I hereby declare April 30th "Sungha Jung Day." Why? Because I feel like it, and it just needs to be done.

Sungha's top 3 YouTube vids IMHO:

FUN-KAY!

ON THE MJ TIP!

THE BOY SHOWS EMOTION (1:54)!!

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Takamine needs to step up and sponsor this kid.

This is almost 20 minutes but totally worth seeing. Kevin Smith is the man.

There's an excellent article up at the Japan Times that explains some of the reasons why even though the government used to subsidize half of the toll for the bridge to the mainland I used every weekend when living on Awajishima, I still had to pay 2600 yen (one way!): Japan's many roads to ruin

"The results have been a disaster. Certainly, Japan has a lot of roads: four to five times the number of any other Group of Seven country when measured by kilometers of road to usable land. The trouble is, a lot of these roads are in places where they are not needed. The country has an impressive network of toll roads that will never be profitable. It has expressways that connect industrial parks to ports and airports that industries do not want to use, and monumental bridges that suck people and money out of rural towns rather than reviving them. Yet despite decades worth of road and other infrastructure projects, projects that people actually need remain undone: In 2007 the government identified 110,000 km of roads where there was a high risk of accidents because, for example, children used them to walk to school (including 40,000 km of streets lacking separated sidewalks!). Adding sidewalks to streets used by small children simply doesn't fit the agenda of the road tribes as well as a four-lane expressway to nowhere does.

The cost of all this has also been disastrous. Thanks in part to road-building costs 10 to 30 times higher than in other countries, Japan has the most expensive toll roads in the world, some of the highest vehicle acquisition costs, and a national debt almost double the country's GDP, the servicing of which consumes about a quarter of the annual budget. Japan's four principal road corporations stagger under an additional ¥40 trillion in debt that is guaranteed by the government."

I still have some really crazy road stories from Japan, and I may eventually share them. Some of them may be future editions of Osaka Stories.

OK it's time to go on a Japan kick for a couple posts.

Is it just me, or is SMFG the worst named financial institution, ever?

As in, "SMFG agrees deal with Citi to buy Nikko Cordial."

They might as well call themselves the Stealing Fuckers or Nipponese Moneylending Urchins of Doom (NMUD).

They fell asleep on him.

I've been through a lot of the archives, and Shai Agassi probably gave the single most important talk at TED this year:

Max loves the very hungry caterpillar. We read it to him almost everyday. I found this pic over at B3ta.

An old woman came by my table at an outdoor restaurant, selling this (plus another similarly-sized chunk) out of a basket. It was the last of her merchandise so she let me have it for 50 Baht ($1.50 US); about 30% off the going rate.

There is nothing more delicious than wild honey, even just a very small amount (It's the reason Pooh bear is such a fat ass, after all.).

This is what happens when you depend on an audience not familiar with the lyrics. Other than that, awesome performance. Doesn't hold much to the original Deep Murasaki I linked to last year though (JASRAC keeps taking it down but it sprouts up again every time):

NES otaku headline: There was an unreleased sequel developed for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

It was never officially released due to licensing and quality problems.

It contained super-strong aliens and Don King...

AND THE ROM HAS BEEN MADE AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE TO DOWNLOAD!!!

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In other news, all hail Bald Bull:

"Banal is good."

That's like, deep, dude.

For fucks sake.

wow.

Turning Tables, U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban With Swift and Lethal Results

"Sergeant Reese gave his rifle to another sniper to cover him while he tried to cut away a Taliban fighter's ammunition pouches with a four-inch blade. The fighter had only been pretending to be dead, the soldiers said. He lunged for Sergeant Reese, who stabbed him in the left eye."

Sometimes it's easy to forget we're still fighting a war with a defined enemy and objectives.

cent lorre

CENT LORRE

c3nt 10rr3

LOLZR all your googlage is belong to us

We love you, Max!

From Autoblog Green: Tuk Tuk coming to American roads near you?

"...vehicles are currently undergoing EPA and NHTSA testing for road-use approval, though its line of trikes is reportedly already for sale for off-road use."

Of course, for the US market they are completely overdoing it; you can even order colors like Cranberry Red and Clematis blue in standard, metallic, or pearl finish. Also, it seems they are making stretch models:

All that's left to do is some hydraulics work and installing a decent sound system.

Click for full size pop-up.

The internet giveth...

A few people have asked how we are faring here with all the troubles in Bangkok. Thanks for your concern!

