Conversational Patterns

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 to talk to her beyond basic greetings and the weather. I accepted it; it’s just been like this for five years.
Then, last week, as I walked by she suddenly asked, “Why did the color of your work uniforms change?”
I was too shocked to reply at first, and the moment of silence that followed floated in the humid summer air, suspended for eternity. Then the words stumbled from my mouth automatically, “Sure is hot today…”
She seemed to accept this as an acceptable answer and kind of nodded as I walked away.

500-Pound Recruit

Continuing in the vein of WWII, have you ever heard the story of Voytek?
Check it out: The Iranian soldier-bear of Monte Cassino
Longtime readers have often heard of my plans to create a Monkey Army when I move to Thailand. I have thought of conscripting water buffaloes and elephants as well, but I never considered bears. One thing I do know is that any bears who joined my army would not be serving as porters – can you say “6-foot, 500-pound HOPLITE?”

Target: Sumoto

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 coupled with the numerous deep water ports on the island might have seemed like a significant supply point.
Also, there were big bore gun emplacements that might have threatened the passage of ships through the Naruto Straits – I have to go hiking to that site soon to see if anything remains.

Sambo Revisited

A few months ago, I wrote a post about the republishing of Little Black Sambo by a Japanese publisher, and my mom left this in the comments:

You used to like the pancakes at Sambo’s Restaurant, remember? All that melted “tiger-butter…it used to make me uneasy to look up at the Little Black Sambo sign and wonder how blacks felt…

Ingrate that I am, I actually didn’t remember a Sambo’s Restaurant at all, and I forgot to ask my mom about it.
Today I happened across a link that explains it: McDonalds, Taco Bell, and the first fast food restaurants
There’s one thing though:
sambo-whiteboy.jpg
Is it just me, or is this Sambo sugar-coated?