Max has become a master of letting us know when he isn't pleased (shown here with my student, Nick).
These times when he forces himself to cry, if we can figure out what he wants, he stops just as quickly as he started. It's quite hilarious if you're an observer, but not so much if you're the one he's aiming the Sad Face at.
Quite a few blogs have been linking to a certain YouTube user's Bush-infused version of REM's It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine), but I feel this song is his best work to date:
When commenting on a previous entry here, I came upon the most fitting captcha I've ever seen:
Beware, queasy ones.
A couple days ago Nam went to a beauty salon to get her hair done and I tagged along to get a pedicure since my toenails tend to get painful if not cut correctly, and also because pedicures are the absolute best kind of addiction in a place like Thailand - inexpensive and actually good for you.
Nam's usual shop was closed for some reason, but since we were already out on the only sizable chunk of free time for the week, we went to another place that we'd actually been to before but didn't like so much because the older women running it do everything very slowly. On this day, however, it was still early and their shop was empty, so we decided to give it another shot.
I sat down and got a manicure first since I had to wait for Nam anyways, and soaked my feet in a bucket of water. What happened after the manicure was simply amazing.
The old lady unwrapped a long razor blade from the piece of wax paper it came packaged in, and began shaving away the callouses on my feet - I have LOTS of callouses on my feet. In fact, the balls of my feet as well as the heels are basically huge callouses. This stems from a bad case of athlete's foot in Japan ten years ago that opened huge cracks in the bottom of my feet over which thick layers of skin eventually accumulated. I never thought this could even be removed, actually. However, the long soak had a great effect on this chitinous mass and huge swaths of dead skin flaked off with every pass of the razor. It piled up on the wet towel draped underneath my foot like a massive pile of grated cheese. To be more specific, it was like a massive pile of fetid, extra-sharp cheddar. In hindsight, maybe I should have saved it to put on an enemy's piece of toast.
Anyway, after she was done shaving off the pedicheese, she smoothed everything down with an oblong plastic emery board. My feet felt fantastic! It must have showed on my face, because Nam had her feet worked on too.
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* This is the first time I've ever seen this service performed anywhere, at any price, even though I'd heard that it existed before.
A couple nights ago I dreamed I flipped my car (the Crown) over and bench pressed it. I woke up and bench pressed Max instead. No complaints there.
Max's weight the day before yesterday.
The boy's got a strong grip.
Donkey Kong Jenga
Please let me know if anything's broken.
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Of course, as soon as I wrote that last post yesterday, my Internet connection completely crapped out. I'll get around to the update later today if possible.
I'll be upgrading to a newer version of my blog software this evening, so please tell me if electricity is cut off all up and down the west coast or something as a result, k?
Meanwhile at Yoshida Manor:
The other day we woke up to a pink sky. Not just on the fringes, mind you, but totally and completely pink.
Use this handy site to see what other domains are hosted on your shared server: Reverse IP Domain Check
It was mildly amusing to find a site on my shared server called, I shit you not, "Penguin Sex." And yes, I was too scared to click the link (well, at work anyway).
A: Why did you let the mouse escape from the (nonlethal cage-type) trap?
B: I was trying to put it in a box!
A: Why?
B: I wanted to put it in the box and let it go outside somewhere...
A. Why didn't you just take the cage outside and let it go?
B: There are ants on it! I hate ants!
.....
A. Hi! I'm NOVA!
(hey guys! maybe it's time to update the old website...
April 29, 2008:
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August 10, 2008:
This gallery of the president at the Olympics, done by the Guardian, is simply awesome: LOL Bush
An excellent guide to watching the Olympics online over at the Wired How-to wiki: Watch the Olympics Online
Some people are more frosting specialists than thinkers: What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate
This is apparently a continuation of this photo.
Dave Barry is writing again, blogging about the Olympics.
Mom and dad hooked us up with, among many other things, this awesome baby carrier. Thanks!!
Max didn't like it before because he was too small to be placed in it face-forward so his face was always pressed up against daddy's sweaty chest. Now it's his favorite mode of transport, for up to 30 mins. at a time...
In an effort to destroy the cattails, because her son is allergic to the snowy fluff it produces this time of year, the development manager instructed her minions to burn them. On a windy day. With gasoline.
Fucking oops.
Nam says that once they realized the fire was out of control and blowing towards said manager's newly-erected wooden houses (as in, houses she built to live in herself) they called out all the workers in shouting distance to form a bucket brigade. That had no buckets.
Oops again.
