Yeah, let's go for Chinese food!

Today me and the boy got fed up with the standard menu which all restaurants in Paris seems to carry which consists mainly of steak and fries. We thought we should try something a little different and since Captain Britain is away (for some reason he always vetoed Asian or Indian food) we thought it could be interesting to try some Chinese food here in Paris and get a little change.from all the meat and fries.

Well... we were in for a surprise... We actually looked at one place and discarded it as crappy looking and went for the place with red ailings and gold writing which should be an universal sign of authentic Chinese cuisine. It is hard to describe the quality and service we received at this place, and the bad quality of the food was almost entertaining. Since we in Japan are quite used to Chinese food and your Mr. Salaryman has also been to China having the real deal I think it is fair to say that we know decent Chinese food when we have it. This place didn't have it. The soup I had as a starter really tasted like warm water and The Boy refused to believe it for a good while until he tasted it. To add insult to injury the place wasn't particularly cheap either and service consisted of a middle-aged Chinese man with a bad moustasche coming to our table, looking pissed off and aggressively shouting out the name of the food we ordered. At least the extreme bad quality of the food resulted in some entertainment from me and The Boys side speaking in English and probably embarrasing the middle aged British couple next to us, probably on their second honey-moon or so thinking they had hit the genuine deal. I can tell you that we're not going back, looks like steak and fries is the safest way to go here in Paris...

Things I really hate about France and the French 5:

Chinese restaurants in Paris...

Hey there, baby

In this humble post I thought that I might also reveal something that probably people reading this blog never really cared about in the first place. But your Mr. Salaryman is of Swedish nationality with friends and family living in this small, and in the grand scale of things, insignificant country. One of the good things about working from Paris is that I can travel home to Sweden during the weekends which is exactly what I did recently.

You see, Mr. Salaryman has recently become Uncle Salaryman to a very tiny little girl. The baby girl was just one week old when I visited her and her main activities consisted of sleeping, screaming a little to signal hunger and eat. That was basically it.

I must admit that I feel a slight dissapointment in that it was a girl since I had grand plans for buying presents and stuff if it had been a boy. My overall plan remains though, and it is to buy presents that generates significant amounts of noise such as drums and toy guns with sound effects built in.

Other parts of the visits are kinda blurry but I think it involved meeting an old friend and ending up in an empty bar drinking beer until they threw us out. However, now I'm back in Paris and working on the boobs again!

Things I really hate about France and the French 4:

Hotel staff that acts as if you are offending them, their mothers and other parts of their extended family when you are trying to get the answer to a simple question.

You just got Alpha-Male:ed!

There is a new buzzword that we have been starting to use lately which I thought I would share with all my faithful readers since it's pretty convenient and might raise your quality of life.

The phrase is "getting alpha maled:ed" and the meaning is pretty much what it sounds like. This can happen in many circumstances and cannot involve any females by definition. The typical scenario is to, during a regular conversation, be it work or private with another male. The actual alpha-maleing can take different forms but usually involves one of the males involved strongly hinting that you are doing things wrong and that he could do things much better. It can also be a more general bragging type of thing where the alpha maleing person just strongly hints that he's a much better person than you for whatever reasons.

Just in the recent days we had a case where our own El Presidente got a severe alpha maleing from one of the French managers who hinted that he had not done things properly (implying that the French manager would have done things much better) which resulted in a slightly pinkish color but he managed to keep himself from counter attacking.

Things I really hate about France and the French 3:

French managers that call you into their office to discuss something but the real purpose is just to assert their alpha male position. Especially annoying when they speak with a heavy French accent, have a gold chain around their necks and a couple of buttons of their shirts unbottoned. Also, them getting a phone call on their mobile phone in the middle of an exchange and waving you out with a casual smile.

French Food

Things I hate about France and the French 2:

Restaurants that serve food that is foul and makes you spend the whole night with high fever and running to the bathroom due to severe diarrohea every 10 minutes when you really have to be sharp the day after.

The adventures of a foreign salaryman in Tokyo in Paris

The boob research takes me around the world and your Mr. Salaryman is presently located in the center of Paris for some time to come. So this blog will transform a little the next month which I hope you will find equally entertaining as my normal Japan adventures.

I am not here alone either, I took The Boy under my arm and also on the trip is Captain Britain who I have not introduced yet but will, given a little more time.

I will also take this opportunity to introduce my new regular feature which I have elected to call "Things I really hate about France and the French".

Things I really hate about France and the French of the day:

1. Waiters at restraurants that ignore you even though they are just hanging around.

Does this feel... natural to you?

Recently life has been pretty good to your Mr. Salaryman, granted there have been sad incidents such as the departure of the lovely The Hag, but she's still around in Japan for a little while longer at least.
But at the moment I have more dates lined up than I can manage properly and we finished the last project in a honorable fashion despite some bouts of insanity and stupidity in terms of project management. El Presidente has been behaving really nice lately and I had a couple of weeks on the Beach. This blog has also experienced a surge in new visitors that has crawled out of the woodwork and they're very welcome and I recommend them to go backwards and go through my earlier posts to begin with to get the exciting background. Life is pretty good now and is that wasn't enough...

I now have a new project, but, what a project! It has to do with a part of the female anatomy that always has been a keen interest for me and that I have enjoyed on occassion. The breast obviously. I never thought that my personal interest and my professional work would coincide in this way, but it has. The Gods of Consulting has been smiling upon me recently. Personal interest and work has never experienced this type of synergy before!

