Last week he showed me a catalog of games to tell me about the next game he was all excited to buy: Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories. One of his 11 year old friends has it and he totally fell in love with it. An 11 year old kid. His parents let him buy a game rated "Z" for 18 and over because it's wall-to-wall foul language and adult themes such as murder, mayhem, carjacking, brain-splattering headshots, cop killing, prostitution, BSDM, kinky sex, double-ended dildos, tittie bars, drugs…

That is, so far. For all I know, it gets worse. I'm still only on the 5th or 6th mission. Tony, on the other hand, is on well his way to unlocking the second island.

Last week, when Tony first showed me the game, our conversation when a bit like this:

Tony (in Japanese): Daddy, I want to get this awesome game!
Me (in English): What's it rated?
Tony: Z.
Me: How old do you have to buy a game that's rated Z?
Tony: 18.
Me: How old are you now?
Tony: 11.
Me: What's 18-11?
Tony: 7.
Me: That's how many years you have to wait to buy the game.

End of conversation. Flash forward to this week.

Tony: Daddy, look what I got!
Sony PSP: "You cock-sucking mother-fucking son of a goddamn whore! I'll rip off your head and shit down your neck!" (explosions) (police sirens) (sexual innuendo-filled radio dialog)
Me: Wonderful.

So here's the thing. And maybe I'm just rationalizing my horrible parenting skills and my guilt for not confiscating the game on sight.

Neither Tony nor Andy understand much English aside from the conversations I have with them, so all the swearing in the game goes over their heads. It was only a few weeks ago that Tony finally learned the word "shit" when I dented the running board of our family car trying to back out of a ridiculously narrow dead end. I'm not too worried about either of them acquiring a new and exceedingly foul English vocabulary from the game.

They don't understand the adult themes in the game. Or, maybe they do, and if so, they already acquired such worldly knowledge elsewhere.

That leaves the violence. When I was a kid, we played cops and robbers and smashed Matchbox cars together all the time. And I didn't grow up to be a sociopath.

Yesterday was a holiday so the three of us played the game together. I taught Andy how to read a map and to give and understand directions in English. I found a website of cheat codes and taught Tony some new vocabulary by explaining to him what they all did. The boys got practice sharing their toys, which involved patience and conflict resolution. Tony got to show me all the secret locations, mini games and tricks he discovered by himself. (I skipped over minor details such as what prostitutes and pimps do for a living.) We shared opinions about strategies. But most of all, the three of us spent hours of quality time together, which we don't do often enough lately.

But still, I'm conflicted as to whether or not I'm being a horrible parent by letting them play such an adult-oriented game.

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If Obama wins, you'll read about me in the papers for exuberantly and singlehandedly overturning cars in Tokyo and setting them on fire.

On the other hand, if McCain wins, you'll read about me in the papers for angrily and singlehandedly overturning cars in Tokyo and setting them on fire.

You've probably already seen this video clip many times over of Gayle Quinnel telling McCain that she doesn't trust Obama because "he's an Arab," then McCain refuting her by explaining that, essentially, he can't be an Arab because he's actually "a decent family man citizen." As if the two were opposites.

What you probably haven't seen yet is the follow-up interview conducted by TheUpdate.org in which she says she got her information about Obama from the library and a pamphlet given to her by a McCain volunteer. She goes on to explain how she too is a McCain volunteer–working from of the Burnsville, Minnesota office–and she has made hundreds copies of letters and sent them to people randomly picked out of the phone book. In addition, as a volunteer she has spoken to a lot of people who have the same opinion of Obama.

This got me to thinking there's a much bigger story here than just some frazzled and confused old lady who's deathly afraid of a black Arab Muslim terrorist running for president. Namely, are McCain's campaign offices simply complacent when it comes to false rumors about Obama, or are they complicit in spreading them? As a volunteer for the McCain campaign, not only has she not been corrected by anyone who knows the rumors are false, but she's also spreading the rumors on behalf on the campaign!

Honestly, I don't understand why the mainstream media hasn't taken a closer look at what kind of rumors are being spread by McCain's volunteers. I feel uncomfortable saying this in seriousness, but frankly, I'm shocked.

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Whoever threatened martial law isn't bluffing. As you may know, on October 1 the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team was redeployed to a 12 month tour to Northern Command, "a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities." When their tour is over, another brigade will take their place, to carry on with the mission "to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack."

The America of today is very different from the one I left 18 years ago. Frankly, I don't want to go back.

I think it's odd that I can't find any mention of this threat to Representatives in the mainstream media.

