Even if some of you care to try eating chocolate covered ants, fried grasshoppers, or more exotic insect delicacies in Thailand, be aware it probably won’t be your first time.
Crushed female cochineal beetles, yum!
Author: Justin
Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle
Oxymoron: Escalade Hybrid
I used to see how much work went into hybrid power systems every day – the R&D department used to be located right next to my office, until it got too big a couple years ago and moved into its own facility. And American car makers are just starting to see the light? Timbuk 3 this is not.
GM – Late to the party and wearing floppy clown shoes.
Charlotte
That last post reminded me of this photo, which is from this site: Spider Snacks on Snake
friday, a day of gross perversion
People are sending me teh nasty links today, so let me share the love:
World Record Peristaltic Action
You know what? The other links are so bad, I’ll just stop here.
Japanese Whaling
Look, I understand both sides of the issue fairly well – on this issue there isn’t much middle ground to speak of – and I agree that Japan should at least abide by the treaties it has already signed.
HOWEVER, claiming that the Japanese are hunting whales to extinction is just as dishonest.
I’m just saying.
Cheap Cheap
One of the great joys while shopping in Thailand is the bargaining – there is a definite art to it. One must find the equilibrium between getting the best deal on an item and becoming frustrated and looking like an asshole.
In this context, an asshole is either a jerk using noobie bargaining tactics, or more commonly, someone who is expending copious amounts of time and effort for a negligible monetary return, i.e., battling it out with an old lady over a dollar difference on a twenty dollar purchase. Is a dollar difference worth sealing a deal but leaving one party with a sour taste in their mouth? Some people would answer with an unequivocal, “yes!” You are the people I do not want to go shopping with, because in the larger scope of things, that dollar means shit to you or me. Sure, it can buy you a whole meal or two there. I say, so fucking what. Who needs the meal more? Sure, sealing a sweet deal feels great – everybody likes to be a winner – but if you feel like an asshole for squeezing a street vendor for a few pennies, you most probably are.
The flip side of being an asshole is being a sucker. If you don’t bargain at all, you are a sucker, and you are seriously missing out on some fun. Looking back, I now recognize that I used to take bargaining too seriously until I learned to enjoy it. Thai people are for the most part really fucking laid back and cool. Deal with vendors who return your smile, and everything will work out fine – don’t forget a lot of vendors are assholes, too, and want nothing but (A) your money and (B) for you to get your unintelligible ass out of their sight, ASAP.
Like I said – it’s all about finding that equilibrium.
This is not a sophisticated game like buying high-quality knockoffs in Korea; no layer cakes here. This is a simple exercise in basic bargaining:
“How much for this?”
“Can you give me a good price?”
“How about ____?”
” No? What if I buy two/a dozen/____?”
“Is that the best you can do?”
“C’mon, meet me halfway!”
“Thank you!”
And that is the template for a basic bargaining approach. You will learn many others in your travels, grasshopper. But you will always return to the basics.
LSD con el Capitan
I’m ashamed to say I actually have this song on CD.
I guess this means I’ll be using Google Video quite frequently from now on.
Scratch the Planet
I’m testing the embedding feature of Google Video. Let’s see if this works:
(Click the play button to start playback)
Wow, that works pretty well!
choose your pwned adventure
This is the funniest shit I’ve seen for a long, long time:
“Choose Your Own Adventure” Books That Never Quite Made It
I really used to be into those books, and the Zork series as well. The Zork books had moralistic endings (“You chose to cheat by stating you had the Sneakers of Lightness, so the story ends here. Think about what a bad person you are for a while.”) built in for cheaters, like me.