Day seven started off with a 6:24 am train departing from Wakkanai Station. This was my longest travel day of the entire trip. I didn’t arrive at Naka-Furano Station until around 2:40 pm. The trip from Wakkanai down to Asahikawa is a longer one than the way up. Our stop overs were a little longer.

Our first stop over was in Otoineppu and lasted for 1 hour and 13 minutes. I got out of the train and walked around the very very small town for about 20 minutes. That’s about all it took to see the whole town. I think I saw more cyclist passing through the town than the number of people that live there.

There was an elementary and junior high school, but I was unsure of where the students come from. Perhaps the schools are not at capacity or they come in from neighboring towns and villages.

The rest of the ride down to Naka-Furano was rather uneventful. On the train from Asahikawa I was sitting next to a man in his late 40s. He wanted to speak English with me. It turns out he was a neurosurgeon and was on vacation too. He took a look at my Star Wars shirt and wanted to talk about Star Wars a little bit. I have no problem talking about Star Wars, so that was great!

I got off at Naka-Furano Station and headed to the main road to go to Tomta Farm. It’s one of the more famous lavender farms around Furano, if not the most famous. It was about a 20-25 minute walk from the station. That isn’t really a long ways, but I was carrying all my luggage.

Along the way there was the Naka-Furano Lavender Park, so I stopped there to take some pictures.

I pulled my first challenge card for the day… “T-Rex!” This is a classic for me, and those that have known me for years have enjoyed my impressions.

I continued down the road for about 15 minutes and finally arrived at Tomita Farm. I took a break a relaxed with Lavender ice cream. It wasn’t bad. The flavor was light and subtle and not the least bit over powering.

Tomita Farm is known for their lavender fields, but the lavender season had just ended. There were other types of flowers to see. There were a variety of colors, and I was tempted to try out some of my camera’s various functions. I show off a few photos.

After that I drew out my final challenge card of the day. It was “Rabbit Ears.”

I made the trek back toward Naka-Furano Station and headed up to the youth hostel. It was a pretty nice youth hostel and meals were included for free. The bathrooms were clean too and they had free wifi. I would recommend the Furano Youth Hostel to anyone passing through the area.

The owners are like old Japanese hippies. The husband was explaining to some kids how we rely on electricity and other conveniences too much. He was making rice the old fashioned way and was using an old stove and burning wood. It was rather delicious though.

I met two gaijin, Mischa and Andrew, at the youth hostel. The first I had run into my whole trip. I had seen a few that were probably locals in the small towns and they gave you that look like they were pissed they weren’t the only gaijin for miles anymore.

We decided to take a walk around town, but before going out three brothers staying at the hostel with their parents wanted us to do fireworks (sparklers) with them. We obliged.

Anyways, Mischa and Andrew were some cool dudes living in Kyoto. We went out to hit the “town” and ended up at Lawson(convenience store) . It was pretty much the only happening spot in the whole town.

After we got back to the hostel we all were working on our computers. Andrew had work, I was making my previous blog entry, and Mischa was on Skype talking to an airline company. Despite that we all looked busy, that didn’t stop one determined old man from showing us pictures on his PC. He was rather persistent to the point of total annoyance. Eventually, he went to bed. We all followed suit soon after….

Day 8

After waking up, I broke fast with a meal prepared by the hostel staff. With a full belly I headed out to Furano proper. None of this “Naka” stuff today. I only had a few hours before my train back to Sapporo, so I rented a bicycle and headed to the Wine Factory.

The actual tour was kind of lackluster and not too interesting. There wasn’t much to see. Just a few of the older wines from past years on display. The upstairs was interesting, as there was wine to taste. I ended up picking up a few bottles for souvenirs for people back home.

Before leaving though, I drew a Photo Challenge card. I got “Ballerina.” Only one more after this!

After the Wine Factory I sped across the town, over a bridge, and out past several fields to the  Cheese Factory! Ever more unimpressive! They sold the same cheese and wine as the wine factory. If you are ever in Furano, you only need to hit one up. I’d go for the Wine factory, since you get to taste wine.

I made it back to the station and headed back to Sapporo. I checked in at the same hotel as before. However, this time they gave me a room with a double bed, instead of a twin! Yay!

I had a game to get to this evening so headed out to Sapporo Dome. When I got there I found out Darvish was pitching tonight!!! OMG!! Everything is coming full circle! Deep breaths. Calm down.

But Yes, things were full circle. It was time for my last challenge card. This one was “Batman Mask.” I decided to try something to commemorate all the poses. I asked a group of people to pose with me and gave them each a past pose. They were enthusiastic to help out, but some of their poses don’t look that way. Anyways, here is the end result.

The game was a pretty interesting one. Darvish ended up letting in 2 runs, but pitched 9 full innings. The game was tied at 2-2, so we headed into the 10th inning.

