Consent was a really nice place recommened by Fukui's own living and breathing j-encyclopedia, Matty G! The bartenders were friendly, and when I sat down Hitomi commented that it was 5 girls and 1 Rich at the bar. I told her, "I like this place!"

I talked with one of the bartenders for a bit. He said I had the best Japanese of any gaijin whose been there. He said sometimes gaijin dudes go there by themselves and only order beer, but he's never had a conversation with them in Japanese before. It was cool I got to help internationalize by showing peeps that yes, there are gaijin out there who can form simple sentences and hold a simple conversation in Japanese!

I thought things were going well. She was laughing a ton, smiling, and she'd pick up the conversation if I let it drop. I ended up talking about all my friends who have visited, or will visit Japan. She asked about my parents coming to visit and I told her my mom would never come to Japan because she hates long airplane rides.

Now this is where Hitomi took this innocent conversation and steered it straight to hell. She segwayed from me saying "My mom hates long flights" to telling me her best airplane trip ever where she saw a really cute guy sitting alone, sat left her seat and took her baggage with her to sit next to him, talked with him for 8 hours, got his number, he called her a billion times while she was there, she flew back to see him, he came to Japan to see her, etc etc etc. She hijacked an innocent "I can sleep on an airplane, can you?" conversation and crashlanded it in JustFriendsVille. I was way too sober for this, and way too sober for where I knew this was going.

Then she went on to talk about her ex-boyfriends. First was this Mexican dude, then a Spanish dude who she met in Taiwan or Thailand or some other T-country. I think there was an Italian dude in there somewhere, and perhaps an Australian as well. She said they were so romantic and so passionate because they'd tell her things like "You're beautiful" and be really into her, and Japanese men would never tell that to a girl they just met. (Or even a girl they've been dating for years?) Then she told me how she dated some American dude in Japan but that didn't last long cause Americans aren't as romantic as Europeans are. At this point I stuck my finger down my throat to show her what I thought of her blantant racism, but in retrospect this was a bad idea because I needed to be as drunk as possible to get through this and I couldn't risk throwing up any of my precious alcohol. She said she's dating some Japanese dude now, but it's kind of at the end, and it's not that it's bad but it's just not good. blah blah blah. There was only one way I could possibly be comfortable enough to fall asleep at her house tonight: "BARTENDER!"

The night did pick up when a cute, somewhat chubby drunk girl sitting next to me ordered the whole bar a round of champagne! Turns out she grew up here in Fukui but now lives in a lesser, non-Fukui prefecture. She was visiting her folks on Golden Week and decided to go out drinking alone, and bought free champage for everyone to make friends. Free booze = happy Rich.

When it was time to go Hitomi hit up the bathroom and when she was gone the free champagne chubby chick shook my hand and held it for a good 30 seconds more than necessary, then shoved her cheek in my face, making me kiss her before she left. What a shame Hitomi missed this. No matter how bad things went with Hitomi, at least I knew one thing: I loved this bar!

On the walk to the train station I asked her why she didn't invite all her girlfriends out. She said she was thinking about it and I said, "It's ok, I understand - you want me all to yourself!" Then during the taxi ride home she said she didn't have any pjs for me and I said "It's cool, I'll just sleep naked - but no peeking!" Alas, my attemps to flip the script were unsuccessful.

I gave her two big hugs her goodnight and went to sleep. I didn't fall asleep until the sun came up. I didn't think I drunk that much. Although I had gum and brushed my teeth, as I lay there waiting for sleep I could still taste the alcohol on my breath.

I dreamt it was raining, then the rain turned to snow, and the snow was heavy like hail and turned into shurikens. And I was running through the rain of snowy shurikens, either chasing Hitomi, running away from justfriendsville, or both. At some point her American ex-boyfriend made a cameo. Somehow during my restless dreams I convinced myself I still had a chance with her. Just because she mentioned an ex, or two, or all of them, just because she has a boyfriend now, I managed to convince myself I still had a chance... then I woke up.

The morning was quite a bit awkward, waking up in a strange girl's house, having her mom make me breakfast, meeting her siblings and whatnot. Her mom knew I'd be staying and even though we slept in different rooms it was still awkward, like the walk of shame with nothing to be shameful for. It reminded me of the first time I slept over at a girl's house, at Orly Keiner's house. I had never formally met her parents or brothers before, and there I was eating breakfast with them at the table after spending the night in Orly's bed in the most platonic way imageable. I wanted to reassure Orly's parents "I didn't fuck your daughter! I didn't fuck your daughter! Don't hate me!!!"

In the morning Hitomi drove me to my car in quite possible the longest car ride of my life. Her car had one of those awesome map navigation systems, but I didn't need it to tell me exactly where I was: JustFriendsVille.

She went on to say how their relationship isn't going well. She said he treats the people closest to him (his mom and his girlfriend) like shit while he is nice to everyone else. She called him a child. She said he is never satisfied with what he has, always comparing it to something better. He's also unemployed and has a lack of cash. As she's complaning she touches my arm and tells me to hurry up and find a Japanese girlfriend.

So did she dump this guy to find someone new? Of course not! She went on to defend him, saying "He's a really nice guy. He's nice to all the ALTs (English teachers) here. I want to change him. He said he'd be careful now and he's thinking of his character." I said that he kicked her and that was in excuseable, unforgivable. I said just cause he gets along with the ALTs doesn't make him a good guy. I believe you are only as nice as you are to your worst enemy, and if your worst enemy is your girlfriend then you've got some serious problems. Be that as it may, she's still with him and if kicking her won't get her to leave, I'm not quite sure what will.

Now, I have some theories as to why girls stick around in crappy relationships instead of finding someone new. First and foremost, fear of loss is a more powerful motivator than the anticipation of gain. Fear of losing the boyfriend you have, even if the relationship is crappy, will keep motivated to stay in that relationship. That fear of loss has far more power to keep you in place than the anticipation of what awesomeness you could gain from getting in a new relationship with someone better.

Plus, as she described their relationship, sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad. This "sometimes good, sometimes bad" relationship is incredibly dangerous in that it is especially hard to leave. Cause when things are good you are happy, and when things are bad you remember "Man things can be good, they used to be good, I want them to be good again!"

It reminds me back to AP Psyc class with Ms. Helmer talking about using reinforment to encourage behavior. Turns out using a variable ratio of rewards for a desired behavior nets the highest rate of said behavior and the greatest resistance to extinction. Slot machines are set to payoff on a variable ratio for just this reason.

Perhaps you can think of these kinds of relationships as a slot machine. You pull the handle you might get a hug, you might get emotional distance, you might get a romantic date, you might not get a call back, you might get an "I love you", or you might get a kick to the shin. The fear of losing that potential hug, that potential "I love you", the need to have a one-armed bandit of love to call your very own, can keep you trapped at the same machine for months and years at a time, oblivious to what wonders await you outside the casino.

