If you ask the average French philosopher, they’ll posit that with enough time, a simulation will become more real than real. I’d agree with that, but then again I’ve been playing Densha De Go for the last six days straight.
In case you’re unfamiliar, the Japanese make these train simulator videogames. You get a little plastic dashboard of a train, and you get to push it around your desk, pretending that you are taking a load of salarymen to their increasingly depressing jobs. The whole thing is great, and I thought so even before I found the little button on the controller that makes my fake train toot the horn.
I had such a positive experience, in fact, that I’ve begun licensing increasingly boring aspects of North American life to sell back to the Japanese market. You wouldn’t believe how many would-be university students are taking a study break from their meat-grinder prep courses right now in order to experience a crude, low-polygon representation of being a Canada Post letter carrier.
Don’t Cross The Picket Line II is so popular, in fact, that it’s inspired this spring’s fashions in Harajuku. Everyone is dressing up like Mulroney-era letter carriers and playing dubstep remixes of the Postman Pat theme on their bone-induction implanted Bluetooth headphones. Canada Post has made so much bank off selling their old LLVs and uniforms that I finally stopped feeling guilty about never paying my taxes. And this way I didn’t even have to fake my own death!
It would be easy to rest on my laurels and enjoy my legions of adoring fans, but to be honest I am really busy trying to get to Ikebukuro before those Yamanote Line fuckers monopolize the switch.