I spoke with a friend about this the other night and we did some rough (read: beer-inspired) calculations to estimate how much money every Japanese taxpayer paid for the release of the Japanese hostages in Iraq this month: about 2,000 yen. I do not vouch for the accuracy of this figure, but I want to make it clear that I do not agree with the decision to pay for their release, no matter what the cost. They chose to go where their country told them not to, and tear-jerking death threat footage aside, the burden of consequence should not fall on our shoulders. 2000 yen per taxpayer for the whole country is way too much to pay for 5 people’s ransom, for that matter, so is a single yen. I bet you I’m not the only one who feels this way, either.
The anti-government views of the hostages are obvious, and there are rumours about their possible collusion with enemy forces – that the whole incident including abduction, videotaping, etc., was a set up. Obviously, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this, either. The situation is being looked into, and hopefully the truth will eventually come out. I won’t pass early judgement, but if it turns out that those taken hostage were, indeed, working with the enemy, I think they should be punished, harshly.
That a portion of my tax money is now most likely being used to prolong the insurgency in Iraq is almost more than I can bear. I would like to think it affects the average Jiro the same way, if he would only stop to think about it.
Author: Justin
I blame it all on Portishead
I placed a down payment on a theremin yesterday. I have no idea what it will end up looking like, but this is for the best, I feel. For this particular instrument (which I have never played before BTW), not knowing how it will turn out creates a certain excitement I could never attain by simply ordering online or through a music catalog. This was only made possible by hiring an otaku to do the job. Kasama-san is a nice guy, a most skilled bassist, Taro’s business partner (they sell antique condensers, specialized mic shields, and other maniac music shit), and one of the most functional denki-otakus I have ever met.
When I found a loose circuit board connection to input RCA connector jacks inside my 500 watt amp, I used what tricks I could to keep it working temporarily. Unwilling to be without decent sound in my car for even a short time, I never even considered having it fixed at a professional shop since they generally take forever just to tell you (approximately) how badly you will get raped for repairs. I looked around for a decent replacement instead, but couldn’t find a good deal before the connection got a lot worse and basically made my amp unuseable. So I turned to Kasama-san, who I knew at the time as a tinkerer of guitar amps, and he replaced the part I needed on the board for a pittance – so I tipped him well. The skills he possesses are very special in our modern world of cheap throwaway electronics. Like some of the engineers at work, he can read the circuits on a PCB like a roadmap, and tell you where you can find shortcuts, bypasses, and hidden paths, among other things. This is a very valuable skill.
Anyways. Theremin of unknown specification and design will be mine in a couple of weeks, and I take great comfort in knowing that the creator has spent countless hours worrying about each subcomponent, optimizing it as a whole system, and tweaking it to perfection with the cold twisted love of electronica.
Cheesecake Factory?
Well, Slate followed up the wonderful variety meat article with one written by a food critic weenie from England, of all places. Perhaps his wittiest assertion in comparing London’s Chez Whiteys with their counterparts in Los Angeles is: “The reason the food is better at London’s top restaurants is that Britain is closer to France.” Although I kind of doubt that the American chefs would accept losing to kidney pie slingers very graciously. The critic’s self-proclaimed noobosity (18 months on the job) is proven with the following:
However, once you drop down a couple of notches, L.A. knocks London into a cocked hat. The restaurant I’ve been most impressed by so far is the Cheesecake Factory in Brentwood. I had a cobb salad there last week that was every bit as tasty as the cobb salad I had at the Ivy, yet it was brought to my table in half the time and it was a quarter of the price. In Britain – indeed, in France – there just aren’t any midmarket restaurant chains to match the quality of the Cheesecake Factory. And there are dozens of similar chains in this country that are equally first-rate. When it comes to this kind of food?good, solid, dependable fare at reasonable prices?America leads the world.
Cocked hats aside, I think I see where this is going – that’s a big know your bloody place you yankee dogs only half-assedly disguised as a compliment. He’s only admitting that average American chain restaurants make American food better (even though the Cobb is also known as the King of Salads and the Crab Louie Salad, it originates from and was made famous by the west coast). Yeah, well I can only retort that the “average Brit’s ability to skillfully open doors is only offset by their tendency to run their bulbous noses into them first.”
