One of the rites of passage in an Asian American household is fighting with your sibling for the eyeballs of the fish served up for dinner (assuming one large whole fish shared by the whole table, as opposed to smaller fish that provide eyeballs for each person). What I definitely do not remember is fighting over fish balls. Must be a SE Asian thing.
Photo taken in the Thai Town area of LA.
Author: Justin
Prove Yourself Worthy
To my Air France stewardess friend, who is coming over tomorrow:
Nothing says friend like a bottle of Chateau Margaux. May I suggest the 1961? But why am I telling you this? I’ll stick to what I, as an American, know best. Crackers and cheese whiz are totally on me.
I, Enki
Dude. This is my greatest accomplishment in years. I inadvertently stumbled onto two Neal Stephenson short stories YOU NEVER EVEN KNEW EXISTED.
Spew is on the WIRED site, but I guess I just never found it until now.
I am posting the entirety of the Great Simoleon Caper in the extended entry of this post for posterity, because I can’t find it on a server I trust to keep it up forever.
Nitsuj Adihsoy
Well, that’s the first time I’ve spelled my name backwards for a long, long time. The last time was in 5th or 6th grade when my best friend Ben Stebbing insisted we call each other by our own names backwards. He moved to England the next year and the last time I Googled him I determined he was either dead or in a Liverpool mental hospital. (Ben, if you are alive and have access to the net, speak up my friend.)
What spurred this memory today? It ties into the best news I’ve heard all week:
In my past life I was known as J.U.S.T.I.N.,
the Jaded and Unbelievably Socratic Tibetan Ironmonger of Nubia
And all this time I thought Tibetans had a natural resistance to hemlock…
It only gets better: C.B.U.D.D.H.A.,
the Civilized , Brazenly Underrated Dogcatcher Drudge Hindi from Araby
Hat tip to J-Walk Blog
Where’s me brolly?
Well, it looks like Typhoon #2 (Japanese don’t follow the western convention for typhoon naming – on one hand, I suppose it’s kinda nice not having to admit that your cities got “battered by Alice” or “ravaged by Gertrude”) – is coming straight for my island tonight. Last time a typhoon came by I had to drive over the bridge between here and Kobe, and it was like the movie Twister in that I just had to crack my window to see just how strong the wind was blowing. In an instant, every loose toll receipt, shopping bag, hamburger wrapper, etc., whipped out the window as if we were at 30,000 feet and if I’d had the foresight to attach GPS trackers to everything, I probably could have mapped out the eye of the storm (I guess that makes my Silvia “Dorothy” in this analogy but I won’t go there.).
The weather today is what I like to call, “fungus-inducing.” Basically, this is the kind of humidity that causes jungle foot, crotch rot, and the downfall of western civilization. You actually feel dryer in the shower on days like this. I might as well spend the night in there since big storms usually destroy my satellite reception and the last one screwed with my FTTH connection as well.
It totally cracked me up when my Aussie pal told me what a brolly is. And a sultana (as in, “Sultana Bran”). Thanks to William Gibson, I know what a standover is. Damn, I really need to visit Australia sometime soon. After I buy a D70, I think.
Calamari
An excellent article on Architeuthis in the New Yorker:
“There was this big thing hanging off the front of the net,” Robison recalled. “The suckers were still grasping.” Robison’s discovery offered the most accurate recording yet of a giant squid’s depth in the water column. “Until then, most people thought they were only near the bottom,” he said. Robison later dissected the tentacle and performed chemical analyses; the consistency of the tissue, and its high level of protein, led him to speculate that the giant squid was “a relatively strong swimmer.” Robison told me that he had taken a bite of its raw, rubbery flesh. “How could I not?” he said, adding, “It was bitter.”
Wax on
The Japanese title for “The Karate Kid” is “Best Kid“, which is kind of funny if you think about why they felt compelled to replace a perfectly understandable title (to the average Jiro or Hanako, anyway) for one that makes a hell of a lot less sense and sounds, well, kinda wack (You the bestest, Daniel-san! Done waxing the floor?). The soundtrack for this movie is so synthesizically enhanced it makes me embarrassed to have grown up in the same era. Otherwise, I find it a pleasure to watch once every few years or so.
Imagine my surprise when I found the Cobra-kai in real life. They have high-ranking fighters in the Japanese PANCRASE “hyper-wrestling” league, and they live up to their movie reputation. Basically, they all wear black short-sleeve gi and act like assholes during the tournaments, especially after they win.
What is our motto, ladies?
Strike First! Strike Hard! No Mercy, Sir!
309 KPH
And I thought I had it bad dodging black-and-white Skylines, GTOs, and Supras. Note to self: If you ever rent a car in Italy, splurge on something fast.
