The Future of Entertainment is here!

The future of gaming, in the past!

When think of it, it strikes me as a little odd that I haven't really posted more on the topic, but the truth is that I am a gamer. Not the obnoxious type who loves Japanese Role Playing Games though, and I embrace the fact that it is practically a waste of time! I do not play games to grow as a person or challenge myself, I do it because it keeps me entertained for a bit and a happy Salaryman is a good Salaryman. Playing computer/video games is by far my favorite way to entertain myself and has been from when we got our first Spectrum ZX81 home computer. The hour between when the kids and Mrs. Sunshine fall asleep until I go to bed is my gaming time and when I can relax a bit from all the other stuff.

So, for me as a gamer, the recent launch of the Playstation 4 is a big event (and yes, I am somewhat of a Sony PS fanboy, screw xbox!). Probably due to the delayed launch in Japan, almost four months after the US launch, I could order my Playstation off the Sony online store just a week before the launch and got it delivered before lunch last Saturday without having to stand in a line or camp outside!

The thing about new consoles is that usually they are crap when they come out. The user interface and features are not fully implemented and the first wave of games are usually junk. However, I tend to forget this and get swept up in the excitement only to be disappointed that things are basically the same, only with a little prettier graphics.

As I was checking through what the new and improved Playstation had to offer, I found the Playstation streaming TV stations. Basically it’s meant for people to show what they are playing and give their fantastic commentary while doing it. But when I checked it out the number one watched show was that of an American family sitting in front of their TV, having the Playstation camera film them while they are sitting around reading the comments that people wrote to them. Occasionally the overweight lady would flash her boobs, whipping the commenters to a frenzy of “do it again!”, “more” etc. while the guy kept drinking his booze. After a few minutes a younger woman that looked a bit like Ms. American teen pregnancy joined the group in the sofa and also started into the screen while people wrote “you new girl, show your boobs too!” and similar comments at a breathtaking pace.

The whole thing was mesmerizing. I could not stop watching. It was like Youtube with even lower production values and completely devoid of any point. This is the future of Entertainment and again I felt at peace with my purchase.

Yesterday evening I turned it on again, but their show was gone and it felt empty… 

I'm back!

How can it be?!

I have given it long a thoughtful consideration and have decided to once again revive the blog! However there will be a slight shift in focus as I still cannot really write that much about work. Instead I will focus a little more on the perils of being the father of small children here in Japan, something of which there is plenty of craziness involved.

As little Ms. Sunshine and Salaryman Jnr. now have grown to considerable size (for a 4 and 2 year old anyway) and started develop, what I interpret as , personality, and in the broadest possible meaning of the word, interests, means that I am from time to time exposed to their interesting world.

Also, to our great surprise, the little critters have also started to actually sleep at relatively reasonable hours at an almost (!?) predictable time, this has also freed up a little time when I don't need to try to entertain/sedate a rowdy offspring and can instead write blog posts in poor grammar for your entertainment.

Hopefully some of my former readers will at least find something mildly interesting in this new direction and those who are not probably have moved on to bigger and better things anyway in this nasty harsh post-blogging climate. I thought about changing the name of the blog, but since I am still something of a salaryman (although it could be argued that I left that behind me) and "The Adventures of a Foreign Father in Japan" doesn't really sound that great...

The end (for now at least)...

This blog was always intended to mainly be about absurdities and funny stories from working as a Salaryman and not a "life in Japan" blog. Unfortunately the new job make it difficult to keep this up, the problem is not a lack of amusing stories from work, the material from that little crack where Japanese business culture meets European business culture is generating as much friction as ever! However, the problem that I am facing now is that I am in a much smaller organization and working with a fixed number of clients in a relatively limited geographical location. This is making it very difficult to keep up the anonymity and to not risk pissing any clients off, or in worst case damage someones business, I cannot really blog about work stuff as I used to and if I can't, it's not particularly fun anymore.

Of course, with two small children I have no gaping hole of free time and energy that needs to be filled either, so I have decided to end my bad consciousness for not posting more often and "officially" put this blog on an indefinite hold. At some point in the future when I have more time and energy and the work situation allows it I might pick it up where I left it, but if and when that would be I have no idea. 

I really do hate when people stop blogging in the middle of something without bringing any closure to how things ended up so let me assure you that things are going well. The new job is great fun so far, Toddler Sunshine and Baby Salaryman are growing up way to fast or way too slow (depending on their attitude), but are healthy and keeping us busy. Mrs. Sunshine is also doing as well as can be expected after managing two small kids, but we are still having fun.

So, thank you all for following me for as long as you have. I am a bit curious on whether I have any followers from the first couple of years, if you have I would appreciate if you could drop a quick comment. 