1) You tell them you want to send a money order
2) They give you a form
3) You fill out the form
4) They give you money order
5) You pay
6) Stuff the money order in an envelope and that's that!

Easy enough you'd think right? Of course not! First off, every time I send a money order, even if I've already sent 4 or 5 from the same post office, they always get this look on their face that looks like you're mom trying to program the VCR. So then they get out these really thick manuals, talk to eachother, and it takes two of them a good 20 minutes just to turn your form into a money order.

But that's the easy part, once they're actually working. All you have to do is wait. The real pain in the ass part is the application. It's long, it has to be written in block capital letters, you gotta write a ton of information, and it'll be a cold day in hell if you only have to write it once. I've had to rewrite the application form because:

1) I wrote my name "Richard Golden" instead of "Golden Richard Louis" as it reads on my Japanese ID.

2) An "U" in my address looked too much like a "V".

3) The incompetent post office personal screwed something up and I had to rewrite the form with no reason given.

4) I wrote my comments about why I was sending money in a comment box on the upper half of the form instead of the bottom half. Now they could have simply ignored the comments in the upper comment box, I could have simply written comments in the bottom half and been done with it. But nooooo, after telling the guy a billion times "Dude this is the freaking comment box, why is there a problem?" and him standing there like a moron I finally gave in and rewrote the form.

I'm convinced they look at my form just to find reasons not to accept it. Normally I send cash home to the parents with my given reason "Money for student loans." Once I sent cash to my friend Elliott cause he lent me some money when I visited him in Hawaii. My reason, "Money for car." So the post office dude took out a copy of my previous money order, and a copy of this one, and asked me why my reasons for sending money home were different. Besides being a complete invasion of personal privacy, what does it matter? I told him "Cause the other one was sending money to my mom, this is sending money to my friend."

Perhaps the single most frustrating money order happened just yesterday. First they were out of applications since they had wasted so many forms making me write it over and over again for no reason. So I waited for a good 15 minutes for them to get some forums. After that I filled it out and handed it in, making sure to put my comments in the bottom comment box. The dude started at my ID card, and my application, and said "Please write your name Golden Richard Louis" like it is on your ID. So I rewrote the whole application cause apparently I don't know how to write my own name. I knew this was bullshit cause the last time I did a money order I simply wrote my name "Richard Golden" and that was that. So after giving him the second copy of the application, fully rewritten by hand, I went to my car to get a copy of my previous money order as proof that "Richard Golden" was ok. When I came back in he called me over and said "You know, your ID says you live in Echizen-cho but you wrote Ota-cho." Quick history lesson: Ota-cho is the town where I love. Recently it combined with three other towns, Asahi-cho, Echizen-cho, and Miyazaki-muta, to become Echizen-cho. But this is still Ota. And every single time I've ever done a money order here I've written "Ota-cho" and it's been fine. But this time it wasn't. I can't tell you how happy I was to slam the copy of my previous successful money order on the table and tell him "Last time Ota-cho was ok." And last time my name was Richard Golden, not Golden Richard Louis.

He breathed heavily through his teeth, as Japanese people do when trying to think of how to get out of an uncomfortable situation. He stared at my old form. He wondered out loud, "Will this be ok?" But he finally decided I had to rewrite the form for a third time. Now, if Ota-cho wasn't acceptable he could have told me that for the FIRST TIME I rewrote the goddamned application. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to call him a fucking moron. But see, with his being a moron, he wouldn't even understand if I cursed him out in English.

And that's the worst part of it - I can't tell the dude he should know how to do his job. I can't tell him "Look last time I wrote the application it was fine, so stfu and do you job." I can't even tell him he's lucky my hand hurts so much from rewriting the application that I can't punch him in the face. If I did I bet I know what his response would be:

"... but could you please rewrite the application?"

500 Digits of Pi

Happy Pi Day!

This story begins, as all good stories do, at the arcade. Alex and I were owning up n3wbz at Virtua Fighter 4 and I recaptured 10th dan with my Shun for the third time in a marathon of matches against this Lion player. After what was a good 45 minutes of kicking that Lion player's ass I went outside to catch some fresh air and I noticed that the hottie gym teacher (of “The Fudge Story” fame) had called. I called her back and she invited me to a party on Saturday at Cafe Sama Sama. Cafe Sama Sama is a small bar in Mikuni across from sunset beach run by one of the gym teacher's high school friends named Kouji. I said sure, but Alex couldn't make it cause he had to work the next day. She said it started at 9:00 and I said I'd be there.

The day before the party I got a call from Ben asking me what was up cause he was bored out of his mind without a driver's license and without the internet as he just moved into his new apartment. So I invited Ben to go to the party with me. He was down, I wasn't gonna be the only white dude there, everyone was happy. The night of the party came and Ben and I walked to Sama Sama. It was a decent walk from Sunny House, like 30-40 minutes, but none of us could drive since our licenses had expired. So we got to the bar at 8:45 and went in early. We were the only ones there, so we sat at the bar and let the party begin.

<"Lost style" flashback> The first time I went to Sama Sama was with the gym teacher after eating some delicious ramen at Iwamotoya in Fukui. I thought Sama Sama was a chill place, but I didn't have any alcohol because I drove there and I hadn't learned of the wonders of daiko yet. I stayed sober as she drank, and we got onto the discussion of boyfriends and girlfriends and the like. I had heard from Paul, then Mikuni Junior High School ALT, that she had a boyfriend but she said she was single. She said her dream was to have children. Then she proudly proclaimed, in English, "I want sperm!" She told me about some dude she was interested in, but the guy had 2 children of his own. "If I love him, then I love his children as well" she tried to convince herself. She also told me that at one time she thought she'd marry a foreigner. If this was a schoolgirl fantasy or based on an actual relationship with a gaijin gone bad who knows. I thought she was pretty awesome - she was gorgeous, tall, in shape, could play any sport, looked and acted no older than her early twenties even though she was 30, and had a good sense of humor. How could someone like that, who is actively trying to find a boyfriend, have so much trouble finding one? Then she asked about my love life and I said I was single. She asked if I left a girlfriend in America and I said no. She asked why not and I just shrugged. Then we made a cheezy pinky swear that we'd both do our best to find love. God it was cheezy, right out of a shojo manga or anime something.  And I thought to myself, "If this is really is a cheap manga love story, this promise means only one thing:  we're soooo gonna hook up”

At about 9:05 the gym teacher still wasn't there. Now if this was any normal person I'd just assume that they were late. However, she was really anal about being on time and calling if you're gonna be late and stuff like that. She once told me it was Japanese manners to be 5 minutes early. It was uncharacteristic of her to be late without calling, even if only 5 minutes, so I decided I should call her and see what's up. She said that she was in Fukui and that she'd be at Sama Sama in 40 minutes. I was like "WTF?!?!?" cause she told me the party started at 9. If I told her "Yea there's this party at this bar that starts at 9 wanna go?" and I wasn't there at 9 she'd KILL ME and then I'd be dead right now. I believe in the Golden Rule - you know, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Apparently, she does not...

