Higo Blog

Denki Groove vids

If the Dead Kennedys, Kraftwerk, and Devo all mated and had a Japanese love child band, it would probably look something like Denki Groove. The animation reminds me of early MTV commercials and Liquid Television remixed with Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko.

(via Pink Tentacle)

Bolsa Chica Sunset

Bolsa Chica is a great place to watch the sun set into the West. The bright, golden glow of the fading light is something I never tire of, especially if I'm barbecuing with friends and family.

Walking along a channel, I followed a mysterious wake that seemed to defy the current. The murky water prevented a positive identification, but I would guess that the school of large fish that threw this wake were either carp or tilapia. They were too big to be the mullet native to this area.

There palm trees remind me of driving through Miyazaki with my father. I would have loved to have spent some time on those beautiful beaches. But today, I am looking forward to swimming in the Pacific Ocean off of Huntington Beach. It's been hot and humid lately, not unlike the summers I remember spending in Japan.

Giant Rats

As I was feeding the cats, I noticed an animal looking down from our guava tree. This guy looks like he's taken some abuse in the face. Maybe he was trying to eat Yoda's food, and got clawed instead.

The opossum looks a lot like the killer rodents of unusual size that attacked the Man in Black in The Princess Bride, and makes a loud hissing noise if molested. I've never heard of them attacking, and used to catch them by the tail when I was a kid.

Another interesting thing about possums is that when they "play dead", they actually pass out from being overwhelmed by terror. I've never seen them do this though. The ones around here must be pretty used to encounters with humans and their pets.

Itazura Ojiichan

This video reminds me of an episode of Jackass when Spike Jonze gets dressed up as an old man and goes all around messing with people.

Skimmers

Honeymoon in the Jungle

Brian and Rebecca just got back from their honeymoon safari in Africa , and you can see the pictures they took here. With over 4000 pictures to edit, there will be more to come when they finally wake up and fight the jetlag.

Here is a picture taken on a recent driveway safari in Orange County:

An evening of body surfing

Just got back from a two hour session of body surfing with Merin. The waves were decent today, and by the time we got out, at 6pm, the air and water temperature were perfect. Ball lightning blazed in the halo of clouds around our clear patch as the sun cast a magical glow as it set into the Pacific. I think I'll start going in the water more from now on.

The Avila Coast

There are so many sea otters off of the coast of Avila Beach that I can't remember exactly how many I saw. Anyone who doubts that otters are a keystone species need only go fishing up here to see first hand the relationship between otters and a healthy kelp forest, full of fish and other marine organisms. In order to get an understanding of just how rich a kelp forest is I went diving.

As you can see, a proliferation of kelp acts as a magnet for predators, a source of food, a nursery for juviniles, protective cover, and a home for many different creatures. By the way, this picture is actually from the main tank in Monterey Bay Aquarium, in case the way I posted this was misleading, heh. I have yet to dive this section of coastline.

My older sister, who volunteers at the aquarium, tells me the population of otters on the Pacific Coast is not doing too well right now, in general. A feline disease gets into sea water when people flush their kitty litter down the toilet instead of throwing it away, and otters contract this and die.

Another problem with otters is that they like to live where they grew up, so it is hard to reintroduce them into areas where they should do well. Otters that are dropped onto the Channel Islands have often swam all the way back across the channel, driven by their homing instinct to return to their points of origin to the frustruation of the marine biologist who worked so hard to put them there.

Here's a crop of a juvinile and an adult, chillin' by the kelp.

Snowy white islands look pretty, but tell a different tale when you're downwind. We were upwind, and even then the stench of guano was overpowering.

Tonkotsu Blues

I miss really good Japanese food, the kind you can't get in the states. I miss the doteyaki and kushi katsu found in the seedier parts of Osaka, the fresh tsukuri, sushi, agemono, okonomi and monjayaki, dagojiru and butajiru, assorted nabe, goya champuru, yakiniku, kushiyaki, takoyaki, katsudon and katsukare, basashi, soba, udon, and the wild combinations found at tabehodai/nomihodai joints. But most of all, I miss the tonkotsu. Good ramen is hard to find over here, and good tonkotsu is all of unheard of.

