TOKYOMANGO

TokyoMango in Battle of the Blogs

I got an otherwise message-less email with this image file attached to it. It appears that TokyoMango has inadvertently been placed in a battlefield against another Japan blog... the thing is, TokyoMango doesn't battle. She's a peaceful little blog that likes to just hang out on the couch and occasionally go out for some fun. If TokyoMango were a soldier, she'd be the one cooking dinner for everyone back at the barracks and saying silly things to make everyone feel better at the end of a hard day. So I don't know if she'll win this one...

But when someone pits her against another in battle, she'll never say no. Kinda like how I took my friend Ben on in a taco eat-off on Tuesday even though he's way bigger than me.

Cast your vote here.

See your favorite photos of Japan on TokyoMango

Want to share your best Japan photography with us? Send me your best shots of Japan with explanations, and I'll put them on TokyoMango (with a photo credit, of course, and any other info you send along). It could be scenery, a moment captured on film that meant something to you or told you something about Japanese culture, or something just totally abstract or random that looks cool. Thanks!

Contest: Win a TokyoFlash watch in the Team Lazy contest

Last call for the Team Lazy fan contest:

The winner will get to be our team's official fan—you'll get a free PixiMix t-shirt and lots of continuous love from all of us on Team Lazy. All you need to do is show me something that represents how much you want to be our fan--whether it's a poem, a cheer, face paint, or even better, a YouTube video of you reading a poem or doing a cheer while wearing face paint. Email all entries to mango [at] tokyomango [dot] com with the subject line: Team Lazy Fan Contest.

UPDATE: The winner will also win a super cool Japanese watch courtesy of TokyoFlash.

Original post about the contest is here.

Contest: Become my volleyball team's official fan!

This season, my rec league volleyball team, Team Lazy, is sponsored by SF t-shirt company PixiMix (you might recognize their art if you were at my book signing at Double Punch last fall). The super talented guys at PixiMix made these amazing Team Lazy t-shirts in cranberry red and brown. Yaaay PixiMix! There's just one problem: our team needs a dedicated fan.

So here's the deal: I'm holding a PixiMix/TokyoMango/Team Lazy fan contest. The winner will get to be our team's official fan—you'll get a free t-shirt and lots of continuous love from all of us on Team Lazy. All you need to do is show me something that represents how much you want to be our fan--whether it's a poem, a cheer, face paint, or even better, a YouTube video of you reading a poem or doing a cheer while wearing face paint. Email all entries to mango [at] tokyomango [dot] com with the subject line: Team Lazy Fan Contest. (Please make sure you submit your entry in this format, otherwise it'll get lost in my inbox.)

Entries due by April 20th.

Japanese Teen Who Pilots Giant Robot Fails Driving Test

by Grant Goodman
March 19, 2009

A week after discovering a buried giant robot and piloting it to fight off hideous monsters, Sawara Tomonobu failed the test for his driver's license when he was unable to parallel park his 1999 Honda Civic at the Semboku city Department of Transportation.

His father, Subaru Tomonobu, expressed extreme disappointment and frustration with his son's performance: "The boy jumped into the robot, hit a bunch of random switches, pulled on some levers, and flawlessly dispatched of a great threat to human existence. And now he tells me a steering wheel and two pedals are too complex to operate?"

The day before the test, Tomonobu-san successfully fought off three demons from the Earth's core, saving the entire world from being devoured by the imprisoned sons of ancient gods. According to sources on the scene, Sawara struck them all down with a single, arcing spin-kick, struck a cool pose, and stood still as all three demons exploded. Property damage has yet to be determined by the Japanese government.

Tomonobu plans on re-taking the test in two weeks, unless, he adds, "The ancient prophecy comes true and I must venture beneath the surface to fight the Volcano God. But, really, when did prophecies ever come true?"

(Grant was the winner of my Make T-shirt contest; This is a work of fiction.)