I don't get it, can someone explain how buying/using Apple products, especially iPods or iTunes, is not supporting DRM?
Because I can understand wanting cool gear, and I can even understand sacrificing your morals for cool gear... But let's be honest about it, yeah?
Fuck DRM, fuck non-replaceable batteries, fuck a one-button mouse. Period.
Beam us up to the mothaship already!
Let me know if you run into any problems commenting or viewing entries, etc.
I finally got everything around here working smoothly for the past month, so.... That's right, it's time for another upgrade! This time it's from Movable Type 4.01 to 4.1... Hope this install goes smoother than the last one, and that Dreamhost doesn't let me down or bill me for two years in advance again (Dreamhost customer joke).
If I disappear from the ether for a while, don't worry, I'll be back somehow, sometime.
Some of these baby instructions should come in handy for us (boya is due in May):
Go check out the whole gallery.
(link from adam)
YouTube for, um, Teachers: LINK
Haven't seen much on it yet, but predict that it will prove too popular for itself.
Awesome, even though the kozutsumi plays it a little too loose at the end.
Also, I noticed that Asahi Television has been telling Youtube to take down other instances of this clip recently, so here's a longer alternate version if the one above isn't viewable: LINK
They're a mouthful.
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This article about Kobe and pseudo-Kobe beef was interesting, but kind of pissed me off: Raising the Steaks
I mean, the author is passing judgment on a practice he's never seen first-hand? I lived in Japan for many years, knew a lot of people raising cattle, and I never saw a single cow living in a lean-to (I can't remember seeing any lean-tos in Japan!).
I sure saw a lot living in barns, open pastures, and ranches, though. This quote from the article especially struck a nerve: "And where is all that pasture to begin with, given that Japan is so short of land?" Oh, I see. The problem is that this guy has never been to Japan, has probably never even seen Japan outside of the photos in the wikipedia articles he used for "research," and couldn't find a single Japanese rancher to interview so instead asked his questions to experts in the US... and in the end recommends their product over the Japanese one because he's lost his taste for "beef raised in a crate." As evidenced by the testimonial of a single Frenchman. Oi.
Hey, and I'm really curious as to under which Shinto tenets, "beef was not consumed in Japan until the Meiji Restoration." Or is this just a very slanted way of presenting Shinto vegetarianism?
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A great contrast to this article, also written last year, is this one: The Sublime Culture of Kobe Beef
It paints a much different picture than the article above.... In the end, only one question remains: ARE THE COWS ACTUALLY MASSAGED, OR IS IT JUST SHIT BEING RUBBED OFF THEM WITH A HANDFUL OF STRAW?
and also: DOES SHIT-COATED COW MAKE FOR BETTER EATING, OR WHAT?
These are questions that deserve straight, honest, and thoroughly documented answers.
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I, personally, can offer the following:
Pretty cool: Filler
Taken on a third-class ultrasound machine in a first-rate clinic out in the countryside of a third-world country
The Yoshida name lives on!
For publishing the best Tom Cruise movie since Top Gun.
Only one question: What's that bubble-popping noise at 1:49? Ah, maybe it was just my mind exploding.
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*One of my proudest accomplishments ever was introducing Nick to masamania when he came to Japan a few years back and asked for a few good links.
Well, more of the empty lot next door than our backyard, but hey, the important thing here is the cows, right?
If you've stuck around this blog since I made my move to Maha Sarakham, Thailand, you know that I'm somewhat obsessed with the flora and fauna surrounding me (whether I end up eating it or not), and I hope for the Cows in My Backyard series to become something of a time-honored tradition. So far, it's only been a year or so. Here's to more cows, and maybe even more backyards in the future.
saiko ja!
This is one of the coolest ideas I've seen in a while:
"Bears, is a series of portraits of the most unusual sort: ordinary teddy bears that have been turned inside out and restuffed. Each animal's appearance is determined by the necessities of the manufacturing process..."
