After scoring a free copy of Braid last December, I didn’t expect to be winning anything again any time soon, much less from a contest I didn’t know I’d entered.

See, I have a JCB card.  JCB being, basically, Japan’s version of Visa or Mastercard or what have you; it’s accepted almost everywhere you go in Japan but in very few places in the USA.  I like trying to pay for things, especially meals out, with it because it often evokes a brief moment of terror on the face of whatever waiter I’ve handed it to; it’s the “Oh god, we don’t take this card and they’ve already eaten what am I going to do now?” look.

Then I take pity on them and give them a credit card they recognize and the light of recognition on their face is, well, it’s a beautiful thing.

If that makes me a bad man, then, well, I’m a bad man.

Anyway.

I CAN use it at the local Kinokuniya bookstore, and do so whenever I shop there, just to keep it active.  You know, on the off chance that I happen to need to fly to Japan at a moment’s notice.

I live an ACTIVE fantasy life, yes.

Over the holiday spending season, they apparently ran a sweepstakes where 10 lucky JCB card members wound up with a DS Lite or a PSP.  Since I suspect that there are, roughly, 10 actual JCB card holders in the US, I shouldn’t consider myself TOO incredibly lucky in winning a DS Lite, but I will gracefully accept it.  🙂