<"Lost" style flashback #2> I was standing in the middle of a parking lot outside of an Italian restaurant in Fukui getting yelled at by the gym teacher. I had never seen her so angry. I accidentally ended up being late to a dinner and karaoke party which I had organized for her to meet my ALT friends and she was PISSED. She bitched at me "I THOUGHT YOU WERE IN AN ACCIDENT! YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED ME! YOU SAID YOU'D BE HERE IN 15 MINUTES BUT IT'S BEEN OVER 30! I CALLED YOU 3 TIMES AND YOU DIDN'T ANSWER I WAS SO WORRIED OMFG!!!1!!!!!!!!1!" Of course, all my reasons for being late such as "Traffic was really bad", "The movie ran late", "I left my lights on and my battery died and I needed a jump start", and "I didn't notice you called cause I was driving" were all met with even more bitchiness cause she hates excuses. All my friends in the restaurant saw this altercation through the window and both Ben and Rhen came out to calm her down and invite her into the restaurant, but her vengeful wrath frightened them away, leaving me alone to deal with her fury. She said she was going home and I supplicated as I had never supplicated before to get her to stay. She said, “I want to cry.” Eventually she decided to stay, but she did a really good job of ruining the atmosphere of the evening and making things really, really awkward for everyone involved. So much for introducing all my friends to this awesome teacher who I talked about so much.

At around 10:00 or so Ben and I decided to move to a table cause Sama Sama was pretty small, but filling up fast, and we wanted a spot to be able to sit and talk with the gym teacher when she got there. After a few minutes of sitting there a girl came up to us and was like "Can we use these chairs?" pointing to the extra ones at our table. We were like "yea sure." Turns out there were two Canadian exchange students (both dudes, around 17 and 18) and they were at the party with 3 chick friends of their host mother.

They all sat down and we started shooting the bull with the Canadian dudes. One of the chicks named Yuka was going on and on about how she was an English teacher but didn't have anyone to teach her and was looking for help. I was working on finishing my 3rd or 4th screwdriver as the bartenders started making their rounds with shots of tequila. To be honest I had never had much tequila before (deprived childhood, I know) so I took a shot from a little green cactus shot glass with no salt or lemon (aka "training wheels".) Time kept marching on, as did the delivery of more tequila shots. Soon it was 10:50 and I was drunk, pissed at the gym teacher for being so late, and thus drinking even more. I couldn't believe it was almost 11:00 and the gym teacher was no where to be found and she still hadn't called me. Remembering the karaoke incident and how she treated me made me even more upset. I went outside and called her again.

"I'm in Mikuni now, please wait for me! I'll be another 3 minutes." So I went back inside and everyone at the table was now aware of the fact the fact I was waiting for this chick friend of mine who was really, really late. A good 10 or 15 minutes later, and a good 2 hours after she said she'd be there, she arrived. Now I was quite drunk at this point, but I didn't bitch at her as she would have done to me if the positions were reversed. She sat down next to one of the Canadian dudes instead of next to me, even though peeps motioned for her to sit next to me, and said Canadian dude seemed kinda surprised.

So anyways I continued to drink and eventually the Canadian dude got up. I took a piss and got another screwdriver and sat down next to the gym teacher. So it was me, Ben, and her at the table now. She mentioned having to work early the next day but offered to drive me and Ben home as some kind of apology for being late. I think she sensed how pissed off I was, and perhaps she felt awkward herself for being so late, so conversation between me and her was strained at best. She ended up talking with Ben as I worked on my screwdriver, staring into space wondering where my next drink would come from.

Then Yuka sat next to me, put her head on my shoulder, and said (in English), "This is my new boyfriend." That’s where things got fuzzy. I remember sitting next to Yuka for a bit, I remember getting up to ask for water and having some other hot chick tell me I needed more tequila, and I remember asking for a screwdriver but the all you can drink part of the party was over. Then I just sorta woke up at my home, with no recollection of actually getting there, as one does when one blacks out, or as I like to call it, "time travels."

That's all I could remember. I got a hold of Ben later in the day and he filled me in on what exactly happened. The rest of this story is details provided by Ben. Just to make it clear, to this day, I remember NONE of this.

Apparently after Yuka proclaimed me to be her new boyfriend I put my arm around her and we started talking. I learned that Yuka was 26, married, and had a kid. Upon hearing this the first thing I did was turn to the gym teacher and rub it in her face by telling her, "Hey did you know Yuka here is only 26? (younger than you!)  And she's married!  And she has a kid!!! (two of your lifelong dreams you've yet to accomplish!)" I bet that made the gym teacher happy. A whiles later I was getting a little bit friendly with Yuka in a corner of the bar. I dunno if I actually hooked up with her because, as Ben put it, "I kept trying not to look at you and Yuka, and I was too busy trying to keep the gym teacher from looking."

Eventually the "all you can drink" portion of the party ended. The gym teacher said it was time to go because she was gonna drive us home and she had to work tomorrow. I was still getting my snuggle on so I had no intention to leave. Instead, I demanded that the gym teacher get me another screwdriver with the most badass Japanese I knew at the time, "スクリュードライバー持って来い!”　(Get me a screwdriver biatch!) And she listened! Since the "all you can drink" part of the party was over she paid for the screwdriver out of her own wallet and delivered it to me herself.

The gym teacher kept telling me how she had work the next day and how she had to get up early in the morning. At first Ben kept telling her that we'd take a taxi home and that she should go. She stayed and insisted on getting me to leave. I didn't want to - I was milking my screwdriver. After an hour or so Ben realized that the gym teacher wasn't gonna leave without me, and I wasn’t about to leave without finishing my screwdriver. In a wise move Ben said, "If you don't drink that screwdriver in 1 minute the bar will explode!" Of course, I couldn't let that happen, so I pounded the screwdriver and saved everybody's life. Then I stood up to leave and as I started to say goodbye everyone said, "No! Rich, you can't go, you gotta stay!" so I turned around and told the gym teacher, "They told me I gotta stay! :)" and I sat back down. At this point she started punching me. And kicking me. Hard. Eventually I got up and Ben and her helped me to her car cause there was no way I could stand on my own. She put me in the back seat cause she was so angry she didn't want to see me. The whole way home she kept yelling at me to shut up and I kept yelling back "Why should I shut up!?!?!" I was coughing a bit during the drive home so once we got home Ben checked her car for throw up, which he didn't find. Ben got me into my apartment and I passed out on the ground. Maybe 10 minutes later the gym teacher called Ben to make sure I was okay.