Now that I think of it, it seems that my luck turned considerably about the same time as I got my God-Jesus, coincidence you say? Well, I think I will continue to put my faith in God-Jesus!

On the Beach

Currently I'm not particularly busy at work. I'm what you actually could call particularly un-busy. I did not know this before I entered the wonderful world of consulting, but there's actually a made up word for this situation. It's called being on "the beach". Basically in-office vacation, unfortunately I must be there in case anything shows up. I'm currently working my way through Wikipedia in alphabetical order. Very interesting stuff in there.

The project pipeline also seems a bit dry now in the summer months so I might enjoy a prolonged in-office vacation. Paid, of course!

With a heart full of hate and a lust for vomit

Tokyo is hot now... Really hot, going up over 35 degrees Celcius in the day and if you stand in the sun it gets even hotter and it's not dry heat either. It's humid and hot. After a couple of minutes of walking outside you will get sweaty and when you enter an air-conditioned shop it will be cold and you will catch a cold.
If you're thinking of visiting Japan in the summer, don't. Autumn and Spring are actually nice...

That should be it!

Ok, plenty of God-Jesus the latest days when I know you are all curious on how the in-office craziness and karate is going along. So, I promise, from now on no more God-Jesus unless I have something really great to say. But I think this toy is just too fun to miss, so please let your friends know of the "About God-Jesus" tag. Might pull in some new readers to this modest blog and entertain a few people that normally doesn't care about Japan!

What do you mean? A Japanese fortune telling robot called "God-Jesus"?!

With a device as special as the God-Jesus, it's hard to say who exactly made it. There is no doubt that it was made by man, but where the inspiration came from, we can only speculate...

Well, sticking to the facts: The God-Jesus was a toy made by large famous Japanese toy manufacturer Bandai and was released in 1985 when the future and Robots were the coolest topic around. However, one can but wonder what made the Japanese designers name it "God-Jesus" and stick a cross in its hand. Whichever way you look at it, it is clear that the God-Jesus was very much a child of its time and I have difficulties seeing that a toy nowadays could be named "God-Jesus" since awareness of other cultures and religions has increased in Japan since 20 years back.

The toy is little of a rarity but not impossible to get your hands on (as proven by me) since it does show up from time to time on Japanese auction sites for reasonable sums of money (around US$30). You know you want one!

How does God-Jesus work?

I think this is one of the most amazing toys ever manufactured and I feel very lucky and priviliged to have managed to get my hands on one!

So, what is this thing you might ask? Well, it's a fortune telling robot named "God-Jesus" that carries a large plastic cross in his hand and passes judgement on your questions. You ask God-Jesus a "Yes or No" question, clap your hands and God-Jesus gets to work answering your question. After a bow (it's made in Japan after all and even God-Jesus has some basic courtesy) it rolls forward, bows once again and then starts contemplating the question by flashing it's red eyes. After a few moments of thinking it will deliver it's judgement which can be one of four, strong nodding indicating "Yes, surely", weaker nodding indicating "probably, yes", slight shaking of the head indicating "probably, no" or heavy shaking of the head indicating "No, never". Bowing again, then rolling back to its initial position and giving one final bow before resting.

Is this real? Is it just a machine or does it carry divine judgement you might ask yourself. I wish I was wise enough to answer that, but in the manual it states that the robot is "half joke, half serious".

Repent!

God-Jesus is here and he's with me now!

Expect more details to follow!

Say hello, wave goodbye

Well, it's another one of those semi-serious postings since something we all knew, but still sad, has happened. The Hag handed in her resignation note one month ago and last Tuesday was her final day at the office. In just a month she will return back to the USA to reunite with her fiancee, Tony the Tiger (he's ggggggreat).

(Just for the sake of it I should also mention that I did not name The Hag based on any physical characteristics but due to the closeness to her name.)

Her final time in the office were unfortunately plagued by some nasty incidents including accusations of theft of company property (false, obviously) and a nasty hurtful anonymous e-mail directed towards her. But, we, the regular people in the office will really miss her and the office will be a much calmer, boring place without her and we already feel it.

Favorite moments at work with The Hag that immediately comes to mind are obviously the earthquake - under the table diving incident and the tale of the man with the balls attached to his coat. Oh, and yeah, the masturbating man under the bridge was a good one too. And since The Hag is one of the few people in the office that is aware of the existence of this blog I can also here say "thank you very much for all the laughs and listening to me when things were a bit bumpy". We had a lot of fun in the office and outside of it.

The farewell party was a lot of fun as well with plenty of drinks, half-decent food and rowdy conversations about the greatness of male rape scenes in movies, where I, for some strange reason, was the only one to argue that it's great.... And the most important ingredient for a farewell party was there as well, tears and not few of them either!

Great stuff, I'll miss her both in work and private!

(I think I'm on to something here naming posts after Soft Cell songs, but I wonder when I get the chance to use "Sex Dwarf" for a post...)

I have found God-Jesus!!!

It is true! I have now found God-Jesus now I just have to sort out the auction stuff, but one should be coming my way really really soon.
Expect more on this!

Update: God-Jesus is now payed for and will hopefully be shipped to me already on Monday, allowing me to play with him on Tuesday or Wednesday! I have big plans for this and in time I'll fill you all in on the details!