I think I may have, ahem, hinted at it in past entries, but let me spell it out for the benefit of the slower ones:
I am now living in Paris: P. A. R. E. E. S!
Yep, that means no more upskirt keitai shots of underage japanese schoolgirls. Not that there were any in the first place, but how could I resist the pleasure of one last Google keywords showdown. Actually, there might still be a few views of Nippon, gently contributed by our in-house Samurai and the ever cat-obsessed Tracey dearest, but still a massive slow-down from the old rate.
In exchange, all I can promise you is a bunch of tired rants on the French, their capital city, their greasy foods and promiscuous ways.
More of the former than the latter at the moment.
Understandably, some of you might feel shafted with the deal and turn your back on this page… To those people, I have this to say:
First of all, know that I won’t be missing your fickle, treacherous, back-stabbing excuse for a readership one least bit. Second, you may want to consider the fact that my current residency will only last six months, to be replaced by a potentially much more exciting destination: unsubscribe now and you may be missing out on all the fun then. Third and last for now: pleeeaase don’t go! Oh reader! soul of my life, salt of my existence! I need you so… I promise I’ll do my best to keep posting about cat-ear-wearing people and crazy language hijinx, even if I have to make them up. Just don’t leave me now.
A few random things of note so far:
- In France, the letter ‘C’ on heaters and taps, stands for Hot (whereas Cold is ‘F’). Will you guess how many shivering morning wake-ups and boiling hot showers yours truly has had so far?
- Whoever elected France as the country of all things gastronomical, never had to find the ingredients to a proper breakfast in a local supermarket: I had forgotten how unduly hard it was to find something as simple as bacon here. And no, I don’t want “smoked ham”, nor “diced bacon” with my eggs, I want plain crispy bacon goodness and it’s so far dearly missing from my morning table.
- The biggest matchmaking service in France is called CUM. I am not making that up. In subways, in magazines, everywhere: you got huge ads inviting you to log onto CUM.fr or touting CUM as your gateway to a perfect relationship…
More to come soon, be sure of that…
Oh Doctar Dave, you know I shall be a faithful pandar reader for life! It’s too bad you left Japan, but I have no doubt you will continue to post all sorts of interesting adventures for us to read! Don’t they have pretty decent camera phones in Europe? I’m sure you can still keep the moblog flow going!
For the record: I was not aware of that hot/cold initials reversal on french water taps. I shall file that away for future usage 😉
As for people landing on your site searching for strange things, while a lot land on my site looking for “panda blog” or “cute pandas”, I also get a lot (more, sad to say) who land searching for things like “Japanese girl” “massage” “japanese girl massage” and the like. *sigh*
The strangest search string hit I ever got though was “Giant Ass Monkah Nose”
I swear to you, typed *exactly* like that. Go ahead and try it! Who on earth is searching for that AND WHY!?
Happy new year! あけまして、おめでとう！
Oh, come on, Daaaave, you can’t leave it at that ! How can you possibly pass the perfect opportunity to shower your readers with useless wisdom, while proving to the world that you know more than them ? In effect, don’t mislead your poor non-Latin-centric friends by ridiculous banters about matchmaking services names : provide us with la substantifque moelle please ! Tell them, tell them that the Cum founders are not debilitating cumshot perverts (if that even exists), but in fact true intellectuals, going straight to the root of our dear, isolated language : Latin. Yes, flimsy monolanguage foreigners, you’ve been duped by the master of céans, Cum in that context means “with” or “together”, which, unarguably, is a perfect match for a matchmaking service. Right ? Right ? Who’s with me ?
Xavier,
The original intent hadn’t escaped my comprehension. It’s just much less fun when you remove the mystery.
But in the spirit of spreading the pedantry, let me point out that the word cum is also known across the channel (with a meaning closer to its Latin root and safe for children)… For example, talking about “a secretary cum personal assistant” has nothing to do with some x-rated movie plot, and is just a fancy way of replacing the ever so horrendous “slash” mark.
This common usage is mostly UK afaik, but the more refined among our US readers wouldn’t ignore it. Whatever you do, just make sure you know the proper use of this construction before you condone it, lest you end up like my darling Indian friend who once peppered her Birthday Invite email with little “cum” at the end of each line, thinking it gave it a lovely air of quaint Britishness (and prompting the recipients to wonder if the party in question involved more than a birthday cake and balloons)…
Michael
Fear not: there will be updates on life in this new and exotic country. Also considering a new phone some day (and accompanying camera/moblog opportunities), just reluctant to sign anything with the highway robber barons that pose as cellphone companies here…
Regarding water and letters: “C” stands for “Chaud” (not “Cold”, as my hazy morning brain tends to think way too often these days). I suppose if my apartment was a tad more up-to-date, it would feature taps designed by more international-minded people and make use of colors instead of damn letters. You should just see the network of pipes running in the hallway outside my door: Alien’s spaceship’s got nothing on my building.
Right, I just discovered your blog today… and I must admit that it is one of the most interesting I’ve ever read… Go on, even in Paris! I’m sure, you’ll find loads of interesting things to say… I mean not only things can be interesting but the writer himself as well! 😉 C ya! xxx