Randolph Mantooth Passes Away at Age 80

I’m starting this post off on a somber note as Randolph Mantooth was one of my childhood heroes because of his role in the TV series Emergency! What people may not realize about me is that early on, I had been a real fan of fire fighters because of my love for Lego. My second Lego set ever was 590 Engine Co. No. 9. I received that one for Christmas when I was probably 3 or 4 years old and my mother attempted to build it for me but failed in following the instructions and ended up tearing the thing apart. So for years, I had no instructions to the set but continued collecting almost every fire set put out by Lego. My mom’s father (grandpa) one time had given me one of those plastic fire fighter helmets and had a picture from one Christmas or birthday that I can remember. Sadly, that photo album is long lost after my “move” from my parents’ home.

But Emergency! was one of those must-watch shows for me with Gage and DeSoto as the characters driving around in one of those paramedic vehicles. Other fire related movies and TV shows like The Towering Inferno had been big favorites of mine as well just because of being fascinated with fire fighters. At that point in time, I had even wanted to become a fire fighter. Of course, that never panned out but as a result, I’ve always had a great deal of respect for those involved in fire fighting.

In Mantooth’s case, the only other show I remember him in was an episodes of Battlestar Galactica called Greetings from Earth (S1, E19). Looking back at the episode, I kinda thought Apollo and he bore a similar resemblance. So that was a funny crossover in a way. As for his demise, it seems he had been in declining health over the years and one image I saw of him showed that he had lost tremendous weight. Sad but I think most of us will remember him as Gage and what he meant to paramedics.

Diablo 4 Patch 3.1.1 Notes are Available

So today, the Diablo 4 Patch 3.1.1 notes became available scheduled for July 14th. People were complaining that for the amount of “fixes” this took the team two weeks for what appears more like hotfixes rather than anything addressing the current season. Considering that most people are seeing Season 14 as an abomination, I’m surprised in a way that more hasn’t been done to correct the course of the game in any way. The bulk of the issues lie in the handling of Mythic Uniques and the changes that shifted their intent. Outside of a small corrections here and there and a tiny improvement to the drop rate, the basic message at this stage is that this change is going to stay regardless of how the bulk of the player base feel.

I read some of the feedback on the main post over at reddit and the general sentiment to me is that the player base feels as though the Blizzard developers (and Blizzard themselves) just took a massive shit on their heads as though they were Vince McMahon. While some people think that the new Mythics aren’t bad, the real issue is that there’s so many problems with the game at the moment that the expectation is that at least some of the players’ concerns should be addressed.

One person even noted that there’s been no communication from the community manager(s)/team, which is highly disconcerting. Some people believe that with the recent cuts the Diablo 4 team might be down to a handful of people. Others consistently have accused the developers of not playing their own game. No matter what though most people simply aren’t happy.

Initially, when I read the patch notes, I expected maybe a small amount of tuning but this was shockingly tiny. I think at a crucial time when the head of the XBox division is looking for cuts (and potentially replacing everyone with H1-Bs, which has its own set of problems), I have to imagine that the last thing the Diablo 4 team would want to do is make themselves look bad. I’ve seen situations like this where teams just go inert until things are decided at the top. I read that there’s a portion of the team that are unionized too but I have no idea how much of a real impact that will have. But this is a really bad look overall where there are no clear winners except for the competition who are going to gain a large amount of momentum because they don’t have the same type of corporate KPI shackles M$/Blizzard do.

Truthfully though, my expectations are exceedingly low for Blizzard at this point. It’s like being in a class of F grade students when you’re the B+/A- student and the rest are pulling you down. I think the player base’s best bet is hoping that the competition can really push their products to make up for the big gap Blizzard is leaving.

Idle Apocalypse 4th Time Booming

2.5 million souls this time around. Estimated at 2 million with Rick unlocked. Managed to secure a second permanent Mine, the final hammer and inferno spell. The cool part is how much faster this round has been going. Managed to hit stage 50 in around 10 minutes. I spent a good chunk of the spare souls into more Chants. Unlocking the 4th hammer should allow me to unlock all the basics so I’m looking forward to seeing what else is available. I’m very tempted at times to get the “No Ads” unlock but at $10 it’s too high for my taste. Should be no more than $2. Some of the paid for unlocks are ridiculously priced. Instead, saving for the 2nd Grave because it’s the most important spare room.

Main thought here: sad that a mobile game with late 80s graphics/sounds is far more satisfying than a modern ARPG like Diablo 4.

NYC Bans Subscription/Fee Traps

Mayor Mamdani is issuing a new law in NYC to prevent companies, hotels, etc. from entrapping consumers with hidden fees or making it difficult to impossible for cancelling of subscriptions they no longer want. The key piece of the law is that:

Businesses would be prohibited from misrepresenting the purpose, amount or refundability of any fees. Companies that charge “service charges,” “processing fees” or similar mandatory charges would be required to include those fees in the advertised price and document what those fees actually cover. Businesses that violate the rule would face restitution to harmed consumers and civil penalties beginning at $525 per violation.

I have to applaud this direction and wish that more of the US would take to this. I forget if California tried something like this but it really should handled on a national level. I think the violation penalty though is too slim. Instead, I think companies should report all those who signed on these fees and force them to serve jail time. The problem with this level of white collar crime is that the people who handle it aren’t the ones that truly get penalized. And if these companies see that their gravy train is running out, either they’ll make an appeal or find other ways to cheat the consumer. So you really want to penalize the individuals responsible for these decisions and toss them into prison to scare the shit out of the real criminals in this country. I may not agree with China at times but I do applaud the so-called crack down in corruption that you see over there, at least from the optics. Maybe the government here should employ a similar tactic.

As for Mayor Mamdani, while I’ve been holding out to see what his legacy really represents, thus far he’s been quite impressive. He did one thing recently that I read that was gutsy in preventing rent hikes. I really wish something like that would happen in California where people are getting priced out as a result of these tech companies and real estate corporations hiking up the cost of living out here. But I don’t think the governor or various “leaders” out here have that level of sack.

EU demanding Meta (Facebook/Instagram) to Dismantle “Addictive Design”

This is an interesting issue as the quest for EU (and possibly others following their lead) try to quell what the EU feels is “addictive design” that creates a stickiness for users that are vulnerable, most notably teenagers and certain adults. The three main areas identified in this study that are being condemned are:

• Autoplay
• Infinite scrolling
• Highly personalized content recommendations

I think that whoever has done this commission is a technological illiterate. Not that I condone Meta for malpractices but something like Autoplay can be disabled at the browser level. So it’s hard to really blame Meta here especially when others are doing this like Tubi and YouTube. Meta can deny that one just by pointing out how users can control that feature at the browser level. Now, if Meta ends up only supporting Chrome, then the EU can clearly point out some sort of collusion between Google and Meta, but I feel this part really lies squarely in the users’ hands.

Infinite scrolling isn’t a Meta exclusive problem. A lot of places use this technique instead of pagination because it’s easier to handle on mobile devices as well as making for a smoother experience with a mousewheel. When you have a lot of content available, infinite scrolling actually is a good technique even though from a developer’s point of view, it can be a pain in the ass to implement (because of varying browser sizes and the different techniques to get the page load to trigger)

The real problem with Facebook and Instagram is that the UI flat out sucks. I’ve complained for a long time how the photos section in Facebook is the worst thing around. It’s just disorganized and when you have idiot users who upload stuff constantly and even with duplicates, the photo section becomes a gigantic mess. There’s no easy way to search what you want and periodically you’ll encounter things you have zero desire to see. And the feed section is wretched for FB when it comes to the old Wall because it’s this ugly block of text where you can’t order things anymore since the “algorithm” apparently decides for you what you should see. Instagram faces a similar issue.

In Instagram’s case, they have an additional problem that they ended up consolidating their Explore section with their Search portion. This wouldn’t be so bad if the Search part allowed for someone to search using multiple tags. But the sheer volume and the poor quality of search makes Instagram a place where you can rarely really find anything of value. I think most of the time, when you’re using the new Search/Explore feature or “doom scrolling” down, you’re just hoping to find anything worth reading. Again, the system is setup so poorly partly because they want to determine what you ought to be seeing with the worst forms of heat maps that turns someone like myself away.

I don’t think Facebook nor Instagram should redesign anything. I think someone else just needs to develop a better system for handling massive amounts of images and video that are better organized and presented. In turn, Facebook and Instagram will die a natural death as they should.

OpenAI to Run out of Cash by Mid-2027

Some people think that this probably isn’t a bad thing if OpenAI goes bankrupt. The main culprit here in terms of the cash burn are data centers, which, having worked inside a data center at one point in my career (especially if you’ve followed my recent Japan life blogs) it’s mind blowing to me how much these people are spending as well as all the damage that’s been caused apparently. One thing I do know is that I gave Ollama a shot on my better MacBook and it just chugged hard for small requests. My CPU shot up to 300%+ while memory usage got nuked. On top of that the results were terrible.

With OpenAI, I think when Anthropic rejected the current government’s demands and actually decided to be somewhat ethical and OpenAI decided to step in, many users bailed. Anthropic probably is being better used by developers at this stage while ChatGPT is in this weird state. But that move seemed like one out of desperation by Sam Altman because he probably knows how vulnerable OpenAI is (or at least his own position).

My theory is that if OpenAI declares bankruptcy probably Microsoft will step in and buy them out for a low price, Altman will get the boot and Microsoft will end up ditching Copilot or at least integrate Copilot with OpenAI. So they’re just waiting whereas Altman is not in good shape and probably pissed a lot of people off in the past few years. That doesn’t mean under Microsoft’s rule that OpenAI will improve though; it just means that they’ll be more competitive to Anthropic and Google’s Gemini down the road. And Microsoft has the war chest, etc. to wait this out. OpenAI is a one trick pony.

One other interesting comment is how people just flee once ads, increases in cost or other things disrupt their usage. It’s true. I’ve mostly stayed away from ChatGPT because of the usage limits and refuse to pay for any AI at this time. I’ve stated that the frontier for AI does show promise but it’s still massively in its infancy and probably is more like ’98 internet at best with a lot more wary folk.

PS5/Sony Pisses off Gamers into Considering Moving to PC

I’ve never owned a console except a ColecoVision and Atari 2600 once I started using computers with a Commodore 64 back in the mid 80s. I never felt the need since most of my gaming needs were on a PC and I guess lately the mobile platform. And I know there’s a large group of people who grew up on the Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox, etc. In my case, I’ve generally associated those systems being more for arcade games where you’d need some TV setup and a special control. I had gotten so used to the mouse and keyboard that I never looked back except for mobile (which has its limits).

But if there’s one thing I learned about Sony over the years, it’s that they want vendor lock in. At one time, I owned a Sony laptop, which was a horrible mistake. But I had it for my main computer when I was living in Japan because it was one of the lighter laptops around and I hadn’t become a Mac fanboi just yet. But that machine gave me all sorts of problems because I needed to buy the Sony DVD, the CD Writer, the USB reader, etc. all because it had special ports on top of a special battery. And none of these things were cheap. Then when it died, it was a real pain to recover (although my bud on the WinTel team did manage to help me recover the disk). But it was the last time I owned Sony anything.

There was a recent controversy from Sony in eliminating physical media, which means you could only play from their store. I think they were attempting to hamper older versions of their systems to force people to upgrade. In turn, I think this move simply has pushed more people away from Sony.

The problem with Sony is that it’s a large, old company with a giant war chest (like Microsoft) that is mostly living off its legacy. They’re so big their divisions fight internally with each other because it’s such a cluttered mess. I knew someone who worked at Sony who told me that their corporate office used Dell computers. This was when they had a PC business. That tells you a lot about the mentality of this company.

All I can say is that outside of the few mobile games I play, I’m sticking with the PC. Give me Gog.com any day of the week and I don’t have to worry about some shitty online always company fucking me up the ass because they decided to take a shit on my head. Old games rule and you should consider playing those instead of these creative-less current titles because they’re cheaper and you can make a statement.

Mitch McConnell Rumored to be Brain Dead

There’s so many jokes in this that it wraps around and ends up being almost unfunny. One should not laugh at the dead, the elderly, the infirm. But when you’re a clear cut asshole who has caused numerous problems for the country, then all the mercilessness is well deserved. I mean, where can you even start with this? Weekend at the Mitch’s? The Mummy 8? RoboMitch with a Vengeance? The Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz? I mean, it’s endless here.

I know that his wife came back and made a worthless statement. But everyone is just dying to know: is this guy a goner? Has he manifested into his true form as a carrot? Maybe a russet potato? Even if this guy’s brain has finally died, one thing you have to know is that you can’t say that he had a heart attack in this because he never had a heart. So maybe he’s like the Tinman combo’d with the Scarecrow. Nonetheless, they hopefully won’t mark his grave or I’m sure a lot of people will end up marking it with piss and poop for fucking them over.

The post Hodgepodge: Randolph Mantooth Passes, D4 Patch 3.1.1 Pisses, NYC Subscription Bans, Mitchy Boi Braindead and More appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

The change in position from system administrator to Access Control was a steep downgrade in my capabilities as a tech worker. Most of it was more bureaucratic where I had to verify paper sign offs before performing some sort of entitlements gesture. The thing about working in a SEC/audited/SOX following company is that you need a strict paper trail for audits. Our tape backup library, for instance, was supposed to last for 12 years or so. Imagine the amount of waste just with all the physical paperwork. As a result, our team wasn’t popular but the split in duties was a necessity in this company.

Most of my time was spent trying to mentor a few people who had limited tech skills while I was trying to do development to continue pushing my skills. They (i.e. the powers that be) did not want me to do any coding as that was strictly meant for those authorized. That type of corporate mentality made me have a distinct disdain for large corporations because I’m a very hands on kind of guy. Nonetheless, our little group for a small period was reasonably tight and we’d go out to lunch frequently.

Also, when you work in a large corporation, you might encounter the notion of a cost center. Cost centers more or less are a way for finance groups to determine the budget by tracking ones hours. We had a system to input our hours for our administrators. This stuff was kinda public so you could see other group’s weekly hours and maybe even monthly hours. In a few cases, they looked padded and I believe it was done to try and gain headcount. And headcount is another major term used in large companies as it dictates how much control a cost center fiefdom would have.

Regardless, I was part of the administrative and financial side of the technology group, which in truth wasn’t bad because it was stable and less stressful than the more business oriented groups. Internally, there wasn’t too much friction between these smaller departments, although two of my coworkers were less than popular with a lot of people in the company. That isn’t to say that there wasn’t a lot of pressure because it could get horrible where the amount of competing requests on a given day became the primary pain point and there was frequent context switching where we would become the bottleneck. So this sets the stage for what the majority of my work life would be like in 2004.

With the girlfriend, the honeymoon phase lasted approximately three months I would say. One of the first cracks in the relationship occurred during the New Years sales at various department stores. A day or two after New Years, department stores open back up with massive sales. Part of the deal are fukubukuro or “lucky/fortune” bags. Of course, my ultra materialistic dim witted ex- decides that she needs to go shopping so we end up hitting 3-4 major shopping districts on the 2nd (I think). But it was worse than a stampede. Just tidal waves of women crowding every inch of a department store, clawing, scratching and going bonkers for everything. You could hardly breathe and my feet and legs ached the entire time. There’s an episode of Will & Grace where Grace takes her boyfriend Nathan to some sale at Barney’s in NY. Whatever bad experience Nathan had, I can assure you mine was a million times worse.

Being me though, I ended up purchasing her some pricey knee high black leather boots and gloves, which made her really happy. I probably shouldn’t have indulged her but I’m generally a very generous person and didn’t think of it nor the consequences. I mean, I was already more or less supporting us and buying dinner almost every night. I think her father was paying for her apartment in Chiba. But the whole situation really made me hate Japanese women for a while just because it showed me another low of humanity with the commercial brainwashing. I’ll admit that when I had an Amazon Prime account, I would occasionally purchase a thing or two but at least I could do that from the comfort of my sofa rather than being rundown by a fleet of senseless humanoids.

Also, sometime during the start of the New Year, my group would have a private group party. I hinted at an incident with Soy in my previous 2003 blog. Now, this situation may have occurred later because of how the situation would reference the movie Lost in Translation, which came out in Japan in April of 2004. Because the MD (managing director) had asked our main boss if he had seen it, I think that our group might’ve had this party later in the year. Nonetheless…

We were set to have this party somewhere in Aoyama. I can’t recall if we walked or took a taxi to get there. I think we probably took a taxi because we could expense it. The place was a fairly nice establishment, foreign I think, on the 2nd floor. I can’t recall anything about the food but the two memorable aspects were these really heavy, large seats that were throne-like and a massive fish tank that for whatever reason resided directly behind one of these seats. I can’t recall how it was positioned but I think it was on some folding table or platform, which would be a problem as you’ll soon see.

Of course, Soy, without really noticing the fish tank, took the seat right in front of it. We were all talking, drinking and having a relatively good time. At one point, Soy stands up abruptly and pushes his chair back too far with too much force. Our main boss/manager leaps up almost frozen in midair saying, “No wait! Stop!” with his hands stretched out as Soy becomes like a statue uncertain of what he had done. But I’m to his right and watching as the entire place halts like a snapshot from a photo except for the fish tank which tips over and crashes onto the ground. Water spills everywhere and numerous fish are squirming, flipping around.

Naturally, everyone is shocked. Soy is in complete disbelief. The owner scrambles and has almost no idea what to do. I think this is all surreal. Obviously, the owner couldn’t do much and tried to save as many of the fishes as possible while the staff help either brush up the glass or suck up the water, which has cascaded all around. The boss (Chris) tells us we’ll have to move outside for a while so that the owner can clean up and the owner blurts out that the fish tank cost about 500,000-en (or roughly $5k). So Soy is just demolished when he hears that.

We go outside and surprisingly decide to wait rather than being permanently banned from the restaurant. Soy is by himself smoking a cigarette and up the street comes the big boss, the good ‘ol MD/CIO himself, walking (I think he legitimately enjoyed the walk). He was supposed to accompany us earlier but got caught up in late running meeting. So he’s examining us and wonders out loud, “Did I arrive late?” for which Chris replies, “We broke a fish tank.”

I think some of us (Soy in particular) thought he would explode. But I’m guessing that the previous meeting and the sheer and utter ridiculousness of the situation blew his mind because he started laughing hard. I’m sure Soy believed he would be hung out to dry just because of how low on the totem pole he was. I guess Chris got the owner’s information and exchanged meishi as the company or someone would pay for the damages down the road (didn’t happen from what I learned). The owner cleans up and we’re invited back inside surprisingly while Soy sulks in the corner the rest of the night, sipping on a beer and being absolutely miserable.

The next day was a typical work day. I don’t think we stayed out that late but Soy wasn’t in by the time I got there. So we started to wonder, “Where’s Soy?” and thought he got fired. Eventually, he showed up from oversleeping (probably drank too much after the incident) and apologized to everyone profusely for his tardiness. The first email he sees in the morning came from Chris who wrote, “Good morning, slave.” Everyone started laughing while he realized how indebted he (half humorously) was to the company (cues Ted Dibiase’s “everyone has a price for the million dollar man!” tune from the WWF with “money, money, money, money!”) Also, he sent Reiko, who had quit by then, an email telling her that he broke a fish tank for which she only responded, “HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!” But he was legitimately depressed even though the rest of us were simultaneously sympathetic and amused. Probably my favorite story out there that is a nice humbler to tell Soy once in a while if he ever gets out of line.

Along the way, my adventures with the ex- continued. I got to hit up the only time I would ever attend Disney Sea over in Chiba. I think I took her for her birthday. Here, I have to admit I never really was a Disney fan. Yes, I’ve got an unhealthy obsession for The Black Hole, but that’s different from being a hardcore Disney fan. I’ve always thought of Disney as being exploitative and for marks who want to turn off their brain and enter into some childish semi-Christian/religiously friendly fantasy while being secretly manipulated into consumption. Disney Sea did not improve my impression one iota.

First, the rides all sucked. The lines were about the same length as one may expect at any Disney park. The place might’ve been worse but I think I had gone on a weekday and taken a day off to be with her. But I distinctly recall this one shitty ride that took forever to get on which was only 10 seconds in length of going up and down in some crappy mushroom thing. The longest ride by far was some Indiana Jones adventure thing, which topped off at 1 minute or so, despite waiting around in line for about an hour or whatever. In addition, the food there was god awful. I was hoping to get something familiar that I’d find from the states like their fudge, which is one of the few things that I can distinctly recall that is legitimately decent.

