So today turned out to be a big bummer because of the stupid Thai banking system. In short, I tried to withdraw 20,000 Baht from my Japanese bank with an international (PLUS system) bank card, which is something I've done many times before with no real problems. This time, however, the ATM (Thai Commercial Bank) flashed an error, "Communication Error," and spat out my card but no cash and no receipt. I figured it might be an error with this particular bank and mine in Japan (Mitsui Sumitomo), so I tried again with the ATM to the immediate right of the first one (Thai Military Bank). Same error message, same exact result: No cash, no receipt.

Then I figured I'd try a little bit later so I pulled up to a Krung Thai Bank ATM at a gas station and tried again to withdraw 20,000 Baht. This time I got an "insufficient balance" error, and a sinking feeling in my stomach (and again, no cash and no receipt). Sure enough, when I rushed home to look at my balance online, it showed that 20,000 Baht had been withdrawn today.

I immediately called my bank in Japan and explained the situation. The man on the other end was sympathetic and said I needed to talk to the banks here in Thailand first, but that if nothing could be done on this side, he could probably launch an investigation into the matter which would take weeks to find anything (if at all), but sounded much better than nothing. At this point, I was pretty sure that appealing to the banks here would end in squat.

Sure enough, both Thai banks claimed since I wasn't sure which bank had actually made the transaction, it absolved them both of responsibility until I found out this info from my Japanese bank. Of course, by the time I received this happy reply (via Nam, who went to go find the contact info on the ATMs while I watched sleeping baby at home), my bank in Japan had already closed for the day.

So.

20,000 Baht (68,000 yen or around $600) just disappeared into the ether, and, as of now, I have fuck all to show that this is what actually happened.

My question: At times like this is it more appropriate to hate computers, the third world, or banks in general?

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UPDATE: I called my bank in Japan to tell them that the Thai banks are not accepting responsibility (big surprise!) since I don't know which one caused the problem, and they insist that the Japan side must initiate action of some kind. The guy at my bank who is following the case advised me to wait seven working days to see if the problem is corrected automatically, then to contact him again so he can initiate an inquiry which may take a couple months to finish. This blows.

I never imagined such a cute little thing could poop so often. Max, when not sleeping or breastfeeding, is soiling diapers (and our clothes as well) at a highly efficient rate. I would say at this point we are going through 30 diapers per day, as well as assorted towels, blankets, and baby clothes that get soiled as well (one downside to cloth diapers is that they have no plastic layer to keep the juiciness sealed in).

My mental checklist from the past 24 hours looks something like this:

Poo
Pee
Pee
Pee
Poo
Double double (2 pees + 2 poos consecutively/simultaneously, in random order)
Pee
Very wet fart/not quite poo
Pee
Pee
Poo
Super pee (soiled mommy/daddy's clothes as well as own)
Pee
Poo
Hot squirt from bottom when changing
Pee
Pee
Super pee
Triple double (including attempted pee in daddy's face when changing)
Pee
Poo
Pee with small poop squirt
/end of cycle

But so far, I have to admit this is kinda fun. My boy can pass gas loudly and unabashedly, sometimes on the very hand that changes his nappies, and that is something, as a man, of which I can be proud.

Today we must make a run for wet wipes, baby laundry detergent, and food at the local mini-Tesco. The best wet wipes and disposable diapers available in Thailand (that we've seen so far at least) is a Japanese brand called MamyPoko (parent company: Unicharm). Mamypoko makes great products at competitive prices... We don't take Max out very often, but when we do, we've decided to use disposables... It's one less thing to worry about, and the finished product makes a great projectile for idiots who double park.

Bonus trivia: Disposable diapers no longer employ adhesive tabs! They have a Velcro-like system, but the texture isn't rough like normal Velcro. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's magic or something!

OK. I've gotten all the LOLcats-babyblogging out of my system, I think.

Guess he'll have to grow into it. As a sidenote, this may have been the only car seat for sale in all of Mahasarakham. Since it was the last one in the only store that we know sells car seats, perhaps there is literally nowhere to buy them here anymore. It was about $90 and has genuine-looking European safety certification markings on it.

I have much to write about. However, I also have many soiled diapers to wash and many other chores around the house before I can do anything even resembling play.

Just being back home feels good, though.

And on the way back home, we found out that Max likes reggae.

