Tokyopia is a lovely Japanese gaming site, and it features long, autobiographical, non-gaming-related rants by some of its correspondants, like this one, called "The State of Tokyo Hygiene."
I was halfway up the stairs, in the midst of a people-wave, when the punks made their move. The short one clipped me in the middle of the back with his shoulder. The tall one got me in the back of the head with the side of his elbow. I snapped forward, brushing the top of my long hair into the back of a hurrying salaryman. My toes caught on the bumpy surface of a yellow tile designed to aid the cane-carrying blind, and my chin slammed into the stair at the salaryman's feet. My CD player fell out of my hands, and was neatly impaled by my knee as my leg twisted. Somehow, I managed to slide down one stair, twisting my ankle. When I opened my eyes, I was on my back. Two upside-down Yakuza punks were stepping up onto the platform. My foot hurt like hell — I must have chipped a bone. It looked like I was going to miss the train.
All the way to work on the morning I met Mami, I thought about the day before, on the Keihin-Tohoku platform, waiting for the train. My CD had been cracked right down the middle. The first five tracks played; the sixth one skipped, and the last ten didn't work at all. I sat there, wondering how my CD player had survived the fall. I had made up my mind: tonight I'm going to beat Metal Gear Solid 2. It isn't released in Japan for seven more days. I got my friend to send it to me for a reason. I'm going to beat it, and then spoil it for the game-loving salaryman who spoiled Final Fantasy X for me. He has a lesson every day. It's payback time.
(Thanks, Marc!)
