This entry racked up the comments rather fast. I guess many of you hate bugs just as much as I do.
Usually, if I want to respond to a comment I'll just edit the comment with (Az's Note:), but this time as there were far too many comments to do that with I just collected them and will post it here. Its a nice feeling of nostalgia, as I usually don't do this type of thing unless its for a hate mail, and I haven't gotten any hate mail in a good long while.
...I wonder why... =P
Anyway, if I didn't respond to your comment it doesn't mean I didn't read it, because I read them all.
***
You know, unless I missed something during your time as a teacher...I'm glad that you never even MENTIONED your hatred of bugs around those kids...Kancho and "Noisy-****ers" would have been the LEAST of your concerns.
Those kids would have done so much worse...I shudder to think of it.
You are absolutely right. Showing school kids that there's something in this world that drives you crazy is a lot like giving Pre-Crisis Mike Tyson the finger and then turning your back to him. You are just inviting your own destruction. As much as I hated insects, I held it in. Sometimes during the summer an insect would fly through an open window...a lot of kids, boys and girls, would freak out while the bug buzzed around the classroom. I simply stood there, kept my cool, and said "its just a bug, what's the problem?"
And then I'd go home and shower 17 times.
***
One question though, how is being a whore better then being a porn star? At least porn stars have sex with (relatively) clean guys, compared to whores who do the dirty gonasyphilitis patients and get all sorts of fun infections...
My reasoning is this - prostitution is something that the girl can one day separate herself from. She can move to a different city/country and continue with her life. Suppose she were to, later in her life, become a famous actress or a politician or something. Chances are johns who utilized her don't remember, or even if they do, there's the certain shame aspect that will hinder them from coming forward and putting her on blast.
Porn star...its more or less prostitution...but the proof is just there. It's out there, and in this cyber-age its readily available and will never go away. If she were to become famous, her vids would be out there instantly. Not to mention that chance, however random it may be, that friends/family could stumble upon some of her work.
...How much would that suck eggs? You're just some ordinary guy, you're surfing some porn on the web as most ordinary guys do...and you get to one video and you're like "Hey wait, that girl looks kinda familiar....wait....THAT'S MY DAUGHTER!" I'm sure this kind of scenario has happened at least once.
OH! While on the subject, you want to talk about complete and total parental fail though? Peep this girl: Sakura Sakurada
So, she's done everything. Fetish, piss/puke/scat, taboo, even bestiality, she's done it. I mean, that in itself is bad enough, right? But check this out: she's got a video where she co-stars...WITH HER MOM. Like...wow. That's like so many levels of fucked up, I can't even begin to wrap my mind around it. Oedipus aint got jack shit on this.
Imagine you're some Japanese guy, surfing net porn, dong in hand, ready to enjoy a quality wanking session. You open up one site and start perusing vids...and then suddenly, it's like "Hey wait, isn't that my daughter?! Hey wait, isn't that MY WIFE?! WHAT THE FU-!"
Just...wow.
***
While in Japan, my girlfriend told her host sister that I hate bugs. This cute little Japanese girl comes up to me, tells me to hold my hand out. Stupidly, I do. She then drops a MASSIVE, DISGUSTING, BUG, into my hand.
I hate children.
Yeah, this is why you cannot expose any weaknesses to children. Oh, and that little girl would have gotten a bug to the face. ...*GASP!* Az! You do NOT throw bugs into the faces of children! Ordinarily no, but if she's going out of her way to put in my hands the one thing I hate most in this world...all bets are off. And that's the risk she's going to have to accept if she wants to go around giving me bugs.
Even kids know, you can push things so far but there's a line that you just do not cross. Like pushing the "Launch All Nuclear Missiles" button or throwing rocks at a sleeping Balrog or clicking on "Yes" when asked "Would you like to install and launch Skynet?" or even hitting play on "One Night in Chyna" - once you've done it, you done fucked up and there is NO turning back. At least, when I was a kid, I knew about this point of no return.
My kids will learn about this line very, very quickly, and they will also learn that anything involving bugs is an Olympic leap across said line. Sure, we can gross Dad out by handing him a big slimy bug...or, we can also enjoy seeing the sun for the next 37 years. This education will be the utmost priority - before my kids are potty trained, they will know not to bother daddy with a bug.