I stumbled back onto this listing over at Kano's db after not seeing it for a couple years. I'm basically posting it here for my little sis in medical school: LINK

Very much reminds me of Hellraiser imagery.

(I need to take a quick break from baby blogging)

As if bacon-wrapped hot dogs being outlawed wasn't enough, it seems taco trucks are now in jeopardy on the streets of LA:

Led by District 1 County Supervisor Gloria Molina, the L.A. Board of Supervisors has passed new restrictions that will effectively eliminate taco trucks from our streets. Under Supervisor Molina's new rules, taco trucks will have to change location every hour, or face a misdemeanor charge carrying a $1000 fine and/or jail.

LINK: saveourtacotrucks.org

As requested, a photo illustrating Max's true size:

Two helpful points of reference:

1. The mango is large


2. The Coke is a 325 ml can (slightly smaller than the standard US or Japan can at 350 or 355 ml)

One of the nurses wrapped Max up like a squid; all he needs is white dreadlocks to complete the costume.

In addition to drinking from a shot glass, Max could also perform a proper staredown from a very early age.

Max has kept us up for most of the last few nights... So it's the perfect time to test an old theory. Can a musical television ad for a Japanese used piano company really make babies stop crying?

It's time to find out with an mp3 ripped from the source vid.

I hope he's old enough to appreciate this.

I have officially decided that his western (and therefore, most important) name is Max. Nam has yet to decide on a Thai name. It would be funny to change it at this point because we tried it out for a couple days and some of our visitors overheard us - next thing you know, people are calling up and congratulating us on "Max." Besides, it just fits him.

Next question: To -imilian or not to -imilian. Simple "Max," or go for a bit of flair with "Maximilian?" Come to think of it, emulating the first google hit for that name might be fairly classy: His Imperial Majesty Maximilian I, Emperor of Maha Sarakham and Protector of the Northeast. I think it's got a nice ring to it.

What to do?

Max or Maximilian?

Either way, I'm calling him Max, or Maxie until he stops breastfeeding, at least. There's an argument to be made that the -imilian is a useless appendage. On the other hand, I sometimes think it would be nice to have a tail even if I didn't really use it, so I'd like to hear some opinions here.

What say ye?

They are going to put him in observation for a day because the light fever he had last night went up instead of down. He started nursing properly yesterday but milk output isn't ideal yet. That should come along fine, though. We're pretty sure everything is gonna be OK, and know your thoughts are with us.

(This entry was posted on the phantom wifi network haunting this hospital, with a fussy baby cradled in my left arm and recovering wife in the room next door.)

With JAL's phasing out of what I feel was one of the best company logos ever, I'll just point to something I made a couple years ago and hope somebody makes good use of it. Like this:

I had to throw away a cloth diaper today. It was used only once, but soiled so nastily with the blackest, goopiest mess imaginable, and so it had to go.

See? The baby really is lucky! I went to buy a case of water at a farmer's wholesale mart and stumbled onto the grand mother of unfortunate branding - Golden Shower Brand Sugar!

"For the perverted diabetic in you!"

I just appreciate that they seemingly got the trademark (TM) - then again, in most parts of Asia, sometimes a marking is just a marking so - maybe they just claim to have the trademark. It's time for someone to jump on this opportunity; the Golden Shower name must expand across cultural boundaries and product lines alike!

The phantom wireless signal never returned after I lost it last night before knocking out, so I'm taking time between washing new cloth diapers at home to post these.

BTW, the baby has expressed extreme distaste for automatic transmissions AND front wheel drive - what a little purist!. Lucky for him I have the Crown..

UPDATE: I just realized that last sentence might be a bit misleading - Nam and the baby are staying in the hospital for at least a few more days. I'm at home doing chores while Nam's little sis helps watch the baby. Nam seems to be healing nicely since the operation yesterday. She was able to get up and walk a little today after they took out the IV and catheter.

Baby is not nursing yet. I can make him stop crying on command - "Hey Poopy Pants! Stop crying!!" Just kidding, he stops because he loves me. Fear shouldn't be necessary until he starts playing with electrical outlets and stuff.

Today the baby was born and I got a small tax return from the Japanese government that I was waiting for for two years. What are the odds?

Plus, this amazing phantom wifi access point kind of fades in whenever I really NEED a connection, but is invisible the rest of the time.