"Shit, that's pretty bad" I thought to myself. Later in the day I saw Yukari, the gym teacher's best friend. She came over to my place and confirmed everything Ben had told me but in a less sugar coated fashion. She also added one juicy tidbit (pun intended) that Ben had not: I left the gym teacher a present in her car. Turns out when Ben searched for vomit he must have missed a spot. Oppsie! Better out than in, that's what I say! Yukari listened to my side of the story and actually agreed it wasn't entirely my fault. The gym teacher was 2 hours late, she could have left the bar whenever she wanted to, she didn't have to wait for me cause I coulda taken a taxi home, and she most certainly didn't have to buy me another screwdriver when I had clearly had more than enough to drink. Yukari said that the gym teacher wasn't always right, but warned me not go use the fact that she was late as an excuse cause she'd get even madder. (She hates excuses just as much as she hates people who are late) After Yukari left I called the gym teacher to apologize. "Why did you take so long to call me?" she snapped at me after answering the phone. This was gonna be fun...

Epilogue:  Well, the underage Canadian kids had a pretty bad time with the tequila as well, in what was their first experience with alcohol. They spent the latter part of the party throwing up inside and outside of Sama Sama. Yuka is still married and still has a kid and is still younger than the gym teacher and occasionally goes to Sama Sama. The last time I saw her there she was putting the moves on the bartender Kouji (who is also married, and now a father). Yukari moved to England to study English and live with my predecessor. Ben is still awesome and quite a good sport for putting up with me when I get too drunk. (Thank you Ben!!!) I dunno what happened to that hot chick who convinced me to have even more tequila, but chances are she wasn’t half as hungover as I was.

As far as the gym teacher goes, she was pissed. She made me clean her car, and then she insisted I play tennis with her and some other teachers so she could humiliate me in front of them. (I suck at tennis) Eventually the school year started and she told all the other teachers what happened, although I'm sure her version of the story is totally biased to make it look like I was the bad guy! She was really bitchy to me, like if I'd say "Good morning!" to her she'd ignore me, but if I didn't greet her the moment I saw her she'd yell "What, no greeting!?!" and storm off. I thought she was still pissed so I just stopped talking to give her time to cool off thinking the ball was in her court. However, in her point of view I should have kept chasing her and talking to her while she ignored me in an effort to make things better, which I didn't do. We spent a good 2 months sitting next to each other in the teacher's room not talking. I thought she hated me and she thought I hated her. After a long, long time we finally got things sorted out. Sort of.

Now, there's a couple of morals to this story. The first might be not to drink because you are angry, especially if it's your first night with tequila Second would be to never drink so much that you lose your chance with a milf. Third would be there is no excuse for throwing up in another teacher’s car cause you drank too much, and if you do your whole school will know about it. Last, but certainly not least, a moral I should remember every night I go out – “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.” But did I learn my lesson? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah lol. The End

Before we get to the really good stuff, let's first look at some random quotes from her journal to get an idea who exactly was this strange girl I have chocolates to:

Stupidest thing I ever did in my entire life was tell Andrea of all people, little miss Christian, that I was into BDSM.

Is that a Zerg creep colony, or are you just happy to see me?

So we have a geeky girl anime girl who makes sexual Starcraft references and is into BSDM. We have me, a geeky guy, who gave her chocolates on Valentine's day. What exactly went wrong? Let's find out!

Weirdest fucking thing happened to me tonight. So I was walking home from anime night. Okay, this is normal. Then one of the Jesus twins starts talking to me. Slightly less normal, but I did have a class with them both last semester, so I know of them. We talk about anime and various things. Then right as we're getting close to Sue B, the Jesus twin says to me, he says "Well, seeing as it's right after midnight, I'd like to be the first to wish you a happy Valentine's Day!" And he pulls out this box of chocolates!

Now, I'm completely boggled. I've never spoken more than two words to either of these twins. What makes it bloody hilarious is that I DON'T KNOW WHICH JESUS TWIN IT WAS! Hahahahahaha! I come back to the room and tell Kara, and of course she's on the floor almost pissing herself, and it was just goatdamn funny.

Nothing bad so far - it was a bit unexpected that I gave her chocolates so her confusion is justified, and that's hillarious she wasn't sure which twin I was. But don't worry, it gets better.

Time passes. I'm settling back into feeling not so Twilight Zone-ish. Kara goes to the use the bathroom, stands outside our door, and squeals. Her and Shailey come running in to tell me that someone has PINNED A NOTE TO OUR DOOR! Christ, I think, and steel myself for something horrid. Okay. So someone *coughJesustwincough* has written me a note, in Japanese, and left it for me on the door! Written in black crayon! I feel like I'm in fourth grade again! My only comment was "Well, if I get a singing fucking telegram tomorrow, I'm going to shit myself," and Kara falls to the floor AGAIN and proceeds to spit-laugh for about ten minutes straight.

Sweet pappy Johnson with an erection, I hate Valentine's Day.

Ok, just to set the record straight, I've done a lot of sappy romantic things in my life, but an anonymous Valentine Japanese written with a crayon? That, sir, was not me. And incase you missed it, she compared me to Ralph Wiggum.

God, couldn't I have least been Milhouse? But if you think being compared to Ralph Wiggum was as bad as it was gonna get, she went on to talk about the 2 guys she's banging at the time:

Jeff was going to send me flowers-- or so he tells me-- but since they don't deliver to PO boxes he couldn't. "You'll just have to wait until this weekend," he says. Crikes. Do I just attract sentimental weirdos? At least we can watch anime when I'm in Buffalo, and hopefully he'll put out.

No, Jesus twin, you will never be Nookie Source #3.

Ouch. And to top things off, the next day in an entry entitled "I Choo-Choo-Choose You!" she says:

The rest of Mosesday was spent rather uneventfully, THANK GOAT. No Jesus twins to harass me. I just had to tell the girls about it, and I swear, I don't think I've ever heard someone hoot as loud as Pam.

Great. Let's review what my innocent and well intentioned gift of chocolates caused: She didn't know if it was me or SuperGolden, she thought I wrote a crappy anonymous Valentine in crayon and taped it to her door like a coward, she compared me to Ralph Wiggum, she was getting nookie from 2 different guys and I wasn't even good enough to be a distant third, I was apparently harassing her, I'm a sentimental weirdo, and she told all her girlfriends about something that I didn't do and they nearly pissed themselves laughing.

