Tagged

So, a few weeks ago, I was "tagged" by my good friend Heather. She is a wonderful girl, and I really enjoy her blog. Of course, she is also an inspiration because she is good enough to update said blog every day (cough, cough, cough…. Ummm… yeah. )

Anyway… she posted a link where she “tagged” me, which means that I must post the answers to her questions or face certain karma death.

Not being so interested in karma death, I am of course obliged to post something in response to her challenge. On the other hand, I have also sworn to myself that this blog will NOT ever stoop to the “today I ate chicken” level. I remain firmly committed to the “today I ate chicken after being sport humped by a 140 kilogram Japanese man with a goatee wearing a small red dress and a feather boa” mantra.

Therefore, I will attempt to twist the following questions as far away from the original “I’m a dirty forward and you will have horrible things happen to you if you don’t forward my horrible threat-e-ness to 2393 of your closest friends” ethos.

Ok. Enough making nice.

And, Heather…? Uh…. sorry for making fun. You know I care. : )


Ok… without further ado… here is my spin on some sweetly specific questions about my life.



20 years ago I…

…was not even 10% as cute as this girl.



I was also certainly not allowed into bars as she is (The highly observant folk will have already noted that there is a mostly full beer glass beside her.) And 20 years ago, said bars certainly did not serve vanilla ice cream… and NOR DID MY PARENTS ALLOW ME TO EAT IT BY LICKING IT FROM THE BOWL WITHOUT LIFTING SAID BOWL FROM THE FREAKING TABLE.


Then again, my parents also instilled in me a healthy disrespect for the “capslock key” which should seriously be banned from computers everywhere. Holding down the shift key is certainly an appropriate toll to help keep the average user from sounding like a total tool.



10 years ago I…

...never could have imagined that I would spend a highly inebriated night teaching six drunken Japanese people how to “fuck”.

In less suggestive language, that would be “how to use the word fuck.”

Lesson 1: Complaining. “Just put ‘fucking’ in front of whatever the problem is. Eg. ‘fucking trains’ or ‘fucking old people’. Voila… instant compliant”.

Lesson 2: Fuck in various word classes.

As a verb or phrasal verb: (a) Fuck off! (b) Fuck me! (c) Fuck you! (d) You fucked up. (e) Fuck him up, man. (f) John fucked Betty. (g) John fucked Betty over.
As a noun: (a) You’re a stupid fuck. (b) Keiko is a great fuck. (c) Fucking is a lot of fun.
As an adjective: Dude…. that’s fucked.
As an adverb: That’s fucking awesome!
As an exclaimation: (a) What the fuck?!?! (b) FUCK!
As nearly every word in a sentence… or paragraph: Fucking fuckity fuck-fuck. That was a fucking fuck up, you fucking fucktard. Now we’re fucking fucked beyond all fucking reason. What the fucking fuck are we going to fucking do? Fuck!


Lesson 3: Dude, this is fucked up, and so are we. I’m going to lose my fucking job.


Five years ago I…

…had a goatee. I’m still bitter about having to shave it, and am protesting in a suitable ghandiesque, peaceful manner. I’m growing mad “mutton chops.”

Kihondosa? Is that some kind of Korean food?

/”Kihondosa” or きほんどさ, means “professionalism”. It’s a huge part of corporate culture in Japan. I try to hurt it whenever possible. … incidentally, my keyboard converts the hiragana character to kanji as 基本度さ, but that may mean “hit him with a book and take his lunch money” for all I can tell, as 本 (hon or “book”) is the only character I recognize.


Three years ago I…

….worked at this wacky job where I kept a very strange schedule. I didn’t have to work until the afternoon, but I worked well into the evening. I also happened to work with some crazy drunks, drink far too much myself, and generally had a lot of crazy adventures. I also met some people who slurred their words and had terrible pronunciation.

Wow, I sure have come a long way since working as a bar manager.