Let's see... born on 6/18 at 18:06 (UPDATE: Today is of course 4/18, not 6/18. Hey, give me a break - there was a lot happening. Maybe not to me directly, but there was a lot happening.). There's definitely some lucky lotto number action happening there, or something.

We got into a VIP suite of sorts here at the hospital because of Nam's nurse friends. I'm in a decently sized air-conditioned room with a sofa, fridge, shower room, and TV, and Nam is sleeping with the baby in the adjoining room. Nam's little sister is keeping watch on the sofa in there. Their room is a lot warmer than in here because the baby needs to be acclimatized to the temperature outside mommy's womb a little at a time. He likes sucking on his fingers, since Nam has been told to hold off nursing him until the doctor can give her a thorough check up tomorrow. Ah, hell, who am I kidding? He would like to suck on his fingers anyway... Or I would, at least (on mine, not his).

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Baby and mommy (kinda goofy from double morphine spinal block):

Already drinking shots:

Hates wearing socks, just like his dad:

Here lies the earliest known picture of baby Yoshida, taken in a dimly lit hallway with a cameraphone (He's being held by a nurse taking him to the nursery.).

The baby and Nam are fine.

He is 2,500 grams of red-faced crying glory. I put my hand on his head and he immediately stopped and went to sleep.

Life is good.

Thanks for all your prayers!

Just a quick notice: Nam's water has broken.

I am sitting in a VIP post-op room by myself, as I am not allowed in the maternity ward. This hospital has a strange policy of not allowing husbands into the delivery rooms. It's a policy we came asking about just yesterday in anticipation of the baby's target date of May 11. It's this policy that started us planning on checking out hospitals in the big city of Khon Kaen, an hour away.

We were going to go this weekend, when a doctor we saw before is on duty. Hell, we were talking about going today after lunch. Then her water broke. I threw the go-bags in the trunk, helped her in the car, and we were off. On the way to the hospital I told her we had plenty of time to get to Khon Kaen if she wanted to do it there, but that's not what she wanted so we are here at Mahasarakham Hospital.

My son is positioned buttocks-first, so there really is no choice for a first-time mother, he will have to be delivered by Caesarean (linguistic note: they call it a "Caesar" here). When we got here, Nam was dilated 1cm. That was around 90 minutes ago. It is maddening to not be in the loop here. However, there is an upside for us. Nam has many friends here, bith nurses and doctors. One of them has promised to get me in to see her in about ten minutes (14:30). So I' m sitting here cooly describing what has happened to this point, but actually feeling quite anxious about my wife and her upcoming procedure, scheduled for 6:00PM. The reason they are waiting so long, apparently, is that they have to wait for lunch to digest.

There, now you know everything that I do. I will update as things happen, but will post this when I go home to pick up some things later this afternoon. It will reside on my desktop as an rtf file until then.

Oh, by the way, I am so glad we decided to eat at home today instead of going out as planned.

UPDATE: I'm picking up a very weak wifi signal around here. I'm going to go look for it.

From the department of overprotection:

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone

The Incredible Shrinking World

This is a test post.

My rdf feed was hosed for over a month before I noticed. Sorry.

From our road trip to Pattaya a couple weeks ago.

If you love frogs, you probably shouldn't read the latter half of this post, but I'm not hiding it in the extended entry, either. Do or do not, there is no try, as it were.

(as always, click on any photo to open a larger version in a pop-up window)

This post goes out to my brother Adam, who definitely might be man enough to eat skewered frogs after a few beers (although we did it sober here). The one I pulled apart in the tissue shown above was pregnant, so the blurry black and white dots are eggs. Actually, the pregnant frogs were more expensive than the non-preggers (30 Baht/stick vs. 20 Baht/stick).

I'm going to preempt any "the trees are screaming" complaints at this time by pointing out that this is normal fare for hunters and gatherers, which many of the indigents here are.

I will also go on record that these frogs do not taste like chicken. They do not taste too bad, though... That is, they don't really taste of anything, really - it tastes like you are eating a rich, fatty protein, if that makes any sense. Maybe like a roasted shishamo, but not as delicious. I will admit that it took a bit of courage to eat one. After all, it was the same kind of frog I found in my shoe a while ago (called un-an in Thai).

So we're in the middle of the Songkran holiday period that marks the Thai New Year. The reason I feel so strongly about this holiday, which is also called the "water festival" in English, is that in typical third-world fashion, safety is being totally sacrificed for alcohol-fueled shits 'n giggles.

