A can, but no can opener?

On Friday night, I stayed up far too late watching documentaries on youtube of the People's Temple (900+ murdered/committed mass suicide in this cult in a small African country) and the Heaven's Gate cult. It's just really mind blowing stuff, and makes you think of how desperate some people are for answers. The real scary part is that the Heaven's Gate organization still exists today, so people are still carrying out these ridiculous beliefs.

Saturday was one a hell of a day. I got up and scrambled out the door to procure my cellphone and catch the train on time to get to work. Work was generally slow but good, and I had a student from Myanmar! Also met some more co-workers including a ridiculous prankster from England and a nice girl from Scranton, PA - you know where The Office takes place. Nothing too astonishing to report on the work front.

However, upon coming home with my new cell phone, and the sandal "purezento" that came with it, and even a package that was my new 360-HDMI kit which I was very excited to try out, I realized that I had forgotten my key in a rush this morning and had locked myself out of my room. "Fuck," I thought, "I knew I would do this sooner or later, I was just hoping for later." This was at 6:45pm, Saturday night.

I went upstairs to borrow my friends' phone so that I might call the housing agent for help (I had my cell phone but the Gorilla on it kept saying: "you need replace new battery" and he was nice enough to let me throw my bag and annoying excess clothes and such in his roomh. I called up, and was informed that the office was in Yokohama (over an hour from here) and closed, so I thought I was most likely screwed. He said he would call me back, so I waited on the roof this time, sitting anxiously by the phone.

A call back came 10 minutes later. "Yes, a Mr. Fujiyama has an extra copy of your key, but you will need to bring 5000 yen ($50) as a fine for losing it, and return it some time in the future."

"Yes, that's fine, thanks so much, just tell me how to get there"

I scribbled down directions to Ichigawa, on some train line I had never heard of before tonight out of Shibuya, and told Dayn: "If I make it back by 11pm, I'll be lucky." It was 7:20. I left wearing my white shirt, long black work pants and a pair of sneakers. I brought my Ipod and DS to stay entertained, and thought: "Hey, this really could be worse, at least it's early enough that I might still be able to sleep in my bed tonight." I was actually in a pretty good mood despite my idiocy, had 6000 yen in my wallet so I could cover the ludicrous key-loss fee, and sprinted to catch the next train. I played some games and watched some rifftrax (Troll 2, a real good one) to help pass the time.

When I got to Shibuya, a huge station much like Shinjuku, I followed the signs for the train line I needed. However, when the signs suddenly turned from Bilingual to Japanese only, I became very lost for about 15 minutes. When I finally figured out my station was across the road, I bolted and saw the train loading up and almost ready to leave. Unsure if it was the right one, I asked the station attendant if it was going to Ichigawa.

"Ichigawa?" He said. "Just a second..." So he pulled out his map and looked it over, and at the last possible second said "oh yes, yes it is!" So I jumped on the train, and got caught in the automatically shutting doors. This wasn't as painful as it sounds, and I've seen it happen to other people plenty of times, so I just shook it off and looked painfully with squinted eyes at the trainmap on the wall across from me, trying to find Ichigawa. When the next stop let some people off, I walked over and looked. No Ichigawa. "What the hell?" I thought, "I don't have time to make mistakes here!" After painstakingly searching a couple of times, I found Ichigao, and though "oh, this has to be it. I must have misunderstood the name over the phone."

Still, I was pretty nervous the rest of the ride: It was getting close to 9 by this point, and if Ichigao wasn't the right station, I'd lose any chance of catching the last train home later, which stops running around 12:30 or 1. I thought about calling the guy now, but the train was so loud I knew I wouldn't be able to hear or understand him.

About two stops from Ichigao, I noticed I had a missed call. I figured it was the housing agent for some reason, so I returned the call, waiting to hear that he had messed up and was sending me to the wrong place. As it turned out, when I plugged my one ear and was straining to hear, I couldn't tell if I was hearing English or Japanese.

A jumble of sounds. "...Ben, this is Dayn. Kojima gave you the wrong number."

"You are a lifesaver," I said in earnest. He proceeded to text me the right one. Lucky me, I have a solid upstairs roommate.

I arrived not 5 minutes later at my final destination, and called the man up. He showed pretty quickly, and much to my delight had a copy of the key for me that he had made for ¥42o, instead of what I thought would be a ¥5000 penalty charge for a key that I would have had to return eventually! I thanked him several times, gave him a ¥500 coin and told him to keep the change (probably the closest I will ever come to tipping in Japan). I was in a good mood for the rest of the night, and when I got back to town an hour and a half later I bought some beer, milk and bread, and arrived at Dayn's door doublefisting Asahi's and saying: "Well, I guess I was lucky."

As it turned out he was watching some One Piece so we did that and I happily reflected on just how bad this night could have turned out, all things considered.

Nothing good stays that way though, and as you may have ascertained from my previous post, I felt pretty shitty yesterday. I've come to find though that everyone has those days, wherever you may live and whoever you are, so that's really nothing special to report.

That said, here are a bunch of pictures from the show though, starting with Fuck on the Beach:





Maybe my favorite band of the night, and not just because the guitarist kept busting into Megaman music in between songs either! Die you Bastard!










And this is all backwards, but here is the opening act, BROB:

I think you can get an idea of how crowded it was, and how smokey it was from this picture.

Rick ta Life follows me wherever I go?!

:)

So unfortunately I didn't see 324 - I left during the band Motiveless because it was too packed with too much smoke and there was no re-entry. It really was a good grind show though. And now I'm sitting around on my day off, just taking it easy. I'm watching some NFL games, and the Bills are looking REALLY good this year, that QB has been nearly flawless the past two games. The next Jim Kelly, perhaps? I also played some Lost Odyssey and basked in the glory of HD gaming, even though I got frustrated and quit after 3 hours without saving because I was stuck, heh. And, I've been reading Harry Potter. I've caught the bug after all the books came out, so I just download ebooks and audiobooks and can glut them all at once.

If the internet was a lawnmower woman, I would totally get with her.

"Good night, good morning, good evenin', good whatever-it-is" - Fatman Scoop