My intro
 

I've lurked around for more than a little bit, even posted a couple of times, and I figure I should probably give a formal intro now. My name is nikuman. I am a corporate lawyer/CB spammer during the day (and much of the night). I work in NYC, live in NJ, and should be making a move to Houston within the year. I'm a father of three/two, depending on how you count. I'm an avid outdoorsy type, more of an environmentalist than you'd think, but far less of a "liberal" (whatever that means) than that sounds.

Yoroshiku.

Irashai...irashai..irashaimase!

Hey, I wouldn't have encouraged you to stop lurking and start posting if I had known you were another attorney. Well, at least you aren't a Ute fan.

Welcome.

Yes, what he said. We need more Japanese-speaking Cougar Fans here.

Welcome.

boku wa enpitsu desu.

You are a pencil or this is your pencil?

That's very good, Arch.

Foreigners (gaijins) are quite rare in Japan. When kids see missionaries they like to yell out something in English just to try it out. And they usually yell out the first thing they learn in their english class. Which is typically:

"This is a pencil."

or

"This is a pen."

or

"This is a red pen."

So everywhere you go, you hear kids shouting "This is a red pen! This is a red pen!". It's strange, but quite funny at the same time.

Another common thing you hear is "Buta kao!" which is literally "Pig face!" (referring to our big noses and round eyes).

Very funny, Brian.

Now, I've forgotten all but the most basic Japanese, but I though Kore wa enpitsu desu was this is a pencil.

And I would have to insert something like anata no to make it mine. So boku throws me for a loop, but then again, I don't really know Japanese other than to irritate Japanese.

In the Philippines they yell "Hey Joe, give me chocolate" which I'm pretty sure is a holdover from the WWII GIs. The full "Hey Joe, give me chocolate" is often shortened to just "Hey Joe" which you hear about 100 times a day. I never minded "Hey Joe" but I liked having a little fun with it so I would often respond "Hey Pedro". You could also tell who the smarter kids were because the ones that got the joke would laugh and the ones that didn't would sit there with a dumb look on their face thinking "My name isn't Pedro" or, better yet, "How did he know my name is Pedro?"

nihongo jozu, desu ne.

Brian, you are one funny boku.

Oh yeah - welcome Nikuman :)