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This morning as I was passing through Shinjuku Station, I saw a woman take a dive down a short flight of slippery stairs and lie crumpled on the wet ground with a quickly expanding pool of blood under her head. (That freaked me out.) I've lived here long enough to know that you can't assume someone else is going to help so I rushed down her, tore off my headphones (and my glasses–oops), grabbed a towel from someone who pulled one out, knelt down and held the towel to her head while resting her neck on my thigh. She was talking, which was a relief. She was saying, "Don't worry about me, if you need to get to work, please go because I don't want to make you late." I told her to just relax and asked her if she was hurt anywhere else. She said she hurt her leg a little, but it didn't look broken, although I wasn't about to let my hand off her head to check. Man, she was really gushing blood. It looked like someone had slaughtered a dog on the sidewalk.

I got blood all over my jeans. Not a good pair, but these days none of my jeans are a "good pair." I can't buy my size in Japan, so I only have a few old pairs left that are still wearable. In other words, I trashed about 20% of my wardrobe right there.

Someone else called an ambulance on their mobile phone. It was nice that so many people stopped to ask if someone had called one. I like to see people care about total strangers, but day to day I don't see it often enough. Either people don't want to get involved or they just stand there dumbfounded.

There was another women there who vaguely knew her because they work at the same company, so she stayed with her to wait for the ambulance and I left to get washed up. She kept saying that she didn't want to make anyone late, and by that time she was sitting up and not bleeding as much so I figured it was OK to leave. But it's never easy to know if it's really OK to leave in a situation like that. She wanted me to, so I left.

And now I have to spend the rest of today wearing blood-stained jeans. I don't mind, really. It doesn't look like I've been through a massacre, but the stain is definitely noticeable so I'm a bit self-conscious.

Update: When I got home tonight my wife gave me a ziplock baggie full of some magical blue powder to put on the stain. The jeans just came out of the washer and much to my surprise the blood washed off completely without a trace. I told the story to both of my kids. Tony (the older one) wanted to know every last detail of the ordeal. Andy wanted to know why the heck would I volunteer to help a complete stranger.

In a way, it's comforting to know that when all these otherwise intelligent (but conservative) people you hear extolling Palin for her love of moose meat and what not, they really aren't stupid, they're just lying.

What I'm wondering is, since this happened on MSNBC, how will Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow cover it? They have to mention it because other media outlets are already picking up the story, as will the Obama campaign, but all three people in the video work daily with Keith and Rachael. It's going to be awkward…

Not so seriously, here's a funny YouTube video. I think I'll watch it again and have some more whiskey.

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It's Friday, I'm starting on my way home and I was hungry for a snack so I bought a bag of tempura fried squid. They look like potato chips or some other salted carbohydrate snack. Apparently, if you're not eating them, they don't smell so nice. I was eating them out of the bag when I got on the train and instantly all the women around me covered their faces with their handkerchiefs. One woman moved to another part of the train. I took the hint and twisted the bag shut until I got off at my stop then ate the rest in the open air.

Next time, I'll wait to get home to eat them. Tony likes stinky food so we'll eat them together.

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• I start with Iran by remembering the phrase, "She is from Iran." Iran is Shi'ite.
• I recall the mistake McCain made saying that Iran was training al Qaeda. That is incorrect because al Qaeda is the opposite, Sunni.
• Osama Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, which makes the country Sunni.
• Most in the world are Muslims are the same as Saudi Arabia, Sunni.
• Iraq is between Iran and Saudi Arabia, so they're approximately half Shi'ite and half Sunni, but they're politically closer to Iran, so a slight majority of Iraqis are Shi'ite.

How does that work for you?

Next, onto Obama, McCain and the surge. I'll assume you know nothing about why there's far less violence in Iraq now as compared to 2006-2007. Here are the facts, and please correct me if I get anything wrong.

