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Back in body, if not in mind
This is my state of mind after 3 days of hitting the slopes in Hakuba (quite literally, I’m afraid). It was an awesome trip, overall. Nobody got hurt too badly (although general aches and soreness are shared by all), even the little girl in the pink helmet who Taro ran into at high speed and made cry. I’m burnt a nice shade of brownish-red, and the “racoon eyes” are a source of great joy for my colleagues. (I can’t believe I brought back cookies as a gift for these bastards – they don’t deserve cookies.)
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Fridays kick ass!
Taking a three day trip up to Hakuba with Adam and T for some boarding – I haven’t been on one that long in ages. Time to unwiiiiiind… Should have some adventures to share when I get back.
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Idiot Test
My results: I am 12% Idiot. I am not annoying at all. In fact most people come to me for advice. Of course they annoy the hell out of me. But what can I do? I am smarter than most people. Take theIdiot Test OK, I call bullshit on this test overall because I can be hugely annoying when I get in my groove. It was fun thinking about the answers, though. WARNING! SPOILER BELOW! (Take the test first!): Can’t help but wonder about the “asking a third time” question. N/A because you shouldn’t have to ask more than once, right? Or is that a trick?
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Google Kills Goose, Finds No Egg
Do the 50 invites bug anybody else, or is it just me? Why 50? Why not 100? Why not 36,687.02? I know… Why not a google of invitations? The number seems not to matter so much after, say, 10 or so. It might have meant something when they were exclusive enough to trade for sexual favors (remember all the wankers who offered invitations only if you first clicked a sponsor’s link/voted for their blog/left a haiku in the comments?), but now they just feel like a nagging responsibility! And they must be fucking like rabbits in there! Go ahead, send a few and see how long it takes for the…
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Wherein nature’s fury becomes relevant
In an official document today, I used the following reason for changing a parts supplier: “Supplier’s factory destroyed by typhoon.” The situation described isn’t funny; I just never imagined someday writing those words. The day of the typhoon, I drove right by that factory. That area got completely washed out when the river overflowed; if I had been there just an hour later my car would have suffered the same fate as the many others that had to be pulled out of rice paddies and sinkholes in the weeks to follow. Note: If you are interested, my Typhoon Tokage blog posts are archived here, and the liveblogging from my keitai…
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Adam’s Mullet
The other day, Adam saw a school of fat mullet under a bridge near my house, so we decided to try and catch them with the only bait I had around, pickled grubs. *Note to self: Mullet could give a shit about pickled grubs. Idiot. The stupid fish were ignoring the bait, so we decided to use a big seabass lure as a yo-yo rig (illegal in our home state of California). I felt kind of bad about snagging them since we weren’t keeping them, but Adam, being an inherently bad person, had no such compunctions: MulletMania Magazine Photo Contest Winner: Mullets are ugly up close: You kiss your mother…
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R.I.P. to Asian Jungle Punk
The London-based Asian Dub Foundation used to be one of my favorite bands. They brought out 3 solid albums over the space of 7 years, each with its own distinct flavor and brilliance, and their live shows were among the most powerful I have ever seen. Their energy on stage was simply infectious, completely void of any commercial or “trying too hard” vibes that ruin most concerts. When asked to describe their music, they replied, “Asian Jungle Punk.” That was pretty much the coolest thing I had ever heard in a band interview, and a fitting description, as well. So you know how all good things come to an end,…
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Osaka Stories (part 1 of ???)
////////////////////////////////////// NOTE FROM SITE OWNER: It has come to my attention that the link to this page has recently been included in several blog spams. I am in no way related to the spammer and have no idea why he is including my link in his spam. I do apologize for any inconvenience it has caused you. For background info on this situation, please see the comments to this post, below. ////////////////////////////////////// Before I took my current job, my girlfriend and I were living in the slums of Osaka (Nishinari-ku), one of the few places in Japan where it’s genuinely dangerous to walk alone at night, and often remembered for…
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Osaka’s Depressing Underground
I used to ride the Osaka subways to and from work every day and after a while you either get really good at blocking things out – crazy subway people, inane station announcements repeated twice in the key of nasal, irritating advertisements, the sharp tang of body odor, a full spectrum of distractions that bombard your already dulled senses – or you slowly become insane. This is especially clear to me now, living out on Awajishima, which I like to describe as “a floating retirement community off the coast of Kobe.” Moving out to the country after living in Osaka for a couple years was a real relief, and I…
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Learning to Flush
This was a new one for me – a public toilet with no manual flushing mechanism at all. The pictured unit is a remote mounted on the wall. Stupid, stupid idea. For instance, what happens if the batteries run out? Technological “advances” like this just cause unneeded stress for the user. Hey, I wonder if TOTO is looking for a toilet design consultant who can issue real-life testing reports in EN/JP (props to anyone who can effectively translate “blumpy,” “spatter effect,” and “logjam” into another language)… I was born to do that job.
