Kobo Daishi is my Kobopilot

Sometimes victory isn't enough.

I was poring over some historical texts recently, and I read about something called a "Pyrrhic Victory." At once, my thoughts turned to the Victory Charm I'd purchased some time ago. "Victory" can mean a lot of things, and though the charm might ensure victory, that doesn't mean I can't lose an arm or an ally in the process.

I need more spiritual protection to make myself more than simply unbeatable. With that in mind, I lately journeyed up the mountain called Koyasan, to a city of Buddhist monks. Temples are numerous in Koyasan; it boasts little else, in fact, aside from some Buddhist corpses of considerable renown. When the zombie apocalypse comes, Koyasan will be host to an innumerable horde of peaceful vegetarian zombies.

I was fortunate to find a charm whose purpose dovetails nicely with the Victory Charm. According to the description I read, its purpose is to displace misfortune away from me. Whenever something bad would happen to me, Kobo Daishi, whoever he is, will accept the misfortune on my behalf. It looks like this:



Again, the mechanics of the charm are a little tricky to suss out. Obviously not every misfortune triggers the charm; I'm still capable of losing coinflips, I've noticed. And I suffered a minor injury not long after buying the charm: in testing myself in a local trial-by-ordeal, my finger was lightly smashed by the stone I was trying to lift. Though painful, it was useful as a test case. Kobo Daishi might have taken some of the damage for me, or the charm may not have intervened at all. A small injury to my finger may not have been considerable enough to justify triggering the charm.

It probably won't trigger if I invite misfortune on purpose, either, so I'm guessing I can't get naked drunk in a 7-11 and rely on Kobo Daishi to take the rap. Overall, it's a lot more difficult to see this charm working than the Victory Charm, which has already passed a few tests. Kobo Daishi could be taking hits for me left and right and I wouldn't necessarily know about it. I'd feel bad about subjecting Kobo to all that, but after a little reading, it seems like he's purportedly in an indefinite state of Samadhi ever since his alleged death, which all-knowing Wikipi says releases him from all suffering.

So basically, any pain I send Kobo's way is just so much water off a duck's back. Not a bad deal for either of us. BTW, that same Wikipi article also contains the phrase "destruction of the taints." If you are offended by my juvenile sense of humor, direct your reprobates at Kobo Daishi.

Drifting Off

"Blurring the line between fantasy and reality?" came a voice.

"Uh, yeah," I said. Shit, where was I? An unfamiliar ceiling weaved through my vision. "Risky, I know..."

"You needed a buffer," said the voice again. It was female, with a marginal Japanese accent, and I didn't see where it was coming from. Not surprising, since I didn't seem to be able to turn my head away from the ceiling.

"I need bufferin. Why's my head hurt?"

"Heh, funny story," said the voice. "Remember that awful hangover you mentioned in your first post in this blog?"

"Yeah, vaguely."

"Yup," said the voice. "Vaguely. That's it exactly. You said you didn't clearly remember the time you spent hung over. I'm able to use that blank spot in your memory to communicate with you. That's why you're experiencing it again."

"What?" I said. "No, there's no blank spot, I made that part up. That was a plot hook for something I was gonna make up later."

"Well," said the voice, a little apologetically, "I'm pulling that particular ripcord on your behalf. It didn't look like you were going to do it."

"Yeah," I said, "I kinda let this blog slide, didn't I? The longer I left it, the more intimidating the prospect of catching up with the story became..."

I looked around. Shit, I really was in that hotel room, knocked out with that bile-coughing hangover. "Can we get this over with? I don't want to spend any more time in this memory."

"It actually has more in common with honest-to-goodness time travel than visiting memories," said the voice. "Anyway, you should have made a buffer of fictional posts back before your schedule got too burdensome. That's what you did wrong."

"You're not going to berate me about my laziness, or my ongoing crisis of confidence? Nothing like that?"

"I figured I'd offer you something practical, rather than add hang-ups to hangover."

I briefly mulled over her advice.

"Is that all?"

"That's all."

"Who are you?"

"My name's Hiro."

I hesitated. "That's a girl's name?"

"Unisex."

"No shit?" I paused. "Anyway, that doesn't really answer my question."

Hiro laughed.

"Whatever," I said. "We're done, right? How do I go back?"

"Just go back to sleep, I'll take care of the rest."

I let my eyes close, and tried shifting my weight. By this point I'd adjusted to the hangover enough that I could do so without much discomfort, so I opened my eyes and looked over to the corner of the room that Hiro's voice had seemed to be coming from.

Hiro was an Office Lady by the look of her, dressed in modest women's business wear. Hard to tell from this angle, but she seemed a little tall for a Japanese woman. Mid-twenties, and cute, I guess, albeit upside-down from my vantage point.

When I looked up at her, her neutral expression caught a flash of shock. She began leafing through some stapled-together pages she was holding, looking for something. On the pages she'd flipped over, I could make out some text, right-side-up from my perspective. I recognized my name, and some familiar-looking words...

Goddammit, I know what this is. That's a script she's reading from. It has everything I was going to say on it, and everything she was supposed to respond with.

"Man, fuck time travel," I said, pressing one hand against the wall and lifting myself to my feet. I probably wasn't too weak to stand, but I didn't feel like taking any chances. "Thanks, lady."

I focused my eyes on the shelves next to the door of my tiny tatami room and pushed off the wall, aiming my grasp for the bars supporting the shelves. I caught them, swung my weight over to the door, and started fumbling with the doorknob.

"Wait," said Hiro. I turned to look at her.

"You shouldn't try to leave," she said, without her earlier confidence in her words. "You need to be unconscious to go back."

She tried to flash a reassuring smile, and revealed rows of long, sharp, reptilian teeth. This girl had a T-Rex mouth. I let my eyes take a second to confirm what I was seeing before I groaned in disgust, turned the lock, and opened the door.

By this time I'd turned away from Hiro, so I didn't see her as she leapt forward, threw her arms around my torso, and knocked me to the ground. Before I could even switch gears away from trying to remember where the elevator was, I felt her teeth sinking into my left shoulder. The stabbing pain was joined by a feeling of liquid pressure, something flowing in rather than out of the fresh wound.

Okay, I thought to myself. Venom.