Thank you goes out to the small informal blogging community that formed around this blog, Chris, Corinne, Kathryn, Kamo, the Octopus (although he has also dropped of the radar now mostly) and everyone else on my blogroll! Also, thank you to everyone who has commented here at one point or another over the years, thank you tons, you are the guys and gals that kept it fun to blog.

I will still monitor my e-mail and this blog so if you want/need to reach me you can still drop a comment or send me a mail. So again, thank you all for reading all these years and see you around!

The Cleansing

Burn those books, you'll feel better afterwards!

As I in the quite near future will start working a lot more from home (assuming toddler Sunshine and Baby Salaryman will kindly allow me to do so) I did a purging of my computer/work room to throw out some old stuff. I threw out two large cardboard boxes of books and a large part of my trade paperback collection of comics went deep into the closet.

There was a time when my most valued possessions was my "stuff", things like books, comics, DVD collection, games and CDs, everything else I didn't care too much about, even if the TV was expensive it would be easy to replace while my "stuff" had taken some time and effort to acquire and not as easily replaced. The change to digital media has piece by piece ruined this for me, the first to go was my CD collection as the iPod and iTunes came into play. My 2000+ CD collection now sits in a drawer (all hard plastic cases exchanged for thin plastic sleeves to take up less space) and I have not taken out a CD for over 4 years... Selling it off does not really seem like an option considering that I would in best case only get a pittance for it, particularly here in Japan as the music is obscure, but I can't bring myself to throw it away either as many of the CDs hold a story for me, so I just keep it.

When I got the iPad something similar happened to my comic collection, as I just read comics digitally now and can download all the stuff I have, the comics are just sitting there on the shelf, taking up space. I'm torn between trying to sell them somehow as they probably have a little more value to some than obscure CDs but on the other hand I might want to keep them for a rainy night after the apocalypse has killed the Internet and North Korean EMP bombs have rendered my electronic devices useless.

In one way it feels a bit sad as I often have memories attached to the stuff and can remember when (and what I was thinking) I ordered and got the CD/Comic/Book and a sense of accomplishment as the collection was growing bigger. Nowadays it's way too easy to find most stuff online without any real effort more than google or an iTunes search and it's a process that's basically the same every time. Now my "stuff" is all digital and sitting on a harddrive without anything physical to touch, sort and fondle with. I used to enjoy going through the stuff from time to time and figuring out how to sort it the best way, but moving folders around on a computer is just a hassle that feels like work without any enjoyment.

I don't want to come across as a technology hostile Salaryman, all in all the the joy of physical stuff is outweighed by the convenience of the digital age. But the collector in me was rudely woken up, killed, dragged outside, mutilated and hung in a streetlight as a warning to others... What's the challenge in collecting when everything is readily available and easy to reproduce (control+C...)?

However, just recently I realized that the collector had reawakened in me again, although this time directed towards the exciting world of... ... ... cables! With all the electronical devices in the house, I have accumulated a significant range of cables for all imaginable purposes and recently got these two babies for the house and as I unpacked the stuff and felt satisfaction looking at them I realized that these are the depths that I have sunk to now... Is this what is has come to?

(I actually got the pink one for Mrs. Sunshine and initally felt a bit miffed when she didn't share in my excitement of the convenient and stylish power outlet (with USB ports!))

The year of the snake 2013!

That's not a normal snake? Is it a cobra?

Considerably later than other years so far on this blog, but I thought I should give it a shot to try and summarize 2012. As the remaining readers of this blog obviously have figured out, other prioritizes made my blogging schedule irregular to say the least. The start of the year I was kept busy by Toddler Sunshine, Mrs. Sunshine's late stage pregnancy and trying to get into the job I started in the summer the previous year, after the birth of Baby Salaryman things just passed by in a bit of a blur. 

Biggest Event of 2012 was of course the birth of Baby Salaryman, born to restore balance to the battle of the genders in the Salaryman household and ensure that my name lives on for eternity in the island of Japan. May his seed burn strong and brightly.

Biggest Revelation of 2012 is much harder to pinpoint... Looking back, it feels like most of the year was spent looking after kids or working with not much in between. Of course, seeing the Avengers movie in the movie theater was great, there came out some good new music as well, thinking especially of Agent Side Grinder with the song Wolf Hour and old school EBM band Orange Sector with the hit Der Maschinist, the comeback of Daybehavior, but nothing that really changed how I view the world.

Biggest Staying Power in 2012 was the iPad, the little tablet has not gotten me bored with it yet. In fact, I like it so much that I upgraded to the newer iPad during last year (the one with the faster processor) after some negotiating with Mrs. Sunshine ("Do you really really need it?" "Well..." "If you really really need it and you absolutely must have it you can buy it, but there are other stuff we need..." "Ok, thanks, I'll buy it then!"). To toddler Sunshine's delight, this means that we now ended up with three iPads in the household and one that she has claimed her own. I have even seriously considered getting one of those water proof iPad bags so I can bring it in the bath with me as well. I'm still waiting for the toilet model of the iPad as well.

