This was the luckiest finger puppet in the world. Alas, I fell asleep at the bar and somebody kidnapped him. Bastards.
Birdie
@ Mickey D’s next to new WINS and Namba Parks.
Cheesecake Factory?
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).
la cucina povera
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.
BB King
Look at what they’re finally confirming:
Japan Offers by Far Fastest, Cheapest Broadband Services: OECD
April 21, 2004 (PARIS) — Japanese firms are offering by far the cheapest and fastest broadband services of companies operating in 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to the first such report compiled by the international organization.
The survey, which was conducted in October 2003, shows Japanese companies leading the pack with KDDI Corp, NTT East Corp. and usen Corp offering throughput of over 100Mbps with their fiber-optic networks.
This really trickles my bits. My pal and I talked about this happening over three years ago, when Korea was still the place to be for broadband, and I was paying about 18,000 yen per month for dual channel ISDN (including both ISP and telco charges) service out here on Awaji Island. Since then my upgrade path went from 1.5 Mbps ADSL to 8Mbps ADSL, and finally to what I use now, 100Mbps FTTH. I am really sad because now there is nowhere to move up from here (maybe I can hope for that laser-based transmission technology next). In fact, I am planning on moving down, as far down as I can possibly go: dial-up. That’s right, the shrill screeching of analog modem handshakes will keep me company once again. I wrote about it in this post around when I started this blog, and Thailand still has no viable plans for broadband in sight. Things move slower there.
This passage was very interesting:
It has been difficult to conduct a comparison of telecom services offered in various countries, since there is no fixed worldwide definition for broadband. The OECD report defines a broadband service as one offering round-the-clock Internet connectivity and a download speed of at least 250kbps.
If this 250kbps standard was adopted worldwide, I think a lot of people in the US would be angry that the ADSL service they pay for isn’t even considered broadband. I was really shocked by the number of regular computer users in the states who say they don’t need broadband or can’t afford it. That’s a crying shame. It really should be made a lot cheaper and a hell of a lot faster than it is now.
Then again, why am I worried about you guys back home? When I’m checking line polarity before jacking in somewhere along the Mekong in a year or so, I will envy all of you. I do not relish the thought of reverting from the instant gratification of always-connected mode to a dial-up frame of mind: No downloads. No multiplayer games. No mindless clickfests. Oh, well. I guess I’ll spend my time finding other things to do. Maybe I’ll get my laughs by training an army of pocket monkeys to fling feces at passing water buffalo riders, or something.
Gecko racing, anyone?
John as folk
Heh. Scroll down to comments on this page.
For Monks Only
This was taken at Phuket Airport. These monk only-designated seats (3 in total) were next to the benches for people who take showers and don’t beg for money at airports (I’m not being mean, monks really are smelly leeches!). I really wish I had taken the time to use my Coolpix for this photo, but it was hot and humid, and I was on vacation. What else can I say?
Halves
OK this is Japanese Translation humor, so it may not be of interest to 99.999% of the world, but I have 100Mbps FTTH so here we go:
Setting: Terminal for high-speed ferryboat (hydrofoil, to be exact) in Sumoto City, Awaji Island. (The ferry shuttles between my island and Kansai International Airport and the terminal is a 10 minute walk from my front door. 45 minute ride to KIX. Convenient as hell.)
Photo is of a button on a vending machine for buying a ferry ticket for children. The kanji characters are pronounced “kobito”, literally, “small person”. It’s more commonly used for “dwarf” than it is for “child”, which is the first reason I think this is funny. Can you imagine a ticket machine with a button for “midgets”?
Secondly, whatever Einstein decided on the kanji also decided to make a stab at the English labeling. Instead of “child”, he decides on “HALVES”? Hmm…
Just in case you were wondering, the smaller kanji in the greps reads “katamichi”, meaning “one-way”. However, the “HALVES” probably does not refer to “half of a round-trip ticket”, because on the button above this one it says “ADULTS” in the same location.
Romance that ass
Slogan:
Romance, the toilet paper for discriminating wipers.
Lead-in:
Do your “rhoids” scream at the sight of the sandpaper-like rolls stocked in public bathrooms?