Numbness spread outward from my shoulder. My body gave an involuntary jerk as the sensation dulled in my neck, and I slept.

So that was my day. I woke up back in my apartment, in the present day, with a brief note of apology taped to my somehow un-bite-marked left shoulder. Going meta, it seems, is not a painless process.

Pureishibo

I've been getting on this dietary supplement I found a little while ago, and it's done great things for my mood and energy level. It's a pouch of jelly called VAAM, and it looks like this.





I'm not sure what these things are. They're the wrong color for elf tears, which is a damn shame.



But this is a reference to the synthetic hornet secretions VAAM contains. Supposedly, they let the human body turn fat into energy more efficiently, the way the Asian Giant Hornet does. I normally wouldn't be inclined to believe it, but since I already believe in magical soda, I'm fully prepared to accept that VAAM gives me hornet powers.

What powers, you ask?

How about the power to kill a yak?

No, seriously, Wikipedia says they're nicknamed the "yak-killer hornet". You really couldn't ask for a better setup to a Tenacious D reference.

Anyway, I'm basically hooked on the stuff. I suppose it's possible that all that hornet essence will cause me to develop less desirable Giant Hornet traits, like cruelty and a poisonous sting, but by the time anyone notices that, it'll be far too late to stop me.

Backlog of Musings

Drinks:

I bummed around a university here in Osaka and saw something new:



That's smartwater right there. There's pictures of SCIENCE all over it. I haven't seen it sold anywhere else.

For this reason, most of all, I love Japan's ubiquitous vending machines: you can always find something new, something rare, out there, and the Japanese love to imbue drinks with supernatural properties, like berry soda that makes you smarter, or Oronamin C, which in sufficient quantities causes you to be illustrated by KC Green.

Which is an honor, obviously, but not all that pleasant.

So if you choose to buy into that sort of thing, which I obviously do, then walking around Japan becomes a search for rare magical potions. Mountain Dew is all the sweeter when you have to have someone draw you a map to the places where it's sold.

Omizutori:

I headed back to the temple in Nara with all the deer for a yearly fire festival called Omizutori, where a giant ball of oily fronds is carried all around the outside of the temple.



It wasn't easy to get a good picture, but even at that size... does it remind you of something?



Except instead of exploding when its hit points are low, it drops ash that people pick up to use as a lucky charm. I'm not sure how you're supposed to bring out the lucky properties of the ash, but then I'm a little clueless on Japanese mysticism in general, at least outside of its magical, magical soft drinks. I've been keeping my Victory Charm in its original paper sleeve inside my wallet, and I'm pretty sure you're supposed to keep it hanging out in the open. But it stays cleaner this way, and it hasn't failed me yet.

There's even more news on the supernatural front: this pond I passed by after Omizutori, clearly, is a danger to children. But what is this strange, ethereal smoke that rises from its waters?



Could it be anything but a hazy mass of the departed spirits claimed by the fathomless waters? Could it be my breath, visible in the cold air, as I exhale into the air in front of my camera?

Theater:



This is a poster I saw in Shinsaibashi, for a theater troupe made up entirely of women. It's a rarity in Japan, where traiditional theater, like Kabuki and Noh, is performed entirely by men.

After they're done with whatever's being advertised here, they're apparently doing a performance based on the Phoenix Wright games, commissioned by Capcom. So all the characters, including that one overweight, unshaven loser cop, are going to be played by chicks.

And while some people might object to that, perhaps loudly, perhaps while standing up and pointing an accusing finger in the direction of the troupe, I'm in favor of it. I've always said that all fictional characters should not only be played by women, they should all be women. I want to see strong, heroic women saving weak, helpless women from evil, heartless women, and I want to see nothing else. Bechdel's only flaw was a failure of ambition.

Just to prove I'm right: isn't The Sarah Connor Chronicles better than any of the Terminator movies? I have no idea, because I sure as shit don't watch it, but you see what I'm getting at: female Terminator. She'd be protecting Joanna Connor if the show's producers had the courage of their convictions, but still, it's a step in the right direction.

Velvet Marauder, why you no post?

I think you have me confused with someone else. Someone gay else.

Anyway, been working on Tadashi's secret project. It got boring pretty quick, actually; I'm just sorting through "ontological data," which means I'm evaluating how well the memetic algorithm is reading my co-workers' emotional states.

Back in the beginning of last week, the company put all the English-language employees through a "health screening" as an excuse to slap holograms on their foreheads. And, yeah, it's the holograms that are apparently doing the mind-reading work; they're obviously more than just holograms at this point, but the ability to read information in three-dimensional space was apparently derived from the basic hologram's ability to create a seemingly three-dimensional image.

I'd love to be able to explain it. Tadashi told me I wouldn't understand, and I said "try me," and he explained.

I learned exactly one thing from the ensuing jargon-soaked spiel, namely that Tadashi himself didn't really understand how any of it worked either. He read haltingly from a printout, translating on the fly, until I gestured for him to stop.

"Never mind," I said. "I'll just get to work."

And then he asked me if I knew how to use Excel.

Yeah, that's what I've been using. Microsoft Fucking Excel. Was I expecting to do my work on something cooler? Oh, maybe. Since you're asking, I wouldn't have said no to a hovering crystal with a three-dimensional multitouch UI. Or a robot catgirl maid with a Dance Dance Revolution interface, as long as I'm getting the Japan experience.

But Excel is technically all I need. And strictly speaking, my actual workstation isn't my PC, it's...

Well, as Tadashi explained, what we're currently testing is the algorithm's ability to discern thoughts and emotions through the lens of an English-speaking mind. So, until we've established that it can do that, the only thing capable of bug-checking the algorithm is...

An English-speaking mind. So... me, basically. It kind of puts Tadashi's assertion that I'm not a test subject into a dubious light. I spend most of the day with a hologram stuck to my forehead too, except instead of getting mind-read, I'm mind-reading.

It's hard to describe the experience of having another person's emotions written into your brain. Let me see if an allegory comes to mind. Uh... it's like, if you were in a cave, backlit by a bonfire, and you watched your own shadow dancing around on the walls.

Yeah, that works. That just came to me, just now. Can you copyright an allegory? Because I smell licensing deal. Soft drink tie-ins. Michael Bay, director.