Best Blog of 2012 is also really hard as I have not found any new particularly interesting ones and for my favorite ones both Corinne and Chris have run into a bit of a blogging fatigue similar to mine it looks like. Former "Green Eyed Geisha" started a new blog that I was looking forward to, but the posts there also stopped coming. Kamo with the blog This is how she fight starts is the most interesting thing to pop up in 2012 (but not sure if I actually started reading it in 2011?). Even if I am embarrassed to say that my commenting manners is lacking, I still check out Project Me and was happy to see Ninja Without a Clue make a comeback in posting.

Keep at it, it'll get better with time!

Favorite Comment Dropper of 2012 is the people behind Mumbai/Dehli Escorts who ferociously started leaving comments on my posts advertising their exclusive services. In the beginning I deleted them as soon as they came up, but their eagerness to drop comments won me over and I decided to let them be (at least on older posts). As an interesting tidbit it can be mentioned that I have very few visitors from India, I have myself never been there with no plans to go and I doubt that many of my readers visit India often and even if they did they would not trust those guys with their physical needs. Good work Mumbai escorts and happy 2013!

Other Stuff that kept me Entertained in 2012 was (to my surprise) the King of Thrones TV-series, it's rare to see fantasy done well but this show has pulled it off. The Walking Dead TV-series and comic has kept its staying power, but ultimately they all still lose out to a classic like The Wire (which I started re-watching during autumn and still working my way through). Some good games came out as well in 2012, thinking particularly of Mass Effect 3 (I was ok with the ending), Dishonored and the remake of X-Com. But still, nothing like Skyrim from 2011...

To all my readers, a belated Happy New Year and wish you all a fantastic 2013! This year happens to be the Year of the Snake, something that is supposed to be good, contrary to what the Western image of snakes would make you think...      

Kim Jong Un Sends Autographs to Officials and Workers of Various Units

(First of all, again, sorry for the lack of posting! Some travel in work resulting in over two weeks of continuous jet-lag made the blog suffer a bit. Also, sorry for starting to use the annoying word verification when writing comments but recently I've gotten flooded with over 50 spam comments a day...) 

A recent hot news from the KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK that I felt was too good to not share with you all:

Pyongyang, October 4 (KCNA) -- The dear respected Kim Jong Un sent autographs to officials and other workers at various units and teachers and students on Sept. 13 and 27 after reading their letters.

In the letters they expressed their determination to make a dynamic advance in close unity under the leadership of the party, bearing deep in mind warm love and trust shown by the great men of Mt. Paektu.

Among them were officials and employees of the Tanchon Area General Mining Bureau, the construction site of Orangchon Power Station, Electric Power Designing Institute No. 1, Pyongyang Tangogi Restaurant, Phyongnam Noodle Restaurant and the Wheat Cake Stuffed with Roast Chicken Shop of the Kumsong Foodstuff Factory and builders and teachers and students of Sibyon Secondary School of Thosan County, North Hwanghae Province.
In the letters they reflected their ardent reverence and loyalty to Marshal Kim Jong Un who helps them make a leaping advance with the same loving care as that shown by Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

They vowed to invariably follow Kim Jong Un to repay for his loving care in the road of successfully carrying forward the revolutionary cause of Juche started on Mt. Paektu in keeping pace with his footsteps despite any storm and stress.

They wholeheartedly wished Marshal Kim Jong Un good health for the eternal prosperity of Songun Korea and happiness of all generations to come, representing the best wishes of all servicepersons and people.

(Seriously, I don't think any witty comment I could write here would make it more funny than it already is, so I won't)

Down in the Cave

Again, sorry about the lack of posting and commenting on people's blogs, a combination of business at work, busy at home with the small kids and the return of the summer heat keep my energy pretty low...

While walking home from the train today I had my iPod on, listening to an old playlist and the song Nine While Nine by the Sisters of Mercy started playing. Although I hold the song as one of the best songs ever made it's so firmly implanted in my mind that I rarely feel like I need to listen to it.

It made me recall a hot summer night close to 15 years ago when I was visiting Tokyo with a bunch of friends and a late night in the Shinjuku Kabukicho me and my buddy Henrik found a hole in the wall place that we thought seemed interesting due to the post-punk music band posters plastered around the entrance. The place was called "The Cave" if I'm not mistaken. My buddy was a guitar based indie music kinda guy while I was more of an EBM-head (Industrial music) but we had a common ground in that we both liked the classic old school goth bands.

The place was empty except for the bartender managing the place and was literally only 5 or so seats at the bar counter. The drinks were expensive as we were students, but for some reason this night we didn't care that much. The bartender handed us a book with a huge list of the songs she had on CD so we could pick which ones she should play. I remember me picking Nine While Nine and both of us agreeing that it was the best song ever made, we spent over 2 hours there drinking and going through Joy Division, The Cure, Siouxe and the Banshees and other post-punk goth bands although I remember some debate erupting as to whether the Fields of the Nephilim was good or not (me arguing for, him against).

