One of the most interesting things I've read in a while:
Eat Me: The Soviet method for attacking infection that we can learn from

Favorites passages:

- "You send your bacterial sample to the lab, and it's either matched up with an existing phage or a phage is cultured just for you."

- "Phages are also sold over-the-counter in Georgia. People take the popular mixture piobacteriophage, for example, to fight off common infections including staph and strep. These phage mixtures are updated regularly so they can attack newly emerging bacterial strains."

- "One company recently tried to open a phage center in Tijuana but was deterred by the Mexican government. Phages might be offered someday at clinics on Native American reservations, as a casinolike quirk of legislative autonomy."

I like the fact that you can legally procure heroin in TJ, but a sure fix for an infectious disease? No, senor.

Right back at you, asshole! (Update 2006/07/05: That link is hosed. I'm pasting a copy of the article below.)

A Justice Ministry panel studying an overhaul of Japan's immigration administration is set to propose that the proportion of foreign residents to the nation's population should be kept at 3 pct or below, Senior Vice Justice Minister Taro Kono said Tuesday.

The proposal will be included in a draft package of immigration policy reform measures to be drawn up shortly, Kono, who heads the panel, told a press conference.

According to the ministry, foreign residents accounted for 1.2 pct of Japan's population at the end of 2005.

By contrast, the proportion stood at 8.9 pct in Germany in 2001, at 11.1 pct in the United States in the same year and at 5.6 pct in France in 1999.

The panel is also considering requiring foreign nationals of Japanese ancestry to be fluent in Japanese and have regular jobs as conditions for their residency in Japan, Kono said.

Such people are currently allowed to live in Japan if they have relatives in the country.

The panel now believes it necessary to toughen the criteria because the number of problems caused by such residents has been increasing.

Look, if there's one thing I learned while doing basically every menial job available (short of washing corpses, which I wanted to do for the high pay but couldn't because of the dirty foreigner thing) in this country, it's that there are some jobs that Japanese people simply will not do. They simply are not HUNGRY enough to have to do these jobs - on loading docks, factories, piers, junkyards, resorts, roadsides, etc., and I'm not even including illegal shit, just jobs that ARE NOT NICE TO DO. Well guess what? Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of South Americans with Japanese ancestry are willing to do those jobs - and many of them already are. Hell, many people are doing these jobs WITHOUT visas, and Immigration as well as the police are fully aware of the situation - up to and including exactly which room of what shitty little hovel many of these illegals sleep in! This is a societal problem that will NOT be improved BY EFFECTIVELY MAKING CURRENTLY LEGAL WORKERS ILLEGAL.

Isn't it better to at least have these people paying taxes/soc security and checked on periodically by immigration (during visa applications/extensions) than to have them arrive on tourist visas, work for five or ten years illegally for employers who are cheating the system, and eventually get caught and deported ON OUR DIME?

One thing bugs me about the article though:

The panel is also considering requiring foreign nationals of Japanese ancestry to be fluent in Japanese and have regular jobs as conditions for their residency in Japan, Kono said.

Such people are currently allowed to live in Japan if they have relatives in the country.

What-eva. I'm outta here.

I've been down with a completely unprovoked itchy throat/summer head cold the past week (damn you, yahweh!), which I think is more than evident in my writing. Not that I care. I have a cold, you see. It makes me want to glom a big phlegmy sound like "mweh" at the world. So: mweh!

But what is a puny cold to a man in the land of samurai ninja kamikaze? Pshaw. I have been down, but not completely out of action (and as such, I may have unwittingly figured out why so many feudal lords suddenly died of pneumonia - "What's that? Rest, you say? Ridiculous! It's just a little summer cold! Besides, what do you think, are those taxes magically gonna appear in our coffers? Are those wretched peasants just gonna start raping themselves? I think not! I have responsibilities, dammit!)

...................