Anyway, you distantly identify the shadow as "yourself," and whatever it appears to be doing, you sort of feel like you're experiencing it. If I didn't know it was coming from outside of myself, I guess I could mistake it for the real thing.

The algorithm's pretty smart about cherry-picking positive emotions; sorting through them means braving an onslaught of warm fuzzies, interspersed with the occasional misfiled instance of sarcasm or irony. If there's any work for me to do at all, actually, it's teaching the algorithm to understand those things. All it would take is one sarcastic comment from a user, and suddenly the algorithm thinks that human happiness is derived from "being talked down to like I don't know how to do my own fucking job, oh, and being yelled at, that really fucking helps."

I'm making some headway as far as that goes, which suits me fine. Tadashi's gotten kinda cold to me in the past few days, and having something to report to him takes the edge off. I don't know what his deal is lately - trouble at home, pressure from above, whatever - but he's recently taken a serious, professional interest in swooping over to my desk and assaulting my workspace with his X-Ray Glower until I assure him that I'm not getting high and trying to teach the algorithm about boobs.

The algorithm already knows about boobs, by the way.

White Day is just around the corner!

And the White Day desserts are in!

Apparently white chocolate and marshmallow treats are the traditional White Day fare. Don't women, and really, people in general, prefer real chocolate? I'll be getting obligation chocolate for my female co-workers, and I'm worried I'll have trouble finding anything that has actual cocoa powder in it.

Anyway, local desserteries, of which there are numerous, have their White day specialties ready, and the shop that specializes in piles of glazed fruit has created a follow-up to the Valentine's Day treat I covered last month:



As you can see, it's actually a direct response to the Valentine's Day dessert. That's what my desserts have been missing! Continuity!

If my desserts had a continuity editor, maybe we wouldn't keep doing that story every Spring where I try eating Peeps and then decide they kind of suck. Also, sometimes I'll be taking bites from a candy bar, and we'll cut to another shot, and then when we cut back to me, the entire candy bar will be totally intact in my hand. I'm sure that sort of thing has happened to you, and I for one am deliciously fed up with it.

Once more into the Repository

I hung back a bit from the lunch table today, hoping to ride out whatever rant Rachel was in the middle of. From the sound of it, she'd read some kind of unfavorable review of an anime she liked, probably written in 2005 and long-forgotten by its own author.

According to Rachel, westerners don't approach anime with the same intellectual rigor with which they assess other forms of entertainment. And for some reason that turns Rachel's life into a waking nightmare. So cut it out, people.

Once the tirade started winding down, I ambled over and took a seat. Today's lunch was ramen, and if you've never tried a piping hot bowl of Japanese ramen, you absolutely must, because it offers a unique culinary experience. How should I describe it...

Have you ever heated a razor over a flame and then drawn it lengthwise across your tongue?

Yes? You have? Well, that's also what it's like to slurp up a ramen noodle from a freshly-boiling bowl of ramen. But me, I barely got to revel in the sensation before Tadashi waved me away from the table yet again.

We walked back to the Repository of Normal-Sized Things, mostly in silence, until he waved me into the room. Whatever stopped him dead last time we came this way was absent, unless Tadashi possesses an acute and highly situational fear of whiteboards and comfortable chairs. The room was pretty lavish, actually, with high-backed black chairs, tasteful plant life, and a huge window of frosted glass occupying most of the exterior wall. The descending early-afternoon sun was just creeping into the window's field of view. Tadashi left the lights off as we entered.

The whiteboards were clean, though a sharp eye and a ready knowledge of kanji could no doubt glean something from the faint outlines left behind. Aside from the written words, there appeared to be a number of Venn diagrams connected by arrows. Tadashi waved for me to sit down, and we took two chairs on the same side of the table.

Tadashi was silent for a moment. I recognized the expression of someone not sure how to begin.

"Do you know how antidepressants work?" asked Tadashi, finally. Briefly, I contemplated the distressing and thoroughly boring possibility that Tadashi had simply brought me here because I looked mopey.

"Yeah," I said. "Basically, they block receptors which..."

That's where my brain ran out of information. Apparently the number of things I know about antidepressants falls between zero and one.

Tadashi, not much put off by my fractional phrasing, proceeded. "The brain is poorly understood," he said, in what may have been a direct slam at my embarrassing lack of knowledge. "Our company has a solution which serves the same purpose as these drugs."

"What does this have to do with me?" I could have asked. But I sort of suspected that the conversation was headed in that direction, what with me and him being the only people in the room.

"What one brain understands, another can understand," continued Tadashi. "If one brain knows how to be happy, and one does not... Could a method exist to share that information? To use drugs to chemically alter the brain... it is like constructing a digital picture of a tree by typing a sequence of ones and zeroes. It would be better if an existing picture could simply be copied and pasted... yes?"

"That would be great," I said, "And not even a little bit evil."

Of course I didn't say that last part; I'm not stupid.

"Evil?" said Tadashi. Holy hell, I did say that last part! Good lord I'm stupid!

"Errrrgh..." I mumbled. "Well, you didn't expect to get very far into this conversation without me pointing out the ethical gray area of inserting ideas directly into human brains."

We are talking about human brains, right? I've really gone and embarrassed myself if the process only works on bunnies.

"Yes, I expected it," Tadashi said, shifting his weight up in his chair. "But... humans cannot just live in fear-"

"No, no," I said, waving my hand reassuringly. "I'm in."

"Na-" started Tadashi, leaning forward. "Really?"

"Yeah," I said. "I mean... I think you were going to say something about the incredible potential of something that can effect that sort of change in the human mind, that we shouldn't let fear and doubt, um, um-" Shit, I was on a roll. "Shouldn't let fear and doubt keep us from lifting ourselves up as a... species."

Tadashi nodded slowly.

"Even if making people happy is all it can do, we're basically solving humanity's most basic need, right? I mean, it doesn't make people stand around drooling, does it?"

"Eto... The testing is not complete, but no, we do not expect that. The Hyperreal can manage emotions without affecting, eto, productivity."

I stood up and spread my arms. "How can I help?"

I may have been overdoing it at this point.

"As I said, the testing is incomplete," Tadashi said. "The emotional management is created by something, the engineer team calls it... I am sorry, just a moment." He patted his suit pocket and produced a slip of paper. "I had to translate it myself, I hope it makes sense... it is a 'memetic algorithm, harnessing ontological understanding.'"

