screw gatorade

In need of an energy boost? Apparently, all you need to do is drink some of this stuff:

Suntory's Nenshoukei Aminoshiki. From an ad in Omote-Sando station.

more news

Well, whaddya know? As I mentioned in Saturday's update, there was a chance of my picture showing up in the Sunday edition of the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper here in Japan. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened:

Click on the image to see the full article (in Japanese). The text is the same as the net version; the only real difference is that they included the pic this time.

So, now you know what I look like at 10:00am on a Saturday morning after having had approximately four hours of sleep the night before. I'd also just stood in line for two hours out in the cold in front of Bic Camera. In the end it was worth it, but believe me, the smile on my face was MUCH bigger once I got home and got some much-needed rest. :)

in the news...

I'm back! Well, actually, I never left. I've just been way too busy to post, which is a shame because I've got several things I really want to talk about, chief among them the awesome Nike Dunk museum exhibit that took place in Omote Sando last month. I've got a zillion pics from the exhibit, and I promise to get to them shortly. For now, I just wanted to point out a cool article from today's edition of Mainichi Interactive:

http://www.mainichi.co.jp/news/selection/20040215k0000m020039000c.html

Why is this cool? Because I'm in it! It's an article about the launch of the Famicom Mini series of classic Famicom games that came out today for Game Boy Advance. Jonny and I headed over to Shibuya this morning to be among the first to get our hands on this stuff, and we happened to pop into Shibuya Tsutaya just as the Mainichi Shimbun (one of Japan's biggest nationwide newspapers) was arriving to survey the scene. They interviewed the two of us and then took a bunch of pics of me holding my copies of Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, which may or may not show up in tomorrow morning's print edition of the newspaper.

The final paragraph of the above story says the following:

　「渋谷ＴＳＵＴＡＹＡ」（東京都渋谷区）には開店前に２０人ほどが列をつくり、目黒区の会社員、ジョン・リカーディさん（２８）は「子供のころに米国版で楽しんだ。懐かしいので買いに来ました」と話していた。【小平百恵】

...which translates to something like this:

"Around 20 people lined up in front of Tokyo's Shibuya Tsutaya this morning before opening. 'I enjoyed the American versions [of the games] when I was a kid, and I was feeling nostalgic, so I decided to come and buy them [today],' said John Ricciardi (28), a company employee from Meguro-ku."

Whoot. My mad streak of Famicom-related luck continues! Will it ever end?!