It bears saying that this past Friday we had a company drink up at what may be the best yakiniku restaurant in Japan, previously completely unknown to me astoforthsuchwhither. There are a lot of good places to eat yakiniku on this island and the meat is world famous - both Kobe beef and Matsuzaka beef originated from prized Awaji cattle stock. The restaurant we went to is located on a cattle ranch, and they had, overall, the best meats I have ever seen, anywhere.

I mean, I've had better individual items at other places, but this place brought together an excellent spread. And get this - the prices were completely reasonable! I've been burned for twice or three times as much as I spent that night at places that spend too much on antique decoration and waitresses that wear kimono, but serve girly-sized portions of overpriced meatribbon. No more. It's all about the shimofuri, baby.

For me to speak so highly of this place also proves one of my long-held suspicions: Although I generally prefer sumibiyaki (cooking over charcoal) style yakiniku because it seems more authentic and just, well, cooler - nothing beats a strong gas burner and a properly shaped cooking grill for lightly searing a good cut of meat. This place was using thick metal grills that looked custom-made, and they worked very well.

If you come out to visit anytime before I leave in October, you already know what's for dinner.

"Hey Justin, can you call back in ten? Nam's driving right now."

Someone at work asked me what this phrase meant the other day. I just got around to looking it up. It refers to the weather condition when it is sunny but raining. I never knew there was a term for it. I always just thought of it as "Hawaii weather." Apparently, the following phrases also mean the same thing:

"foxes are on a marriage parade"
"witches are doing their wash"
"a tailor is going to hell"
(source)

To these, I would add another:
"The Big Monkey in the Sky Is Peeing on Us, Violently"

Mine makes a hell of a lot more sense than that foxes' marriage parade bullshit. Fucking illogical weather arcana!

UPDATE: Duh, I completely forgot the term "sunshowers."

This guy makes me feel much better about not buying a sleek new MacBook Pro. I want a pretty, shiny new toy, but I just cannot justify it.

Sidenote: Why are decent graphic cards for Mac still so goddamn expensive?

I'm starting a war in the office. Let me explain.

Today, I intentionally broke the Tamanegi Convention. This convention simply states that no one shall consume raw onions right before coming to work. The reasons that this convention is necessary are:

A. This island is most famous for its onions

B. They are in season right now, and are delicious when sliced thin and eaten raw

C. They make your breath smell like ass

However, I would like to point out that the framers of this convention never took into account the fact that I would be returning back to a bachelor's lifestyle this week, coinciding with coming down with a summer cold and consuming huge NyQuil caps last night, which knocked my ass out cold on the sofa and prevented me from going shopping for groceries. Hence this morning's breakfast of egg, tomato, and onion sandwich served on a stale heel of bread folded in half.

So a message to all of you in the 9:00 meeting: INCOMING!

This is a huge joke, because 99.9% of Asians do not know how to drink whiskey. I have no doubt that 1,000,000 yen buys you a damn smooth mixer for your glass of ice water, but it's still an awfully sissy way to drink (although Americans aren't much better pouring expensive single malts over ice). If it tastes too strong just stick to vodka tonics, you pansies.

I have to admit, Mitsuoka makes some real works of art; they stand out from everything else on the street. Take a look at their lineup.

My favorite, of course is the Le-Seyde, which is built on the body of a 180SX (the sister model of my beloved Silvia S-13). I used to see these driving around once a year or so (they were always white), but I haven't seen one for quite a while.

In some cities in Japan, they use the TX-II or the viewt as actual taxi cabs - and riding around in one is a welcome break from the ubiquitous old Crown cabs.

This is an interesting way to watch news headlines: Mapped Up

It will be interesting to see how it develops, especially when it moves to its own domain.

Chinchin!

One of the photos Nam took today, her last full day in Japan for the foreseeable future. We went on a drive out to Akashi to look for a dog (shiba-ken) her cousin wants us to send to Thailand (long story). I bought her a Coolpix S6 last week to take home, so she was taking her first shots with it today.

She leaves to Thailand tomorrow morning. I go to work as usual. That sucks total chinchin.