Go check out the whole gallery.
Look how many views this vid has now!
Envisioned in 1933: Mechanical grocery store walks around the customer
Substitute raw fish and vinegared rice for the "groceries," lose the wrapping option (mawarizushi is one of the few things the Japanese don't wrap), and add self-pouring draft beer vending machines, and then you've got a recipe for a winner (that sounds a lot like Kura Zushi near KIX, but I digress)
(via)
Holy crap, does this real life GTA show in Russia sound like fun or what?
I would totally kick ass at this.
(via)
I love companies that don't take themselves too seriously; especially ones that should. Then again, maybe the Pumpkins are old money aristocrat types convinced that their family crest strikes fear in the hearts of would be wrongdoers (fuck thee not with the PUMPKINS, knave!).
Adam sent me this a while back. Click to open the full size page in a pop-up window.
Um, just what it sounds like.
Somehow, I think the purity of the fights are ruined by the narration. I like the insect equivalent of MMA, though.
(thx BRYDE)
We put in curtains (cream) and grass (green) today. It's amazing how much more this house feels like home now.
As a side note, there's a dirt track to the rear of our house where dump trucks come to drop fill dirt at the back end of the development. I took the Crown back there today to drop off 16 bags of black loam I bought (20 Baht/bag) to lay under the grass. After throwing the bags of loam over our fence, I got back in the car and did donuts and long drifts in the dirt all the way back to the paved road. All of the laborers working on various houses pumped their fists in the air and shouted Thai arribas. I've changed back to 15" wheels because I didn't have money to buy new tires for the 17" rims and I got tired of changing flats every other day. I know, poor white collar me. Next thing you know I'll be drilling holes in my muffler instead of getting it done properly.
It seems that DoCoMo killed off the Personal Handyphone System service last week (Slashdot JP link). The PHS phones were attractive when we were students (specifically around 1995) because of the lower handset prices. Not being able to use one while traveling over 20kph (or was it 25?), however, was the main deal breaker. I remember when the newer generation phones with multiple antennas came out specifically to deal with this problem, but by then everyone who already had a cellular wasn't about to switch.
As this guy says, there was a lot of potential in the system that was never realized, but hey, the road to Nashville is lined with superior specs and wasted potential. Or something.
RIP, PHS. FYI, U SUKT.
Hell, I might like this version even better than the Sheryl Crow one.
Bittorrent, I'm back. I know you missed me.
But Demonoid's gone! NOOOOOO! I was one of the few users to upload half a terabyte; I was going to use that ratio for the betterment of my arcane software collection! Oh, well. It would take fifty years to download half a T on this connection, anyway.
Speaking of the Crown, Ive been meaning to post an original sales brochure for it that I found on this page (They're restoring a Kujira Crown they found on e-Bay).
You really have to click on the photo to open the enlarged version and read the copy at the bottom; it's pretty trippy (I'm relieved to see that mine has at least one of the options listed - seat belts!).
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What comes straight out of a rarified atmosphere of true elegance and good breeding at 100mph, replete with luxury, power-steering, Cooler Air Conditioning, 8-track stereo and every creature comfort? The Crown Special 2600 Automatic. A precious object for collectors only. At 2303.44 recommended retail price, incPT (extra for seat belts and delivery) why should one pay more? And there's no answer to that. Crown Special. One of The Toyota Collection.
Got my DSL hookup at the new house - currently 256/128k or some such sadness, but it's a lot better than nothing, and I'll be upgrading to 1Mb/512k on Monday. I think I may even bother to bring the DL speed to 1.5M for another 110 Baht/month. Thinking about the hikari line I gave up in Japan sometimes makes me sad, but I find comfort in the Apocalypse coming and killing everybody with faster connections than me (most of the developed world).
