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My thirsty wanted whiskey; my hungry needed beans,
But it’d been of month of paydays since I’d heard that eagle scream.
So with a stomach full of empty and a pocket full of dreams,
I left my pride and stepped inside a bar.

Been listening to wayyyy too much alt-country lately. Pretty much anything from before 1980, and then all the Uncle Tupelo / Neko Case stuff from the 90s and 00s (ought oughts). That last Johnny Cash record is… wow. And pretty much anything Waylon Janson recorded before 1975 is blissy. I heard some pretty authentic country while I was in Japan with really salty Japanese lyrics, and I really want to get my workin’ hands on some of that.

That said, I was thinking about it, and arcade games are really close to the country music of games. Built from whatever was available at the time, cheap in many ways but endearing none the less. Pure. Alive.

Today was my first day back to work. Everything feels so strange now.

I had Eggo waffles today for the first time since my childhood. They had bits of strawberry in them, and I ate the second stack with no syrup (since, apparently, I now find syrup disgusting). It made me wonder how long somebody at the Eggo Corp Or Whatever, Ltd., spent trying to convince some higher-ups that adding fruity flavoring to the waffles was a good idea.

satisfy your quest for adventure, originally uploaded by bburbank.

Jess and I are back, yay?

I’ve uploaded the best of the pictures, but I’m not done tagging / organizing them all. Check ‘em out on my flickr.

Jetlag is fucking AWESOME.

gundam: man or woman?, originally uploaded by skelethulu.

I look forward to my inevitable return to Japan with more excitement than I have welled up in years. Last day summary:

• Ate at a Japanese fast food place called Yoshinoya. For like $5 I got a huge bowl of curry and rice, a bowl of udon WITH A FRIED EGG ON TOP, and a couple tempura’d things. They also had free tea.
• Jess and I went out to Asakusa, a particularly old part of town. Outside of the most important shrine in Tokyo (I think it was even in Azumanga Daioh), there was a huge tourist trappy market. There were lots of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese tourists out there!
• Wandered around for a little while in Asakusa and found a sweet amuzement park. We didn’t ride anything, but I bought a shirt.
• Walked up and down this restaurant supply district; bought a bunch of chopsticks, saw some really great deals on a lot of stuff that we couldn’t fit in our luggage.
• I bought a GIGANTIC Mountain Dew for 120 yen. Seriously, this thing was a MAN’S Mountain Dew.
• Rolled out for Akihabara, for the last time. Saw an American or Australian jerkwad in a girl’s kimono (it looked as if he didn’t know this, since he was a pretty “tough” guy with sharp teeth). Walked into a game store that sold import games from the USA for like 300% the cover price.
• Met up with Tim; he showed us to Super Potato. By the way, Super Potato has a pretty good selection, but there are definitely better stores around Akihabara. I think the reason US gamer guys think it’s so sweet is because it’s the only store in Akihabara that lets you take pictures. Everything was about 2-3 times what it should have cost…
• Walked over to Ueno, our favorite part of town. I’d been saving up change for a couple days for this one particular gashapon machine, and it was a glorious feeling to practically empty it. It was the only machine of this type I’d seen in all of Japan (I think it was exclusive to this one store), and I ended up making the items inside it exceedingly rare!
• I bought a Lavendar Purple PSP at a Yodobashi Camera. Jess had been eyeing them the entire trip. It’s the “rare” color over here, in that it’s the only one that is consistently sold out. The Yodobashi in Ueno only had one left… Coincidentally, the PSP Slim was hacked a couple days ago!
• Met up with Jess’ friend and did some Karaoke. This experience will get its own post later.
• Went out to Tim’s apartment (near Asakusa) and got my PSP Slim hacked. The first game this PSP ever ran was Cave Story. It was a pretty small apartment! That would be something difficult to deal with, I assume! However his rent was only $700 a month, so there are probably larger places around.
• Got some conveyor belt sushi. It was a pretty fun experience! We put our plates into this counting slot machine thing and I made a bet with fate that were we to win a prize I would fight as hard as I could to live here.
• We won a tiny car toy!
• Went into an actual Japanese supermarket. It was weird, since this was an American-style supermarket, the first of its kind I’d seen here. Stocked up on some candy.
• Walked over to Mos Burger, which is a moderately popular burger joint here, and rocked some of that. It was pretty tasty! It was also like the first food I’d had here that seemed bad for me!
• We said our goodbyes.

The sun is coming up, and I didn’t sleep all night.