***
You think a few cicadas are scary imagine billions. We just had our crop of 17 year cicadas here in Chicago. Once every 17 years a swarm of cicadas shows up and for the next few weeks there are cicadas everywhere and on everything. Imagine standing in a field with a carpet of living cicadas surrounding you on every side.
Okay, what the fu-...WHAT THE FU-...no. No. NO. NO!
I was actually born in Illinois (fun fact), and I had no idea it was home to such...such evil horrors. Apparently, I can never live there again. Seriously, what in the hell is this?
If I did live in Chicago, you can bet your bottom dollar my family and I would be taking exotic overseas vacations...oh...every 17 years. It'd be like those scenes you see in disaster movies.
Me: C'mon everyone, grab a few valuable items and get in the car. Now.
Wife: What's wrong dear?
Kids: Yeah daddy, where are we going?
Me: I'll explain later. Now, get in the car right now.
Wife: But I just don't understand what the emergency is...
*Outside, the screeching hum of destruction gets louder...*
Me: ...It's already too late.
***
my teenage neighbor walks up to me, opens his mouth, and out flies the cicada he had been keeping in there (WTF?) causing me to scream like a girl and run like hell/
Again...WHAT THE FU-?!
You know that scene in Aliens when the Alien opens her mouth, and another smaller Alien comes out and screams or something? This is far worse.
He put it in his mouth? Voluntarily? Get this kid help, stat.
***
Heh, a harder failure would be your twin girls liking bugs as kids and then growing up with bug fetishes and doing crazy screwed up twincest stuff together.
...This kind of thing exists?
And me saying that is NOT an invitation for you all to go out, find it, and show it to me. No no no. If it exists...I simply do NOT want to know about it.
I say if it exists...of course it exists. We could all sit here and try to dream up the most fucked up porn imaginable, and the sad reality would be that not only would it exist, there'd be people in the world who'd call it tame.
I think that the ultimate proof that aliens exist is that none of them have tried to contact us yet.
***
I would just use my boot!
Hell no. I actually like my shoes, and I don't want to go around tracking around essence of bug with me.
That why I said - biological warfare. I'm going to start developing Raid grenades and cluster bombs. To the insect world, I will be a weapon of mass destruction.
***
First the fish allergies, now bugs. Are you sure Japan is the right place for you?
Well, let's see...
Cons:
- Disgusting bugs in the summer
- Can't eat the staple of the Japanese diet
Pros:
+ Video games
+ Women
...I think I'll be okay.
***
Sorry, but you are screwed. My (japanese) fiance told me that in elementary school the kids are actually given a net, a cage, and have a long homework assignment of catching the little bastard cicaedas and watch over them for about a month.
Okay, yeah, that's not going to happen. My kid will absolutely, positively, NOT participate in that activity. No way. If they question me, I'll say its against my religion. What religion is that? The Church of My Kids Will Not Do Nasty Shit. Fuck cicadas.
Its time that I started to harness the power of the Japanese PTA for my own personal gains.
***
You caved on the baby thing, huh? I'm disappointed, but you can't call the troops back now.
Actually, no. Wife isn't pregnant yet. The troops are still on standby in Wastebasketistan.
I have sort of put my foot down and told her that I don't even want to think about kids until we've got some semblance of financial security. It's funny, when it comes to money matters she's usually so practical, but the baby is the one area where all that nice practicality and common sense just goes right out the nearest window.
She's pouting but I think I've managed to hold her off it until at least next year. So now all I have to worry about is keeping up my Jedi-Master level of control over the boys.
...Speaking of, I've always wondered how Anakin Skywalker "accidentally" got Padme pregnant. Like, if there's anyone in the universe who can master the Pull-Out-No-Jutsu, shouldn't it be the Jedi? I mean, Darth Vader could Force-choke the life out of a person, but he couldn't even keep his boys in check? What's the deal with that?
Padme: Um, Ani? You kinda...ah...there's something you gotta clean up here.
Anakin: (rolls over) Mmhmh, I'll get it in the morning. *snore*
***
BTW, how's the job hunt going? Any nibbles?
Unfortunately, not very well. Now is just a bad time for the job market. I'm probably going to be unemployed for the next few months. Factor in a wedding I can barely pay for and...yeah.
I know I make the "male prostitute" joke a lot...but I'm almost actually at that point. If I only knew how...