• There are two sects of Muslims, Sunni and Shi'ite (pronounced "SHE-ite" not "shitty"). Iran and the Iraq governments are Shiite, as are a slight majority of Iraqis. Al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia and 90% of all Muslims in the world are Sunni. For centuries they've been killing each other over an argument about who has the right to rule over the religion, kind of like who gets to call himself the "pope," but it's a bit more complicated than that. At this point, I expect most people to give up reading. But congratulations, you already know more than McCain. All you need to do now is get shot down over enemy territory and spend a few years being tortured as a POW and you'd be more qualified than him to run for president.
• Bloody ethnic cleansing has taken place throughout Iraq. We're talking wholesale torture and slaughter with victims in the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, and both sides are guilty. Towns and neighborhoods have become segregated, and the cleansing is pretty much over. Note: This is one of the reasons why there is less violence now. Towns and neighborhoods are now segregated.
• Second, some of the Sunni groups that used to be on al Qaeda's side fighting against the coalition troops decided to switch their alliance over to the occupational forces. Why? For security reasons, and because we're paying them. Note, they're Sunni, and the Iraqi government is Shi'ite. They're not fighting the government or the coalition troops for now. We're arming, training and paying them, and in return they're keeping the peace in their neighborhoods particularly by keeping al Qaeda out, but that doesn't mean they have given up fighting forever, only for now. Right now the occupation is probably the only thing keeping them from turning on the Iraqi government, and the government is very worried about them becoming a third power in Iraq. Nobody knows what will happen when we either stop paying them and/or leave. Note: These Sunni groups decided to give up their support for al Qaeda and side with the occupation before the surge. These switches of alliance are called Awakening Movements.
• Third and last, we have The Surge of 2007. Note: The surge happened after most of the ethnic cleansing and awakening movements had already taken place. But this is not what the Bush Administration wants to admit, and even worse, just the other day McCain got it backwards! McCain got it backwards. You really need to understand why this is such a big deal. McCain says that not only did the surge cause a decrease in violence but it actually caused the Anbar awakening! NO!! WRONG!!

So if you're still with me and haven't scurried off to YouTube to watch videos of adorable kittens or people riding bicycles and skateboards into brick walls, we'll get to Obama's take on the matter, but first you have know that Obama opposed the surge. The other day, CBS News asked Obama if he knew then what he knows now, would he have approved the surge. Here was his answer:

If we have shifted away from the central front of terrorism as a consequence of enormous and continuing investments in Iraq, then that's a poor strategic choice.

Huh? But Senator Obama, don't you give any credit to the surge for the decrease in violence in Iraq?

No, no of course I have. There is no doubt that the extraordinary work of our U.S. forces has contributed to a lessening of the violence, just as making sure that the Sadr militia stood down or the fact that the Sunni tribes decided to flip and work with us instead of with al-Qaeda — something that we hadn't anticipated happening. All those things have contributed to a reduction in violence.

So on one hand you have McCain who doesn't understand what's going on in Iraq, and on the other hand Obama who understands that the surge is only one factor in the decrease in violence. As for me, I know which of the two I'd rather have as president.

P.S.In order to keep things simple, I didn't mention that the Mahdi Army, a Shi'ite militia possibly supported by Iran, is currently under a very tenuous cease fire agreement which is set to expire, and hopefully be renewed, in August 2008. When it's all put together, it becomes evident that violence in Iraq could flair up again if either the Mahdi Army or the participants in the Awakening Movements decide they're no longer satisfied with the way things are, or if any of the segregated towns or neighborhoods decide to expand their territory.

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It's a good thing too. By the last day they were all looking pretty bored. I started to see them congregated into groups talking to each other instead of standing watch over commuter/terrorists.

Seriously, I really want to know where the hell they all went.

P.S. I'm posting this using ScribeFire.

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For years and years, the English language website for Mainichi News had a section called WaiWai. It translated salacious and bizarre articles from the dregs of Japanese tabloids into English. As far as I know, the authors of WaiWai never made anything up–they left that to the authors of the original articles about such nonsense like a restaurant where you could have sex with a pig then have it cooked for you.

A Japanese person could read the original articles in their original context and considering the source and content easily see through the bullshit, similar to how an American could tell that an article from the National Inquirer or Weekly World News about scientists planning to blow up the moon is most likely not true. But foreigners have a propensity to believe absolutely anything they read about Japan, up to and including the thousands upon thousands of used panty vending machines on every street corner here that don't f**king exist.

Apparently it was the "You screw it we cook it" restaurant story that caught the attention of Japanese bloggers and 2channers back in May. They got fired up about WaiWai sullying the reputation of their beloved country overseas, and from there the mass media caught wind and ran with it.

As reported in Japan Probe, the Mainichi acted all shocked and stunned, as if they had no idea WaiWai even existed, closed down the site, apologized in Japanese and English, and even went so far as to punish the employees responsible for the column. The chief editor, an Australian named Ryann Connell, has become the outraged public's whipping boy and is currently suspended for three months from his job and sequestered in his home with police protection after receiving a number of death threats, as reported in the Australian media.