Luckily, the fire eventually burnt out when the wind died down. I just I wish I could've been here to see it too, so I could educate the natives about a few things. Like how cattails were used by Native Americans for kindling (so maybe they should use less gasoline or something). Or by people around the world for food as well as down for stuffing. Or how cattails are being used in pilot "carbon capture" farming schemes. Then again, I probably would have just stood there laughing wickedly as the world burned just across my pond and attacked the intelligent beings who started it.
Luckily, the red-tailed pheasant-like birds seem to have returned and don't seem to mind roosting in their newly-roasted environment. I need to get a photo of one someday I suppose...
A while back, G-man tipped me off in the comments that he'd found something pretty funny: Pancake Puffs, which seem an awful like something we're used to seeing in Japan all the time (incidentally, I love how Google asks if you meant "teriyaki" when you search for "takoyaki"). Check it out:
I guess this can only be described as the result of a firesale at a takoyaki pan factory.
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Word of the day: Moffle
What is a moffle?
Waffle is Mochi + Waffle, much in the way that "lion" + "tiger" = "liger" (or "tigon")
I don't have a problem with the moffle in theory, however, there are certain aspects of its execution that lack a certain, erm, appetizability. Case in point:
Front and center is a shiokara moffle... Um.
Shiokara + mochi + waffle = interesting projectile vomit
Let me explain. From the wikipedia entry on shiokara:
Shiokara (塩辛) is a food in Japanese cuisine made from various marine animals that consists of small pieces of the animal's meat in a brown viscous paste of the animal's heavily salted, fermented viscera. The raw viscera are mixed with about 10% salt, 30% malted rice, packed in a closed container, and fermented for up to a month.Bon appetit! One of the worst kitchen chores I can possibly think of is having to clean burnt shiokara off of a waffle iron, but to each his own I guess.
This photo has been floating around for a month, usually with a variant of this explanation:
"Preparing for English-speaking visitors, a restaurant in China recently ran its name through an online translator, took the result, then purchased and mounted a large sign displaying the English version of their name: Translate Server Error."
I tend to be a bit more suspicious - whoever thought up this viral photo strategy is a freakin' genius! I hope they make money hand over capitalism-loving fist as a result of this brilliant web strategy.
Oh my. If only Susie Derkins could have seen this: Calvin and Jobs Kick Steve's Nuts
Wherein airline pilot Patrick Smith (of Ask the Pilot fame) gets jacked at a security checkpoint for airline eating utensils stowed in his luggage. Seriously, how can you travel by air these days and not think that the terrorists have already won?
A new HBO show worth watching, although this week's episode was kinda slow: Generation Kill
Homebiscuit now weighs 5.8 kilograms (12.8 pounds). (Birth weight was 2.5 kilos.)
It's not unusual to pull into a gas station up here in the Northeast region only to find your favorite petroleum formulation (95 benzene, 95 gasohol [E10 / E20], 91 benzene, 91 gasohol, diesel, palm diesel, B5 [5% biodiesel], LPG [Liquified Petroleum Gas], and CNG [Compressed Natural Gas], which is one of the two kinds of NGV [Natural Gas Variation]) sold out, or in the case of 95 benzene, no longer being sold at all, or in the case of LPG and especially CNG, simply not yet available.
At the PTT station in front of my university (the uni actually owns it) this morning, they were out of everything (they sell 91/95 gasohol, 91 benzene, straight-up diesel, and 5% biodiesel fomulation). There were ad hoc "sold out" signs taped to each individual pump (maybe 24 in all) and the staff were all sitting around on the pump islands. They didn't even bother telling the cars pulling in for gas that they were out, they would just laconically point to the signs in between slacking off and playing grabass with their coworkers.
It made me wonder why they didn't just put a big sign up at the entrance so that people didn't pull in and waste their time, but as they say, This Is Thailand.
P.S. Until now I've very rarely posted negative commentary on this blog regarding my country of current residence, for one simple reason - If there's one thing I hate it's the recent arrivals to a country complaining about this and that and I vowed never to be one of them long ago. Having almost been here two years now though, I feel I can begin complaining with a bit of authority. ; )
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Related link: Retail oil price list from the Energy Policy & Planning Office of Thailand's Ministry of Energy
This is a great movie to see on Bad Movie Day.
Exhibit A: IMDB entry (User rating 5.8)
Exhibit B:
- There can be only one, and his name is Jam K -
Have you ever stayed at a 5-star resort?
I've done so on a couple of occasions, and Nam has done it a few times more than me, and we both agree on one thing: It's disconcerting to find out how completely fucked up rich people are... If Lucifer's Hammer fell tomorrow, rich people would be among the first to be eaten, for sure.
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These are the type of thoughts that go through my head after midnight on weekdays.
Say it with me: SLEEP. DEPRIVAzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