For the past month or so we've been cleaning up the house and finally sent 3 cubic meters of stuff to Mahasarakham via Pakmail this past Monday. Nam is taking off in a couple of days, and I'm still inspired by her seriously amazing ability to root through ten+ year old crap and throw it all away. We've probably thrown away over 70-80 bags of trash.

So anyway, I'm digging through all of my computer backups on floppy, CD, DVD, ZIP, EZ drive, MO, JAZ, etc., etc., and so forth.

I found some of the artwork and posters I used to do before gigs, when I was in my Photoshop phase (and believe me, it was all about version 4.0). I liked this one especially, because I remember how long it took me to freehand a Mandelbrot on a 5" Wacom tablet:

See? I was all about Macintosh until Steve Jobs started charging for .mac accounts (previously announced "free for life"), and this was pretty much the apex of my Photoshop skills. Nowadays there's filters to churn this shit out, but that's pretty much the modern equivalent of "I had to walk 9 miles to school through the snow," isn't it?

Well, fuck, Steve Jobs made Apple dead to me and now I do my bit by punching out random iPodders on the subway, so I guess there really is a sort of cosmic balance.

Well. Back to cleaning.

UPDATE:

I found a version I like even better.

Some of this extreme cuisine article is pretty funny until you start to suspect what a stupid redneck twat the author is... In this day and age, he can't even pull off a convincing Long Duk Dong... Other than that, fine effort, Cletus.

(video is close to ten minutes long, let it load for a while before playing)

I talked to T on the phone today. He said he's going to a factory for part time work during his spare time these days, and that he's going to record the sounds of the machines with which to make a song. This video can be kind of an inspiration, I guess.

Side note: The horizontal volume slider on the TV really brought back some memories.

I've been delinquent in my Zatoichi viewing. I will finish them all before I leave, however.

Katsu Shintaro embodies so much of what is lost in modern Japan. And that is of course what makes these movies so cool.

Japanese Lowrider Life

It's true, we even have them out here on my island.

I just remembered one of the funniest things I ever heard.

About seven years ago I got trapped in a conversation with a roomful of girls, and the topic of the conversation of course turned to the topic it always turns to in a roomful of only girls, that is, feminine hygeine products. Anyway, the funny part: This one Chinese girl admitted that the first time she used tampons, she had no idea how to use them and she ended up shoving in 7 or 8, and then proceeded to go about her normal business for the day.

(I'm hoping there's a Confucian equivalent to Kegels.)

That story still makes me smile.

I'm not a Numerologist or anything, hell, I hardly even believe in math. Yet, I become strangely obsessed with numbers and compulsively count things out in my head on occassion. You know, the number of steps I take from point A to point B, or the number of cars I pass on the highway. Stuff like that. Or even simpler things, like tapping my fingers on a desk and counting the beat - performing a repetetive action for the sake of counting. I think I do this when I'm bored, but I've been doing it for so long now, it's become a kind of meditation as well.

Another thing I've noticed over the years is that certain numbers keep popping up here and there. I don't mean meaningful numbers like 5 or 24 or 100. I mean numbers that appear much more frequently than they should. Do you know what I mean?

One number that keeps appearing in my life is 307. It was not always so, or more accurately, I do not think it was always so. You see, 307 was my room number in my college dorm. A couple of years into my residency there, I started noticing that the room number 307 was used on TV and movies quite often. Then I realized that I knew someone else who lived in an apartment #307. Over the years, I've entered several room 307s - visiting people or offices with that number. I've been assigned room 307 at hotels all over the world. And let us not forget that the Toto U307C is the seemingly most popular urinal in men's restrooms all over Japan.

So what is it with this number? Am I the only one to have noticed the frequency of it?

Lets look at Google:

Search for 306 returns 85,700,000 results

Search for 307 returns 127,000,000 results

Search for 308 returns 76,700,000 results

Holy shit! I'm not sure that proves a thing, but it does seem uncannily popular, doesn't it?

