Category: Web

I borrowed the first cool Eiga Hi-Ho pic for the first flick in this post last year. Follow this link to read the interview with David Carrantine for the second installment in the series, grasshopper.

For those of you that returned to work today and asked yourself that time-honored question, “why in the hell do I still work here?”, I present one of my most effective coping mechanisms: Drum Machine.
That is all.

Well, Slate followed up the wonderful variety meat article with one written by a food critic weenie from England, of all places. Perhaps his wittiest assertion in comparing London’s Chez Whiteys with their counterparts in Los Angeles is: “The reason the food is better at London’s top restaurants is that Britain is closer to France.” Although I kind of doubt that the American chefs would accept losing to kidney pie slingers very graciously. The critic’s self-proclaimed noobosity (18 months on the job) is proven with the following:

However, once you drop down a couple of notches, L.A. knocks London into a cocked hat. The restaurant I’ve been most impressed by so far is the Cheesecake Factory in Brentwood. I had a cobb salad there last week that was every bit as tasty as the cobb salad I had at the Ivy, yet it was brought to my table in half the time and it was a quarter of the price. In Britain – indeed, in France – there just aren’t any midmarket restaurant chains to match the quality of the Cheesecake Factory. And there are dozens of similar chains in this country that are equally first-rate. When it comes to this kind of food?good, solid, dependable fare at reasonable prices?America leads the world.

Cocked hats aside, I think I see where this is going – that’s a big know your bloody place you yankee dogs only half-assedly disguised as a compliment. He’s only admitting that average American chain restaurants make American food better (even though the Cobb is also known as the King of Salads and the Crab Louie Salad, it originates from and was made famous by the west coast). Yeah, well I can only retort that the “average Brit’s ability to skillfully open doors is only offset by their tendency to run their bulbous noses into them first.”
That said, this is a pretty fun article to read. I like the guy’s writing. I just can’t understand why he has such a hard on for the Cheesecake Factory (and for the uninitiated, said restaurant’s cheesecake leaves a lot to be desired).

I’m all for this. As anyone I’ve ever gone to yakiniku with can attest to, my fondness for what even what a lot of Japanese won’t eat. Slimy cow guts taste goooood when they’re fried nice and crispy. And nothing beats a crispy fried pig’s tail.

Pig’s foot Milanese is pounded so thin and breaded so thickly that the flavor of the pig’s foot is not readily discernible through the fried bread crumbs. Beef cheek ravioli are delicious, light and pillowy, with only a hint of fibrousness to the meat and a telltale chalky aftertaste. Lamb’s brain francoboli are so heavy on cheese and so light on brain that they taste almost vegetarian. While all of these dishes are delicious, the question inevitably arises: If the recipe requires that you camouflage the central ingredients, why use those ingredients at all?

There is only one answer: Because it requires the slaughter of a pig, cow, and lamb, respectively, and flips a big fiddle minger to PETA.
Reminder to self: Post pic from restaurant in Khon Kaen here later.

Hat tip to Osaka Bill (“bill” in the comments, not “Bill”,- that’s Nara Bill) for the link.

You all must have seen these “keyword” spam messages by now, right?:

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Some of these spammers are real poets. He gets bonus points for using the words varistor, hyterectomy, and matisse all in the same message.
And now I have this sudden urge to “Get Harder Than Steel” and “Make Her Scream – with 100% EFFECTIVE Generic Vi@gr’a.”
Well, go ahead and sign me up for 50 cases, Mr. Chester Ott.
Do you take checks for international bulk orders?
That is all.

Last week I received an e-mail from Ed Jacobs, the editor at Japanzine stating that this blog had been chosen for a “Best of the Web” award. Japanzine is a free magazine of high quality distributed all over Japan and I have been reading it since its past life as The Alien. Anyway, they have an online version of the zine as well and the “Japan Blogging Scene” article this blog was featured in can be seen at:
http://www.japan-zine.com/0404/Feature1.htm (link updated 4/30/04)
C. Buddha’s Hasty Musings is sandwiched between Antipixel and 35 Degrees, two of my favorite photo blogs (if I can be so forward as to term them such). All I can say is: We’re. Not. Worthy.
Props to Japanzine!
P.S. to Bill: You should stock Japanzine at the bar. They are looking for new distros. I’ll bring the current issue this weekend to show you the ad (read: to brag with).
P.P.S. to Japanzine’s webmaster: Please fix my link! (It’s appearing as a relative URL because there is no protocol prefix.)

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Um, as flattering as that is, I think this quiz is kinda sus. Aside from the fact that my English has acquired that unmistakably “Fresh Off the Boat” quality from living overseas for a decade, every single person whose results (I just mistyped that as “resluts”) I’ve seen have been “Grammar God.” I object to this title being passed out like penicillin ampules at a syphilis convention; it’s a stinging insult to my monotheistic way of life (I worship the One True God of Technoeroticism and may you heathens forever burn in Luddite hell).
Finders fee (TBD) goes to Biggie for the quiz.

Posted at Nam’s request:
Show Me, Show You
The albino black sheep site it’s hosted on has a lot of interesting stuff on it, check it out. The site’s claim to fame is the famous google spoof , French military victories and its accompanying list of French military defeats.

You are a sick teddy. You are a very sick teddy.
In fact you are such a sick sick teddy that I’m also becoming sick.
Oh lord, please turn me into a sick sick teddy…

I found this gem in my inbox today. It kind of made my day.

This is my Hangame avatar. Hangame is the site where we play hanafuda
(Go Stop); I described it in this post a few weeks back. Basically, I picked the most insane combination of clothes, accessories, and facial features I could in order to distract opponents when my avatar appears on screen. Not surprisingly, most players I go up against leave the playing table fairly quickly. I used to have a machine gun slung from my avatar’s shoulders, but it was so otaku that nobody would play with me. I had to tone it down.