What I've been up to since Thursday

You will recall that was the day I was very happy and then spent a lonesome and boring afternoon at the store, as seen below in that short post written AFTER I got back, which explains why it lacks the starry-eyed smile-cracking goodness that accompanies such a mood.

Well, Friday wasn't so hot until I got home and then we...well, I don't remember. I imagine we played video games, or something. Or did we watch cartoons?

The weekend was full of games and also of writing about games. I wrote two previews that should go up this week, AND I get to do some exciting work at the OFFICE on Tuesday involving a word that rhymes with "we."

Oh oh oh oh and the whole point of this post was to say (brag?) that I have finished reading every word of Fukubukuro 2006. Now, of this Tim Rogers fellow I know very little, except having read all this I guess I know a bit, huh. Like about some of his previous girlfriends and his homelessness and his translating and his hanging out with famous video game designers. Also that his dislikes Kingdom Hearts II, loves Earthbound, etc. The boy groaned when he noticed me reading this, because he's apparently not so partial to the guy, and in all truth I'm not really sure if I would get along with him either; however, that's beyond the point. The point is that I was pretty amused and learned some things (about video games, which is right up there with Japanese on the top of my "things to learn" list) as well.

My favorite part is the surreal sensation you get when you see the words "GAME OF THE YEAR, 2006." "GAME" is singular, hence you would expect only one, but in each of the sprawling essays--10, not counting the intro-- there is generally at least one. (Do some have two? I'm not going to go back and look...) It's like each link is it's own universe and you are cycling through dimensions. Or a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. The feeling is compounded by the way that in most of the essays you can find at least a hint, if not another explanation, of the context for the games (i.e. the girlfriends, etc), so it really does feel like an alternate reality where everything is the same except the "GAME OF THE YEAR, 2006." It's sort of nostalgic and dreamy, in a way. I can't quite explain it. If you can handle reading through the whole thing (80,000 words, so I hear), I'd say it's definitely worth experiencing.

Today is a national holiday, but our beloved Nijiya (like the best of grocery stores, I guess...I love our 24 hour around the corner) never rests (unless you count the hours between 8 PM and 10 AM.) I leave for work at either 1 or 2, 1 if I choose to eat Okonomiyaki and dawdle at Kinokuniya. Hopefully today will be better than Friday, because Friday, sir, was a drag.

I expect this week to finish up some translations, write more, have lunch with some friends (at least two) via my freshly banked paycheck, and have a great many hours of possible New Yorker, sci-fi, Interweb, RPG reading time sucked away by the store. I'm also having that biospy, FINALLY, on Thursday, which creeps me out a little because (if I haven't reported this already) they will have to take bits of me away if the result matches the result of the original test. Poor little mutated bits. YOU BETRAY ME.