I have about 500 more photos to upload; the past few days have been BRUTAL with the amount of stuff Japan has been showing me. Plus, I gotta’ pack to get back home. Real quick bulleted list leading up to our last day:

• Went out to Nikko, a massive temple city on a mountain. INCREDIBLE. It’s where the hear / see / speak no evil monkey caricatures came from. It’s also the site of the 3rd largest Buddha in the world. Oh! And it’s a tomb of a Shogun.
• Thursday, we got up and went our separate ways for the morning; Jess went to the Imperial Palace and I went out to Akihabara.
• Met up with Tim in Ikebukuro where we went to Namjatown, a weird “theme park” inside the only shopping mall (it’s also the only underground shopping mall) in Tokyo. It’s owned by Namco! It has two important features: Gyoza Stadium and Ice Cream City. It also has a stupid haunted forest and probably some other dumb stuff. It’s the closest to Iron Chef I’ll probably ever experience.
• Shopped around Ikebukuro a little; that place is pretty excellent. Saw some sweet guitar stores and even more enormous camera stores. I tried to buy the latest Chanbara game for PS2 but they wouldn’t sell it to me because I didn’t have my passport. Fortunately! I’ve picked up a lot of little bits of the language while I’m here, so I was able to apologize and get out while the getting was good.
• Got some donuts on the way home. They’re nothing like donuts here! They’re like what somebody who had only ever seen donuts in a movie would make. Round bread covered in strawberry frosting.
• Yesterday, Jess and I went out to Tokyo Disney Sea, which is only a 15 minute ride by train from Tokyo Station. It was pretty excellent! Kind of like a Disney version of Islands of Adventure. Saw this show there:
  
• On the way home, and this is REALLY IMPORTANT, I stopped in a news stand and bought a fresh copy of Weekly Famitsu. I’m really, really going to miss this place.

okonomiyaki night boat, originally uploaded by skelethulu.

Started off with some Japanese KFC Breakfast. I was really curious! Jess got some weird mushroom soup with noodles thing and I got a sesame chicken breakfast sandwich on a HOT FRESH WHITE BUNS. After that we headed back to Shibuya and ACTUALLY FOUND STORES FROM DIRECTIONS AND A MAP in the midst of that giant world.

After that, we went out to Koenji, where Grasshopper Manufacture is headquartered among hundreds of used clothing shops. Ate a Totally Amazing Taco with Tim at one of Goichi Suda’s frequented haunts. There was a sign that said “LUCHAS” over the bathroom.

Tim’s girlfriend set us up with this Okonomiyaki boat ride thing at night. It was definitely the weirdest dinner I’ve ever had! Also, I had no idea HOW MUCH WATER is hidden downtown here. I bet you could live here for a year without seeing the Sumida River, unless somebody hooked you up with an Okonomiyaki boat ride.

WINDOW UP, originally uploaded by skelethulu.

Jess and I have been all the hell over this city. Let’s see:

• Ueno Park is enormous. It has like 5 or 6 temples in it, and we wandered around and walked along a pretty famous cherry blossom path (though they won’t be in bloom until the Spring, it was still really awesome!).
• Went back to Akihabara for an amazing shopping spree. I played this game “Shmups Skill Test” at an arcade and it is easily my favorite shooter I’ve played in a long time! It’s set up where you have to survive or destroy stuff in typical shooter patterns, and at th eend you get a Big Brain Academy chart showing which areas you could use improvement on. For instance, I got nearly a perfect score for the raw firepower section (press the button as fast as possible for as long as you can; man did my arm ache after that), but I pretty much straight up failed at grabbing powerups during bullet patterns.
• Met Tim Rogers in Nakano and hung out in the mall where Yuji Hori (the Dragon Quest designer) came up with the idea for Dragon Quest. It was awesome, there were staircases that would skip floors, and lots of dead ends, and as you got higher up the prices got more expensive. We had some delicious curry over there at a really small curry bar, like the ones you see in Naruto or whatever. It’s weird, because I really dislike Indian style curry; I cannot get enough curry here, it’s perfectly spiced.
• Went over to Shinjuku and hit up Yodobashi and Bic Camera while Tim was questing for some games, much in the way that I would do this back home, only we were doing this in the part of Tokyo where thousands of people line up when a new game or console comes out. After about seven stores we found most of what we were looking for (in a Japanese equivalent to Blockbuster Video, no less). Shinjuku Station takes about two hours to walk around. Maybe longer.
• From Shinjuku, we walked over to Kabukicho, a district where yakuza hang out in arcades, bars, and pachinko places. We walked up and down the street where a level in the game “Ryu Ga Gotoku” takes place (the game was released in the US as “Yakuza”, and I watched some youtube videos and it’s pretty UNCANNY to see real places in there). Tim took us to an arcade that had the most excellent version of Outrun 2 SP in the world. It was a dual sit down cab shaped like a giant Ferarri; the seats rocked in all directions, the music was LOUD AS HELL, the screen was probably 70″, and for NO REASON AT ALL there were two steering wheels per car. While driving, the game would switch between drivers if one guy screwed up. It’s absolutely the Best Outrun I Ever Had, and according to Tim, this is the only Outrun machine like this left IN THE WORLD.
• That was definitely the longest day we have had in Tokyo. My dogs was seriously barking.
• The next day (Monday) we went out to Mitaka to see the Ghibli museum. Miyazaki designed the whole thing. It was not like a “here’s some history” museum; it was a “this is what Ghibli is” museum. It’s definitely the best museum I’ve ever been to, and it’s the only place where art has brought tears to my eyes. They wouldn’t let us take pictures in there, but we bought the book that has like all the stuff well documented and photographed, but there’s no way to see the zoetropes going and hear that fanciful music again.

okonomiyaki is DELICIOUS, originally uploaded by skelethulu.