For those that dont know, Japanese baseball has a time limit. Games can only go to 12 innings, and this year the time limit is down from 4.5 hours to 3.5 hours. The reduction is time is a result of the devasting earthquakes and tsunami last March. Many areas are still affected by power shortage, including half of the professional teams. The reduction in time is to close the venues earlier and thus save power.

With this in mine we were told the game time was at 3 hours 20 minutes. The tenth inning would be the last (they will play the full inning out regardless).

In the bottom of the 10th, the Fighters had two outs and a runner on second. Our cleanup hitter was up to bat, so he was intentionally walked by Orix. The next batter also took a base on balls. We are at bases loaded with 2 outs.

My man Scales is up to bat. He goes to a 3-1 count. The pitch goes out and everyone holds their breath. Ball!! Its another walk, and we win!! 3-2 over the Buffaloes! What a strange way to win.

 

 

Hokkaido Days 5 & 6: Asahiyama Zoo & The Northernmost Point

It’s a little easy to get behind on updating when you don’t have constant internet access, or when busy actually enjoying the experience of visiting new places and not getting caught up blogging (and thinking up long introduction sentences that are made even longer by parenthetical statements).

I started Day 5 leaving Obihiro early in the morning. My train was scheduled to make a 10 minute stop at Shintoku Station. These brief stops along the way are quite common with the rural local trains. The express trains that are approaching from the rear need to pass us at some point. There are in many instances one set of tracks for both directions, so in some cases the trains wait at the stations so they don’t run into each other. That would make no one happy.

Once we arrive at Shintoku Station some of the station staff board the train and talk with the driver (or is it conductor?) One of the staff approaches me, “Train stop. No. Off. You off train.” Yes, I know the train is stopped. It’s on the schedule. Are they trying to kick me off?

He then turned to address the rest of the passengers in Japanese, so I listened to that. They inform us that because of the heavy rain, the train can’t continue on these tracks. There were flash flood warnings up ahead.  So, yes I was being kicked off, but so was everyone else.

They JR staff have us wait a little under an hour and get a bus to take us as far as Furano. From there I can catch a train to Asahikawa. The rest of the journey to Asahikawa is rather uneventful, although the bus seats were more comfortable.

Once I arrived in Asahikawa, I checked into my hotel and dropped off my bag. I grabbed a quick bite to eat at McDonald’s. I would have liked something else, but I arrived 2 hours later than I had planned, was starving, and only a few minutes to catch the quasi-infrequent bus to the zoo.

I should mention that Asahiyama Zoo is one of the most famous zoos in Japan. I’ve been to a few around Tokyo, and by far, Asahiyama was a much nicer zoo. It wasn’t a particularly large zoo, but the overall feeling of the zoo was superior to that in Ueno. Maybe it was the country air rather than the city air you smell at Tokyo’s Ueno zoo. The easiest way to describe it is to use a Japanese word. Funiki (雰囲気). It means the atmosphere of a place. It had a zoo funiki. I’ll leave it at that.

While I was there I completed some more Photo Challenge shots. First up was “Lightsaber Pose.” I would have liked a more epic pose, but the lady taking the shot was having trouble with my camera (Big f**king button on the top right!) so by the time we were ready to actually take the shot, I was ready to move and get ready.

The second shot I did was “Do the Twist.” I tried to get a shot with the Tiger behind me, but again random camera-idiot. He kept trying to zoom in on my face or the tiger or something. This was one of those times when people try to mess with the zoom when they have no idea what they are doing. I was not standing like an idiot to zoom in on my face. Yeah, I know I sound like a jerk, but at the time I didn’t let it get to me. This is all just retrospective anger for the sake of a slightly more interesting paragraph.

No worries though. Instead I went over to the lion enclosure and asked someone else to take my photo while I “did a strange pose.” Success!

The third challenge for the zoo was “Lost contact lense.” I was wondering how I could set this up and get someone to take my picture. I ended up using my gorilla grip tri-pod, and the camera’s custom timer. I set it for 20 seconds and sprinted to my destination almost knocking over some kid who decided to stop suddenly and do an about-face. I got to the position just in time and as soon as the shot was finished, “what’s this?” Someone had touched my camera almost knocking it into the deer enclosure. All was good, and here is the shot.

The fourth card was an easy one, “Air Guitar.” I found a young couple and asked them to take my picture. I did the pose and they instantly started yelling “Oh, yeah!! Wooo!” With that I finished up the photo challenge for the day.

Once I was back in town I took a break and wrote of my travels for days 2-4. For dinner I decided to try the famous “Asahikawa Ramen.” I chose a shop from the tourist information board’s list of famous shops.

When I entered I sat down at the counter. They had tables for families too, but a lot of ramen shops I’ve been to are only counters. The man sitting next to me spoke some English and started a conversation with me.

It turned out he had lived in Kentucky for six years in the past. “Wow, Kentucky….”

