Category: Chillin’

For the past month or so we’ve been cleaning up the house and finally sent 3 cubic meters of stuff to Mahasarakham via Pakmail this past Monday. Nam is taking off in a couple of days, and I’m still inspired by her seriously amazing ability to root through ten+ year old crap and throw it all away. We’ve probably thrown away over 70-80 bags of trash.
So anyway, I’m digging through all of my computer backups on floppy, CD, DVD, ZIP, EZ drive, MO, JAZ, etc., etc., and so forth.
I found some of the artwork and posters I used to do before gigs, when I was in my Photoshop phase (and believe me, it was all about version 4.0). I liked this one especially, because I remember how long it took me to freehand a Mandelbrot on a 5″ Wacom tablet:

See? I was all about Macintosh until Steve Jobs started charging for .mac accounts (previously announced “free for life”), and this was pretty much the apex of my Photoshop skills. Nowadays there’s filters to churn this shit out, but that’s pretty much the modern equivalent of “I had to walk 9 miles to school through the snow,” isn’t it?
Well, fuck, Steve Jobs made Apple dead to me and now I do my bit by punching out random iPodders on the subway, so I guess there really is a sort of cosmic balance.
Well. Back to cleaning.
UPDATE:
I found a version I like even better.

I just remembered one of the funniest things I ever heard.
About seven years ago I got trapped in a conversation with a roomful of girls, and the topic of the conversation of course turned to the topic it always turns to in a roomful of only girls, that is, feminine hygeine products. Anyway, the funny part: This one Chinese girl admitted that the first time she used tampons, she had no idea how to use them and she ended up shoving in 7 or 8, and then proceeded to go about her normal business for the day.
(I’m hoping there’s a Confucian equivalent to Kegels.)
That story still makes me smile.

I’m not a Numerologist or anything, hell, I hardly even believe in math. Yet, I become strangely obsessed with numbers and compulsively count things out in my head on occassion. You know, the number of steps I take from point A to point B, or the number of cars I pass on the highway. Stuff like that. Or even simpler things, like tapping my fingers on a desk and counting the beat – performing a repetetive action for the sake of counting. I think I do this when I’m bored, but I’ve been doing it for so long now, it’s become a kind of meditation as well.
Another thing I’ve noticed over the years is that certain numbers keep popping up here and there. I don’t mean meaningful numbers like 5 or 24 or 100. I mean numbers that appear much more frequently than they should. Do you know what I mean?
One number that keeps appearing in my life is 307. It was not always so, or more accurately, I do not think it was always so. You see, 307 was my room number in my college dorm. A couple of years into my residency there, I started noticing that the room number 307 was used on TV and movies quite often. Then I realized that I knew someone else who lived in an apartment #307. Over the years, I’ve entered several room 307s – visiting people or offices with that number. I’ve been assigned room 307 at hotels all over the world. And let us not forget that the Toto U307C is the seemingly most popular urinal in men’s restrooms all over Japan.

So what is it with this number? Am I the only one to have noticed the frequency of it?
Lets look at Google:
Search for 306 returns 85,700,000 results
Search for 307 returns 127,000,000 results
Search for 308 returns 76,700,000 results
Holy shit! I’m not sure that proves a thing, but it does seem uncannily popular, doesn’t it?
What is the meaning?
What is the significance?
(Also, in this case, are meaning and significance necessarily synonymous?)
Will 307 aliens from the planet 307 someday abduct me and threaten to blow up planet Earth unless I guess the number they are thinking of?
Will I one day play the lottery and win $307 million using the repeating string of 307307307307?
Will I ever live in another room 307 and find out I can see dead people?
………..
It’s a fucking conspiracy, I tell you.

I saw something pretty funny at the carwash last week. A young couple was washing their new yellow subcompact in the stall next to mine. The girl was scrubbing the hood of the car with a white rag and noticed it was picking up yellow specks, so showed it to the guy. “Stop!,” he exclaimed, and began inspecting the hood for damage. “This carwashing soap we bought is stripping the paint…”
When I told them it was just yellow sand from China, they looked at me like I was crazy. So I showed them my car, which is gunmetal grey and looks like a yellow-speckled trout after the rain dries on it every year around this time.

