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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…
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THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. (Hat tip to my dad for the e-mail)
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nardical
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.
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
