Two days of no water

When I got back from California on Monday night there was a piece of paper posted to my door.

IMPORTANT UPDATE
TOMORROW! WATER WILL BE OFF BUT WILL BE TURNED ON AGAIN AT NIGHT.
MAKE SURE YOU TAKE YOUR SHOWERS BEFORE 7:30 IN THE MORNING
FILL UP CUPS WITH WATER SO YOU CAN FLUSH YOUR TOILET

It said something like that. First thing in the morning, around 7:45, I had to relieve my bowels. I completely forgot about the note left on my door as I was delirious and you don't remember things when you have to use the potty.

I tried to flush and realized there was no water.

I searched "water off" and I got this image of God knows what. 

All fine and good. The landlord warned us at least. The last 3 times they shut off the water, there was no warning. The first time it happened I was all set to pickle eggs. I threw a lot of unboiled eggs at the wall and said, "Fuck."

The water was turned back on at night and we were able to flush that toilet. The next day, the water was off again. All day. From 7am to 7pm. And then shut off again at 7:30pm until midnight.

Mind you, it's 105 degrees in Austin. I went out to my 'balcony' and called the landlord's office to complain. I had a very measured but obviously pissed off tone. I looked around and saw nobody else was as pissed as I was. There were people playing basketball in 105 degree weather.

About five minutes after my call to the office, our neighbor comes out yelling and screaming. She was probably getting into a fight with her girlfriend again. Nope. She was on the phone.

"Fuck y'all, this shit is unbelievable. The water's been like this for two fucking days and you got god damned Roto Rooter breaking more than they can fix. Fuck this shit!"

Repeat this for another five minutes.

Thank God for people that blow up when you're too afraid to.

100 In shops

I don't know if other parts of the US had stores called the ".99 Cent" stores, but in Southern California we sure did.  The 99 Cent stores had a reputation too. 

Mexicans

Questionable food

Questionable Mexicans

Anyways, coming from a lower-middle middle class family we didn't really need to shop here much. In fact, the only time we went there was to pick up novel gifts for whatever reason. I remember I bought some shady looking pillow happened to end up being my fart cushion for my chair; 99 cents well spent.

Digression again. Yes, there are 99 Cent store equivalents in Japan, but they aren't of the shady caliber that they are in southern California at least.  In fact, there are quite a few and they happen to be quite popular with most of the Japanese people. In Japan, they are called 100 en ("yen") shops and lord are they fun.

In any given 100en shop there will be at least a minimum of a million different items for purchase.  These stores are crawling with tons of stupid kids toys, makeshift laundry drawers, cute faced sponges, horrible English translated products and anything else you can name under the sun.

I make it a point to pick up a new one each time I visit.

I don't know how these 100en shops survive from a business stand-point either. I mean shoplifting here would be cake, but I think the Japanese are too proper for that.

Honestly, I don't have much to say because I didn't spend enough time taking pictures of all the individual items.  Take a stroll below to see a couple more photos and imagine how many fucking things there are to buy at these places.

Airplanes are incubators for disease, suffering, and bad behavior

I was just on a three state marathon trip. I'm glad to be back where the insects sound like nuclear fallout and sweating at night is not just for fat boys. Hello, Texas.

On the way to California I sat next to a woman who, in the middle of the flight took off her shoes. I spent half an hour being disgusted by how I imagined they smelled. I think you should wear socks on planes. It's still mildly disgusting to sit next to someone who is so comfortable with strangers that they can just take off their shoes but I'd rather my eyes stumble across thread patterns than veins and fungal toe nails.

Even though this foot looks worse than the one next to me on the plane, merely possessing the knowledge that it was not next to me makes it look like a foot fit for fucking. 

While I was busy dry heaving, I noticed her empty shoe was encroaching on my leg room territory.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to push her shoe over, accidentally bang her foot, then have to deal with whatever kind of aftermath a person who is so comfortable with strangers as to get foot naked with them would deal out to me. I put my own feet closer together and quietly suffered.

It could have been worse. I could have sat next to someone who was clipping their toe nails. I was five rows behind the person doing that once on a plane. You know how, when you see a bug, you feel like bugs are crawling all over you? Imagine imagining someone's dirty toenails are constantly pelting you on a plane with no escape.

Airplanes truly are incubators for disease, suffering, and bad behavior.

Glad to be back home in Texas.

Check out my latest on Out of the Gutter. Clickity Clackity here.

Push down the boogers

All week I've sat in front of this computer trying to think of ways to push down Big Man Japan's disgusting booger post. But I couldn't partly because I wanted to compete with those filthy, crusty things on his fingers and partly because I don't know.