Apparently the current state of affairs is a perversion of the old tradition of pouring water over the hands of elders to wash away bad luck (just as we experienced during our wedding here). What I mean by "current state of affairs" is roads lined with drunken idiots (and all of their children, brothers, and sisters, also drunk) who throw water, talcum powder, and sometimes ice at passing vehicles and unfortunate pedestrians. Of course, the other half of this is roving pickups (remember 2/3 of the cars in this regions are pick-ups) loaded with passengers and tubs of water stopping suddenly for water fights. Motorbikes seem to be everyone's favorite target, so they swerve suddenly to avoid getting drenched. Hell, I myself almost took out a couple dumbasses on the highway driving back from Khon Kaen a few days ago, and the holiday hadn't even officially started yet! Anyways, that's why we have a death toll of 180 and 2,500 reported accidents a few days into the celebrations: Drunk idiots on the street and in moving vehicles.

I guess another way to see this is from the Darwinistic perspective - wankers will be wankers, and some unlucky wankers die wanking. If it weren't for all of the children being injured and killed every year due to their idiotic parents and friends, maybe Songkran wouldn't so bad after all.

Beatles studio footage is rarer than one might think... The guitar section in this song is awesome.

Just an FYI for hardcore BT users: Demonoid is back up.

Behold the Death Star Grill, the Darth Vader Gumball Machine, and the Han in Carbonite Mini-Fridge: LINK

I guess all I really need is a "Greedo didn't even have a chance to shoot!" t-shirt.

An electronic sculpture that spurts fake blood when someone dies on the attached Counter-Strike server.

Looks like it needs a super-gusher feature for head shots.

Yesterday provided a chance encounter with a local character which has forever changed our culinary lives. WE HAVE EATEN LIZARD, SOME KIND OF IGUANA. Specifically, this kind of iguana, although it might have been a blue-colored one since those are apparently bigger and tastier. There are so many things I want to say about this experience, it's all just a jumble in my mind right now... I think I'll tackle the explanation chronologically.

So yesterday, Nam and I were in front of our house taking photos. I set up a tripod in front of the pond and we started taking a long series of shots in the hot sun. Along came Captain Ahab, carrying his mini-harpoon gun:

"Do you want to try it out?" OH HELL YES PLEASE!
I tested out his fine contraption on a bunch of reeds floating in the pond, and maimed them quite handily. The trigger pull was about 20 lbs. and activated the release of the thick rubber bands (not tubes) attached to either sides of the receiver, acting much like a Hawaiian sling.

He assured us this longarm was also effective for home defense. I belive his actual words were, "you can also use this to shoot burglars!" Check out the awesomely hand-ground and nastily-barbed mini-harpoon:

You could probably do a lot more than shoot your eye out with this gun; the Captain said he'd bought it off a student 30 years ago and had speared too many fish with it to count over the years. (note: The reason I deemed this fine fellow Ahab is that he claimed to have brought in a 300 kilogram fish with this rig once. I called bullshit, first off because the harpoon was only attached with what looked like around 20 lb. test. Also,
I firmly believe anyone harpooning a 300 kg. fish with this rig would end up just like the original Captain Ahab - it's just not possible to land. Later, I found out this may have been a misunderstanding - he may have meant 300 kgs. of fish, not a 300 kg. fish. Since the time period wasn't specified, this sounds totally feasible. Sorry for doubting you, Captain, and sorry for the undeserved moniker) Unfortunately, he did not know where I could find one for myself. Here's a shot of the loaded projectile (gun uncocked).

And here is where we come to lizard salad (iguana salad?). (Well not really salad. It's about as salad-ish as a fruit salad, in that it's not, really... ah screw it, you'll see.) A few weeks ago some friends told me that it's prime iguana hunting season right now and I was really jazzed about rounding up some friends and going... They hypnotize the hapless beasts with special whistling sounds, then shoot them out of the trees with slingshots made from inner tubes. Nam also wanted me to go, but was worried about karmic implications during this period just before the baby is born, so I refrained from going. For some reason, Nam thought I merely wanted to eat the iguanas (where as for me, the hunt is the only reason I would even consider eating a lizard to begin with), so she asked Captain Ahab, who certainly appeared to be able to live off the land, if he could round up some for me.

