Engrish and Other Machida Fun

Well, not much to write about so far. However, I did go to Machida today (to change my credit card number on file for my cellphone -- turns out it didn't go through anyways -_-;;;). While there, I decided to search for some Engrish shirts! I returned home with four (read it: FOUR) sweet shirts. Granted, only two are Engrish, but they are awesome nonetheless.

Shirt one (Japanese language shirt):
Front: "Earth Self-Defense Force" (in Japanese - 地球防衛軍,ちきゅうぼうえいぐん)
Back: Three boxes for trash labeled Glass, Tin, PET bottle (polyethylene teraphthalate bottle, as in the bottles of Coke and Seven Up you drink from) (in Japanese - びん、缶、ペットボトル;びん、かん、ペットボトル). Below that is a message: Let's split up the trash. Please cooperate to recycle the resources. (ごみは分けて出しましょう。資源のリサイクルにご協力ください。,ごみはわけてだしましょう。しげんのりさいくるにごきょうりょくください。)

Shirt two (Japanese language shirt):
Front: "Common Stage One [Test], Tokyo [University]" (共通一次、東京)
Back: A page from the National Center for University Entrance Examinations' entrance exam math section (hell no, I'm not going to type it all up ;) Then at the bottom: "Because it's the Center test!" (センター試験ですから！,センターしけんですから！) This is the test that you can take as an entrance exam for some universities in Japan, including Tokyo University, the dream school for most students in Japan. Ironically, it's a public university, but basically the Harvard/MIT/Yale of Japan. Other elite universities in Japan include Waseda and Keio. I've heard Kyoto University is also quite good. In any case, this shirt is right up my alley, me being a Japanese and Math double major, and the shirt being math written in Japanese. Excellent!

Shirt three (Engrish):
Front: A cartoon monkey picture. Above it is written, "REFLECT BABBOON". Below the picture is written, "ROVE UITTG," and below that, "IT DOES NO [sic] MATTER WHERE YOU COME FROM".

Shirt three (Engrish):
I have saved the best for last. This is likely to be a treasured shirt for years to come:
Front: Two blue hippopotamuses are talking. One is bigger than the other (an adult talking to a child). Their words are in neon green, the shirt color is a faded yellow.
Adult: HEY Boy It takes care when playing.
Child: YEAH!! thanks!!
Text below image: THE hippopotamus BROTHER

The back of the shirt:
The adult hippo, with orange stars trailing behind him (looks like he's defacating orange stars). He is saying, "Teku teku," which is the sound effect/adverb indicating movement at a slow pace, a la a "trudging" sound effect.

This shirt was had for 10 bucks. w00t for all time!

Aside from that, I have a vocab quiz tomorrow, and I intend to get, if not a perfect, then very near a perfect, to try and stand out in hopes of pulling an excellent grade in the class.

Oh, and I have acquired the first 20 tankoubon (単行本, volumes of comics) of Crayon Shinchan (クレヨンしんちゃん), an excellent manga that has been running for a while. It is lewd, but very shocking since the main character is a toddler. He will pop out of nowhere with elephant eyes drawn on his stomach, penis flapping around and yell, "Look mom! It's Mr. Elephant!!" You can't beat that for comic gold. 20 volumes of that stuff, for 20 dollars. It was a steal. It ranks up there with "An Introduction to Kim Jong-Il" (金正日入門,キム・ジョンイル入門) comic that I bought last semester. I intend to buy the two remaining books in the series before coming back to America.

I also went into an arcade today, and I saw an amazing video game. You buy card packs, open and keep the cards (think Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars: CCG, or Yu-Gi-Oh!). Instead of playing a person, these cards are designed in such a way that the game can read the cards (RFID inside?) and know exactly which card it is. Now, you place these cards in a certain area of the board in front of you. It is a battle layout area. You move your cards around, commanding them as if it was a military battle from the samurai era -- horse-mounted soldiers, etc). There is a TV that shows you the action, and you move the cards to move the ranks on screen. It was amazing, and I got a picture. I need to transfer it off my cellphone and put it up here. It is true Japanese Video Game Zen.

In any case, I need to go study now. Laters.