What is the meaning?

What is the significance?

(Also, in this case, are meaning and significance necessarily synonymous?)

Will 307 aliens from the planet 307 someday abduct me and threaten to blow up planet Earth unless I guess the number they are thinking of?

Will I one day play the lottery and win $307 million using the repeating string of 307307307307?

Will I ever live in another room 307 and find out I can see dead people?

...........

It's a fucking conspiracy, I tell you.

It just occurred to me that I can't remember the last time I've been inside a movie theatre. It's been at least a year, maybe two. Yet I've seen every movie that I've wanted to, and some of those I saw before they were released in theatres. Of course, I encourage other people to do the same as well - I really wouldn't care if modern movies, as we know them, simply ceased to exist. They are entertaining, but about as meaningful as picking your nose.

So somehow, this is all very satisfying.

In the words of Chuck D: Hey yo, fuck Hollywood, man.

Attention LA area residents: You need to get tickets to see Yoshida Brothers in concert at the Japan America Theater next month. Because it's like, impossible to get to tickets to see them in Japan. The Yoshida Brothers kick ass.

Of course, they're just a couple of nimble-fingered biotches compared to me and Adam, but still... They sure can pluck!

Yesterday we saw the most interesting car on this island.

I applaud the concept:

- A brand spankin' new Lexus SC 430 in jet black

- Top lowered to enjoy the fine weather at sunset

The execution caused me to laugh so hard, I almost puked:

- Driver: mid-to-late 50's, toupe peeled back halfway off his head

- Music: Very loud, very gay J-Pop

- Custom rims: Spinners!

Observation for the day: Rich people in expensive cars really hate being laughed at by mere pedestrians.

Hell, fuck FedEx as well:

MPAA training police dogs to sniff out DVDs

Tips for sending counterfeit DVDs via FedEx:

- Sprinkle coffee grinds in the FedEx Pak/shipping box

- Rip to VCD

- Stuff them inside teddy bears

- Oh yeah, use this new thing called "da internet" instead

"If you cannot decipher anything, then try pulling the corner of your eyes as if you were Chinese. It works!"

I totally had to pull the corner of my eyes as if I were Chinese. Is this conclusive evidence that the Japanese race evolved independently from the rest of the world (as people who drive black buses around urban centers blaring loud propaganda messages through speaker towers would want you to believe), or am I just a bad Asian?

(via Osaka bill)

You know what? The political situation in Thailand right now is confusing the hell out of me. From what I gather, another round of parliamentary elections was cancelled last weekend, and the king is like, stop screwing around. Oh, and also, stop trying to dump this mess in my lap.

You know what? His Majesty is really showing his smarts. The issue isn't so much that using his constitutional rights to settle the issue would be partisan (specifically, anti-Thaksin), but that Thailand really needs an effective democratic solution. It isn't too hard to imagine somebody else in the king's position just doing the absolute minimum in a puppet role, so it's very nice to see that he has the skills and the wisdom to match his power.

You know what's even nicer? The government may be in semi-chaos right now, but it's still safe to be there... That says a lot about the country and its people. Try that shit next door and there'd be tanks running over students on CNN.

Here's a handy tip for those of you using Skype: As you may know, when you are getting poor call quality, sometimes just hanging up and calling again will improve it. However, when this fails, try hanging up and setting your Skype status to Offline for at least 15 seconds before trying to call again (tech note: this apparently forces connection through a different supernode).

I read about this in a conference dedicated to the book, Skype Hacks, and just tried it the other day - it works!

By the way, if any of you want to chat on Skype sometime, my handle is, predictably, "cosmicbuddha".

4649

I saw something pretty funny at the carwash last week. A young couple was washing their new yellow subcompact in the stall next to mine. The girl was scrubbing the hood of the car with a white rag and noticed it was picking up yellow specks, so showed it to the guy. "Stop!," he exclaimed, and began inspecting the hood for damage. "This carwashing soap we bought is stripping the paint..."

