if the light is off then it isn't on.

Sometimes I'm at work and listening to music on my headphones and nodding along, and my coworkers must wonder, what kind of awesome music is he listening to??? They never ask, but I'd be glad to tell them: Hilary Duff.

The whimpering twenties.

And that's that.

From Punk to Monk: Or, Why I Shaved My Head

I shaved my head. Immediately previously, I sported a somewhat absurd mohawk for a couple weeks. It turned out I looked nothing like David Beckham, like I'd expected. But now all my hair's gone, and I feel free.

Probably because I routinely spent a lot of money on haircuts, I was constantly being told how nice my hair was. Hair-fellation is undoubtedly the first chapter of stylist training. (Chapter Two: Holding client's hair out with one hand, tilt your head and look at it wonderingly.) But you tell me my hair is nice enough times, and I'll start to believe you. And so I began to feel pretty vain about my hair. I'd been starting to believe this recently and it bothered me. Someone once told me that the only reason girls have hair was to attract guys, and she was right. Well, a few weeks ago, I decided I should try to rid myself of my vanity, even if only temporarily. And so I waffled for a little bit, and then went for it. The same way you do when you are about to purchase a plane ticket somewhere far away and finally click the purchase button.

And now all my hair's gone, and I feel free. What a feeling. Shower times have been minimized. Hats, caps, and helmets pose no second thoughts. I lost two pounds. I can now jump as high and with the same aerodynamic-athleticism as Michael Jordan. Why just yesterday, I even spoke to a bald man with deeper human understanding and mutual respect.

Let me tell you: now that I've gotten rid of all my vanity, I feel pretty damn good about myself.

Protesting Guns in America.

Of course I'm afraid of the NRA. They have guns!

Go to Kobe for the best Kobe Bryant.

When I was in Japan, I wanted to go to Kobe to have some Kobe beef, that famed cut of meat supposedly pampered from birth with massages, beer, and an altogether to-be-envied lifestyle. And sure, Kobe had Kobe beef; where else would I find it? But the Japanese wonder what the big deal is. Why would I come to Japan to have Kobe beef? What I really want is Matsuzaka beef. Matsuzaka beef?, I ask. Once you have Matsuzaka beef, I was told, you won't be happy with any other beef.



So my sister asks around and finds a steak restaurant that serves Matsuzaka beef and we head over. We sit down and are given the hot wet towels and glasses of water. We look at the menu. We ask the waitress, is this all Matsuzaka beef? Oh no, no, no. These are Matsuzaka beef. She points at a couple of dishes. 18000 Yen. ~180 dollars. And that's for a Japanese serving. Not an American-style pound. So we apologize, and get up, and leave in embarrassment. When we get outside, my sister realized she forgot her cell phone in her haste. She has to go back in to retrieve it...

And Matsuzaka beef remains a mystery.

Hot tomato!

I've been developing a system of analogies between different kinds of tomatoes and girls. It's good because tomato is already slang for a girl, so I'm just trying to make things more specific.



There's the average meaty Beefsteak, bosomy but bland.
The BrandyWine, a large lush that's a lot of mindless fun.
BigBoy the lesbian.
The UglyRipe, of course, attempting to make up for homeliness with abundant personality and flavor.
San Marzano, slender and small, and very saucy.
Romas, with their model looks and boring banter, not good for having babies with considering their lack of hips and lack of seeds.
The Cherry, very petite and packed full of cuteness.
The Grape, cherry's twin sister, cares more about glamour, the Ashley to the cherry's Mary-Kate.

Weren't you going to Japan or something, Andy?

I went to Japan to visit my sister a month and a half ago, but I've been too lazy to post pictures or write anything about it.

In some ways, Japan didn't seem all the strange. I spent two weeks in Osaka and a week in Tokyo; the third most and the most populous cities of Japan, and big cities are all basically similar: restaurants and people everywhere, tall buildings, honking grid-locked cars, the rumbling of mass transit, etc. Tokyo made New York look pretty damn small in comparison, and both made Seattle look like a rural village. In fact, there was this one train station in Japan, Shinjuku station, that my sister and I kept getting lost in, that has more than 200 exits and accommodates some THREE AND A HALF MILLION passengers per day. That is like six times the population of Seattle. Seattle doesn't even have a train system. That is so ridiculous. Train stations, by the way, are like the hubs of Japan. There are restaurants, department stores, bakeries, bars, supermarket, and more. And despite all this, it is by no means disorderly. The trains are always punctual to the minute (except when someone is committing suicide by jumping onto the tracks), and people actually line up on the platform to facilitate ingress and egress. There isn't, nor is there any need for, "please stand clear of the closing doors." It is common sense.


(People are lined up!)

Other common sense things: They don't have a blinking "don't walk" sign. They have a blinking "walk" sign. As in: WALK FASTER!!!

But even though cities are pretty much all the same, Japan is in many ways the strangest place I've ever been. The people there actually seem to have a different basical fundamental human motivation. I also visited my sister in the Caribbean and while the island topography, climate, biological growths and other paraphernalia were exotic and different, it never seemed to me that the people were that different. That is to say, people are fundamentally selfish. I don't mean that in a bad way, but people are always looking out for themselves. When you go to New York or Hong Kong or Malaysia, people are trying to sell you something and rip you off. But not in Japan. There is no such thing as a high-pressure sales person. If you ask someone for directions on the street, there's a good chance they'll walk you all the way there. It is pretty remarkable. If my sister were to say something like "it's so strange. I just moved into a new apartment and there's no microwave oven in it" in her office, a week later, a microwave will show up on her desk and a co-worker will say something like: "oh it's no trouble, I asked around and someone had an extra one lying around" or "oh we all chipped in and got it for you." It's a very gift-giving and hyper-thoughtful culture. And it really annoys my sister when other JETs (Japan Exchange and Teaching) teachers abuse this and say: "Boy, the Japanese are so stupid. You can get them to do anything for you." But see? That's just the instinct and motivation of most people; to take advantage of situations if possible.