Here's my take on the whole situation. WaiWai should have been shut down years ago. Republishing tabloid articles under the Mainichi name lent credibility to the articles that were most likely complete fabrications. I used to visit the site a few times a year simply because the articles were painful to read, which is kind of fun in an intellectually masochistic kind of way. They painted a picture of Japan very different from the Japan I know from living here. A news outlet like the Mainichi shouldn't be in the business of publishing stories in a column where a small percentage of them are true and the rest are tabloid trash without any kind of disclaimer attached to the unsourced articles. In the end, the company got what it deserved–a whole lot of bad publicity and a mass exodus of their advertising sponsors.

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Twitter friends were right, the extra security is due to the G8 Summit in Hokkaido. It says so on these out-of-order garbage cans. Mystery solved.

Want to know what scenario worries me the most? Some nutjob mixing together a batch of hydrogen sulfide on a crowded train or subway.

Update: Twitter friends say the extra security could be related to the G8 summits. That would explain the cop outside the Canadian Embassy.

Update #2: The illegally parked scooters got ticketed. He looked pretty bored wandering the neighborhood all day. I guess he needed something to do to pass the time.

Weeks went by and I slacked off from reading news articles in Japanese, because frankly, it's a time consuming pain in the ass, and keeping up with election news from the US in English requires far less effort in comparison. But eventually I did go back to it. (It's what I do when I can't sleep at night.) That's when I discovered that suicide by hydrogen sulfide had become a fad. Between the beginning of this year and the end of May, there have been 517 deaths nationwide, compared to only 29 in all of last year. In at least one incident, the elderly parent of a suicide victim was found dead just outside the bathroom where the 39 year old man took his own life. In far more cases, entire neighborhoods have had to be evacuated until the air was deemed safe to breathe.

People who are suicidally depressed often feel like they just want to disappear; to go to sleep and never wake up. On various online bulletin boards (such as 2chan), blogs and websites, death by hydrogen sulfide has been toted as a way to take one's own life quickly, easily, and painlessly. In fact, when you search Google for the term "hydrogen sulfide" in Japanese, the second highest ranking result after the Wikipedia article is a web page giving a step-by-step instructions on what chemicals to use, how to buy them, how much to mix together given the size of the room, and even a PDF sign to print out and tape to a door warning others to stay away and call authorities. Two links at the very bottom of the page take you to the sites for two suicide prevention organizations. I don't know what the author's point is, given the contents of the rest of the page.

But here's what really blows me away: Even though for the past 10 years in Japan over 30,000 people have committed suicide annually, the government is doing very little to combat the problem. That statistic is four times the number of people who die in traffic accidents every year. On year's total is roughly equal to the number of soldiers killed and wounded since the beginning of the Gulf War.

Nearly 20% of suicides are attributed to depression, the rest mostly to physical ailments or unsurmountable debts. It's the ones caused by depression that are the most disturbing to me. If 6,060 people had died in 2007 from any other cause–homicide, SARS, AIDS, paper cuts–the news media would be in hysterics over the epidemic and the government would throw billions of yen at the problem. As it stands, the only concrete action I've been able to dig up on the part of the government is their declaration to cut the suicide rate by 20% by 2016. Maybe I just haven't hit Google paydirt yet on what's actually being done; the relevant section of the National Institute of Public Health's website has a pretty picture of some flowers to show their concern, but the page hasn't been updated since 2003.

I don't know what my point is, other than 30,000 people out of a total population of 127 million is a hell of a lot of people, and the thought blows my mind. That, and I'd like to see psychotherapy cognitive behavioral therapy covered by national health insurance. Taking antidepressants without therapy is like taking anti-cholesterol medication but still eating at McDonald's three times a day.

We took him to a pet shop on Saturday to look at the dogs, and he really liked a yappy little brown chihuahua that was going for only 50,000 yen. Every time I commented on how much cheaper that one was compared to all the others, my wife turned to me and told me to STFU under her breath. Personally, I'm a fan of much larger dogs, preferably one that could eat a chihuahua for breakfast.

My wife told him (and me) that she'll think more about getting a dog when Andy's in the fifth grade, which is a euphemism for "when hell freezes over," but to Andy that just means he has plenty of time to save up enough money. I've suggested a few alternative animals for pets: a penguin, a snake, a poo-flinging monkey, a chicken or a hamster that'll make his room stink like rodent piss. But for him it's chihuahua or bust. Mommy's vote is for the latter.

Tony has been spending every waking moment playing Monster Hunter on his PSP, and he'd even play it in his sleep if we let him. It bothers me to see him wasting his formative years slaying imaginary monsters, so last Monday I very lovingly confiscated his PSP's battery and told him I'd give it back after he read a book of his choice in English. He chose The Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary, which he chased me around with every day until we finally finished it together on Saturday afternoon. Immediately he went back to putting his young life on hold to spend hours and hours slashing more monsters and collecting bigger and more deadly weapons, so last night I asked him for the battery again, and he gave it up with barely a whimper. After all, there's still Smash Brothers on the Wii and Animal Crossing on the Nintendo DS which he can use to waste his life.