When I told them it was just yellow sand from China, they looked at me like I was crazy. So I showed them my car, which is gunmetal grey and looks like a yellow-speckled trout after the rain dries on it every year around this time.

This is the single most interesting article to appear on kuro5hin in recent memory: How to cure your asthma or hayfever using hookworm - a practical guide

I so want this to be true! I can see it now: Medical tourism in Cameroon... This is a definite a one up on the Nigerian scams, dirt-poor Africans selling shit to sniffly fat westerners!

...........

So I have this female coworker, right? She's off for a year on maternity leave now, but she has been working at the company from before I joined, and we've always been tight. She's always had my back, and I have hers, too. So it kills me to say this, but she has given the stupidest name to her newborn baby boy, and that's kind of unforgivable in my book.

The name? "Shishimaru." The kanjis used are for "lion" and "circle." (I dare not write it in Japanese cuz this page will surely float to the top of the search results - for now filled with pets and monster movies named "shishimaru")

That kid is SO gonna get his assed kicked in school. Hell, even the retarded kids will be taking his lunch money. Bad parents! Shame on you!

So what's the worst baby name you've ever heard?

Original Unaltered Trilogy on DVD

Once again, Han Solo is a sneaky bastard who shoots a green alien in cold blood. And that is all that really matters.

Having lived away from home for so long, I've accumulated a kitchenful of spices and worn cooking utensils, and a few original recipes worth sharing. This is the first one I will publish here, and it is a good one. In the past, women have even offered brief glimpses of their ankles to me for it; now that I am married I prefer to empower you with it, for free.

- BACKGROUND -
Mabodofu is a popular spicy tofu and ground meat dish served in Japan, but with definite Chinese influence. Mabonasu is a variation on this dish, substituting nasu (eggplant) for tofu. After thinking about how much I loved both dishes over a period of several years, it occurred to me that bean curd and eggplant are not mutually exclusive. Thus, mabonasudofu was born.

The pasta component of this equation was born of necessity. Mabonasu/mabodofu are traditionally served on a hot bowl of rice. However, one day, when cooking up an early experimental batch of mabonasudofu on a pitifully underpowered butane burner in my university dorm room, I found I was out of rice. But I had a bag of spaghetti laying around (and what starving student doesn't?), so I boiled it up and - BAM! - this brilliant dish was born. Necessity is truly the mamacita of invention.

- MABO THEORY -
There are much easier ways to make mabonasu/mabodofu, because they sell gel packets of seasoning for it that you can simply add ground meat plus tofu or eggplant to and stir fry. I heartily recommend trying out these packets if they are available to you, because they are a good reference. The flavor is generally kind of authentic in the sense that a Mustang is a fast car. However, I am a Ferrari man at heart (even though I've never sat in one), and at least for today, you should be, too. With regard to this completely ridiculous analogy, this means that we should be making our mabo seasoning from scratch.

Note: Click on any of the images in this post to open larger versions of them.

- INGREDIENTS -

(the numbering used is random, it does not indicate order in which ingredients are used)

1. Sake (any brand is fine): 1/5 cup


2. Shredded white cheese (any kind you would use on normal spaghetti is fine): 1 small handful per serving


3. Beer: 0.257 to 0.348 second pours, two or three times (see below)


4. Sesame oil: 2 to 3 tablespoons


5. Mirin: 3 tablespoons


6. Sour cream (isn't the tiny Japanese container that costs $2.50 cute? There's almost a whole serving in there!): 1 dollop


7. Cooking oil (generic): 2 tablespoons


8. Tobanjan (spicy Chinese miso): 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons


9. Salt/pepper mix: Enough to lightly season the meat


10. Chopped green onions: As much as you like as a topping


11. Ketchup: 2 tablespoons


12. Tomato paste: 4 tablespoons


13. Tofu (the creamiest you can find): One large block


14. Nasu (long skinny eggplant, NOT aubergine; must be cut as shown below): Around 5 medium-sized ones


15. Brown sugar (if you think white sugar is the same, tell that to a heroin addict): 1 Tablespoon


16. Pasta: However much you need. The bag of spaghetti noodles here was just enough to use up the mabonasudofu "sauce," and served 6 people.


