Message from Japan

Hi!

OK, if I've got this straight... if everything I've been reading is true--they wouldn't print it if it weren't, right?--then about half of Japan sank into the ocean when that big earthquake hit last month; and most of the other half was submerged by the ensuing tsunami, am I right? And anything left over was killed outright by or severely mutated by a radioactive gas cloud that threatens the very existence of all life on earth.

Right?

Right. As the last non-Japanese person--all my mates have split, y'know-- on the last square kilometer or so in Japan that hasn't sunk into the sea or been laid waste to by deadly radioactive gas that's radioactive and deadly to breathe or water that's been poisoned by radioactivity and is now poison because it's radioactive, let me tell you this: life is hell.

For starters, there are only a couple of hundred people left alive in all of what's left of Japan. Yeah, that may seem like some sort of existentialist heaven, but I was never that big on Sartre... And all you folks in the rest of the world have not likely noticed any reduction in all the wonderful Japanese products that have been making your lives so... well, *wonderful* for so many years...

Anime, manga, Toyotas, and more generally anything small and cool: they're all from Japan. And they're still being made--by me  and a couple of hundred other people (well, and several million gerbils on exercise wheels--that was my idea!). Sure, life is a bit tough, but it's the only way for us to fulfill our mission to raise Japan from the depths of the Pacific Ocean. I mean, we *could* ask Godzilla and his monster friends to give us a hand, but we can't really trust them. They're, like, fucking *monsters,* you know? They might help us rebuild Japan today, and then turn around and tear it all back down tomorrow. Monsters should only be employed in cases of alien attack. It's the only time humans and monsters share a common cause...

I'm actually a bit surprised that the Western media seem to tip-toe around the  issue of the monsters. They seem to have a good grip on everything else...

More later...