Nothing particularly exciting or interesting happened that night, no girls, no strange encounters, just us listening to the music and talking; mostly about the music. Still, for some reason it's one of the nights out in Tokyo I remember the best. Good times.  

What're you up to?

What's he up to?

Two months into the relentless Japanese summer, it's hard to muster up enough energy to go to the bathroom anymore, let alone update the blog. I try to tell myself that in just a little less than a month things will start to cool down a bit.

Meanwhile, while I try to gather up energy to write the post that I took this picture from. Can any of my incredibly clever readers figure out what this little fella has been up to? The picture is taken from a poster seen in some places in Tokyo.

The real post will follow later on...

Hot and miserable...

Otherwise things might catch fire from the heat

Now the Japanese summer heat has struck with a vengeance after a pretty mild June and first half of July... However, as of the weekend we reached temperatures around 34 degrees Celsius here in the Tokyo area with sunshine further heating things up.

With two small children at home the opportunity for a temporary escape more than to an air conditioned room is non-existing. Two months (or if we're lucky, one and a half) more of this and things should start to cool down a bit but that's a pretty long tunnel to go through. The poor folks in the southern island of Kyushu also had to endure record breaking rainfall during the weekend, killing 20 people and destroying numerous homes and now they have a typhoon heading their way... At least I don't live in Kyushu...

Please forgive me for putting my Internet activity on the back-burner at the moment, between Baby Salaryman, Toddler Sunshine, being busy at work and then the heat on top of that I have little energy to allocate to blogging and leaving comments. Hopefully I should get my act together soon. 

Adopted Koreans

In my generation, born in the 70's, growing up in Sweden, there was a lot of Koreans adopted by Swedes. Most schools had a few kids born in Korea, but as they were raised in Sweden by Swedish adoptive parents from a very young age they're basically as Swedish as they can get apart from their Asian looks.

Unknown to many, he was actually raised in Sweden and goes by the name Lasse Svensson

When I'm in Sweden I don't really think about it and apart from briefly noting that they're of Korean ethnicity in my head when I meet one there's nothing really separating them from other Swedes. When I'm in Sweden this comes completely natural.

However, a while back I met an old Swedish friend here in Tokyo for drinks and he brought with him another Swedish friend of his own who happened to be an adopted Korean. This caused my brain to completely short-circuit... 

I have two basic settings in my head; one is for interacting with Westerners (in Swedish or English doesn't really matter, the setting is the same) and the occasional Japanese who grew up overseas or for some other reason is fluent in English and get the jokes. The second setting is my Japanese mode which I switch to when interacting with Japanese people. Obviously the default language here is Japanese (or in more rare cases simplified English) and all the Japanese unwritten "rules" on how to interact with the person in front of me come into play (what is my relation to the person in question? Who is senior? etc. etc.). I've lived and worked in Japan long enough now that this comes natural.

What caused my brain to completely short-circuit when meeting the Swedish-Korean guy was to have in front of me a person looking completely like a Japanese guy making my brain involuntarily switch into Japanese mode (he was dressed in a suit as well as it was after-work, further pushing my brain into the Japanese-business mode). But every time he spoke, with a heavy West-Swedish accent, it made my brain switch back to Western mode. My brain kept switching back and forth, short-circuiting several times until I hit the 4th beer as alcohol often makes my brain settle on one mode and puts the other one to rest...

   

Room for interpretation

Do you get it?

Last night me and Mrs. Sunshine had the following exchange, in English as we mostly speak that with each other;

Mr. Salaryman: Why don't I go to bed with toddler Sunshine and sleep with her and you put the baby to sleep? Then we can maybe get some peace and quiet... 

Mrs. Sunshine: Ok, that sounds good
.

Just a few seconds after the exchange I realized how wrongly it could be interpreted by an outsider... We're a pretty normal family, really, I promise!.
.

This also made me think of some of my fantastic commentators who post comments anonymously and always seem to take things literally and haven't figured out what this blog is all about (but still can't resist posting a comment). I think my long-time readers know what I'm talking about, those guys/gals who just don't get it however hard they try. I don't really mind them I just find it a bit puzzling, In any case, I'm happy none of them were around when me and Mrs. Sunshine had our exchange...

No!!! Not the Asswipes!

Surprisingly informative

The other day I took care of toddler Sunshine for most of the day as Mrs. Sunshine was away doing some fun stuff leaving me alone with an out of control 2 year old (however, as the tables are turned most of the time I found it hard to argue too much...). Me and toddler Sunshine usually have plenty of fun together though as we can do all the stuff that Mrs. Sunshine doesn't want us to do. The episode where I made her taste some coca cola and she spit it out with an expression of confusion and disgust comes to mind.