***
You want bad? People eat cica-
Aaaaaand....that's exactly where I stopped reading. That's just...that's...I...no. Just, no.
Seriously, I don't think I can eat today.
When I went to Thailand, I remember seeing street vendors where you'd have beef, chicken, pork...and then insects. I know there are bug eaters even in America. But I just...I can't deal with it man.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go talk to Raid about patenting bug-spray/flame thrower gun I'm working on.
Whatever you do, don't pay close attention to the most recent chapter of the Naruto manga. Naruto is visiting the frogs and he's not had a decent thing to eat in quite some time.
Their most recent "feast" included cicadas, unless I'm badly mistaken. And a few other things that look less appetizing, if you can imagine that.
That brings back a lot of memories. I was in the Lions Club exchange program back in 2005 (I also started reading your stuff then, back in the outpost 9 days) and I was staying in the very rural town of Nasu, in the Tochigi prefecture. One day the village drunk shows up in a car and wants me to take a drive with him. Not knowing any better I hop in and we drive way out past the rice fields and into the forest. Now, I had noticed the sledgehammer in the back of the car but since almost all the men in the town worked at the quarry I didn't think anything of it. He pulls out the sledgehammer, walks me over to the nearest tree, and slams the hammer into it. I'm instantly treated to a shower of beetles the size of my fist.
Great.
But its not over. He had left the car door open so when we get back in theres a hornet the size of a croissant on the inside of the windshield.
I have to say, just wow, but then, I have OCD and if I step on a bug barefoot I freak the hell out and rub my feet with whatever the hell I can to make them feel clean(good thing we don't have sandpaper...).
But er, that Joe guy is just being mean right there...
People wonder how I developed my near-psychotic hatred of children.
See first of Azrael's responses.
"try to dream up the most fucked up porn imaginable, and not only would it exist..."
Of course it does. It's called rule 34 of the internet (that's in fact the only rule that's official)
#34. There is porn for it. No exceptions.
First off, one of your perks of women, is now reduced down to Woman. The whole look but don't touch thing... yeah, bullshit and you know it. At least you're happy and in love though...
Second: Eating the bugs? meh, I'll admit to trying it before, but these were cooked things in austrailia. Most interesting thing I ate in austrailia though, was a Rat Burger. Surprisingly, it tasted a lot like bison. this place raised their own rats so they were diseased or anything.
The cicadas are pretty gross and I've made peace with the fact that people in places like Thailand eat them (FRIED. FRIED. FRIED; THEREFORE DELICIOUS) but the idea of some kid holding a LIVE one in their mouth ... wow. Clearly there are levels of depravity heretofore uncharted. At least the weather's cooling off a bit now, Az!
So, I guess you never contemplated taking a bike/chopper on a highway drive during twilight, huh?
*SPLAT*
You were born in IL eh Az? That happens to be one of the states of the US I visit fairly regularly and yes, it is one place I was mentioning about the bloody noise from cicadas! Not as bad as the whole carpet field full mentioned in the previous comments however... as said I hardly see the buggers!
Hoo boy. You do not want to visit Animal Kingdom in Florida and ride "It's Tough to Be a Bug!" Two words - Giant Spiders.
Speaking of, are you freaked out over just about ANYTHING bugs? Like, movies about them, Discovery Channel specials, everything? That blows LOTR out of the water for you if that's the case, man.
Heh, ever seen 'Fooly Cooly' where poor Naota finds his dads dehydrated body surrounded by bugs and one lands on the boys face? Yeah, that's what I imagine your freak-out to sort of be like. Except much worse . . . on the level of total annihilation. I pray for your children.
What do you think of the Cicada-Killer wasp(most common species: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_cicada_killer)? On the one hand, the kill cicadas by the truck full. On the other hand, they're two-inch-long wasps!
For my money, I'd stick with the cicadas. Bugs overall don't freak me out, but wasps the size on my pinkie sure as hell do!
"Pros:
+ Video games
+ Women
...I think I'll be okay."
Note: those are Japanese women, which you have previously frowned on other people for having "yellow fever" for. Don't get me wrong, women of all kinds are gorgeous, but I think it's been too long since you were on a so-Cal beach during the summer.
