The Red Bull cans are starting to pile up here at the Smart.fm offices. We’d been pounding them down while pulling all-nighters in preparation for our big relaunch.

As any desperate college sophomore during midterms will tell you, things start to get weird around can 3 or 4. For us, its blurred vision, imagined 500 errors, visions of Barry Manilow — You know, the usual.

Last night, though, three bulls in, I made a huge mistake.

Its name was BOSS: canned coffee served HOT from a vending machine (one of the perks of being in Japan). It tasted only of the heat sloshing inside its aluminum frame. It filled my heart with darkness.

The last thing I remember is coming-to hours later. TextMate was still open, but with the following text sitting unsaved as “Untitled 62”:

• Tonight is your 10-year high school reunion, and you’ve decided to go at the last minute, after hearing rumors about your girlfriend from 9th grade being in town after breaking off her engagement with a prominent European industrialist. Dmitry something-or-other. After a poorly-informed scotch on the rocks, and an even more poorly-informed subsequent glass, you now find yourself in the back corner of the newly-renovated school gym, chatting it up with your old lab parter from junior year. And then you spot her, from across the dance floor: Beth Vanderhoof. Not having talked to her since that New Year’s party in 2003, you’re at a severe loss for conversational matter. You whip out your iPhone, launch the Smart.fm application, and open up a list of “Italian Phrases”. You casually walk up and greet her with your best Buona Notte. (So suave, so confident). She giggles and gets your name wrong. You smile awkwardly as she excuses herself.

• Oh sh*t! You’re surrounded by ninjas! Looking to create a diversion, you bust out the Smart.fm iPhone app and go into your goal “Learn How to Evade Zombies, Ninjas, and Pirates”. You show them a picture of a smoke bomb and yell out “Smoke Bomb!” for some reason. It doesn’t work. Study harder next time, kid.

• Sitting in a park on a beautiful day in April, you notice a herd of gazelle stampeding towards you, 400 meters off—and gaining. You calmly pack up your picnic lunch of a ham and cheese sandwich on a toasted garlic ciabatta roll with chips, and consult your trusty Smart.fm app. “Ah yes! Hip Hop Artists!”, you announce to yourself, “Surely this will come in handy.” Seconds into your study session, you’re promptly trampled by the charging animals. After months of rehabilitation, you take a hefty judgement from your suit with Municipal Parks Services and fly out to LA to cut your first rap album. “I knew this would come in handy”, you say to yourself, as T-Pain busts it out on the second verse. You go double platinum on the album. Pitchfork gives it a 6.7, citing “pedantic pop sensibilities” (whatever that means). Can’t win ‘em all.

• Your dog somehow figures out how to speak Korean. At least you think he’s speaking Korean; it’s been ages since your college course in Asian studies, which if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, you only took to satisfy your humanities requirement. Anyway, little Gompers is there, belting out the occasional phrase. “아직도 너의 소리를 듣고!”, he barks. Smart.fm iPhone app in hand, you find a list of useful Korean phrases, playing the audio from your speakers. After going through a few formalities, Gompers grows bored, and trots off into the next room, where he pees on the cat’s bed.

In Summary

• Don’t drink canned coffee in Japan.
• Go download the new Smart.fm iPhone application.