Month: March 2005

Amelia Earhart buried on Saipan?

I’d never heard this theory before:
Fate of Amelia Earhart prompts jail excavation

“In the past there had been rumors that Amelia Earhart’s plane was shot down and she was held captive by her Japanese captors on suspicion that she was a spy. Later she was burned and buried at the back of the jail,” Historic Preservation Office (HPO) director Epiphanio Cabrera said.

Is it just me, or is the next logical question, “was she burned dead or alive?” (Hey, with Japan’s track record, it’s a fair question, right?)

Gone fishin’

Since I had a paid holiday to use up this week, I took the day off and slept until mid-afternoon. In truth, I had intended on waking up early to go fishing, but I got trapped in the intoxicating warmth of my blankets. By the time I got moving, the tides were unfavorable, so I thought we would go hiking up in the mountains and maybe try some largemouth bass (in Japan, “black bass”) fishing. We were not disappointed, as I hooked up with a couple 13-14 inchers within the first fifteen minutes:
blackbass3.jpg
blackbass1.jpg
What an awesome day off!

phobia?

After reading this, would you still call my fear of sharks irrational? After years of watching shark documentaries on various nature channels, it is still baffling to me that even after getting bitten, many shark researchers will often continue their work (presumably with new nicknames like, “stumpy,” or out on the water, “bob”).

Tupelo Honey

Was listening to Van Morrison late last night and got caught up in memories when the said track played.
When he first started his practice, my father often accepted barter when his patients couldn’t afford treatment. One man brought in a couple jars of Tupelo honey from his own beehives. Naturally, when I heard this story a couple years ago, I asked my dad how it tasted. “Sweet,” he said.
When my pal T’s father opened a cram school thirty years ago, many of his students came from poor families, so he also accepted fresh produce or other various goods as payment. That’s so cool.
When I think of how impersonal and insignificant office jobs are in the modern world, it makes me fucking sick.

My Superhero Name is “Itchy Pest”

The mosquito-free period in Japan seems to be shrinking every year: I clearly remember having stray skeeters bumbling about the house as late as the last week of January, and I was assaulted by a particularly thirsty one again just last night. For many years, November through April were completely mosquito-free, but I guess it was just inevitable that my nemesis would eventually evolve to torture me in all but the coldest periods of the year.
And this is important to me, see, because last night, I slapped myself across the cheek in my sleep, hard. I was dreaming that a giant mosquito, like in that old-ass movie Caveman had landed on my face, so I panicked and, in my state of nocturnal distress, tried to smash it. I must have hit myself really hard, because my girlfriend woke up and said, “what’s wrong?” I glanced at the clock – 4 o’ clock? On a Monday morning? Fuck! – and grumbled, “GODDAMN….mosquito…FUCKING BIT ME.” She rolled her eyes and coyly asked if I had slapped myself again (which didn’t make me real happy at the time, but seems mildly amusing now), then promptly fell back to sleep since SHE had nothing to fear. You see, ever since I was little, anybody in proximity of me has nothing to fear from mosquitoes – my blood is like VSOP in a sea of lite beers or something.
Anyway, to make a long story short, this fucking insect tortured me until 6AM, biting me on the cheek three times and once on the ear before I decided I’d had enough and decided to kill it, no matter how long it took. Sleep deprivation coupled with a madly itching ear drove me to eat its broken corpse after I finally got it.
So, no fucking with me please today, sirs and madams, I have absorbed the power to suck my own weight in blood and cause mad itching, and I ain’t afraid to use it.