(Click image to enlarge) Are you a real ninja, or have you ever wanted to become one? Find out by reading this book (zipped PDF file; this download will self-destruct when enough of you become adept at walking on water).

The path I have chosen is the very model of assimilation into broader culture. – My blood is nearly 100% Japanese (whatever the hell that means), although I may have some Russian blood in me as well (that would explain my fondness for vodka and the occasional rogue orange whisker that sprouts from my chin). – My children will be of (nearly) 50% Japanese ancestry. – My grandchildren will be mostly machine, but partially designed in Japan. UPDATE: In a parallel history, my Japanese bloodlines have already disappeared due to a nefarious government plot. Fuckers!

In Japan: – Do you wear shoes inside your home in America? > (…my mom would have a cow.) – Would you like to try a slice of Salmon Cream Pizza? > (…get that nasty shit away from me. squid, seaweed, and most other stuff from the sea have no fucking business on a pizza. fucking heathens.) – Do you want to come to karaoke? > (…i think i’ll have to miss out on this round of Drunken Asshole Vanity) – Do you want to play sex? > (…no, i’m waiting till i get married. plus, i don’t know how to say “double bagger” in japanese.) – How do you…

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It seems like the rumors about a movie version of Snow Crash from a few years back have basically disappeared. If so, good. I have zero faith in Hollywood being able to create anything even remotely as good as the book. Plus, there’s the whole half-black, half-asian protagonist thing to work out – more than likely, they’d devise some brilliant way around it involving Tom Cruise, eyelid glue, and a can of creosote. // Zero faith. Heh. Reminds me of a planning company I used to pass every day on the way to work, near Nam’s old apartment in Tamade (Osaka): ZERO PLANNING.

I just figured out why I loved Google Earth so much from the very first time I tried it. The concept and the interface were already planted in my brain: Earth materializes, rotating majestically in front of his face. Hiro reaches out and grabs it. He twists it around so he’s looking at Oregon. Tells it to get rid of the clouds, and it does, giving him a crystalline view of the mountains and the seashore… …Hiro looks up, focuses his gaze on Earth, zooms in for a look. As he gets closer, the imagery he’s looking at shifts from the long-range pictures coming in from the geosynchronous satellites to…

Just saw a fire engine red Ferrari Testarossa rear-end a red fire engine. If that ain’t poetic justice, I don’t know what is. The Ferrari driver was, of course, a big, fat wanker who got out and started yelling at the firemen. I made sure to laugh hard enough so he could hear me.

When I feel kind of weird and sad, I whisper songs in Spanish to myself. The thing is, I only really know one song in Spanish besides the usual karaoke fare. Yo s?lo quiero mirar los campos, yo s?lo quiero cantar mi canto, pero no quiero cantar solito, yo quiero un coro de pajaritos. [Coro:] Quiero llevar este canto amigo a qui?n lo pudiera necesitar Yo quiero tener un mill?n de amigos y as? m?s fuerte poder cantar. Yo quiero tener un mill?n de amigos y as? m?s fuerte poder cantar. Yo s?lo quiero un viento fuerte, llevar mi barco con rumbo norte, y en el trayecto voy a pescar…

Since rescuing Yoda the kitten last year, I have grown fonder of cats in general. We grew up with many cats as pets and we loved them as part of the family, but I never really liked other peoples cats or strays, of which my neighborhood in rural Japan is absolutely full (there are constantly between ten to fifteen strays on my street lined with only 20 or so houses). Cats, by nature, are selfish and pretty much endearing only to their owners – kind of like sports cars, except they are not especially benefitted by lugubrious waxing (I assume). What I’m trying to get at is that I’m cool…

Has anyone else ever received extras in their shipment from Amazon? I ordered a couple of music CDs a while back and when they finally came a couple weeks ago in those new soft cardboard shipping sleeves that Amazon (JP) just started using, there were a couple of completely unrelated J-Pop CDs included in it (combined retail value: over 5,000 yen). Has this ever happened to anyone else? Is god trying to make me like J-Pop? Another huge Amazon annoyance is that half of the shit I ever order from them never comes through – first comes the e-mail that they are out of stock and the item is on…