When I first went to Japan in March 2002, I was passed on a street in Shinjuku by what I thought was some lowered, blacked-out 
Yakuzamobile. I was pretty blown away by the box-like styling, seemingly putting a foot in the ass of the aerodynamic turds on the road at the time. A few days later I saw another Toyota bB (this one was not so bosozoku looking) parked along Kappabashi and snapped this photo.
What goes around comes around, and after returning to the states and telling everyone about this strange Japanese car, I read that it would soon be available in the US. And as we later found, in the rather dumbed-down form of the Scion xB. Alas,the honeymoon was over, as they say.
During my second visit to Japan in November 2004, I spotted another oddball Japanese creation that set my heart aflutter yet again: The Nissan Cube. Standing before Ginza’s Wako department store one day, a Cube drove by and made the corner, just the angle for me to catch sight of the asymmetric rear window, wrapping around one side of the car like a middle finger in the wind of conventional design.
Just like the first time around, I spotted another one a few days later in Asakusa. this time, Sharon snapped a photo of me with the car, in a pose I learned many years earlier from my friend, Rodrigo Peréz Nebel: Standing next to the car as if I were unlocking the door and preparing to drive away. A photo of two starry-eyed lovers, enjoying the sheer novelty of first touch.
Time-warp forward to 2009, and we see how history repeats itself. Nissan has released the Cube in the US, but radically redesigned. My former lover is not the same—She has given way to fake tits and Botox injection. I do not recognize her. Only the rear window remains untouched, but in concept alone. Her formerly angular lines have been rounded. Me no like.
A client brought in his new Cube this week, wishing to have his advertising graphics applied. I explained to him that I first saw the Cube in Japan in ’04, and in his best all-knowing manner (after all, he did just pay good green money for this car, so he oughtta know, right?), he looked me in the eye and said:
“No, this one is new. You’re thinking of the Scion.”
I politely explained to him that Nissan was producing the Cube in Japan as far back as 1998. He looked confused, as if the local Nissan dealer hadn’t divulged the whole history to him. Or maybe he was shocked that the design was not of good old ’merican bloodlines. At any rate, when we were back inside later, I dropped the photo of myself and my former love on him. His response (like seeing his new bride happily posing with an old boyfriend): “Oh.”
Looking over my massive stats for the past month, it appears that about 15% of my viewership were return visitors… You guys need to register and leave some comments so I don’t feel so alone in here! Yeah, I’m talking to you there in Sikeston, you guys in Saudi Arabia, San Francisco (well, I know who you are…), you big goober there in Singapore who hits me every other day, the crackhead in Michigan, the otaku in Tokyo who regularly searches my site for porn, the crazy flasher guy from Skype, you there in Plainsboro, New Jersey who hangs on my site for hours at a time even though there’s just not that much to read here… I’m talking to all of you! Throw me a fucking bone, why dontcha?
Linguists or social scientists out there, tell me why this irritates me:
