恐怖因子 (fear factor)

it was tuesday boozeday, so anne and i decided to meet up in sannomiya (widely referred to as "snomes" or "ol' snomie") after she finished work. sannomiya represents the down town section of kobe, and i had yet to hit it up for nightlife. we went to a standing bar first. standing bars are these bars where you can only stand up. they are mostly full of scumbag cigarette smoking pieces of shit who love glaring at annie. don't be fooled, they're a great time! next stop was this fancy-shmancy wine bar with overpriced food. we just got some appies and figured we'd find cheaper food elsewhere.

last stop o' the night was one of those small family run operations that only seat about 10 people. it was awesome. as soon as we walked in, dude behind the counter mentioned something about "gaijin" (alien, or foreigner). we laughed and then he was all like "nihongo (japanese) blah blah blah!)" anne was all like "yup", then carried the bulk of the convo. we (anne) are (is) always a big hit in these places. some dude bought us beers. we made the mistake of looking and pointing at these tiny (maybe 4") squids in the glass case in front of us. intrigued that we'd never tried these, we recieved two free plates of four! man. they were steamed i think. i don't remember too much about the ordeal, mostly just chewing as fast as i could while forcing a smile. anne is allergic to the ol' shellfies, so i had to meal all eight-ski. to all potential visitors: don't point at anything unless you're prepared to eat it.

it's pretty cool actually. i get hooked up all over the f'in place. the other day i was hankerin' for a taste of home, so i decided some half-o bacon cheez-u steaks-u were in order. the veg man hooked up a free orange as i was leaving, literally tossing it to me like in one of those cheesy-ass 1930s scenes. the meat man had to cut me some fresh hog, and he hooked up the bacon butt. it's like a 1"x1"x12" slab of cured, seasoned meat.

---in a quick aside, you should really try the half bacon cheesesteak with some kobe beef action. it was a spicy tale indeed!---

went to the coffee man today, and he hooked it up as well. i got a free cup of coffee and 58 free grams-u of beans. also we exchanged language like always. i've yet to find the brewman who fires out the hook-ups. also useful would be a generous bread guy and maybe a lady who liberally doles out v-games.

tha' jinx

i'd like to apologize to all you flyers fans out there. you see, all through the playoffs i stayed sober for the games. mostly cause they were at 8 in the morning. after the first period of game six though, i was all pumped that they had just tallied 2. in addition, i was like "man, japan is so sweet, i can just run to the brewser machine during intermission, even though it's 5 am!" i returned with the asahi-kirin combo to catch the rest of the action, and thus, the jinx. serves me right anyway. a true fan would have just had some beers for all the games.

chartreuse alert

modern liability has led to some pretty funny symantics. i think it'd be funny if the WHO was like "holy shit, we're all gonna die!", although they'd probably wait until there were only 10 of us left just to make sure. i think it's also funny that the only organism that can cause mass hysteria is the one that we can't kill, and nobody takes a time out from annihilating the rest to consider the irony. if ever there were a virus, or anything else, to wipe us out, you just have to say we had that one a-comin'. something in my human nature hopes that some other thing would wipe out whatever wiped us out though. just to even the score.

sweet fuckin rules, bra.

here in ol' japang, there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything. it must be very difficult for people to individualize. i'm doing my best to learn, but i'm behind the curve already (being foreign is simply the wrong way).

apparently the wrong place to park your bike is next to the huge sign with a picture of a bike on it next to a fence surrounding a huge, open, concrete park. there was already another bike there, and it was next to about 3 hundred motorbikes.

came out' the gym to no bike. i was fairly sure it hadn't been stolen. i walked around for a while and tried the key in a few other bikes, all of which were nearly identical to anne's. no fuckin dice. then i spotted a team of little fuckin douchebags in jumpsuits loading all these bikes into the back of a large truck with spinning lights on it. i quickly ran over to explain that i didn't speak any japanese. the bike wasn't on the truck, and homeboy signalled toward the bus (bus-o) stop. i went over and found another set of jumpsuited douchebags with identical occupations. there i found the wheels, loaded in the front of the truck with about 15 other chumps' bikes blocking it in. they called over el capitan, who spoke a small bit of english. un-fucking-believably, they wouldn't let me pay to get it right there. i have to get on the goddamned train and go two goddamned stops and pay 2 thousand goddamned yens to get it back. "thank you (with a modifier denoting politeness)" i said. i wondered why i said that while walking away, and further wondered why i didn't just jump on the fuckin truck and take the bike. i doubt they would have stopped me, as they surely would have been dumbfounded by how wrong i was doing things.

true to form,

they blow a 3-0 lead and opt for playoff elimination.

best part of wakin up

caught the early side of 4 am for the first time in several months yesterday. the occasion? flyers pens game three. honestly, i'll be happy with a series loss if the flyers play like that every game. definitely one of the most exciting hockey games i've ever watched, and i couldn't even follow the puck (sometimes the slingbox provides a sloppy picture. we'll call it "half-def"). fly-guys won with authority.

in less relevant news, i've been receiving a lot of bad press lately. there are some anonymous folks out there that simply can't handle the language used to illustrate Asian Mikey. in an unprecedented response, i've created a mirror-esque blog, Asian Mikey For Yo Momma (AMFYM). AMFYM will contain basically the same information, only with a little less color. if thy stomach be weak, please update your bookmarks. i'd hate for a couple of F words to alienate me readers, especially those so close to me 'eart.

in review:

www.asianmikey.blogspot.com: the same old s#!t

www.asianmikeyforyomomma.blogspot.com: slightly less fun version of the same old s#!t.

bacon doggies

holy shit. not sure why everyone always raves about german engineering. true they pioneered early forms of the h-dog, but it took japanese brilliance to put it on a stick and wrap it in bacon. i was all hungry, pissing time away on the net, and decided to head out to the sev. i walked around for a while trying to figure out what all the pre-made meals contained before i spotted the stick meat section. i bought two of what looked like (and were) dogs, on sticks, wrapped with bacon. i wanted to take a picture and post it up here, but i couldn't stop eating them long enough. imagine gaping mouthfuls of perfectly seasoned hog, piping fresh from the microwave. surely i'll get pics up here soon, because i'll probably pick some up every time i walk by. there's absolutely no chance i return to the states without this culinary gem.

now a quick recap of the series so far:
the flyers fuckin suck. ok, maybe they don't suck, but they're clearly not as good as the penguins. what they lack in skill they'll need to cover with intensity, as they're down 0-2 heading to philly. i'm wearing my flyer's tee real hard all the time, but it doesn't seem to be helping. maybe santa will bring me a medium replica mike richards alternate jersey for christmas. in april.