I Want Anything From This Shop As Long As It's This Merman

I was on my hang glider the other day, making the long trek down 5th Avenue from work to the Y (where I go to get myself clean, have a good meal, and do whatever I feel) and I touched down briefly in front of the darlingest shop near 26th Street next to the 7-Eleven. The store was clearly not ready to let December go, still gleefully decorated with random Christmas magic--it was all happy Santas, dancing elves, candy canes, apocryphal nativity scenes, tinsel, nutcrackers, plush Christmas animals, and sexy Mrs. Clause statues. What was the guiding principal of this shop? You'll have to ask someone else because I didn't get past the sexy mermen in the window.

This is, obviously, because the window display featured some serious figurine action up in it, and these figurines were... alluring. I don't know what God that merman celebrates during the holidays, but I'm pretty much ready to accept Him/Her as my personal lord and savior. Also, I know what I want for Christmas next year, or, alternatively, next Tuesday.

Announcing Tune in Tokyo, the Audiobook, and a Giveaway at Goodreads!

Hello illiterates! I bring you good news. (Have your wet nurse/probation officer/12-step buddy read it to you.) My book, the partially acclaimed Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries, is now available as an audiobook. It is read by the handsome voice actor dreamboat MacLeod Andrews, whom I don't know but am now a big fan of.

To celebrate this edition I'm running a giveaway over at Goodreads. Enter and you can win a free copy that I'll send to you with my landlady's signature on it! You'll also get some leftover turkey and stuffing and half a slice of pumpkin pie that my cat threw up.

Don't deny yourself the joy of hearing my words read into your ears constantly, for like nine hours. It's Christmas!

Thanksgiving Summed Up in One Photo

The only way this picture could be more perfect would be if it was the cover of a Ted Nugent album.

Whoever Slapped This Poster Onto a Random Scaffolding Wall in NYC Is Basically the Next Nate Silver

This is one telling flyer. It's been up for a few weeks and in that time I've watched it blossom into supernova of multicolored chewed-up gummy gnarliness, aka, a gorgeous reflection of our great democracy at work. Obama clearly won this iteration of the popular vote up here at 35th and 6th, and I do believe this data comports with the actual vote tallies in this area. So the point is, whoever's idea this was is the next Nate Silver and should be given a bunch of poster board by the New York Times so he can expand his gum-data campaign into the country at large and continue to give folks the most precise reading of the electorate in the midterm elections of 2014.

In the future we will all vote with our gum.

And voter fraud will be accomplished with taffy.

New Nervous Breakdown Essay: And Gimpy On Strings

Kids, I've got a new post up over at The Nervous Breakdown, which you should click over and pretend to read immediately. Here's a teaser:

Children of the world, don’t believe your parents, your shrinks, or your imaginary friends: worst nightmares sometimes do come true. Sure, many humans can get through their entire lives without falling out of an airplane, having a leg eaten off by a shark, being kidnapped by a tiny car full of saber-toothed circus clowns, or being awoken at 2 a.m. by a group of drug-crazed hippies wielding ice picks and chanting “Kill the pig, acid is groovy.” But some don’t. We all have these fears and they are perfectly rational, so watch out. [continue reading]