I don't particularly hate insects, but I suppose I don't really care for them either. However, the following review made me more ill than anything I've seen or read on the Internet. If bugs gross you out in any way don't visit this page:
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/horrors-of-porn/bug-eater-cockroach.php
Actually, just don't visit period. The URL itself is pretty clear about what you'll be getting into. The only reason I'm posting this is to complete the discussion about bugs and porn.
Re: mosquitos, what you need to keep them away is an Avon product called "Skin So Soft". I know this sounds weird, but we only found out about it when my stepdaughter in the Marines had us get some for her. If it is good enough for the Marines, it's good enough for me... and it really does work.
Your comments about whore vs pornstar remind me of something said in Transmetropolitan. You haven't by any chance read it have you? If you haven't you ought to I think you'd like it. More on topic I actually like the cicadas. Not seeing them but the sound always reminds me of my childhood playing outside and what not. I live in Chicago so I like em.
Az, you've heard of the statistics that people eat a certain number of spiders without knowing, right?
It happens when they're asleep...
So..
Your body's probably digested some creepy crawlies before.
You may not be so bug-hating as you thought.
wow. thanks jusme. i will never have an erection again.
re the repellent suggestion on the other post the internets elaborate: "I started hearing people say that Avon Skin-So-Soft lotion prevented bug bites, so I bought some. It didn't work. I later realized that there was an actual bug repellent by Avon called Bug Guard and Bug Guard plus. "
trust me, i live in maryland.. and i dread the cicada swarm every 17 years. The last swarm a few years ago, I drove around in the middle of summer with the windows up and no god damn air conditioning.
im with you. bugs are effin nasty!
One time when I went camping with my freinds I put a cicada on my nose just to see how long it would stay there. Problem is it tried to jab my nose with its sap sucker thingy which was problematic so I had to take it off.
Anyway, I used to work at this pizza place, it was the best pizza ever,but what most people don't realize was that inside the carn meal they put on the bottom of the pizza were loads of tiny meal worms., But I didn't care the pizza was so good I ate it anyway. Just something to think about the next time you eat some good pizza.
Hey, I actually seen that JAV where Sakura costars with her mom. If memory serves me right, her mom actually "guides" the guy to her daughter then sat there while the guy does to town on Sakura. That was pretty bad even for the viewer especially they both partake in a scene together later on in the film. After seeing that, I have no doubt to the end of the world theory since this is scrapping the bottom of the barrel. Now, if you would excuse me, I gotta find that DVD.
The cicadas don't bother me, but what do are the giant, massive spiders. These things hunt lizards!!! All the Japanese people around me laugh when I freak out over them, or politely tell me that they're useful because they eat cockroaches. You know...I have to say I hate spiders much more than I hate roaches.
I actually have one of these giant hunting spiders living in my bathroom at the moment. There's a four-inch wide air vent in there that I put a screen over to keep the bugs out, and one of them has taken up residence on the other side of that screen. Much as I hate the things, though, I can't bring myself to kill it considering it technically lives outside and can't get in. On the other hand, I've been taking photographs and scaring the crap out of everyone I know in America with them, so that's a plus. :)
Dude, Az, I dunno if you've heard of "cicadaville.com", but they were a website DEDICATED to exposing the evils of the cicada species. The site itself's gone now, but it's being hosted here: http://web.archive.org/web/20050308010953/http://www.cicadaville.com/
An excerpt: "What do Cicadas eat?
Human children are the primary source of nutrition for Cicadas." It gets better, too.
Not to get off topic, but on the elephant-mouse thing: It's said that elephants are afraid of mice because they tend to run up their trunk, or so I heard.
Anyway, Mythbusters proved this one plausible.
Actually, there's not a big difference between eating crustaceans like lobster or shrimp and eating insects...
ugh, speaking of 17-year cicadas... i was in maryland when they came out. i was on a walk with my aunt, and we saw carcasses everywhere, and when we waited under a tree for the bus, one fell onto her head!
...from that moment on, i always used an umbrella while waiting under the tree for the bus, rain or shine, until the things were all dead and gone. and i made sure to move my feet around a lot so they wouldn't think i was a tree and try to climb up my legs.
