Living through the End of the World

It’s been raining these days in Japan like the deluge (I’m talking mythological here) is coming. I mean, it’s just not normal to have, at this time of the year, one feebly sunny day every other week. And a volcano erupted in Iceland, creating an ash cloud which may be seen as romantic—you know, obscurity, raining on a Sunday, nothing to do outdoors—if we didn’t consider that such an ash cloud is supposed to have led to the extinction of dinosaurs. As my grandmother would put it, “The end of the world is coming, I’m telling you.”
So, what do you do if it’s the end of the world? Get rich, of course. And the easiest way to get rich is to write one of those self-improvement + DIY books. Here’s ours, about how to cope with the end of the world.
First, it’s much easier if you’re a woman. If you’re a man, an ordinary man with no superpowers or the skills to take apart a spaceship and put it back in less than 10 minutes, you’ve got zero chances. Unless you’re terribly funny and you get to live so that you could bring the actual hero back to his senses (after he has heroically saved the world) with a witty line at the end of the movie. To which the actual hero would reply with an even wittier line and you would realize that in fact it’s you who’s dying, a shard from Louvre’s glass pyramid artistically sticking out of your chest.
And even if you are the hero. Let’s say you have the looks, the brains and the muscular structure, and the jaw line. Come on, who am I kidding? Nobody has them all. Even Achilles had a weak heel. If you’re still alive, it’s probably because your father was a billionaire and you had wisely hidden in one of his impenetrable shelters, right behind the Ferrari and the shelf with the pickle jars. Well, wise guy, who do you think is going to be your partner for life? Whom do you think you’ll have to re-create the humankind with?
Science tells us that slim, narrow-hipped and flat-chested (surgical enhancements do not count here) females are not exactly fit for procreation. They may be ideal for the process, but nature is interested in the results. Productivity is the key word here. Needless to say, nature will save the female most likely to have lots of offspring. If you want to know how she (aka, your future spouse) looks like, look at some of the prehistoric artifacts or at any of Rubens’ paintings.
I’d say you’ve got a tough one, guys!



To be continued with HER version of Survival Tips.

Tokyo Scrabble (1)

A few weeks ago I told you about my clandestine trip to Tokyo. A little late, maybe, but I’m back with the news (no longer quite so new) report. The specialists know what I did there—played Scrabble—but the question is when and where.
Jason and I started in a businesslike manner at the Google Japan headquarters, surrounded by hundreds of computers. Of course, we played the real thing, using a board. Yet the adrenaline rush was missing, so we went to a karaoke place. Nothing to get your blood pumping like having to play the lyrics of a song! Carmen says there was no mystery, no charm to the whole thing—half amused, half angry, she says she’s haunted by the image of her husband peacefully reading Scrabble lists on some stone steps, while she was in ecstasy at the magnificent Hindu temples in Khajuraho. I don’t dare contradict her (if you’re married, you know what I mean), but I have to remind her that men would rather choose fun over… well, over a lot of things. And karaoke Scrabble IS fun.


The Scrabble marathon continued with a couple of hours at a family restaurant, where we played until 5 in the morning. Unfortunately, even legendary heroes need a break (if Achilles hadn’t gone to sleep, Patrocles wouldn’t have had time to steal his armour and… my apologies, it seems that my wife planted a mythology bug in my computer), so we started again the next day around noon. At a Chinese restaurant that served authentic Chinese food (not the Japanese-style Chinese food that is so common here) and where Jason and I could brag about our linguistic skills. The only inconvenient was the size of the tables: they were too small for the board. I guess it had been done on purpose: overwhelmed by the hordes of Scrabble players, the owners of the restaurant had adjusted the tables to an unsuitable size. Tactics similar to the burning of the fields and poisoning of the wells used by Romanian peasants in the Middle Ages when threatened by the Turks. World, beware, the Scrabble freaks are coming!

To be continued...