"So... some kind of logic that understands people's ideas?"

"Yes! The holograms use the algorithm to read, and communicate with, the human mind. But we are concerned about a language barrier. This is why we brought on an English-language team. If the algorithm can learn to communicate with a brain that thinks in English, we feel it will have proven itself."

"We're test subjects, then?"

"As of now... everyone besides yourself, yes."

Well! Dodged a bullet there, didn't I? Anyway, this seems like a good deal, and a serious career move. Whatever informal psych-eval Tadashi's been doing on me, I'm glad I went along with it! We spoke a bit more about what kind of tests we'd have to run, and I went back to finish my lunch.

I had to buy myself a new bowl of ramen, of course, and everyone on my team had already gone back to work. I considered getting the spicy stuff, but honestly, given the incredible heat already present, it seems a bit-

Oh, okay, okay, I know. You don't care about the ramen. You're all like, "Oh, you sure agreed to this mind-control thing quickly. Are you going to do something bad with it?"

And I'm like, what's with all the questions? "Am I gonna do something bad?" How the hell should I know? Am I gonna ask Rachel out on a date? Am I gonna visit Tokyo this month? What am I having for lunch tomorrow?

I don't know what I'm going to do - for one thing, I still don't know a lot about what I'm working with. If it looks like it's going to destroy civilization, then I'll probably stop it, so quit your bellyaching. If it could make me overlord of humanity, then maybe I'll steal it. If it can eliminate discord and strife worldwide, then Tadashi and me will hacksaw a Nobel Peace Prize into two equal pieces. I'm keeping my options open, is what I'm saying.

Oh, and "mind control"? Your words, not mine.

Sunday at Universal Studios Osaka: You Will Get Wet on This Ride, Because it is Raining

If there was ever a testament to the poisonous influence of American culture, the slow twisting of values and priorities away from humanity and towards okay I'm obviously just fucking with you. Here's some pictures from Universal Studios Osaka!



Universal Studios is actually where you can find some really incredible experiences, and I'm not talking about memories of spending quality time with friends and loved ones. No no no. God no. I could see how you could think that, but no. I'm talking about the designed, prepackaged experiences contained inside their "movie rides."

The Spider-Man ride is the star of the show, combining movement and the illusion thereof in perfect concert with the ride's ridiculous narrative. It does a really incredible job of dropping you in the middle of an unreal action sequence, better than anything else in the world as far as I know. No small accomplishment.

After that, of course, the rest of the park is a bit less impressive. The Jaws Ride:



The Jaws ride is a painstakingly constructed recreation of what would happen if the titular shark put himself at a huge disadvantage by only invading tightly enclosed spaces and consequently got offed in three minutes by a theme park employee. It's actually pretty cool, and the live actor running the ride serves a critical role in directing the experience; for most of the ride, she (we had a female actress, anyway) directs and misdirects the audience's attention by pointing her rifle in the direction she ostensibly thinks the shark will be coming from, and in one dark environment she does the same thing with a flashlight. It keeps the audience's eyes pointing in the best possible direction, complimenting the environment design.

The Jurassic Park ride wasn't as impressive, but it did play host to my finest moment of the afternoon. Because it was raining and JP was a water-based ride, I chose to strap on a pair of goggles I had recently purchased.



As a result, when the animatronic spitting dinosaur spat ordinary water in my face, I was completely protected. It's like I always, always say: I'm smarter than Wayne Knight.

Anyway, other highlights:



Americana! Every possible detail is absolutely perfect! Except for the "Coney Island" hot dogs, apparently. I didn't try one, but the other members of my team said they were awful. I don't know what mishmash of animals they grind up for the meat. Possibly tanuki, which means you're gettin' a pretty good percentage of testicle in there. Like, double digits.



I pointed out that there were four males and four females in our group, which no one else had apparently noticed, so we were able to buy four "Love Passes." We were obligated to hug each other before we got the passes, and thus bound eternally by the Red String of Fate.

The Job: Into the Repository of Normal-Sized Things

So... I already wrote my blog post about Universal Studios, but I want to talk about this first.

Today I got to have lunch with Tim and Rachel again. That was nice, because Tadashi, as I've mentioned, has been my insistent companion some time now. Not surprisingly, the topic of the day was why the hell Tadashi's been keeping me to himself.

"Are you getting promoted or something?" said Rachel.

"After a matter of weeks?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "What could I possibly have done to merit that?"

"Yeah, nothing really," she said. "But Tim wanted to suggest that Tadashi was gay for you and I thought I'd class up the conversation by saying something else first."

"And thank God that's over with," said Tim. He inhaled, then deeply intoned, "GAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" he paused to take a sip of CC Lemon, "-AAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY."

"I'm not ruling that out," I said evenly. "Oh, wait, I mean..."

I leaned across the table, raised my eyebrows, and smiled seductively. "I'm not ruling that out."

I leaned back. "But even still, I can't see why it's just me he'd want to hang out with. He'd love you guys. What did you two do in that interview to make him hate you so much?"

Tim: "I made unambiguous reference to my heterosexuality."

Rachel: "I laid down a fart of annihilating potency."

I crossed my arms sternly. "That's disgusting, Tim. Anyway, Tadashi just picks my brain about philosophy and science fiction and talks about the incredible potential of the holograms."

"And it doesn't occur to him that you might learn more about them if you actually did some work with them?" asked Tim.

I shrugged. From the cafeteria's front entryway, Tadashi strolled into view behind Tim and Rachel and approached our table. I casually urged Tim and Rachel to immediately say the nastiest things they could think of about Tadashi. That didn't work.

Tadashi waved me up from the table. I slumped, perhaps visibly; Tadashi's an okay guy and all, but I feel like our conversations aren't going anywhere. And yet it wasn't but a moment before I was walking behind Tadashi through a familiar hallway. Am I already an unquestioning cog in a corporate machine?

"Hey, Tadashi, we just passed the office. Where are we going?"

Oh, apparently not. Cool.

"Ah," said Tadashi. "I am showing you something different today. I think we are in agreement on the future of Hyperreal, and I want you to see how we are making it real."

