Chillin'
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International Symbol of Marriage
Thanks to all you truly compassionate friends and readers who have sent me this over the past couple weeks – HAHA… But the joke’s on you, because in less than a year’s time I’ll be living in the steamy jungles of SE Asia, building my army of monkeys and surveying a nice spot for my teak plantation while my wife teaches all day at the university… I’ll think of you all fondly then.
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No TP for the Bunghole
Someone was cool enough to rip three entire seasons of Beavis & Butthead and upload to mininova. The thing is, all the music videos are edited out so each episode is less than ten minutes long, and the guys are left head banging and air guitaring to… nothing! What’s the point? Serious letdown.
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Crash
Just gotta say that this movie and Sin City have semi-restored my faith in Hollywood. I downloaded the rip (mad props to the FiCO CREW) but liked it so much I’ll buy the DVD just for the extras. I miss Los Angeles (well, the taco trucks at least).
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Despite Everything
It’s like the greatest toilet reading material of all time. After all, what’s more depressing than reading about those in search of punk as you take a short respite from your normal, white collar salaryman existence (until you remember that this is existence is actually pretty damn unusual for an American). Anyway, it’s been a steady diet of Cometbus for the past couple weeks, since the last of my post-WWII Japan books ran out. I’m still very interested in that subject, but have pretty much run out of the good material on it. Nothing left now but to write a book on it.
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From the journal of an early explorer
It makes perfect sense that true vampire bats are neither: A. (exclusively) frugiverous, or B. (exclusively) insectivorous That is all. // Note: An alternative title to this post is, “Why I love the Discovery Channel,” but I really am reading a journal of an early explorer: Head Hunters of the Amazon: Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure (Thanks to Y0j1mb0 for the link)
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I am a Molam Singer
My fiane is currently finishing her doctorate at Osaka University in the field of linguistics, which we both studied at Tenri University. She is writing her dissertation about Molam (alternatively spelled, “Morlum,” or, “Mawlum”) which is a traditional form of Northeast Thai singing, originally from Laos. I’ve been translating excerpts and summaries into English (from Japanese) for her along the way, and have really gotten interested in the actual music while looking for what’s available online for her. I discovered that most interesting aspect of this music for me is that it sounds a lot like rap! It’s hard to explain? But there are definitely some similarities in the verse…
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Sulu?
Hey, I just realized that George Takei’s face really reminds me of my uncle Tosh… But in a way I can’t really put my finger on. Maybe it’s the bone structure or something, but I’m telling you, if George put on that “Kimchee Power” t-shirt that my uncle used to wear on our trips to Lake Powell, it just might fool you. It seems my uncle and Mr. Takei shared similar experiences growing up, as well. (article via)
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Adventures in Software Licensing
The girl’s PC died a couple weeks ago so I decided to piece together a new one from a mix of old parts and new, which was both fun and worrying, as always. I was mostly worried about having to buy another copy of Win XP (Professional, because I have bad luck with Home), since I kind of assumed authentication would be denied since the new PC had a new motherboard, chipset, and CPU (went from old SiS chipset/Athlon XP 1800 to Intel 865PE/Celeron 2.4). Hoping for the best, however, I built up the box with as many of the previous components as possible: 2 PC2100 DIMMS Optical drive GF…
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Hidden Costs
As I blogged a few weeks ago, my faithful refrigerator suddenly died, and I have since been experimenting on living without one. You see, a dead refrigerator, TV, A/C, or washing machine has become a major pain in the ass to get rid of in Japan. Since last March or so, new legislation prohibits us putting out such major appliances on Big Trash day. There isn’t even a junkyard or recycle center we can dump such items off at (in my city, at least). The main thing preventing me from getting a new refrigerator was, in fact, figuring out what to do with the old one. As it turns out,…
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I’m sooooo lucky it’s trash day
It seems my faithful, undersized refrigerator has died on me. Everything in the freezer thawed out and a kind of primordial sludge leaked out when I opened the door. NASTY. Oh well, at least I found out what that frozen mystery clump was in the back of the freezer (a bag of shrimp from three years ago). I threw everything out as a kind of rebirthing ritual. Even the tupperware went. Didn’t think twice about it, either. I guess “baching it” has some benefits, cause I would never in a thousand years get away with that shit if my woman was here. Well, I guess I have to buy a…





















