Here's what I'm grumpy about:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/12/171814201/episode-435-why-buying-a-car-is-so-awful

You guys both listened to this ep, I take it.  But I can't get it out of my head.  That bizarro auto dealer protectionism is like the laws that protect American farmers, only for something everyone actually needs and wants and buys and demand meets supply and you can make money off it if you try and crazy stuff like that.  Gaaaaaaahhhhh HATE HATE HATE HATE EVERYONE!

Here's what I'm reading . . .

"Changeless!"  The second book in a series begun with "Soulless," by Gail Carriger, a sharp-tongued, busty brunette writing about a heroine who is a sharp-tongued, busty brunette (srsly you guys) who has sex with a hunky angry Scottish werewolf lord on the regs (spoiler alert: they get together!) in steampunk alterna-Victorian London.  This is . . . the best thing.

Just finished "Planetary," a graphic novel by Warren Ellis, and while I wasn't a giant fan of the art, I thought the story was definitely mostly great.  This one would make a perfect TV show, actually.  The plot: a "century baby" born at the crack of 1900, a man with superpowers and holes in his memory named Elijah Snow, is employed by a mysterious organization to catalog the world's strangeness.  But Snow slowly begins to realize that the world isn't just strange, it's wrong--and that someone needs to fix it.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUNH!

Also in the middle of "Transmetropolitan," another Ellis comic pitting a wacky transhumanist future dystopia against Spider Jerusalem, who's basically just Hunter S. Thompson in the future, taking all the future drugs and freaking out about the Man.  Which is awesome. 

So what did you guys think of the first four episodes of "Arrow?"  Ehhh?  EHHHH?

 

Also this.

http://www.koreabang.com/2012/stories/newspaper-reveals-the-truth-about-foreigners-in-korea.html

Ironically, considering its title, the newspaper story in question ends up focusing just as much on the naive Korean girlwhores indiscriminately opening their legs for those foreign devils; original reader comments are charming, too, especially the ones lamenting that those shameless sluts might be some hapless Korean man's wife someday.  (Final comments on the repost are more hearteningly un-awful.)  I suppose it's good to be reminded of what shitheads people are in *every* country, not just the U.S.  Maintain a little perspective, that sort of thing.

Pictures from Seoul

P.S. I just bought some deodorant at a local store in Itaewon and you'll never guess what I found on the shelves.

 . . . 

If you guessed Girl Scout cookies, you would be right.  Also, you have some scary "The Shining"-esque powers, so there's that.  Anyhoo, dayum, Girl Scouts.  Maybe there IS something to all that "teaching entrepreneurial spirit" bullshit after all.

Goodbye, futon.

Well, that's it, sports fans.  I'm leaving Japan today.  Next stop: Korea!

Where my siblings at?

I said, WHERE MY SIBLINGS AT?

Some Japan things I did:

--Tokyo really does look great at night.
--Heated toilet seats.  Built-in bidets.  One setting for manparts, one for ladyparts.
--Employees bow when they enter the main floor of the department store from the back room.
--Foot-wide grooved pathways on every city sidewalk/crosswalk and in every subway for the blind.
--Grocery stores in the basements of malls.  The chocolate & sweets section oh my jesus.
--Machines in front of ramen restaurants where you choose and pay for a meal ticket.
--Conveyor belt sushi.
--Makoto Aida at the Mori Museum and the 360 degree observation deck on the 53rd floor.
--Amuse Museum, touching hundred-year-old clothes.
--Traditional dances at the National Theater.
--The 1945 articles of surrender at the Edo-Tokyo Museum.
--Akihabara electric town.
--Harajuku on Sunday.
--More historical shopping streets than you can shake a stick at, seriously.
--Kawasaki showroom at the Maritime Museum.
--Shinjuku, Shibuya (and its giant 8-ways-at-once intersection!), all known brands plus all others.
--Ginza (& spotted the Kabuki-za).
--Tempura made in front of me by a guy who knew tempura.
--Tsukiji fish market before dawn and a sushi breakfast.
--Circumambulating the Imperial palace moat.
--Kyoto temples and shrines.
--Mister Donut.
--Pachinko.
--Kobe Osaka Aquarium and the whale shark.
--"One Piece" special manga exhibition with Nori.
--Flights of Japanese craft beers  Keep trying, Japan.
--Himeji Castle and a historical town afterward.
--Chinese food.
--Kobe beef.
--Endless oysters caught the same day.
--Yasukuni Shrine and the flea market outside.
--Asakusa and Sensoji Temple.
--Bean jam buns.  One for each hand.  The lady scoped me out and didn't bother with a bag.
--Yokoamichi Park and the Tokyo Air Raid Memorial.
--Roppongi Kingyo and the new half show.
--Roppongi Hills, where I saw "Tokyo Family" at the movie theater and got popcorn in a seat tray!
--Japanese-style curry at Bondy.  And then Japanese-style curry at Bondy.
--Drink machines every few blocks that dispense cold *and hot* bottled or canned beverages.
--$3 for a small coffee.  $1.75 for a Starbucks-style convenience store chilled latte drink.
--Street signs in English, subway signs in English, subway announcements in English . . . I am lucky to speak English.
--Hiking in Kobe.
--Stuffed dessert crepe on the street.
--In the passenger seat of a Prius on the wrong side.
--Explaining the Bell monopoly via stick figures to Nori's tolerant, non-fluent mother.

A plane trip from MA to CA, and a shot of Mt. Fuji from Tokyo!