Worse of all, there were these young girls from around the country, who just love this stuff like some 5 year old dolt. It was beyond annoying to me. Now, I’m not a nice person and I’ll be the first person to tell you. But I remember seeing one person dressed in a manner that was, say, not fashionable compared to what you’d find in Ginza, etc. So I pointed at this person and commented, “Cho inaka!” (which is like that fuckin’ hick). My gf was embarrassed and said I shouldn’t say those things. I really didn’t give a shit. I was done with this type of place and couldn’t wait to go back home. We might’ve had an argument because I was tired or just upset and she wanted to go on everything while my legs were tired. So again more cracks.

Work would have more major shifts. One was that the MD/CIO would quit sometime in March. This was going to be devastating internally as there were a few people vying for that position, including the highly ambitious head of infrastructure. Everyone knew that if he got that position, unless you were Indian or one of his drinking buddies, you were out. He already had made major plays by politicking and getting rid of key positions in the tech team, replacing them with people he knew and pushing the others out. He got rid of any semblance of project management to remove his own accountability. So it wasn’t looking pretty.

Around that period, we also had to get training in sexual harassment. Now, this was highly amusing as the mandate came from the US HQ but the material prepared had been through some Japanese company, using their own actors to do the videos. All the gaijin laughed at the ridiculously dumb scenarios and bad acting in these videos, where they seemed more like a terribly produced J-drama rather than attempting to reinforce the importance of the idea of sexual harassment at the workplace.

But I have to give them a tiny bit of credit because they did show both genders being sexually harassed. The best part was demonstrating women in power where this older female was some manager who had a kohai and threatened his job “for not seeing her late in the evening.” This poor guy made this really awkward face that was more comedic to me. Later, I came to find out that all the Japanese employees had no idea how to react to these videos because it was completely foreign to them.

So what does this have to do with the CIO’s departure? Well, they had a large going away party for him at some bar/restaurant. Don’t remember where. But it was chaotic and involved lots of drinking. There was one guy who was part of the market data team. Very professional Japanese guy who’d come in with suit and tie daily. Always serious. At this party, he randomly wandered up to me and started babbling nonsense like, “You are access control.” And I’m like, “Yeah, and?” Then he would say things like, “You know Ando-san, he’s political.” And start laughing completely out of character. I kept thinking to myself, “Man, he’s drunk” while my coworkers told me, “Oh, you haven’t seen him drunk yet.” But the moral of this story is that you haven’t lived life until you’ve hung out with drunk Japanese coworkers in Japan.

Oh, and there’s the story I wanted to get to. At some point, I had dropped my keitai (mobile) somewhere in the bar/restaurant. I might’ve started to head towards the station when I realized that my mobile was missing. But the important thing was that my keys were attached via a strap. So I panicked. I went back, looked on the ground and everywhere. We might’ve even tried going to a separate spot. Some people continued to linger around the original bar and one person told me that Takano-san had it. Takano-san was an older woman who had a director or senior VP title and ran the operations tech side of things. She was notorious for exclusively having guys on her teams and many would stay late.

Anyway, I found her somewhere by the bar and asked about my phone/keys. She handed them back then suddenly embraced me and told me, “I saved your life.” I was like WTF is this? It was a really weird moment because I knew she had a bit to drink. Later on, I might’ve approached her to get into one of her groups because I wanted to still be a developer. She told me that I would need to do it after hours and not put it on record. It was around the time things were getting pretty bad and I was becoming desperate to get out of my role as a bureaucrat. Makes me wonder what those late hours would’ve entailed. Maybe I should’ve done the “side” work since my career hadn’t been all that great in all honesty. But yeah, I guess I kinda learned about the flip side of that video in a very ironic manner.

Just before the MD left though, they worked with the HR department to move the bulk of the tech group to Harumi Triton Towers. Harumi Triton Towers was one of the newer offices close to Tsukiji, Tokyo’s famous fish market. However, it was a pain in the ass to get to with only one major line running towards it (the newer Toei Oedo-sen) where you could take the Kachidoki station and walk for about 5-10 minutes. This would become a major pain in the rear for me because I had to transfer two times to get there from Ushida. I used some back route to go to Kita-senju station then changed to the Hibiya-sen (which was sometimes more horrible than the Chiyoda-sen because at least with the Chiyoda-sen, you could get a near empty train that started from Ayase station) and finally do one more exchange at Shin-Ochanomizu station to get onto the Toei Oedo-sen. In addition, I think I needed a different Pasmo for these various exchanges. Normally, if you had a route, you could optimize it a bit so that you’d pass through certain areas in town that were popular like an Ueno, Akihabara, Shibuya, etc. so that you effectively got a “free pass” paid by your company. My route was just crap as I had nowhere interesting to transfer to.

Nonetheless, no one was happy about moving homes from Akasaka to this new spot. We’d lose access to all the wonderful restaurants around Akasaka and Akasaka-Mitsuke along with the other neighborhoods. Some people would walk or take their bike to the office as they had special arrangements for being an ex-pat. This all was part of that terrible deal that the HR made when they rebranded the company. One of the senior VPs was friends with Scott Adams of Dilbert infamy and submitted the story. A day later a strip came out where the pointy haired boss tells the staff, “Today, we’re moving you to the bottom of the ocean.” One of the guys made a large print out and taped it to his old cubicle side and remarked, “I wonder what future generations will think of this.”

Not everyone had been moved though. Only select staff that were considered “essential” were allowed to stay in the Akasaka building. So this felt like one of those Japanese business culture things where they pushed you out into a spot that’d make you feel ashamed and quit to avoid dealing with firing you.

The only real benefit of moving out in this direction was that we were close to Tsukiji and occasionally grabbed lunch at a decent sushi spot. Food options were much more limited and less international. Outside, they had the bento cart vendors, which weren’t bad but notorious for having food that stayed out in the sun too long. I got food poisoning at least on two separate occasions, which made me more cautious. There was a small market downstairs but the bento wasn’t that good either.

Also, the building was huge. I think we were on the 34th floor, which after 9-11 is fucking scary especially because of all the jishin (earthquakes) Japan is known for. And yes, when an earthquake struck, you could definitely feel its impact. There were two buildings with a bridge infrastructure piece to prevent one from crashing into the other. That was part of the earthquake safety, which probably has better standards out there than in America. Also, being up that high meant you’d get a lot of static electricity. It was bad enough working in the DC at Akasaka on the 22nd floor but you’d still get the occasional spark especially during the windier parts of the year.

The absolute worst part though was the annual fire alarm test. I think Akasaka had one too but here, we were on the 34th floor and I knew I wasn’t going to walk down however many steps because of my general acrophobia. Fortunately, a few of us had planned a secret “ice cream” meeting where we went to the local AM/PM to grab some treats beforehand, using the elevator and waited in our assigned spots while the rest trickled down. Everyone who arrived were sweating, out of breath and telling us we cheated. None of us really cared and I’ve been of the mindset that if I had to work in a high rise ever again where I needed to walk down more than 4 flights of stairs, I’ll just jump and kill myself. Why bother? After seeing what happened to the World Trade Center towers, I know I wouldn’t survive for a few seconds if something like that happened. Not to mention The Towering Inferno was a childhood favorite movie of mine and it’s impossible to ignore poor Lisolette/Jennifer Jones’ character who plummeted to her death and impaled herself at some point in one of the most horribly unjustified deaths in the movie.

Regardless, my life started to normalize drastically during 2004. Despite all the various pressures from everywhere, things felt like a real, basic life, which wasn’t bad all things considered. Just go to work, come home, have dinner, watch TV or a movie, play games, go to sleep. That isn’t to say things weren’t easy though. For instance, the ex- had a snoring problem and I’m a light sleeper that can’t handle disruptive noises. I thought having someone else besides me would be to my benefit. Not when you deal with a snorer! And my apartment only had a single bathroom. Then when I wanted to play a game all night, she would complain. I still was the one buying dinner almost every night or we’d go to the local Jonathon’s, where she would accuse me of eating the same thing or going to the same spot. But it was a nice place and she wasn’t cooking (nor probably could).

What the real problem was that I didn’t realize how much of a negative effect she was having over me. My libido had shrunk, I was unmotivated and tired almost all the time. I had to deal with problems at work and at home. But I did stop going to the shady spots, which started to save me some money. Instead, as stress continued to build and my arm would swell up from high blood pressure, I went to the local gym. There is/was a Renaissance Gym around Kita-senju. So I signed up, paid about $200/month and spent most of the night there after work. I didn’t understand the split routine workout and did everything except legs (yes, I skipped them). But I was into heavy cardio on top of the usual walking around Tokyo. I don’t know if I was losing weight around this time because my eating habits continued to be god awful, but I do know I started gaining muscle again. Also, working out was my way of diminishing the blood pressure every night and I think I might’ve been going at least 3-4 times a week.

Beyond that, I managed to hit up a few concerts. Around that period, I was a huge MAX fan. At one point, I got it into my mind about falling in love with Reina, probably because of how I liked Namie Amuro a while back since she resembled a friend back in college. Then for quite a while, I became enamored with Reina to the point where I had worked on a few J-drama type of scripts. So I got to see them twice at some small venue with dinner, which was nice but didn’t get to meet them personally. Yeah Otaku…I did print out that massive script and tried sending it to her along with a CD that had the documents. But I doubt she could read it or make sense of any of it.

The other super rad concert I got to see was Iron Maiden at the Super Saitama Arena. I believe that happened in February according to one photo’s meta info. But what a concert. The opening acts were Sonata Arctica and Arch Enemy. I hadn’t heard of either groups before but they both blew me away. I became a fan of both and really love their music. Arch Enemy was particularly impressive because I saw this tiny figure on stage with a light voice when this person spoke normally into the mic. My friend Thierry, who bought the tickets, mentioned, “Hey, that’s a girl.” I was like WTF? No way! Sure enough, the person turned out to be none other than Angela Gossow, possibly the hardest rocking death metal vocalist, if not THE female death metal vocalist ever.

With Maiden, you have to know that they’re probably my favorite band of all time. I’ve been listening to them since 1988, can play a variety of their songs on guitar, have idolized Adrian Smith and Dave Murray as early inspirations for playing guitar and think they’re fine blokes all the same. Unfortunately, at this point, I had fallen off the metal bandwagon and didn’t keep up for a while especially after Bruce Dickenson’s departure. I did return when Dickenson and Smith returned with Brave New World but I knew nothing about Dance of Death, for which this tour was in support of. I think this may have been the first time I heard Wildest Dreams from them, which eventually motivated me into picking up the rest of the album on mp3. Concert was excellent, although at one point poor Bruce started limping because he did his famous leap and landed badly on his ankle. He said something like, “Old age, old age…” then talked about how the tour had its share of casualties with a few members getting their nicks in. I even managed to pick up a program, which I still have and I believe is valued at $100 or so on ebay. Wonder if I should sell mine as it’s from Japan and in very good condition still.

After the concert, I think I ended up over in Harajuku. It might’ve been late say around 9 or 10pm. But I ended up going to the Jonathon’s. I’m certain by this point I had moved out of Harajuku and probably went there because I had gotten off nearby. Regardless, I needed food and it was the usual rowdy late night teenage crowd with the interior stuffy with smoke. Next to me sat an elder lady who started talking to me. I have no idea why she chose me but we chatted for an hour or so. I think she was complaining about the noise from the kids. Eventually, she brings out an old newspaper clipping from the Asahi Shimbun. It must’ve been at least 20-30 years old or so where the coloring had faded/become yellow. The clipping talked about her shop, where she was a craftsman doing kimonos with a shop up the street. The woman was much younger in the clipping and I think she kept it as being the most significant thing to occur about her life. She talked about how her son had long ago moved out and I think she was a widow. But it was obvious she was lonely and maybe sought the Jonathon’s out as a way to remember her son. None of the kids there probably would want to do anything with a crazy old lady holding a newspaper and reminiscing about the past. Yet she chose me to speak with. And my Japanese was still awful but she didn’t mention it compared to so many others I’d encounter out there. Eventually, I had to depart because it was getting late and I needed to go to work but she clammed up, looked down and I could see that she probably knew she would be alone again. I felt really bad for her but knew that I was in this weird yet privileged situation where being 5th generation Japanese-American, being isolated in this massive city where 65 million people are imported on a daily basis, amongst these oblivious kids, that only I could experience this once in a life time beautiful moment in being able to give a lonely widow some company even for a short period.

Another memory is when I got to go to Shizuoka with my GF. Shizuoka was known for the hot springs so we traveled out one time to rent a hotel and spend time at one of these places. GF aside, the hotel was awesome. They had this crab dinner meal which was incredible. Sadly, I recall almost nothing about the hot springs itself but the idea is that if you do go to Japan, you definitely need to check out an onsen. I would go to others later on even a few parks. But this was a great experience alone.

One thing you might notice in these stories is that I don’t mention much about America. There’s a reason: I hadn’t come home the entire time out there. There simply wasn’t a reason and I had a life in Japan for that duration. However, I was concerned about my family because I would send money home and they would help handle managing the account to pay off my bills. I still had my student loans, credit cards and car lease. My parents might’ve taken over the car lease because I wasn’t driving and they were down to two cars. I can’t recall how my credit cards were managed but I was still running a big tab because I might’ve done at least once balance transfer and had no idea about interest rates and managing debt. The student loan wasn’t as bad in terms of the monthly, but it’s just another weight on your shoulders. In short, I still needed to keep in contact with my parents.

But that leads to the one thing I really didn’t want to discuss but is inevitable. It probably is the thing responsible for how I feel about the world, religion, corporations, politics, humanity, you name it. It’s my father’s stroke. He actually had a series of strokes that might’ve started in the summer of 2003. My mom sent me an email telling me that he had a heat stroke and found him lying on the ground unmoving. Because of her wording, I didn’t take it too seriously. Until I finally had the opportunity to call them directly. My father picked up the phone (and this was from the office since Skype calling wasn’t a thing yet) and he was barely legible. He spoke with a slur and I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

I might’ve waited to call back later because eventually my mom answered. Normally, my mom, at least as how I knew her while I grew up, was a very garrulous individual. She would be energetic and could hold a regular conversation. This person was a zombie. Hardly sad a word, just listened, I had no idea if I had the wrong number. But I learned my dad had health issues maybe even a stroke.

So I had to go back to see what was going on. Needless to say, I brought the GF with me, which probably was a huge mistake, would pay for everything again and figured on going on a vacation while I was out there. Well, it turned out he, indeed, had a stroke and was hobbling around with a slurred speech but still capable of talking somewhat normal. But he still had his bad habits of smoking and would even drive my car to his detriment. I eventually took him to the doctor to have him inspected and confirmed that he had a stroke. That broke him down and me as well because I had never seen him cry ever. The man I knew growing up seemed immortal despite all the bad habits. But I guess the stress of home life, not having a job, no insurance, bills and his various bad habits finally caught up. It wouldn’t be his last stroke either.

We ended up going to Vegas with a friend (the GF and I) and staying at the Venetian. She was clearly out of control though and kept bugging me to go shopping everywhere. Because of my father’s situation my heart and mind were elsewhere but I was getting really fed up with her because she didn’t care about my situation and treated my father’s situation nonchalantly. At one point, my friend had to leave so I would end up being the one driving back. Unfortunately, someone left my internal car light on which drained the battery. By this point, I was freaking out and pissed. I called AAA, where I had no membership, to jump start the battery but was probably more annoyed that I had to drive back.

The GF wanted to go to another outlet mall but that was it. I was done. She threw a tantrum because she’s was so goddamn selfish. As we drove home, I told her I was done with her. She even had the gall to tell me that my father didn’t look bad. Let me say this: this woman was far from a brain surgeon. Like some of those massive cockroaches you’d see in Tokyo had more smarts than her. But it was this insensitivity that made it clear we were done.

Once I got back, the pressure at work didn’t relinquish. I became more aware of my stress and maybe it was around that period I started to work out. Work was getting more bureaucratic too because every action required additional audit steps and we’d get reviewed for everything by another group of log reviewers. I think when I was going to hit up one of the MAX concerts, I was trying to print out something but failing for one reason or another. The GF had been slinking around my place but I yelled and effectively kicked her out. You’d hear about how people who broke up would go through these tremendous heartbreaks, some people even going as far as making hit singles. Not me. I was elated that leech was out.

Apparently, so were my coworkers. When I admitted that I officially had broken up with the GF, the group cheered for me. I think my problems must have been so bad with her that I wasn’t able to see them myself. I probably had been complaining even more than ever about taking her out or whatever issues we were having but never noticed the effect that it was having on me. Oddly, I wasn’t craving another relationship so quickly after that.

But I did go to Com Inn once again and guess who was there? Yup, the ex-. It was just one of those awkward moments where I had no desire to look at her or be around her. Yet I was listening the entire time. She started to brag about going to America, buying Chinese food (Panda) on her own, seeing Vegas, etc. Then it became absolutely clear what I was to her the entire time.

Strangely, there was another person I had met there once before a while back that returned. Let’s call her Crazy because that’s my official name for her. Very pretty woman who I really think had some major mental issues. I kinda liked her from before but there was something wrong with her that I could not describe. Anyway, as we were talking, the ex- comes around the corner and both women eyed each other. I’ve seen that look between two women before and internally I was smiling. I’ve only had that feeling/experience one other time in my life but I recognized it immediately.

As for that the ex-, I stopped contacting her entirely but she tried to get back to me. At least once, she sent me an email to try to help her with English. But I wasn’t generous anymore. If anything the email merely reinforced what I meant to her.

Regardless, my manager began bugging me about my future at the bank. I had been taken down several notches because of my family’s situation, which I learned how my dad had another severe stroke that left him at a nursing home for his remaining days. Because the nursing home was in Costa Mesa, it meant my mom would never visit him and probably wouldn’t on her own because she hated him and vice versa. Yet the ball somehow was tossed into my court and I had to figure out something. One of my coworkers, who was a selfish bitch if we are to be honest, did tell me that, “This is your life and you should worry about that.” But I was at the crossroads and effectively experiencing an early type of midlife crisis.

My situation started to feel like a few stories I read both as a child and as a college student. One was a childhood tale called Urashima Taro. It was about a young man who rescues a turtle which turns out to be a beautiful princess of an underwater sea kingdom. He’s taken to this kingdom to live amongst their people as a reward but grows homesick and worries for his family. He’s given a choice and decides to return home. In turn, the princess gives him a box and warns him never to open it and that he would never be able to return to this kingdom. When he goes back to the surface, he’s found that his village has changed and that his family and friends are all gone. He asks about himself in name whereupon the villagers respond that Taro had drowned at sea. Hopeless, Taro opens the box and he ages to his real age, becoming an old man and dies shortly thereafter.

The other story is from Natsume Soseki called Kokoro. My modern Japanese literature course at UCI had us read it. I might’ve gotten at most to the half way point but could not finish because it was too depressing. But I suppose one way to describe it is a Japanese person-like Death of a Salesman at least in emotion. Part of it is the modernization of Japan and how the narrator tries to escape his home, only to be sucked back because his father needs him with all his problems.

Both of these stories remind me of my life where I feel like I cannot escape my family and whatever curse they bear. But in the end, I decided to return to America. It wasn’t what I wanted but I thought I could help my folks out. I thought I would be able to get a job at some dot com and make millions and bail out my father. Boy, that life is reserved only for the super lucky, well connected and rich. If you’re poor, you get nothing.

Despite that, I still had some time to wind down. While at Harumi Triton Tower, I would frequently go down at hang out at the Starbucks. At this point, I finally started drinking coffee. Or at least a high calorie strawberry frapuccino and grabbing a cookie during my breaks. There were a few cute girls who worked there, including one who reminded me of the model Shiho. Shiho is one of the prettiest models in Japan and I had become, of course, infatuated with her when I saw one of her Nescafe commercials. So you can imagine this girl was quite cute.

However, there was another girl who worked there that I was talking to as well. We became friends and she was fun. I invited her to accompany me to America because she wanted to learn English. Man, what a sucker I am, huh? So I would pay and there was a spare room for her to stay in, which was my childhood room growing up. In my mind, I had these grandiose plans where I could solve everything. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth.

