Oh! Hi? Oh, gozaimasu!

Ever wanted to show off your love for anime, video games and Japan, period? But when you go outside, some gross neckbeard is wearing that same super-trendy shirt you got off some site that reuses Lolcats jokes and pairings from some erotic yaoi hentai doujinshi your girlfriend's friend downloaded and tried to share with you? You know, the one who smells like meat and ends your name with "-san" when she talks to you? Well, if you live in New York (and probably other places, I don't know or really care), you can worry a whole lot less, now it's fashionable to love really nerdy things and not have your trendy threads be open to everyone with access to a modem and a tripcode on 4chan!

Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing store with global stores, especially one in my local NYC area, has recently unleashed a new line of print t-shirts, now with more anime and video game references than you can shake a stick at! Do you really hate the fake "Objection!" shirts that purveyors at Anime Conventions sell for a premium in the dealers room? Now Capcom has licensed official ones through the Japanese clothing chain. Like Pac-man ghosts, Megaman and Dig-Dug? They got shirts for that! Detective Conan? Gundam? You're covered. Inu Yasha and Full Metal Alchemist? Drink bleach, you're unclean and should check your local Hot Topic for your nerd culture.

Oh, and here's the news angle: from now until my birthday (MAY 12, DOH HOHOHOHOHO), there's a sale going on at Uniqlo - normally $15.50 each, you get 2 shirts for $29.50, 3 for $39.50 and 4 for $49.50. Their stock is huge and goes well beyond just random nerd stuff, you also have a lot of pretentious hipster garbage from international artists as well!

My only regret is that I couldn't find any Parappa the Rapper swag while I was there, as he's featured on the bag and I'd heard rumors of him being on clothing from the new line. Also no word from personal favorite Metal Gear like at the Japanese Uniqlo stores last summer.

Uniqlo is located at 546 Broadway, NYC near the Prince St. station on the yellow line.

To conclude: me wearing hipster trash and looking like a major bell-end. You're welcome.

Neat trinkets from gaming #1: Metal Gear Sound doodads

Rather than fish through studies about whether or not video gaming increases your riboflavin consumption, I've decided to expand a bit into the simpler realm of "really cool things from video gaming I just happened to run into" and see if it takes off. Which is to say I'm going to post this until you like it.

Today, I ran into Toy Tokyo while out with a friend and in the midst of her being enamored with their selections of Extremely Expensive But Well Crafted 12" Figures, out of the corner of my ear (THIS IS HOW HEARING WORKS I SWEAR) I heard one of the most beautiful sounds known to man: a Codec ring.

Behind me were two peg racks near the register filled with 6 different noise-making octagons labeled with either "Snake" or with other game-related symbols (the Codec ring was labeled with the screen prompt "CALL" from the Metal Gear Solid games) in different colors, signifying that each made a different sound. I don't speak moon-speak so well, so it's not like I knew what any of the Japanese Snake sound-a-gons said (though the one I bought WAS familiar, Snake's "Gojira Snake." - what he says while responding to a Codec call), but even without the three Snake-speak boxes, you have Item Pickup sound effect, the afforementioned Codec call and Alert (!) sounds.

I have no idea how new they are, but they're MGS4 related items and I love the heck out of them. I picked them up for $7 a piece because I'm that much of a Metal Gear nerd. Be on the lookout if you are too! Or just head over to Toy Tokyo.