Apart from some pants being put on the wrong way, she was in a pretty good state when Mrs. Sunshine returned with the mother-in-law who had driven her home and wanted to say hi to the grandchild. I could give good answers to all the standard questions like "Did she eat her dinner?", "Did she poo any?" and such. However, on this particular day we were out of the wet hand tissues that we use to wipe her hands with after dinner and when Mrs. Sunshine asked about it the conversation went something like this:

Mrs. Sunshine: (happy that everything had gone seemingly event free) Oh, did you find the wet tissues to wipe her hands with, I noticed that the package on the table had run out?
Salaryman: (also in a good mood) No, but I just one of the asswipes instead!
Mrs. Sunshine: (shocked) You used the asswipes?
Salaryman: (still in a good mood and somewhat expected this reaction) Well yeah, it's the same thing with water based moist tissue paper after all.
Mrs. Sunshine: (still in shock) Yeah, I know, but they're meant to wipe her butt not her mouth!
Salaryman: (still upbeat) Don't worry, I don't think the ones I used for her hands had been used before, might be good to use them on the other end once in a while to mix things up!
Mrs. Sunshine: (relenting) Fine, as long as she was a good girl...

Grandmother Sunshine had listened in on the conversation in the background and also went through the five stages of grief pretty quickly, but was still shaking her head and went to check on toddler Sunshine to make sure that the asswipes had not given her any lasting scars. 

The importance of framing it correctly

Yes, I find her highly annoying

The other day, I had taken little toddler Sunshine with me to the local playground for her to romp about and run free, and perhaps more importantly, give Mrs. Sunshine a little breather from the destructive capabilities of a toddler closing in on two years.

This time, there were no other kids in the park, so I let her run free while I amused myself with bouncing the big blue ball with funny characters on it. But after a little while, two girls about 5 year old or so also came to the park to play. They immediately became targets for toddler Sunshine as she approached them and tried to communicate with them in her no-language gibberish. The kids apparently found toddler Sunshine amusing as they indulged her and played with her, lending her their crayon set (yes, it ended in tears from toddler Sunshine when she realized she had to give it back). As I'm more of a mother hen than a chicken-hawk, I hovered a bit in the distance and just restrained toddler Sunshine when she got out of line.

After about ten minutes or so though the girls started whispering with each other while throwing me worried glances and after gathering up some courage they straight up asked me "Toddler Sunshine's dad, you're not Japanese, are you?!", seemingly a bit worried about this turn of events. "No, I'm not Japanese, I'm from a country called Sweden, but my mom is Japanese so I'm half-Japanese" I replied back, trying to keep International relations on a friendly level. This was met with disbelief "How can you be only half-Japanese?!". Realizing that things were starting to get confusing for their little brains, I did my best to put it in an appropriate frame of reference to them. "Do you know the tv-star Becky?" ("Becky" is a half-British-Japanese celebrity in Japan that seem to be quite the hit among younger kids) I threw out and got back a cautious "yes...?". "Well, she's also half-Japanese just like me!" and with those magic words the atmosphere changed from hesitation to a more enthusiastic question of "Wow, are you also on tv?!" to which I decided to not give an over complicate answer and instead went with "No, it seems to be a lot of work, doesn't it? I come here to the park to play with toddler Sunshine instead, it's more fun".

As I took toddler Sunshine under the arm to bring her home for the feeding the girls enthusiastically waved me good-bye and asked me to bring toddler Sunshine to play some other time. As much as I loathe Becky, she did serve a purpose on this occasion in helping me frame the situation but she probably only serves as a suitable framing device for ages six and under...  

My deep dark secret...

Sounds like he did very likely

Many of us carry around big dark secrets that never gets revealed. I too have a dark secret that very few people know about... Mrs Sunshine is one of the few people who knows but most of my family and close friends have no idea... As I'm doing this blog anonymously I thought I should just get it off my chest and reveal it here to my readers.

I cannot burp... It doesn't matter what I eat or drink, I still won't burp, ever. I can't remember ever having burped properly. What happens instead is that I feel a pressure building up in my stomach and travelling up towards my mouth. What I do when this happens is to lean my head backward and open my mouth. Instead of a burp, what comes out is a long sound that sounds like I would imagine a herbivore dinosaur's mating call would sound like, and it usually lasts for several seconds. After letting it out I feel a bit better.

Mrs Sunshine found out the hard way at one point some time into our relationship as I tried to do this discreetly but she heard the sound. "Are you ok and what's that sound?" she asked with concern in her voice making me reveal my secret to her. Now she has gotten used to it coming from me from time to time, sometimes she giggles, but I think that's just her defence mechanism.

Sometimes I worry that I might have passed on this blessing and curse to Toddler Sunshine. It's a heavy burden to carry...