Because I was leaving Japan permanently (or at least for another whole year), the one person that was actually sad to see me go at that time was Keiko. I took her to a party and one of her friends told me that she was going to miss me. Goddamn it! Why didn’t she say anything to me way before all this shit started? I know writing all this in retrospect that I had totally fucked up. That one night in Shibuya was going to be THE NIGHT. And yes, I continued to keep in touch with her for a number of years, but leaving Japan would change things. If I hadn’t been so dense and brain dead, I probably would’ve had a family by now and maybe more stability in my life.

But you really can’t know these things as they’re happening. No one can truly predict the future for better or worse.

Leaving Japan was no easy task either. First, I had to deal with the payback for the apartments. Imagine seeing the ticket shock of how much I was supposed to owe the bank. Yup, the house always wins. I needed every cent so I signed some agreement that put the burden on them since I didn’t realize I would be coming back a little over a year later. Then I had to get rid of all the furniture I bought. That was harder because it cost getting rid of big items. Some people would come down to pick up a few things like my refrigerator or cabinet. But it hurt seeing the thousands of dollars I had poured into this new life just go down the drain.

Which reminds me of this Australian guy who was sitting next to me for a while. He was really smart about his life and had gotten a pre-furnished place, which I didn’t know about. He knew he would eventually return to Australia and decided to avoid buying anything permanent (except maybe a bike which was easy to get rid of). But he hinted at how much he was making as a contractor and it just showed me what a dunce I had been in selecting the type of life over there. When the big fat head of infrastructure decided to cut the Aussie guy’s contract, it wasn’t a big issue because he just had a single suit case he needed to pack. In my case, I had been accumulating stuff like my guitar and Lego. The guitar would stay and I’d given that to Soy but the Lego I needed because of my future plans (which are still in the future).

Fortunately, Soy knew someone that could help me get my stuff back to America. It was horribly stressful due to customs and all the other nonsense of moving things overseas. It would cost quite a bit but I’d use a slower carrier which brought down the cost. Nonetheless, I was sad because in all honesty I wasn’t ready to head back. I had managed to establish a little life in Tokyo and was mostly happy outside of the job and the ex-. But I had gotten rid of the ex- and the job was stabilizing to a degree.

With all the recent layoffs and the bad job market in the US as well as my own employment instability over the years, it makes me wonder how much better or worse my life would’ve been if I decided to stay. In truth, there was nothing I could do to help my family. My dad was pretty much a goner and wouldn’t live for many more years before the nursing home’s poor conditions caught up and he got pneumonia and would die from it. My mom was another ticking time bomb both physically and mentally. But my friend’s words about my life being my life was something I should’ve paid more attention to.

Seeing that a lot of people I had known out there eventually would leave, I’m sure that I would’ve made my way back to the states at some point. The 3-11 earthquake along with the horrible response to the Fukushima reactors would’ve probably been the tipping point. But it’s hard to say just because maybe my presence out there alone could’ve changed the narrative. I think having some patience would’ve eventually allowed me to pick up a new job. Soy would swap to another company and I’m sure I could’ve come along.

Maybe the biggest regret is not going after Keiko. I don’t know if she would’ve been the real solution to all my problems but I can’t help but think about that night in Shibuya. What if I wasn’t such a fucking coward and had been more open with her. It really tears me apart knowing that there was a small chance of having a somewhat stable life than what it would become over the next two decades.

The post Life in Japan/Tokyo in 2004 – Tragedy and Major Changes appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

Before deep diving into the other significant event that would alter my career trajectory, I want to talk about bonenkais and shinenkais. These are end of year and new year parties. One of the previous ones for 2002 saw a brief mention of the 2002 bonenkai. But I don’t think I talked about one of the UNIX teams shinenkais. In that situation, I do know it was the only one we had because in 2004, I would have transferred to a different team while my boss, Joe, had left the company by then. I want to say that our new years’ party happened sometime in January at the earliest as the company was slowly re-awakening after being shutdown for the typical late December to early January Japanese style holiday tradition. But I do distinctly recall the location of Aoyama’s Barbacoa.

Barbacoa is a Churrasco spot where servers walk around the tables and serve slabs of roasted/grilled meats. One of the guys in our, Alberto, is Brazilian and he may have been the one to suggest the spot. After all, who can deny a meat buffet with an all-you-can-drink menu by our favorite nerd party animal? At the time, the meal typically would cost 5000-en with an additional amount for the drink menu. I believe you get 1-2 hours where you can start off at the salad bar and get appetizers as the servers start coming around to the tables. You get a chip that you can pause the service at any time (e.g. restroom, you’re just flat out full). I won’t go into the meat selection as the link shows the various types but I will say that the quality is high at least when I went.

My lead was a vegetarian because he and his girlfriend (later wife) decided to change their diet after the mad cow scare. So his selection was more limited but at least we didn’t have to pay. My French bud Thierry sat a few seats down next to Shibata-san, who was a tall Japanese contractor, who could get “friendly” at times. Also, there was Michael, a goth guy we picked up later in 2002 along my row. Anyway, the wine kept flowing along with the beer and at some point, I knew I must’ve went beyond my typical fill because I had turned into a very bright red. Then at some point, Thierry started calling for my name as Shibata-san was hugging him and telling him, “I love you Thierry!” for which Thierry yelled to me, “Keith, change seats please!” I just said, “No way!” as Michael and I laughed heartily at this display of inebriated affection.

Now, you could get harder liquor but you had to cover that yourself since it wasn’t on the main all-you-can-drink part of the menu. Vitaly, who was our resident Russian tape backup specialist and a black belt in Judo, apparently got really drunk that night. Now, if you know anything about Russians and Ukrainians, you’d realize that hard liquor is part of their lives. So seeing Vitaly speaking in broken English and just laughing drunk was one of those rare moments, indeed.

Afterwards, the group started to split up with some people (like Joe) going home. However, Alberto and Mauro decided to hit up a karaoke spot (why not?) and a few of us, including Michael, my lead (Urs) and myself naturally decided to tag along. We might’ve had some people from the BTO admin side with us like one of the women. But we ended up at a spot in Aoyama not too far down for karaoke. Now, I can’t sing without committing genocide and I was horribly drunk so I was just around for the ride. The room wasn’t very big and they started figuring out what to play. At one time, Mauro decides to do La Bamba. Now, Mauro was one of the guys in the DC, an Argentinian who was fairly tall and bulky, young, spirited, very smart and incredibly enthusiastic about Linux (which later landed him jobs at Amazon and Google). But I will say this about him: he did a goddamn great rendition of La Bamba. As the song picked up, some random oyaji salariman enters our booth and starts joining him. None of us protest and just watch as the two perform a duet of La Bamba. I’m sure Michael and I were laughing really hard at the scene just thinking WTF is this. Once the song finished, the guy waved goodbye and we kinda threw him out (but not rudely). This is Japan as they say.

Now, that I think about it, 2003 would be the first time I experienced a full year of seasons out in Japan. Before, I would go briefly and come back mostly around late fall/early winter or spring. Even in 2002, I wasn’t there for the entire duration. In 2003, I got the opportunity to experience Japan/Tokyo’s seasons in an uncompromising manner. Maybe the first thing I would say is that it gets fucking cold out there. I know there’s people who live in colder regions (heck we had Russians and one guy might’ve been from Siberia). But for an LA/SoCal boy who had been mostly used to shorts/t-shirt weather, the winter was brutal. We didn’t get snow that often but you knew when a snow storm was about to hit because the air would get so frigid, you’d feel it piercing your clothes. And you had to wear a good coat, mittens and scarf to cover your face/ears from the biting winds. I already pointed out how I nearly froze my hand off climbing the stairs up to Akasaka Park Building one day.

Also, I mentioned that my apartment was freezing too because of the poor insulation. Three of the rooms had heater/AC units that were awful to use. They weren’t standard and probably installed at different times because they were all different. But one problem about using these is the bad, moldy air they’d blow in. During the summer, I used to get sick for using the AC. I forget the Japanese word but effectively it’s like going to Vegas and staying in a hotel where the AC is blowing all the time. Your throat gets dry and you end up developing a very bad sore throat for days, maybe weeks. I think part of that is due to the unit not being cleaned and that the air quality in Tokyo is bad with all the cars and especially the smoking.

Some people ask me when are the best times to travel to Japan. To me the absolute peak season has to be during the Cherry Blossoms (hanami). The weather is still cold but not overbearing and the air is quite fragrant. But seeing the cherry blossoms in full bloom is a thing of wonder. A friend of mine, who is well versed in Japanese culture, mentioned that the tradition of drinking under the cherry blossoms was done by writers/poets because of the inspiration the scenery would bring. Sadly, that part of the culture has been lost to a sheer hedonistic version but you can certainly see interesting things just hanging out in parks and witnessing people get drunk and do silly things.

Others mention Golden Week, which is more for the Japanese than foreigners as people generally return home or go on vacation during this period. Only for one job did I have not have to work and could experience a proper Golden Week. But I think by that point I was pretty tired and had other things in mind. Between Golden Week and the summer, you have a small season called the rainy season, which occurs sometime in June. By this point, the weather hasn’t completely warmed up but you can experience light drizzles which get annoying.

Summers though are terrible. I think if you combine the business work culture in Japan with the summers in a city like Tokyo, you’ll find the experience horrid because you’re on a train, dressed in pants and maybe a suit while stuffed inside with other people while an AC blows in your face. Once you get off, you’re back in the humid heat and this situation bounces back and forth until you arrive at your destination. Even in just shorts and t-shirt, the summers cause your clothes to stick to you and the trains end up smelling of funk from the dampness of attire.

Fall isn’t bad but it depends on when you arrive. There is a small period where you can experience typhoons, for which I lost a few electronic devices and had free showers outside. In a city like Tokyo though, typhoons nullify having an umbrella because the winds are so strong and the rain hits your horizontally such that your umbrella either breaks or does not provide enough protection. I will say that once fall truly hits, Japan becomes quite beautiful almost like the cherry blossom season because of the leaves falling and changing color. Also, as winter approaches, you’ll see more decorations and the winter fashion for women comes out, which is really nice.

Weather aside, things at the bank were about to get rough. There was an incident that the FSA would come down hard on the company that year for. I remember how the actual executives from the head company came down to handle the matter because of the level of severity. Several auditors showed up and we were instructed not to talk to any of them or redirect them to our internal audit staff. At the end of the day though, these people managed to find what they were looking for, which caused a major stir that shut down part of our trading for each infraction (the issue was that two traders were doing after market trades on a Taiwanese semi conductor company that the business approved of; the other trader was in Singapore and arrested while this guy was removed and his whole team dismantled). That caused about 70% of loss in sales which trickled down into everyone’s bonuses for that year.

However, in one of the more devious corporate maneuvers I had seen, the HR director devised a plan to reincorporate the company onto Japan soil (it was one of those Cayman Island companies), which was a good and bad thing. The problem in the rebranding was that everyone’s contract would be re-evaluated so you either signed with whatever they gave you or you got nothing. For long standing employees, this was a massive blow because it nullified their tenure. Some people who were being overpaid got massive pay cuts. I think for myself I simply didn’t make that much so nothing changed except how I wouldn’t receive a bonus later on.

In turn, a lot of people bailed and we ended up getting a bad reputation for a period where rival companies became suspicious and knew what happened. It was effectively a toxic situation and being so low on the totem pole, my value was almost nil. I did try to search for a new job but found it very difficult in this period especially as I tried to stay in the same domain. Without the domain knowledge though and being specialized, I really had little to no value apparently.

I remember one night a bunch of us ended up going to the local Hobgoblin pub in Akasaka. Then one guy walked in where my boss pointed him out and said, “That guy is Jason Bajaj. He either is the reason I received a bonus last year or won’t get one this year.” From what I know he eventually exited and created his own hedge fund. But the wording my boss used was quite profound and stuck with me.

With sales plummeting and everyone panicking, various reorganizations took place. My boss got pushed aside by one of the most political muthafuckas I’ve encountered at a company and absorbed my team. I was moved to the fixed income group and my main role was changed to become a pure SA. It wasn’t what I was comfortable with which made things tough and I took a lot of heat for certain aspects of the job by my new lead, who was under a great deal of pressure and didn’t apparently like me in the end.

One time the new boss took us out to Roppongi after we got absorbed. There was some dinner beforehand but the group split up. Somehow we ended up at a strip bar with foreign women. I met a very cute East European girl, whom in retrospect I wish I did better in terms of retaining contact. But the place was horribly expensive and we ended up paying for ourselves. I think the service ended up being something like $300. The girl at one point took me in the back to give me a lap dance but I was really nervous and embarrassed. She also made me convince her tush, which I wasn’t comfortable doing (yeah, I know…). I guess she thought my shyness was cute because she told the other women about it but I’ve really been an alpha male type and become socially awkward around people like this. Also, my coworker Alberto was game, which kinda shocked me but then again did not.

The real problem was that money was going to get really tight for me since I still was dealing with various debt and my apartment was killing me in more ways than one. So at one point, I decided to move. Because I started to hate the Yamanote (uptown) zone because it was too crowded, modern and full of foreigners (besides myself). I had started missing the Shitamachi areas like Minowa and began investigating places further south. That would eventually come in handy because of how a huge part of the tech division would be moving but I didn’t know it at the time.

This is when I started exploring on foot areas like Nippori, Iriya and Minowa since there was a completely different vibe compared to the modern Shibuya, Shinjuku and Akasaka zones. Somehow I stumbled upon the Kitasenju station and started checking out that zone along with a few other spots along the Chiyoda-sen route like Ayase. Ayase though was a little too far and seemed to have less things surrounding the area. But Kitasenju was lively and more of a small suburb with good shopping and a few restaurants. The station itself was connected to the Lumine department store, which I think had a small international market. Since my spot over in Harajuku didn’t have a lot of markets near me, I knew I needed something more accessible since I would go out to eat most of the time and/or bring home bento, which got tiresome.

Eventually, I came across a nice little spot that was much smaller than my spot in Harajuku by the Ushida station. This spot would remain my living quarters until I left Tokyo that time around. Initially, I thought the move was going to save my remaining sanity as Meijidori had almost stripped every sane neuron I had. Instead, my apartment was positioned right next to the Keisei-sen. Even at the 5th floor, the apartment shook whenever the express lines passed through. The only saving grace was that they would finish just before 1am and start up about 5am. So I had 4 hours of peace, which was a hell of a lot more than in Harajuku.

Yet what I was about to encounter was one of the worst experiences in my life. Getting to work meant I needed to use the Chiyoda-sen. At first, I’d take one of the local lines to get to Kitasenju to transfer (it was using one of the Hibiya-sen lines that would go into Saitama) That line could be murder depending on when I got on. But the Chiyoda-sen itself was rough because you’d get to the platform and if you’re lucky, you’d receive the train that would start from Ayase. If you were unlucky, you’d get the one from Chiba, which was packed. After you boarded, the train might wait a minute or two longer for other trains to disembark so their passengers could get onto this train. Then came the pushers.

If you’ve never experienced a morning in Tokyo with the pushers, you are joyously lucky. These people’s jobs is to squish as many people as they can inside of the train. You could be directly at the door and these pushers would shove another 10-20 people inside. Occasionally, you’d get the wind knocked out of you or worse yet have someone else’s wind blown in your face. In the winters, it would be awful because the heater would blast at you and the summers would be the opposite. Some trains didn’t even have the handrails so you’d stand up parallel towards the door. Then as the train stops, everyone would almost fall like dominoes in one direction with only their mass providing any sense of protection from falling flat on your face. Once in a while, I would be directly against the door where my window was getting smushed against the glass. Just imagine how COVID must’ve been!

To say this didn’t add to my already peak stress levels from work is an understatement. My new manager came up and accused me of coming in late because of the change in location. And there’s little you can really do because you’re just exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally all the time.

The area around Ushida itself was more family oriented too. Mostly large apartment buildings with a wide road next to me and the stations across the street. For food, I mostly ate at McDonalds next to the station, the Family Mart or the Jonathon’s and Denny’s. Apparently, the McDonalds and Family Mart are still around as is the old apartment building. Moving though was going to be a pain because I had to break the lease, owe the reikin and deal with new reikin/shikin, which meant more debt to the company.

Once I was out in Ushida, some parts of my life improved. I did enjoy the area itself much better because it didn’t feel so damn crowded all the time. Also, the zone around the station was really cool with little restaurants you could discover as well as the main street with all the stores. It did make getting into the popular areas of Tokyo a little more time consuming but I could do things like hit up Akihabara on the way home periodically.

Socially, I was still able to meet people but going to Com Inn would be tougher and I’d have to really consider staying out late because of the distance. The thing with Kitasenju is that it’s across the river which made crossing harder on foot. There is a bridge though that wasn’t far off from me I could’ve used but we didn’t have Google Maps at that point nor good mobile devices that would’ve made traveling on foot in Japan so much easier.

My friend Sugi-san did invite me to at least one Gokon, which was cool because we ate over at a canenabe spot (crab nabe). That was really good and it must’ve been in the winter. Unfortunately, I ended up with nothing that night again. Another friend at work tried to set me up with her friend but I had almost no interest in the friend and had more interest in my coworker. After dinner, she accompanied me to my apartment in Harajuku because we met up at a restaurant in Aoyama. My friend ended up being quite drunk and I think I could’ve gotten somewhere if I were more of an aggressive type. Story of my life.

Nonetheless, the shadier side of my life would peak when I would hang out with Sugi-san. One time, he invited me out to Kabuki-cho with his friend. This might’ve been one of the darndest times of my life because I really saw a bunch of shit I probably shouldn’t have seen. But I remember hanging out near the theater area where you have various people coming up to you advertising their shops. Sugi-san talked to a ponbiki (pimp), who appeared as some nerdy guy with glasses in a black suit. I think he was trying to figure out places we could go to. Suddenly, a large Nigerian approached us and was about to harass us when the ponbiki flashed a pink or yellow piece of paper which caused the Nigerian to do a 180. It made me realize just who was in control of the area. I didn’t say anything but I think Sugi-san might’ve acquired a coupon or determined where we could go.

In turn, we walked around the crowded zone and made our way to what was known as a “kissing pub”. I had no idea what to expect and just followed him and his friend inside. This spot had to easily have been the wildest place I’ve ever been to in my life. You enter this large room where a bright, shimmering disco ball flashes above you while high pitched anime type of music is blasting your ear drums off. Rows of benches are setup with a small tray table where various Japanese men are sitting with a drink waiting around. You’re given a spot that I believe is numbered and may be asked about your drink preference. Some guys get beer but I think they generally give out water (mizuwari) to mix with some alcohol.

As this is going on, there’s a guy at the front with a microphone calling out names over the PA system while these girls in skimpy evening gowns are rotated in and out to come and sit on the patrons’ laps. Of course, these girls all have aliases (fake names) and you can chat briefly with them. But the main thing is that you can kiss them and somewhat feel them up. There are limits to where you can feel them but it’s one of those situations that’s just so mind blowing especially for a shy guy with limited Japanese that I had no idea what to do. But you effectively get one girl for 10 minutes over a 40 minute period, which comes out to 4 girls per round. We stayed for 80 minutes so you can do the math (and we did return one more time later that year).

Most of the girls are friendly and were curious about me because I was an obvious foreigner (well as obvious as it could be). One girl was really bitchy to me and I believe she just wanted to get everything over with or didn’t care for talking. Another girl smelled downright rotten; like either some guy rubbed his armpits over her or she needed to bathe badly. You can’t forget that around this time was the rise of the ganguro/yamamba. But holy god was that awful and made me rethink my impression of women.

Of course, I was mind blown and addicted but Sugi-san wanted to go elsewhere. Now, I could be wrong but it was either on this occasion or the 2nd time we went to one of those places where we hit up this Chinese hostess bar and Sugi-san gained a look of concern because he didn’t recognize the place. Someone popped his head out the door and Sugi-san talked for a bit, learning that the previous tenant had been shot up by the mafia (yes, THEM), along with the customers and girls too, which is why the place had changed. I was pretty horrified because I didn’t hear about any of this on the news but it kinda goes to show how the underground world would be swept clean of these incidents (and there were a lot that didn’t make it)

As we were walking around a bit stunned, we encountered some guy lying face first on the ground. Numerous flies were buzzing over his head and I didn’t know what we should do. Sugi-san turned to me and started laughing telling me, “Hey, he’s one of the guys that got shot.” I was like, “That ain’t funny man.” I never found out the condition of that guy because he could’ve been some homeless person or just another drunk that partied too hard (and I saw a lot of those types out there).

