Time for a little Sienfeld-esque ranting, where I ask the important questions, like "what's up with that?"

So, eye patches. What's up with that? No, I'm serious. Are the Japanese prone to eye infections? I thought it was just me until somebody brought it up at an izakaya the other night. And then we all realized we were not alone in this observation: everybody seems to be wearing eye patches and not the cool pirate kind either. I saw maybe three people today, and I don't get out much.

Bread. Why does all the bread... HOW does all the bread here look and smell so goddamn good but taste so terrible? It's like they get so close and then, what, they have to add that one extra thing. "Oh, yeah, this is great. But you know what this needs? Some spoiled mayonnaise. That would just raise the bar. We need to push the bread envelope!" Stop pushing. The bread envelope is torn and the mayo inside is spoiled. Who in their right mind puts bad mayonnaise in bread? And not just any bread. Breakfast rolls. Croissants! With sour mayo inside! And what's even more stupid is I keep falling for the same practical joke. "Oh this looks good. Oh gawd, it's awful! Oh, but this one looks great. Oh christ! Who put this burned sour rubber chunk of mayo in here! Maybe this one..."

On hold music. To save money, every company in Japan hired the same untrained Kitaro wannabes with their casiotones to do their in-store and on hold music. Unfortunately, the only fakebook these guys could steal was some version of Arthur Fielder plays the Beatles. To make up for the lack of skill, every store must play this music at MAXIMUM VOLUME.

Speaking of maximum volume, which is more convincing: "please vote for me", or "PLEASE VOTE FOR ME!!!!!!"? It's the same mentality that causes people to yell real loud at Hispanic bussers. "PLEASE-O VOTE-O FOR ME-O!!!!" Shout it loud at 10 at night from every corner and every hill and mole-hill in Takatsuki! Let blather ring! Oh yeah, I'm convinced. There must be a diet full of the hard of hearing. I know our government is.

And then there's the language! Jisho! Tamago! It's like they've got a different word for everything here!*

*sorry, Mr. Martin.