One year ago I…

…was a credit to the University environment. Unfortunately, I worked in University and college-targeted marketing, and that “credit” generally came in the form of “Visa cards” and “Mastercards”. Of course… I paid off $800 of library fines with my shiny new MBNA Queen’s Mastercard and was thus able to receive my degree, graduate and all that good stuff. Heck, it saved me skulking back to my parents and admitting that I drank away waaaay too much money. So… credit can be a great thing! In the Engrish of the day…. Let’s charging it!


So far this year I…

1) Met Stephen Segal
2) Reminded myself that Chuck Norris is still cooler.
3) Stayed bitter about not inserting myself into a picture with him.
4) Felt better after writing “The Sacrifice”.
5) Went to a beer festival. This was only remarkable because of the following anectode…

The beer festival was held in a large hall. I was standing around, enjoying delicious Japanese facsimiles of beer from all over the world, when a middle aged (or older) Japanese lady made eye contact and smiled. I assumed that she might be a student I’d met or someone I’d forgotten… so I smiled back. She waved, and I returned the wave, and she sauntered over. She smiled at me and said “Hello.”
I said, “Hi, how are you?”
“I am great!”
“Ummm…” I smiled, already realizing that I’d made a huge mistake. “Are you having fun?”
“Yes,” she grinned at me. “I. want. foreign… man.”
“Er…good….” (Think quickly, Merry Man. This is turning ugly faster than a Keanu Reeves/Sandra Bullock rendition of Hamlet). “Saaaay… do you like beer?”
She smiled her most winning smile, “Yes! I like beer very much!”
“Wow!” I said, “…me too! I’m going to go and get some. Have a great day!”


Sometimes, I tell myself that I am the David Blane of evading sketchy 1950’s issue Japanese people’s pick up attempts.



Today I…

…taught the most amazingly brilliant dialogue ever created for teaching ESL. It was hella hard not to laugh, and I know that the people writing the textbooks wrote this at 4 am the day before it was due, and laughed themselves silly for the next week.

Topic: Ordering food in a casual restaurant.

Dialogue from the textbook:

Waitress: Would you like bacon, or sausage.
Betty: mmm…. Give me sausage.
Waitress: Ok. Would you like anything else?
John: Yes, two coffees please.
Waitress: Ok.
Betty: Oh, can I get some cream?
Waitress: Sure.


/ For any of my Japanese buddies that read this… “Sausage” is slang for “Penis”. “Cream” is slang for a certain related substance. Use your imagination, or ask someone else…



Tomorrow I will…

1)…eat ten to twelve pieces of sweet, raw sushi for breakfast. The local conveyer or “kaitenzushi” place (かいてんずしゆ) has salmon sashimi on the 110 yen plate. They also have free soup. So, a filling sashimi lunch can be mine for under $6.
2) …not start class until 6 pm. I still have a 12:00 meeting, so I have to drag my sorry ace out of bed at the crack of 11:05. Life is hard.


In the next year I will…

…cause Freddie Mercury to make 2385 revolutions in his grave with drunken karaoke renditions of “Don’t Stop Me Now”.　…and, in honour of figuring out how to get the “Japanese characters” function working on my keyboard, I will tell you all that most of you have been mispronouncing “karaoke”. It’s not “Care-ee-oh-key” as you think, but actually “ka-rah-oh-kay” (カラオケ) and like many words here, it comes from mashing at least one foreign word with another word (either foreign or Japanese). The “ka-ra” is from the Japanese word for “empty” and the “oh-key” is from oo-ke-su-to-ra (オケストラ) or “orchestra”.

Incidentally, far and away the word I have encountered that is most distant from its origin is “oh-ee-ru”（おえる？）which means “female while collar employee.” It comes from “O.L.”, which stands for “Office Lady”. Linguistic evisceration and sexism meet surprisingly often in Japan.


In the next minute I will tag…

Fish - get blogging, you punk!
Geoff, because he swings that way.
Dave, to see if he can muster an answer without sacrificing his artistic dignity.
Palmala Handerson, that slut.