Me and comic books

Where's the rape kit? I think this seal did get serious injuries!

Currently I don't really have as much time to spend on the blog as I'd like to and being busy at home with the little one and being the new guy at work also means that I don't have as many amusing work stories yet, but fear not, I'll keep up the blog but it's probably not the most dynamic time right now.

So, I thought I'd sprinkle in one of my few personal introvert posts instead. This one about me and comic books. Those of you completely uninterested in the topic might as well skip it, I won't be upset with you.

When I grew up, I would say I probably read basically as much comic books as the average kid. In Sweden that mostly meant Donald Duck and some of the local Swedish humour comics ("91:an", "Lilla Fridolf" etc.). Reading comics weren't frowned upon at home and as our Dad liked the old Carl Barks Donald Duck comics from the 50's and Lee Falk's "The Phantom" (which for some reason falled into obscurity in the US but remained extremely popular in Sweden) I guess it was mildly encouraged even. As I got a bit older I switched from the cartoon comics to Superman and Superboy, which at that time in the early eighties was heavily geared towards younger kids with pretty silly plots.

Then as I got a little older still I started to get into the Marvel comics, particularly Spider-man, X-men and the Fantastic Four as those were published in Swedish language editions. For a little while I even started buying imported US Marvel comics as the Swedish publication tended to lag a few years and the offering was limited. But on a limited weekly allowance this was pretty minor, but still, going up to Stockholm and one of the few real comic book stores and check out all the American books was quite the event. 

But as I started high-school I had begun to outgrow the stories and my interest and money instead shifted to music and I basically stopped buying comics. It's not that I didn't want to like comics, it was just that I found the stories a bit too juvenile and not particularly interesting anymore. I had checked out some of the comics geared for an adult market but found them dull, expensive and focused on sex and nudity instead of stories (which I found a bit pointless as regular real porn seemed more fitting to fullfill any needs of sex and nudity). Then I remember one summer at a used market close to our summer house when our family was staying there and I came across a few cheap used copies of the Swedish edition of Watchmen and it completely blew me away. I remember managing to scavenge most of the back issues but lacking one of the volumes in the middle (in Sweden they were published two US editions combined in one). But Watchmen demonstrated how great and mature comic books could be when done right. Then a Swedish company started publishing some of the US Vertigo contemporary horror comics ("Hellblazer", "Swamp Thing" etc.) and they caught my interest, but after a while the publication stopped as the market was not large enough in Sweden. Buying imported English language versions was not really an option either as money was tight and imported stuff considerably more expensive. So throughout University I knew there were some interesting stuff out there but access to it was strictly limited.

After university I moved to Japan and started doing my Salaryman thing. For the first time in my life I found myself with a decent paycheck and money to spend on other stuff than the pure necessities. As the Japanese Amazon shop provided quite good access to US publications at decent prices I started to order some comics on a regular basis. Mostly trade paperbacks of the larger "mature-audiences" titles like Preacher, Hellblazer, Sandman and whatnot. But I still kept very far away from the Superhero comics. But sometime in 2004 or so during a visit in Sweden, facing the 10+ hour flight home, I went to the local book shop to see if I could pick up some interesting serial killer biographies or other interesting and nurturing reading to kill time with on a long flight. The bookshop also had a quite large comic section in it, but as there really wasn't anything out on the market that I particularly wanted, I didn't really plan on buying any comics. But then I saw "The Ultimates", at first I didn't really know what it was about much, but through reading on the back and quickly flipping through it I figured out that it was a reimagining of the classic superhero team "The Avengers". Without any big expectations, I bought it as I thought it might help kill an hour or so on the flight with some brain dead superhero comics.

As you might understand, it completely blew me away. It had somewhat the same effect that reading Watchmen had had on me many many years earlier. The Ultimates showed how cool it could be with superheroes if you left all the silliness and stupidity behind and put the superheroes in a somewhat realistic contemporary setting. When I first read the books, I remember how I kept thinking "this should really be made into a film". So again I started glancing a bit on the Superhero stuff out there and granted, most of it still was crap, but I started to find some really good stuff in there as well. As it turned out, the kids nowadays never read comic books, so it seems like the stories aged with the readers so by the time I came back to the superhero comics, they were no longer really written for the kids but for an audience in their 20's and 30's.

Well... "What about Manga?" you might think... The irony in it is that I live in Japan with plenty of access to cheap manga everywhere and the Japanese ability to be able to read it without too much effort, but I just never really got it... I don't hate on Manga as an art-form or storytelling device, but I just never really could get into it as I am used to the Western pacing, style and clearer divisions between genres. I tried "Akira" and some of the bigger titles back in the day and really really tried to like it, but in the end I just gave up...

There you have it, the story of me and comic books. If you made it all the way to this you might even have found it mildly interesting, who knows?        

