Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
While researching for an extended writing class, I stumbled upon this list of exercises at McSweeney’s: THIRTEEN WRITING PROMPTS
Sample:
“A wasp called the tarantula hawk reproduces by paralyzing tarantulas and laying its eggs into their bodies. When the larvae hatch, they devour the still living spider from the inside out. Isn’t that fucked up? Write a short story about how fucked up that is.”
That’s so fucked up.
The end.
If you’ve posted anything beyond a recognizable photo on Facebook, you are bound to learn the hard way. That’s my take on it, anyway. Between Facebook’s TOS and willingness to sell you out – yes, YOU, dumbass! – there isn’t a whole lot of hope.
I don’t post about this in spite. I write about this in hope that you might OPEN YOUR EYES. Nothing can come good of a private corporation owning rights to reproduction and usage of your personal data. Get a fucking clue already. Corporations exist to increase shareholder value. Unless you are a shareholder, you are just an asset. Don’t be a fool to boot.
I never knew there were different kinds; the selective technology adoption reminds me of one of the later Stainless Steel Rat books, when said rat visits a planet utilizing steam and coal in modern vehicles.
The title of the article could be a Robot Chicken production: Amish Hackers
Note: This is more informative but less groovalicious than the Amish Drifting video.
“Veoh is no longer available in THAILAND. If you are not in THAILAND or think you have received this message in error, please go to veoh.com and report the issue.”
So the big question is, if I keep receiving this message in error when trying to visit veoh.com (and nothing else loads), how the hell do I “go to veoh.com and report the issue?”
Brilliant.
Also, the rule being broken here is that you can’t take away something you already offered for free (especially without good explanation). To the Veoh guy I helped last year at the US consulate in Bangkok: This surely isn’t the full potential for Thailand that you spoke of, is it?
WARNING: The article linked to below is graphic and nauseating, especially if you’re digging into a chicken sandwich like I was this morning.
WHO’S HUNGRY? – PART 1 An Interview With Issei Sagawa, Cannibal
This was a hugely famous case in Japan (and all over the world I imagine – I was only 7 when it happened). An insane Japanese exchange student killed and partially ate a female student at the Sorbonne and not only got off scot-free in France, but also in Japan because the French authorities protected him. I was aware he was writing books during my long stay in Japan, but it never occurred to me that he had any kind of following. Rather, he seemed to be a source of shame to most Japanese I spoke with – one (ignorant) person even cited this case as a reason Yoshi Hattori might have been shot in Louisiana ten years later.
One of the tamer excepts:
“There’s no doubt in my mind that I want to eat human flesh again, though. I mean, it’s delicious stuff. It’s widely believed that human meat doesn’t taste good, but they only spread that rumor because it’s a taboo that can’t be crossed. If people found out the truth, I’m sure that men would all start eating women. So they don’t talk about it because it will create pandemonium, but I tell you, human meat is extremely tasty.”
You know what’s really fucked up? Everyone, including the perpetrator himself would have been better off if he’d been punished for his original crime… Instead, he roams free and is still profiting from his original crime. The Japanese should strip him of citizenship and send him back to France.
…aka Oilfish aka the “It” Fish aka Shiro Maguro aka Abura Bozu aka Abura Sokumutsu aka Mutzu.
I have finally found a fish that Japanese won’t eat (raw, at least), and is in fact prohibited to be used for that purpose in Japan, and it turns out it’s all because eating it may make orange jets of oil (specifically, indigestible wax esters) shoot out of your ass.
And yes, I speak of that as a bug, not a feature.
Is it just me, or does the chat function on Facebook feel like it was written about 10 years ago?
…and by rooster, I mean the big purple-headed veiny one. The day after I embedded the youtube vid in my Missing Osaka post, they had it removed via copyright claim. If you love your IP, set it free, bitches!
Show Elmo some love already!
UPDATE 20090215: I embedded a new instance of the video on the post in question