guess if you know someone who worked on it and you want to see their name that's one thing, but most of the time you're not going to sit there meticulously reading the name of every grip and assistant to Mr. xxxx. At least I sure never do.

Now, sometimes there really is something after the credits that's worth watching. Iron Man was a good example. But most movies don't have anything, yet I sit around just in case. I hate to hear afterwards that there was some bonus scene after the credits that I missed. That's why I tend to sit around and sit through the credits, boring myself to death, to prevent that "I just got ripped off" feeling. I think at the very least movies should be required to post something at the beginning of the credits like "stay tuned for something worth it." I've seen a few movies do that I think, I just can't remember which ones.

Aaand that's enough of a rant for now. Yes I am aware of the fact that I could just leave.

Random comments/complaints

2009-04-05T02:39:00.000-04:00

Some things that aren't long or substantial enough to warrant their own blog entry.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks to themselves sometimes on seeing a baby "now that is one ugly baby."
The multivitamins I take smell awful. I think my dog used to have vitamins that smelled the same. Is Costco selling dog vitamins to me?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you're both foreigners from English-speaking countries, there's almost never a good reason for you to speak Japanese to eachother. Speak English.
My blog post titles over the years have become so obscure that even I can't find what I'm looking for sometimes.
Some of my past blog posts make me cringe now. Sorry.
Chrono Trigger is one of the greatest video games ever made.
I've only had to wear a suit once over the past 2 months, which is awesome.
Hopefully I'll be going outside Japan for work sometime this growing season (spring/summer).
Actually I'm pretty sure I'm at least going to HK in August.

H A N A M I

2009-03-28T17:37:00.002-04:00

First hanami of the year, tomorrow at Chiba Park. See you guys there!

I really just wanted to post that picture.

Wedding, work, insomnia

2009-03-17T04:38:00.000-04:00

I think the buzzword for January and February must have been marriage, because it seemed like everyone around me was talking about it, either around here or just people I still keep in touch with over the net. People getting married, people talking about getting married, people talking about planning to talk about getting married, etc. I don't know what the deal was. It was with my friends both in the US and Japan, so maybe it's just getting around that time. Kind of freaky. And of course Facebook has always been like this, seeing who from high school is now married, but it's just about at the point where people's newest picture albums are of their newborn kids. I never would have thought Facebook would have been around this long.

The buzzword has of course changed, everyone now talking about work. Either enjoying their job, hating their job, quitting their job, getting fired, or looking for a new job, it's everywhere. I guess everyone needs to work to pay for those weddings. (I am half joking there). I suppose the global recession and all that fun stuff is partially to blame, since I know a lot of people who have gotten laid off or had their hours cut down a lot. But for me, work has been good the last few weeks. I attended the Foodex convention in Makuhari for about a week, used InDesign for the first time in probably 3 or 4 years, and have been feeling pretty satisfied with my mini-accomplishments for now.

Back to weddings, even though I know it's the old buzzword now. I went to my first Japanese wedding on February 22nd, which was really fun and an interesting experience. My friend Konosuke got married and was nice enough to invite me. It was even a traditional Japanese Shinto-style wedding as opposed to a Western-style church wedding, which are really popular here. It isn't because people here are Christians, but it's just because people think they're cool. Kind of like why they have Engrish t-shirts. I think Shinto weddings are less common than church ones these days maybe in Japan. First there was the formal Shinto ceremony in a shrine where there were many chants chanted, many sets of bowing, and the 三三九度 (San-san-ku-do, 3-3-9 times) ritual where the bride and groom drink from 9 small cups of sake to represent family and stuff like that. They did rings and there was more chanting, and it was official. It seemed like a very quick ceremony probably lasting less than 30 minutes.

Cracking open a big barrel of sake for the reception.