We stopped in front of a solid-looking white door labeled... well, my kanji's not real good, so I actually have no idea what it said. All I really know is the kanji for "big," which is damn near ubiquitous. Whatever's behind the door is normal-sized or smaller, that's all I can tell you.

He swiped his card in front of a panel by the door and laboriously pulled the heavy door open. "I realize I have been talking at great length this week," he said, "but when you see what's in here, I don't think you will regret talking with Tadashi... ma.. tta."

Something inside the door had stopped Tadashi in his tracks. Before I could sidestep over to look, he pushed the door closed and smiled at me. "I am very sorry," he said. "Perhaps tomorrow would be a better day to show this to you. You may return to lunch."

So... Huh? I didn't see Tadashi for the rest of the day.

HAI GUISE

wooooooo

went drinking with tadashi

dudes a lightweight

likes to hear himself thalk, though

He's been talking my ear off all week about the Hyperreal's potential, actually, pretty much monopolizing all my free time ((yeah, I got tired of typing like an idiot. I'm drunk, not retarded). Tonight he was trying to finding common ground between us in terms of speculative fiction. Turns out we've both seen A Clockwork Orange, which he was happy about, very briefly, before he went into this rant about how the film was too dark, how science fiction in general was doom and gllom.

It's true! It's worth while to think about the problems of the future, but there's such a thing as being too cautious

I want nanomachines now, fuck your goo

I had to explain that reference to Tadashi. I guess another future thing I want is to embed Wikipi links in spoken words. Wikipi is what I call it.

Tomorrow I'm going to Universal Studios. Not sure what's there. Should be fun.

The Job: Workaday Bafflement with Tadashi

I went into Tadashi's office on Monday. I was the last of the English-language team to be called, which might have been an advantageous position if anyone else had given me an idea of what to expect. I'd asked, believe me, but no two people had quite seemed to have the same experience, and there was no consensus on what Tadashi was actually looking for.

"Think of it this way," Tim said, "If you fuck up, you'll have no way of knowing."

Thanks, Tim!

"Tadashi's Office" was really just an all-purpose office where any two people could go if they needed a desk for one person to be in front of and another person to be behind. Obviously, "workplace harassment" roleplaying is the first thing that comes to mind, but Tadashi didn't seem like the type.

He was there when I entered, sitting between the desk and a blank white wall, wearing the same smile I'm now used to seeing in Japanese fast food places. Not fake, exactly, just... practiced. Automatic. He beckoned me to sit.

"I've called you to discuss a concern the company has, for the content team," he said. "You are familiar with our company's philosophy."

If he meant the five-page document we'd been handed on our first day, then yeah, I was familiar with it. At a glance, it was airy-fairy rambling interposed with diagrams linking together abstract concepts in vaguely occult-looking pattens. I eventually attempted a closer reading, and discovered that the last couple of paragraphs were actually a pretty straightforward statement of purpose and responsibility.

Anyway, I nodded.

“This is a difficult thing to say, I think,” said Tadashi. “I don’t want you to get the idea that we are saying, ‘you cannot be creative, you cannot make your own ideas.’ You understand.”

I nodded again, and quietly resolved to keep nodding until the talking stopped.

“Good. What we want to say is… the product, the Hyperreal, is meant to communicate, you understand. We want to create a good communication, good ideas. I want to explain - what I mean by a good idea or a bad idea…”

I couldn’t quite tell if I was supposed to fill this pause. Eh, what the hell.

“Like, if we implied that violence was funny – a scene with two characters hitting each other, or something like that.” I paused. “Bad idea.”

“Yes!” said Tadashi. My answer seemed to ease the mood. “If people see it, and are motivated for something bad… like violence, or greed. That is not what we want to make. It is entertainment with a purpose.”

“I understand,” I said. “You want us to be careful of what ideas we promote, so people come away with the right kind of motivation.”

Again, I couldn’t quite tell whether it was still my turn to speak. It occurred to me to wonder why these were one-on-one sessions.

“Um,” I continued, “One of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, wrote a book like that.” Tadashi’s mouth silently traced the unfamiliar word Vonnegut. “Breakfast of Champions was the name of the novel. A man reads a book of science fiction, and he goes insane because he believes what it says. The idea was bad for him.”

As some of you might know, that’s an oversimplification, even without the stiff language. But it made Tadashi smile – it was clearly encouraging to him that I was familiar with the concept he was trying to get across.

“I think you understand,” said Tadashi. “We like to be creative, but to be responsible as well. If we can motivate people, it is a great responsibility. To have an idea yourself is a small thing. To give ideas to others is much bigger, and so the responsibility too is a large one.”

Before another awkward pause could descend, words of vague agreement spilled out of my mouth. I panic a little bit in situations like this, when all someone wants is for me to agree with them on something. It's no easier when the subject matter is something I don't feel strongly about, like "ideas are important." I mean, I agree, but trying to be enthusiastic about something so vague and indisputable is like trying to compose an impassioned speech about the health benefits of oxygen.

Still, I can generally mutter something that brings the awkwardness to an end, and whatever I said to Tadashi - something about ideas changing the world, I think, and the word "revolution" was in there somewhere - was apparently a good cap to the conversation. He smiled and stood, and I followed and bowed.

I have no idea what just happened.

Idle Weekend Exploration

One thing that's surprised me about Japan is how damn hard it is to find video arcades around here. Pachinko parlors, that's a different story. The place is lousy with them, and I'm a little hesitant to go in, for fear that I might develop an addiction and have to go cold turkey when I leave.

Anyway, as I implied, I've been searching for a proper arcade, and... look what I found!




I mean, I just stumbled across it by accident, but it's good to know where it is. It might not be a bad place for a date, you know? I'm sure there's some girls around here who don't know about it, and since I was lucky enough to find it, I can show them where it is.

The Job: Chatting over Noodles

Today I had lunch down in the café with Tim and Rachel, two other members of the English content team. In case their names didn’t tip you off to their gaijin heritage.

Tim’s one of those guys who couldn’t be bothered to develop a fashion sense of his own, and defaulted to “clean-cut” because it helps you get jobs and some women have a kink for that sort of thing. That’s not meant as an insult, by the way; I’ve never really trusted people who have a handle on fashion.