Today Jess and I met up with a friend of hers that is living here teaching English and took a BLITZKRIEG TOUR of Shibuya and Harajuku. We ate Okonomiyaki, which is like egg + cabbage + ginger + batter + (salmon or beef or curry stuff or whatever) = pancakes. It’s probably the NUMBER ONE REASON to live in Japan.

The most incredible thing about this town, for me at least, is that EVERY DAMN TIME I get off the train and walk out onto the street, I’m walking into some ENORMOUS GAPING MAW of lights and ads and windows and well dressed people that puts Times Square to shame. It’s not like New York City here. It’s like 10 or 20 New York Cities.

tim rogers eating a gundam rifle, originally uploaded by skelethulu.

Tim Rogers gave us the Official Action Button Dot Net Tour of Akihabara this afternoon, and it was pretty freaking awesome. It was like a world where people saw youtube videos of Japan and then MADE THEM FLESH. My whole body hurts, but I did pick up some sweet stuff, like some kids books and the second volume of the Japanese textbook set I’ve been inching my way through.

kids walking to school in ginza, originally uploaded by skelethulu.

Jess and I walked around Ginza this morning before everything opened. Our hotel is only a couple blocks away from it. After a couple hours we headed back to the hotel for a nap, and this afternoon we’re going to Akihabara with The Greatest Videogame Reviewer In the World, Tim Rogers.

Make sure to check out my flickr, as I’ll be uploading pictures pretty frequently.

And I have internet access in my room. Yay!

Total time from my front door to our hotel room: 22 physical hours. However, it’s Thursday night here now. And I haven’t slept a full night’s sleep in 4 days.

Some people on select button were talking about this a couple days ago, and I think it’s an extremely interesting topic! Basically, what is the perfect airport game? What game would you only play while being trapped in a plane for way too many hours? It was mentioned that OCD gamers probably plan out the games they’ll play in much greater detail than they’ll plan out the actual vacation or business trip. So, I’ve been going through my library, trying to quantify games as either good or bad for air travel, and I have a handful in my carry-on for Tokyo. I tried my hardest to grab as many GBA games as possible, as the GBA Micro is my favorite handheld system out there. Let’s see, these were my top picks:

• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA) - 5 out of 5 airplanes
• The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap (GBA) - 5 out of 5 airplanes
• Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation 2 (GBA) - 4 out of 5 airplanes
• Gunstar Super Heroes (GBA) - 4 out of 5 airplanes
• Chu Chu Rocket (GBA) - 4 out of 5 airplanes
• Super Mario Bros. 3 (GBA) - 4 out of 5 airplanes
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (NDS) - 5 out of 5 airplanes
• Contact (NDS) - 4 out of 5 airplanes
• Sonic Rush Adventure (NDS) - 4 out of 5 airplanes
• Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (NDS) - 4 out of 5 airplanes

My basic criteria focused on games I could completely destroy in under 30 hours (total roundtrip airtime for my trip), or at least make enough progress to feel “done.” Big bonuses include frequent save points (so I can fall asleep) and simple gameplay (except for Super Robot Wars, which is just good times).

Then I was at gamegames and they had Jeanne D’Arc used for $25 ($23 after discount card + tax), and that seems like it might be the perfect game. For the first time in months, I pulled Outrun 2006 out of my PSP!

Also, this was on kotaku today, but in cased you missed it, this is ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL machinima using Team Fortress 2:

Christmas!, originally uploaded by skelethulu.

The wood faceplate FINALLY drops into the sub-$5 range and I get home, put it on, and face THIS. Looks like I won’t be playing much Halo when I get back from Japan.

So, I’ve obviously slipped a few days here, but rest assured, the experiment is far from over. I need to take a small break, is all. Two birthdays in a row (myself and Jess) wore me out for the past couple weeks; it doesn’t help that 4 or 5 ABSOLUTE MUST PLAY NOW games have dropped recently. Also, I leave for 10 days in Tokyo in a few days here, and it’s unrealistic for me to think I’ll be tasking over there.

Until I start posting regularly again (most likely at the end of October), I’ll be studying up on some excellent textbooks: Game Physics Engine Development and Real-Time Collision Detection, both in the Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology. They’re both pretty excellent so far, just about the most comprehensive books on their topics.

The whole point of this exercise was for me to make meaningful game development experience every day, and for just a little while here, that will be in the form of me reading these books.