As a side note, this morning at first I could not get the Crown into gear but somehow squeezed it into second while starting at the same time, and drove it all the way to a garage without depressing the clutch. I borrowed my sister in law's new Chevy Aveo because we are getting the Cefiro resprayed (almost for free with 1st class insurance - we only pay 4,000 Baht). They replaced a clutch cylinder part on the Crown and I just picked it up - 600 Baht, all inclusive. I love Thailand.
Since quitting smoking is probably the most important decision I made this year, I might as well write about it some more.
Before I quit smoking, I was sure there were a few scenarios in which it would be near impossible to stand strong in the face of temptation after I quit. These situations included:
Well, I haven't vanquished anyone or eaten swan yet this year, but I did get fucked with pretty hard on Tuesday night. My pal Don called me out for a drink to a new bar about three minutes from the new house. The bartender had worked at the Sukhothai Hotel in Bangkok for 7 years and I went overboard playing cocktail trivia with her, ended up drinking nine drinks in 90 minutes. Went outside for some fresh air, forgetting that the front of non-smoking bars is strictly smoker territory. As mentioned above, I was fucked with.
"Here, just have one hit!"
"Just have one, you know you want it!"
"Here, can you hold this for me? I have to tie my shoe."
Bastards. I deserved it, though, because I've done the exact same thing to friends trying to quit.
Funny thing is though, it wasn't that hard. I had already stopped for about a week and I knew if I had one cigarette, it wouldn't be just one, so... It wasn't that hard.
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What I am finding hard, though, is not smoking in my dreams. I try to resist the temptation in my dreams, but it's just too hard. And it's so realistic that I wake up feeling guilty and looking at my wife's sleeping face to see if she noticed!
Maybe I should just enjoy it... Is smoking in the dream world bad for your health?
So I have a big confession to make: I quit smoking on New Years Day.
It's been a week, a busy week to be sure.
Getting up the nerve to quit was a very difficult thing to do, because I enjoyed smoking so much. I was addicted to the act of smoking more than I was to the nicotine. I pretty much proved this by quitting cold turkey with a pack of nicotine gum in my pocket - I never used it, but it was there in case the nicotine withdrawals got in my way at work or something. The physiological effects that nicotine withdrawal had on me were extreme exhaustion and lethargy. It was like coming down from a 20-year stimulant high, or emerging from a pool of slow-setting epoxy. So of course, I chose this time to move into the new house - in between fugue bouts of narcolepsy, that is.
I figured I could distract myself by keeping busy packing and moving boxes, and it worked very well for the most part. I explained to Nam ahead of time that I might be irritable or go kind of crazy about little things (more so than usual, that is, so we were prepared when that stuff inevitably happened. I experienced an out-of-body rage when I found that a stone lantern I had stored at my housing developer's office had been broken. I used to experience this level of rage all the time: When it happens, I can actually see myself going berserk and feel regret for what's about to happen, but usually do not bother trying to stop myself. So anyway, I completely lost it when I saw a stone leg had been broken off and proceeded to smash the lantern into little tiny bits on the concrete outside the office as the secretaries inside looked on in horror. Rage issues, man. I proceeded back home where I sat down on a new couch and immediately fell asleep.
But, you know, other than that, it's been easier than I thought it would be. I guess it all comes down to having a good reason to quit. I mean, you would figure that decreasing your chances of DYING EARLY would be a really stupendous reason to quit, but it just is not for most smokers. There usually has to be a more immediate motivation. For me, it is the baby. I knew this was coming from five months ago. I knew the baby was coming, I knew we were moving to a new house. I promised Nam I would quit before we moved, and New Years came up at around just the same time, so...
It's kind of strange. I thought I would have to swear off coffee and alcohol for a while, but I've had both this week and they didn't affect my cravings that much... I think everything's OK as long as I'm within proximity of Nam and the baby. As long as I avoid solo trips to pool halls, strip clubs, and crack dens for a while, I think everything may turn out just fine.
We are waiting for a phone line to be installed at home... Until then, posting will probably be limited. Happy new year!