This is how we started the lizard negotiations. He asked how many she wanted, she said one or two. He said that wasn't enough and said, "how about ten?" Nam countered with five, and we were all set. He promised to catch some later that night and asked if we knew how to prepare them. He was worried that we didn't know how to slowly roast and skin them, and then mix various herbs and fruits together to make it all very tasty, and rightly so - we were totally like lizard virgins, man. So it ended up that he had his wife cook up the lizards he caught for us and brought us a bag of LIZARD SALAD for lunch today. Behold:

THE VERDICT: The lizard meat was smoky from being slowly grilled, presumably over charcoal. Just looking at the photo, it looks like many other variations of Thai country "salad," most of which are based on local veggies or fruits such as eggplant, bamboo shoots, tamarind, papaya or mango, or are fish-based. This one was definitely lizard though, because I picked a spiny part out of my mouth. The closest flavor I can compare iguana flesh to is canned tuna - it had the same kind of consistency when mashed up, and didn't taste too strongly of anything, perhaps just hinting at fish.

An added bonus was the ant queen salad Ahab's wife also prepared for us:

Today was a good day. I learned things about this culture that even Thai people don't know about. I KNOW WHAT IGUANA TASTES LIKE, BITCHES!

That is all.

I noticed this first a few weeks ago; at that time I read somewhere on the Thai Visa forums that TTT was blaming YouTube viewing difficulties on a broken optical trunk and figured it might be the same reason. YouTube has been back up for a while, though, and MetaFilter is still down.

I can view it by using proxies, so it isn't a huge problem for me, but I wonder if it's really being blocked, and for how long? (and as a side note, I wonder if this thread had anything to do with it?)

Anyway, the reason I was trying to visit there today was to see the linkage from KokuRyu - thx!

I took a few photos of Nam's uncle's Escort this morning. It's from around 1971 or so; check out my favorite features including the "dogbone" front grill, the recycled 1500cc Nissan engine, and transplanted (Toyota + Mitsu???) steering/dash/gauge assembly with permanently lit "TURBO" indicator. (Oh also - this is not the Escort we had in the US from the 80's, it's the European model.)

The absolute coolest thing about this car is that even though I can't find online records of these early Escorts being assembled in Thailand, the VIN plate clearly states it was so:

It has been raining the past week, which is a rather curious development for this area this time of year. In fact, there was a pretty serious storm a couple nights ago and it rained fairly hard last night as well. The huge tract of land (future housing lots) behind our house has been filled in with shallow ponds (kind of returning it to its natural status of swamp, except elevated a couple meters with fill dirt), from which many noisy amphibians have emerged. This sudden spate of precipitation is in stark contrast to the first year I lived here, when I saw no real rain from October 2006 all the way until June or July of last year.

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My wife's aunt and uncle called up yesterday to say they were on a road trip and would like to stay at our house tonight. Family is always welcome, of course (most, anyway). So its fun talking to them in my very basic Thai, but mostly just sitting there absorbing the indecipherable (to my ears, anyway) utterances of their of their specific dialect. I love learning the little nuances and unique characteristics of a new language, but believe me, fart jokes and belching are universal (just thought I'd include that here).

So Nam's aunt and uncle are well into their 70's and have been living together so long they communicate in a kind of nonverbal gestalt; they arrived in a Ford Escort he bought new 35 or 40 years ago and it's currently swapping war stories with my '71 Toyota Crown out in the driveway. They are both senile as hell and continue to go on road trips every year from their current home around Bangkok up around here to see friends and family in Isan (the Northeast) and back again. When she is freshening up in the other room he tells us in a hushed voice that he's concerned about her memory since she often repeats herself three or four times in any given conversation, forgetting that he himself has told us the exact same thing just minutes before... They are good people, and I basically trust any couple who, by choice, go on long roadtrips in cars without power steering in this day and age (it's a salt-of-the-earth kind of thing).

Anyway, the highlight of my day was hearing Nam's uncle tell us that he much prefers the Japanese system of government over the Thai model since Japanese government officials have to commit suicide if they disgrace their families or office... I didn't have the heart to tell him any different either, since it would probably be better that way (plus, I think I still have a few years before I need to tell somebody that Santa doesn't exist).

Use this ancient photo generator (in JP, but a cinch to use) to give your photos that certain Edo look. Here's the results using a photo of the plot where we built our house from my post the other day:

Couldn't find the original source for this one, but it earned a place here for giving me a good laugh:

My dad's Shih Tzu would hump on command: Jak! Humpy-humpy!