“I know it was quite boring. I drank a lot of bourbon.”

He was from Shiga Prefecture and was cycling around Hokkaido, so we talked a little bit about our travels.

He had already ordered when I arrived, so he got his ramen first. I was expecting him to say how delicious it was, but he said to me. I’m sure you can find better ramen shops in Tokyo. Whoa, really? He wasn’t going to say how awesome it was to eat the local specialty food at an “award winning” shop? The man told, me sometimes local towns have too much pride in their local cuisines.

The ramen was alright and definitely edible. Was it so amazing I was going to tell everyone, everytime I eat ramen about the awesome Asahikawa ramen I ate? No. It was good, but nothing to write home about. Bitch about a little on a blog, sure.

Day 6

The next day began with a six hour train ride to Wakkanai. I only had to stay on one train for this ride. We had several 10-20 minutes stops where we could get out and take pictures, pee, and get stamps.

Yes, stamps. At most stations and places of interest in Japan, there is usually a table with an ink pad and a stamp; something to commemorate your visit to the location. I was surprised to see about half of the train (read: car) get off with notebooks and head inside to get stamps.

At one stop, I was taking pictures and one of my fellow passengers offered to take one of me in it. I decided this was a good time for a PHOTO CHALLENGE!!! I pulled out, “Little Teacup.” Something seemed off about the post to me. Maybe too much of a boys be ambitious influence?

After heading back in to the train, Kenta (that was my photographer’s name) asked me to write in his travel book. He has a few questions about smiles and their meaning to people. He was asking people he talked with in travels to write in it. Seeing that I was doing similar things, I obliged him.

Once done, I asked him for a shot wearing the Hokkaido hats with me. There were only two of us, so we brought in Melon-chan!! (Don’t worry she was quite active in photos for the previous day. I’ll throw some up at the end of this post.)

I’ll skip ahead a few hours to when we arrived in Wakkanai. Kenta was heading off to an island, so I was out a non-imaginary travel companion for the day.

While at the station, I pulled of the “Rebel Without a Cause” card. I’ve never seen this movie, so my knowledge of this is only what I remember looking up before I left Tokyo. This shot is in front of the “Northernmost Station” sign.

Oh yeah, I should mention that Wakkanai is the northernmost city in Japan.  There are a lot of sign’s like “northernmost crab ramen” and other silly things.

My plan for the day was to see the northernmost point in Japan. I had a little over 90 minutes to kill until the next departing bus, so I headed to the Breakwater Dome.

After killing some time and walking around a caught the bus and headed up to Cape Soya or Soya Misaki (宗谷岬). It was really cool to be at the northernmost point in Japan. From there you can see Sakhalin. It’s only 45km away.

 

 

Since we are at a new place I drew the next challenge card “Gorilla Knuckle Drag.”

Next I headed up the hill to see the various monuments that are located here. I’m not going to go into detail with all of them, so I’ll just link to the Soya Misaki wikipage. While up the hill, I took some photos and pulled out the next card, “Saturday Night Fever.” The old man that took it said I was a pro-poser. Umm, thanks, I guess.

I spent about three hours up there and after some initial walking around and photo taking, I decided to chill out and relax.

Once back I was back in Wakkanai city, I found out there was a festival going on!! Yay! Unexpected Festivals, FTW! Beer, yakisoba, and cotton candy for only 500 yen! What a bargain! (I wanted to say epic win, but that seemed stupid. Besides, no one says bargain anymore.) There was a costume contest for kids as they danced around, so I took this of a sibling Mario & Luigi combo.

That’s all folks! See you next time.

 

So this was my first day to leave Sapporo. The first destination is Obihiro. Looking back on it I am not sure why I chose to visit here. I think I was just looking for a 4^th place to stop off on my trip. When I checked out the city online I found out there would be a matsuri or festival, so I decided to check it out .

I started off this trip with my new traveling companion <regal trumpet fanfare> Melon Panna-chan!!! (メロンパンナちゃん)! I’ve been teasing my friends on facebook that I’ve been traveling with someone possibly famous, female, and my girlfriend is okay with it.

You’ve probably heard of people traveling with lawn gnomes or some other type of toy, doll, or whatever and taking pictures of it at different places while traveling. I was leaning towards a Marimo doll, but then saw Anpanman.  I thought Melon Panna-chan was a good cross of the two, and not something instantly as recognizable as Anpanman. Besides Anpanman is a busy guy and has a lot of other commitments to keep to. Melon-chan (as I’ve taken to calling her, and is quicker to type) was more than willing to join me on my travels.

We first headed off to Midori ga oka Koen or simply in English, Green Park.  This is also where the first challenge card of the day (There will be 3-4 a day now) was drawn. First up is “90 degree bow.” We took this picture at the world’s longest bench (400m/a lot of ft).

