I don’t know what’s more disturbing, the fact that this site exists, or the fact that my family’s Shitzu has a bee costume, too. Or the fact that I bought him an Eeyore costume at a dog clothing store in Kobe last year. Oh my god, I’m practically an eight year old girl! I’ve been in the land of Hello Kitty and Totoro way too long! (Mom, please send a photo of Jak in his bee suit for me to post) (via)

AHA! A possible explanation for my recent Indian chief dream (see my mom’s comment at the bottom). I completely forgot about that! Actually, catching that sheepshead won us the “fishing tournament.” I remember being extremely proud about the fact that we used small rock crabs that I smashed with my dad’s “abalone prybar” (a flat piece of iron with rubber grip I think may still be rusting in our garage or the backyard shed) to catch that fish. The funny thing is, before we landed that one, something big hit our bait and nearly jerked me off the rocks we were fishing from as I held onto the surfcasting rod…

Speaking of cars, the new voice-controlled car navigation systems are a total fucking trip. A couple weeks ago, I caught a ride with a guy from work to an after-work enkai (drink up) in his new navi-equipped ride. I truly felt like a stranger, because he carried on a conversation with the in-dash navigation system, which he has dubbed Keiko, the whole way. DRIVER (using destination input command): Keiko! Destination, Taiho (restaurant name), Route 28. KEIKO (in sexy woman’s voice): Confirmed. Time to destination is approximately five minutes. DRIVER: Keiko! Thank you. KEIKO: You’re welcome. Now this was pretty fucking geeky and I teased the fuck out of my coworker,…

Is this shit really happening?

HOLY SHIT. My prayers go out to all.

There’s an old lady who lives a few houses down from us. I usually see her when I return home from work or go out for a walk. In the five years we have known her, she has been known to talk only about one thing, the weather. – “Hot today, isn’t it?” – “Sure is cold.” – “Looks like it’s gonna rain.” – Or some small variation of the above. Even when you try to talk to her, she speaks over you about the weather. Once, I asked when Big Garbage day was, and she replied about the hot spell we were having. So I eventually gave up trying…

A colleague just related something that he saw on a documentary last night: During WWII, Sumoto was number 173 on a list of 180 Japanese targets to be carpet bombed by the US. Apparently, they got down to number 66 on the list (probably somewhere in Fukui prefecture) before bombing with conventional munitions was made unnecessary by Fat Man and Little Boy. It took me a while to figure out what could possibly be of military significance on this island (Awajishima) until I remembered that there was a railroad back then (the Nankai “Shima Densha”) which might seem useless since there were no bridges to the mainland yet, but when…

Whoa. Check out the latest comment on my Black Bus post from last year: You are not understand nothing yet… gaijin The commenter, Ryoma, is either a big fan or a cock-hoggin’ goose-stepper – I just can’t figure out if his comment is high praise or the lowest of insults. You are not understand nothing… I have to admit, this has a special ring to it. The double negative implies that I know something… On the other hand, perhaps nothing is a reference to mu, the state of nothingness one achieves through meditation – or perhaps in Spain, where Ryoma is posting from, through several bong hits. Now that is…