And Rachel… Rachel’s excited to be in Japan. She makes me feel bad for not knowing all her anime references, and she presents me daily with the uncomfortable possibility that I would be a happier person if I embraced geekiness rather than publically distancing myself from it.

Today the conversation is about work, and the ongoing process of getting comfortable in the company’s specific take on Japanese corporate culture.

“Tadashi kinda reminds me of…” starts Rachel, then thinks better of it, an anime reference dying in her throat. (no, I’m not an omniscient narrator, I’m just presumptuous)

“Tadashi seems nervous about something,” she amends. Tadashi’s our handler, a young aide to Yamata-san who speaks English on his behalf. “Like he thinks there’s a spy on our team.”

“A spy?” says Tim. “Corporate or double-oh-seven?”

“That’s the thing,” Rachel says. “It sounds like he’s looking for something ideological.”

“Terrorist, then?” I offer.

“Kinda. When I was in his office this morning, he was asking me all these questions, like he was trying to get me to let something slip. Like he expects me to steal the Hyperreal process, or blow up the building where they make them.”

“Hyperreal” is what the holograms are called. Because they look real.

“God, the company has a huge ego about these things,” I say, pushing curry udon around in my bowl. “Or maybe it’s just Yamata, and he’s got Tadashi running around trying to safeguard it like it was the cure for ball cancer.”

Oh god, sometimes I just say things. “Ball cancer”? I mean, Tim and Rachel are adults, they’re not offended, but where the hell did that come from? I swear to God, when I work blue I usually try to put more effort into it than that.

“I think he’s gone through most of the English-language team,” said Rachel, “so if there’s a spy, it’s pretty much gotta be one of you two.” She leans toward Tim. “You?”

She’s trying to make him uncomfortable, I think, in a flirty way. I guess I’m jealous, but if I wanted that kind of attention I could dress better and make an effort to look more flappable, so it’s my own fault I don’t get women trying to push me out of my comfort zone.

“Maybe,” says Tim. “For the right amount of money I would. Not the blowing-up thing, I guess.”

There’s a pause. “What, you’re not going to interrogate me?” I ask, visibly hurt.

“No, it’s definitely you,” she says. “Tim’s clean, but you just have this-”

“Aura of treachery,” I say. She nods solemnly, still kidding. She changes the subject, and the conversation ultimately turns to maid cafes, somehow.

Sounds like Tadashi’s been through just about everybody, though, so if there’s really a spy on our team, I guess it’s Tim. Or someone who’s good at lying, I guess. You wouldn't hire a guy to sabotage a company unless he could pass an "are you evil" interview, would you?

The Job

My job is the reason I'm here in Japan, so I suppose it bears mentioning.

I'm working on holograms. The term "hologram" means more things than you think it does, but what I'm working on is perhaps the least daunting of all possibilities: a little moving image printed on a flat surface. It can do some neat things, and the company that hired me is gearing up to foist it on the public.

The holograms have a lot in common with those old hologram baseball cards, actually, except instead of two images switching back and forth as you move your head, you get a progression of images, like a short movie. I'm not totally wowed, but I’ll admit that the image quality is, all things considered, pretty amazing.

A picture wouldn't do it justice, as you might imagine.

Don't expect me to explain how it works, by the way. I'm on the English-language content team; the tech team's all Japanese. As for how I got involved... let's just say I was in the right place at the right time and I got scooped up by the company's net. In this metaphor, the net is made of money, and I am a fish who likes to eat at restaurants and get nice haircuts.

Honestly, I see where they're coming from with this big push to get creative talent behind the technology. I just don’t see these holograms becoming a canon entertainment medium. I don't really even see them becoming a fad - they’re gimmicky, right?

Agree with me on this, so I can grumble about my job.

That having been said, if anyone’s going to do something amazing with these things, you bet your ass it’s gonna be me. And my team, I guess. They’ve all got non-refundable tickets to ride my Genius Train.

And I’ll leave you with this: apparently our entire universe might be a hologram! So that’s something to hold onto if I ever get fed up with this job. And just think – those old hologram cards where you turn them and it looks like a baseball player is hitting a ball? Those are tiny universes, and that little man and that little ball are the entirety of that universe’s grand cosmic ballet.

[Reader take note: this blog has held its breath for too long, and this post is its first great gasp as it slips into a dizzy, oxygen-deprived dream of embellishment and utter fiction. Posts containing observations of Japanese culture will continue to be largely true; posts concerning the author's personal and work life, this one included, will be irresponsible fabrications.

The Coffee Brewing Institue Presents:

Last time, I talked about Valentine's Day in Japan, but if there's one thing the Japanese love more than other people, it's coffee.

One of the many conveniences I'll miss when I return to the US is this thing:





It's a little coffee filter that sits in your cup! Okay, but here's something actually interesting about coffee in Japan, related to me by a teammate. You can go to a cafe anywhere in Japan and get a slice of cake and a cup of coffee, which is perfectly nice, and which my teammate did. But when she finished her coffee, she decided to order another cup.

It wasn't free, which is not altogether surprising. It was, however, unheard of. Her eating companion and the waitress, both Japanese, looked at her like she was crazy. So there you go: Japanese people love to drink a cup of coffee, but they hate hate hate to drink two cups of coffee.

I don't think there's an equivalent to that in the US, where getting second helpings of pretty much anything is pretty well acceptable.

Next time maybe I'll talk about my job out here...

P.S. I'm breaking up with you

Japanese Valentine's Day is coming up soon!

Japanese Valentine's Day falls on February 14, and commemorates the day that Japan borrowed an annual tradition from Western culture. Japanese Valentine's Day differs from that western tradition primarily in that it is women who give chocolates to the men. A similar holiday, called "White Day," exists to let the men reciprocate, and occurs some months later. If a man wants to reciprocate, or in any way return the woman's feelings, before White Day, then TOO DAMN BAD.

Now, as a sex-negative militant male feminist, I'm categorically opposed to any and all expressions of romantic affection, but I think Japan's got the right idea. If love must exist, then it's certainly better for both sexes to have the opportunity to express it. And a holiday can help grant people the courage to do so, in part because it functions as a deadline.

The pressure of giving gifts is also lessened somewhat by something called "obligation chocolate," which women in Japan give to their co-workers regardless of their feelings. So on one side of the spectrum, we have gifts given without emotion, in a hollow miming of a lover's ritual. And on the other side, we have...