I do remember that on that particular night we managed to hit up a hostess club so I think the previous story was probably the 2nd time we were out there. This other hostess club was Japanese and the one girl who sat with me was really cute but drunk and horribly annoying. She had this high pitched voice and wore a kimono but kept making some loud noise and laughed a lot. By that point, I was so drunk and tired I probably didn’t care.

I don’t remember what else we did that night because we couldn’t easily go home as the trains were shut down. Most people might end up hanging out at a McDonalds (which was 24/7) or some other 24/7 cafe. I know along the street outside of Kabuki-cho there was a coffee shop type of spot that you could get curry or noodles so I might’ve had curry to calm my stomach. But what a night.

The thing is that despite going to these types of places my heart was unsatisfied. I was striking out a lot with all the women I wanted to date. I remember one night when I got drunk I started cussing up a storm which scared some girls off. But it made me realize that drinking by myself wasn’t a good idea since I think it pushed a lot of negative subconscious thoughts to the forefront. Hence forth, I almost never ever drank alone again that I could recall.

At work, things were very stressful as I was frequently given tasks that were meant to push me out or make me look bad. So I started shopping internally for a move. I spoke with a few groups but almost all of them dissuaded me from joining. I did meet someone else who was running an ecommerce site for movies over in Shibuya. We would hang out on occasion and I wanted to work on his stuff but he just had no money to pay me. But we stayed friends while I was out there and I’d come by to visit and have a meal. When he got drunk though, it could be frustrating like one time he told me something that hurt my feelings since I was very alone and had high hopes and dreams while living out there. But it just made me feel even more inadequate since I was getting to the point of feeling hopeless and that my identity as a 5th generation Japanese American meant I couldn’t connect to anyone.

At work, my original boss eventually decided to quit. He had been moved to a room where he was assigned a dead project on purpose. Usually, in Japanese companies, there’s this thing where a company might try to send a person to some isolated spot as a way to embarrass that person and more importantly to get them to quit to avoid dealing with unemployment since firing has consequences. My boss one day called me up and started telling me, “Little Bo-Peep lost her sheep.” I didn’t want to be a fucker but I knew he was mentally gone. The guy put in incredible hours at the place and built a very sturdy team up. So it was clear he was heartbroken. I felt bad but he was a really smart fellow, saved his money, knew a bunch of people and had some patents to start a new business up. I guess things would work out especially because his wife just had a kid.

But it meant things at work were going to continue to increase in pressure without having the various shields I was provided before. Luckily, I got transferred to a new team for Access Control (or as the Australian guy would call us, “Asshole Control”). Well, I don’t know if luck really is the appropriate word but it did buy me time and some breathing room. Maybe one of the benefits was a new hire who just graduated named Soy. I think he was a little younger than me and less experienced for sure. So I was kind of the senpai to him at least in terms of the tech side.

Soy was a lot of fun and pretty much gave me new life since I was in bad need of new friends. He lived further down on the Hibiya-sen from me at the time but was on a strict budget because new hires simply didn’t make much. But we hung outside quite a bit whenever he took a smoke break or occasionally we’d grab dinner together and a drink. His girlfriend was a bit possessive so getting him away from her (or even with her) could be challenging just to go out. Since my favorite story of Soy didn’t happen until the following year, I’ll save that for a 2004 post. But let’s just say this guy had some interesting luck.

Sometime in the fall though was probably my most impulsive but deeply satisfying Japan experiences ever. As Kita-senju was close to the Asakusa station, I got up really early one morning and decided to hop on over to the Asakusa station. For whatever reason, I got on the Tobu-sen to Nikko. I think I might’ve done some research about Nikko beforehand as a place that was famous for its temples (especially the three monkeys of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) I believe my parents may have visited that spot in the late 60s or early 70s in their one trip to Japan.

But getting out towards Nikko was such a relieving experience because of how you simply can get away from the city life and into this mountainous, natural region. Like all of the pressure from the city that would give me constant anxiety and headaches simply disappeared the further I moved away from Tokyo and approached Nikko. From Asakusa station, Nikko is roughly two hours. I think I might’ve gotten on the wrong train and needed to track back a little so my overall time was a bit longer than I had wanted.

Once I arrived, I pretty much fell in love with this spot. There’s a little town that mostly is about tourism. I found one spot for tourist to get more information and located a hotel to stay since I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to get back to Tokyo easily. From there I did the temple tour which was a wonderful excursion with a LOT of steps. But you get to see more of a traditional Japan with the pagodas and shrines. Outside of the monkeys themselves, I really had no context of the spot, which is sad because the area was lovely. The trek was vigorous but at that point in time, my cardio had become excellent from walking in Tokyo so much. Only the stairs would inconvenience me and provide a challenge.

I think the overall voyage took two hours or so to get through. By the time I was done, the sun started to set and I needed to get back to the town to find some food and rest for the night. In addition to the temple walk, there was a botanical garden I went through but truthfully that really wasn’t my thing. I might’ve spent an hour there at most to procrastinate returning to the loud and boisterous Tokyo. But at least for that two days, I felt spiritually, physically and mentally relieved.

Much of the rest of the year ended up blurry. But towards the end, I met a woman who I eventually asked out. I won’t reveal her name because in truth I think she was bad luck. But what happened was that I had continued to go to Com Inn and met someone who I was having dinner with on occasion and helping out with her English. She was a hakken worker (temp job) so her life wasn’t really stable. I think at the time she was 6 years older than me but that was fine because I liked older women (still do). Also, I tried to help her get a job at my company on my team but my lead didn’t care for her. I think it devastated her but we ended up going to Ginza one night and I asked her out. She took a moment to consider but said yes. I was so happy in the moment because she became my first real girlfriend ever and I was on top of the world.

I wish I had been less naive. That little pause should’ve told me everything about how she really felt about me (either that or she was really stupid). But I did feel very used by the end of the relationship. Yet when you’re young, dumb, desperate, inexperienced and heart broken, you’ll seek any form of justification for a sign of hope. At least, the first few months ended up being fun because the experience was novel. Eventually, she would partly move in with me, despite having her own place in Chiba. But it was both nice having someone around and at the same time grating because I was used to being alone.

As the year continued to wind down, work was hectic with the office slowly closing down. There still needed to be people to support the business and I wasn’t savvy enough to take my vacation. In turn, my group got chosen to do a bunch of busy work putting stamps on a large number of packages. And later on during the “break”, Soy and I were handled various oncall duties at the office. The previous lead from my last group sent me a horribly pissed off VP from Fixed Income who started yelling at me with, “It’s all your fault. Why should we have to fill out these forms?” I don’t remember how we ended up resolving the issue but later I learned that VP was an asshole and hated doing anything. But again as the lowest rung on the totem pole, I got to absorb the brunt of the blame.

Also, I will say that I still tried to go to a few joshi puroresu shows. By that point, my interest had severely died down and I was more focused on my Tokyo life, an aspect I never really had while living in America. But the shows weren’t very good anymore with smaller crowds. But if there was one at Korakuen Hall or Kitazawa Town Hall, I might show up to check it out. I started going to these ‘Jd Kitazawa Town Hall shows because these new Athresses like Yumi Ohka were starting. They didn’t last long and weren’t well trained. A few were really cool. One girl spoke good English so I spent a long time just chatting with her. Also, I would talk to Yumi quite a bit (who was the only person that continued to wrestle ironically). She was tall and cute but kinda like an ostrich. I did see Emi Tojo effectively end her career at one show where she was supposed to do something like a sunset flip power bomb type of move off the top turnbuckle but came crashing down on her neck and ended up with a severe stinger. That was really sad. She stayed around for some shows later on after healing up but her in ring career was dead. I did get to talk to her and she seemed cool and was cute. I read later on she got involved with some underground cat fighting type of promotion which is sad. But I have a feeling the “entertainment” side she was involved in wasn’t exactly mainstream. More like some of those seedy spots I’d hit up. Either way, incidents like that really discouraged me more and more in going as I felt horrible for these people.

I did mention the bonus situation: so there wasn’t any for me. Someone later told me that all the executives and management intentionally gave bad reviews to everyone to ensure only the upper people would be given bonuses. I had a stuffed Tigger that I had been carrying around nervously. Instead of my previous manager, I had that lead guy sit down with me in doing the annual review and he doc’d my mostly because I changed groups (he used other excuses but I knew what was going on). Since my father was having financial problems, I think a bonus that year would’ve really helped. So I ended up hating this guy for the rest of my life.

Eventually, there was a bonnenkai but the feeling was a general downer. The CEO admitted as much with the company facing immense hardships from that one incident. I think I hung out with my new group which helped a bit. The food was good of course and we once again held the event at the New Ohtani down the street. Afterward, there was another party over in Aoyama at some club someone rented out. A bunch of us clustered in a corner and one of my coworkers who was about to quit got really drunk. She kept going through this weird emotional back and forth all night where one minute she would cry and another she started laughing. I think she was having boyfriend issues and hated the job because the two other women in the group picked on her and gave her all the shitty work. At one point, she grabbed my arm and sunk her teeth REALLY hard into my shoulder. It hurt so badly that I started bleeding. I think COVID vaccines are far less painful than that bite that rat administered to me.

Gradually, the party wound down and a new crowd entered. I guess these people were hip because they looked at the rest of us who weren’t sales traders and executives as street garbage. One person had to get that drunk girl a taxi and when I showed her the teeth marks the next time I saw her she was really embarrassed and told me she didn’t remember a thing because she ended up throwing up the entire night.

But maybe that’s the way I end the 2003 period in the form of a literal painful memory that I completely had forgotten as well.

The post Work/Life in Japan in 2003: Corporate Implosion, New Friend and A Glimmer of Promise Part 2 appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I think the movie itself has an abundance of positive elements in terms of cast, appearance and atmosphere. I’ve mentioned that The Black Hole ought to be incorporated in a big top 4 sci fi movies around that late 70s/early 80s period, which includes Star Wars (of course), Star Trek and Alien. However, the two weakest elements are in fact the science (or lack thereof) and the general dumbing down of an otherwise thriller for the sake of attempting inclusion for children (i.e. merchandising). These two aspects inherently disrupt the movie in addition to the bizarre religious overtones that would get incorporated into a near incoherent movie that barely gets by.

The movie really feels like three movies spliced together where you start off with a mystery/space gothic almost horror type of show that instantly swaps genres into space opera followed by a bizarre disaster movie (which was the original theme). Because the movie attempts to accomplish too much, it ends up having a very poor sense of pacing where almost 3/4ths of the movie is a slog to get through but ends up racing once Alex is killed off and Kate is taken to the hospital. You get this narrative whiplash that doesn’t work too well given the build and expectations leading up towards the second half.

I think that part of the problem is how the movie went through some serious revisions. Originally conceived as a disaster movie, which was popular in the mid to late 70s, The Black Hole was originally going to center around the Cygnus craft (I believe the working title was Space Probe I). Once Star Wars demonstrated the monstrous success as a genre and merchandising monster, it became clear others wanted to copy that formula or format to get their piece of the pie, Disney not withstanding. In turn, Disney’s executives stuck their head into the revisions and added their prerequisites, which I think show why you shouldn’t dictate a story inside a boardroom.

But one thing that I came to realize as I thought about this situation is how the actual black hole in the movie is almost a non-entity but honestly gets in the way of the story and destroys a good chunk of credibility both in the science and plot. One problem I had previously identified was how it made no sense that the black hole itself was not known ahead of time by the Palomino crew, especially if they had the capability of reaching far distances in the universe.

Yet if you remove the black hole element itself, a large number of problems disappear. You remove the slog of Palomino dealing with the gravity, the visual issues of the black hole manifesting as a giant, randomly appearing whirlpool in space as well as any the nonsensical religious iconography and metaphysical implications of going through for the ending. In eliminating all those aspects, you probably can save yourself a good 30 minutes of film to focus on what people have claimed has been the best aspect of the movie: the Cygnus.

If there’s been one universal agreement about this movie, it’s that the Cygnus itself is a gorgeous ship. The Cygnus evokes both a majestic craft that is boding and highly advanced without really requiring much explanation. Also, the ship itself seems to have more personality and description than the black hole ever could. Given that the movie was meant to be about the ship and an impending disaster, I think the movie should have stayed course because you really didn’t need the black hole itself to create intrigue.

Another major aspect I’d eliminate is leaning too hard on the space opera aspects. Meaning the high paced action laser shoot outs. I heavily disliked these because they weren’t really memorable and half the time looked bad. Whenever the sentries were employed against the Palomino crew in force, they were outgunned and outclassed which made no sense given Reinhardt was capable of using them to subdue the entire Cygnus crew. I would keep Maximilian gutting Alex in some format just because that was highly memorable and fits more with the grim, gothic mysterious portion of the movie. Also, I would keep most of the hospital scenes except for the shoot out part. I think there was some unique things in that which were memorable but the shoot out and Vincent’s presence made the scene utterly frustrating to me.

The cutesy robots would have to go no matter what though. They simply don’t belong and corrupt the otherwise dark atmosphere. If you need a robot or two for the Palomino crew, I would make it expendable as well as non-verbal. I think the dialog and attempt at humanizing the two robots played against the movie badly where they became annoying. And even though Vincent and to a lesser degree Bob helped move the plot forward, they also took several steps back because of how much wasted cellulite they occupied in doing absolutely nothing essential to the script.

Without these elements, I think you could’ve done more to fill in the backstory of how Reinhardt took over the ship. A hidden digital video archive could be discovered by the Palomino crew, which show how the failed mutiny went down. In particular, I think if Kate could have witnessed her father perishing under Reinhardt’s mandate, it would’ve increased her animosity towards him.

In converting the genre to a sci fi mystery, you could learn more into the atmospheric elements in treating the Cygnus as a ghost ship. Obviously, the Palomino crew, once they discover the truth behind the Cygnus, would do everything they can to escape. But I think like Alien, you could’ve played into the idea of a “little Indians” type of elimination story where the crew members are slowly eliminated and consumed by artifacts of the ship. I have to go back to the line from Reinhardt where he asks Kate to “save me from Maximilian.” There’s something that could’ve been done with the idea that Maximilian was the one that took over and has this plan for the crew of converting everyone into his humanoid cyborg minions. It’s kinda like an outer space version of Burnt Offerings where the ship claims the souls of those that board it.

Like one of my most frustrating parts is the whole hospital sequence. It simply fails because of the way it was shot and the nonsense with Holland’s “just in the nick of time” rescue. I’ve argued that the movie completely falls apart once that scene takes place. I think a far more interesting version would’ve had Holland faced with an obstacle course of sentries that he had to evade to get to Kate. Instead of rescuing her, I would’ve made his efforts too late. Imagine the shock in seeing Kate being completely converted into a humanoid when Holland removes a face plate. Perhaps, Kate becomes that silver humanoid from the space probe.

Similarly, I would’ve made Pizer more significant in the movie rather than a 5th wheel. He’s supposed to be the Luke Skywalker of the movie but having a terrible hair cut, rotten lines and a garbage can incessantly brow beating him, Pizer ends up becoming ineffectual. But what if he’s the one that manages to survive? Perhaps, Dan sacrifices himself on the ship in an attempt to prevent Maximilian from destroying humanity and Pizer escapes to warn Earth. Instead of getting the Alien “the Cygnus blows up” deal, we don’t receive a visual confirmation. You could show under Maximilian this cyborg type of creature like a Hector that has been infused with Reinhardt, Frank McCrae and Dan steering the Cygnus towards Earth. Now, wouldn’t that be a haunting lasting image more so than the stupid hell/heaven sequence we received?

The reason I’m for this idea of changing the genre or rather re-dedicating the genre into the mystery aspect is that Disney could’ve claimed a wide open spot back in the late 70s if they had been more focused. One of the faint praises people give Disney for this movie is their attempt at pivoting by moving towards a darker version of movie making. Alien hadn’t been in theaters yet, which effectively defined the whole sci fi horror genre while Star Trek: The Motion Picture probably was the purest of the sci fi movies around. The movie would’ve been very anti-Disney in eliminating kid friendly tropes but I think thematically the movie would’ve been tighter and paced better. Also, I think the movie would’ve given the actors more opportunities to actually act rather than run around and cluelessly fire off lasers (which they did apparently) while the effects department could’ve focused more on the interior of the ship and fleshed more of that out. Then there’s the improvement of the science aspect itself by simply eliminating any reason to force scientific jargon in the movie. Even the hospital scene could’ve been better justified (there’s other movies like Logan’s Run which did a far better job in handling similar scenes)

Some people might direct my attention to Event Horizon or even Interstellar, which probably is the best spiritual successor/remake possible for The Black Hole. I think Event Horizon is just too gory for me even though the plot might have similarities. Interstellar was better science fiction but the plot became a major mess once Matt Damon shows up (as per my original review). The thing is that I still want to retain the major elements of The Black Hole but make it more in line with other movies like Time Bandits or Dragonslayer in terms of pushing the envelope without completely alienating the audience. I mean if Disney insisted on doing an Anthony Perkins bowel removal treatment, they probably would’ve needed to spin off a separate studio to put this movie out under.

Either way, that’s just some thoughts on the subject for which I’ve always had a great number of thoughts on.

The post The Black Hole: Re-Imagining As A Sci-Fi Mystery appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

First, let me say that the current season honestly offered nothing interesting to me when I first saw it. Even though there is a new season mechanic and boss, the bulk of it looked far undercooked or with little to no meat on the bone. What I saw was mostly a ton of nerfs for no real good reason outside of this being Blizzard’s typical inability to balance anything without providing a counteroffer. No new real builds, items, skills, etc. However, they did change one aspect that probably didn’t need an update: Mythics.

Calling the change “Mythics 3.0” the game turned the idea of Mythics into a quality attribute similar to primal ancients from Diablo 3. There were going to be a few catches here where you could only craft a single mythic and that the mythic drop rate would be abysmally low (probably around 2% or less given Diablo 3’s drop rates). The thing would be how using the materials to upgrade an item would reroll the item but give it perfect stats or how you would find an item of mythic quality that would provide the aforementioned stats. This would be slot based but class related to narrow the outcome.

I can’t tell you just how stupid this idea is.  Why would you add an additional RNG layer upon something that requires a good deal of RNG to find? I’ve said that a huge problem with Blizzard is the sheer amount of dependency on RNG as a way to provide a veil of content and progression. But it’s just a sheer waste of time. You should be rewarded for finding the super rare thing and being able to get the results you want once you farmed it. Why add another layer of frustration?

Again, I point to the idea that the game and Blizzard has a terrible abusive psychological relationship with its remaining player base. I mean if you really look at what’s going on here, this system is meant to inspire and play into a gambling addict’s wet dream. People who have severe mental illness for this type of addiction and abuse are going to love it. But the vast majority of players have decried it as being nonsensical.

I know the current director for Diablo 4 called for the need to have what people are describing as “aspiring content.” While I get the idea, I feel this idiot is merely parroting what a few streamers have being reiterating without providing actual concrete examples of how this ought to be implemented/executed. This to me is NOT aspiring content. It’s just lame, lazy and brain dead. They talk about how these changes are good for the health of the game. It isn’t. It’s an unhealthy, manipulative way in creating an abusive relationship with the player base. I wish more people realized this aspect and call Blizzard out on this problem.

Part of the reason I’m writing this is because I’m pretty infuriated about various posts that I’ve read on reddit. One idiot started knocking people about having 9 kids, 35 jobs, etc. I imagine this goof is some obese motherfucker with broken glasses, buckteeth and a nose nine feet long and whose odor can be detected from a galaxy away. But he’s also probably got mental problems because he enjoys the abuse like some Stockholm syndrome victim.

Another post started talking about how the core problem is itemization in the game. While the revamp back around Season 4 did move itemization in a better direction, there were very clear issues with the implementation. The biggest issue for me with itemization in Diablo 4 is that the affix pool is simply too big. There’s a lot of very obvious useless affixes that pollute the pool. I think because you can have up to four slots, you end up with this horrible large number of combinations that when you examine the math behind it, basically forces players onto a hamster wheel trap. Of course, prior to the revamp, the original Diablo 4 itemization already was quite iffy with the poorly conceived “damage ’til Tuesday” conditionals. But I would argue that the update only removed the conditionals but kept the volume of affixes.

