This Hard Land

I'm sitting in my room on a Thursday night, in front my computer listening to Bruce Springsteen and eating Pooka creamy vanilla chocolate fish. Actually, they're "Pucca" fish. But "Pooka" looks funnier.
Anyway, I'm here to deliver you this week's News in Briefs.
And I may or may not be a bit drunk.


News In Briefs
WYWS Edition

* To anyone who may have asked me about "varying cultural marketing strategies across the globe," last time I saw you, here is further proof.
You owe me $20.

* It's been snowing intermitedly all week.
Like the return of an old friend, there's something reassuring about seeing snow again. Even if it fell in small, Japanese doses. Sunday night, we received the biggest treatment, as the evening streetlights awoke to find their empty byways and alleyways covered in several inches of wet, sticky snow. Made my usual charinko sidewalk dickery several shades more difficult, as the tires slipped and slid all over the place.
But the most interesting thing about Japanese people and snow?

They still walk around with their umbrellas.

Sure, it makes sense, and all. Keep the snow out of your hairspray, and off your Louis Vuitton bag.

"Excuse me strange foreign person, are you walking around without your umbrella!? In the snow!!? Good god man! Have you lost your damn mind!!? Moisture will be the death of you!"

* There's this cheesy Japanese drama called "SP" on the telly, about this team of elite bodyguards who dive headlong into crowds, slide over slippery shit, and then throw themselves into oncoming bullets to protect their VIPs. Maybe "SP" is the moniker for the dude who gets his squibs ruined no fewer than four different occasions--and that's just the show's opening montage. How the hell do you pitch an action/drama pilot to studio execs when your main characters are getting blown away every episode? "Every episode is a dream." Just roll with it.

* I learned tonight over fried nankotsu and beers that "okosu" means "to sit up" and "okasu" means "to rape" or "to violate."

I wish they'd fuckin' told me that before I finally tried asking little Oka chan to sit up in class this afternoon.
No wonder everybody was laughing.

I suck at Japan.