A friend in marketing taught me this term the other day.
Chuppies = Chinese yuppies.
They are the next trendsetters.
God save us all.
My friend says anyone who is anyone in his field will give his left nut to be a major player in this demographic. Me? I went to school with Chuppies, only we didn't call them that then. We called them sneaky, lying assholes with a twisted sense of Confucianism. Of course, we were just stupid kids, so....
Heh.
Go check out this
AV Club interview with Matt Groening.
AVC: Do you think a Life In Hell cartoon would have taken off the way The Simpsons did?MG: I think human beings probably resonate with audiences more than bunnies, but who knows? One of these days, I'll get around to animating Life In Hell. I still draw it every week, been doing that for the last 25 years. I'm just now putting together, for the first time, Life In Hell toys. Yes, I'm finally selling out.
My favorite Life in Hell strip is the one where Akbar is on his deathbed confessing how he's been peeing in the bathroom sink all these years. Since I'm too lazy to find it online, here's one with Binky:
(click to enlarge)
BONUS LINK: The "Akbar" font that mimics Matt Groening's handwriting
Although this will possibly incur the wrath of a million brand loyal housewives brandishing curtain brush attachments, I must speak my mind: "The vacuum cleaner that doesn't lose suction" is the worst slogan of a successful company I have heard in recent memory.
You know those situations where you refrain from explaining something to somebody because you don't think they'll get it, then they turn out to understand it better than you do and you're too embarassed to admit that you didn't think they were capable of understanding it to begin with, which is already apparent to them anyway?
It makes you just want to go hide in a corner somewhere, especially if you kind of like that person... But sometimes it's nice to confirm you're just an asshole, like everybody else around you.
I officially announce this the best page to play around with while you're tied to your computer talking on Skype:
t.y.p.o.r.g.a.n.i.s.m : Visual Composer
I like the Percussion 1 set the best.
Awesome!
His name is Adam Fulara.
The Smashing Pumpkins are going to record a new album. Of course, following the Law of Great Bands That Get Back Together, it will most probably suck. But there is always hope.
This weekend provided enough points of interest to allow my free rambling mode. Nam's older sister, Nok arrived at 7AM on Saturday morning. So we woke up at 4:00 and drove down to the car ferry in the neighboring city of Awaji-shi (until last year: Tsuna-cho) to catch the 5:30 boat. As ferry rides go, it was pretty unremarkable. I took a couple shots of the sun rising over the ocean, then I fell asleep on the carpet of the break room and apparently snored everybody from one side of the boat to the other. The one funny thing that happened was when I was taking a crap.
Now normally I wouldn't shitblog on a Monday, but this isn't so much about kernels of corn or clogging the pipes so much as it is about unexpected company and release mechanisms. Partway through my bathroom experience, somebody entered the stall next to mine and started coaxing his shit out. The thing is, he started out all like, "uuuuuuuuungh," and, "hrrrrrrraaafff," and ended up yelling at it in a very much yakuza tone of voice. Yes, faithful readers, it is the very first time I have heard someone yelling at their own shit, in any language. "Hayo DERUNJYA KORA!" (Hurry up and come out!) It made me wonder if he was pulling heroin bags out of his ass. I finished my business and decided to vacate in a rapid manner, half-amused and yet permanently scarred by the experience, and just wanting to Get the Fuck Out. Horror of horrors, as I was washing my hands at the sink, the other guy finished and stood behind me waiting as I quickly splashed water on my face. I glanced at his relection in the mirror - bald head, black knit sweater with handpainted gold glitter design (my guess: $250 at a fake Versace shop?), man purse from hell - yep, this guy was at least High Wannabe level. When we got back into our cars belowdecks, the guy's ride was a mid-90's Gloria with blackout tint and Tokushima plates. Feh. (It's all about Kobe plates, bioootch!)
The conversation I witnessed between a friend from France and an 18 year old girl from Hong Kong made me think the most this weekend. Mostly, it made me think what a fine line there is between Gallic honesty and assholism, but maybe you will see what I mean. So my pal Stef from Mimizan, who is about my age, is being asked about jobs available to foreigners in Japan by this young girl from Hong Kong. And Stef says, straight up, "You should be a prostitute. It's the easiest way to make money in the shortest amount of time." And I laughed my ass off and said That's Fucked Up, just because I thought it was a particularly cold-blooded thing to say to an 18 year old. But then I thought about it some more. Sometimes I wonder if I just see the world differently than those around me, and whether that is a curse or a gift. But, yeah, in reality maybe it's a good thing to get on the table at an early stage in life: Girls, you can all be whores. That option is always open if you need money quickly. If all else fails, go to France; they will understand your needs there.
