I have a phone with a 16.1 megapixel camera. It's pretty pointless as it doesn't really take great photos, but it is useful if you want to use up all of the internal memory in a couple of shots. So I have mostly stopped trying to take pretty photos, and instead just snap pictures of stupid stuff I see on my daily travails that I can crack wise about later.

 The example sentence in this entry in my electronic dictionary made me laff for some reason. It sounds like something a nerd comedian would say (specifically Dmitri Martin)

No cracking wise necessary for this next one.

 This poster says "Bicycle Accidents. Increase Dramatically!". I don't know if this is a statment or an encouragement to automobilists. By the stae of the roads sometimes, as a cylcist, I lean towards the latter.

 This was a traditional Japanese "water magic" show where this woman made water squirt from different objects. About halfway through I had the sudden thought: "Why am I turned on?"

This here is possibly the saddest photograph of all time. It is a long run down pachinko parlour, that is rusting and literally being overgrown by weeds.

This is a picture of the famous sculpture at Nikko of the See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil. Surely it has been done before by somebody, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to pose in front of it for a "F*ck no Evil" pose. 

 Japanese dramas often have scenes where the main character skips school to lie down on the riverbank. I thought this was so cliche, but once I tried it myself, I was hooked. I often bike into Tokyo, and there is a long stretch (about 30 minutes) along the Edo-gawa river. Recently, I have been taking small breaks there to have a drink, some lunch, listen to my MP3 player, watch the sun set over the golf course and river and strengthen a cliche.

 This also needs no cracking wise, although I will say that the rabbit looks about right.

 This is a small shrine/grave right by my dorm. There are often offerings in front of it. Usually it is a piece of fruit which over the course of a couple of weeks turns brown and powdery, but this time there are three perfectly good cans of beer there. And I'm not talking about the cheap stuff - this is Kirin Beer. Every time I pass by, I want to re-enact that scene from 7 Years in Tibet where Brad Pitt raids a shrine for the food. 3 beers! At my current state, that's enough to get me well-trollied.

This was a floor map at a museum, and I just had to laugh when I saw the key for what the green section is. This is one of those words I would love to use in a conversation, but I can't bring myself to do it without laughing.

 You know how fat chicks often stand in a circle and take pictures of their feet to show how great friends they are? Well, I was on the train with three guy friends and couldn't help notice this photo-op of gender role reversals. I didn't mention that I took this photo, because it would have seemed a little gay/predatory, and because they would never have agreed to it.

This is at a festival, and my friend is just casually strolling by a table full of robotic dildoes.

A "Dramatic Hotel". This is obviously a euphemism for a "love hotel", but I love it when people try so hard to be euphemistically sexy that it just sounds ridiculous. Besides, it's not dramatic if you do "it" in a healthy Christian way: Get married, shake hands firmly, and then roll over to sleep.

Japan loves two things: fireworks and cartoons. Recently fireworks have become more advanced to include things like disney characters and here: a smily face. It's pretty hard to photograph on my phone camera, and it kind of looks like the smily face is bleeding from the eyes, but you get the idea.

Lastly, here is probably the most disgusting photo I've ever taken. Be cautioned if you don't want to see it. The story is, I was taking the last train home after drinking, so once the train finally arrived at my station I was buting to offload the beer and gin from 90 minutes earlier. On the way to the urinal at the station, I saw this scene by the squatter toilet.... Someone had taken a dump and missed the middle the porcelain, and there was a pair of discarded boxers. Now, you just know there has to be a hilarious story behind this scene, and I would give anything to hear it. However, we will never know. All we have is this picture of immesuarble vileness. And this is why having a camera on your phone is not a great idea. Anyway, that's all I have for now. Scroll down if you want to see this terrible photo and possibly imagine a story of your own.

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What's the Deal With Basketball and Enormous Clothing?

I'm pissed. This has simply gone too far. You may have seen my previous post of me in my new basketball uniform. It looks okay because I was tucked in, and also the fabric was thick and double-layered because it was reversable. However, last week we got our uniform replaced with a light micro-fibre version. A teammate gave me my singlet still in its wrapper, and I noticed the sticker which said XXXL. You have got to be fucking kidding me.

 This is me wearing the singlet face-on. I am wearing my boxer shorts, but the singlet is so large that it's basicaly a one-piece miniskirt.

 This is me faith-hilling in the singlet so show you the kind of room I'm working with. How the hell am I supposed to play basketball in this thing?

See, I am what I call a "lean build". Other people call me skinny, which pissed me off. They tell me I should eat more, and all I can think is that they should die more. Fuck you. I eat like a racehorse with a tapeworm - I just make sure I eat good food, and I have always excercised and played sport. Don't insult me because you're a lazy piece of crap. Sure, I don't have a lot of muscle bulk - several times I thought I should drink protein shakes and lift weights, but the problem with that is if I ever stopped, I would simply go back to my current physique only with extra skin like a lipo-suction patient.

And really, I'm super-stoked about my body. I'm fit, strong enough for anything I need to do, and I have a feeling that the reason I have hardly ever been injured is because I don't weigh so much. The only thing I have to be careful of is my selection of clothing. The last thing I want to do is accentuate my ganglyness so I often wear ball-hugging jeans with flares, and I buy my t-shirts several sizes too small. This is because sizes are generally calibrated by height, which as a realtively tall person doesn't work for me. I usually spring for size M. I don't need the sleeves to come down to my elbows anyway. This worked out pretty well for me in the past since much of my clothing were hand-me-downs from my older brother who was shorter than me.

Basketball has always been an issue for me. For some reason (probably black people), basketball clothing is always in super-large sizes. This fashion quickly made its way to my small town in New Zealand. I still have a singlet for my team when I was 11 years old, and it still fits me.Hell, I'm still growing into it. I still have memories of going up the court on a fast break, dribbling with my right hand while using my left hand to lift the shoulder part of the singlet back onto my shoulder.

So when I got my new XXXL singlet, my heart dropped. I put it on, and it looked more like curtains than a singlet. Seriously, a singlet should never "drape". I've watched enough Project Runway to know this. The armholes were so huge that I could fit three of my arms through each one, which would be great if I were Vishnu. I feel like the "after" picture of an advert for a diet programme. This singlet has so much fabric that I felt like a hippy lady who decided to go from hemp to microfibre. Worst of all, I felt like that little kid again running up the court worrying more about the singlet falling off his frame more than scoring the ball - the kid that has been called skinny his whole life.

You may think that I am exaggerating, but I could seriously fit two people inside this singlet. You don't believe me? Here is a visual representation. I put my pillow in the front, and photoshopped myself again into the singlet. Note that the fabric is not being stretched, and there is still room for another arm. [Note: try not to get too turned on at the image of me spooning myself.]


(Never mind the fact that a double Mad-Dog would undoubtedly be the greatest basketball player of all time)


What is even more annoying is that I specifically asked for a size L. Well, I asked for an M, but my Japanese teammates kept saying that I was the tallest player on the team (not entirely true) so I should go up a few sizes. Eventally I settled on an L, which became this comically large XXXL. Now, I don't entirely blame my teammates. Japanese people - and expecially those who play basketball - are conditioned to think that "American Fashion" is cool. The thing is, it's cool on black people, not white guys who get pissed off when people call him skinny - which everyone will continue to do if I'm wearing these drapes. 

Look, I'm not asking for a return to the short-shorts of the 80s or skintight cycling uniforms, but can we please stop trying to put me in these ridiculous clothes? Thank you.