Do you enjoy reading on your “throne” long after “making a deposit?”
Have you ever fantasized about alluring encounters with strangers -in the (water) closet?
If so, you may be in for a surprise… Introducing: ROMANCE Toilet Paper with Silky Smooth Aloe Vera treatment and Tiger Balm Infusion!
– Available soon at your local drugstore. –
Fido’s Assmaker
The main reason I didn’t feel like posting until today was:
Yowch.
This isn’t me by the way, I just took the picture. As you can see, I must have made a fine pinhole camera out of a beer can. Not that I remember it that well. As a week early birthday present, we took Bill away from his bar in Nara in order to take him to, you guessed it, another bar. Tramp’s bar in Osaka, where I hadn’t been to for years, but where happy hour is still 180 minutes long. It was a great night, but reminiscing about it in detail still makes me slightly ill. To make a long story short, I think we discovered a shit hot way to feel like Fido’s ass for days on end. A recipe for it would look something like this:
Official Recipe for Fido’s Assmaker
Ingredients:
Mediocre beer (we used Asahi Super Dry, the MGD of Japan)
Cheap tequila (they only had Cuervo, but anything will do as long as it’s warm – this is important!)
Ouzo (also warm – not that it matters with this shit)
B-52s (no comment)
Baked cheese fries (sprinkled with paprika, no garnish – this is completely irrelevant)
Preparation:
Show up late for happy hour with an empty stomach.
Directions:
Pacing yourself against the end of happy hour, after which prices double (not a joke in Japan), inhale as much beer and tequila as possible in a 1:1 pint-to-shot ratio. Note that lack of refrigeration multiplies the nastiness factor of cheap tequila to the point where you can almost forego the salt and lime (heresy, I know). At the halfway point of the evening, pound the Ouzo. Regret it, both instantly and for days hence. At this point, cleanse the palate with cheese fries and beer, and allow the walls to blur quite nicely.
If you are sitting next to guys who insist on staring at your group and making loud comments about you because the possibility that you just might understand their language hasn’t entered their minds, try ignoring them for a while. If their voices rise to more irritating levels because the noise in the bar is getting progressively louder, give them them the look. You know, the crazy gaijin’s gonna stick his foot in your ass and make you his little geisha boy look. Even racist fuckwits deserve fair warning, after all. If they persist, however, and you start fantasizing about escalation and how nice it would be to “accidentally” elbow them in the face on the way to the pisser – sit back as your friend takes the initiative and starts an ad hoc lesson in foreign affairs. Note their shock at your friend’s fluency in their language with smug satisfaction. Prepare for some serious entertainment because you’re just sure that he’s gonna take the piss out of them (it’s time for PAYBACK, baby)… Then watch in utter amazement as he chooses not to do so, and ends up chatting with them like old friends for the next couple of hours. In retrospect, that was the right thing to do, of course, but it would have been so much more fun to write words like, “hamlike fist,” or “smashing right hook,” or the time-tested “tiger uppercut.” Ah, well. I didn’t have my camera, anyway.
Additional Tips:
If you try this recipe in Japan, like us, make sure you hit the bar on open mic night. It’s a whole new world of irritation to hear a guy alternatively moaning “hey mannn,” “oh maaaaan,” and “hey maaaaaannnnnn,” with a Japanese accent into the mic for thirty minutes, but luckily, the tequila should help take the edge off your nerves. Speaking of which, I must reemphasize the importance of using warm tequila. I am fairly sure that this was a major factor in the earth-shattering headache I experienced the next day. And of course, the Ouzo did its job by making me feel sickly for a few days.
I may have gotten off lightly, though. I received the following mail to my phone the next day:
From: xxx
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 10:40:35 +0900(JST)
To: Justin Yoshida
Subject: ouch
woke up in an alley behind my local train station..must have taken a cab…
The poor guy doesn’t remember that I put him in it, and that he couldn’t tell the cab driver his whole address because he kept falling asleep after reciting the city, Higashi Osaka. After the third try, the cab driver agreed it would be best to let him sleep it off some and ask him again after getting to the general vicinity. Guess that didn’t work out too well…