勝者はである (A Winner Is You)
While it is generally cold, rainy, and cloudy as a motherfucker, the end of the year is still one of my favorite times of...the year...Why? Because it's par-tay season. The final few weeks of December are typically littered with end of the year parties. The really cool ones are the ones thrown by your place of employment. Not only do they allow you to mingle with your normally quiet co-workers while downing your own body weight in alcohol, but they also instill a sense of hope in you. Hope that you'll walk out of the place drunk as hell with some super expensive, fabulous prize. It seems that end of the year bonuses have been replaced by end of the year random free shit, as these parties feature many, many ways to earn a shot at winning...something. Could be something amazing! Could be something you wouldn't even think of bequeathing to your worst enemy. That's the fun of it really!
I remember my last few end of the year parties quite fondly. In 2010, at the Nikkei one, some teacher won 60,000 yen playing rock, paper, scissors, and more than a few teachers walked out of the place with big screen TVs, Wiis, Playstation 3s, and vacation packages (I got a bottle of wine from California). At the Hirayasu party that same year, I won a pair of socks and a banana mug playing tic, tac, toe. This year I wrote on Twitter:
you know what would be awesome? if they gave away shit at the bonenkai. and that shit was a tv. and i won that. cmon santa!
Did I win a TV? No. I actually won something better: a home theater system worth around 100,000 yen (or around $1300 in Monopoly money). It's actually an all-in-one projector with a built in DVD player (Region 1 only, boo) and speakers that can accept a buttload of inputs. Along with that came a screen...which, now that I think of it, could double as a TV. Maybe I should make Twitter wishes more often...
Party at our place!