Love... is a beautiful thing....

Nice love story, with a happy end...
Happy Tree Friends style...

check it out...

Fall Out Boy - Carpal Tunnel Of Love
Uploaded by thehackfilm

Intelligent Humor....

Living in Japan, people often ask me, what do I miss the most. The first thing people ask is if I miss the food, the people, the language but I find it quite difficult to answer such question.

A few weeks ago, just screwing around the Internet and checking youtube, I finally found the answer to that question. What do I miss the most ? Intelligent Humor. 

I was never the classroom's clown, or someone who had the talent for telling jokes and making them interesting. I was never someone that would draw everyone's attention at a bar table so that I could tell a joke. I am more of a quiet kind of guy, but quite the observer. I love sarcasm. I tend to use it a bit too often, and that has gotten me in quite a few bad situations. However, I still like to make witty remarks on different situations, and I pride myself in having a general background that enables me to know enough to link situations and make them humorous.

However, living in Japan kinda makes it a handicap to try to use humor. Japanese people's humor is completely different than the traditional Western Humor. I love stand up comedy. One one my idols is Chris Rock. Recently, talking to a Japanese friend about the elections in the US, I recommended him to watch Chris Rock's latest HBO special "Kill the Messenger".

The guy watched the special and said he didn't find it that much interesting. 

Sure, stand up comedians like Chris Rock make a lot of references to Western Culture, that most Japanese don't know, so I guess that makes it a little difficult to understand.

The so-called Warai-Geinin (the Funny Personalities) in Japan are famous for making weird faces or weird routines, that have very little appeal to us foreigners. A few of them are kind of funny, but after a few times you get tired of them...

 

So, yeah, the thing I miss the most is intelligent humor.

I will post a small youtube video of Chris Rock's special, and a recently discovered brazilian stand-up comedian (the only video from that guy that has English subtitles), so enjoy...

Punk'd by the Sheets

Scene - After 40+ hours of traveling, arrival at Osaka International House 1 - Hall 2

Date - April 6, 10pm"ish"

The longest trip I have ever taken in my entire life originated quite a funny story. My first comical situation after arriving in a completely different country. Differences between Brazil and Japan go deep into the culture, even into the "sleeping" culture.

Growing up in Brazil, close the United States of America, we are subject to the North American culture in so many ways that we don't even notice. Ever since I started paying attention, in my house, we have always used box-sheets (you know, those sheets that have an elastic band on the bottom part, so that we can easily wrap the mattress with the sheets). On top of the sheets, we usually have another "layer" of sheets. And on top of the second layer of sheets, we usually put a blanket. That is how it was, that is how it has been, and that is how it will be.

A few years ago, I  decided to use a Japanese style blanket, called Futon, that was very common in my grandma's house. The Futon is a very thick blanket, but even with the Futon, I was still using the "second layer sheets" and the traditional blanket. (I do that because I move around quite a lot when I'm sleeping, so I put three layers so that I can increase the probability of having something covering me when I wake up....)

So, arriving in the Dorm where I am currently living, I was given a big plastic bag with all the linens I would be using. 2 sheets, a futon, a blanket and single-sized "white thingy", that I didn't know what the hell I was going to do that. Let's call it "Blanket #2".

Remember, this is already close to midnight, after 2 full days of very little, uncomfortable sleep.

I get the bag line everything up on the floor, to start thinking what is going to happen next.

First off, the sheet that will cover the mattress. I look at the all the goods on the floor and think: "That should be a kind of box sheet". I pick it up and look at it. It has a weird egg-shaped hole in the middle.

"Hum, that can only be the whole I should put the mattress in, right?!"  So I start by taking the sheets and wrapping it around the right corner of the mattress. OK. Next, the left corner.

I look at the situation and realize that something is not right. That left corner of the sheet cannot possibly reach the end of the left corner of the mattress to fit.

"Well, maybe it is a very tight fit. You know, Japanese are so advanced that they probably engineered sheets and mattresses to fit together perfectly! I will put a little bit of elbow grease on it and try to shove it in...."

After a couple of tries, I realize that if I keep that up, I will probably tear the sheets, and give up.

I decided to just place the sheet which was intended to be the second layer of sheets on top of the mattress and then cover myself with the futon, blanket and the white thingy. (Remember, it was April. Not completely cold like January, but still quite cold for someone who 2 days earlier was enjoying a nice summer barbecue in Brazil.)

The next day, I wake up and meet my neighbor (who came with me on the same flight from Tokyo) and he asks me how did I manage with the sheets. 

"I forgot that in Japan they use Futon Covers instead of sheets, and that they wrap the mattress around with the plain sheet", said the neighbor.

"Oh yeah, the Futon Cover was really nice", said I, but in reality, I was thinking: "Goddamn, that was a Futon cover and not sheets...."

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At that point, I decided to keep my mouth shut and not leak this story to anyone...

April 6th, 2007, the day I became Homer Simpson... heheh