That said, this is a pretty fun article to read. I like the guy’s writing. I just can’t understand why he has such a hard on for the Cheesecake Factory (and for the uninitiated, said restaurant’s cheesecake leaves a lot to be desired).
la cucina povera
I’m all for this. As anyone I’ve ever gone to yakiniku with can attest to, my fondness for what even what a lot of Japanese won’t eat. Slimy cow guts taste goooood when they’re fried nice and crispy. And nothing beats a crispy fried pig’s tail.
Pig’s foot Milanese is pounded so thin and breaded so thickly that the flavor of the pig’s foot is not readily discernible through the fried bread crumbs. Beef cheek ravioli are delicious, light and pillowy, with only a hint of fibrousness to the meat and a telltale chalky aftertaste. Lamb’s brain francoboli are so heavy on cheese and so light on brain that they taste almost vegetarian. While all of these dishes are delicious, the question inevitably arises: If the recipe requires that you camouflage the central ingredients, why use those ingredients at all?
There is only one answer: Because it requires the slaughter of a pig, cow, and lamb, respectively, and flips a big fiddle minger to PETA.
Reminder to self: Post pic from restaurant in Khon Kaen here later.
BB King
Look at what they’re finally confirming:
Japan Offers by Far Fastest, Cheapest Broadband Services: OECD
April 21, 2004 (PARIS) — Japanese firms are offering by far the cheapest and fastest broadband services of companies operating in 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to the first such report compiled by the international organization.
The survey, which was conducted in October 2003, shows Japanese companies leading the pack with KDDI Corp, NTT East Corp. and usen Corp offering throughput of over 100Mbps with their fiber-optic networks.
This really trickles my bits. My pal and I talked about this happening over three years ago, when Korea was still the place to be for broadband, and I was paying about 18,000 yen per month for dual channel ISDN (including both ISP and telco charges) service out here on Awaji Island. Since then my upgrade path went from 1.5 Mbps ADSL to 8Mbps ADSL, and finally to what I use now, 100Mbps FTTH. I am really sad because now there is nowhere to move up from here (maybe I can hope for that laser-based transmission technology next). In fact, I am planning on moving down, as far down as I can possibly go: dial-up. That’s right, the shrill screeching of analog modem handshakes will keep me company once again. I wrote about it in this post around when I started this blog, and Thailand still has no viable plans for broadband in sight. Things move slower there.
This passage was very interesting:
It has been difficult to conduct a comparison of telecom services offered in various countries, since there is no fixed worldwide definition for broadband. The OECD report defines a broadband service as one offering round-the-clock Internet connectivity and a download speed of at least 250kbps.
If this 250kbps standard was adopted worldwide, I think a lot of people in the US would be angry that the ADSL service they pay for isn’t even considered broadband. I was really shocked by the number of regular computer users in the states who say they don’t need broadband or can’t afford it. That’s a crying shame. It really should be made a lot cheaper and a hell of a lot faster than it is now.
Then again, why am I worried about you guys back home? When I’m checking line polarity before jacking in somewhere along the Mekong in a year or so, I will envy all of you. I do not relish the thought of reverting from the instant gratification of always-connected mode to a dial-up frame of mind: No downloads. No multiplayer games. No mindless clickfests. Oh, well. I guess I’ll spend my time finding other things to do. Maybe I’ll get my laughs by training an army of pocket monkeys to fling feces at passing water buffalo riders, or something.
Gecko racing, anyone?
Fido’s Assmaker
The main reason I didn’t feel like posting until today was:
Yowch.
This isn’t me by the way, I just took the picture. As you can see, I must have made a fine pinhole camera out of a beer can. Not that I remember it that well. As a week early birthday present, we took Bill away from his bar in Nara in order to take him to, you guessed it, another bar. Tramp’s bar in Osaka, where I hadn’t been to for years, but where happy hour is still 180 minutes long. It was a great night, but reminiscing about it in detail still makes me slightly ill. To make a long story short, I think we discovered a shit hot way to feel like Fido’s ass for days on end. A recipe for it would look something like this:
Official Recipe for Fido’s Assmaker
Ingredients:
Mediocre beer (we used Asahi Super Dry, the MGD of Japan)
Cheap tequila (they only had Cuervo, but anything will do as long as it’s warm – this is important!)