So I have this female coworker, right? She’s off for a year on maternity leave now, but she has been working at the company from before I joined, and we’ve always been tight. She’s always had my back, and I have hers, too. So it kills me to say this, but she has given the stupidest name to her newborn baby boy, and that’s kind of unforgivable in my book.
The name? “Shishimaru.” The kanjis used are for “lion” and “circle.” (I dare not write it in Japanese cuz this page will surely float to the top of the search results – for now filled with pets and monster movies named “shishimaru”)
That kid is SO gonna get his assed kicked in school. Hell, even the retarded kids will be taking his lunch money. Bad parents! Shame on you!
So what’s the worst baby name you’ve ever heard?

Having lived away from home for so long, I’ve accumulated a kitchenful of spices and worn cooking utensils, and a few original recipes worth sharing. This is the first one I will publish here, and it is a good one. In the past, women have even offered brief glimpses of their ankles to me for it; now that I am married I prefer to empower you with it, for free.
– BACKGROUND –
Mabodofu is a popular spicy tofu and ground meat dish served in Japan, but with definite Chinese influence. Mabonasu is a variation on this dish, substituting nasu (eggplant) for tofu. After thinking about how much I loved both dishes over a period of several years, it occurred to me that bean curd and eggplant are not mutually exclusive. Thus, mabonasudofu was born.
The pasta component of this equation was born of necessity. Mabonasu/mabodofu are traditionally served on a hot bowl of rice. However, one day, when cooking up an early experimental batch of mabonasudofu on a pitifully underpowered butane burner in my university dorm room, I found I was out of rice. But I had a bag of spaghetti laying around (and what starving student doesn’t?), so I boiled it up and – BAM! – this brilliant dish was born. Necessity is truly the mamacita of invention.
– MABO THEORY –
There are much easier ways to make mabonasu/mabodofu, because they sell gel packets of seasoning for it that you can simply add ground meat plus tofu or eggplant to and stir fry. I heartily recommend trying out these packets if they are available to you, because they are a good reference. The flavor is generally kind of authentic in the sense that a Mustang is a fast car. However, I am a Ferrari man at heart (even though I’ve never sat in one), and at least for today, you should be, too. With regard to this completely ridiculous analogy, this means that we should be making our mabo seasoning from scratch.
Note: Click on any of the images in this post to open larger versions of them.
– INGREDIENTS –

(the numbering used is random, it does not indicate order in which ingredients are used)

1. Sake (any brand is fine): 1/5 cup
2. Shredded white cheese (any kind you would use on normal spaghetti is fine): 1 small handful per serving
3. Beer: 0.257 to 0.348 second pours, two or three times (see below)
4. Sesame oil: 2 to 3 tablespoons
5. Mirin: 3 tablespoons
6. Sour cream (isn’t the tiny Japanese container that costs $2.50 cute? There’s almost a whole serving in there!): 1 dollop
7. Cooking oil (generic): 2 tablespoons
8. Tobanjan (spicy Chinese miso): 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons
9. Salt/pepper mix: Enough to lightly season the meat
10. Chopped green onions: As much as you like as a topping
11. Ketchup: 2 tablespoons
12. Tomato paste: 4 tablespoons
13. Tofu (the creamiest you can find): One large block
14. Nasu (long skinny eggplant, NOT aubergine; must be cut as shown below): Around 5 medium-sized ones
15. Brown sugar (if you think white sugar is the same, tell that to a heroin addict): 1 Tablespoon
16. Pasta: However much you need. The bag of spaghetti noodles here was just enough to use up the mabonasudofu “sauce,” and served 6 people.
17. Ginger (must be ground): 1 root clump (what the hell is the proper measurement for ginger? Does it go by weight? If so, however many grams/ounces shown in the photo, minus the smaller clump is about right.)
18. Bay leaves: 4 if harvested in the northern hemisphere; 3 if in the southern; 2.5 if the tree was pissed on by a pregnant mongoose every full moon
19. Garlic (must be smashed with the flat of your knife, then diced): 5 big ol’ honkin’ cloves if you have primo elephant garlic like me 😉
20. Ground beef or beef/pork mix (chicken not welcome here): 1.5 pounds

– Directions –
Lightly season the ground meat and talk to it about the weather or something to calm its nerves (it’s about to be fried you heartless bastard). Then, in an oiled (with generic cooking oil) wok or bowl-shaped frying pan, or if you are like me and threw both out because you wore them out, in a normally-shaped LARGE frying pan, start cooking the ground meat on medium-high heat. Add the chopped garlic on top of the meat as it cooks, then drizzle the sesame oil over the garlic (notice how I carefully measure everything).