17. Ginger (must be ground): 1 root clump (what the hell is the proper measurement for ginger? Does it go by weight? If so, however many grams/ounces shown in the photo, minus the smaller clump is about right.)


18. Bay leaves: 4 if harvested in the northern hemisphere; 3 if in the southern; 2.5 if the tree was pissed on by a pregnant mongoose every full moon


19. Garlic (must be smashed with the flat of your knife, then diced): 5 big ol' honkin' cloves if you have primo elephant garlic like me ;)


20. Ground beef or beef/pork mix (chicken not welcome here): 1.5 pounds

- Directions -
Lightly season the ground meat and talk to it about the weather or something to calm its nerves (it's about to be fried you heartless bastard). Then, in an oiled (with generic cooking oil) wok or bowl-shaped frying pan, or if you are like me and threw both out because you wore them out, in a normally-shaped LARGE frying pan, start cooking the ground meat on medium-high heat. Add the chopped garlic on top of the meat as it cooks, then drizzle the sesame oil over the garlic (notice how I carefully measure everything).

Stir up the pan and almost completely brown the meat. Add ketchup, mirin, sugar, tomato paste, and sake. Turn heat to medium and stir just enough to make sure it very slightly caramelizes (and it should with all that sugary stuff you just mixed in), but doesn't burn. Cook in this manner for approximately 7 minutes and 47 seconds, occasionally stirring in beer (because beer makes everything taste better, duh).

Get your tofu ready, dude. I splurged and bought some extra soft tofu that came wrapped in cheesecloth. It was so soft, I didn't need to precut it, but I know this yuppie stuff isn't available everywhere, so you may need to cut yours up a bit.

Add the tofu to the pan. Mix it up into little pieces and continue cooking for a couple minutes. Add ground up ginger, mix it up, baby.

Add enough water to almost cover everything in the pan, then add the bay leaves in an asymetrical pattern. Depending on how big your pasta pot is, you may want to start boiling water in preparation right about now.

It's time to cut up the nasu into sixteenths with your fugu-shaped knife (I suppose any old knife would do, but still...). "Sixteenths?," you are wondering. Observe, grasshopper:

(Hi-tech arrowing system enabled with Sriracha)

Sit back for a minute, finish the beer, and admire your handiwork thus far. You deserve it!

Now you need to skim the oil off the top of your mabonasudofu. This is why:

Add the nasu. Cover the pan and simmer on low heat for 10 minutes. Uncover and turn off the heat, then let the mix cool while you cook your pasta. Boil the pasta as you would normally, with a dash of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.

While you are waiting for the pasta to boil, break out the vino. This one wasn't remarkable, but it wasn't bad for Jusco.

When the pasta is ready, strain it and put it on plates. Sprinkle cheese directly on the pasta. Heat up the mabonasudofu in the pan again, then ladle it on top of the plated pasta. Top with a handful of green onions and a dollop of sour cream.

Bon appetit!

We are at the end of the Golden Week holiday in Japan and ironically, I've been too busy to blog. Getting ready for the big move to Thailand in October and hanging out with friends who came to visit Awaji.

This island turns into a huge tourist trap during the spring and summer holidays - a nice change, but kind of messed up if you have to drive anywhere. I've been taking some photos, which I will post a set of later, and got - wait for it - even more wedding photos off of people. If you are not completely sick of seeing me in a white tuxedo yet, you soon will be.

Michelle's Photo Set

Dave's Photo Set

As always, links to all known photo sets for the wedding can be found here.

Other photo-related news: You might get a kick out of my set of JUMP photos, which also reminds me - if you are signed up on flickr, come join my newly-created Might as Well Jump Photo Group.

.............