Hey! I read "My name is Loco and I'm a racist"

No need to lower your expectations for "My name is Loco" though!

To be completely honest, I didn't really have particularly high expectations on neighbourhood blogger Loco's self-published book "My name is Loco and I'm a racist". Well, maybe that doesn't sound completely right actually, I did have expectations on it being worth 10 bucks/1000 yen but I didn't expect it to be a "real" book in terms of editing, packaging and overall feel. My expectations were more of a re-packaging of posts and a little edited to be able to give some consistency and then published as a book. As I know Loco's writing from the blog, I would have been fine with this and I thought I'd write a generally nice "review" here saying something like "it holds up in book format as well".

I was wrong, to my surprise and delight, it's a "real" book. Like the man himself says, it's hard to label it, but I'd guess it's more of a memoir than anything else with large parts of it taking place in Japan (but by no means all). Loco comes from a completely different background from me, being black and growing up in New York during times of racial tension. The path that he has travelled is also very different from mine, but this is what makes it interesting to me as I find it interesting to read different perspectives from that of mine.

As the title of the book hints at, a lot of the book is discussing the topic of racism, but not in a theoretical judgemental way, but instead based on the personal experiences that Loco has had, in Japan and the US. Not only directed at him, as a black guy, but also his own prejudice. I unfortunately don't really have the time to elaborate more on the contents, but you can check out the Amazon page for more info, but if you have any interest in Japan and/or racial issues I can only strongly recommend the book. It's very well written, and contrary to my assumption, it's not a bunch of post from his blog fused into a blog (there's a few posts in there, but they mostly fit right in and if I hadn't read them on the blog, I'd never figured it out). It's also a ferociously honest book and at times quite emotional, but manages to pull it off.

So, anything I didn't like about it? Well, not much to be honest, there's just a few small things that I'd maybe recommend Loco to think about by the time the book goes into it's 4th printing. As great as the cover of the book is, I find it jarring a bit with the content as the cover makes it look like it's a book with funny anecdotes about the square peg in Japan. Don't get me wrong, there's humour in there, but it's not the dominating theme. I guess it's up to personal taste, but slap on a more suitable cover and put it in airport book shops and I think it could really reach an audience. Then there's just one or two posts from the blog that come off as slightly disjointed in context as people are mentioned in one chapter and then again later on in the book but there's nothing to bridge what has happened in the relationships (did anyone understand that?). It's more of a teaser than anything as one chapter makes me interested in knowing more on what happened later on but is not followed up on later in the book. Then finally, a really small thing, but in a few places the book writes out the Japanese characters for words but in most places it does not. For a nano-second or so it shakes my brain a bit and I personally think that the Japanese characters are not needed as the book is not for Japanese learning purposes anyway.

In conclusion. Get the book. If you are the type of person that haven't figured out e-books it's also available in a paperback edition now here. I'm eagerly looking forward to his upcoming stuff and what he could possibly pull off with hopefully decent sales from My Name is Loco behind him!

(Maybe I need to explain the choice of picture here a bit... But what I meant to illustrate here is how I initially expected the product to be like only to be surprised to see that it actually looks exactly like the picture on the box with no need to lower any expectations)       

My daughter indeed!

Kill enemies, score points!

Again, apologies for the lack of posting recently, the cold and entering a quite work-intense period at the company has made it difficult to gather up the energy to post much recently... For the first time in quite a few weekends I had a weekend without work and found it extremely difficult to get rid of little toddler Sunshine as she kept following me wherever I went in the house to make sure I wasn't running out on her again. That she's now also figured out how to climb stairs and move the sorry excuse of a baby-gate we put at the bottom of the stairs means that she is not restricted in movements either.


So, I did turn on the Playstation to relax with an exceptionally gory game and of course, within minutes of going upstairs to the computer/work/Salaryman-play-room I heard the panting and patter of feet as she climbed up the streets, followed by a squeal of joy as she saw me and my iPad next to me (it's quite packed with toddler-friendly apps). As she's now a little past a year and a half, I briefly considered whether I needed to turn off the gory game as to not traumatize her but decided against it for the moment. As she hopped up next to me on the sofa, grabbing the iPad with her hands, she noticed the noise and movement from the tv-screen and stared at the game for a few moments, just as I was shooting up a few enemies and putting my knife through the eye of one of them. 
I expected perhaps some crying or in best case indifference, but instead she screamed out a huge happy "Yay!" as I kept up the killing in the game, each kill followed by a happy "Yay!" for about half a minute until she decided that the iPad provided more fun and she turned her attention to that instead. 


So yep, not that there was any doubt before, but if this isn't complete and final confirmation that she's my little daughter, I don't know what is! 

Hip Hop is dead!

...because I'm a teenager, with a little gold...