Ouzo (also warm – not that it matters with this shit)
B-52s (no comment)
Baked cheese fries (sprinkled with paprika, no garnish – this is completely irrelevant)
Preparation:
Show up late for happy hour with an empty stomach.
Directions:
Pacing yourself against the end of happy hour, after which prices double (not a joke in Japan), inhale as much beer and tequila as possible in a 1:1 pint-to-shot ratio. Note that lack of refrigeration multiplies the nastiness factor of cheap tequila to the point where you can almost forego the salt and lime (heresy, I know). At the halfway point of the evening, pound the Ouzo. Regret it, both instantly and for days hence. At this point, cleanse the palate with cheese fries and beer, and allow the walls to blur quite nicely.
If you are sitting next to guys who insist on staring at your group and making loud comments about you because the possibility that you just might understand their language hasn’t entered their minds, try ignoring them for a while. If their voices rise to more irritating levels because the noise in the bar is getting progressively louder, give them them the look. You know, the crazy gaijin’s gonna stick his foot in your ass and make you his little geisha boy look. Even racist fuckwits deserve fair warning, after all. If they persist, however, and you start fantasizing about escalation and how nice it would be to “accidentally” elbow them in the face on the way to the pisser – sit back as your friend takes the initiative and starts an ad hoc lesson in foreign affairs. Note their shock at your friend’s fluency in their language with smug satisfaction. Prepare for some serious entertainment because you’re just sure that he’s gonna take the piss out of them (it’s time for PAYBACK, baby)… Then watch in utter amazement as he chooses not to do so, and ends up chatting with them like old friends for the next couple of hours. In retrospect, that was the right thing to do, of course, but it would have been so much more fun to write words like, “hamlike fist,” or “smashing right hook,” or the time-tested “tiger uppercut.” Ah, well. I didn’t have my camera, anyway.
Additional Tips:
If you try this recipe in Japan, like us, make sure you hit the bar on open mic night. It’s a whole new world of irritation to hear a guy alternatively moaning “hey mannn,” “oh maaaaan,” and “hey maaaaaannnnnn,” with a Japanese accent into the mic for thirty minutes, but luckily, the tequila should help take the edge off your nerves. Speaking of which, I must reemphasize the importance of using warm tequila. I am fairly sure that this was a major factor in the earth-shattering headache I experienced the next day. And of course, the Ouzo did its job by making me feel sickly for a few days.
I may have gotten off lightly, though. I received the following mail to my phone the next day:
From: xxx
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 10:40:35 +0900(JST)
To: Justin Yoshida
Subject: ouch
woke up in an alley behind my local train station..must have taken a cab…
The poor guy doesn’t remember that I put him in it, and that he couldn’t tell the cab driver his whole address because he kept falling asleep after reciting the city, Higashi Osaka. After the third try, the cab driver agreed it would be best to let him sleep it off some and ask him again after getting to the general vicinity. Guess that didn’t work out too well…
Long recovery
To William Gibson, who I have never met but who may find this post while vanity googling for, say, “mnemonic osaka blackice bbs standover tokyo burningchrome nagoya underground fleshpuppet keiretsu pattern blackmarket translation monalisa oyabun”: I’m back.
Last week was a milestone of sorts for this weblog, the product of several weeks of consistent posting and increasing traffic from other sites, so I would like to thank all of you for reading. I wish I could keep up what other bloggers consider to be a normal pace – posting at least once every weekday – but I just don’t have the time, and I will not post for the sake of posting. That would make it seem like work, and believe me – I already have enough of that.
Speaking of which, every day this week I have come to work in the morning and ended up feeling like wilted produce – harvested by migrant farm workers and then left in the back of a truck for hours under the glaring midday sun as the driver impatiently chews a toothpick and waits for clearance at the border. That is to say, it is hot enough for crotchpot cooking, with no relief in sight. The building managers haven’t turned on the air conditioners yet, and I can’t help but wonder if they receive some type of bonus for every day they put off flipping the switch. Or maybe they just don’t get out much from their offices in the basement, where it’s ten degrees cooler. I might collapse with heat stroke if I keep ranting much longer, so I’ll switch gears and tell you another reason why it took so long for me to post again.