Click that. Read the text.

Holy shit, right? That's... thorough. I especially like the post-script, because apparently the copywriter thought there was some ambiguity left after those last few lines. "Oh, THAT'S what she meant by all that! For the first line, I thought 'heart' was a misspelling of 'tart,' and on the second line I thought 'to have a woman like me' meant 'as a friend,' and for the next two lines, I was blind and retarded."

That's another nice thing about a holiday; it lets professional writers express your emotions for you, even if they're intense to the point of near psychosis. Without that dessert and its accompanying text, you might have trouble expressing that depth of emotion in a positive way, and no guy wants to receive a Valentine's Day card that just says "If you reject me, my despair will poison the Earth."

+3 to Victory

On my trip to Nara, I bought a Buddhist charm from the temple. It's for "Victory and Success," it looks like this, and it's got me thinking.



Now, I'm taking for granted the these things work. They don't give me a glowing aura or make floating words appear when their effect takes hold, which would be useful from a user feedback standpoint, but those would be a bit obtrusive - and in a potentially sensitive situation, they would give away your advantage to anyone watching. So I can understand why an otherwise functional charm wouldn't be rich in feedback; consequently, there's no good reason to think that they don't work as intended.

What I'm thinking about is how they work. Not the in and outs of the magic itself, I mean, but how they function mechanically. Firstly, it seems safe to assume that the effects of the charms don't stack with other charms of the same type. I base this on the existence of the "wealth" charm. To justify its purchase, it necessarily has to provide the buyer with more than its price (500 Yen). But if the effects of multiple wealth charms stacked, even additively, then you could amass endless wealth simply by buying more and more wealth charms as your successive windfalls permitted it. An obvious game breaker.

It doesn't seem unreasonable that the effects of different charms stack with each other, however. The charm I bought, for "Victory and Success," would almost seem to be a catch-all, depending on how you define those two terms, so there mere fact that other charms exist should be evidence that their effects stack. As another example, what would be the point of a "Prevention from Traffic Accidents" charm if the "Good Luck" charm provided the same protection, from a broader array of misfortune?

It's also possible that their effects don't stack, and that Traffic Charms simply provide a larger benefit. Let's say the Traffic Charm provides you with 4 units of benefit, whereas Good Luck Charms provide you with one unit of benefit. If you only have the Good Luck Charm, your benefit to avoiding traffic accidents (as well as every other aspect of life where luck applies) is 1. If you equip the Traffic Charm AND the Good Luck charm, then, presuming they don't stack, your benefit to general good fortune is 1, and your benefit to traffic safety is 4. It's still smart to carry both charms, despite their effects not stacking.

And here's where some insight into the specific supernatural workings of the charms would admittedly go a long way. Does the Traffic Charm rely on luck manipulation, or is it a different brand of divine intervention? If the Good Luck and Traffic Charms use different kinds of "magic," then it's more likely that they stack. I'm inclined to think that the different charms apply different sorts of protection, particularly due to the charm that claims to "Protect Your Child From Every Evil." The claim is so absolute, it makes me doubt that the charm simply manipulates your child's luck whenever evil is involved. "Protection" and "Good Luck" are two very different things to begin with, as are "misfortune" and "evil." This leads me to believe that, although perhaps not every charm stacks with every other, certain charms do stack with others.

The "Protects Your Child From Every Evil" charm gives me pause, though, with regards to how the charms target. I'm reminded of Magic: the Gathering, in which "you," printed on a card, refers to the person who controls that card at the moment. If these charms are similar, then it is the parents who should hold the charm. But most of these charms are meant to be held by the person who wishes to benefit from their power. It's a very important distinction!

Well, at any rate, my charm seems to be in working order, so I'm not too worried. Selfish, I know, but with all the victory and success I'm going to be getting, I'll be able to recruit lackeys and toadies to be thoughtful on my behalf.

Yes.

What is Nara?

Nara is where deer live.



And you're not allowed to bother them, because they're messengers of God, according to local beliefs. With the exception of getting their horns trimmed, they get a free ride from the populace and government, despite posing a nuisance to the Nara ecosystem.

You'd expect their exalted status to make them into dicks, but they're pretty well-behaved. They're not afraid of humans, but they're not confrontational either.



And they're cute when they're small.



But all that changes when you go to a local merchant and buy a packet of deer crackers. The deer will mess you up trying to get at those crackers. They don't bother the merchants who sell them, interestingly, which suggests a certain conspiratorial cunning on their part.



Anyway, the temple was the real reason I was in Nara. This temple boasts one really big Buddha, which is maybe less impressive than a thousand regular-sized Buddhas. The deer stop following you when you get close enough to the temple, even though nothing obvious is preventing them from coming closer; near to that invisible threshold, I saw one deer that I thought might actually be a messenger of God.

It was old, or at least adult, with a single milky-white blind eye, and bowed at my approach. Well, it lowered its head, anyway, and when I bowed back, it did it again. In keeping with my principle of not photographic deformed animals, I didn't take a picture of the half-blind old deer.



Once inside the temple, I piggybacked on an English-language tour, because who the hell's gonna stop me? Anyway, all I really remember was that the Buddha, or at least this Buddha, can hold twenty-two children on his hand, whenever he needs to rescue children. Personally, I thought Gamera was the go-to guy for saving children in Japan.



Anyway, this temple is big, big business. If you're familiar with Japanese temples, you might know that you can blow a lot of money there on charms and souvenirs. But the temple in Nara has the added tourist hook of holy deer, and holy deer do they ever milk that for all it's worth. There's deer dolls, deer puppets, and Domo-kun in a deer costume. Not a full-size domo-kun mascot, I mean, just a little figurine you can hang on your phone.

I get the feeling that the Japanese people have already made up their minds about how they're going to observe their religions, and how "seriously" they're going to take them, and there's not a lot anybody can do about it besides throw up their hands and make a profit. And if every religion sold themed domo-kuns and assorted trinkets in their front hallways, do you think we'd have more holy wars, or fewer?

If anything should be taken seriously, it's helping out your fellow man. By donating blood, for example. Help me out on this one, Japan.




That'll do nicely.