Stir up the pan and almost completely brown the meat. Add ketchup, mirin, sugar, tomato paste, and sake. Turn heat to medium and stir just enough to make sure it very slightly caramelizes (and it should with all that sugary stuff you just mixed in), but doesn’t burn. Cook in this manner for approximately 7 minutes and 47 seconds, occasionally stirring in beer (because beer makes everything taste better, duh).

Get your tofu ready, dude. I splurged and bought some extra soft tofu that came wrapped in cheesecloth. It was so soft, I didn’t need to precut it, but I know this yuppie stuff isn’t available everywhere, so you may need to cut yours up a bit.

Add the tofu to the pan. Mix it up into little pieces and continue cooking for a couple minutes. Add ground up ginger, mix it up, baby.

Add enough water to almost cover everything in the pan, then add the bay leaves in an asymetrical pattern. Depending on how big your pasta pot is, you may want to start boiling water in preparation right about now.

It’s time to cut up the nasu into sixteenths with your fugu-shaped knife (I suppose any old knife would do, but still…). “Sixteenths?,” you are wondering. Observe, grasshopper:

(Hi-tech arrowing system enabled with Sriracha)
Sit back for a minute, finish the beer, and admire your handiwork thus far. You deserve it!

Now you need to skim the oil off the top of your mabonasudofu. This is why:

Add the nasu. Cover the pan and simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Uncover and turn off the heat, then let the mix cool while you cook your pasta. Boil the pasta as you would normally, with a dash of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.

While you are waiting for the pasta to boil, break out the vino. This one wasn’t remarkable, but it wasn’t bad for Jusco.

When the pasta is ready, strain it and put it on plates. Sprinkle cheese directly on the pasta. Heat up the mabonasudofu in the pan again, then ladle it on top of the plated pasta. Top with a handful of green onions and a dollop of sour cream.

Bon appetit!

This weekend provided enough points of interest to allow my free rambling mode. Nam’s older sister, Nok arrived at 7AM on Saturday morning. So we woke up at 4:00 and drove down to the car ferry in the neighboring city of Awaji-shi (until last year: Tsuna-cho) to catch the 5:30 boat. As ferry rides go, it was pretty unremarkable. I took a couple shots of the sun rising over the ocean, then I fell asleep on the carpet of the break room and apparently snored everybody from one side of the boat to the other. The one funny thing that happened was when I was taking a crap.
Now normally I wouldn’t shitblog on a Monday, but this isn’t so much about kernels of corn or clogging the pipes so much as it is about unexpected company and release mechanisms. Partway through my bathroom experience, somebody entered the stall next to mine and started coaxing his shit out. The thing is, he started out all like, “uuuuuuuuungh,” and, “hrrrrrrraaafff,” and ended up yelling at it in a very much yakuza tone of voice. Yes, faithful readers, it is the very first time I have heard someone yelling at their own shit, in any language. “Hayo DERUNJYA KORA!” (Hurry up and come out!) It made me wonder if he was pulling heroin bags out of his ass. I finished my business and decided to vacate in a rapid manner, half-amused and yet permanently scarred by the experience, and just wanting to Get the Fuck Out. Horror of horrors, as I was washing my hands at the sink, the other guy finished and stood behind me waiting as I quickly splashed water on my face. I glanced at his relection in the mirror – bald head, black knit sweater with handpainted gold glitter design (my guess: $250 at a fake Versace shop?), man purse from hell – yep, this guy was at least High Wannabe level. When we got back into our cars belowdecks, the guy’s ride was a mid-90’s Gloria with blackout tint and Tokushima plates. Feh. (It’s all about Kobe plates, bioootch!)
The conversation I witnessed between a friend from France and an 18 year old girl from Hong Kong made me think the most this weekend. Mostly, it made me think what a fine line there is between Gallic honesty and assholism, but maybe you will see what I mean. So my pal Stef from Mimizan, who is about my age, is being asked about jobs available to foreigners in Japan by this young girl from Hong Kong. And Stef says, straight up, “You should be a prostitute. It’s the easiest way to make money in the shortest amount of time.” And I laughed my ass off and said That’s Fucked Up, just because I thought it was a particularly cold-blooded thing to say to an 18 year old. But then I thought about it some more. Sometimes I wonder if I just see the world differently than those around me, and whether that is a curse or a gift. But, yeah, in reality maybe it’s a good thing to get on the table at an early stage in life: Girls, you can all be whores. That option is always open if you need money quickly. If all else fails, go to France; they will understand your needs there.
Oh shit, I almost forgot to write about the dope-ass swag people gave me this weekend. As a wedding present, Stef brought back a set of white bathrobes made of thick cotton for me and Nam – and they have our names embroidered on them! In green! Cursive! Pimpalicious. Now all I need is a smoking jacket and a monocle, oh yeah, and a house with a study, and I will never leave home again. You can all come visit me and we’ll make a toast with snifters full of the vintage umeshu (plum wine/liquor) I scored from T’s aunts this weekend!
On Saturday night, I stayed over at T’s place and he mentioned that his aunts had recently found a jar of home-brewed umeshu from 1978. ZZZing! That got my attention. I made it known I was interested in trying some. So, around midnight, his aunt Yuki-chan came around the house and told me to help her bring out some jars from behind the old house. It was dark and I hit my head on a pipe, but it was worth it. In all, we rescued three ten-liter glass jars, one typically amber-colored lot from 2000, one reddish vintage from 1997, and one of unknown (but very old) vintage that had turned nearly black. Glasses were procured, and each lot was tasted carefully. The 2000 vintage was nearly indistinguishable from store bought umeshu. Good, but typical. The unknown vintage was so old it had started turning to vinegar – I’d like to try converting it into a plum vinaigrette dressing sometime. Now the middle lot – BINGO! – this stuff was goooooooood. T’s aunt, Tatan, told me this lot had turned a reddish color because she took out the plums a few years back (I do not know if the red umeshu sold in stores also turns colors naturally. I always assumed they added coloring.). And since we are moving to Thailand this year, she gave me the whole lot! I was so happy I nearly cried. This is the Good Stuff. It is not even what I would call top shelf, because I wouldn’t put it there. It is more precious than the Bookers bourbon; more meaningful than the Kubota sake which are the best bottles of booze I have at home. This stuff stays in a cool, dark place in the earthenware bottles to which we transferred it, to be sampled occasionally, and treasured forever. Let me be clear – this stuff is so good, it almost makes you wish you had never tasted it, for want of never being able to drink regular umeshu again.
The last thing about the weekend worth mentioning was my drive home yesterday. It was long. The weather was perfect for windows-down driving in a t-shirt. I drove directly into the setting sun for most of an hour, listening to Soundgarden as the asphault melted into long streaks of orange and gold before me. I crossed the Yodogawa, and thought about taking walks on it with my brother last year. It turned dark as I headed through Kobe and watched the lights dancing on the harbor out my left window. And I thought about how in six months time, this will all be a distant memory.

