the way we were...

Since I arrived in Carmichael, my folks have been trying to put me to good use. Today I spent the day reaching over my head and leaning over backward on a poorly balanced ladder painting the undersides of the eaves... But that's not the story. My first weekend here, we cleaned out the garage, and we found 2 big boxes of the junk I left behind when I went to college in 1998.

So what was in my time capsule? Ephemera that I didn't think twice about throwing away, for the most part. There were some porn mags, that I gave a cursory glance. Sex is very trendy. 8 year old porn looks lame (as lame as the 8 year old songs that still dominate the radio). Most interestingly, there was the 13th issue of giant robot from sometime in the first half of 1998.

More than anything I found in the box, this piece of nippo/sino/korea-o philia shouts "how long it's been!". My minor interest in anime and games or whatever made Japan seem pretty cool back then, even if it was filtered through this poorly designed, poorly written rag. And here, in english for the Americans, little articles on sumo and iron chef, and a short, awkward interview with "dreams come true". Since I already had already been watching Iron chef on the local feed, and sumo is remedial (sub 101 level) Japanese pop culture, I must have really bought this magazine to reaffirm my own idea of myself as cool.
What's ironic is that 1998 was really the golden age of Japanese cool, to hear marxy or momus talk about it. We're talking fruits, cornelius, otaku killers, and on and on. Japan was the place to be, and the media I was getting was showing me all the stupid, old stuff that no one cool gave a shit about.
Then again, don't count on the modern media getting it any better.