After the ceremony we all headed back to the big building/memorial hall for the formal reception which was a really fancy dinner interspersed with long speeches. The bride and groom changed costumes before the reception and then again during the reception, going from super formal Japanese wedding ceremony clothes to formal Japanese wedding clothes to formal Western wedding clothes. It was pretty awesome when they came back from changing clothes during the reception, because they made a really dramatic entrance from the balcony. The lights went low, music started, and the MC announced their return. Junko was in a Western style wedding dress and Konosuke was in a tuxedo minus the overcoat with... a parachute on? No, it wasn't a parachute, it was actually a beer keg backpack. (see pic on the left) He went around to every table and filled up pitchers with his backpack of beer. The whole day was pretty formal so this was a cool addition. After the reception we went to a second party at a small club-type place in Shibuya, which was also pretty nice and a lot more relaxed.

Insomnia. I don't really have insomnia, just a really messed up sleep schedule. One of the sweet yet dangerous parts of working flexitime from your home is staying up super late and then waking up in the afternoon, only to repeat the next night. I think it really got bad last Thursday night when I was working on designing some sales materials, and to communicate with the US and everything I started working again around 2 or 3AM. It was easier this way because I wouldn't have to wait hours to get a response about whether something looked good, etc. I ended up working until about 9AM, which was pretty rough but then I passed out until it was almost dark outside again. There's always something embarrassing about doing that. Anyway ever since then I've been going to sleep way too late and pretty much keeping my schedule permanently messed up. For example, why am I still awake right now?

Biznass cards

2009-02-26T11:49:00.000-05:00

Had to get some business cards made for the new job; checked out the printing corner in Loft in Sogo, but they were mega expensive and it would take apparently 2 weeks or more. Instead, I went and looked online and found this site called Meishi Shop* (Japanese site) that can not only do it for cheaper, but easier and faster. They let you upload an Illustrator file with your own business card design, you choose the paper and quantity, and they ship it to you. Also, if you get your order in before 5PM, they guarantee next day shipment. Sounds good, right?

But wait! There's more!

So Wednesday I put my order in at 6:14PM, and got the standard confirmation/"thank you for your order" e-mail. Then again at 6:49 they e-mail me saying my data file has been verified and they had started printing. At this point I was pretty happy, because service like that is not what I've come to expect, even living in Japan. It got better later at night when I checked my e-mail and had a message sent at 9:43PM saying my order has been shipped. Seriously. Less than 4 hours and my order was finished and shipped out.

My order arrived just a bit ago at about 11:45AM Thursday. 18 hours total from sending them my Illustrator file to having the Sagawa courier bring my finished cards to my door. Everything looks good; can't say there was any room for disappointment with this shop. There's like a 500 yen discount for new customers, so my order of 100 full-color double-sided business cards shipped only cost me 1180 yen. Awesome. If you're (in Japan and) looking for some cheap business cards, this site is ridiculously good. And yes I realize this all sounds like some terrible endorsement, but I'm not being paid to say this. If I were, it would be a lot better and I'd use more words like mega, super, and kazowee.

*meishi (名刺) = business card

TheLeong @ Facebook

2009-02-26T02:54:00.000-05:00

Trying out having Facebook import my blog feed automatically. We'll see if I leave it this way.

By the way, if there are comments left on Facebook I'll probably copy them over to HaloScan for storage/OCD purposes. Can't imagine anyone will have a problem with that (I'll just put your first name or something), but let me know if you do.

Hadouken

2009-02-26T01:03:00.000-05:00

Recently I've been re-getting into Street Fighter IV at arcades here, even though it came out last summer in Japan, and even though I suck. Coincidentally, the home version on X-Box 360 and PS3 just came out last week, but I own neither so that didn't really have anything to do with it. Actually it's probably because I started playing Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom in arcades and on Wii.

Anyway, you guys know Street Fighter: Rye-ooh and the Ha-doo-ken, etc. So I'm not going to write about the game so much as the players you see here. As expected, Japanese arcade players are insane. They know the games they like and they play them a lot. I don't mean like every day they'll throw in a few coins to play a few rounds. These guys spend their entire evenings (maybe days too) at the arcade, huddled around their weapons of choice, endlessly pouring coins into the games and being a major cause of Japan's population decline. Normal arcade games here cost 100 yen, but the more expensive ones can go up to even 500 yen for the battlepod-esque Gundam game. Occasionally they'll be there with a friend or two, but a lot of the ones I've seen are just there by themselves. OK, so they can socialize with the other people playing the same game, right? NOPE. With the exception of people who already know each other, I have never seen someone talk to another player. Not even something like "hey, nice game," "wow, close one there," or "TATSUMAKISENPUUKYAKU!!!!" Only silence. It's kind of weird. At least that's what I've seen.