My bro is moving back to the states after living here the past few years. He left on a flight out of KIX early this morning. My dad came last week and they went down to Kyushu together on a kind of sayonara tour (Adam lived down there before coming to Kansai). My dad is leaving for the airport later today. I’m taking the afternoon off to have lunch and see him off.
Expats who stay here for longer periods all have memories of people leaving; sometimes it seems that life is just a series of goodbyes. For me, these next few months will be tough: My wife is also leaving next month, to start teaching at Mahasarakham University in Thailand. I will be here on this island for four months alone, and I am not looking forward to it. But it must be this way, in order to make it better in the long run.
Jesus, sometimes I’m such a pussy.

“Make me one with everything.”

A couple weeks ago a calf was born on my coworker’s mini dairy farm. These mini-farms are prevalent on the more remote parts of this island, often limited to less than a dozen cows. Anyhow, I got around to asking how the calf was doing today and was told it had gotten sick and died. This was of course sad to hear, as this is apparently a fairly rare occurrence in this day and age. My coworker said the last time a calf died on their farm was over fifteen years ago.
He said that the mother was in great distress for a few days, udders swollen with milk and all moany and bereaved. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you,” he said, “that animals do not feel the pain of a child lost.” Shit. I felt like crying, the way he described it. This did not, however, prevent me from asking if they milked the distressed mother to relieve some of the pain (yes), and if so, did they drink that milk (NO! What the fuck kinda freaks do you think we are?).
Maybe I was being a bit insensitive, but hey, I figured that farmers are like salt of the earth type of people, there ain’t no insensitive questions, just stupid city-slicker type ones, right? So I asked why they don’t drink the milk intended for dead baby cows without worrying too much about getting a pitchfork stuck up my ass. And I had guessed right about him not being fazed about it, he simply said, “It’s got too much fat in it.”
So there you go. The reason why you shouldn’t steal mother’s milk from a suckling calf is that you will turn into a cow yourself.