This morning I sent a text message in English to his mobile phone: Your PSP battery is in the top drawer of your desk, inside the blue Oreo chocolate candy box. It he can decode the message, he can have the battery back. The messages will get progressively harder from now on, and eventually he'll have to start answering questions. By the time he reaches junior high school, he'll be decades ahead of his classmates in English ability, and he'll thank me for being such a prick.

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I came upon this article by accident. (I hope you don't mean that literally. -ed.)
Don't you realize that although you did your civic duty, you also stopped the practiced skills of an art form. Chikan can indeed be considered an art form. Where else can one find throughout history that an entire culture has tolerated and encouraged the groping of its female population. Video and film industries have sprung from the art of Chikan. Techniques that have been passed down from generations of men to their sons on the groping of females so that the act becomes one of pleasure for both the male and female. Although many women will not admit it, I truly believe that they love the attention of being touched and fondled, not to cause injury but to make women feel loved. For many of these women the anonymous touch of a man's hand rubbing her buttocks with his hands or erect clothed penis is an act of appreciating her beauty. There are millions of Asian females who know that their breasts are small in size, appreciate that Asian males touch and fondle them in respect of their beauty. When a woman's undergarments are lowered as in panties or raised as in a bra, the material is never damaged or torn. That is a rarity. Also very rare is for a female to have her clothes cut off with scissors.

With this new all female trains thing in Japan and new laws, the beauty and spiritual joy of the art of Chikan will soon disappear forever.

Frotterism is not an art form. It's a sex crime, like rape. Nampa, otherwise known as "picking up women," on the the other hand is not illegal and requires some finesse. It also empowers the woman by giving her the choice of shooting you down, but gropers are too cowardly to accept those terms.

Every woman who's accosted on a crowded train is someone's daughter, sister, girlfriend, wife or mother. It makes me happy to give them a safe zone, knowing that I'm doing it from them and for the people who care about them but aren't there. I don't do it because I'm all high and mighty, I do it because I've found that it makes me feel good. The same goes for giving up my seat to someone who needs it. I guess I'm just lucky that being kind to others what does it for me.

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Me, I scanned more photos (Tony's birth, B&W photos from my time at Penn State), drank beer and reminisced about my college days. Out of the hundreds of people I knew back then, I can probably name about 15 now.

I can't believe I used to go out in public wearing those enormous Harry Potterish glasses. No wonder I never got laid much back then.

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Sunday I was determined to get the kids out of the house to do something fun. As a parent I'm supposed to do that. My wife is a lot better at it though. It was easy to convince Tony to go to Navel Park with me, but try as we might we couldn't convince Andy to come along. He wanted to stay home and play with his friends, who are a bit nutty but good kids. They think it's funny to talk to me all the time in a fake American accent. It kind of makes me want to whack them over the head, but I just go with the flow instead.

Tony and I had fun together at the park. We played catch until his arm gave out, roamed around the tunnels below the roller slide, swung on the skyrope, and climbed the rope and log jungle gym. Afterwards we bought lunch at a food stall, checked out the outdoor tsuri bori lake then went home to make sure Andy was still alive. My wife would be really angry if I left him home alone and he got hit by a car or something. But Grandpa was home and so was his friend's mother so I wasn't too worried.

Yesterday (Saturday) I finally hooked up the flatbed/negative/slide scanner (CanoScan 8400F) that I bought second hand for 8000 yen months and months ago but has been sitting in a corner of my room still in the box. I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning looking through my slides from my year as an exchange student in Ecuador and my black and white negatives from college, and found the negative of the best photo I've ever taken:

Here are some of the photos I took while I was in Ecuador in 1985-86. Unfortunately most of my negatives are still at my parents' house in the US. And really, they don't seem so special anymore now that it's possible to search for the most interesting photos on Flickr tagged "Ecuador" and find hundreds of images better than the ones I took.

While I was upstairs in my habitat home office reminiscing and playing with my scanner, Andy was outside playing MTV Jackass with his neighborhood friends:

I'm well aware that there can't possibly be anyone besides my wife and me who gives a rat's ass, but here's the story anyway.

About 6 or 7 years ago we were in the market for a new washer and dryer. Back then I had a better paying job and money to burn, so I let my wife choose any model she wanted. (Plus, it was her birthday pr