I walked around the park for a while, ultimately heading to the other side to check out the art museum and the Obihiro Centenial Museum. On the way I found a stage and asked if I could do an impromptu stand up set (in Japanese, yikes).

The crowd was not very responsive and by the end, only one audience member was left. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she couldn’t move on her volition. Thanks for the support Melon-chan!!

After that I pulled out the next challenge card (“Touristy photo”) and I headed over to the Art Museum, only to find out, it’s closed today! Ok, let’s go to the Centenial Museum. Wait! What?! It’s closed too? Shucks, guess I’ll just take the next challenge photo by myself.

I decided to head back to the station and to the opposite side of town to check out a statue of the founder of Obihiro. A one senor Yoda Benzo. He was a renown Jedi Master and tamer of the frontier. Sadly all that remains of his legacy is this small monument in a very small park off the highway. There was also no one else there when I went. The damn 400 meter long bench gets more respect and publicity.

I should mention I drew another challenge card for this. The pose is “Boy Be Ambitious.” You may remember this from day three and the slogan found on Dr. Clark’s statue. For this card I need to recreate that pose.

After leaving the small park, I saw there was a shrine across the street. It was much like most shrines you see in Japan. They had some tea to drink, so I had a cup. I tossed 5 yen in the money box thingy (that’s the proper amount, I’m not being cheap) and made a little prayer. Mostly out of respect to the shrine people for letting me wander around and drink their tea.

I had lunch at a small, family owned restaurant. The food was pretty cheap and fresh. The pizza I had for my main course was delectable. For dessert I had a giant bowl of shaved ice. Melon Flavor. It was delicious.

Since my sweet tooth had been activated, I checked my map and made my way south back towards the station. My destination was the Taiyaki Factory (たい焼き工場). I picked up a cream filled, cold taiyaki. I had never had a chilled one before, but it was scrumptious. (Note to Japanese people: I have talked about three items of food so far. I have used different adjectives each time. oishii ne.)

After checking in to my hotel I headed on down to the festival. It was Bon Odori Festival. This means there is a lot of traditional dancing in the parades. I grabbed a bear and some yaki soba and settled in to watch.

It started raining so the dancing got stopped about half way through. They did dance in the rain for about 30 minutes though, so I give the dancers my applause.

I decided to people watch in the covered shopping arcade. An old man sat down next to me and started talking with me. We ended up talking about baseball, and the Fighters. Naturally, I turned the conversation to Darvish. (Totally Dreamy!) The old man bought me a beer and when he went to leave I asked to get a picture with him. He got a little weird and just said, “Sorry, I’m going home.” No, no, I just want a picture. “Sorry.” And he disappeared. Perhaps a mistake in my Japanese?? I’m going with weird old guy.

I walked around some more and came across a street painter/performer. He was mixing music and painting at the same time. It was pretty cool to watch. I wonder though if he just paints the same thing every time. Meh, I don’t care. I was entertained either way.

As I was walking back to look for a taxi I saw a booth selling “French Dogs,” which were just corn dogs. I don’t know about other parts of Japan, but in Tokyo they are called “American Dogs.” I decided to take a picture of this, and right as I am doing so, guess who turns around! It’s the old man!! Ha! Got your picture now.

Why did you run away old man? Was it because you found out I was American, and you thought if I found out you like French dogs I might get upset? Old man, it’s nothing like that. I just wanted a photo to show my friends and family. I would have even left it off the blog, but you had to go and be a weird old dude.

Obihiro was a fun little town, but I think I got out of it most of what it offers in just one day. It gave me a good chance to bond with my new companion, Melon Panna-chan. Stay Tuned for more adventures…

My second and third days in Hokkaido went by without much fanfare. As I had forgotten my new memory card for my camera, I headed to Bic Camera in the morning to pick up a new one. I also swung by the Fighters shop in Sapporo Station to pick up a new hat.

While I was passing through the station I came across Pikachu. It turns out there was some pokemon event going on. I figured what the hell, and snapped a quick photo with Pikachu. Kudos to the staff for actually using the zoom function on the camera. I hate when you hand someone your camera, and when you look at the photo later it is zoomed out all the way with you all tiny in the middle. +10 Awesome points to you, good sir.

Once I arrived at Sapporo Dome, I encountered another costumed character. This time it was B.B. the Fighters’ mascot.

The game itself was rather a boring one with the Fighters losing 0-4. I ended up leaving after the 8^th inning to beat the crowds out. The only thing worth noting is I started my “Photo Challenge” shots. I have a bunch of envelopes that contain different poses or actions to be taken at different locations throughout my trip in Hokkaido. The first one I drew today was “Air Punch.”

That evening I met up with fellow 501^st Legion member, Sgt. Vap (His screen name of course. I think if it was his real name it would something more like Bappuin Japanese). He took me to a bar close to Susukino. It was a Star Wars decorated bar appropriately named “Cantina.” The food was quite delicious and made fresh by the master. After getting an “air punch” photo with Mr. Vap, I headed back to the hotel and went to sleep.