A Cold Day in Kyoto

I'm actually in Japan now. Lots to report.

The flight was boring. Shut up about it, because nothing much happened. Except that I had the pleasure of flying from Tokyo to Kobe on a plane that was, judging by the way it shook, two or three flights away from retirement.

My first day there, though, me and the group went to Kyoto, which is some twenty minutes away. We arrived in the Kyoto station, which is sort of a mall, albeit one that is, for the most part, not what I would consider "indoors." "Under roof," yes, which is an important distinction when it's raining, which it was, but not so much when it's cold, which it very much extremely was.

Anyway, there was a cultural festival going on, in celebration of the thousandth anniversary of The Tale of Genji. It had on offer a number of cultural delights, including nature-themed mochi, carefully hand-made by an old man who was, himself, the careful handiwork of two other people.



And a picture that demonstrated how soy was processed in the olden days. This excerpt shows how pure happiness is processed as part of the procedure.




In the old days, human happiness was used, but today soy products mainly make use of humanely extracted clam happiness, hence the term "happy as a clam [before the extraction process]"

And some figurines from the Tale of Genji itself:



And this period scene, which is entirely edible provided you are willing to go to jail for gastro-theft.



Seriously, it was entirely made of food. From the station, we went to Sanjusangen-do Temple, where we were very lucky to see Toh-shiya, their annual all-Japan archery contest. Unfortunately, we got there after the female competitors had all done their thing. This was disappointing to me personally, because the only thing hotter than a girl that can kick your ass is a girl that can perforate your lung.





Then we went inside, where there was a Buddhist ceremony in honor of Kannon, the Thousand-Armed Goddess of Mercy. I wish I could show you pictures, but Kannon is still a little burnt about that camera company that kinda-sorta stole her name and consequently photography is prohibited. It's damn impressive, though, with a thousand statues of the Buddha, each with forty-two arms, each one holding a different tool, ready to help with any task. I sort of expected to see some modern versions of the statue holding Blackberries and computer manuals and such, but no, that shit does not fly in Sanjusangen-do, not one bit.

To reiterate: ONE THOUSAND STATUES OF THE BUDDHA. That's a lot.

From there, we went to a local shrine, which is different from a temple in, uh, a number of ways. Trust me on this.




I prayed for several things, and tossed in a hundred and fifty yen. On the way out, our guide pointed out a sign warning that people of my age should be careful of bad luck this year. I'm not sure I would have prayed at the shrine had I known that bad luck was part of the deal. I'm a little conflicted about it in retrospect, but as long as those Japanese deities can deliver on the lifelong love and prosperity I paid a whole 150 yen for, I'll weather a short-term storm.

And I capped the night with a green tea cappuccino at a local sweetery.



Tasty!

Counting down my checklist before I leave for Japan, I finally got out to Half Moon Bay! I'm based in San Francisco at the moment, and after playing(?) Rod Humble's Stars Over Half Moon Bay I told myself I'd head out there and trace lines in the sky.



Pretty cool place, actually. Erosion has created a series of tiny soil cliff faces overlooking the beach, and as I walked along the edge one particular gulf caught my eye:



What's that blue thing doing there? I skidded down the cliffside a little further down the beach and backtracked to find it. The entryway was pretty hard to find, actually; I'm not surprised no one's ever gone in there and looted that broken blue thing. I had to brace myself against the dirt walls to walk myself through, which would have been tricky enough in a place where the walls weren't studded with jagged rocks and the occasional scatter of broken glass.

Still, it was only a journey of a few feet, so I was in there pretty quick. And it was definitely worth it: that broken blue thing was a shattered globe.



It occurred to me to wonder where the piece with Japan on it was. It wasn't easy to find, but eventually I noticed a big shard deeper underground:



I dredged it up, and not only did it have Japan on it, but the presence of the USSR offered a clue as to the age of the globe.

By the time I got out of there, the sun had set, which means I had to leave or pay for overnight parking and find a person who would let me share their tent. I had scheduled a sexy misadventure already, so I made for the parking lot.

I was presented with an unnerving vision on my way back: a seagull with a deformed beak, like a spread of rigid tentacles, strolled the beach in front of me. I was about to snap a picture, but as I raised the camera, a trickle of drool fell from the lowest protrusion of the seagull's mangled mouth. Though that seagull doesn't have the capacity for embarrassment,it seemed wrong to make a spectacle of a creature that can't even close its mouth. Hence: no picture. Sorry, perverts.

I hope that seagull wasn't an omen, because I can't imagine it was a good one.

To Pack:

Toothpaste (no fluoride in Japanese toothpaste, it seems?)

Deodorant (the stuff they have simply isn’t powerful enough for American musk, I’ve heard)

Playstation 2 (all my other systems are a bit too heavy to make the trip)

Camera (unless I decide there won’t be anything interesting to photograph in Osaka, where I’ll be staying)

Extra Shoes (I will never find shoes in my size in Japan)

Forged Work Visa (note to self delete this entry)

Something Else That’s Illegal In Japan (dear me I can’t stop myself)

Attn: Dudes, Ladies

Dudes!

I’m going to Japan.

Ladies!

I just told the dudes I was going to Japan. They were quite favorably stoked.

It’s the truth! Back to Japan, actually. I took a ten-day trip there about a year ago. On my birthday, actually! I mean, the entire ten-day trip was not entirely on my birthday. That’d be some Groundhog Day shit right there. I flew out on my birthday. And it was the best vacation of my life, no question.

And that’s particularly saying something considering those ten days contained the worst hangover of my life. Shochu’s a powerful drink, and shochu plus catharsis can make for a harrowing night. Despite a heroic effort to stay upright and hydrated after the drinking was done, the machinery of my body ground itself to a sparking, squealing halt, only to reboot into a laser-bright world of pain.

I say it was my worst hangover ever, but I actually don’t remember a lot about that day. I suppose I drifted from blessed sleep to pukey reality, but my memory’s not razor sharp on that. To be honest, my forgetfulness is probably a big part of why I remember the trip so fondly.

Somehow I always knew I’d be back. Didn’t expect it to be so soon, though! I won’t spill too much about my circumstances, but suffice it to say it’s a temporary position. I should be back in the states in a few months.

Mmmm, that’s all for now.