And to think I skipped sword practice to go to a f…
And to think I skipped sword practice to go to a free dinner at the company’s expense at a high-class Japanese restaurant. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, however. At the company meeting awards in the form of bottles of wine are handed out (that’s nice: “You did a good job! Now go drink yourself under the table.”), we saw a video of our God Ogilvy telling us from beyond the grave that we shouldn’t use celebrities for product endorsement. I agree.
After the meeting I packed up and headed over to the Asiaworld Dept Store, where the Japanese restaurant was located. The wind was really picking up; I could feel it pushing the bike as I rode, but the sky was a beautiful, deep blue as the sun set. When I got to the restaurant, I went to the back partition that had been reserved for our little get-together, but there were only a few people sitting there, and I didn’t recognize any of them, so I chose a seat and started eating.
Gradually, people began to arrive, in groups or three or more. I was trying to be polite and didn’t take out a book to read as I ate like I usually do, but for whatever reason, I was projecting some sort of repulsion field, and no one sat at the table I was at. Pretty soon the place was filled up, but my table was still empty. One of the HR people, Micki, sentenced one guy to sit at my table, but he didn’t say a word the whole time he was there.
The food was pretty good, and I heard that it was supposed to be quite expensive. It was one of those help-yourself deals, and I pigged out on raw tuna and watermelon juice. One of the servers was this beefy-looking guy with short hair, wearing a sleeveless shirt. I had to try to keep from staring at him the whole time (I didn’t have much else to do, actually).
I was waiting in line to get some seaweed rolls(like ice cream cones, but with rice and shrimp wrapped in seaweed), and when I got to the counter, it was like I became invisible. The woman at the counter looked right through me, as if I wasn’t there. She looked around, arranged a few things and then left. When she came back, I apparently still wasn’t to be seen. Only when someone else came up did she come to life, asking them “What kind of seaweed roll would you like?”
I don’t do this on purpose; it just happens. People walking along the street don’t see me and walk right into me, or back into me, all the time. My friend Mindcrime calls it ‘blinking’, when all of the sudden, I am just not there. I don’t show up on people’s internal ‘existance-meters’ or whatever they are. This is just one of the reasons I would be a very good spy. There are other reasons, but I can’t tell you what they are.
Chebi is now a full-fledged typhoon, but it looks like it is going to pass south of us and just give us some rain and wind to play with.