I woke up early on Sunday and headed out to Hitsujigaoka Tenbodai.  The park, or rather observation hill, is home to the famous statue of Doctor Clark. He helped to develop the agriculture and farming development in Hokkaido during the Meiji Period. His famous words to the people of Hokkaido were, “Boys, be ambitious.” What about the girls? Girls, be housewives?

It was here that I drew my Photo Challenge card for today. Please don’t be “Take a photo with people wearing hats.” Please, no hats! And the card is… <drum roll for dramatic effect>  “Take a photo with people wearing hats!” Uhg.

For this one I was carrying around three hats that spell out Hokkaido using Japanese kanji (北海道) for just this card. I was looking around wondering who to ask. I saw a family of five and approached them. I explained that I was traveling Hokkaido and about my cards. They were more than willing to help out. I hadn’t gotten worked out and nervous, and I’m not really sure why. It’s not like I was in the 8^th grade and trying to ask out a girl for the first time. It was probably nerves about my Japanese. Something that I should have a little more confidence with.

After leaving the sheep observation hill (where I saw no sheep), I headed back to Sapporo Dome for one more day of baseball. The rookie phenom Yuki Saitoh was the starter. I wasn’t too impressed. He let in 2 runs in 2 innings and left the 5^thinning with the Fighters down 1-2. It was the Fighters’ bullpen that won this game with a final score of 5-2. This game was a lot of fun as I got to really feel the excitement of a Japanese baseball game. Since this was a comeback win, the fans were constantly in the “rally cheer” mode. There are no changes in the cheers for each player and the cheering doesn’t stop for outs. It just changes names to the next player at bat.

There was one rather enthusiastic fan sitting 3 seats over from me. He may have been mentally challenged, but he was always yelling things out at the players (positive and negative and to both teams).  His enthusiasm and comments brought a lot of laughs and energy to the area around me. People were making comments to each other but nothing condemning him for his handicap and eccentricity (which I might expect in Tokyo). The comments were positive and along the lines of “This guy is hilarious!” Here is a video with some of his dancing he did to entertain everyone.

The last thing to note for the day is I met a new traveling companion.  Who are they? Where did we go? Stay tuned for the next entry. Same Bat-channel, same Bat-time. Well, whenever I get around to the next post.

Today I embarked on a ten day trip to the northern most of the main islands of Japan, Hokkaido. I decided that I have been active on this blog at all because I could never find a clear or unique purpose for it. I decided to go with a modern classic, “The Travel Blog.”

So for the next 10 days I will be writing about my trip here in Hokkaido. I can’t guarantee updates everyday as some of the more remote places don’t have wimax coverage in their area, but when I am ear civilization again, I’ll throw up some post

The first three days I’ll be in Sapporo and going to see the Hokkaido Nippon Ham professional baseball team (they are my favorite of the Japanese teams). After that I will be heading to Obihiro, then to Asahikawa, followed by Wakkanai, back south to Furano, and finally back to Sapporo for three more days of baseball.

You’re probably thinking now, that’s a lot of baseball game. You must really like this team. I do really like this team, but to understand why I’d want to see six games, I’ll break it down. A few years back I made of list of things I wanted to do while in Japan. Things like go to Okinawa, see that famous Penis festival, climb Mt. Fuji, and see Darvish pitch a home game in Sapporo. Darvish is one of, if not the best pitcher currently playing in Japan, and he pitches for my team (figuratively as well, as he is quite the lady killer). He may go to the Major Leagues in the States, so I wanted to seem him before his inevitable departure (to the Braves, I hope). To semi-guarantee that I would see him pitch, I chose to watch six games.

So, I flew in to town this afternoon and after arriving in Sapporo I found a coin locker to store my backpack. The kind of backpacks that smelly 19 year old college kids wear when traveling through Europe or Southeast Asia to discover “what it all means.” The kind of back smelly dispossessed 30 somethings wear when they travel to Europe and Southeast Asia to discover… you know that kind of backpack. It’s a nice backpack, but we aren’t here to talk about backpacks now, are we?

So I bustled on over to Sapporo Dome. I picked up a Darvish #11 jersey and headed into the Stadium. Compared to the shit-hole that is Tokyo Dome, Sapporo Dome is awesome. I still prefer open air stadiums to domes, but the inside of this one is nice. The bathrooms are nice, the food is quality (not that bathrooms and the food are connected, just making a list), it’s just a nice new stadium.

I arrived in the bottom of the first, so I hurried to find my seats. When the Fighters play in Tokyo Dome the fan / cheering section is usually free seating, but I like that I had an assigned seat. Since I was arriving late it guaranteed a nice spot.

