Incommunicado

Disclaimer: We now interrupt this long period without posting to give you uninterrupted China.

And I was on such a good roll. Regular posting on my blog, 10 hits or more a day (albeit many of the non-regular viewers are finding my blog off Google searches for "how to fire a machine gun"). But then what had to happen? I had to come to China. Of all the places.
China is not Google's friend. Blogger is inaccessible without a proxy server, and good random ones are hard to come by (I tend to find the most success with pretending to be from Argentina). Plus uploading vids in China is near impossible, with virginal bandwidth (is that a bit coarse?). Finally to make matters completely dire, China recently banned youtube for a considerable time, not-so-discreetly in time with the Tibetan protests. Hmmm. Even a proxy wouldn't get through that mess. I refuse to comment. Well, maybe later.

Even had I time to post, we've been absolutely consumed by Pikachu and his cute friends. Again, that's a post for another time, but let me just say that Nintendo, though a very interesting company to work with, can be awfully bureaucratic at times.

Firstly, after such a long time off, I must say gracias and salut to mi amigo David, who unwittingly doubled the hits on my blog over the course of a weekend. As I mentioned in a previous post, David has something of a following in the Spanish blogging world for his insightful and educational comments about life in Japan and the Kansai region. Even if you don't speak Espanol, his blog is good for pics from Japan, and occasionally some videos to boot. No out-of-focus neglected bicycles, however. Don't get your hopes up.
Anyway, David gave me a blogging high-five when he linked me the other day, on a post that was about none of than...my girlfriend. "Eh?" you may well think, and when I say it was a post on White Day, Japan's second half of a two part Valentines they do, that "eh?" may well repeat itself. You're probably making the same face that Americans did when I told them I was staying in Las Vegas with someone who I met "on the internet" (ie. couch-surfing).
It is indeed funny. But I don't mind - he's a good bloke (well, as far as I can tell). Mio modelled for him last year, and he got some pretty good shots actually. You can check them out here (or if that doesn't work, just click his name above and scroll down to 14th Marzo).

David's brief mention that his cute model happened to be my object of affection caused hundreds of Latinos and Spanish to pop over here and check me out. Not many stayed (fair enough, I don't write in Espanol, nor much about Japon), but it was enough to make Spain the country with the most viewers of Machine Gun Salaryman. Ironic huh? Kinda like when somethingawful.com posted a link to a voraphilia site. That many people viewed something they didn't necessarily want to since Meg Ryan's boobs in In The Cut.

In case you were wondering, the top 5 countries viewing my blog are:
1. Spain (by almost double)
2. Japan
3. New Zealand (Kia Ora!)
4. United States
5. Mexico (thanks again, David...)
(there is also someone from Mauritius who stumbled on here. Neat!)

I was going to put up pics of China, but instead I'll wait til another post, seeing as this one is getting lengthy. I'll leave you with the top 10 most played tracks on my iPod, for general pulp interest.

1. Sexual Sportswear (SebastiAn Remix) - Sebastian Tellier
2. Beautiful Burnout - Underworld
3. The Boy Who Ran Away (Riton Extended Dub) - The Mystery Jets
4. I Choose Noise - Hybrid
5. What's Your Damage? (Digitalism Remix) - Test Icicles
6. 14h54 - Danger
7. The Fallen (ruined by Jus†ice) - Franz Ferdinand
8. H.A.L. - SebastiAn
9. 1967 Aww Shit - Steve Aoki & Junkie XL
10. My People - The Presets
...huh. Don't think I could have picked any of those. Would have said this was in there.

Bicychology

Disclaimer: This analysis of Japanese people is out of focus.

Here's a clip I made a few weeks ago in Shinsaibashi while waiting for a friend. I was sitting down on a not-really-made-for-sitting-down piece of concrete, when I saw two of the several hundred bikes haphazardly parked on the sidewalk had fallen over, blocking a pedestrian throughway. I wanted to get the people going past, so apologies for the lack of focus, but when I finally got it focussed noone went by.

Japanese public culture is expressed more explicitly than you'd think in the 60 seconds I took to film it, as people walking and cycling by would rather queue up to make their way past the obstacle course the bikes pose than take just as long to pick them up and save everyone the hassle. I spent about 10 minutes chuckling to myself at the precession.

I'm the kind of guy who will stop when driving to put right an orange cone that has had one too many and tipped over (or I may steal it). Reason being that while I might drive around it fairly easily, it's going to piss off a lot of people after me, and I'm thinking of the big picture.

But not Japanese. Standing out in public isn't something many people want to do, and no more so when it inconveniences themselves for the good of others. Don't get me wrong: I love Japanese, but their attitude in large groups can be sometimes disappointing.
Having said that, Kiwis in large groups can get a little annoying too. I remember waiting for the Interislander ferry on a day when sailing had been cancelled until 12.30am-ish, and despite the insistent staff members pleading over the intercom, people waiting to get on refused to back up and leave enough room for people getting off. Needless to say there was unnecessary congestion. I can also remember being the age at the time that I had enough frustration boiling in me that I yelled out "For hell's sake, do what he says and back the fuck up!" Sadly the resolve of people who are sick&tired of waiting for a ferry for 12 hours was greater than my vocal limit.

This whole much-ado-about-nothing was classically summed up when the people who finally did pick up the bikes turned out to be the owners. Ha!

Moral of the story? People are sheep. Don't be one. You'll lose my respect (and wind up on my youtube channel).

Unadrumma

Disclaimer: This post features an off-beat. Boom-boom-tshh.

Guess what I bought in the weekend.

They take up half the room in my tiny apartment. Room well spent.

Now, to work out how to make them sound cool.

Shoestrings

Disclaimer: This video post contains frittish filming of noisy machinery. Not recommended for nature-lovers or epileptics.

Got back to Japan today. I've had plenty to blog about, but most of it involves videos or photos, and Chinese internet wasn't being user-friendly when it came to youtube or blogger. Now with the power of Japanese bandwidth, let me hit you with some posting.

Continuing the vein of Chinese factory postings, I visited a factory that make woven products this week. They were nice enough to show us around (I was nice enough to tell them their factory was clean, but they should really stop leaving products outside to collect dust and grime from the air). One of their chief production lines is dedicated to something I wasn't expecting: shoelaces. Don't know if these were Nike or what, but walking into the shoelace manufacturing room was a new experience if there ever was one. Literally hundreds of tiny machines bustling with mechanical motion, carving out repetitive actions that weave the fibres into the fat cord you struggle to knot when you're only 5 years old. As I mention on the video (though you'll struggle to hear me over the commotion, which I feel is the best word for it), "like manic typewriters". It looks down and dirty, but apparently the machines are only between 5 and 10 years old (usually with a lifespan of 15 years). Not stunning, just...mysterious. And kinda scary, in a way. The machines have such activity it feels like there's going to be a mechanical uprising at any minute.

Meanwhile, these guys also make lanyard straps. Which also involves hyperactive machinery. Enjoy.