Author: Justin

Decisions, decisions.

Yesterday being “big trash” day, when one can dispose of the unnecessities that clutter life, liberty, and the, um, American way with impunity – you know, old furniture, broken appliances, the big stack of bathroom reading material that’s been piling up for eighteen months – I made a major life decision and threw away all of my frying pans. Five, to be exact. They were all used extensively over the years and starting to sport bald spots in the Teflon coating or rust spots at the handle joint, so I threw them out. People who know my packrat ways will not be surprised to hear that I found it extremely difficult. It was like parting with old friends, or shooting Old Yeller at the end of the book. Tragic, unforseen, yet in retrospect, inevitable. For that is the sad-but-true way of the world – all good dogs die too soon.
These were, after all, the tools that enabled me to provide fine fare for myself and those I care about for several years. Some of these pans had followed me around since college, you see. One funny thing is that more than anything I couldn’t bear to stand the thought of someone else finding them in the trash and for some digusting reason deciding to take them home and use them. I guess I’m just extremely possessive in that sense – I would have melted them down into stainless steel ingots if I’d had the equipment. As it was, I did the next best thing by cooking garlic-heavy dishes in each one, methodically creating smelly carbon buildup on the frying surfaces, and then throwing them out without washing. Jesus, tossing that shopping bag full of frying pans on the garbage pile felt like drowning a sackful of kittens in the river.
Now that I have used both cat and dog analogies, perhaps we can move on.
My house hasn’t been panless for many a year and as the designated Fryer of Meats, today I could think of nothing except what kind of pans I would buy after work finished. I mean, I know I can be a weird, lonely introvert at times, but I’m pretty sure this was a new low. But hey, I figure that life is short and if getting older entails being excited over the choice of new cookingware, then true feelings I must express. I was really happy to go shopping for new pans.
For the past hour I was browsing the kitchen section of Jusco, feeling the heft of each and every frying pan they had for sale. I compared stainless steel to cast iron to titanium, and coated to non-coated to dimpled, ridged, and scalloped. I evaluated the top contenders mentally on a point scale, and almost ended up with a mixed set of the winners. Then, craving unification, I almost broke down and shelled out 150 bones for a set of T-Fal pans because they have some nice shapes in the right sizes. In the end, I bought a cheapie pan and am doing the nerdiest thing imaginable. I’m doing research on the net before investing in a matching set. And yet, it makes me immensely happy. It somehow provides me with purpose in life.
I am turning 30 this year. This whole aging thing is getting pretty scary. By the time I’m forty I’ll probably be collecting spoons and driving a white Toyota. So if you love me like I love you, you will shoot me sometime before then.

Coca-Cola C2 Review

Behold the bold statement of my camera-pic in the sidebar (if you are a late comer see it here), gritty resolution and all… Beach, blue sky, familiar-yet-slightly-changed beverage container (as people in countries that the Mekong river flows through are fond of saying, “same same but different”). What does it all mean? Say it with me now: Guarana!
That’s right, Coca-Cola’s new C2 drink tastes like a watery guarana-based drink. I have no idea if it actually contains guarana or not because I only had the patience to read the first line or so of the ingredients in heavily katakana-ed Japanese. It listed the usual suspects, you know, sucralose, phenylkeurolepticemphasemiatidisestablishmentitariffic acid, and the common marigold, so it didn’t really capture my attention, so to speak. One sip was all I needed to determine that I had tasted a similar soda pop before: Antarctica Guarana, a product of Brazil. I am quite sure of this because I remember downing a six pack of it mixed with a fifth of cane sugar alcohol, then getting sick in a garbage can all night with Los Fabulosos Cadillacs jamming incessantly in the background. Ay. Anyway, C2 tastes like a watery version of Antarctica Guarana. As in, not quite ass but not very good, either. As such, I predict C2 will be a failure because of the numbers:
Calories: Half
Sugar: Half
Carbs: Half
Taste: Much less than half as good as regular Coke.
Coca-Cola is apparently after the fence-sitting target segment of consumerland with this product – people who can’t decide on Coke or Diet Coke. A possible indication of failure to come is this: I would rather drink half a portion of regular Coke than a full portion of C2, and surprisingly, I also prefer the taste of Diet Coke to C2. In fact, I’d rather STICK MY LEFT NIPPLE IN THE BLENDER WITH TWO HEAPING TABLESPOONS OF ABORTED MONKEY FETUS AND SET THE BEER BONG TO “STUN” THAN DRINK C FUCKING 2.
Note: In the middle of the last paragraph I bit the inside of my mouth pretty hard while chomping down on a cough drop. Could ya tell? Sorry. Those are just the breaks. I’d edit it but – time constraints, you know? (If you are an influential member of the Great Cola Conspiracy, I might be able to find the time to rewrite it before the US release. For a Small Fee. If you make me bite myself again, however, I will retaliate by changing the title of this post to: C2 Review: Low-carb Felchwater!.)