OLD OR VERGIN
WOOOHOOOO!:
LOTTERIA LA PRIMITIVA.
AVNIDA DE AMERICA 137, MADRID – ESPAムA
FROM: THE DESK OF THE PROMOTIONS MANAGER,
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT,
REF: LP/26510460037/03 BATCH: 24/00319/IPD
( CONGRATULATION)
DEAR SIR,
AWARD NOTIFICATION FINAL NOTICE.
We are pleased to inform you of the announcement, of winners of the
LOTTERY PRIMITIVA SWEEPSTAKES/INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS held on 4th
december,2003.the late release of this result was due to difficulties encountered in sorting out mixed up numbers and email addresses,thatエs why we have been working 24 hours to see that everything is ok.
Your name is attached to ticket number 004-05117963-198, with serial
number 99375 drew the lucky numbers 31-33 -34-35-36-42, and
consequently,won the lottery in the 3rd category. You have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of (€uros 847,824,) EIGHT HUNDRED AND FOURTY SEVEEN THOUSAND,EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOUR EUROS. in cash credited to file No:LP/26510460037/02.This is from total prize money of EUROS (€80,400,000.00,)EIGHTY MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND EUROS, shared among the twenty two international winners in this category.
All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn
form 25,000 names from Australia, New Zealand, America, Europe, North
America and Asia as part of International Promotions Program, which is
conducted annually. CONGRATULATIONS!!! Your fund is now insured to your
name. Due to the mix up of some numbers and names, however you are please advise to keep this award away from public notice, until your claim has been processed and your money remitted to your account.
This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming or
unscrupulous acts by participants of this program. We hope with a part
of you prize, you will participate in our end of year high stakes
Euros 1.1 billion International Lottery. To begin your claim, please contact your claims agent, Mr Michel Sarda (FOREIGN OPERATION MANAGERS)
at TEL:00-34-666904261,EMAIL:DIRECTSTRIKE@EMAILACCOUNT.COM. and dont forget to send the following information because is very inportant.
YOUR NAME:
YOUR ADRESS:
YOUR TEL AND YOUR FAX:
YOUR BANK NAME:
YOUR BANK ADDRESS:
YOUR BANK TEL AND FAX:
YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER OLD OR VERGIN:
All this areFor due processing and remittance of your prize money to a
designated account with our bankers. Remember, all prize money must be
claimed not later than 27th july, 2004. After this date, all funds
will be returned as unclaimed. NOTE: In order to avoid unnecessary
delays and complications, please remember to quote your reference and
batch numbers in every one of your correspondences with your agent.
Furthermore, should there be any change of your address, do inform your
claims agent as soon as possible. Congratulations again from all our
staff and thank you for being part of our promotions programm.
(CONGRATULATION)
REGARDS
MR RUBEN GARCIA
DIRECTOR
//
I guess this means I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.
Chloraseptic
An absolute lifesaver. I must be spraying an equivalent of a full shot of the cherry-flavored stuff every night. It’s the only thing stopping me from scratching the inside of my throat with a wire coat hanger.
I don’t take it to work with me because I’m afraid I’d accidentally leave it there, and then I’d have to go a whole night – or in the case of today, a whole weekend without it. I already suffer (and make those around me suffer) from apnea, so without my trusty blood red Chloraseptic spray, my girlfriend would probably smother me with a pillow halfway through the night. On a related note, last night we slept under a mosquito net that she brought back from Thailand as a sort of joke and rigged up on in our bedroom by hanging from cheap resin string attached to the curtain rods, door stops, and the ceiling light. It was kind of fun at first since it added an Indy Jones-ish mystique to our typically Japanese tatami-matted room, but sleeping under it can be described aptly in a single word: Claustrophobic.
It may have been psychological, but it felt ten degrees hotter under that thin netting than the rest of the room, and I spent all night dreaming of being a female replicant being chased by Harrison Ford and wearing a wedding veil in a stuffy old warehouse – a true testament to the power of movies! Anyway. I woke up this morning to the sound of my alarm clock ringing (it really rings when you have a headache, doesn’t it?), and did the good old “blind wild cougar swipe” in the general direction of the evil sleepkiller… And brought the ceiling light crashing down on my leg since my swipe thrashed the so-easily-forgotten mosquito net just hard enough to pull the string attached to the light etc. etc. and so forth (compliment The King and I, Yule-not-Chow-Yun version). But all was not lost cuz the bulb Did Not Break.
Girlfriend wakes up, covered in limp netting yet in all her morning beauty, and sweetly asks, “WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”
If you ask me, who am I supposed to ask?