Ugh... potatoes

Ok, so it's Sunday afternoon and I was out late last night - my old roommate is moving to Sweden to be with my other old roommate, so we had a whole bunch of beer and sake in a huge karaoke marathon... after this and last week, I'm done with karaoke until at least Spring.

So yeah, anyway too much sake makes Doug's head hurt in the morning, and there's this guy outside singing about potatoes on a loudspeaker... ugh. He's trying to sell yakiimo out of his car, which I have no problem with, but instead of sensibly just going to a park or somewhere where people would normal gather like all his normal street vendor friends do, he feels it necessary to roll through my neighborhood and advertise by singing off pitch about how delicious his stone-grilled sweet potatoes are. What is this guy, the ice cream man? I simply cannot see people running out of their homes to line up for their very own sweet, sweet potatoey goodness. Geez.

There are entirely too many people in this country driving around with loudspeakers attached to their cars. First you have the notorious black vans of the uyoku and your standard political campaigners, then I've heard drivebys of people selling kerosine for heaters in the winter or collectors for big garbage items the standard people won't take, and now sweet potatoes.

Some of it really is ridiculous and unnecessary, but then again when is a loudspeaker attached to a car that's not police or fire department-related ever really necessary? I think "frickin sharks with lasers attached to their heads" are more practical than a black van with a loudspeaker - every bit as superfluous but at least more fun. As far as the political messaging goes, there's this stupid rule that you can't have any political messages or debates or anything on tv, including commercials, so these guys feel that the only way they can get their point across is to drive around with a mic and pollute the air with their bombast. It's like the 1950's out here or something. And who actually listens to these guys anyway? I can't imagine anyone hearing some old guy ranting on on his loudspeaker about... whatever and thinking "you know, he's right!"

For a country that screams up and down about how you shouldn't bother other people, this is rather paradoxically obnoxious behavior if you ask me.