“placenta lasagne”

This is not helping my mood any: Cruise vows to eat placenta after birth
Selfish bastard. Everybody knows the placenta is for the mother to eat to replenish essential shit after childbirth, right? Or at least, that’s what my mini-Pekingese bitch did when she gave birth to a litter of pups in my closet.
Fucking wannabe samurai biting my fucking dog.
Now I just feel the need to lash out.
UPDATE: Yes, the title to the previous post is a Family Guy reference, itself a Peanuts reference. Nice catch, FG otakus.

no dogs allowed

My bro is moving back to the states after living here the past few years. He left on a flight out of KIX early this morning. My dad came last week and they went down to Kyushu together on a kind of sayonara tour (Adam lived down there before coming to Kansai). My dad is leaving for the airport later today. I’m taking the afternoon off to have lunch and see him off.
Expats who stay here for longer periods all have memories of people leaving; sometimes it seems that life is just a series of goodbyes. For me, these next few months will be tough: My wife is also leaving next month, to start teaching at Mahasarakham University in Thailand. I will be here on this island for four months alone, and I am not looking forward to it. But it must be this way, in order to make it better in the long run.
Jesus, sometimes I’m such a pussy.

Google Page Creator

Recently, quite a few people have been asking how to make their own homepages (not blogs). I dug around a bit because I haven’t been keeping up with all the new tools – and I know there must be some kick-ass ones out there now. Well, the solution appeared in my Gmail inbox.
I can heartily recommend Google Page Creator as a starting point. I think literally anyone can make a homepage with this tool; it cannot get any easier, and that is saying a lot. In no time at all, you’ll be authoring inspiring masterpieces that can effect true positive impact on society in general. Or something.
Note: You may have to sign a waiting list to get a Google Page Creator account. It is worth it, and my wait was less than a week.

Yet more wedding photos

It’s crunch time. The hardiest of you have persevered, putting your lives on hold for the cause. Work left unfinished, families forgotten, babies left unfed… I am speaking, of course, of our ridiculously huge collection of wedding photos. I asked for complete photodocumentation of this all-day event before it occurred, and you all delivered.
I currently tally all the wedding-related photos on my Flickr account at around 4,700 and over 5 gigabytes. There’s perhaps another loose gig spread around Shutterfly and Yahoo albums, all of which are linked to on the Thailand Wedding Photos entry.
Today I added the long-awaited photos from the “professional” photographer we hired for the event. I took a look at them last night and have a verdict: He was not the best photographer we had on site (some of our guests were noticeably more skilled), but by sheer chance and dogged determination (even nudging monks out of the way at some points) he did get some shots that were missed by everyone else. They are worth going over in slide-show mode when you have some spare time. There are 350+ shots in the morning set, and 250+ in the night set, so without further ado:
Hired photographer’s Morning (Wedding Ceremony) Photos
Hired photographer’s Night (Reception) Photos
If any of you have photos from the trip/wedding you would like to share, let me know and it shall be done. Meanwhile, it is time to start working on video.

Subtlety in Self-naming 101

What is it with Asians giving themselves western names at the workplace? I work with Tommies, Jacks, Johns,etc., on a daily basis, yet these are all assumed names. More often than not, these are names that corporate English teachers or clients (that can’t pronounce native Japanese/Chinese names) have bestowed upon those in question.
Today, the G-man informed me of the best one we have heard to date. One of his wcorrespondents has dubbed himself Great Wang.
No shit, that’s what the guy calls himself; it’s even in the first part of his email address.
I don’t even know where to start analyzing something like this.
– I need one of this guy’s business cards. Just to be able to show it around.
– Will his assistants be known as Lesser Wangs?
– Anybody confident enough to wear Great Wang t-shirts? Tattoos?

Dream Job: Monterey Bay Aquarium


My sister Mika has started a volunteer gig at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one day a week, at the penguin exhibit. MY SISTER IS A PENGUIN WRANGLER! AT THE MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM! I believe the official job description is “Assistant Aviculturist,” or “Executive Chopper of Small Dead Fishies,” or something like that.
For the Yoshida family, this is a major coup. Now we can be associated with the jolly Asian guy who makes teriyaki sauce (Yoshida Sauce), Japanese who make the world’s best zippers (YKK), and an honest-to-God AVICULTURALIST at the MBA!
Good luck with the new job, sis!
UPDATE: Oh. My Shaka. I just realized you can see her feeding the penguins on the MBA’s Penguin Cam. Now how cool is that?

The Grinch of Hanami Present

Hanami is when Japanese people start acting like a bunch of Mexicans, laying around under trees and drinking beer. – Grinch-san, 2006
You know what? Grinch-san’s comment cracked me the fuck up. Can’t really refute what the man says. What I can say is that, once again, the weather has taken a turn for the worse during the sakura bloom again. We haven’t had good weather throughout the bloom for quite a few years now.
You know what bothers me about going to hanami more and more over the years? The number of gaijin twats. They aren’t acting like twats, mind you. They’re just being themselves.
/end hanami rant 2006