But I think it’s worth cross examining Diablo 3’s affix system vs the one implemented in Diablo 4 to show why Diablo 3 was far less frustrating. Diablo 3’s itemization revamp made it so that most items would have four affixes, with a few guaranteed for legendary items and two secondary affixes. Specific resistances and less useful affixes were placed into the secondary pool and the main pool were kept reasonably clean such that each slot had specific purposes. In addition, having 3-4 guaranteed extra gear slots meant you could have more breathing room for spots to help fill out areas like critical strike chance without feeling hampered by breakpoints.

Then if you take the primal ancestral aspect, Diablo’s items generally would have the bulk of the things you needed where the Enchantress’ reroll system would get you pretty close to the ideal item. Also, with Kanai’s Cube, you could either reroll a specific item if you had the materials in the hope of upgrading something into a primal ancient or use primordial ashes to have the guaranteed upgrade. In both cases, the upgrades were mostly worth it and you felt rewarded.

On the other hand, Diablo 4 simply says fuck you because our developers are assholes. We have zero respect for the time and effort you put into our broken ass, lame, second rate, uncreative implementation of a game where we, as fanboiz (and grillz) of the D3 system have almost no lineage nor idea how to make this game great because of corporate overlords are holding a Magnum to the back of our skulls with a KPI mandate to demonstrate vanity numbers in the form of the ethereal notion of engagement. Whether or not that engagement will lead to actual purchases of our soulless transmogrification system or the equally worthless Battle pass system that everyone and their mother in the industry has these days is irrelevant in the scheme of things. But it’s a way to hide the general incompetence behind an effectively dead company living off the legacy of previous generations and a nostalgic brand name.

Did I just go scorched earth on this whole thing?

Here’s the deal. I’m frustrated. I’m not the only one but I can see a bad deal a mile away. I purposefully avoided the current season because I knew it would be a waste of my time since the developers decided let’s pull the plug on these people now that they were suckered into the expansion. It’s really bad will especially when the amount of content to compensate is so small and repetitive. I get more joy from a mobile game that has a 80s art format and is turn based more than I can from Diablo 4 at the moment.

When I look at what the expansion provided, I think it came out real lean. We got two new classes, a new zone and rehashed old content from previous seasons in the form of limited modifiers. The story itself was also abysmal and far too long and self indulgent. The final boss ended up being a god awful boss because they handed it to someone who probably works on WoW mythic raids and has no clue how to handle an ARPG boss. Fishing was just a bore. The cow level quest only would lead to a single transmog. The only thing that was semi decent was the Horadric Cube. But even then I think it was done poorly compared to Kanai’s Cube.

Here’s the reality. The game was thrown a life line. The itemization was still fucked up after the initial revamp because Tempering was too RNG based and Masterworking was lame. Most people ended up hating the direction seasons were moving because of the “Green Helltide” meme alone with the seasonal powers, which honestly were really good since they altered your game play and made playing a season worth it. But the thing is that they refuse for whatever god knows what reason to reincorporate these mechanics back into the game (probably game balance where these jokers can’t figure out how to balance anything). So the game has been the fucking same thing every season without really growing beyond a few mixed core changes.

But they can’t figure it out. They have no idea what to do and only have been looking at Diablo 3 to pillage and rape whatever dignity it had because the Diablo 3 team is creatively (and possibly morally) bankrupt at this time. They couldn’t even get the goddamn killstreak right. Just how idiotic are these people? It really shouldn’t be this hard.

They added SSF to the core game which probably was the only thing that was a decent option. But again who is the target audience? I think the problem, which I’ve stated multiple times over, is that there is a stupid, hidden mandate within that company to have an esports function in each game. That’s why this stupid game sees all these timed events and gauntlets. The leaderboard with the Tower made the game far worse because now people are going to complain even more about it. As a result, Diablo 4 will never be balanced because they have no idea how to test the mathematics properly, the multipliers are out of control and the sheer amount of RNG make it infeasible to make this game work. It’s basically going to be a perpetually broken game.

But let me further add to what I see as the problem. The idea of adding Torments was something almost everyone decried because it’s really a meaningless game mode when you think about it. Because the game was designed as an open world setting, splitting up players further by tiers defeats that purpose. Also, in certain circumstances, people can exploit this design (see the normal mode farm for season 11). I think the idea of having these Torments was to create a risk/reward system. So if you wanted a better reward, you needed to take a higher risk and push yourself.

I think when they added more Torment levels they simply created more work for themselves since now you’re forced to balance for various difficulties, which is almost impossible to do with the way the game is setup. I think what they really needed was more customization in terms of various settings like monster difficulty, loot amount, etc. that gave players more agency in their experience with the game. Maybe some of this would be prohibitive in terms of player interaction like perhaps players who chose certain high loot settings should not appear on leaderboards in a kind of opt-out choice. Or maybe some players prefer dealing with dense monster zones. But I dislike how these options never were really provided and that they tried to give a blanketed type of difficulty across the player base. Even harder than balancing a game is trying to appease a wide range of people. Their current methods though simply aren’t working and they need to look at that aspect badly.

Going back to the mythic 3.0 update, it’s fairly clear that it can’t stay. I think they need to rollback the change completely and go back to the drawing board. The PTR itself wasn’t enough to indicate how badly this update was to be received but for a thing of this magnitude, they really needed it to be a seasonal mechanic rather than a core change. More than likely, they’ll probably end up readjusting some parameters like increasing the drop rate, which really doesn’t resolve the core problem of how badly this new system is fucked up. And you know that I’m mad because I’m cursing here.

But that does turn my attention to the pitch forks and torches being raised at calling for the heads of those reprehensible for this update. A lot of players are vehemently against this change to the point where they want this individual and/or team to be wiped out. Considering that the layoffs just happened and that the head of the XBox division just made it clear that they’re looking for more heads to cut, these people should be worried about their necks. Now, I don’t know if this was a calculated internal strategy on their part to continue this schizophrenic, abusive type of up one season, down the next season delivery. If it is then they should be pushed out because the culture has to change in terms of this cycle.

I know some people are more compassionate than me in this regard but it’s really hard to feel sorry for people who intentionally waste your time and add frustration to your life for no reason. They have to be aware that these changes aren’t what people want and that they aren’t doing anything to really add new content to the game. It feels more like optics with the way they are pushing out changes to show management that the game is being iterated upon. But it’s impossible to offer praise when you see say GGG push out a league with loads of changes and with less funding but not point to that and say, “How come they get more with less?” (btw, I don’t play Path of Exile 1 or 2 but even a blind squirrel can find a nut as they say).

Ultimately, the thing is that I still want the game to do well but my patience with the developers, the game and Blizzard itself has dwindled to almost nothing. I’m at the stage where I kinda wish they’d just fire the whole Diablo 4 team, offer a massive refund to anyone who bought the game and the expansions, then put all the effort into improving Diablo 3 because it’s less of a broken game that still feels unfinished but more satisfying. Now, if they could only get rid of those shitty Challenge Rifts and Mastery Dungeons….

The post Diablo 4: Season 14 and Blizzard/M$ Layoff Fallout Musings appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

With 2002, I managed to receive a bonus, which I didn’t realize because it was all in Japanese and I simply accepted it without asking how much, etc. I had been worried about getting fired and it was a common joke at the company because of all the pressure as well as a deprecating sense of private self-loathing for working in that type of a place. But my boss and the managing director simply pointed to some numbers and it went over my head. I think I was more stressed about surviving as the various departments played against each other in an internal war that the public never could witness. For myself, I was just a cog in a massive corporate wheel and still being shielded from the real dirtiness of the banking politics.

Sometime in the winter though, a major incident occurred that would affect me for the rest of my life. Because the move to Harajuku caused me sleep deprivation, I was struggling with my schedule, although I was more of a late night person, who did projects in the evening to occupy my free time. Also, I was going out and occasionally visiting a shady place or two such as that one club in Akasaka. However, at some point, especially with the coming of winter, I slowed down and had a hard time getting out of bed. I think part of that is simply due to my body not reacting to the cold and later I believe I either developed or discovered that I had seasonal depression where the winters affect me the worst.

At any rate, one day the 2nd in command sent out an admonishing email about being on time at precisely 9am, which was very Japanese. Because the previous year saw someone who had been hired as a contractor (I think) and had been fired due to “lack of energy” (which was he was kind of useless), I took the warning seriously as I was someone who had been coming in late a few times. I think the email was a passive aggressive way of indirection without targeting someone like me. But it was clear that I probably was one of the people that it was intended.

The following day, I again had woken up late because it was severely cold and I struggled to get out of bed. So I rushed to the train station where outside it had been snowing, something I wasn’t used to. By the time I arrived at Akasaka, the usual foot traffic had disappeared because most people were probably inside their office. But I couldn’t afford to wait on the escalator, so I rushed up the stairs, grabbing the ice cold railing with my bare hand while wearing a heavy coat. I still was pretty out-of-shape as I wasn’t exercising and had a very poor diet. By the time I reached the top, I was out of breath and only could think about getting to my seat.

Inside, the Akasaka Park Building was an absolute furnace and the elevator leading to the 22nd floor (which was where I worked) made me burn up with my oversized coat. Still, I wasn’t thinking clearly but I started to sweat from the ordeal and blew into the office, hopped into my chair and dumped my coat onto the back of the seat. The world started to spin as the room was burning up and before I knew it, everything had gone black.

I woke up a few moments later (not even sure for how long) as my boss and someone else were carrying me outside. Apparently, I blanked out and they sent me to the nurses so that an ambulance could pick me up. I wasn’t used to any of this and thought it was like those days back in elementary school where I’d run so hard that I would nearly puke. It was that kind of feeling. But they weren’t taking any chances. Because of the aforementioned delay on certain benefits (like health insurance), one of the administrators accompanied me to the hospital. I had been placed on a gurney and later given an MRI scan. They found two calcium deposits in my brain that had formed which looked like two miniature aspirins and told me I had a minor stroke. I was devastated and this weird feeling over my body where I was still shaking made me realize that this was far more serious than I had expected.

The administrator ended up handling the insurance aspect and I was sent home for a few days to recover. Everyone looked at me differently from that point on and I had to look at myself differently. People admonished me for my bad diet and habits. The doctor mentioned that I had a fatty liver too even though I only started drinking in Japan and that my triglycerides were high. But I was effectively a 40+ year old man in a late 20s body. At that moment, I knew my real youth was gone and that work was starting to take its toll on me.

If there’s one positive lesson I ever got from my mother, it’s that she would tell me that my health was the most important thing to protect. The bitter irony is that my family was horribly negligent on that especially my father who seemed like Superman until he would have his stroke the following year. My lead offered to show me how to cook better because obviously my health would impact his situation. Also, a few people said they’d hit the gym above us with me, which encouraged me to start working out again.

The thing was that I wanted to be gung ho about this situation as it put attention on me that I didn’t want. I was certainly embarrassed and back then had no way to really communicate how I felt. These days I look at myself back then for being exceptionally foolish. If there was one thing I did learn over time from this incident, it was that no job is worth sacrificing your health. Whenever I look back on this incident, I think about Emilia Clarke’s own stroke during her Game of Thrones filming. I know she talks about it more and has her SameYou organization to help people with brain injuries. Like myself, Emilia underwent that issue at a young age, which shows that it can happen to anyone. But I will say that I knew the stroke had changed me somehow. I felt I had slowed down and a part of me had died. Ever since that time, I had been worried especially because of both my parents suffering strokes, having high blood pressure and other things that make a person feel they can combust especially under a job that induces unnecessary amounts of stress.

The other positive as I mentioned was doing more for my health. I stopped being as lazy and focused more on exercise. My boss was a bit of a nut and I would see him walk to work (he lived in Shibuya). Even in the rain, he would come in with a drenched white collared shirt and tie and tell me, “It’s just a little water.” However, that did inspire me to walk a lot more. Since I lived in Harajuku, it wasn’t hard to get back home. Basically, a straight shot up the main road then hang a right at Omotesando Dori. I think in this period, I started to really develop a love for the city in a different manner where I understood the benefits of this type of layout.

For instance, during Hanami season, I would walk through Aoyama-Botchi (cemetery) at night where the lamp posts would highlight the gorgeous pink scenery. You would see the various yattai parked at corners where you could get real street food. Then along the path you would see various people having their private cherry blossom picnics (yes, at night!). One of my favorite memories was when I walked near a Japanese group that were sitting next to the graveyard path on a large beach towel with a sushi platter and KFC meal. As I passed them, a Domino’s Pizza delivery guy on a scooter came and handed them a pizza, IN THE GRAVEYARD. I was hanging out with an Australian guy who rode his bike and we just observed this and laughed. Later, I told my friend Keiko who responded with, “Only in Japan.” Yeah, no kidding.

Speaking of Keiko, I need to mention her. Keiko (or K-chan as her friends and I would occasionally call her) was someone I met through one of those classified ads as someone looking for help with English. I didn’t have much luck with classified dating compared to my other gaijin buddies but I decided to try this out, having set my expectations really low. Turns out Keiko was someone who worked fairly close to where I was living in Harajuku at the time. She was a jewelry designer and had a very unique character that was dramatic and more like someone you might believe would appear on a J-Drama than a quiet person sitting at a desk drawing up designs.

We would hang out regularly and she would bring her friends along as they too wanted to learn English. I think at some point I showed her my apartment and there was a joke shared between us (and her friends) about dating me or living with me where she’d just have to roll out of bed to get to work. I think she lived towards Yokohama so her commute was far, at least to me. But Keiko was pretty stylish to me, really cool and fun to hang around with. She would make me laugh all the time because of her antics. She wasn’t wild but just had that dramatic personality. I discovered a lot of really cool restaurants with her, places I wouldn’t have gone by myself like Vampire Cafe as well as a curry nabe spot in Shimokitazawa.

But I recall distinctly one night after having dinner in Shibuya, it might’ve just been the two of us. We were heading back to the station slowly as it was late and she said something odd to me like, “We make a nice pair, huh?” If my head wasn’t so far up my anus back then, maybe I would’ve believed there was something between us. I don’t think at that time she had a boyfriend either and I probably had my eyes elsewhere (not just Reina or Norika Fujiwara mind you). But I know I missed a great opportunity. Keiko later got married to a different Australian and had a child. And when I left Japan I found out that she was sad and missed me. Things like that made me wish the Japanese would just speak their mind at times (outside of when they would get drunk) because she was really cool and probably would have made a great wife back when I was looking for one. Maybe the only issue I had with her was her smoking. But I know she eventually quit so my life would’ve been much different if I had been more intent on settling down back then.

Weekends, outside of the onsite rotation, were mine. Instead of strictly going to puroresu shows, I started visiting outside of Tokyo like Kawasaki or Yokohama. Part of that was due to meeting another friend of Keiko’s named Masako. She was half Japanese and half Chinese and lived over in the Yokohama Chinatown. I think when Keiko didn’t get to hook up with me that one night, she figured I could be introduced to other friends of hers (and she had a LOT). So I started to visit Chinatown in Yokohama, which was cool just to see something different. But this Masako girl…she turned out to be a piece of work. I started to like her because she was pretty and seemed like a nice girl. I think at one point I even gave her a piece of equipment like a laptop. But one day she got really mad at me possibly for sending her a message while she was at work. It’s hard to tell because I think she was telling me a bold faced lie and was a two timer. When I asked for the laptop back, she got mad and tried to put a guilt trip on me, telling me, “I thought you gave it to me.” When I told Keiko what happened, all Keiko could say was, “I don’t know about her. She doesn’t talk to me anymore.” But that could’ve been another lie to placate me.

Nonetheless, I was more encouraged about exploring things on my own. I think I had gone to Kamakura at least once. I recall it being summer because the cicada/semi were out in full force and it was humid as fuck. I distinctly recall seeing one oyaji (old fart) going to a tree where a cicada was sitting and clasping his hands around the bug. Because I hate most insects, I got disgusted seeing this oyaji snatch this nasty beatle thing up with his bare hands and just carry it around with him. Later, I learned that the Japanese believed the cicada were a sign of good luck and many cherished their buzzing as it would bring a sense of summer nostalgia. It just made me sick.

I remember one time I ended up getting lost when I tried to find a temple that I visited in 2000 with another traveler and bought an o-mamori (good luck charm/pendant). Instead, I wandered around and ended up near the beaches of Enoshima. Because my friend Keiko lived in that vicinity, I called her hoping that we could meet. Instead, she just laughed but was busy sadly. Somehow, I managed to get back to the station with my feet on fire from wandering around for two hours. I did manage to see the Daibutsu (Big Buddha) at the temple so that was cool.

Another reason I had somewhat of an interest in Kawasaki/Yokohama is because my company had its data center out there by Tsurumi. On top of weekend shift, we now started to get the Tsurumi shift because the Akasaka Park Building data center was getting old and needed to be moved for better redundancy. Also, there was another data center in Hibiya near Ginza. That one was far smaller and its main purpose was to handle the mass print jobs. Finally, there was one other major DC over on Tennozu Isle for the big company that owned everything. The DC itself wasn’t as big compared to Tsurumi but had some notable things inside, which I’ll explain later.

But Tsurumi was either loved or hated depending on the person. We had a dedicated group of contractors we called the DC Team that managed the lowest of the jobs but barely above the networking guys. They handled changing parts, cabling, print jobs, tape backup, etc. and were all on a weekly shift. One of the guys told me that they couldn’t wait to get the DC shift because it was an easy job with no supervision especially the late shift. You could basically sit around and drink all night with no one caring while getting paid. I guess in retrospect that does sound like a swell job but I’m guessing with all the camera technology these days and monitoring that type of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated.

The Tsurumi DC itself was about a 10-15 minute walk from the station in a fairly quiet neighborhood. I think there was another satellite office of the other side of the firm out there but I never visited that office. The DC itself was huge and if you got weekend shift or had to be out there during lunch time, there were only 2-3 spots to eat nearby, including an Indian buffet and a convenient store. So it kinda sucked and felt more like purgatory for someone like myself who needed to be around people back then. Getting inside the DC was like entering into a fortress. Not only were you required to have your normal office badge, but the front desk security would give you another badge to access the inside. If you lost that and no one knew you were around, you pretty much would be imprisoned until someone figured out you needed help. The interior was basically a huge cavernous warehouse and extremely cold of course. There was one floor where the DC team would sit at to monitor things or repair systems that went down.

But I did say that I didn’t want to talk about work that much at least with regards to the technical side of things. And I really haven’t but I wanted to give people an idea of what being over there in the Tsurumi DC was like because of the next story. So next to me were a Japanese pair named Tagata-san and Harada-san. Harada-san was the senpai who had been at the company for 15 years while Tagata-san was the kohai. They had their own little group that handled certain applications. Harada-san seemed like he was strung up half the time and I could hear him frequently yelling at people on the other line. I would conjecture that I learned a fair portion of my Japanese listening to him scream at people every day.

On the other hand, Tagata-san was far more soft spoken and calm. I heard he was a bit of a playboy and was popular outside of work with the gals. But these two paired together were a hilarious duo to sit and listen to everyday. But by far my favorite was whenever Harada-san would tell Tagata-san in English, “YOU MUST GO TO TSURUMI!” Because Tagata-san was the kohai, he would have little to no choice in the matter. The best one came when one day Tagata-san tried to gently repudiate Harada-san in meekly replying, “But I have plans tonight.” Harada-san then spun around like Dr. Evil in an Austin Powers movie, placed his hands over the low cubicle wall and told Tagata-san point blank, “YOU MUST CANCEL YOUR PLANS!” The rest of us were just listening to this and cracked up loudly. It was so ridiculous that it became a running joke amongst us and we would recite the infamous, “YOU MUST GO TO TSURUMI!” line.

After I left the Unix team, I no longer had to deal with the various DC things. But my friend Thierry, who had been working as part of the Unix Engineering group, told me that he had gone to the Tsurumi DC one day and saw Harada-san there. I think they might’ve moved Tagata-san from the tiny two man team because of a change in the Unix group’s management whereupon Harada-san was instructed to finally take his Tsurumi shift. Thierry told me that Harada-san was really depressed and miserable that day but we kinda laughed given that we shared that whole “YOU MUST GO TO TSURUMI!” joke for a while. I’m certain that the irony was not lost upon Harada-san either. So you can’t tell me that there’s no such thing as karma in life.

