I was invited to a costume party this weekend. Specifically a “P” party, where everyone had to dress up as something that started with the letter “P”. I learned later that this was basically an excuse for a guy with a really good pirate costume to get more mileage out of it. Incidentally, the general consensus was that with the fake moustache, he actually looked more like Freddy Mercury with an eye patch. Not a bad look actually. Could have been “Prince of Rock, 1979” or… “Partial to Men” or “…Poor boy, nobody loves me…He’s just a poor boy from a poor family..”
Ok. Now I’m stretching. Sorry.
Anyway… I was rather inspired by one of my students, who remarked to me… “Blent, I love Blad Pitt!” and decided that this glorious line deserved some costume-credit. (If you know much about Japanese, you will know that the difference between the /r/ and /l/ sounds are among the most difficult sounds to produce for Japanese speakers.)
So, I decided that it would be amusing for me to dress up as a Pi(/r/l/)ate, aka half Pirate and half Pilot. Not only would this basically save me too much investment in a wacky costume (since blue commercial pilot suits are remarkably similar to blue teacher suits), I rather thought it would be funny. I added a pair of pilot wings made out of a skull and cross bones, a bandana, a sash and a nice pair of tom cruisin’ aviators.
It was (funny... I think), and the party was good, but the most notable part of the trip was actually the train ride TO the party, courtesy of the last costume accessory: a small plastic sword. I realized while standing on the platform that the sword had a little speaker. After a bit of searching, I found a little tab and pulled it loose. Lo and behold, it made cheap plastic slashing sounds when you swung it! I would surely be an unstoppable force of cool at the party with my 300 yen sound effects!!!
Or so I thought, until I boarded the train and realized that the motion of the train as it sways around the tracks, stops and accelerates seems to be a close enough approximation of a slashing motion to set the thing a schwinging and ka-shinging like some sort of freak 80s cartoon about sword fighting.
Ok… no problem.. there has to be an off switch somewhere… ahh… no off switch…
Um…. There are about fifty salarymen and some Japanese girls staring at me, or as much as they can while jammed into the ten square metres on the car around me…
Ah… I’ll take out the batteries….that’ll stop it…ah…. Crap. Too bad I don’t have a freaking Phillips head screwdriver in my pocket… crap.
Maybe this little situation would best be presented in theatrical format:
Sword: schwingg…kachings…..schwing… ca-schiwnghshsssss… schwings….kaching…
Japanese Businesspeople: [laugh…laugh…chuckle…]
Sword: schwingg…kachings….. schwing…ca-schiwnghshsssss…schwings….kaching…
Japanese Businesspeople: …..glare…chuckle…..glare….]
Brent: sumi-masen…sumi-masen (excuse me! Excuse me!)
Sword: schwingg…kachings…..schwing… ca-schiwnghshsssss…schwings….kaching…
Japanese Businesspeople: [glare….GLARE….GLAREGLAREGLARE]
Brent: sumi-masen…sumi-masen (excuse me! Excuse me!)
Sword: schwingg…kachings…..schwing …caschiwnghsssss… schwings….kaching…
Japanese Businesspeople: [GLARE… mutter .. glareglare…MUTTER GRUMBLE GRUMBLE….]
And so on….. and so on… for, oh, about thirty minutes. Longest train ride in recent memory to be sure, and in the close running for the worst 300 yen ever spent.
woot.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Friday, October 14, 2005
The Dangerous World of "I'll have that!"
I'd like to start out this little adventure by relating my inspiration for this blog.
Food.
The food is amazing, and the beer (while OVERLY FOAMY - two inches is standard) is pretty tasty too.
Unfortunately, as a westerner, my knowledge of kanji (one of the three Japanese alphabets) is limited. And by limited, I mean that I can’t write my own name, and I need to dance like a monkey to order up a pint of beer.
Thus, my usual plot when in a restaurant is to find a tasty picture and point to it. I’ve upgraded to adding in an are-oh-kudesai (~Please give me that) or Kore oh onigaishimas (~I’ll have this, please) while pointing at said picture.
I ran into trouble when I went into a little sushi shop before work one day. I start work at noon, really, so I think very little of eating lunch-type food as my first meal of the day. See, I went into this little sushi shop near my office for lunch. All went according to plan until I realized that they didn’t have any pictures. Still, I figured I’d be adventurous and just order something at random. I picked something in the mid to high range for the place (1200 yen, or $12 Canadian) thinking that I couldn’t go wrong by upgrading. So I pointed, and used about 15% of my Japanese vocabulary to say that yes, I did want the thing that I was pointing to, and we were off on another culinary adventure.
I was pretty excited as I watched some nice bowls of sashimi (Yes, Grandma, that's raw fish, which I dearly love.) and some tempura lunches come out. I was in good spirits until the chef emerged--grinning ear to ear--and plopped in front of me…
A huge bowl of fish eggs. I mean huge. Like a half pound. Salmon Roe, Lobster Roe, and four or five other kinds of fish embryos tossed in on a bed of rice. Pickled vegetables and some miso completed the party.
Now, I am an adventurous man, I like these on sushi rolls, and most of all, I try to sleep in the beds I happen to make. With fierce determination, I dove in.
Thirty minutes later, I tapped out, unable to squish down a single more little ball of almost-fish. Still, in this case, I firmly and positively maintain that glass was half empty.
Today’s Score:
Brent 1, Culture Shock 0. (OT)
Bring it on, Baby.
Food.
The food is amazing, and the beer (while OVERLY FOAMY - two inches is standard) is pretty tasty too.
Unfortunately, as a westerner, my knowledge of kanji (one of the three Japanese alphabets) is limited. And by limited, I mean that I can’t write my own name, and I need to dance like a monkey to order up a pint of beer.
Thus, my usual plot when in a restaurant is to find a tasty picture and point to it. I’ve upgraded to adding in an are-oh-kudesai (~Please give me that) or Kore oh onigaishimas (~I’ll have this, please) while pointing at said picture.
I ran into trouble when I went into a little sushi shop before work one day. I start work at noon, really, so I think very little of eating lunch-type food as my first meal of the day. See, I went into this little sushi shop near my office for lunch. All went according to plan until I realized that they didn’t have any pictures. Still, I figured I’d be adventurous and just order something at random. I picked something in the mid to high range for the place (1200 yen, or $12 Canadian) thinking that I couldn’t go wrong by upgrading. So I pointed, and used about 15% of my Japanese vocabulary to say that yes, I did want the thing that I was pointing to, and we were off on another culinary adventure.
I was pretty excited as I watched some nice bowls of sashimi (Yes, Grandma, that's raw fish, which I dearly love.) and some tempura lunches come out. I was in good spirits until the chef emerged--grinning ear to ear--and plopped in front of me…
A huge bowl of fish eggs. I mean huge. Like a half pound. Salmon Roe, Lobster Roe, and four or five other kinds of fish embryos tossed in on a bed of rice. Pickled vegetables and some miso completed the party.
Now, I am an adventurous man, I like these on sushi rolls, and most of all, I try to sleep in the beds I happen to make. With fierce determination, I dove in.
Thirty minutes later, I tapped out, unable to squish down a single more little ball of almost-fish. Still, in this case, I firmly and positively maintain that glass was half empty.
Today’s Score:
Brent 1, Culture Shock 0. (OT)
Bring it on, Baby.
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