You know what, it doesn't matter that she changed colleges after the summer of 2002, and it doesn't matter that she didn't see through my awesome social enginnering scheme. What it boils down to is that after all the times I was alone on Valentine's Day, I finally decided to do something about it with a random act of kindness in hopes to brighten the chocolate girl's Valentine's day and in her journal entry describing the event she said, "I hate Valentine's Day."

And what did she have to say about my brillant ResNet scam?

Jesus twin-- not sure which one-- came and fixed my connection just a little bit ago. Guess my connection was loose in the closet; there's a closet on each floor that holds all the hardware, and mine was loose. Go figure. But it's fixed. Thank you, Jesus twin."

She didn't even know if it was me or not. And she didn't mention any plans of hanging out with me. Did she even intend to visit me or was she just playing with me as I played with her internet access? The world shall never know.

"Hi, I'm from Resnet."
"I know."

There I was, face to face with Amy, a girl I hardly knew and hadn't talked to since I had given her chocolates on Valentine's Day three months earlier as we walked home from anime club. Fate brought me to her room as a proud member of ResNet, a group of students employed by the university to travel from dorm room to dorm room fixing computer problems as they go. Amy's internet happened to have stopped working at approximately 11:30 AM the previous morning when I "accidentally" knocked her ethernet cord from its socket during a "routine" check of the ResNet closets in Sue B. dorm. So here I was, and it was time to finish what I started 3 months ago.

In the ResNet closet I told myself "Courage is victory!", a quote from the Judas Priest song "One Shot at Glory". This was my one shot, I would be courageous, and victory would be mine. I had not come this far to be denied. I plugged in her ethernet cord and watched the darkened light above socket A-23 turn green. This meant only one thing: go time.

I returned to her room and, surprise surprise, her internet was working. (What can I say, I'm good at my job!) While she was thanking me for fixing her internet I commented on her Fushigi Yuugi anime poster and before I knew it we were emerged in a fantastic discussion about anime with tons of "Have you seen this?" and "Wow, that was so awesome!" and "Man does Dragonball suck!" My plan was working perfectly!

After 15 minutes or so I noticed the conversation gradually began to slow down and I knew I had to get going while the going was still good. So I mentioned Utena and she said she's heard of it and wanted to see it. So I said, "Yea, I'm kinda busy with finals and all, but would you like to stop by sometime to watch Utena?" Her face lit up as she said "Yea!" Then she rattled off a list of anime she would bring that she wanted to show me. She asked where I lived and as I started to tell her she's like "Hold on a sec" as she went to get a pen and paper. (I'm pen and paper quality, baby!) I asked her when would be a good time for her to stop by and she didn't know. I joked that she'd make me clean my room and keep it clean until she came over! She smiled and said that she had cleaned up her room before I came to fix her internet. She said she would definitely stop by and if I wasn't there she'd leave a note on my door.

"Man, this is great!" I thought to myself. She was really excited to come over and watch anime and even wanted to share some of her favorite anime with me! Plus she knew I liked her because of the Valentine's Day chocolates so I wasn't going to take up residence in just-friendsville. My intent was clear, that I liked her and "wanted to get to know her better" (one of the greatest euphemisms ever), and she was like "Hell yea!" I thought about how awesome this was turning out, how it didn't matter that I didn't ask her out on Valentine's Day cause things were set right, how much fun watching anime with her would be, and how much I was already looking forward for summer vacation to end so I could see her again. "My senior year is going to be the best ever!" I thought to myself as we said our goodbyes and I returned to the ResNet help desk, never to see or hear from her again.

The End

"Strike while the iron is hot!", so says Manowar in their song "Brothers of Metal." And that, my friends, I did not do. I had gathered up all my courage to give Amy, a girl I hardly knew, chocolates on Valentine's Day. And then I dropped the ball by not asking her out or anything. I was happy with myself for actually doing it in the first place, but I thought there was still some unfinished business in the matter. Fate seemed to bend its will against me as the only time I ran into her was during Anime club and I was too stubborn to do something reasonable like talk with her again after the Anime screenings let out. I felt I had already played that card, and all of my friends were as fresh out of ideas as I was. Until one day...

"Hmmm..." I thought to myself. "That's kinda sketchy. I mean, really sketchy. Who would disconnect a girl's internet access just to be the one who fixes it? Who could possibly abuse the power their job bestowed upon them in such a way? Who could keep a straight face while fixing an internet connection that they themselves had sabotaged? Who could be such a dick as to deprive someone of the internet, especially during finals? Who would actually have the balls to go through with this?" There was but one answer - me.

Now, some might call this stalking, but to me stalking involves things like learning people's schedules, getting their AIM names and checking their away messages, learning where they live, calling their phone number and then hanging up to see if they are home, stuff like that. But this was not stalking, I prefer the politically correct term "coincidence engineering." And besides, I knew it was really, really sketchy, but once I had told my friends about it, they all agreed it was such a wonderfully awful idea I had no choice but to go through with.

The plan was simple. Each hall had a ResNet closet that stored many routers that connect student's dorm rooms to the internet. The closet is the first place you are supposed to look on a house call to check for things like a student being disabled, the router losing power, or an ethernet chord simply falling out of its socket. You'd be surprised how often the latter happens, an ethernet chord just falling out of its socket for no reason at all. It has happened before... and it was about to happen again.

I needed to plan the ideal time for her internet to magically stop working. I worked Saturdays and Sundays and was the only person available to go on house calls. So if someone's internet just happened to stop working 30 minutes before my Saturday shift there would be a high probability that I would go on that house call before the weekend's end.

Saturday came, and it was time to act. Seeing as ResNet employees routinely go into and out of the ResNet closets, there would be nothing suspicious about me going into one of the 5th floor of Sue B. at 11:30 am. If, however, she saw me, I would have to abort the mission, because I think it would have been too easy for her to connect the dots. Stealth was essential, but also difficult because the ResNet closet was conveniently located right across from her room.

I took the stairs to the 5th floor and turned down Gates hall. No one! I fumbled with the keys, opened the closet, and went in. I took out a piece of paper that had her port written on it, pulled the chord just ever so slightly out of its socket, saw the little green LED light above A-23 darken, and knew my work here was finished. Having completed the first part of my plan I left the closet, locked the door, and ran down the stairs, out the building, and to the ResNet help desk 5 minutes away. So far, so good. Her net was down, all I had to do now was wait.