Going back to how much these guys spend. Usually it would be impossible to know or even guess how much someone's spent on playing a game. Luckily, SF4 has, like a lot of Japanese arcade games these days, a special card to keep track of your player information. When you're playing at the arcade with your card, you accumulate points which can be used to get extra costumes, special content on the mobile site, babies, etc. Since this card also makes you commit to a character, a lot of people didn't use the cards initially while they got a feel for which character they liked the best, etc. But when you do use your card, it's all recorded. Your opponent during link matches can see your stats, like your ranking and win percentage*. This is where it gets scary. The other day when Brian and I were at one of the local arcades getting absolutely destroyed in SF4, we noticed the stats of some guy who was playing as C. Viper, jumping all over the place and embarrassing us horribly. Of course he had a fairly decent winning percentage, maybe 60 or 70%, but the shocker was the number of games he'd played on his card. The number was over 1,100. He has played a lot.

Let's do some veeerrrrryyyy rough math. This might be wrong because it's 2AM and I'm not wanting to think too much into this. Feel free to do some real thinking and correct me. So in SF4, each time you start playing, you pay 100 yen. If you win a link match, you get to play the next one for free, and so on until you lose. For today's estimate, let's say that the Player in question has spent 100 yen for every loss he's had. If he had 1,100 games with around a 65% winning percentage, he lost 385 times. So right there he spent 38,500 yen. Of course we don't know how many consecutive times he won on average, but let's be generous and say he averaged 3 wins every time he played. So from the 715 matches he's won, he only had to pay for a third of them, about 238 or 28,800 yen. That's a total estimate of 62,300 yen (about $645 USD) he's spent on this card alone. That is crazy. He could have just bought a new PS3 and the home version for that much. Again, this is just on the one card. It doesn't include matches he plays on no card or with a different card. He could very well have it at home too. By the way, yes, that is him up in the picture.

The sad thing is that this is mainly just about arcades I go to here in Chiba, which I'm sure aren't nearly as intense as the ones in super nerd districts in nearby Tokyo. And thus concludes our fuzzy math lesson about nerds.

*I am currently ranked "Rookie" with a "0%" winning ratio.

Premature Perceived Friendship Syndrome

2009-02-20T01:03:00.000-05:00

Am I the only one who's annoyed by people who prematurely think they're your best friend? Surely I can't be. You know what I'm talking about: the kind of person you meet maybe once or twice, usually a friend of a friend's cousin's girlfriend's friend or some equally distant connection, who for some reason or another instantly believes you're their new closest pal? This isn't really a recent thing: there have always been people like this and it's always bothered me. Sure, there's a certain level of "friendliness" and "politeness" that society expects you to exhibit when meeting new people, but taking that too far can be annoying.

I have nothing against making new friends; I'd like to think that I do that quite often*. But if there's someone you haven't gotten to know well yet, they shouldn't act like you've known each other for years: that's going too far, and a severe case of PPFS. Suddenly asking "where's the party at?" when you've never actually done anything with the person without your mutual friend(s) present; calling you (when did you give them your number?) out of the blue and pulling the eternally loathsome "It's me"; running into you at the store and insisting that you finish your shopping together when all you needed to get was TP - all of these are classic signs of PPFS. And yes I've been unfortunate enough to experience them all.

Does this make me sound anti-social? I'm really not. But come on. I've known our mutual-friend-separated-by-10-degrees for years, so yes, we hang out. But I only met you at the barbecue last summer and talked to your briefly about how hot the weather was. OK, I suppose we also gave each other the half-head-nod of acknowledgment at another mutual yet distant friend's Christmas party. But that doesn't mean we're good enough friends** for you to call me up this weekend to help you move. Don't you have any closer acquaintances?

*maybe even 1 new friend a year!
**we're not friends