I did mention the other two data centers. The one in Hibiya honestly wasn’t very remarkable. I think the non-tech people were mostly operations but I think that office would close later on. The interesting part was the underground area linking the station to various restaurants and passages where you could arrive at the Hibiya area or Ginza. It was amazing to see this expansive labyrinth built under the city. Not all sections of Tokyo had it but this might’ve been one of the bigger zones, which reminded me a little of the week I spent out in Toronto for an international Key Club convention.

Along the way there was a coffee shop like a Detour or Excelsior. But I distinctly remember this odd person sitting at one of the tables outside just zoned out. Urs (my lead) and my boss (Joe) also noticed him since we would occasionally come down that way. Each time, this foreigner white guy was always there. I think he might’ve had blue hair because we bequeathed upon him the name “Blue Man” and would joke about this guy. Sometimes, he would be passed out on the table. None of us knew what his deal was though. I think Urs spotted him one weekend and saw him praying. Joe might’ve tried talking to him as well since Joe seemed to find bizarre people amusing. He kinda reminded me of someone you’d find up in UC Berkeley wandering the streets and yelling imprecations at the world for no reason except to get noticed. But Blue Man is an example of one of the various oddities you’d encounter out there that in a way became normalized to me as time went on.

The other major DC was in Tennozu Isle. You had to take the tram from Shinbashi to get there. Unlike offices I was at, the main company owned the building I believe (I mean it’s one of the biggest banks in the world if you want to take a guess). This place was even more corporate and uptight than the Akasaka Park Building spot. And I think this was the only time I had ever been to that office. We might’ve gone down as a field trip so that I learned about this other DC that we never had to deal with. Once you got inside, you were instructed to take off your shoes to avoid static electricity. Probably, the most fascinating piece of tech there was the Casio Unix system. Yes, they had Casio Unix of all things. I have no idea what it ran, how you’d logged in, what the system ID was, etc. I just knew that there was Casio Unix being used. And we had a lot of different flavors besides Sun including HP-UX, and AIX.

The other remarkable thing was a group of people in a small room that were monitoring all the Autosys jobs in the company. Autosys is enterprise level automation piece of software that monitors and runs your batch jobs like an intelligent version of CRON with a GUI. So this group sat and watched this GUI all day long. If a job ever went into the red, they’d either page you or call you. One of my coworkers told me that they were kinda jealous about that team because they had good bento served to them. I would’ve agreed about the bento until Joe revealed how these people were more or less expendable if there ever was a fire. The DC would go on a lockdown mode within 20 seconds or so for which all the O2 would be sucked away and a special gas would spray to put out the fire. That was the only way of saving the DC as it was located in a high rise, which meant you’d get a Towering Inferno type of scenario if something did break out. But it also showed what the bank valued more.

On the bright side, the cafeteria at this office was quite good. It was much bigger and meant to serve the larger corporate foothold since the Akasaka office had more variety and accessibility to great spots. But the lunches were cheap and satisfying, which is what counts, right?

Moving from the surrounding Tokyo zones, I eventually made my way to Hakone. Like Kamakura, Hakone was such a different type of Japan since I had become accustomed to the loud, big city of Tokyo. Hakone is mostly known for its hot springs where the air smell like sulfur. There’s a lake and a special ropeway that gives you a nice little scenic tour of the zone.

I might’ve gone in the fall because I do recall it being cooler and greener.

Heck, I have photos that show the overcast sky and you can see the mist rising from the hot springs.

I made my way down to the lake but didn’t stay long as it was getting late and it would take two hours or so by train to get back into Tokyo. But it was a nice momentary escape from the bustling city noise.

Speaking of escaping, I am going to escape for a moment as this blog is getting extra long and I don’t want to have too much in a single post. I’ll continue to piece back my memories of 2003 for tomorrow.

The post Living/Working in Japan in 2003: A New Hope or Does the Empire Strike Back? appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

The first month of working for the bank continued to be brutal. The tiny apartment in Ebisu was driving me crazy with the nightly cockroach invasion. I remember at one point how they needed to do construction but I was so tired I couldn’t answer the door. But they banged on the front rather rudely and I had no idea why. Regardless, even if I liked the Ebisu zone itself, I knew I couldn’t stay much longer in that flat.

One thing that certainly convinced me that living in that flat was a terrible thing was how my hot water suddenly turned off one day when I went to take a shower. So no one instructed me on where the mailboxes were (downstairs) and I thought the little pamphlets that were being left on my door indicated that’s where the postman would drop off any letters. What happened is that my various utility bills had not been paid and I needed to fix all that. I don’t know if Kudo-san knew about the mailbox or paid any of it but this was one of those highly stressful events because my Japanese was almost nil when it came to issues like this and I had to do something.

Somehow I found the mailbox (don’t know how) and saw that a pile of mail had been built up over time. Son of a bitch! I think by this point I was getting really fed up with that housing agency that set me up. Luckily, my boss at my office offered to help me on the issue during one weekend rotation. We left the office during the afternoon and he had me follow him to a spot where I could pay. I don’t remember what we used but I do know later on he was fucking with me because we wandered around for sometime and towards the end of it, I was completely out of breath, my feet were dead and he was like, “You’re younger than me.” Well, it’s different when you’re living in the states and having long, traffic filled commutes with no opportunities for exercise.

On the bright side, once I start receiving my pay, things started to smooth out. But at some point I needed to get out of that crap apartment, which meant breaking my lease. The fortunate thing about working for a large gaishikei (foreign based company) is that they would help you with your move to a degree. So I was setup with some apartments that ran along the Chiyoda-sen by HR. A few that caught my attention were much larger spots around the Harajuku area. Because I was used to living in American home, I wanted something as big as possible. So I found this 3LDK spot along Meijidori about 10 minutes away from the JR station. Amazingly, that building is still around. You can see that the Turkish embassy in nearby too.

But being foolish, I didn’t do much research, checked out the spot and chose it without thinking. While the location itself in terms of general convenience was great, it honestly was far from practical. But I had no idea except that I was going to get to live in Harajuku. The company was going to take care of the reikin/shikin (key money/deposit) since I didn’t have enough and this is something that would kinda haunt me later on. But all I cared about was getting out of the cockroach trap as soon as I could. That still left the remaining issue being the lease for my roach motel. So I had to return to the rental agency and they would need to do an inspection.

When I was ready to move out, this Nigerian guy working there reprimanded me because the toilet wasn’t cleaned before I left. He took a completely different attitude towards me compared to when I initially signed the lease. In retrospect, I think this was a front to ensure that they would not only get their deposit money back, but charge you extra for cleaning. But I was completely through with that BS and just had to get a small moving company to handle the rest.

Luckily, I didn’t have much beyond a TV/VCR setup, my luggage, a futon, etc. I might not have even used a moving company because I had so little at that point. But once I moved into the new spot, I realized just how empty it was for the amount of space I gained. From there, I went around town looking for furniture. This part hurt because furniture is just horribly expensive. But I wasn’t going to sleep on the ground anymore and I needed a coach as well as some other comforts to decorate my space, especially a computer desk.

For the bed, I believe I bought that at Muji. That might’ve been one of the first things I picked up. Also, I bought a sofa, love seat and a computer desk and wire frame rack that would hold my various systems. I think I might’ve picked up a gaming system in Akihabara too.

The problem was that all these things were costing me and getting me into further debt. I might’ve been still using my credit card but needed to take care of the bills. I was still in contact with my parents, mostly my dad because he was out of work and living at home while my mom was technophobic. But they helped handle my payments since online banking really wasn’t established. But I had to get money back home and that was a chore in itself.

My company had set me up with Tokyo Mitsubishi because you could find their ATM almost anywhere, as my boss had explained it. True enough, inside of Tokyo, you might be able to find a Citi ATM but outside of Tokyo, it gets much harder to find those types of things, which is critical for a cash based society. And as a side note, the nice thing about having that Citi ATM is that you could use a card like Washington Mutual (back in the day before the subprime loan problem crashed the financial market) to withdraw money if you didn’t use something like traveler’s checks (which probably is unnecessary these days). The other function Tokyo Mitsubishi had for me was international money transfers. I always hated doing these because you had to have information like a routing number and they were exceptionally precise where one wrong detail and you needed to refill a form from scratch. I might’ve even had to get a hanko at some stage but I can’t recall ever using it, instead preferring my normal signature. Regardless, I was able to send money home to help pay for that mound of debt building on my credit cars.

Once I got settled into Harajuku, I immediately learned of the mistake I mentioned from before: the loudness. All day long, I could hear motors going up and down the street of Meijidori. The construction of the apartment had three of the room facing the main street so there was nowhere for me to hide in avoiding the constant noise. I think at some stage, I might’ve even tried sleeping in the tub because I was becoming sleep deprived. The main issue was that the building was older, probably made in the 70s and not of more modern materials. The key material you need for these types of buildings (btw, this was considered a “mansion” which is a concrete, multistory building in Japan) is teikin-kon (teikin concrete). Teikin-kon provides much better insulation from noise and weather. Also, you would need double windows to prevent any noise pollution. So while the exterior and general location might look nice, the actual interior sucked ass.

And even if this place was near one of the most famous stations and zones in Tokyo, it really wasn’t meant to be lived in. Food was going to become a problem as there were no local markets in the close vicinity. And unlike living in LA, I had no car to pick things up. That would’ve cost me an extra amount and I wasn’t going to buy one (which is a whole different nightmare in terms of getting a license out there).

In addition, I was still under a budget where half my monthly salary was going to rent, which meant having little to live on as an expat. You see, most Japanese people out there don’t make a lot of money. But they’re compensated in two ways: 1) the company typically pays for their commute (with an upper limit of 20000-en on average except for special cases); 2) you lived with your parents. In America, I was able to survive and save money, even though most of my jobs paid bad up to that point because I was living with my family. Out in Tokyo, everything on me. I had to wake up to this new reality quickly of being on my own and having no aid.

Nonetheless, I still was able to eat reasonably well. One spot that Harajuku had that I had become very fond of out there was a Tenya. Someone showed me Tenya over in Akihabara sometime in winter (maybe Kudo-san?) and I was an addict. I kept thinking to myself, “Man, I’m going there everyday!” Guess what? I don’t think I went there once while living in Harajuku. Ah, irony you kill me! But there was at least a 7-11 nearby so I probably ate that most of the time beyond whatever was being served at the company’s cafeteria or around the Akasaka area.

Another favorite spot of mine in Harajuku became the late night family restaurant Jonathan’s. I think there might’ve been one I hit around the Tokyo Dome but the one in Harajuku was along Meiji-dori with the Omotesando-dori as the cross street. I often would eat there late at night when I didn’t want to bother with the 7-11 or some other spot. I always loved their hamburg steak and ebi-fry meals. But the one thing I detested was the smoke.

Smoking in Japan was pretty common back then. In fact, I attribute a lot of my “colds” from heavy 2nd hand smoke inhalation. Some of that started to get curb later on with areas like Chiyoda-ku banning it with heavy fines. That wouldn’t stop the addiction. But you’d often hit up restaurants like a Jonathon’s or numerous izakayas with smoking sections. I always tried to take the non-smoking areas but you couldn’t get away from it. That’s one thing I absolutely hated about Japan.

Because I moved away from Ebisu, I wasn’t going to Com Inn as often. So the little group of friends dispersed sadly. The girl in the group was someone I liked too as she was quite pretty. Never knew what happened to her but she stopped going to the conversation cafe. I continued visiting there and met all sorts of interesting folk. Sometimes, I’d give people my meishi (Japanese business card), which might’ve seemed impressive because I was working at a respectable bank. But I think most people in reality didn’t care as I was so low on the totem pole my position didn’t make a difference to anything. It still was a nice way to introduce myself and what I was doing (my technical title was Systems Analyst, which was a way to avoid the word “engineer” in getting my work visa as Japan is strict on the types of visas giving out based on your pedigree)

I remember meeting some very pretty women, whom, I think were all models. I know one was for sure because all my attention went to her. She was tall and extremely gorgeous. Older than me by a few years. Unfortunately, she had issues finding work because of her age and unlike certain peers, she never broke through to the geinokai (celebrity world). But I acquired her phone number and would occasionally text her.

I don’t know for certain if the following series of events happened in 2002 or 2003 and I’m unsure if I had actually met her in 2002. But at some point, I learned she was “working” near my office in Akasaka and invited me for a drink to her establishment. Turns out, she was in a reasonably classy hostess bar spot. My belief is that almost all pretty women in Tokyo at some point work at a hostess bar; or at least maybe during a certain period. It’s just really easy money for them where all they have to do is sit down and drink with some loser and make them forget their problems. And the loser ends up paying the drinks.

Here, they served dinner which was nice since the food was legitimately good. But the ultimate goal was for them to get you to buy a bottle of expensive liquor. A lot of these hostess bars are establishments where they’ll have you buy a bottle and split some of it while mixing it with water. A typical bottle might cost anywhere between 20000-40000-en. And it’s up to the hostess to get you to drink as much as you can so they can get you to buy another. That’s on top of the hourly fee they’d tack on to be with one of these women.

Being the young naive sucker I was at the time, I easily bought into this system. The thing about this woman in particular (whose name I can’t remember at all) is that her face resembled a J-Pop star named Reina Miyauchi, whom I was absolutely obsessed with at that time (and for some time; btw she looks like a baba now and more like a buzzard). So I didn’t care; I just wanted to be around with this woman. And I was socially so awkward with the Japanese barrier being a stigma the entire time. Maybe we practiced some English when she got drunk and I learned a thing or two about Japanese. But I just wanted to be around her and couldn’t wait until my job was done so I could go visit. Naturally, this activity started to cost me. I didn’t really feel just how badly Japan was putting me into debt until I would return. But again I was young and dumb back then. And I kept going to see her, maybe not nightly but at least once or twice a week.

This woman though had her own set of issues. I guess at one time she was married but had a miscarriage. She told me a story about that and how she still thinks about the unborn child. I could tell it really affected her and probably her marriage as well. Also, I think she was really bitter about her life and career. She talked about Nanako Matsushima and Norika Fujiwara as her peers. She basically said that Nanako Matsushima was a bitch in real life (which may explain her J-drama Yamato Nadeshiko in 2000) and she called Norika Fujiwara “fish face” (because of her puckering lips/cheeks). She also called Norika Fujiwara her kohai and that she had helped Norika out when she got started. Of course, both actresses went on to become major celebrities in Japan. But I could sense the jealousy from this person, which might’ve been a common trait since the models out there almost seemed like a dime a dozen.

Despite the fact that I knew something was wrong with her psychologically, I felt bad for her. Maybe because I sensed something was wrong like permanent mental and emotional damage from the harshness of the geinokai, the pressures of being a woman in that society, etc. However, I was just another suitor and she knew I liked her. One night she told me she knew from the other women who worked there that not did I like her but that she reminded me of that Reina girl. She tried to explain to me that shouldn’t be the exclusive reason for liking her, which was true. But I couldn’t explain how I felt back and the entire time for that evening, I was emotionally breaking down, realizing that I had been used that whatever sympathies I might’ve had for her was misdirected and that once again not only had I been led on but I wasted my time.

Sometimes the “club” (as I now remember her description of the place) would have a musical where someone might do karaoke. So they were playing ABBA’s Dancing Queen. I was sobbing to myself while this melody supposedly of happiness was playing loudly. I silently got the check and paid then ran off while the woman waved, knowing I would be gone for good. These days I can’t help but feel profoundly sad whenever I hear Dancing Queen since it reminds me painfully of that night where my heart would be broken. I figured if I used Dancing Queen as a song for a TV show or movie that I’d write, it would be for a sad scene, an irony of the humiliation I would endure time and time again in my search for love on this planet.

I don’t think I ever told that story to anyone and kept it buried for ages. It’s always been there with me and I think I tried to forget about by moving on. At one point, I started to write a drama where I had the woman in it in mind but it never went anywhere (like a lot of my stories). Perhaps, that story is best served being told here where the truth about it can come out finally. Honestly, I had mostly forgotten about her. I can’t even remember her face outside of how she was very beautiful. But cold too. She could put up a professional mask but I knew inside was a dead bitch.

I suppose in a way, I was fortunate about being in Tokyo because it’s very easy to meet people especially at a place like that Com Inn. For whatever reason, I continued to attend the Friday and Saturday monthly parties. I met one guy who was trying to run a company or be a business guy. He had a group of friends and I eventually had my own house party. What a mistake that was because I had almost no furniture and no idea what to do along with a limited budget. The guys were pretty cool people and I recall one guy getting exceptionally drunk and passing out on my sofa. Then another guy grabbed his nutsack and tried to wake him up. I think that’s the only time I ever witness an alarm clock like that. Even then this drunk guy must’ve been practicing the Shaolin Ballz of Steel technique because he wasn’t moving.

Among that group there were a few other girls. One ended up marrying my friend (Sugi-san I think was his name). There was another really pretty girl that I started to like and I would have lunch or dinner with a few times. As I am a very slow type of person when it comes to social development (i.e. relationships), I tried to be cautious. A friend of mine at work who was dating someone once a week at least gave me some terrible advice on why I was failing: if I didn’t ask the girl out by the third date, that was it. Come to find out it was somewhat true out there. But again, it really depends on the person. More importantly, it depends on if the girl likes you back. Also, my friend told me that I needed to be more intimate to show affection.

Growing up, I was not a physical person. I always felt highly uncomfortable whenever people touched me. I was never molested as a child but I simply hated being touched. I think part of it might be because of how it didn’t seem “cool” to be touched since I used to hang around with kids in elementary school who would make fun of anything remotely “gay” (which in retrospect might be just about everything; but I think those guys were closet gays and definitely assholes). At any rate, I recall on the third time seeing this girl, I hugged her and she asked what I was doing. It wasn’t a sexual hug just a sudden one. But that was another last time scenario, although I probably wasn’t as broken up over it compared to the model.

There’s more that would happen with Sugi-san and one of his friends but I’ll leave that for another day. Instead, I’m going to pivot back to work since I believe I hadn’t been pushing the dating aspect as much compared to later. Also, in that 2002 period, I was a lot more outgoing and ambitious. Since my managers were all into the Linux gig, I started to become influenced and wanted to learn more on my own. Sometimes, we’d all hit up Akihabara and look around. There was one store selling old Unix servers like Sun systems.

In turn, I started building my own breadbox because I had been using Fedora at work. It wasn’t really supposed to be allowed because the company had standards all issued from the NY office to be obeyed. However, our MD (managing director) permitted it while we had a Solaris workstation for anymore serious server work (which was pointless because I could just SSH into a machine). Anyway, I started working on building a joshi puroresu website at night with J2EE, Tomcat, EJBs via JBoss (which was “free” but any support would cost you an arm and a leg). I won’t go into the technical details of exactly what I did but let’s just say I spent all my waking hours at home compiling and trying to build this thing because I still wanted to be a software engineer.

And yes, I still was going to shows but not as frequently. My friend Jessie was also back in Japan and lived closer towards the dojo, which was in Edogawa-ku. We’d grab dinner here and there and sometimes I would get the opportunity to hang out with someone like Mariko Yoshida. Maybe it was on one of the previous trips but I actually got a private dinner with Jessie, Mariko Yoshida and Manami Toyota over at the Outback Steakhouse in Shinagawa. Because I was a nut, I bought Manami a $200 necklace back in 2000 and gave it to her at one of those AJW Garage shows in Meguro. So that night Manami wore it for me and we talked. Of course, I ended up paying and it was a really nice night.

With regard to Mariko Yoshida, I befriended her for a short period and we would hang out and grab dinner once in a while. I remember going to one spot in Shibuya with her after she had a hard day of training in sambo (which would explain her style in ARSION). Where my job and wrestling were things I attempted to intersect, I told her that I was hoping to help bring some friends from the company down to see because I thought we had over 14k people. I was right about the company as a whole where the number was more like 200k but that was global. The office itself and supporting spots might’ve been 1200-1400 tops. You can see I was dreaming and not really living in reality though.