That day at ResNet was rather uneventful. Each time the phone rang my heart jumped, but it was no one important. I didn't have any house calls, nor were any scheduled for tomorrow. I went home and discussed things with my friends. Do I leave her internet disconnected for a whole night? For me, losing the internet is a fate worse than death, more painful than the dentist, and more heartbreaking than this story could ever be. But I had come this far, and I couldn't back down.

Sunday came and upon my arrival to work, to both my delight and dismay, I noticed there were 2 house calls scheduled for that day - the first of which was hers. The time had come. Will she remember me? Will she be pissed about her internet? Will she see through my genius idea? Will I actually ask her out this time? What if her roommate is there? Does my breath smell? These questions raced through my head as I walked to Sue B., took the elevator to the fifth floor, walked slowly to her room, paused for a moment in front of her door, and knocked. The door opened and there she was.

"Hi. I'm from ResNet."

To Be Continued...

It was first semester junior year in college...

Valentine’s day was coming up. And for the 21 years I had been alive I’d never done anything special for Valentine's Day except stay in and play video games. And it’s a holiday where you are supposed to go do something cute and romantic and sappy. My love life junior year had been pretty lackluster thus far - the last girl I asked to a dance said she'd love to go but had plans to go to a Protestant retreat to "hold hands and sign songs about Jesus." Things couldn't get much worse than that so I thought “Why not? I’ve never given a girl anything on Valentine's Day before, and I’ve got nothing to lose, let's rock.”

I had a small debate on what to give her, be it flowers or chocolates, and how much to spend. I decided on chocolates because I thought flowers would be too sappy and romantically heavy to give to someone I hardly knew, and if I was a chick I'd most certainly prefer chocolates. I mean, you can't eat flowers can you? Next, I had to decide on how much to spend. Cause I didn't want to seem like a cheap ass "Hey baby, here's a 99 cent Hershey bar, your place or mine?" But on the other hand, I didn't want to go overboard with a $50 dollar box of designer chocolate which might result in some kind of guilt trip, like "Yo, I just spent my whole paycheck on your gift so you are obligated to spend time with me." I talked this over with some of my friends who were girls (and thus had a much better idea of how this stuff works than I) and it was decided a small box of Godiva chocolate would fit the occasion perfectly. When I went to the mall Valentine's Day the smallest box they had was $10. But I figured $10 isn't enough to guilt trip anyone, and if a $10 box of chocolates could win me love, then so be it. And if not, well, she's $10 worth of chocolates fatter. Either way I win!

Valentine’s day was Thursday, and anime screenings were Wednesday ending at midnight. My great idea was this – give her chocolates right after midnight on the walk home from anime. And I could use a really cheezy line I saw in a drama in Japanese Conversation class where a guy called up his girl at midnight to say “I wanted to be the first to wish you a happy birthday.” Just replace "Happy Birthday" with "Happy Valentine's Day" and it's all good.

Wednesday came, she was at Anime, everything was going according to plan. Anime ended and I began to walk home with my friends as she did with hers. Her friends were two guys that I affectionately nicknamed dorkboy and loserdude. Thankfully dorkboy and loserdude went to pursue their academic interests at the library as she continued on her way to Sue B, the same dorm as me. My heart began to pound because I knew I was really going to go through with this. I began to walk faster to catch up with her. My friends were surprised to see me walking ahead of them and had no idea what was about to happen. And neither did I.

I caught up with Amy and started talking with her. I figured it'd be better to talk with her first to test the waters. She was nice and friendly and happy as I thought she would be (I mean, who wouldn’t be happy if I came up and started to talk with them?) Then we were almost to the dorm and I thought to myself “It’s now or never”. So I reached into my coat, pulled out the chocolates, and handed them to her as I said “I want to take this opportunity to be the first person to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day.” And she’s like “Valentine’s day?” a little confused, and then I’m like “Yea, it’s past midnight isn’t it?” And she was like "Ohhhhhhh yea..." And she thanked me and seemed happy and we kept walking...
and walking......
and walking...
walking...
.........
......
...
..
.

"Shit!!! Now what do I do?" I thought to myself. That cheezy line was as far as I had planned in advance and now I was lost. This was the part where she was supposed to say, "Wow, no ones ever given me anything on Valentine's Day before! I'll love you forever and ever and then some!" But we just kept walking in uncomfortable silence for a bit more before I started making small talk again. A few moments later we were at Sue B. Once inside she took the elevator to her floor while I elected to take the stairs. And she smiled and thanked me again and waved goodbye as the elevator doors shut on yet another Valentine's Day.......

Now, I'd say that didn't go all that bad for a first try at this Valentine's Day thing. I did what I set out to do, I didn't chicken out, and I didn't get slapped! Only problem was that I was too busy planning out the actual giving of the chocolates that I neglected to think I had to do something after that. Looking back on things, it might have been kind of weird for her to have this guy she didn't know give her some chocolates, wish her a happy Valentine's Day, and then not ask her out! But even so, I was really happy with myself for going through with it, I was ecstatic for the rest of the night. On the way to the CS lab to work on my latest project I just started jumping up and down with my hands raised in victory.

As time went by I was hoping to run into her again, talk, and maybe invite her over to watch anime. In our conversation on V-day she said that she wanted to see the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena which I had but didn’t tell her about. (doh!) I figured I could just invite her over to watch Anime next time I saw her. Only problem was I never saw her except at the anime screenings. I felt like I had already played my "talk with Amy after anime" card and was too stubborn to do it again, which (in retrospect) was stupid of me.

So I waited. Soon days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, and I still hadn't talked with her since then. I knew if I just kinda ran into her I could start up a conversation and things would be awesome. However, the longer I waited the more it seemed like fate wasn't on my side. But then I realized that, sometimes, fate needs a little push in the right direction.

To Be Continued...

"Do you know who this is?" I looked at the paper and saw what looked like an application and a passport sized photo.
"Nope, should I?" was my response.
She said, "He is an exchange student. He is from Australia. He is coming to our school."
"Oh really, when is he coming?"
"Next Monday... he will stay for one year."

Over the next few days I began to hear about this exchange student. He was Australian, 18, and supposdly fluent in Japanese. So I began to think to myself, "Nah his Japanese can't be that good. I know friends who studied more than me in college and have had home stays here but don't have that good Japanese. There's no way an 18 year old can be fluent. And he won't be that popular. I mean I go to all the classes, he's only going to be in one! Plus I'm older and I'm a teacher, he's only going to be just another student..." I kept rationalizing to myself how my spot as #1 alpha male gaijin in the school would be safe.

Then came Monday. He arrived at 7th period and I met him in the teacher's room. He was taller than me, blonde, and tan. If I had to say he looked like any one person it would be Blaine, the Australian surfer Barbie dumped Ken for.