Moral Certification
Hat tip to Osaka Bill (“bill” in the comments, not “Bill”,- that’s Nara Bill) for the link.
Proper Forum
The other day I wrote a fairly long reply in the comments after derailing my own train of thought and forgetting whatever it was I originally intended on saying. It was in response to something my mom wrote in the comments about cleanliness being next to godliness. Since a couple friends and I have since hijacked that comment thread for a debauchery support group meeting this weekend, I figured it was only fair to bring that long comment out and let it stand on its own out here in the light:
Cleanliness: Diligence in keeping clean
Godliness: Piety by virtue of being a godly person
I can say with some confidence that these are fairly inaccurate descriptors for me. Need proof?
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
AN EXAMPLE OF WHY I AM NOT CLEAN OR GODLY
– BY C. BUDDHA
I’ve forgotten to dry the same load of laundry for two straight days now; I go home after work and upon tossing my sweaty clothes in the washing machine, I see that there is still a damp load in there from the night before. Not knowing the proper course of action, I simply start the washer again.
I can hear the merry sounds of rinse, spin, and drain cycles in the background as I make dinner or watch the news on tv, but by the time the machine is finished, I have invariably forgotten about it again. Not just for a few minutes, though. Not even for a few hours. No, I generally remember that I have to hang the clothes to dry right before I step out the door the next morning – by which time I am in a rush to get to work and will stop for nothing. So I curse and go to work and think about the ball of damp clothes fermenting in my washer at home periodically throughout the day. And I go home and the cycle starts anew…
This is not a big deal as of yet this time. My girlfriend has been gone for only two days, so we are not into a scary duration or anything – YET. Last time, she was gone for 19 days and I finally remembered to dry the laundry on the 18th day. I know what you’re thinking, I only remembered because I ran out of clothes, right? Wrong. You forget that I am a man. A normal man. And as such, if there are no clean clothes, I will recycle dirty ones for multiple uses without washing and never think twice about it.
The truth of the matter is, I only remembered on the 18th day because she called and specifically asked if the house was clean, the plants watered, the laundry done, etc., etc., etc.
Now, any man in his right mind would answer “yes”
in this situation:
– A cleanly man could truthfully say “yes” (but probably wouldn’t be asked in the first place.
– A godly man would have said “yes”, but later may have whispered “help me lord, I need a miracle.”
– I lied quite bluntly by saying “yes”, and in a total frenzy, attempted three weeks of laundry, dishes, and cleaning in one night.
She wasn’t fooled for a second. I guess it must have been pretty obvious with closetfuls of clothes hanging out to dry. This time, I know better. I am prepared. I will answer, “no.”
THE END
Bit Serenade
You all must have seen these “keyword” spam messages by now, right?:
buttrick adapt courtyard imaginate fondle atlanta,
archenemy glitter edible synoptic baghdad concocter,
loyalty lied transmitter committeeman determinant,
oviform atlantic arianism perpendicular lament annulled,
schwartz wiry polymeric citation abel concessionaire,
britannica kenton elizabethan hedge maudlin chomsky,
caution ecumenic codomain streptococcus tenant quagmire,
tumble china denver bradshaw crosslink hysterectomy,
abolish papal addend thirsty alice interdict monogamous,
disaccharide nearsighted varistor quirk mastermind perseus,
historic lares sketchbook respond theology absolution zealot,
duplicity kidde danbury inhomogeneous disaccharide,
depressible yesteryear uphold catholic anything censure,
crotchety matisse mongoose caryatid
Some of these spammers are real poets. He gets bonus points for using the words varistor, hyterectomy, and matisse all in the same message.
And now I have this sudden urge to “Get Harder Than Steel” and “Make Her Scream – with 100% EFFECTIVE Generic Vi@gr’a.”
Well, go ahead and sign me up for 50 cases, Mr. Chester Ott.
Do you take checks for international bulk orders?
That is all.