It was awesome.

(thx to FBO for the pic)

If you were ever a fan of Mad magazine, you must check this out: Al Jaffee's fold-ins for Mad magazine, from the 1960s to the present, in interactive form.

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(Need a login for the NYT site?)

Via osaka bill:

I was shopping at the local supermarket where I selected:
a half-gallon of 2% milk,
a carton of eggs,
a quart of orange juice,
a head of romaine lettuce,
a 2 lb. can of coffee, and
a 1 lb. package of bacon.
As I was unloading my items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk
standing behind me watched as I placed the items in front of the cashier.
While the cashier was ringing up the purchases, the drunk calmly stated,
"You must be single."
I was a bit startled by this proclamation, but I was intrigued by the
derelict's intuition, since I was indeed single.

I looked at the six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual
about my selections that could have tipped off the drunk to my marital
status.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I said, "Well, you know what, you're
absolutely right. But how on earth did you know that?"

(punchline after the jump)

"Accept no imitations..."

I've put off posting proper photos of our new house since we decided to build it, that is, for the better part of a year. What can I say? We were busy getting it finished (this is a home builder's joke - a new house is never finished).

Getting this house built took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears... We really honed our powers of persuasion, pleading, and cajoling. I learned how to effectively threaten someone in Thai, and Nam learned that being visibly pregnant is a great way to have people do things for you. We both learned that government officials in charge of the positioning of power transformers, who knock away a hand offering an envelope and loudly claim to be unbribable, are merely asking for more money. Life lessons, these.

If I had tried to blog about all the problems we ran into during construction of this house, all of you would have stayed away for the duration, believe me. There was simply too much to bitch about, so I ended up breaking a lot of scrap wood and taking it out on random tailgaters instead. Life is sometimes too crappy to effectively document, anyway.

I have so many photos for this particular subject, I've decided to break it up into several posts, which should be generally chronological. I hope you can enjoy reading this series as much as I will writing it.

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Coming to Thailand in October of 2006 to live in a house I helped pay for in advance ended up not working out real well. This was due to a certain insufferable alcoholic-in-law who treated himself to our house before I moved here from Japan. My wife and I therefore decided to move out as soon as possible.

We searched for houses and apartments alike, debating whether to rent or buy. We searched all over Mahasarakham, which is a large area, and sometimes, for comparison, we would even look in neighboring towns. Our search took us all up and down the banks of the Chi river, since I wanted to live close to the water (a sort of compensation for living in dry country). To make a long story a bit shorter, we could find no suitable houses and no suitable land on which to build a new house.

In mid-2007, I revisited a new neighborhood just starting to be built between my university and Nam's. One of the lots was situated right in front of a natural pond (with some reinforced banks). We fell in love with the sky and decided to build a house there.

END OF PART 1

Is it just me, or have the Olympics seriously gone downhill since, say, the end of the Cold War?

I mean, let's face it, the television coverage is usually so bad it really wouldn't matter if nobody made an effort watch at all.

It occurred to me that this year's games are perhaps the closest thing to the 1936 Summer Olympics we will ever see; on the flip side what that means is that we seriously need a modern day Jesse Owens with Tibetan ancestry.

The following passage is from the Wikipedia article linked above:

Hitler removed signs stating "Jews not wanted" and similar slogans from the main tourist attractions. Hitler desired to clean up Berlin, the German Ministry of Interior authorized the chief of Berlin Police to arrest all gypsies and keep them in a special camp. Nazi officials ordered that foreign visitors should not be subjected to the criminal strictures of anti-homosexual laws.

I'm just saying...

(brilliant logo via)

Road and Track just ran a head to head test between the upcoming GT-R, the 2008 Corvette Z06, and the 2008 Porsche 911 Turbo... You might hear people talking about big block power and German engineering, which are points well taken, but the fact is that there was a very clear winner here.

Speaking of boners...

I forgot to mention that when the nice lady doctor at the clinic was viewing with ultrasound a couple weeks ago, the baby let loose with a spontaneous boner. He didn't seem overly concerned to have observers, either. For some strange reason, I felt very proud about this magnificent display.

Heh.

Check out this small gallery of strange cross breeds.

It looks like they've finally found a natural alternative to painting donkeys to look like zebras TJ-style.