In order to keep all of my published work in one archival type of place, I've made a bibliography page. It can be accessed by clicking here.

It is incomplete and an ongoing project of mine to keep it updated. In the meantime, look at how lame I was in 2009.

I searched "lame in 2009" and this image popped up. Apparently patriotism was lame in 2009. 

Crusty Dusty Japan

Coming to Japan in early March, I arrived to sea of moon faces and sterile medical masks. For the first month I was living in Japan I always wondered why the Japanese wore those damn medical masks. It reminded me of the SARs outbreak from way back when. It reminded me of this beautiful woman.

(I just wanted to use this photo)

Months later I found out that the damn near 50% of the Japanese population suffer from Hay Fever and terrible allergies thus the reason for the sea of stupid medical masks.  I suffer from asthma and terrible pollen-ous days in America damn near kill me... but here in Japan a regular pollen day has no affect on me. 

The pollen plague apparently stems from the 70s and 80s (or maybe the 60s and 70s). I'm no history major but I was told that during Japan's economic boom (post-WWII) construction began rapidly increasing. The Japanese chose the Japanese Cedar and Japanese Cypress tree to fuel the construction boom and with it they sealed their fates. During the months of February-March winds carry the pollen from these trees throughout Japan.

I'm not sure if there is anything else in the air, but whatever there is it makes for one fucking dusty ass house. Now I'm not blaming it entirely on Japan, as I've been known to shed quite a few skin cells and hair (more so than most normal people I think); However, there is no reason for the following photos below.

These before and after photos are from only a day of not cleaning... No that is not hair, nor is it food crumbs; it's dust and other shit that magically floats in through the windows. Notice the entirety of my household too.. The photo was taken, by accident, in the same spot. Photo one faces the balcony and photo two faces the door; that is the entirety of my place. WTF Japan.

But don't despair peoples there is a shinning light through all of this... and that's the boogers!!

If you're a picker like I am then you're going to have tons of fun each morning with bad boys like these:

Same nostril =D

Welcome to Japan! Happy digging!

11,000 views

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have just reached exactly 11,000 views which is cool.

His hand is the only thing in focus because his Chakras are strong there. He works them out with his just above genitals Chakra daily.

I also would like to point you to the Foxing Quarterly. I am one of the fiction editors there. We had a party last night and it was rocking. Submit poems, art, short stories, flash fiction.

I also have begun work at Write Bloody. They're from Long Beach, CA, I'm from Long Beach. They just finished their move from Long Beach to Austin, TX and have big things planned. Should be an interesting time.

Search terms as of today

Hello, Cheesers. Just dropping in to show you how people are getting here today.

Fat guy in a box is the current leader but coming in a close second is fat naked guy. Fat guy and fat dude trail by closely. black keys suck makes a strong showing but nowhere near finishing because a big fat guy is dragging him down. Drones are catching this all while naked fat guy says the black keys suck to a big fat naked fat guy.

If you're all coming here for fat naked guys in boxes might I suggest to you some erotica?

Ode to Kronung

Kronung coffee. The coffee of the gods if gods needed coffee.

One pillar, one commandment, one New Age-y rock of meditation: KRONUNG is for all.

Kronung helps me deal with the pain of learning that RedBox rentals are no longer merely a dollar a day but a dollar and thirty cents a day. It helps me deal with the feelings of insufficiency when I realize that fucking DVD has been in my car for five days. It helps me deal with feelings of rage when I can't do math and figure out exactly how much is going to come out of my checking account when I finally do return that DVD. It helps me deal with myself when I want to stab my eyes out because the movie I rented was, not that I expected it to be good, terrible beyond belief. Why did I choose RedBox? The RedBox selection is like asking your idiot friend who thought Transformers 2 was the height of Western cinema what movies he's excited about watching. 

I have Netflix. What the hell is my deal?

I have Vulcan Video, staffed by knowledgeable geeks who mask their hatred of you in ways that make you think they actually like you. Why did I turn to RedBox?

Kronung. It gets me through these questions.

On a related note:

A new Cheesin' is up on Out of the Gutter Online. Click here to read it. 

And "Droning" is up at the New Verse News. Read it here. 

Alright, y'all.

Hello faithful readers of the Cheesepaper.

Can't get enough of the cheese? Well, you're in luck because starting today I am writing a column for Out of the Gutter Online. It's called Cheesin'.

You can read the first article here.

The Cheesepaper and Cheesin' are distinct so keep reading both.