Artistic representation of the enemy, if he were a Barbie doll

Anyways, I introduce myself, and I began to talk with the guy to see what's up when I hear "KAKKOII!!!!!!!" (COOOOOL!!!) and out of the side of my vision I see some of my girl students waving. But they weren't waving to me, oh no - they were waving to him. And they told him in their broken English "You are handsome. You are cool."

Then we made our way from the teacher's office down to his homeroom. Every single girl in the school creamed their panties when they saw him. I've never seen anything like it. Take some cliched scene from an anime where some cool guy walks around and all the Japanese schoolgirls fawn over him, multiple it by 1000 billion, and then make it real. It was like a train and he was the leader, everywhere he went more and more students followed. In this minute walk from the teacher's room to homeroom 1-4 Michael got more positive attention from girls than I've ever gotten in my entire life.

After that there was his welcome party. and all the students introduced themselves in English. The girls were sooooo embarassed and shy they could hardly walk to go to him to shake his hand, it was downright embarassing. Then he introduced himself in Japanese, and after he said two words the whole crowd was like "OMFG HE CAN SPEAK JAPANESE!!!! OMFGOMFGOMFG!!!" Needless to say he's a bit popular.

So after the party was over it was picture time, and his whole homeroom got together and I took a picture of them all. It was quite symbolic really, I wasn't in the picture but was asked to take it, and as I was like "one two three" the girls did a little chant and impromptu dance to the syllabils of Micahe's name as they chanted out like "Mi-cha-ru" with a little hand dance, and as I took the picture I caught the very moment in time that Micahel ch0wnd the attention of all the girls, the whole school, and my alpha status as awesome and only gaijin in town for no other reason than he's blonde, tan, and tall.

Today I saw Hasegawa Sensei, the teacher with perhaps the best English and most certainly the best attitude, and he says to me he says, "The way the girls act when they see Micahel, I just want to hit them! All they do is see him and scream. Why didn't any girls scream when you first came to this school?"

What a very good question indeed.

Or maybe the life pain is not caused by what we have to do, but what we haven't done. Everyone has a vision of their ideal life, ingrained in us from birth via tv, movies, disney, etc. What if your life isn't as you expected, is that what causes the life pain? Such an ideal life pry consists of having a fulfilling, fun, and sastisfying job, a model-quality wife who enjoys doing everything you do, a few kids, maybe a dog or two, and your set. Well, what if your life doesn't meet your expectations? What if you don't like your job, or you do like it but it isn't the best you could do? (I think the best job ever would be to be a pr0n actor and producer. That way your job is to screw hot, hot chicks and then you get a large % of the DVD sales - what could be a better job than that?) Or maybe your girlfriend is ugly, or she doesn't understand why you want to play WOW 12 hours a day, or maybe she just doesn't give good head. Perhaps by living a life that is not what you invisioned, or not what you wanted, that causes the life pain.

I think each of us is affected by the life pain to varying degrees. I mean, why does a dude who has a hot girlfriend still whack it to pr0n? Why does a millionaire want even more money? Do they have more or less life pain than the rest of us?

And when the life pain gets too high you need to do something that dulls it. Perhaps my favorite way to dull the life pain is sleep. Just this week I slept 10 hours one night and 13 the next. Sleeping is awesome - you don't need to think, it's free, you can do it whenever you are tired, and the most beautiful part - you don't actually do anything but lay there and your body thanks you for it!

Another great life pain duller is reading about people whose life is far worse than my own. That's why I love reading people's blogs. Not happy blogs, but blogs where people suffer, where shitty things happen to them, and somehow reading about other people's shitty lives makes me feel better.

Perhaps another one of my favorite ways to dull the life pain is through the sweet, sweet, nectar of god himself, alcohol. What's great about alcohol is that it blurs the line between being awake and being asleep. Your awake, but it doesn't seem as real as normal. It also helps the transition from being awake to going to sleep. Being drunk also makes annoying things seem passable, and normally entertaining things extraordinary.

But at what point does dulling the life pain actually increase your life pain, or decrease your life expectancy? Cause I'd guess that almost everyone wants to live the happiest life they can for
as long as possible. Drinking makes my life more fun now, but it could make my life more painful in the future, or could reduce the length of my life. A wise man once said, "Life after retirement is all about xtacy and hookers." Maybe he's onto something - you live your life and work and are good, but once your retired your gonna die sooner or later - might as well have the best time you can. But what if you die before retirement? What if you just collapse dead tomorrow? Well then maybe you should have started doing extacy and hookers a damned long time ago.

At work today, instead of correcting tests or preparing lessons for next week, I made the following chart, which I envisioned as a guide to how long you will live vs how much you actually enjoy life. And in the creation of this graph I dulled my own life pain for the enjoyment of all.

Brendon - the hated one

- He is to good to be called by his first name at school and insists that the other teachers and students address him by his last name

- Insists that he is a teacher, and should be treated and respected as such. He's very serious in school, demands respect, and doesn't joke around.

- I'm his only friend here, so he calls me at least 3 times a week to hang out.

- If he hears that I'm doing something fun (or even suspects I might be doing something fun) he'll invite himself along. Or even if he thinks that I might be doing something fun sometime in the future he'll invite himself along for when that time actually comes.

- He hits on every Japanese chick he sees with an absolutley miserable failure rate of 99.5%.

- He has no personality, no sense of humor, doesn't make jokes, always blabs on about his life and this and that and doesn't let me get a word in otherwise, and is just a generally uninteresting guy. like he'll tell me all about his "international relations" major or whatnot but it's like "dude I don't give a fuck about international relations or whatever, so don't bore me with that shit. I don't start talking to you about parsers and cs theory, you don't talk with me about your stupid i.r. either"

- He goes to the gym and is thus skinnier, stronger, and in better shape than I am.

- All my teachers joke with me, "Brendon is so much cooler than you are!" and "Brendon is really good looking."

- Once me, him, and alex were at a bar. Alex was talking to some chick that brendon was talking to but then brendon got up. brendon then sits back down next to her and puts his arm around her as if to say "she's mine, fuck off alex." this didn't piss alex off nearly as much as it did me.

