the biggest liar I have ever met

30th of Mar, 2006ce* in: diary

One of those days where you work hard and then use your male given right to drink heavily at the pub with buddies feeling good and warm inside, knowing that you’re rewarding yourself for a days hard graft.
I guess yesterday could be considered such a day, and seeing how live so close to a drinking hotspot known as shibuya, I hopped into a cab for the 2 minute journey to my local 200 yen bar where waiting friends had stories and tales to share.

My thousand yard stare took about 3 beers to wipe off and I was ready for the craik!

A friend of mine had befriended a lone american tourist who was in Tokyo for the day, this guy in turn was talking to a Japanese girl. Apparently he had been talking to her for quite a while, in the quest that all men share, of playing the lets-go-to-a-love-hotel. She came into the bar some 2 hours earlier, misstook him for some guy off the internet she was meant to meet and plainly walked up to him asking “are you clark?”.

To which he said “yes” and lied to her for a few hours. Eventually her questions hit dry land (I think he was probably rumbled by A: not being from israel, and B: smoking… “but you don’t smoke!”) Myself and my friend joined in the converstation at that point and it was all good fun. Clark had stood her up anyway, or was in another bar, or both. She didn’t seem to mind that he played a trick on her and they swapped emails, some kisses, and a no-you-can’t-take-me-to-a-love-hotel.

Turns out this guy was pretty handy with a camera so we got some shots of the nights proceedings. Wide eyed and bushy tailed gringos always cause the most mayhem here in Tokyo, whilst us who can speak a small out of lingo are there to pick up the peices, narrowly avoiding beatings or stabbings from Japan’s underworld.

So enter the “biggest liar”. He shouted to us from far down the street as we pub hopped after a belly full of indian curry (with the largest naan you have ever seen in your life!). “Oi!”, “where are you guys off to? Lets go!”. He bought us a round at the destination pub, with his bewildered Japanese friend in tow, who incodently was a raging homosexual. (However not as proud as my neighbours are, but that another story in it’s self) Latching on to me the drunk fucker proceeded to tell me how he own’s two houses here in the city, deals drugs, and is wearing a gun under his coat.

OK so at this point, not taking any chances I tried to play along. Turns out most if not all was bullshit, he started appologising to me and I told him to “be true to yourself” and “only project the image of who you are”. This was pleasantly confusing enough to make him latch on to the American guy while I enjoyed my free pint. He then dissapeared, only to return 5 minutes later with fists full of batteries demanding a photoshoot! The results were hilarious. This daft twat was posing his poor little heart out while his flamboyant aibo made a quick break for it. The barman later told us that he spent 80,000 yen in the bar the previous day (some $800) and was his new best friend.

Rich idiots with no friends, entertainment for the poor.

On April the 1st, Japan will be the same no more.

25th of Mar, 2006ce* in: japan

A new bill was passed into Japanese law some time ago outlawing the sale of Japanese electronics over the age of 5 years old, if they have an internal power transformer.

This is a disaster for the electronic hub of Tokyo, a place called Akihabara. Or “electric town”. April the 1st (no fool) will be a very quiet day, as half of the stores that were open on the previous day will either have little stock to sell or shut entirely. Somewhat rich pickings for those of us that want these electronics in the coming days. I shall be checking out the situation on monday and hopefully get a bargain or two! (I’m in the market for a TV)

Somewhat alarmingly, this also spells the end for several popular electronic items such as the Sega Saturn and the Sega Dreamcast, both of which have internal transformers and both of which are over 5 years old. Understanding this, I went for a shop at a not-so-local place an hours journey on the train from my house. For just over 10,000円 ($100 / 50GBP) I was able to snap up the following items (all boxed):

Original Sega Dreamcast (water cooled version, salary man box)
Sega DC Karaoke machine (slots in under the console, has Sega Microphone and 16,000 songs!)
Dreameye (dreamcast webcamera)
3 controllers
Seaman microphone
Seaman VMU
keyboard, mouse
Samba De Amigo unit (amazingly it only cost 1000 yen / 5GBP $10!! This thing would cost you hundreds on ebay)
Some games

I’m considering picking up a Saturn, but I’m not sure it’s worth it. The only game I’d want to play on that system is Panzer Dragoon.

On monday I’m going to pick up some NES and SNES things, just incase. All these goods are fairly common right now, but will become very scarce in just a few days, limiting their sale to overseas only, and even such giants as Yahoo Auction (the ebay of Japan) will enforce a ban on listing “fire hazzard” goods. Fire hazzard my arse.

If you know of any Dreamcast goods that I haven’t picked up, do tell. To my knowledge I’ve only missed out the Steering Wheel unit (I already have DC sticks and VirtuaOn sticks)

polycount.net T-shirt

19th of Mar, 2006ce* in: print

Two internet forums for game characters designers ran a competition to see which forum could design and produce the best character, I’ve been a long standing participator at polycount and regularly organise events there. This is the T-shirt for the polycount forum side.

Honda StepWGN

ce* in: notiondesign, pixelart

Asked to illustrate a car and it’s occupants for an advertising banner.

Guetaya Ramen Shop

14th of Mar, 2006ce* in: notiondesign, websites

Put together this simple css driven site for a local ramen shop. Unfortunately we still don’t have the menu yet, so that part of the site is pending. Also the diary isn’t updated much. This was my first foray into using flash 8 (which has some great features) including some very subtle blend effects that I used to generate the steam rising from the bowl of ramen on the front page of this site.