Author: Justin

but do i deserve to be?

Yes, I’m still alive.
Just finished finals week; now it’s time to grade 500 tests from nine different classes. This 30-hour teaching week thing has finally come to an end. Yay.
Car maintenance side notes:

  • The Crown was acting like she needed a new battery or alternator, so I changed the cheaper of the two and everything is fine again.
  • The front brakes on the Cefiro were squealing so I got the rotors ground; they are still being broken in.

git up a git git down 911 119 191 is a joke in yo town

It made so much sense when I found out in Japan that the number for the popo fire department was 119, because like so many other aspects of Japanese culture, it was the exact opposite of what I was used to. Namely, 911. But it is kind of strange that Thailand has taken the only unique left in that series and dubbed 191 the number for emergency services countrywide.
So the real question is, why don’t they standardize the number for emergency services worldwide?
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Flava Flav says “Ho!”

Matthew Santos for President

Previously in this series: David Palmer for President

“For what those West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama have not known is that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician – not yet even a US senator – by the name of Barack Obama.”

See the full article here: LINK
All I know is that John McCain ain’t no Arnie Vinick.

White Tribble


Cosmically sublime.
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My older cousin, Susumu, sat next to one of the members of Jefferson Airplane (don’t remember which one – sure as hell wasn’t Grace Slick, but there were many members over the lifespan of the band) on a plane ride from LAX to Osaka back in the 90’s. He said something to the effect that it was cool talking to someone who was so famous when he grew up.
Myself, I’d rather sit on a plane for twelve hours with Don McLean and have a chat about his greatest hit so someone could finally give this guy some closure.

ubertunez

On ebay:
The World’s Greatest Music Collection
3 Million Records, 300,000 CDs, 6 million+ Song Titles

“Every recording in the collection was purchased by the collection’s owner over the past fifty years and represents a lifetime of work and his desire to see the music preserved for future generations. Advancing age and health concerns are forcing the owner to sell…
The new owner of this magnificent collection will also acquire (1) the rights to Spin-Clean, the owner’s patented vinyl record cleaning system, considered the best on the market by audiophiles the world over, (2) the rights to Discmist CD cleaner, (3) CD Saver 2-part archival CD storage sleeves, (4)Yellow Jacket 45 RPM acid-free archival storage sleeves, (5) ownership of the owner’s six publishing companies and eight independent record labels, and (7) more than $100,000 worth of antique recording and listening devices and other music memorabilia currently on loan to a museum.”

This collection would totally look good in my room.

Intestinal Flora, The Importance of

Clive Thompson (the Giant Squid Overlord) has just put up a very interesting post: Why C-section births might cause eczema in babies
Now, in the midst of making some very important choices about how our boya is going to be born, this type of information is key in confirming our choice in a natural birth, if at all possible. We know that the C-section is a valuable tool, indeed a life-saving one as proven time and time again, but the reasons we have heard for having one out of want instead of need recently really cause some concern.
Some women who have had them (numerous times in some cases) claim that it’s the only way to go, because it’s relatively painless and easy. Holy crap, does that reasoning worry me. Some women have advised Nam to have one because of vaginally expansive reasons, which I will not get into in detail, but suffice to say that said women are afraid I will leave my wife if she has a natural childbirth… And some have just been brainwashed by a booming medical business that states that Caesarians are safer and less stressful on the infant and mother – never mind that that stress might be the entire point of natural childbirth.
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On a flip note, if you read the article linked from Clive’s post you probably came across the reference to Lund University in Sweden. I’ve been there, and it’s the only place in the world where my eczema acted up besides Japan, for the exact same reason it acted up in Japan – the extremely dry winter conditions.