- A normal night of going to a bar with him consists of the following:
Him: "Brendon need beer!"
Me: "Ok, let's go to a bar"
(at the bar)
Him: "Man, everyone here sucks, they have no personality, those girls are ugly, those boys are complete tools so I have no idea why the girls are with them. This place sucks, everyone is a clique and no one wants to talk with us"
Me: "uhh... yea"
Him: "Brendon drunk! I'm gonna go talk with those chicks"
(he starts a conversation with the chicks with an uber manly opener like "Excuse me, is it alright if I talk with you?" and continues the conversation with such witty conversation as "What are you drinking?", "You should drink some more", and "I'm a international relations major - let's talk about some international issues... (procedes to bore the hell out of them)
(5 minutes pass and the girls leave the bar, possibly scared away from him)
Him: "Man, I wish my Japanese was better. If I had better Japanese I could pick up chicks no problem."
Me: "You know, your Japanese is pretty good"
Him: "Yea I guess, but I wish I was fluent. It can be hard to (talk on the phone / make plans / communicate / do anything) with my Japanese"
Me: "well..."
Him: "And those girls were such bitches! and ugly too, and boring."
Me: "..."
Him: "No girls ever want to talk with me. No one at work wants to talk with me. The girls that work at the gym, they don't want to talk with me. I mean, they think I'm good looking, but they are pry just too scared to talk with me. And the girls here are just too snobbish to talk with anyone. bah this sucks, I'm going home"

and these are just little, itty bitty details about our friendship at its current standing. the start of our friendship is, perhaps, the worst start of a friendship in history. EVER. check it out...

Yukari and Me (she's kinda drunk there thus the goofy expression)

so brendon lives in the next town over but we didn't start hanging out until the "car incident." I was giving him a ride home from Fukui city and he started telling me about how he needed to buy a car. I told him my friend Yukari, a cute, sweet, charming, and completley wonderful 31 year old Japanese chick with awesome English was moving to England and needed to sell her car. (side note: Yukari's like one of my best Japanese friends, just cause she's really cool and her English is good and we talk about all sorts of stuff, a lot deeper stuff than I do with any other Japanese person) anyways, I told Brendon it was a good car (as Yukari had told me, and I trusted her) So I introduced them to eachother, he took the car for a test spin, and he ended up buying the car.

I had to convince him to buy the car, since he was really skeptical about buying used cars, afraid something would go wrong. He wanted to put in more money for a better guarantee on a good car. I said, "nah man this is a great deal, Yukari's a really honest awesome person, and the car is awesome - she told me she's had no problems with it. and your getting a good deal!" so after a lot of convincing that what he was doing was the right thing, he paid maybe $1.5k~$2k for it.

at some point during the process he told me, "yea I might be going out for drinks with Yukari sometime soon if you wanan come." I just kinda ignored him, but it pissed me off. I introduced him to her to buy the car, not to hang out. Maybe I'm being a bit possessive here, but ALTs can tend to be possessive of their Japanese chix0r friends here - it's just the way it is. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's like you introduce your dude friend and your japanese chix0r friend and all of a sudden they are hanging out behind your back and it's like "wait a sec wtf is this!?!?!?"

so anyways brendon buys the car, and 3 days later he calls me
him: "yo dude I think the car has problems"
me: "dude it's fine"
him: "no really the car stopped and I had a hard time getting it to start again, and it's making funny noises"
me: "dude it's fine" (I'm really pissed cause I think he's just being paranoid)

the next day he calls me up...
him: "the car's dead"
me: "...... your shitting me"
him: "I shit you not"

so it turns out this car that he was afraid of buying, that I convinced him to buy cause I thought it was a good deal, ended up DYING on him 3 days after he bought it. and he kept calling me to bitch and complain and I got really pissed off cause even though I introduced the two to eachother, that was that. I told him I thought it was a good deal (which I did, and which it would have been if the car didn't fuck up.) so for the next 2 weeks before Yukari left for England I was playing messenger between yukari and brendon, each asking what they should do and what would be rude and not rudue and blah blah blah. I didn't mind telling yukari to not worry about brendon, but having brendonc all me over and over and over to bitch and bitch and bitch really pissed me off. once yukari even called me at like 3am on a worknight to ask for advice and I would have had no problem talking to her (had I actually answered the phone instead of turning it off in my sleep - I didn't even remember she called!)

but yea finally he left, 2 months go by, and Yukari has to come back to Japan to get her visa worked out. It was a secret and she told me not to tell anyone. I saw her twice, and each time I bitched to her about how brendon was a man-whore, how he'd go and hit on every chick he sees, and just going off on how he has no standards, he'll flirt with anything that moves, and that's all he does. Both times I saw her I went OFF on how there's only one thing brendon thinks of, and how it pisses me off and gives me a bad reputation for just hanging out with him.

so anyways one night brendon and I were drinking at a bar, I'm pretty smashed, and I get a email on my cell from yukari saying goodbye again and that she's going back to england. brendon was like "yo who was that?" and I was kinda drunk and figured there'd be no harm with telling him and I'm like "yo that was yukari, she's back in Japan to get her visa sorted out, she told me to keep it a secret."

brendon is kinda surprised by the news, thinks to himself a bit, and then is like "... can I tell you something?"
and I'm like "yea sure"
and he's like "I slept with her."

now, it's a good thing I was drunk here, cause if I wasn't I would have kicked the shit outta him, but instead I managed to channel my rage through my drunkenness into a faked plesant surprise, like "way to go dude!"

him: "man, I can't believe she didn't call me. she said she was really happy to meet me, and that she wished she had met me sooner"
me: "ehh, she was pry just busy"
him: "I slept with her twice"
me: (thinking) GRRRRRRR

then I flashed back to me telling yukari all about brendon and his pimping ways. or at least how much he tries to pimp and how that's the only thing on his mind. I didn't hold back AT ALL, and I can't imagine how uncomfortable I made her feel me telling her this guy she slept with is the biggest man whore out there who would sleep with anything, and everything, out there.

So that's how our friendship started: I convinced him to buy a car he didn't want that broke 3 days after he bought it, he lost a ton of money, and he fucked one of my friends. twice. now I'm convinced the only reason she slept with him twice was cause the first time was awful and she thought "man, this is supposed to feel good isn't it?" so she tried again and it was just as bad, if not worse.

you know, he tries soo hard with chicks and has such a miserable failure rate, I think the only piece of ass he's ever gotten in this country is a chick I introduced him to!

but since then I've come up with a new goal in life: to make brendon as miserable as possible while masquarading as his friend. this normally involves having more success with girls at the bar than him, even though I have worse Japanese and I'm fatter than he is. A great example of this is one night I imet 3 of my chix0r friends at the bar and he decided to invite himself a long. He was ignored by all of them (sooo many chicks are like mad interested in me and have no interest in talking with him and I bet it pisses him off.) anyways I convinced this chicks that I was strong and had muscle since I went rock climbing every Friday. Chick #1: "Really, where?" and she starts to feel my arm. Before long I have 3 chicks feeling my fatass for muscle and brendon is just staring in disbelief. I bet he was thinking "Man, my japanese is better than rich's, I'm in better shape than rich, wtf is this shit!?!?!" so he then asked, "Rich, why do you have 3 girls feeling you up in the bar?" I replied, "Because I'm a bastard."