In Memory of a Great Man

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere.”
– Ronald Reagan
Without a doubt, that’s the most useful leadership advice anyone has ever given me. My own tribute is simple:
I cried for you with my classmates and my teacher the day you got shot. The principal came by the classroom to make sure everyone understood what had happened. He said, “a very bad man tried to kill our president.” I’m not sure we all understood the full meaning of this statement. What I do know is that you were a hero to us, and none of us wanted to see you go.
Rest in peace.

Sarin Memories

Nighty night, scumbag. Hope you leave this world fully comprehending your failures. The society you tried to destroy is still running strong – it will in fact be destroying you – and I hope that leaves an ironic bitterness in your throat. Right before the noose is pulled tight, that is. Is it wrong to laugh at a condemned man? Ha-ha, motherfucker. Because when I think of how bad it could have been, I feel relieved that you were so inept in some areas. The fact that you failed so miserably overall AND will be sentenced to death anyway is somehow very satisfying. Mostly, I hope your death can be healing for those who survived or were left behind. Closure, you know.
/
I remember the terrified faces on TV, picture bobbing as the cameraman scrambled for better shots of despair.
Summary of main incident: Years of planning and well-funded operations enable deployment of sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway but only produces the kill count of, say, a lone gunman. Pretty fucking pathetic for what has become commonly known as a Weapon of Mass Destruction (the original definition only included nukes). Yes, there were thousands hospitalized and I know that weapons of terror do not have to be lethal so long as people fear them, but gimme a break – my country is currently at war partly over the threat this stuff presents. On a scale of what could have happened, we were lucky that Aum made some key fuckups.
This was not their only attempt with WMDs. Far from it. (Link is a .ppt file). Did you know that Aum released anthrax over Tokyo, multiple times? These sick fucks were lucky enough to live and operate in a country as exploitable as Japan was at the time. They manufactured or procured the kinds of chem/bio agents that even state-sponsored terrorists have difficulty getting – sarin, VX, anthrax. Luckily, the effectiveness of these were compromised because their delivery systems and storage conditions were inadequate. They went to all the trouble of acquiring their arsenal but never learned to use them correctly. Lucky for us! Lucky for Tokyo!
In my mind, the Supreme Truth is that anyone who thinks that poking holes in a bag of nerve gas with the tip of an umbrella is a feasible delivery system has watched too many B-movies, didn’t read the instruction manual (maybe it was in Cyrillic), or is a COMPLETE FUCKING IDIOT. (The fastest way to deliver to a Japanese crowd is to infect a bunch of pocket tissue packs and pass them out at rush hour. Duh.)
It would be a small comfort if at least all the senior members of Aum die as a result of their own egomania. They believed killing a bunch of innocent men, women, and children could trigger a change toward a better society (for them, at least). I shudder to think what they envision as an ideal society. The world will be better off without them, and by “without,” I mean dead and suffering in a coward’s hell.
I mean, come on, in the end all these fucking hypocrites ran away from the cops, hiding in the folds of the very society they were bent on destroying (and leaving their blind and bat-shit crazy guru alone in a hidey hole at the cult compound). A real death cult would have at least had a last stand or something. A group tribute to Yukio Mishima with kitchen knives would have been a lot less wussy and saved us from waiting for the courts to decide their fate for so many years. As decisions go, I’m happy the judge turned over the original ruling. I wonder what the chances for an appeal are – judging by the headline of the article I linked to at the top, Aum cultist to hang for role in sarin gas attack, I didn’t think there would be one.
This quote from the defense is amusing:
“It is regrettable that the judge only considered objective facts and not his individual circumstances.”
Heh. Please don’t punish my client; he’s basically a nice guy, who, under pressure from his peers and the eeevil mind control of his blind prophet mentor, was coerced into something he might not have done if society wasn’t so cruel and his parents had loved him when he was little. And now he has changed! These days, he is fond of kittens, loves Jesus, and is a completely different man from the one who coordinated a sarin gas attack on a subway system filled with innocent people.
I think the Japanese government should specially institute the gas chamber as an alternative to hanging in this case. The instant release of a proper hanging is too humane for these fuckers. They should be gassed with the court evidence, spending the last lingering seconds of consciousness in a paralytic haze as the darkness spreads and eventually swallows them whole.

