Protocol 7

The West has always lagged behind Japan when it comes to technological innovation, especially in the realm of robots and heated toilet seats. Humanoid machines and warm bums are indeed exciting, but pale in comparison to the unsung combini (convience store), whose shopping experience Japan has elevated to an artform. And the Pièce de résistance? Canned oxygen.

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My limited edition set of web designer buttons has finally made it to my doorstep after taking a somewhat circuitous route via my mom’s house (thanks mom!). Khoi Vinh’s design originally triggered my buying impulse, but I must say that all the designs (and designers) are quite fetching. Now my sabo-kitty finally has some company.

The buttons, the buttons, the buttons.

Sabo-kitty doesn’t take shit from anyone.

Japanese-English, or Engrish, adorns every other physical object in Japan, from clothing to billboards to candy. It’s near impossible to avoid the omnipresent poetic flourishes painted on the side of pachinko parlours and gas stations, and has even inspired several websites dedicated to documenting the phenomenon, including an online store that sells various items emblazoned with reproduced Engrish phrases.

Westan toilets and soft dinks are not limited to the realm of printed text, but also find their home in spoken communications. A ‘biking lunch’ isn’t a midday meal on a bicycle, but an all-you-can-eat buffet (spelled Viking and derived from smorgasbord, go figure). Shorts are called ’short pants’, lest you get confused with something else that is short, and ‘expat’ is apparently something you shoot at (this one I still haven’t figured out). Whether the Engrish is spoken or printed, native speakers are enchanted with the new linguistic configurations that confront them day in and day out (or at least I am).

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Well, technically I’ve been legal for about a decade now, give or take, depending on what country you live in. But more importantly, as of Friday afternoon, I am playing World of Warcraft legally.

Whether poorly-hosted illegal servers are part of Blizzard’s overall marketing scheme or just a by-product of primordial internet chaos (you know, sans-regulations and all), my experience on the Outofdate Private server was enough to convince me that a) I really wanted to play the game and b) WoW is worth the monthly fee (for now, at least).

Not only was I running around in the most hideous green biker pants imaginable, I was running around in what appeared to be a beta-release of the WoW server at best. Which is tolerable when you are playing for free, but when you lose your character not once, not twice, but three times, you know that the old cliche is true; there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

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