Oh shit, I almost forgot to write about the dope-ass swag people gave me this weekend. As a wedding present, Stef brought back a set of white bathrobes made of thick cotton for me and Nam - and they have our names embroidered on them! In green! Cursive! Pimpalicious. Now all I need is a smoking jacket and a monocle, oh yeah, and a house with a study, and I will never leave home again. You can all come visit me and we'll make a toast with snifters full of the vintage umeshu (plum wine/liquor) I scored from T's aunts this weekend!
On Saturday night, I stayed over at T's place and he mentioned that his aunts had recently found a jar of home-brewed umeshu from 1978. ZZZing! That got my attention. I made it known I was interested in trying some. So, around midnight, his aunt Yuki-chan came around the house and told me to help her bring out some jars from behind the old house. It was dark and I hit my head on a pipe, but it was worth it. In all, we rescued three ten-liter glass jars, one typically amber-colored lot from 2000, one reddish vintage from 1997, and one of unknown (but very old) vintage that had turned nearly black. Glasses were procured, and each lot was tasted carefully. The 2000 vintage was nearly indistinguishable from store bought umeshu. Good, but typical. The unknown vintage was so old it had started turning to vinegar - I'd like to try converting it into a plum vinaigrette dressing sometime. Now the middle lot - BINGO! - this stuff was goooooooood. T's aunt, Tatan, told me this lot had turned a reddish color because she took out the plums a few years back (I do not know if the red umeshu sold in stores also turns colors naturally. I always assumed they added coloring.). And since we are moving to Thailand this year, she gave me the whole lot! I was so happy I nearly cried. This is the Good Stuff. It is not even what I would call top shelf, because I wouldn't put it there. It is more precious than the Bookers bourbon; more meaningful than the Kubota sake which are the best bottles of booze I have at home. This stuff stays in a cool, dark place in the earthenware bottles to which we transferred it, to be sampled occasionally, and treasured forever. Let me be clear - this stuff is so good, it almost makes you wish you had never tasted it, for want of never being able to drink regular umeshu again.
The last thing about the weekend worth mentioning was my drive home yesterday. It was long. The weather was perfect for windows-down driving in a t-shirt. I drove directly into the setting sun for most of an hour, listening to Soundgarden as the asphault melted into long streaks of orange and gold before me. I crossed the Yodogawa, and thought about taking walks on it with my brother last year. It turned dark as I headed through Kobe and watched the lights dancing on the harbor out my left window. And I thought about how in six months time, this will all be a distant memory.
"I thought it would be a fun project to write and record a pop tune using nothing but cellos, then make a video of the performance. The original goal was to keep everything entirely acoustic, with no recording studio effects or other processing. I quickly abandoned that idea to get more variety of sounds, but everything you hear was played entirely on my cello. There are 37 separate cello parts recorded on 23 tracks using 37 plug-in effects. I don't know if I should be embarrassed to admit I spent hundreds of hours on this project, or proud to have paid so much attention to detail. You be the judge."
Okay this is a pretty fun and useless hack (the most interesting kind, IMHO): 1,024
Upload a jpeg/gif/png (less than 500k in size) and a new graphic is generated. It shows 1,024 people in stadium seating holding up placards that your uploaded graphic is displayed on. The end result looks something like this:
//////////
Yes, Asian Trekkies, that is the king of cool:
(original graphic)
Totally and completely bitchin': MAO ART
This is the one for me:
Train ceaselessly to prepare to annihilate the invading enemy.
I have this thing where I constantly scan for telephone poles, trees, and other stationary objects as I walk down the street, just in case a car loses control like this. An OCD, for sure.
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.
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.
2006 Trip to Thailand - Mika's Photos
She got some good shots; it's a shame most of them are so small. The photos are from before, during, and after the wedding.
I just hacked together an Atom feed with full, formatted entries (plus inline graphics), because I felt guilty for putting it off for the past three years or so. I tested it briefly and it seems to work fine in Bloglines. You can find it here: http://www.cosmicbuddha.com/blog/atom.xml
Alternatively, you can subscribe with Bloglines by clicking here.
Are you using Bloglines to read this entry?
Hit the "M" key.
Cool, yes?
(via the Bloglines blog)
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.
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.
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?
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?
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
It's always amusing to see columnists writing about places they've obviously never been: Clash of the superstores / Yamada Denki enters Osaka's competitive electronics market
Basically, it's hype like this that led us to take a trip down there yesterday. The night before was Adam's birthday/farewell party in Umeda, and we stayed the night at a cheap hotel located in the illegalalienwhore district. As we all had some electronics shopping to do (a cranial implant here, a bionic limb augmentation there, you know, standard DenDen cyberware stuff), we decided to check out the vaunted new Yamada Denki complex (hereafter referred to as "Labia 1" - hey, they asked for it).