At one time, I introduced her to that Com Inn place. I wanted to help thrum up business for ARSION and would tell some of the people during a party that night she was a pro-wrestler. I think Yoshida-san was a little embarrassed, maybe even betrayed because I think she just wanted to be a pro-wrestler and not deal with the fame part. In my own defense, I just wanted to help out because joshi puroresu had been struggling and I wasn’t looking to build up social capital. I probably pissed her off though as I don’t remember conversing with her after that. If she was angry with me, I wish she had told me but that’s something I learned over time about the Japanese: we’re not great communicators. I think there’s this aversion for confrontation and showing our true feelings (and I do say “our” because I’m part of this) so there’s a lot of passive aggressive behavior, which leads to all types of frustrations. Heck, I’d argue that a lot of the best J-dramas are the result of miscommunication.

But I continued hanging out with Jessie and a few others from time to time. I remember one spot she showed me was a place over in Ginza called Carne Station. Carne Station is another tabehoudai (all you can eat/AYCE) spots that serve yakiniku (Japanese/Korean BBQ style). This spot has a wide selection and an unlimited drink bar with dessert. Because it was cheap and tasty (remember: I had a mom who couldn’t cook), I frequently visited this spot (which could’ve explained my quick weight gain back once my paycheck started to roll in). But in all honesty that combo of unlimited drinks, tons of protein AND dessert (meaning an ice cream fountain) were going to spell the end for me one night. One time, I went by myself and I learned what it meant to not only have the Asian allergy to alcohol (where I turned super red), I experienced really bad lactose intolerance. This was when I still was living in Ebisu so I was just in so much agony as I hopped on the train and the build up was getting worse by the minute. Once I arrived in Ebisu, I had a 10-12 minute walk back to the apartment where I was “hobble walking” in trying to not let it all go from one end or another. On top of that, I had to go up those rickety wood stairs to my flat. I think I was so desperate, I don’t think I even bothered closing the door. But man, what an explosion that was. After that, I never bothered combining  the three deadly forces in my bowels again. I found the restroom around the corner later but tended to avoid those because some of them had the stalls in the ground where you had to squat and I hated those, even if they’re purportedly cleaner.

Work-wise, the grind continued. Things wouldn’t get bad until the following year but I’ll save story for a 2003 post. Now, I did mention that several of the guys at the office belonged to TLUG. One night I got invited afterwards to the monthly meetup. I can’t recall the topics but I certainly recall the aftermath. TLUG was at that time, unlike anything I would expect a hardcore group of Linux users to be. But the main difference was that we were in Tokyo, meaning plenty of izakayas, bars, clubs, karaoke. So imagine having all four in one go.

I don’t recall anything about the izakaya; it probably was one of the chain ones like Watami. But the next spot we would hit was a karaoke place. This is where things started to get really surreal for me. The karaoke spots out there varied where you could just get a room and hang out while other spots had drinks and food. This one had plenty of alcohol. The 2nd in command from the Unix team I distinctly recall having those long neck beers and he kept pouring them down like no tomorrow. The thing is that during office hours, he generally would be very professional, wearing a tie and dress shirt. Way too clean. But these spots once he was with his Linux buddies things changed. Found out he was a heavy drinker but not someone you would call an abusive drunk. Just someone who really enjoyed his alcohol.

Anyway, as the beer continued to flow, I started running out of steam. But not the rest of these guys. This Japanese guy with Goku-like hair started some Japanese rendition of a punk song that could’ve been punk-ska and screamed out, “FIRE!!!!” almost like Beavis from Beavis.& Butthead whenever the lyric came up. As that was going on, this large, nerdy white guy in glasses started doing this polka dance thing that came out of nowhere, I guess to match the ska aspect of the song. My head was already spinning from having drank anything that night and I quietly excused myself as that was it for me. I’m sure the others continued on for a few more hours as they would call those instances things like “nijikai” or “sanjikai” and even “yojikai” (2nd spot, 3rd spot, 4th spot). I think good old Alberto could easily get up to yojikai (and I have a story that I’ll tell later on of that instance).

Once the year started winding down, the company would have its annual end of year party before closing down for a short period. I think two of the parties were at the New Ohtani down the street. They reserved the huge banquet hall for the entire company where I heard each seat would cost roughly 20000-en. You had to dress nice for the occasion though. And the food was exceptional. They had performances too where the 1st prize got something like $5k worth of a bonus.

If you heard about legendary dot com parties, I would say this one would’ve been on a comparable level. I don’t think my manager accompanied us to this one though but I did hang out with the other people on my team. It certainly was a great night. And I think with all great things, it’s a good spot to close out this post.

The post Living and Working in Japan in 2002 appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I think at this stage, I still hadn’t discovered the Narita Airport Limo Bus. Since we’re on the topic at this time, let me just say that the advertisement as being “easy” is absolutely true. They manage your luggage, take you to your drop off point (usually a major hotel) and from move your luggage off the bus once you’re done. In addition, you get a nice view as you head into Tokyo and the bus has a restroom in the back, which is great after a long flight. On the way back, instead of dealing with a passport inspection at the airport, the bus handles that aspect directly. So you’re getting pretty hassle free care for about 5000-en or so (last time I used it at least) which is totally worth it. First time travelers going to Tokyo should absolutely use this. So that’s one tip from me.

At any rate, the other major concern from me was getting my key back from Kudo-san, who was still staying at my place. Since I might’ve been on a prepaid cellphone still, most of the communication was handled through email while I was back in the states. I can’t recall exactly how I got my key back though. It could’ve been a meet or maybe it was him leaving the key under the door or something like that. But if there’s one thing about the Japanese, it’s that they’re generally pretty trustworthy about these things and if the key was left under the door, I could almost guarantee it would be there (unless some shady foreigner knew about it or discovered it).

I’m sure once I received the work visa related stuff back in the states I had to continue correspondence with my future boss as well as the bank’s HR to ensure I wasn’t going to flake out though. So I don’t know how much time I had in between getting back to my flat and starting the new job. But it was still pretty cold as it was probably the beginning of April when I returned.  Also, when I was in the states, I probably had to pack new clothes because the job required professional clothes (no tie nor suit, but you needed dress pants and a collared shirt)

Regardless, my first day for work was absolutely one of the most exciting days of my life. Yeah, in retrospect, it would seem like an average day for anyone, but to me I was entering a whole new world. I was finally here. I made it! I know I woke up early because work started at 9am on the dot (which is something that would affect me down the road) but at that point in my life, I had far more vigor and enthusiasm and couldn’t wait to start my new Japanese job.

My apartment was located 10 minutes away from the Ebisu station. I tried to trace where my old place was but it’s been over 20 years and so much has changed that I recognize almost nothing in the area besides the train station and a Yoshinoya that I might’ve eaten at a few times. But the whole place is completely different from what I remember and it makes me sad in a way. Nevertheless, the way you’d get to the station was a straight walk from the quiet neighborhood. I didn’t appreciate that the location was actually peaceful until later when I would move to Harajuku and nearly lost my sanity for a year dealing with the constant street traffic of Meiji-dori. So I wish I could’ve appreciated the zone a lot more.

Because you had numerous businesses in Ebisu (even Morgan Stanley at the Beer Garden), you would see people dressed up walking to their respective companies. I think Fujitsu might’ve had a satellite office as I recall that morning a fleet of people coming from the station to that office. It was pretty impressive as I was used to people casually driving into work in LA. In fact, most people take the public transit to get to work as parking is costly and owning a car almost prohibitively expensive in Tokyo. In fact, for all the trouble it’s worth, I can’t see why anyone would want a car in Tokyo outside of it being a status symbol.

By the time I got to the station, my heart was racing both from being out of shape and from the general excitement of the morning. To get to my office, which was located at Akasaka next to the TBS building (yes, the TV station), I needed to use the Hibiya-sen and transfer at Kasumigaseki for the Chiyoda-sen. It was really annoying because it was a roundabout way to get some place that was central. I’m sure if I wanted, I could’ve walked but I wasn’t as familiar with the streets of Tokyo by that point. Also, who wants to walk in pants especially during the humid summers? (I could’ve changed once I got to the building but that’s a different story)

The Akasaka station itself isn’t really that impressive compared to other lines because there’s no transfers intermixing. The Akasaka-Mitsuke station though has more overlap and later on it would be one I’d use to get around more conveniently. But I was still a novice with the trains and subways so that wasn’t an option. Also, I still had been buying my train tickets and probably would do so for a while because I wasn’t familiar with the monthly passes nor Metro cards like Pasmo. Most of that probably is gone in favor of using mobile devices but that whole system was a pain because everything was fast pace and you had to insert your ticket, rush through a gate that was open until you grabbed your ticket on the way out. And if you lost your ticket for whatever reason, well, I’m fortunate that I never did that. But getting those doors slammed on you once in a while sucked.

Getting out of the station was easy but getting up to my building was a pain. Once you were out of the station though, you occasionally could see the weather woman from TBS outside, which was kind of cool because TBS was such a big thing to me back then as we’d get some of their J-dramas back in the states. With the hundreds of TBS employees ascending the stairs or taking the escalator, I kept thinking to myself looking up at the massive buildings, “Will I ever get to meet Norika Fujiwara in person? Maybe Ryoko Yonekura?” I was such a fan back then and my head was filled with dreams that would eventually get crushed by reality.

The stairs/escalator itself was massive, going up probably 2-3 stories themselves. This is significant because later that year during the winter, I had a major incident which I won’t discuss here. But it was something I had to get used to especially because I had to get back down and still have bad acrophobia. Either way, it’s something I had to deal with for a year and a half.

I don’t remember how the exact morning went for me at the new office. I do know there were badges and you might’ve needed to show them to the guard to get in. But the building’s bottom itself had other businesses like a conbini (convenient store) and a health clinic, maybe a restaurant as well. Nonetheless, I didn’t have direct access to the office and would go through HR, spending the morning filling out paperwork for my insurance, etc. Also, I didn’t have a Japanese bank account so I needed to get setup with that as well and an ATM cad.

The HR head was a bit of a controversial figure in the company. One of the guys who work in Market Data used to call the HR director Catbert (from Dilbert) because he was EXACTLY the same in character, except Japanese. Apparently, he never smiled either and I might’ve said some joke that caused him to laugh. But I can’t remember. The rest of the day I think was just getting setup and meeting my new coworkers. The group was the Unix systems group and inside we had teams for different purposes. Mine was going to be Unix Data where we were building an inventory management system for all the parts and information on each of the servers (for which there were roughly 1k for the company). I wish I was more politically savvy back then because I should’ve done more to try and fit in but I think I’m simply anti-social and focused on my new group.

I do remember grabbing lunch with my little group over at a Thai tabehoudai (buffet) spot which was really good. I doubt it’s still around but we had several versions of curry. But it was to get introduced to my lead and two other coworkers, one of who was a Japanese native and another guy sharing the same last name as me named Bryce who was from Hawaii. Bryce was a really funny guy too and super laid back as you might expect from someone coming from Hawaii. He reminded me of various other Japanese Americans I grew up with back in LA so it was easy to talk with him.

After work, it was just another day and I don’t think we ended up doing anything except going home for the evening. But somehow I survived the first day of work and probably went back home. During that first month though, financially things were really rough. My boss at some point had asked me if I needed any money but I had no idea what he meant. I thought he was just going to spot me a few bucks to get by. Later, I learned that larger firms that imported talent would give packages such as paying for a good chunk of their rent or maybe even their living expenses to a degree. Certainly, at the executive level, people were getting pretty good packages. Part of the incentive here was to help alleviate taxes (especially for a shitty country like the US where they still expect you to file even if you make under the allotted amount). So a company might pay for a portion, which would be taken pre-tax, effectively keeping you under the radar. The other reason for paying for rent was to keep employees near the office. For instance, I knew a bunch of people over at Morgan Stanley that were getting pretty good pay but living in Ebisu with 80% of their rent covered. But that’s also because Morgan Stanley’s offices were in that vicinity. So there’d be almost no excuse for being late or scrambling in an emergency.

Regardless, being the proud, naive idiot back then, I refused the offer. But that meant my life for the next 2 months would be hell because the Japanese pay cycle is completely different from the bi-weekly pay a person might receive in America. Also, you would be put on a “trial” period for several months before receiving any benefits. Now, that practice was done in America, which is stupid because it would be a way to pull a string along for employees so they’d behave. Some people usually would use that period to pretend to behave good; once that period ended, their true selves would emerge so I think that system should be killed. If you really want employees to behave, just have a contract-to-hire policy so there’s no false expectations and pay them more and give overtime. That way they can choose their own insurance and necessities.

Anyway, the real meat of the matter here was that my life would be very harsh for at least a month while I waited around for my first paycheck. My main means of survival related to food were the convenient stores, Matsuya and the onsite cafeteria that would serve fairly cheap lunches (around 500-en). Matsuya was my personal main life savior at this point because they had this crappy chicken curry priced at 290-en. Okay, it wasn’t really that crappy compared to the average American fast food joint but I think this was the lowest of the low when it came to curry quality. Sometimes, I might’ve eaten at Yoshinoya, which they did have at Ebisu and I might’ve even had a meal or two with Kris out there once we got back in contact (he kinda disappeared as per his usual) but I learned the art of Gyudon + raw egg. Really great and everyone should try that BUT ONLY IN JAPAN WHERE YOU CAN TRUST THE EGGS.

For the convenient stores, I typically hit up this Circle K on the way home. Around that period we had the World Soccer Cup going and Tokyo was infected by soccer fever. I remember going with some friends I made at that Comm Inn English Conversation Cafe going afterwards to a British pub and watching the game (even though I’m not a fan of sports). And I do have a few stories about the cup that I’ll get to but I want to stay on the top of food. The main feature of Circle K around this period was that you could buy a coca cola drink (the bottled version) at Circle K where it came with a small World Soccer Lego set. These were REALLY cool because they not only had the little figures but added play elements. And this was before Lego went ballistic and started charging up the ass for their products.

In addition to Coke, I would buy bento box dinners. One thing guaranteed in Japan about convenience stores is that the bento on average is at least good and sustaining along with having a nice variety. You could easily survive on bento alone because it’s just that good over there. Along with this, occasionally I’d try what I called the “mysterious baked” section. I call it that because my Japanese wasn’t great and once in a while you’d find some disgusting oddity or an item that you became completely hooked on. The worst items for me was anything mayo-corn or natto oriented (like harumaki/spring rolls) while the best thing I discovered was curry-pan (bread). The curry-pan is something I dream about still as it was these donut-like pieces of bread with curry filling inside. Heat that up for 30 seconds and it was a fantastic snack.

Dessert-wise, this is the main area truly lacking for me. I think I just prefer American sweets like donuts and cookies far better. Japanese desserts are a real mixed bag. The donuts taste more like bread with wax on top (like you would find at Mister Donuts), the cookies bland like cardboard. If you’re into Japanese sweets, some that I liked as a child but gradually became disgusted by are mochi filled with azuki/anko (red bean paste). However, the ice cream can be pretty good so that’s worth trying, especially the mochi ice cream (if you can vaoid the azuki ones). I think I just am sensitive to texture and azuki reminds me of poop.

The cafeteria at work was decent though. They had a nice little meat sauce spaghetti lunch, ramen or udon curry. Some companies have these bento carts downstairs. When we eventually moved to the Harumi Triton Tower in Kachidoki, I would start hitting up more of those carts. But I learned down the line that it generally wasn’t good to eat from those carts since the food might stay out for a while (and I did get food poisoning on two different occasions). But those places generally are pretty cheap for what you get and decent tasting.

However, Akasaka has to be the best place I’ve worked for food. The sheer variety and upscale nature of the restaurants were amazing. Maybe the best restaurant I’ve eaten in that area was a French spot called Asterix. I don’t think it’s around anymore but they used to do the whole 5 course meal thing. It was 5000-en (~$50) but amazing food. Working in this zone certainly spoiled me and made me realize just how bad American cuisine was especially because I had been eating fast food almost all my life (after the fact that my mom hated cooking and probably the only person on earth that could burn water)

At any rate, I had to pull back on going to puroresu quite a bit at this stage just from lack of time and the need to conserve money. In fact, as time went on, my budget grew exceptionally tight and sometimes, I would only eat once a day if I was lucky. And if I ate, it probably would’ve been Matsuya or bento. Part of the reason for my tightness was that Japan is (or was) a heavily cash based society. Even if I could use my credit cards, it wasn’t justified not to mention they might put a lock on my card. Not to mention, I was already heavily in debt and unable to send money back home and I had zero desire to burden my parents with more of my financial woes (they had their own). So I did my best to avoid using my credit card and would scrounge up change to eat.

In addition, I had no internet. My apartment was old and not setup for an internet connection. Work had internet but it was heavily filtered behind a reverse proxy (Apache Squid). In that manner, they could cache content as well as catch anyone trying to view suspicious sites. I’m sure at this stage, the net is even more heavily monitored as things were increasingly become stricter by the time I left. So once in a while, I was using an internet cafe to connect.

Truthfully, I wasn’t as big of an internet addict at that point because the content wasn’t as good compared to now (or maybe the last 10-15 years especially with the growth of social media and especially streaming services). Instead, my entertainment was for once having an actual life. I would go to that English conversation cafe fairly regularly and make friends there. I’d pay less than the typical Japanese guy because I was still considered a foreigner. People generally liked me there though because my English was fluid and I had a background in teaching and could explain things well. Sometimes you’d meet other gaijin who were trying to find their way or make a little extra money.

I met one male model over there who mentioned he worked with Norika Fujiwara. At one point, I did see a commercial of his with Norika Fujiwara. That made me a little jealous I must admit. Then there were these two Irish kids who came over on a hope and a dream. Neither had a degree and were probably just surviving in some crappy flat or a spot like a New Koyo. But the conversation cafe paid them enough money to survive and eat. I remember hearing one guy telling his sister/friend that he made some money one day and was really happy. But it was clear they were both directionless and just looking to escape their homeland sadly. That made me appreciate having a real job (despite not getting paid the entire month and starving most of the time)

Sometimes after Com Inn closed, I might’ve hung out with some people from there. I had a small group for a week or two and we’d go over to the pub for checking out the World Soccer Game. I know everyone at the office was really into it and someone even brought in a TV to check out the play offs. But living around Ebisu during that period was something else. I remember one morning on a Saturday, I had just gotten up and started wandering the streets. Unlike most days, Ebisu that day was just dead. I thought we were hit by a bomb or the plague because it was unusually dead silent. All of a sudden, a massive roar erupted where tons of Japanese people were screaming, “Yatta! Yatta!” (we did it!) as Japan had won their game for the day. Some kids on a motor scooter drove around yelling as I stood around dumbfounded realizing just how attentive the Japanese were for this series. And they did really well too but didn’t edge out Turkey and another country from my memory.

All I could think about in this period was just how lucky I wasn’t back in America where Bush was fucking up the economy and things were going to absolute shit with everyone’s rights being slowly eroded as the war against the Al Quaida was about to pick up. A shame I couldn’t escape back to Japan but at my age and energy level with all the shit going on, I doubt I could these days. Le sigh.

The post My First Working Month of Working in Tokyo appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I talked a lot about the seedier side of Tokyo in my last journal. Today, I want to talk more on how I managed to actually have a living out there. When I originally visited, I knew almost nothing about Japan nor Tokyo outside of whatever TV show I would watch on the weekends or perhaps from something a friend would tell me. Most of it went over my head and seemed more abstract. Once you’re out there, the intensity of the city really hits you and you feel constantly overwhelmed. But there were a few immediate pressing concerns:

• I needed a new job since the tech industry had fallen in America
• I needed to find a place I could rent/stay longer term than the New Koyo
• I had to uncover jobs that would forgive my low level of Japanese
• I needed to network better

The one good thing that the Hotel New Koyo provided was a small sense of community. You could meet a wide array of characters from school teachers, to the aforementioned Bob with his past shady life, tech workers on vacation or those that were laid off, etc. But some of these people were incredibly useful in helping me navigate my way around Tokyo/Japan. Someone introduced me to the infinitely useful Tokyo Classifieds, which was a small magazine of ads and ongoings for the area, like a Tokyo version of Craigslist. You could pick one up for free over at Tower Records.

In the Tokyo Classifieds, you could find a variety of services, goods, people moving out, moving in, help wanted, job postings and foreign friendly rentals. I used this service for a variety of things like picking up cheap items from people leaving the country and meeting some friends who wanted to speak English. I do think that this guide might’ve been the thing to help guide me to finding a place outside of the New Koyo which didn’t require as much paperwork nor a sponsor if you weren’t a permanent resident nor citizen. Also, it might’ve introduced me to the Tokyo Linux Users Group or the Tokyo PC Group.