Some of the recipes found at The Official Ramen Homepage are actually starting to make me a bit hungry. Here's my contributions to instant ramen recipes of the same vein:

Korean-American Style Instant Ramen

Ingredients
1 package of ramen
1/2 cup of the kimchee of your choice
2 hot dogs, chopped
1 egg, scrambled
korean beansprouts
korean seaweed
green onions

Directions
Cook the noodles for a few minutes while boiling some hot water for the broth in another vessel. Discard the nasty oily water. Add the hot dogs, kimchee, and egg to the new water, and then the noodles. Serve in a bowl and top with korean beansprouts, seaweed, and green onions. Serve with a tall glass of Jinro (for real men) or an ice cold bottle of Hite.

Instant Chow RaMen

Ingredients
1 package of ramen
chopped onion
chopped garlic
chopped red or yellow bell pepper
chopped mushrooms
sesame oil
oyster sauce
shoyu
salt and pepper.
chopped beef or chicken
oyster sauce
chicken broth (or use the soup base from the packet to keep it ghetto)
corn starch

Directions
Marinate the meat in shoyu and oyster sauce for a half an hour. Cook the noodles for a few minutes, discard the nasty oily water, and set aside. Stir fry all of the ingredients, then add a bit of chicken stock and corn starch to thicken. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fry the noodles in sesame oil until they crisp. Top the noodles with the finished sauce, and serve with a nice, cold Tsingtao.

Ah, the joys of low income cooking.
But they do nothing to ease my Tonkotsu Blues. This website kind of helps.

Taking a leak while pondering Rudyard Kipling

One day, after a long, hard couple of weeks in the office, Huw and I went to have a few pints at an English pub. Our contracts were almost up and we were ready to move with our lives. Adding salt to the earth, many of our co-workers were discontent to the point of staging their own little mutiny and making the working atmosphere uncomfortable to put it mildly.

It was between pints that we happened upon a poem, that was hung in front of the urinals. It read:

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream- and not make dreams your master,
If you can think- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And- which is more- you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

It put everything in perspective. Work no longer seemed so stressful anymore, just another common chore not to be given any more thought than necessary to get the job done. The poem gave me a swift kick in the ass, yet again reminding me that I can always do better, or be more mindful of people, things, and events occuring around me.

It seems that time passed quickly after this night. Our contracts expired, the mutiny resolved itself, and we were off- Huw to travel across China, Mongolia, and Russia by planes, trains, and automobiles, and I on my Kyushu road trip. After that, it was time for us to return to our points of origin and slip into the lives waiting for us.

Catch a fire

Recently, I have been lucky enough to be able to spend a lot of time in the great outdoors of California. This is a shot of a more placid section of the American River at dawn, right before the sun winked out below the horizon. I swear, I love the American countryside just as much as the undeveloped areas in Japan. The sweet, musky chapparal is as dry as the mossy forests are wet. As different as they are from each other, I feel equally at home in both of them.

Being outdoors is synonymous with having a bonfire. I'm no more of a pyromaniac than any other guy, but I really enjoy the process of building it, from gathering wood, making a nest of tinder under a teepee of twigs, branches, and logs, fanning a feeble flame into a full fledged blaze, and poking the logs to keep the fire going.

I enjoy reading survival books to see how others start their fires and then try the easier ones out. I've never tried to build or use a fire drill, but I have started a fire with flint and steel, a magnifying glass, and a nine volt battery along with some steel wool. Polishing the bottom concave part of a soda can looks cool, but a bit too labor intensive.

Once in a while, it's fun to cheat.Teller, of Penn and Teller, got his fire building badge from the boyscouts by cheating. He buried a can of Sterno just under the soil, and when it was time, he returned with his scout leader, threw a bunch of sticks haphazardly onto the spot, and started the fire right away. Puzzled and frustruated by the success of this seemingly impossible feat, the scout leader had no choice but to award Teller his badge.

I haven't resorted to Sterno, but recently I used laundry lint as tinder and it worked very well in starting our fire. Candles, wax mixed with sawdust, and accelerants (such as petroleum products or strong alcohol) are nice to have if you want to get the fire started quickly.

Ah, fire is cool. In the immortal words of Bevis, "Fire! Fire!"

AOL headaches

When I cancelled our AOL service, it was a long and painful ordeal. The operator kept on asking me irrelevant questions, often the same ones over and over again. I had to state multiple times that I wanted to quit AOL, but only after 15 minutes of a steadfast unwillingness to reconsider staying with AOL did the representative finally get the cancellation process moving.

