Akihabara’s best, slogging through the rain to see one of their idols.

I spent the last few days at Redflagdeals. The first post I made there triggered quite a few welcome back messages – and brought out the exact same trolls. It was a thrill to realize that the exact same people were still having fits thinking about me.

It’s sad how some people can’t get over the success of others.

Another day lost! Money rapidly running out. Only weeks left. So much alone! So need money! So need job! So need visa! So much uncertainty!

Uncertainty to stress to anger. Japan sucks. Tokyo sucks. People around me too stingy to help! Racists! Bigots! We won the war! Too angry to eat. Too hungry to think. Try the big picture. Try “simple” fix.

Easy solution found! Very easy! One messy night with bar slut will fix problems one and two! I’m smart!

No! A flawed solution! Don’t want! I’m not ready. Bitter headaches! I hate you all! I hate my job! Stress is hate, an unending stream upon which i float to an inevitable destination. Re-clear my mind – avoid inevitable rampage and incarceration. Wait – simple solution found!

No No No! Not the loneliness again! Must grab hold! Something…anything… out there, on a sea of pain is my sweet succor! I am in her clutches, she will save me!

No! Anti-Christ! Pain! Withdraw! Quickly!

No! Alone!

Yes! Solution! Permanant!

I sleep in fire. Why????

One of the odd benefits of being a Muslim is that I can just go to a mosque and meet 20 decent people. Being a Japanese outcast nerd precludes most of that. Just try setting up a meeting on Mixi or 2chan if you don’t believe me.

Asahi took a day off from constant coverage of million dollar frauds; today’s interesting front page story is about corner / convenience stores (such as 7-11 and Lawson) overtaking department stores in terms of sales. It turns out that these stores, first introduced into Japan a mere 40 years ago, now have more than 73 billion dollars in sales an year. Much of this comes through increased sales of in-house brands and income from ATMs, as well as people avoiding the hassle of using tobacco vending machines (to use them now, you have to produce a special magnetic card that proves your age.)

There is an uplifting story about a company converting 1000 hakken (part time & contract workers) to “sei sha in” status (company employees). The fact that this is front page news says a lot about the current economic status, not to mention the vicious job market for the Japanese lost generation. The second page has some more depressing news, in a fascinating nearly-full page article about laid off factory workers in China. Conditions are so dire that many people don’t have enough money to go back to their home villages; in some cases, they have been robbed of all the money they’ve made in their sojurn in the big city. I might even try to translate the article, it was fascinating reading.

On the “Islamic News’ front, there is a front page article about Iraq (and Obama’s apparent plans to withdraw from the country) and an article about Gaza on the front page (and how Safa was basically reduced to a mountain of rubble). I always find it depressing that Muslims only make the front page if it is something utterly awful that happens (although that seems to be the truth for most front page news in Japan). There’s also an interesting article on Mohammad Saleheen on the second page (a member of the World Food Program).