Ahhh, cicadas. I remember those things and their damn noises going off before the crack of dawn at 7am and waking me up before even my alarm did for class. I also remember almost falling off my bike in Shizuoka trying to avoid the dead cicadas on the sidewalk, while also thinking 'holy shit, that's the size of two of my fingers!!' Then to make matters worse, one of my Romanian friends tells me of spiders that get the size of your hand and one of my German friends comments on one that she's seen inside the boundaries of my college's buildings. Yea, I was totally paranoid for about a week afterward. Then I realized...how the fuck is it that Japan can have these HUGE ass bugs, yet have a population size roughly 5 foot to 5'10?! It's very clear that the shift in power has been screwed with.
At my school, people ate cicadas. And no, this isn't like a joke thing...the school announcements would encourage it, and OUR GOD DAMN TV PROGRAM THAT AIRED EVERY FRIDAY DID A SEGMENT ON THE FUN AND GLORIES OF CICADA EATING.
It was in 9th grade. It was the year (every 17 or so years like that other guy said) when cicadas would come out of hibernation or whatever the hell they do and basically infest the streets for a month or 3 and then all die/disappear.
Apparently, my school decided it'd be a great idea if we took some of the cicadas, put them in our mouth, crunched their carapace, and swallowed their disgusting bodies, eyes and legs and all.
There was a newspaper article on it. There was a segment on how eating cicadas was healthy (with clips of people swallowing cicadas, of course), and it was pretty much encouraged. Why, I don't know, but it was.
I really, honestly, truly wish I was joking or exaggerating, but I'm not in the slightest. Our damn weekly TV program would show people eating cicadas and glorifying it.
Speaking of which, just the other day I found a cicada (one of the kinds that don't come every 17 years; a different breed or something) by my front door. I think you can guess what happened next.
Regarding Mel's comment, it's complete BS. The whole "eating spiders while you sleep" myth is busted here:
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/whileyousleep.html
Speaking of "busted", what are we up to? Like eight or nine people who've mentioned the mouse/elephant thing on MythBusters so far? Skimming comments before posting should be required by law.
I was in Japan earlier this year, a bit ealier than the Cicada's started coming out in force. You could hear them at night but luckily never saw any around. However, what were around were much worse. Japanese Hornets. Holy fuck, but those things scared the shit out of me. Bugs should NOT be that big, especially ones with poisonous stingers on their rear ends.
Had any experience with these Az?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Fg28YZOjo
IS this it?
I was mistaken before. I actually do have a cicada mounted on the wall. Along with a mole cricket (I think the Japanese word is 'okera'). And a bunch of other critters.
At least with spiders you have some reason to be wary. Many of them have fangs and can give a painful bite (even if not a poisonous one).
Maybe we should all chip in and rent Az the movie Arachnophobia. I'm sure he'd love it...
"#34. There is porn for it. No exceptions."
Nope -- I went and looked up a particular type of
porn, and got no results. (I'd tell you what it was,
but then some sick fuck would go and make some....)
cicadas? pfft
google "weta"
you can see where LOTR got their bug ideas
"...This kind of thing exists?"
Yeah... well the internet is a harsh and unforgiving land. So yes indeed bug fetishes much like eels and octopus fetishes exist. I saw one once with tiny little fish involved...
Unless your 'woman' is into having 'women' then you are down to only video games being a plus for Japan. Oh, and your fellow Rudius writer Trixie did an entry about Cicadas but it was really june bugs spray painted gold or something for wearing.
Kudos to you for being able to mask your fear! My personal phobia is any kind of spider; the other day I was reading a website and at the top of the page there was an animated banner of hairy tarantulas. I screamed and hit x.
"...Speaking of, I've always wondered how Anakin Skywalker "accidentally" got Padme pregnant. Like, if there's anyone in the universe who can master the Pull-Out-No-Jutsu, shouldn't it be the Jedi? I mean, Darth Vader could Force-choke the life out of a person, but he couldn't even keep his boys in check? What's the deal with that?"
What with a metaclorian count that high it's a wonder he's not knocking up women right and left. He could force impregnate a woman from half a mile away. Remember his mom got knocked up without even having sex.
Cicadas are terrible. I remember a few years back in my senior year of high school a cicada flew into my ear which made me freak the fuck out and shake everything off of me. Cicadas are terrible, terrible fucking creatures. I do find it funny that they only live to procreate and then die. Basically they eat, sleep, sex, die.