Another strange thing I noticed: All the girls wear really really short skirts. (This was easy to notice.) My sister tells me it is actually considered patriotic to wear short skirts. So even though someone here wore a skirt like that, they would be considered slutty, since everyone is wearing skirts like that, it isn't slutty at all.

There is also something very ritual-based about their culture and interactions between people. It almost seems like a game. One example my sister described:

An American JET and his Japanese girlfriend walk past a florist. The girlfriend says: "Why don't you ever buy me flowers?" She continues: "You should buy me some flowers." And finally says: "You should buy me those flowers," pointing to a particular bouquet. The American buys her the flowers. and she is overjoyed. "They are so beautiful!!! You're so nice!!!!!!!!"

I can imagine the same interaction in America ending like this: "No, I don't want them, anymore. I shouldn't have to tell you to get me flowers." etc.

(By the way, this reminds me of a great phrase in Japanese. It refers to Japanese women over 30, who are of course absolutely over-the-hill and thus doomed to spinsterhood or something. The Japanese girlfriend was nearing this milestone and was very happy the American came along to save her from becoming one. I don't actually know the phrase in Japanese, but it translates roughly to "leftover birthday cake". Leftover birthday cake? I ask, thinking I might be misunderstanding. Leftover birthday cake. Nobody wants leftover birthday cake. It is true, I couldn't help but agree.)

So in Japan, everyone does what they're supposed to, and everyone's happy. Here is another example. My sister and I eat at a small restaurant. The owner really really likes us. His cute daughter, who was our waitress and, with some difficulty, tried to translate the stuff we were eating, also really really likes us and says near the end of the evening: "From today on, I will try to learn more English." (My god! I am so loved in Japan. Or maybe it's just my sister. But I swear, if I asked if i could marry his daughter, he would've said yes.) But anyway, he gives us all this free food and dessert because he likes us. Then as we're near the end of the meal, he meanders out sort of looking the other way, and my sister's face lights up and says: "aha! I know!" and she picks up the business card and calls the chef over by his name, and thanks him for the food. And he says "it's no problem, it's no problem!" and then he goes back into the kitchen. So he comes out fishing for a compliment. But, my sister informs me, that is only partly true. He came out so we could thank him, but that is because it would be rude of him to stay in the back and make it difficult for us to thank him. Because OF COURSE we're going to thank him. If we didn't thank him, however, that would've made it awkward for everyone because: A) we were SUPPOSED to thank him. and B) He looks rude for coming out expecting us to thank him.

(Cathy with the restaurant owner.)

So in Japan, you're should just learn the rituals and play the game, because then everyone is happy. And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Because even if the compliment is premeditated, it is still nice to hear.

So yes. Japan was a really interesting trip, though I'm not sure I'd want to live there. Cathy is great. I really miss her.


(Cathy and me going to the Ghibli Museum.)

Solipsism is a load of crap, I think. But because it is comforting to think that when you die, everyone else dies with you.

I bet Mick Jagger has ingrown hairs.

In a moment of wannabe rock stardom, I bought a pair of black skinny jeans. They're not even the skinniest hipster skinny jeans, but damn these things are ridiculous: I traded in my boxers for boxer briefs; I tug patiently to get them over my runners quads and calves; I actually think I'm getting ingrown hairs because of how tight they are.

a new kind of great product

I should make some anti-swine-flu surgical masks. They'll look something like this (without the stolen pig image):




It's quite the fashion statement!
*Also great for vegetarians and Jews!

Dick Cheney has something to say.

Dick Cheney insists, with vague references to classified documents, that "enhanced interrogation techniques" work. But he won't be more specific. Perhaps we can use some of these enhanced interrogation techniques to get the man to speak up and say what we want him to.

I feel half empty.

It's okay. Obama is going to make me whole.

This blog isn't dead, and neither am I.

I had decided about a month ago that I would no longer be the one initiating all the meet ups and hanging outs in any of my friendships. That is, I didn't want to hang out with anyone that didn't really want to hang out with me, I didn't want to feel like I was twisting anyone's arm just to be my friend.

So I've had a lot of time on my hands lately, and in this time I've finished building my speakers, gotten hit by a car, bought two gallons of salsa in one trip, painted and rethought my room, amassed some frightening credit card debt by buying a lot of stuff including a trip to Japan, learned that my long-lost older half-sister is alive though not especially well, observed daylight savings (took one hour), cooked a lot of meals (with some success), went to a punk rock wedding, and gained some weight. So apparently not quite enough time to update this blog, but that's because I'm pretty lazy.

Bonus update

What is a bonus, and how can it be in a contract? Andy, we're going to pay you $20,000 for the work you do and then we're definitely going to give you a bonus of $10,000,000. How is that different from: Andy, we're going to pay you $10,020,000 for the work you do?

I am going to japan on friday. woohoo.

Call me so I can get better on the phone.

Someone was telling me how horrendous I am on the telephone. I know I am incredibly ineffectual, and I hate talking on it, and I am certainly out of practice, but all this time, I figured I was just being curt. Turns out, I have no technique.

Somehow every time I go back to New York, it is Fashion Week. I am starting to think it is just Fashion Year, in 52 installments.

I have bad timing.

I know I like to complain about the weather, but I would like to point to this easy-to-reference comparison chart:



This is exactly what happened last time I went back east. Furthermore, when I got back, it rained for a month straight. This is destined to happen again, and I will prove it when I get back.

Inauguration had better be fucking awesome.