Declaration of Retardation
!@(images/2007/03/daireikai.jpg:L100 thickbox:gal1 “Dear Motherfuckers!”)
Dear Motherfuckers,
“Give me your tired, your poor, your socially marginal…this is the study of Japan through their [sic] toy-leavings.”
-My Own Bad-Ass Self, October 1998
A tall order, to be sure. Not to mention grammatically questionable. Did we succeed? Before I answer that, let me say it’s hard to believe it’s been close to TEN YEARS since we began our clandestine campaign to take over the world’s governments and corporations, establish our own kingdom “upriver” on the Mekong, and generally run this website into the ground. I’m proud to announce that we’ve been one-third successful. A decade ago, I wouldn’t have known an Ark diecast if it bit me on the ass. Now we’re all card-carrying guys who knows too much about Japanese toys. And you know what? That and 350 yen gets us a tall teriyaki latte at Starbucks Japan.
People (well, BBS readers) often ask what ToyboxDX is about. Usually I’m too busy — frolicking naked through my room full of three dozen cardboard boxes stuffed with “deadstock,” C-10 Godaikin T-28s that I could sell for $50 a piece and still make a huge profit, but keep mint and unopened and unsold just to torture my fellow collectors — to reach the keyboard to articulate an answer. But you’re lucky today: I’m in a good mood today. And thanks to having moved into a matchbox-sized Tokyo apartment, most of my collection is in storage in a nitrogen-filled vault three hundred miles beneath the Earth’s crust. (It’s humiliatingly true. My current abode lacks the space to display anything but a desperate handful of woefully undeserving modern diecasts. Some “Minister of Information!”)
Anyway. So people always ask me what ToyboxDX is all about. You ready?
Boredom. Pure and simple. Surprised? Don’t be. Hell, an unsatisfying job with appallingly tedious working conditions is almost a prerequisite for contributing to the site. Just look at yourselves! (And for their troubles, regular contributors get what? An unsatisfying site with appallingly tedious working conditions. So it goes. Hey, at least we get to argue about robots instead of spreadsheets or paychecks or who gets the last donut or whatever the hell the salarymen and women of the cubicle world are arguing about these days.)
What, you don’t believe me? Consider this “factoid,” Spanky: there isn’t a single giant robot pilot among the leadership or readership of the site. Not a one. You know why? I’ll tell you. Those guys aren’t bored! They’re all off galavanting around in their goddamned giant robots! They don’t need to sit here talking about their collections because they’ve got Pilders of their own with which to pick up chicks.
!@(images/2007/03/brau.jpg:L100 thickbox:gal1 “Beeru!”)
For the rest of us, there’s ToyboxDX. I don’t claim to know exactly where we’re headed this time around, exactly, but I do know one thing: ToyboxDX is, at its very core, a not-so- exquisitely designed time-waster. We must use it for its Go(d) Nagai-given reason: to goof off on company time and to while away the hours we should be spending going out and meeting other members of the human race. Think of it as our own personal “Fight Club,” minus the good-looking guys, blood, and any sort of redeeming quality for spending our time here.
I realize I still haven’t answered the question as to if we were successful. Whatever. The offer still stands: even if they’re tired, poor, or (perhaps especially) socially marginal, they’re still welcome.
Love,
The Minister of Information