I live in England and for a few weeks every september there are daddy long legs everywhere! In my old secondary school, there was a bike shed next to the path that led from one building to the other. This shed was painted black, but for those weeks in September it turned brown, covered in daddy long legs. I was so afraid of being knocked onto this shed that i'm pretty sure that if i had, i would have died frozen in some horrible pose like in the ring.
Woohoo! My comment made the front page! I should also say that I don't blame you for your reactions to the bugs. I hate the little fuckers too. I take tremendous satisfaction when the death birds (aka giant crows) and little sparrows or whatever gang up on the cicaedas and the little bastards scream in terror as the feathered menace closes in on them.
Hey Az
I know what the other poster was talking about when he said that a specific type of cicada(Its the Brood X Cicada--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_X_Cicada) that come every 17 years. 2004 marked year 17 and I was 18 at the time so I didn't know what the hell was about to go down. Next thing you know, I started seeing more cicada popping up every where, in one instance, while trying to go to the supermarket, I had spotted about 35 of them hanging out on my car. You think that cicada's in japan are bad, the Brood X cicada came out in biblical proportions that year.
One time, while walking to meet my boyfriend at the time, I had to walk past this big tree. All of a sudden a bird came out of no where and dove into the tree(obviously to get a mouthful of cicada's). At that point, every single freakin' cicada that was on that tree (hundreds of thousands of them) started flying away, most in my direction. I tried to run the hell out of there but obviously not fast enough because I had to swat away cicada's that were latching on to my back and hair.
What really topped it off was that when I had calmed myself down from about to have a heart attack and had finally met my boyfriend, there was a huge ass cicada on his shoulder camping out and he hadn't noticed. I was so through that day and was ready to pack my stuff and get the hell out of maryland.
This isn't making me too optimistic about going to Japan next week for a freakin' year. Especially considering I live in the one country of the world that most bugs seem to have looked at and said, 'fuck THAT for a lark'. I didn't know what a cicada WAS till I looked it up.
Also. Japanese Hornets. My friends have been terrifying the hell out of me with videos of those hellspawn demons for months now.
It's not just Chicago. I can't speak for other major cities, but we have the same 17-year-cicada plan that Chicago does (only they're not timed together). I remember the one about four years ago. Walking down my friend's street was like running the gauntlet in a Hitchcock movie.
Funny thing is, in my neighborhood we didn't have any of them, because there hasn't been any construction there for a century (and they burrow into places where the soil is loose). Any place in the city with old houses is like that. The suburbs, though? They're royally fucked.
I view this as nature's way of poking rich people in the eye.
I'm a bit of a bug lover myself. As a little girl I was fascinated with the little critters. One prank I played on my Mom was on vacation in the middle of mayfly season. I gathered 50 mayflies, and held them all by the wings. This resulted in a wriggling writhing ball of legs that got taken to Mom for 'dinner'.
Still have fun stories with it now.
As for how my love of insects fits into adult life, My most prized pair of earrings is made of of bright green, irridescent beetle wings.
Of course the only reason I say all this is to 'bug' the squeamish. >=3
There is a porn company that specialized in porn wiith bugs. And unagis. And goldfish. And poulpes too. I'm surprised you've never heard of it, the torrents surface quiet regularly on 4chan.
Oh, do i need to mention this company is japanese ? no i don't think i need.
You play alone in the dark 8 on your new xbox 8560.
You walk a dark corridor.
You've got your gun with only one ammo left.
You open a door
Everything's black, but you can hear a growing sound
it goes mi mi mi mI MI MI MIIIIIIII
Az wife : "hey, why is the TV on with the xbox runing and why are you locked in the kitcheen ?"
http://tinyurl.com/65cd64
well it's not bugs but snails, but this video still freaks me out :)
I only recently realized that I've heard cicadas all my life so we've always had them but I've never seen them.
We have two kinds, one that sounds like a snake rattle and another one that I thought was some kind of electrical sound (the typical sound).
The sound was odd to me but never seemed too loud.
I would like to donate to you to your wedding fund but I wasn't able to find your Paypal link anymore. While you may think donating to you is simply charity, you also have to realize that you are providing us Japanophiles(and non-Japanophiles) a service by blogging about Japan. Your a good writer and very interactive with the readers. Heck, not that long ago you had an entry reminding readers that you are still alive, and it was because you were seemingly worried that *we* were worried. How is this not a service to us?