I quickly pulled out my newly purchased jersey and donned it. I also purchased some new noise sticks. I’m not sure if that is what they are called, but they are hollow plastic sticks you bang together to make noise. Japanese baseball is unique in that it is so loud and their is a lot more cheering compared with American Baseball. I mean each player gets their own song/chant when they are up to bat!

When Darvish took the mound I was excited. I felt like a school kid. I got lucky earlier this year and saw him pitch at a game in Tokyo Dome. Being at a Home game in the home stadium (the Fighters play 8 home games a year in Tokyo to make the fans they left behind happy) I was even more excited. I love watching this guy pitch. He’s only 24 years old (I just had to check that, and OMG! his birthday is totally in 3 days!! Happy Birthday Darvish!! I love yo… your pitching!) *ahem* Only 24 years old and he is one of the best in the league. He has a career ERA of 2.12. The past 4 years he’s been consistent at around 1.8. His career WHIP is 1.02 (league leader the past 4 years). God, he is awesome.

Yeah, I have a man-crush on Darvish. He’s young, cool, talented,successful, and totally dreamy. Watching him pitch a complete game tonight with 14 strikeouts was awesome. Bases loaded in the 2nd inning and he pitched his way out. He may play for my team, and we also play for the same team… Don’t get me wrong, I’m straight and pretty sure of that, I think. At least 98% of the time.

Darvish, you amazing man you. That other 2% is when you’re on the mound.

Oh yeah, we totally beat the Softbank Hawks 4-0 tonight.

A little over two years ago, I met a man named Trevor. Our girlfriends at the time were friends and that was how we met. While they were rambling on in Japanese, we were joking around and talking about a variety of things that one wouldn’t remember two years later. One thing, though, that did stick with me was Trevor’s suggestion that I go out and try some open mic comedy.

I always knew I could be a funny guy at a party and had weird observations about my surroundings. I’ve had friends tell me, “Gosh! You’re really funny. You should do comedy,” but I always brushed it off as “yeah I’m just a goofy guy at a party.”

Trevor does a lot of musical stuff and helped out with music and such over at the Tokyo Comedy Store. He tried to convince me that I should sign up for an open mic slot at one of their shows. I thought about it, but again brushed it off. Ok, I might have chickened out a little too.

About a year later, I decided to just do it, even without a pair of Nike’s. I signed up to do two sets with Tokyo Comedy Store’s open mic night at Ben’s Cafe in Takadanobaba, Tokyo. Of course I was nervous, but my first three set went surprisingly well for a new guy. My second set was shit, and we don’t talk of it any more. Needless to say, I’ve been trying to go to Ben’s every month and do a set.

In May of last year a new comedy show was born in Tokyo. I missed the first show (I was busy dressed as a Stormtrooper and touring Northern Japan). I was given the chance to perform at the June Mad Cow’s Comedy at the Pink Cow in Shibuya, Tokyo. Things went alright there, and I performed a few times there in the following months.

I kept working on my material, and tried out a lot of different stuff. When I was in the states I did an open mic show in Athens, Georgia. It was cool to have a different audience than the ones in Tokyo.

When I got back to Japan, I continued to tweak and write new jokes and played around with some “characters.” After talking with many people, I wanted to get back to the vibe and attitude I had at my first performance at Ben’s Cafe. I dug out the old notes and started pulling out some of those ideas. Dave, the guy that runs the stand-up over at TCS, had commented, “The audience wants to like you. You’re fun to watch.” Others made similar comments and warned about alienating the crowd too much. The final result was a set that I enjoyed and the crowd enjoyed (hard to tell from the video from the table of talking people sitting behind my camera).

There were still kinks to work out, but overall it was something to be proud of. I took the same approach that I did in December, and I wound up with a better set in January.

There will be bad shows and gigs in the future, and I can’t wait for them to happen. They will suck a giant ass, but it will be something to learn from as well. Stay tuned, and be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep abreast with new vids and junk.

First off this is not a research paper nor will I be backing this with any statistics or graphs. This is merely my own feelings, and how I perceive things. If it turns out I am way off the mark, then I will change my views. If anyone feels the need to yell, “Hey man, you don’t know anything about this!” then I’ll have to refer you to the title of this site.

The debate about piracy around the web has been going around for a long time. I am not the first to comment on it, and I will not be the last. There are convincing arguments for both sides of the debate. “Piracy” is becoming the “abortion” of the digital age (I’ll stop the similarities there at them both being hot, sensitive issues).

Is piracy a bad thing?

The record companies will tell you that it is killing the album sales. CD sales are at their lowest in years!! What the record companies neglect to mention is that digital sales are soaring. If you look at total numbers sold, the industry is actually coming out ahead.  (If you don’t believe me there are several article out there and you can google them or just take my word for it.)

Ok, fair enough Yorke. You pointed out that the record companies are skewing things to fit their argument, but you aren’t addressing piracy. Maybe those digital numbers could be higher.