If you managed to stumble across the Tokyo PC Group, it was a very helpful organization that would have meetups at least once a month in Harajuku/Ometasando. There was a guy out there named Ken Cotton, who practically everyone knew because of this group or that he knew all the foreigners in town involved in some form of tech. Through him, I think I managed to make additional connections that would eventually lead me to the Tokyo Linux Users Group (TLUG) which was smaller but more focused.

Along the way, I recall going to a job fair/recruiting event. Since the English teacher thing went up in smoke in my face, I was a little wary about attending these but I might’ve went with someone who was graduating from college. Since I already had been working, I might’ve felt out of place. But one spot wanted to hire me for a position in Okinawa. The pay was abysmal (30k which was lower than my pay at the race parts company and the shady ad tech company) and I’d have to travel out there. Maybe it would’ve turned out okay in the end just because Okinawa is a beautiful spot with wonderful people. But at that time, my heart was set on living in Tokyo.

Afterwards, I came into contact with another person running a meishi (business card) printing service that used some PHP code on a linux server. He was willing to sponsor my visa as I had found a place over in Ebisu which was near his office. There was a major problem though: I had no idea what he wanted me to do. His English wasn’t very good and my Japanese was poor so I didn’t even know how much he was intending to pay me. But I tried to go to the place a few times where I had been given a key card and could use the internet (which I didn’t have at my flat). Also, around the hall was a very pretty girl named Kana, who was doing web development. I’ve wondered if that was the same Kana as the WWE’s Asuka just because I remember hearing how Kana early on had been a web designer. I never managed to find out though.

At any rate, I stayed on with this guy for about a week and went to a few meetings where he spoke exclusively in Japanese. But I was struggling hard and he came down on me one day. Since I couldn’t understand what he was mad at, his voice changed to a softer one once he switched to English. But it was clear that I wouldn’t last so I continued my job search.

At some point, I might’ve been posting to the TLUG’s Usenet group or some board because I recall getting a message from someone at the bank I eventually would work at saying that they wanted to meet with me. As it was early in January, things were slow and very cold. I believe I was getting over a horrible cold too but met up with these guys. They were over in Akasaka and I got interviewed for the job at the English pub called The Hobgoblin (which was a favorite of the gaijin from the bank at that time; good nachos and fish n chips btw). There might’ve been at least 3-4 people, three of which would be my managers. It was a good interview for me because it was casual and mostly asked about my background. When I told them I built my own home router using FreeBSD over an iDSL line to serve out a shoddy website, they were pretty impressed and figured I was legitimate, despite not having a great deal of experience.

One of the guys was a clear joker though and gave me the most “technical” questions of the bunch. He asked me stuff like, “What do you do when a user complains their cupholder is broken?” Of course, those were the days when CDRoms were a thing. But Andrew was always a bit of a wise ass. Probably, one of the more down to earth guys actually who gave me some great advice. Either way, I got a free meal out of that, which was nice because my money was slowly being drained by the trip. At the end of the night, my eventual boss talked about Linux and how if they did their jobs right they could “win”. I had no idea what he meant at the time but it translated to his group expanding Linux into the company as the “win” since he was a hater of Microsoft and ran the Unix servers.

But I managed to get an offer from that which would require a lot of paperwork and waiting. Before I get into any of that, I wanted to return to the apartment. Oh boy, this place was comparable to the graffiti laden, random syringe in the shower, knife-as-the-key, punk kid/transient art co-op at UC Berkeley that I nearly signed up for back around late ’98. The difference is that I had no choice at this stage and it was one of the few spots in Tokyo that I could rent out as a foreigner that did not have the typical reikin (key money) deal. Let me tell you about this hell hole. It was an actual Japanese apato (apartment), which technically meant it was only two stories maximum and made from wood rather than something sturdier like concrete. As a result, it wasn’t well insulated and had rickety steps as you climbed to the 2nd story.

The bathroom was super tiny with one of those high level tubs that you couldn’t really relax and spread out in. Instead, it was meant to be crouched inside while you dunk your head under the faucet. The toilet was probably one of the few modern appliances inside having a Japanese style faucet built above the rear where you normally would have a cover. I never quite understood the purpose of those and didn’t bother using it while I was there. The kitchen itself was something I never touched besides possibly washing my hands. But the kicker was this half sized refrigerator with a microwave on top. This refrigerator was horribly ghetto in every way but it had cockroaches living inside! It was so disgusted that I’m sure if I had stayed until summer, I would’ve gone completely batshit crazy. But when they showed me the place, they didn’t reveal the cockroach issue. These things only came out at night and I only really started encountering them once I began working for the bank. Symbolism perhaps?

In addition, because money was tight, I didn’t know what to do about furnishing this spot. I think I bought a sleeping bag and a pillow and just crashed on the floor. My meals mostly were Matsuya or bento. But that didn’t go full force until I started working there.

Around that time, a university friend had decided to visit Tokyo. We worked together at that race parts spot and continued to keep in contact once I moved to Japan. He knew that I was over there and we hung out maybe once or twice. I think he was with some friends and/or visiting friends. But it was his first time out there and his Japanese was minimal at best (mostly through anime/food). He’s what I would consider the prototypical gaijin Japanese fetishist who goes over there for the otaku aspects.

Anyway, at one point, around New Years, he was returning back to the states. So we talked briefly the previous night and I thought, off you go. Instead, a few hours later at night, I get this call on my keitai (which btw I was using via prepaid cards) and it was Joseph. I was like, “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be flying home?” His response was, “No, I missed the flight and I need some place to stay.”

So Joseph had taken the train and completely missed his stop because he was on one of the express trains that passed Narita. And if anyone feels this is familiar, it’s because some of Japan’s trains have express lines, which, if you’re paying attention or know the schedule, might take you to another destination (happened to me a few times). Either way, I told him to meet me at Ebisu so he could put stuff away at my new spot. Even though the apartment was a wreck, it was serendipitous that I had just got it since I was able to help my friend out.

We ended up hanging around Tokyo and walked around that night. I remember it being exceptionally cold too, possibly raining. We hit up a ramen spot that was along the street heading towards Shibuya. Can’t recall the shop’s name but I may have discovered it beforehand and really liked it because I ended up going back periodically. My friend ordered cold ramen though without knowing it. I forget how much longer we stayed out but it was fairly late before returning. Maybe I didn’t want to go back to the roach infested spot but I eventually had to sleep.

Fortunately, Joseph was able to reschedule his flight and took off the next day. Also, I think the other guy from the New Koyo, Kris, had left the New Koyo and found himself a spot with his latest girlfriend over in Shinjuku. That might’ve prompted me to find my own place. I think he was doing small contract work to keep himself afloat out there while his girlfriend also tried to help support them. But I might’ve lost contact briefly during the later half of my trip during that run.

I do remember going to a bunch of clubs with them, one being the infamous Gas Panic. I believe there might be multiple Gas Panic clubs in Tokyo but the one we attended was over in Shibuya. If you want to find the worst of the worst, the sleeziest spot with the cheapest, shittiest liquor, go here. It’s basically a meat market, maybe a younger crowd trying to be hip. Very gaijin friendly but awful music and vibe, at least to me. But I think because Kris was a foreigner, it was one of those spots he’d hang out because it was easy to get in and had a familiar, comfortable vibe. He did really like those shady spots though.

Regardless, my time on my passport was slowly running out and I needed to have a work visa to stay longer. Once the job was approved, I had to deal with a variety of bureaucratic things to get setup. It’s a complete nightmare in producing all the artifacts for procuring a work visa in Japan but one of the problems is that you can’t be in the country while your visa/stamp is being processed. Some people just hop over to Korea but the safest bet was for me to return back home to LA.

That meant having this apartment I just got lying around. As with my luck at the time, I met someone one of the computer events that became my friend for a while out there. He was seeking a spot to stay and would pay the rent while I was gone. So I gave him the keys and kept in contact while waiting for my papers to be processed. It was a horribly stressful period because I had no idea what to expect. Each day was radio silence and I got nervous that nothing was happening. I think the expected time was around 5 weeks though and I might’ve left sometime in early February back to the states. But I do know that I didn’t start working officially in Tokyo until April. So the time period might’ve been a lot longer.

Once I got the stamp, I had to go to the embassy downtown and turn in other documents. I believe I might’ve had to get my university diploma and send it over as well, which was equally stomach curdling. But that shows the amount of paperwork required to get a work visa. From there, I still could use my password but they would add a different stamp to it to indicate you were an employee of the country with a stamp that was good for a few years. You still needed to get a card you had to carry around much like a driver’s license in the states. But with that card, you could leave your passport at home. Also, as an employee with this card, you could take a different line when you were at the airport in Narita, a much shorter one.

I will continue a bit more later since the first actual working month of living in Tokyo was some of the best times of my life.

The post The First Month of Moving/Living in Tokyo Continued appeared first on Kontroversial Keith.

I continued going to the various joshi puroresu shows and may have a few pictures from stuff in that late 2001 period (including an ARSION show that had Miyuki/Ryo Maeda). Part of the voyage there that time around was to try and find this pretty Thai girl I got setup with in Uguisuidani. If you know anything about that zone, then you’ll realize what type of girl she was. I actually found several pictures of her too and still am sad nothing further happened. Instead, I met another girl from Indonesia or Mayasia I believe who simply gave me a rub down because I was too distraught in learning the girl I met (her Japanese name was Natsuko) supposedly got married and left Japan. So I was pretty heart broken over the incident as I had waited for roughly a year in the hopes of seeing her again.

One thing I’ll mention here is that a year before I met this guy name Bob. He was Japanese but actually raised in America. He had this fatherly quality and was very approachable but he introduced me to that spot over at Uguisuidani since my Japanese was horribly limited. Later, he brought me into his room at the New Koyo and showed me an old article from a newspaper in San Francisco. Apparently, Bob had been involved in some sort of drug lord and was a muscle. But he ended up getting caught and went to prison for 10 years before being deported back to Japan since he never got his citizenship. His friend (the boss guy) apparently was still sending him money to help the guy out since Bob lost everything. Eventually, Bob would take over at the counter at the New Koyo but you’d never suspect any of that from him.

Anyway, the thing was that Bob showed me around a few places. For instance, in the previous trip, he introduced me to an English Conversation Cafe over in Ebisu called Com Inn. I don’t think it’s around anymore, which is a huge shame because I used to meet a lot of people (including two girlfriends) at that place. Along with that Bob showed me a few “night spots” since I started gaining more interest in Tokyo itself as well as taking advantage of the social aspects.

While staying at the New Koyo, I met another really shady Japanese guy who had limited English. He kept talking about his business, which apparently involved some sort of food operation. Both kept talking a spot nearby called Yoshiwara/Soapland. I may have encountered the word Yoshiwara in an academic setting back at UCI where we read a piece about the bath house. I had no idea that the actual district was composed of rows of brothels! So the shady Japanese guy had me get magazine called Manzoku that you can buy at almost any convenient store out there. Manzoku effectively is a massive advertisement for the various sex shops around Tokyo (including places like Saitama). They had me look through some of ads until I found one that seemed reasonable. The Japanese guy kept hounding me about the girl and possibly knowing her. But I honestly think this guy was full of shit.

As I write this, one other incident around this area involved a Canadian guy who was visiting from Nagoya that I met at the New Koyo, who also had shown me this spot. Now, I can’t remember if I met him at this juncture or the previous year. But I remember how I might’ve been in the lobby using the internet and this guy shows up plastered. It might’ve been the morning of the next day or even the afternoon. But he comes over to me and we start talking because I was interested in his work, which involved some technical solution for a major printing company in Nagoya. He brings out his keitai (before the whole iPhone style craze started) which had a limited digital screen and shows me an image of an attractive person. Then he asks, “Do you think this is a guy?”

At first, I had no idea how to interpret this situation. But apparently, the Canadian guy had gone to a club in Roppongi, where certain patrons targeted unsuspecting foreign men (mostly white guys). These patrons (Filipino and maybe Thai from what I heard) would dance with the guy, get them severely drunk and ask to take the guy to their place. So the Canadian had exactly this situation happen and he mentioned that while at this person’s place, they made out but wouldn’t let him to touch this person’s junk. In turn, the Canadian became suspicious but apparently they didn’t have intercourse and eventually the Canadian somehow stumbled his way back to the New Koyo, which is why he asked me.

Later, when I went to another bar with someone else I met at the New Koyo (which turned out to be some tech producer from LA who became a friend), I saw a similar incident with two guys (yes, the stories are becoming a digression here). Now, I suspect this incident happened during this trip. But it was at some downstairs bar/club in Roppongi, the name, of course, escaping my mind. It was at night as people were getting off of work. My friend wanted to hang out and dance at the floor but I was still shy and not dressed well for the occasion. Instead, I just observed the crowd. Two attractive young female characters entered and my friend whispers to me, “If you were really drunk, you wouldn’t know the difference.”

Suddenly, it became clear what kind of characters I saw were. So I became fascinated and observed from the side. Eventually, two unremarkable white guys entered and started dancing with the two female characters. My friend nudges me and exclaimed, “They don’t know!” So we both started watching the situation unfold. The two white guys danced and were completely enamored by the two female characters. As the night progressed, I noticed one couple started making out with each other. Then his partner spoke a few words and the two disappeared and my friend and I just stared dumbfounded. I might’ve made the comment, “Oh, that guy is going to wake up to a big surprise in the morning!”

That left the remaining pair. The same thing happened to the other white guy where his “partner” whispered something into his ear. Then the guy looks down while the female character bails from the establishment. The white dude comes over towards us, grabs his jacket with a dejected look and admits, “All this time I’d been dancing with a guy and I didn’t even know it.” Then he takes off.

Anyway, always loved that story. I have one of my own similar when I wandered around in Shinjuku Kabuki-cho the year before but I’ll save that one. All I can say is that I didn’t get far for better or worse.

But back to the Canadian guy at the New Koyo. He’s drinking water/tea as he’s recovering from his hangover (I definitely think it was in the evening due to what will follow). We might’ve gotten dinner or something to eat. But he did mention that he discovered another Red Light spot nearby. Interested, I decided to take a walk with him around the Minowa/Shitamachi zone. It was winter and quite cold. Along the way, we were hit by a cloud of stench as lined up against a wall were numerous blankets and comforters hiding a bunch of homeless people. The Canadian said that he knew of my university because one professor had written on the poorest section of Japan, which was this area apparently. The thing is that most people probably don’t associate Japan with having a homeless problem if they’re coming from outside the country. However, just like other places in the world, Japan suffers from capitalism and high cost of living while the downtrodden get tossed to the side and become voiceless and left to rot. Later, one of the front desk workers at the New Koyo (not Bob) mentioned that many of those homeless around the area would perish in the winter and I do remember along the street at some point there had been a soup kitchen setup to feed them. Very somber and vivid image that I can never shake and wish I could have taken a picture to show the unglamorous side of Tokyo/Japan.

As we continued our journey, we passed by a small shopping district. It was one of those more traditional setups where you have an overhanging above a wide open walkway with small stores on either side. There might’ve been one of those pull down garage mechanisms to close the place off after hours. But as the location shut down, I noticed more homeless taking shelter underneath. Also, for what it’s worth, back in the day before the revitalization of the station, Ueno similarly had a homeless situation where many would take shelter in the station at night. I don’t know if that still holds true since many of the encampments around Tokyo might’ve been cleaned up in the later half of the 2000s. And if you’re wondering where William Gibson got the title for his first chapter in one of his Cyberpunk novels, it would’ve been when he visited Shinjuku at one point where piles of cardboard boxes near the station most likely gave him a visual of what he thought the dystopian future might look like. Actually, the real dystopian future is more about the actual disappearance of the lower class of people where they just are discarded to the side like trash and keep getting pushed elsewhere and displaced by NIMBYs and governments who kowtow to big business.

I can’t recall the exact steps to get there from the New Koyo but you take the back streets leading to a large road where there’s a gas station. A sign above reads “Yoshiwaramon” (I believe) but the street may have a different name these days. The one street you use is narrow and comes out to a moderate size street and crosswalk. From there, in the next few blocks ahead and to the left/right, you can see various gaudy signs advertising what may pass as hotels. But these aren’t hotels but Soapland spots. Soapland is comparable from what I’ve read/heard to a Turkish bath. But effectively, they’re where prostitution happens in a controlled manner. Prostitution in Japan has a strict definition where the direct exchanging of money between a customer and the girl (maybe guy too but I have no idea about that) and the explicit act of penetration makes the thing illegal. The way these operations work is that the girl “rents” the spot in the establishment while a front desk clerk takes the money. From there the girl makes her percentage. What goes on behind the closed doors is unknown to the establishment just like the other love hotels you might see dotting metropolitan areas (like Uguisudani).

Anyway, because I was with a very apparent gaijin (actually I should say hakujin/white guy), the usual ponbikis didn’t bother us. At this juncture, the Tokyo government hadn’t started cracking down on where these people could hang out so they were more bold in being out front and center near in the streets, even at this late hour. I think most of these places might’ve closed at around 2 or 3am, which makes sense if you think about how the women were what some would call “ladies of the night.” But I couldn’t get over the gaudiness of the zone, like a mini Vegas without the gambling. And there were so many of these spots. I really have no idea how one establishment could differentiate themselves from another beyond the exterior advertisement and the girls they kept. Maybe some of the women were former models, AV actresses (adult video) or more attractive types. I think that Manzoku magazine might’ve featured a few and would talk about their “specialties.” But if you were a casual customer just walking down the street, I would not know how to distinguish one place from another.

At any rate, we would make our way back, possibly grab food either that night or the next day. But I never knew what happened to that guy. But that does take me all the back to my Soapland story. As I mentioned, that shady Japanese person and Bob had set me up with one of these places. I even managed to find out that the place still exist (I remember the name) and that it has a web presence. These establishments can arrange for a pickup usually by the station. It’s meant to be discrete since I think some business men might go during their lunch break for a little stress relief (or maybe even as a business arrangement). Nonetheless, I did read that many of these spots don’t allow foreigners. Initially, I thought it was raw prejudice for the post-WW2 era but the reasoning was a little more practical in that the rise of AIDS/diseases along with how communication would be an issue ended up making the situation a general policy.

That isn’t to say all places are like that and if you do speak some Japanese, you can get in. I knew one guy at the bank who was Indian and got in through a friend. But I think he had some rudimentary Japanese. Despite having some Japanese and being of Japanese ethnicity, I was naturally very nervous. I knew these places were run by a certain shifty organization. But the policy I have is that as long as you don’t look for trouble, trouble won’t look for you. Also, most of these joints are focused on business and making money, even if it’s nefarious.

I was let out by the driver at a small shop where I was greeted and given a photo book of the ladies. I merely confirmed the girl I saw in the ad (who had been reserved for me) and I was led upstairs to a moderate sized room with an air mattress near a shower. The girl probably was the prettiest person I had been with in my life and my Japanese was just so horrible back then in the way I’d stumble over my words. But the process was pretty simple. She would wash you with a special lotion and use her body to cleanse you on the airbed. Part of it was licking and it was intense. You could have normal sex with her but I insisted on a condom, even though she started without one. Note that these establishments supposedly enforce frequent testing but I was really paranoid. But what a woman. One Japanese friend translated the ad of her and told me that one of her specialties was a golden shower, where in those days I had no idea what that meant. I was just so naive back then.

When it was over (2 hours), the guy would call and give you a warning. Then they’d come get you, you’d say goodbye, she gave me her card and number then I would go downstairs to pay. This was one of the higher class establishments so the cost was heavy and I was already laden by debt. Back then I could afford the risk and didn’t care that much about the consequences. Stupid me.

As for the Japanese guy at the hotel (not Bob), he tried to swindle me a few times for money. I think he was just a fraud and staying at that place because he was having money issues. The funny thing is that he would brag to me about knowing some of those ladies, pointing at one girl in an ad and saying, “Her pussy stinks.” I couldn’t tell if he said that to try and appear “hip” to me with his knowledge of foul English language or if he wanted to impress me in saying he’d been with her and went twice. But I’m sure these days I would just nod and tell him to eventually fuck off.

Seeing this blog post getting a bit long, I’m going to pause it since it’s consumed quite a bit of my time and I need to do some other things.

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