We arrived before 11 in the morning, only to face a bustling horde. Of sales staff. The place was deserted, as in, there were twice as many staff members as customers, which made for a truly annoying experience. The floor staff followed us around and incessantly offered to help with anything ("You looking to purchase LAN cable?") until we wandered into the next area - where the next sales specialist was waiting ("Choosing the right mousepad is a critical life decision..."). Jesus.
To be that deserted exactly one month after opening day, on a weekend no less, is not a good sign. I predict this place will close in a few years, after several key management changes and obscure restructurings of the point card system, never having reached any of its lofty goals. The problem? See the title of this post.
True, the complex is theoretically a three minute walk from Namba station. The thing is, it's a three minute walk toward the middle of nowhere, past Namba Parks and the WINS betting complex (horse racing)... And ultimately, one can't help but wonder if their business plan relies on impulse buys by people winning big on the ponies; gambling on the gamblers, so to speak. The ultimate proof I can offer to back up my prediction is the parking space I put my car in, the first level of the parking structure, right next to the store elevators, adjacent to ten other open spaces. Now try that at Yodobashi in Umeda.
One benefit of getting married is that now I have an uncle Po. I guess I have always secretly wanted an uncle named Po. I mean, who wouldn't? Uncle Po wore a pimp ass purple silk shirt to my wedding, and was aggressive in getting the photos he wanted with his weathered Nikon - film, of course. Uncle Po is OG like that.
Anyway, go check out his work: Photos from Uncle Po!
And just in case you missed out on any of the other photos we have put up until now, you can find a link to all of them here: LINK
"Annointed by an angry monk", a photo by Po (uncle)
Ko bought me an Energy Dome when he went to a Devo (1.0) concert in the Freedom of Choice years... Alas, I know not where it went. Sometimes when it is raining outside and I get a sudden attack of the 80's, there's nothing I want more than that shiny red Energy Dome.
I'd review it, but why bother? Opinions on chambara are fairly polarized; when a chambara swordfight flashes by as you flip through channels late at night, either you stop and watch somebody slice through 30 opponents in front of a tea shop, or you don't.
"Make me one with everything."
This guy's been playing waaay too much GTA.
A couple weeks ago a calf was born on my coworker's mini dairy farm. These mini-farms are prevalent on the more remote parts of this island, often limited to less than a dozen cows. Anyhow, I got around to asking how the calf was doing today and was told it had gotten sick and died. This was of course sad to hear, as this is apparently a fairly rare occurrence in this day and age. My coworker said the last time a calf died on their farm was over fifteen years ago.
He said that the mother was in great distress for a few days, udders swollen with milk and all moany and bereaved. "Don't ever let anyone tell you," he said, "that animals do not feel the pain of a child lost." Shit. I felt like crying, the way he described it. This did not, however, prevent me from asking if they milked the distressed mother to relieve some of the pain (yes), and if so, did they drink that milk (NO! What the fuck kinda freaks do you think we are?).
Maybe I was being a bit insensitive, but hey, I figured that farmers are like salt of the earth type of people, there ain't no insensitive questions, just stupid city-slicker type ones, right? So I asked why they don't drink the milk intended for dead baby cows without worrying too much about getting a pitchfork stuck up my ass. And I had guessed right about him not being fazed about it, he simply said, "It's got too much fat in it."
So there you go. The reason why you shouldn't steal mother's milk from a suckling calf is that you will turn into a cow yourself.
... is about to get worse, if that's even possible: No quarter for illegal parking from June
This may have changed since it's been a couple years since I got a parking ticket, but the cheapest one is generally well over a hundred dollars, plus you lose a couple points off your license (well, technically, you gain two points, but still...).
I predict that turning it over to third party metermaids is going to result in some beat up metermaids, at least in the short run.
Filmed on December 9, 1971
Today I found another blogging assignment for Adam when he goes stateside. Be sure to read this supplementary article on the Oki (Okinawa) Dog as well.
Also, I can't resist mentioning that the recipe at the bottom of that page pushes for Kikkoman, which is good enough of an excuse to link to his awesome tribute page again: Kikkoman (Show me, shoyu - English version).
I was going to ask my bro to do something just like this since he's going home in a couple weeks: The Great Taco Hunt: A guide to the Los Angeles taco scene
Oh well, I guess he's gonna have to think up something else to blog (fire hydrants of Orange County, or Surfer Photos from the Pier...)