You know, I think I can agree with you digital numbers could be higher, but I don’t think it has to do with piracy. I’ll get back to this in a second.
First off, there are studies out there that show people that download music “illegally” buy more than those that don’t. there are also studies that say otherwise. I’m gonna say that people that download “illegally” are also the ones that are more likely to purchase music through legitimate channels. Let’s go step by step through my thought process.

1. People can “sample” or preview full albums not snippits of songs before buying.
2. I can decide if I think the album is worth buying.
3. If it’s not worth buying, I probably wouldn’t have bought it without listening to it, so either way the record company doesn’t get money.
4. IF it turns out I do like it, I may end up buying this album or others by the artist (I found a lot of indy bands I would never have found without pirating. They have since received lots of my money).

I do believe that “pirates” download a lot more than they buy. However, they end up buying more than the average Joe. I’m gonna pull some numbers out of my ass to use as an example. Mr. A doesn’t download anything. He buys 2 albums a year. Mr. B downloads 20 albums a year, but he buys 4. One could argue he didn’t pay for 16 of those and that is true, but he wasn’t going to buy them anyway. He did end up buying 2 more than Mr. A.

Still confused with my logic (maybe it’s flawed)? Over the course of a year Mr. A hits on one girl at a bar and he gets lucky and takes her home. Mr. B. hits on 50 girls (not in the same night) and is able to take home 5 of them. Who was more successful? Mr. A with a 100% pickup rate? Or Mr. B and his 5 girls? I would say the winner is Mr. B. Yeah, he didn’t get them all, but if he didn’t talk to them he wasn’t gonna take them home.

The record companies are afraid to lose anything, even if it means an overall gain. I think it’s funny because my mental image of a record exec is a womanizing douche of a dude that is probably the one hitting on girls twice his age and taking them home.

Ok, so let’s say you are right Yorke. You said that digital sales could be higher, but it’s not because of piracy?

Yes, I did say that earlier. Let me talk about that now. Digital sales could be higher if the record companies/retailers weren’t sending people back to pirating.

Despite shitty music being produced, Napster was able to single-handedly destroyed the record industry and Metallica. For myself and many others Napster, was a great place to get lots of free music. The only problem was a lot of the songs were poor quality rips or some tracks were cut off. Nothing better than listening to “All By Myself” and having it cut with a minute left in the song.

So here we were downloading crappy quality rips of songs. Even as a poor student in those times, I would find myself discovering some stuff I liked and buying the CD, because I wanted to enjoy the music in better quality. Along comes Apple with iTunes (and other companies with their services). Now you can download full albums (slightly cheaper than a CD) or just the individual tracks you want, and in better quality. People were still pirating, but when you have something at a cheap price and makes getting music easier than removing spyware, that’s a recipe for success.

So we have iTunes and people still pirate. Why are they still pirating?

First, I already mentioned some people like to preview stuff. Itunes offers a preview of songs, but to be honest I want to hear the whole song.  The reason I think a lot of people continue to pirate is they don’t like the DRM. I don’t like it either. If I buy a product from Apple, then I can only use it on an Apple device. That’s all fine and nice now while I’m using and iPod, but what if in the future I use a different mp3 player. I would to be able to listen to my music on it too. Sony CD players don’t only play music released on Sony CD media, so why should an mp3? Recently this isn’t too much of a problem since iTunes+ songs are DRM free. If it’s DRM free I usually just go ahead and purchase it (or rip it from my own CD).

Some people will continue to pirate no matter what though. I think that the industry needs to look at the quality of what they are releasing as well as looking at overall growth in sales (not just CDs). For the artist, a lot of money can be made doing shows. I read an interview with Lady Gaga last month, and she said she didn’t care if people downloaded her music for free. She asked the interviewer if she had any idea how much Gaga made off concerts. Ms. Gaga pointed out if artist really want the cash then do shows, because it’s a gold mine (She said she uses a lot of that money to produce her concerts, which in turns makes more money. Lady Gaga you are a well oiled lubed machine!).

I’m not sure how much the record execs make off live concerts, but honestly, fuck ‘em. They are antiquated middleman. There is a reason the ruling samurai class in ancient Japan put merchants below peasants and artisans in their caste system. It’s because they don’t actually contribute to society but mooching off the work of others.

I was gonna keep writing about movies and other forms of piracy, but I’m going to wrap it up since I will most likely just be repeating myself. If people want to get rid of piracy then you need to make it easier to get things through legitimate channels, and offer it at a price people are willing to pay (Netflix comes to mind). Perhaps companies should look at internal reform rather than complaining. Treat the problem, not the symptom.

Closing Rant: For us people overseas, movie execs might want to think about global release dates. I have to wait six months for a movie to come to Japan and pay over $20 to see it in the theater?! Same with TV show released to rent on DVD in Japan (they put half as many episodes on a disk than if you were to rent it stateside). I know there are regional companies that own local distribution rights, but well you can negotiate shit.

Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Welcome to another blog post here at The Know Nothing Nerd. Tonight we’ve got an exciting writeup for you folks. We are going to take a look at an amateur comedy show that happened a little over a week ago. You can watch it here.

This was the second time the Pink Cow in Shibuya hosted their Mad Cow Comedy Night. The first show was back in the first weekend of May. Keeping with tradition the second show was held the first weekend in June.

Organizers Jazz and Trevor worked night and day organizing the show. They lost countless hours of sleep to the hard pressing, grueling physical labor that they had to endure and over come. At least, that is what one presumes happened. Perhaps we will never know what transpires between each show…

Come the night of the event, the performers arrived a little early to fuel up on liquid courage, for no one knew what would await them once they were on stage and left to the mercy of the crowd. Improv took the stage first. I was safe for a little while longer. People laughed. I took that as a good sign. It was time for a break and then stand-up would follow.

Enter dream sequence. We can see a baseball stadium. It is the top of the 9th inning.

I was batting third this evening behind Trevor and the rookie Arniel. Trevor started us off with a lead off hit.

Arniel went to a full count, 3-2. The crowd was silent. All you could hear were crickets roaches. Arniel took some mean swings, smashing the ball towards the outfield, but they were just shy of being fair. There was no doubt though, this kid could hit. On the eighth pitch the rookie watched as the pitch came high and inside and took his base. Good eye kid.

Next up was me. No outs with two men on base. All I had to do was just play it smart. The count was 2-0. The pitch came and I stepped into as I connected with the ball, or I thought I should have connected with the ball. STRIIIIIIIIKE. Shit. I regained my composure and stepped back in the box. I let the next one go past without even swinging. STRIIIIIKE. Damn it! I had forgotten to swing. [For those wondering where I am at, this is just after my T-shirt rant. I forgot my make-em-laugh line.] The next pitch came and it was a little outside, but I didn’t want another to get by me, so I swung.

I connected and the ball landed just past the infielders and rolled to the center-fielder. He held onto the ball keeping Arniel at second.

Next up was Jamie. Jamie went to a 2-1 count before swinging. He connected and drove the ball deep in the outfield between center and right. Arniel was running to home, so that is where the ball went. Safe. Jaimie had his single, but that’s now how he plays. He plays how he likes to, and made the dash to second as the play at home was unfolding. The catcher saw it and threw to second. Jaime dived head first. Safe.

As Jazz stepped up to the plate the crowd was going nuts. 2 runs in, no outs and now the hometown favorite was stepping up to the plate. The count was 2-0. These guys were scared, and you could tell. The next pitch was a wild one, but I ran in from third to score another run. [Loosely, we are up to the point that Jazz has just referenced me.] The count is now 3-0.

It’s quite clear now that they were going to walk him. Jazz had none of this. The pitch was high and outside but he leapt over the plate, yelling like some crazed action star, while swinging and smashed the ball. It cleared the left field wall. Homerun!

Dream sequence fades out.

And that is how the show pretty much went. There was much rejoicing.

If you want to watch the show you can do so here. I go on stage at about 1:11:00.
The Pink Cow is located in Shibuya, Tokyo, and offers up excellent eats. It’s a great place to hang out with your friends and relax. Check it out sometime.

The digital age is here and it’s not going anywhere. With new products like Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iPad, and a variety of ebook readers out there, it is likely that we will see a shift from the traditional dead-tree format, to digital books.

I for one love the nostalgia that I get from reading a book and turning the pages, but I can’t ignore what is on the horizon. Since I live in a small Tokyo apartment, an ebook device is something that can help me save a lot of space and allow me to hang on to thousands of pages of literature, reference, and throw away novels. I also support ebooks, because it eliminates the publishers and puts more money into the author’s hands. An author can now afford to sell less copies of a book (they don’t want to of course). What this means is if an author wants to write a sequel or experiment with different genres they can do so more easily. The risk is all on them, but it’s a smaller risk than a publisher would have to take.

I’m not going to get into it, because one I’m not an expert on it, and two there is an author that can explain it better than I can. New York Times best-selling author Michael Stackpole has issued a challenge. Basically if his novel Talion: Revenant can sell 10,000 copies he will write the long awaited sequel. He has not been able to do so in the past for whatever reasons, including commitments to publishers et cetera. From the money he makes from the 10,000 copies he can live off of it for a year and write the sequel many of us desperately want to read. To read Stackpole’s blog please go here.

Talion: Revenant is available in epub (iPad and other e-readers) and Kindle formats for US$5.00.

Talion in epub Format

Talion on Kindle

I still need to write up a WIP for my Helmet, but here is a peak at what I got, and some of the coolness I’ve put in it.

Enjoy.