AOL is training their people to hassle people from dropping their services. Although I didn't have nearly as hard of a time as this guy, the conversation bears an eerie resemblance my own personal experience.

The Ultimate Showdown

It's cool to see that the UFC, Pride, and K1 have gained such wide acceptance in the States. There was a time when UFC was struggling to do this, and when few others knew any but the most famous names in mixed martial arts.

But there is a downside to the popularity of MMA. If you don't immediately watch the fights, there is a significant risk of having someone spoil them for you, as when a certain Mr. A. had to hint to the outcome last night:

A: Did you see Tito fight Shamrock?
B: No, we're going to download and watch it later.
A. Dude, it was over in a second!
B. You a-hole, why did you have to say anything?
A. It was kind of predictab...
B. Shut up!

If you are one of these people, keep the outcome to yourself until everyone who wants to see it gets a chance to!

This isn't a UFC fight, but you might enjoy it nonetheless. See how many references you can spot...

link

Refrigerator Tetris

I sometimes enjoy going through the fridge when cleaning (as well as right before I'm leaving the house for an extended period and immediately proceeding yet another move from house to house) and mixing unlikely ingredients together. Sometimes it works brilliantly, resulting in an awesome combination. These recipes are almost always forgotton afterwards.

Other times it turns out interesting and edible. Occasionally, it is rendered inedible to the point where it induces a violent gag reflex. If you are feeling less daring than I, then I would highly recommend this resource. It would also be a good thing to use when you ask someone "what do you want to eat?" and they reply with "I'm OK with anything."

Then again, I would be inclined to be more creative with strange ingredients when faced with such ambivalence.

New Roots!

Here is a new track from their album, Game Theory, which drops on August 29th.

Two good articles on The Roots:
here and here

Edit pictures anywhere

Snipshot lets you crop, resize, and rotate pictures (among other things) on your browser!

A real life Photoshop/Illustrator brush

Let it flow away

There have been times where I have felt betrayed, victimized, and wronged. Sometimes life is like that, and there is nothing to do but to move on because things are just so messed up. There's no use in getting angry for a prolonged period, though knowledge of this doesn't always help. Dwelling on these matters does no one any good and can make you a wretched person to be around.

If you can live through the euphoric ups and gut-wrenching downs of life, suffer harm from those close to you, and move on bearing no ill will towards anybody or anything then life will be a lot easier to deal with. Like a pent up river, break down the dam, release the pressure, and the balance will return.

When I am feeling down, the water has always been there to console me. After bad days at the office, nothing would melt away the stress like taking a walk next to the natural mountain springs that I lived next to. Just being near a mountain stream, roaring river, or the ever-changing sea invigorates me like nothing else.

This place is known as Kikuchi gorge. It is one of my favorite places in Kumamoto, and often I have come here with friends and family to suck in all that this intact forest (a rare thing in most of Japan) has to offer. Jumping off boulders into icy blue pools of water, riding down a sled made from the basalt that came from the explosion that formed the Aso caldera, eating picnics in the shade of an aincent cryptomeria tree on a hot day, driving the windy roads on a foggy night, and bringing Yoda the cat out for an adventure are all fond memories I have of this place.

I'm going rafting from tomorrow on the American River with my sisters and some friends. I'm looking forward to getting back into nature, and enjoying this wonderful California summer. And after that, I'll be teaching sailing in Newport for a while. Life is good.

Fish Lifting Competition

I remember enjoying this on Japanese TV, which says something since I generally won't watch Japanese TV programs.

Fish are set out in a park with the objective of seeing how heavy of a fish one of the many feral cats can carry away. Cats are disqualified if they start eating the fish without carrying it away. It's kind of painful to watch now, since all of that fish is of superior quality and fresher than any of the stuff I can get here in the States. I guess I'll just have to catch my own.

How about the power... to move you?

How did I not hear about this? Awesome.

Basashi Ice Cream

Think of some things that don't belong on pizza. It has been done in Japan. Now see if any of the ingredients that you picked match up with any of these ice cream flavors.

Photographic Essay on Chernobyl

Paul Fusco gives an account of the legacy of Chernobyl through a narrated slideshow.

Pitagora Switch