I'm sure that all of my readers knew this already, but hip-hop as any form of counter-society movement/music is very dead...
I used to be a punk in spirit and from high school a fan of industrial music (we used to call it "synthare" = EBM-head) but what I carried with me from the punk days is an enthusiasm for anything that comes from the cracks in the side-walk and out of the ordinary.
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Going back in time, this means that even though I never really got the point of hip-hop I really liked the message that NWA and Public Enemy were sending when they got political (which wasn't enough if you ask me...). 
As I liked, and still like, aggressive music, I always felt that it would be great to have the hip-hop revolutionary guys take one step further from the mainstream and just launch into the counter-culture, but instead they became the mainstream... This is not as much of a point as it is a reflection as there are few songs that I love as much as "Straight outta Compton", just that the revolution got kinda lost... In any case, the whole point of this post is that we recently had the whole senior management over here in Japan and they made a big deal out of it with fancy videos and stuff...


The thing was that in one of the videos presenting the senior management they had the whole hip-hop thing going, with scratching and everything, while presenting a couple of middle-aged white dudes... At that precise moment I felt that hip-hop, as any form of social commentary was dead...  When a few middle-aged white dudes at an american medical device company thinks it's "cool" to have a soundtrack of hip-hop beats and scratching, that means that the whole thing is dead...    

It's cold and miserable here!

Wouldn't make a difference here...

First off, apologies for the lack of posting recently, work, Toddler Sunshine and the cold here in Japan at the moment makes it hard to find time to do any amusing or insightful posts. 


As I mention this every year, I thought I should follow through with my tradition and complain about the cold this year again. Ok, Tokyo is not that extremely cold compared to northern Europe or northern north america but it's the lack of central heating and proper insulation that makes it feel a lot worse here... Although the Salaryman base of operations is a new house and built a lot smarter to keep some of the heat inside, it still is pretty cold inside and now after the whole Fukushima ordeal electricity is not something that you want to use too much of (both for financial and general power saving reasons) making it hard to protect oneself from the cold apart from putting on another layer...


Unfortunately we do not have any temporary escape plan this year either, before babies and stuff, this would be the perfect time to take a quick vacation to a considerable warmer country in south-east asia and get to hate on the heat again before coming back to the giant fridge that is Japan. So we just have to gut through another month or so of cold before spring...

It's completely Loco!

I wonder if anyone told him that backpacks are for dorks?

There's a select few of the bloggers from Japan that I feel some form of closeness to. As I personally don't actively go out hunt for Japan blogs much it usually takes a little time for that odd virtual "relationship" to form. The closeness does not necessarily form due to content, writing style or stuff like that, probably more out of the approach to blogging. I've never actively set out to get in any kind of blogging community or participated in Japan related message boards so it's more organic than anything.

Then there's also these bloggers that I know of and respect without feeling particularly close to in a blogging sense. One of those is Loco in Yokohama that's run by Baye "Loco" McNeil. As far as I know, he's probably been around as long as this little blog, I've been aware of the blog for a while and while not following it extremely diligently, it's still been a blog that I've enjoyed at times and always respected. But I've never really felt particularly "close" to it and there's one big difference; Loco almost always felt like a pro. He's a Writer that writes a blog because he's a Writer. Thematically and in his posts, he always felt like a pro following a path that he's set out for himself as a writer, not like me who don't particularly care about grammatical errors or plan very much about what I'm writing about a given day. So not "feeling particularly close" to my blog is not really a bad thing in that sense.

So to my not so big surprise, Loco has self-published his first book "Hi my name is Loco". It doesn't feel like a surprise but more like a logical consequence for him moving from a blog to publishing a book. Don't let the cartoony cover fool you though, it's not a collection of amusing anecdotes about living in Japan, from what I've gathered it confronts the theme of racism in Japan head on in parts. But you can click the link above yourself to check it out, read some excerpts and check out his blog to get a feeling for what the book is about.


To be completely honest, I don't really think that much of racism in Japan as I've been exposed to more mean-spirited racism living in Sweden than in Japan as a half-Japanese-Swedish guy with looks leaning towards Asian. But Loco, as a black guy from New York, coming to Japan without much knowledge of what to expect (at least that's what I've gathered) gets exposed to a lot of it from expected and unexpected corners.


I bought the book when I saw it was out and it's currently stored in the Kindle app on my iPad and am looking forward to reading it as soon as I finish up what already is queued up. I'm also quite convinced that it's ten bucks well spent as his blog kinda vouches for the quality (hey, if you check out his blog and hate the writing, then maybe this book ain't for you but then you can get on with your life without feeling like you wasted money). I might post a "review" with my thoughts on it when I've finished up with it as well.


If the above got your interest even a little, you can do yourself a favor and check out the blog and book site and see if it catches your interest.
...now, maybe it's time for me to dust off those thoughts about publishing that collection of essays and thoughts on Manpanzees that's been cooking in my head for a few years...