Pass (on) the Soy Sauce

This is really, really disgusting and definitely sounds like a job for KIKKOMAN:

By producing soy sauce from such raw materials, the producers were said able to cut costs by half. Workers employed at the plants, however, never bought soy sauce marked as “blended” on the packaging, because that usually meant that human hair was the basic material in the sauce.

Chinese cost reduction at its best. Read the whole article. I, for one, love locally produced shoyu. I just bought a big sake bottle full of home-brewed stuff they sell at a local market.
Cosmic Chowhound tip of the day: Keep soy sauce in the fridge as it prevents it from breaking down into dark bitter nastiness. Same thing goes for ponzu and mirin, two other common Japanese flavorings.

Stench

I figured it was about time to really let you know my feelings about your bowels… There is definitely something wrong with them. Today I walked into the men’s restroom with no intention other than spraying down the urinal with golden love, but the smell emanating from your stall brought tears to my eyes. Tears, man – it was that bad. Just what the hell are you eating for breakfast? Besides onions and cheese, that is. Those were fairly obvious. Did I also detect a hint of garlic? I can’t be sure, because the stall next to you was also being used, and I’d never blame an innocent man for another person’s fumes.
Now, before you make your reply, I want you to know that I am fairly well-versed in this subject. I have pondered deeply on my ceramic chair of thought for hours on end about related issues (in between finishing three issues of Popular Science or Motor Trend, that is). I know, for instance, that my best efforts on the throne can cause immediate evacuation of my house and the surrounding area, yet never really bother me. I think everybody develops a natural resistance to the smell of their own shit; for guys this can even sometimes be a special attachment or, dare I say, fondness (damn, it feels like betraying Guild rules writing these words). Indeed, I feel that “separation anxiety” is a commonly understood yet unspoken factor in the peculiarly male-centric habit of bathroom reading.
But, my friend, even factoring in the effects of people always thinking that their own shit don’t stink (and by extension, thinking that everyone else’s smells more), your performance today blew the top off the stankometer. Moldy, rotting, pungently torturous, what-the-fuck-crawled-up-and-died, posilutely THE BOMB stanky. Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined had nothing on the steamy pile you bequeathed to the company plumbing. And it wan’t just me who thought so – one of the cleaning ladies walked in to scrub the urinals donning elbow-length rubber gloves and a white surgical mask, took 2.5 steps into the room, and upon encountering your sarin death fumes, abruptly performed an about-face and exited.
When I left the john, she was standing outside trying to explain to her boss at the cleaning cart why it was a good idea to take out the trash today before cleaning the restrooms, without actually referring to your anal atomizing. She looked to me for support as I passed by, and all I could say is, “oof,” while trying to clear my nostrils.
Dude, your tapeworm collection is rotting or something.