We live six hours away from the capitol by car, and are completely unaffected by disruption of the ASEAN summit, the blocking of intersections by pro-anarchy taxi drivers, and all the other bullshit caused by idiots who are seemingly intent on running their own country into the ground.

The only real effect it had on people here is that those who want to make an easy 500 - 1,000 baht per day being hired by the pro-Thaksin red shirts to "demonstrate" all started making the trip to Bangkok late last week. Oh, and also, it seems the government has extended the Songkran holiday period until Friday the 17th (today was supposed to be the last day). I was supposed to teach a remedial reading class on Friday to failing seniors. Oh, well. It seems that Thailand can always use more taxi drivers.

UPDATE: As of Tuesday, the official road deaths count for the Songkran period was at 272... This ridiculously high number is mostly thanks to drunk assholes and retarded water antics involving people dancing on the back of pickups while hurdling down wet roads at high speed. So it was safer to be among demonstrators surrounded by guns, tanks, and tear gas than it was to be on the road!

deepleap

There seems to be an occasional bug that creates an infinite loop of opening dialog boxes. If this happens to you, don't panic. Hold down the Enter key on your keyboard and it should reset the page for you shortly.

Between this bug and the autoplay nature of the home page, it makes it impossible to keep the site open in your browser, tho.

They live in the suburbs and commute to the city to scam, eat, and live another day.

The Japanese wish they'd thought of it first.

Tone Matrix

chill chill chill

UPDATE 4/15/09: Also, BallDroppings is the dope unko.

Order telegrams over the web.

Note: This is an experiment. I've cross posted this link to my Facebook and Twitter accounts, so sorry if I've spammed your intarwebs with it today (although I refrained from posting it at Linked In, in case a powerful Amish CEO was perusing my bio).

BEFORE:

Not sure what kind of beetles these are, but they need to be soaked (drowned?) to induce excretion before cooking.

AFTER:

Steamed with lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves. This preparation is typical of Thai/Laos peasant cooking, and very healthy, AND very delicious.

First of all, Wikipedia has done more for me over the years than anti-fungal ointment, and depending on if you smelled my shoes when I had athlete's foot (actually, if you were in any enclosed space with my shoes, you most likely did smell them), that's saying an awful lot.

Secondly, it took me a good fifteen minutes to truly understand this (grammatically correct) sentence: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

I'm totally using that for a class, because in the Thai language, calling someone a buffalo is a hugely insulting and funny thing, and "buffalo" is one English word every Thai person knows. Just mentioning it in class will produce immediate and long-lasting laughter, for students of any age. So I'm afraid it might take a whole class to parse this sentence properly.

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UPDATE:

Philippine fishermen net and eat rare megamouth shark

My initial reaction when I read the headline was that of disgust, but I guess the main question is whether the animal would have gone to waste if they hadn't eaten it... Would the WWF have preserved it for study? If so, why didn't they offer to buy it? Would the fisherman have gone hungry if they hadn't eaten it?

Nam and I ran a bunch of errands today and saw three very rare things:

1. At the body shop: A Kujira Crown almost just like mine, but in much better condition (original everything: 4 cylinder engine, chrome trim [sob], automatic shifter on steering column indicating the car's original purpose as a taxi in Japan [moving the shifter from the center allowed another passenger to sit there], etc.) restoration-wise. I say almost because I think mine was the deluxe version with a straight six 2600cc engine and optional (front seat only, non-retractable) seat belts. In particular, this old timer had Crown badges and some other details I had never seen before, but were probably originally on mine as well. Basically, he owns the prettier car (in dark blue). I took a look in the engine compartment and under the car a bit, though, and mine is better maintained as far as non-visual areas (plus I have an RB20 silvertop under the hood and matching 5-speed tranny, so I figure mine is a better match for me). I asked him if he would ever consider selling his. He said he's owned it for thirty years so he'd only sell it to somebody who would take care of it... He wants twice as much as I paid for mine, but the guy who sold it to me basically sold it for the price of the engine (also because he wanted someone to take care of it). I can't buy it anytime soon, but I know where the old guy lives just in case...


2. On a backroad shortcut to the highway between Kalasin and Sarakham: kwai puak, also know as kwai don in the Isan dialect; this means a pink water buffalo. I thought I'd seen one in the distance last year, but it looked more tan-colored than pink. Well I can tell you now, seeing one from behind, it looked like a cow-sized pig - bright pink!. It was awesome! The hair around its face was stubbly and it moved along just like any other water buffalo on the right side of the road, walking and chewing on grass. Actually this guy's friend was walking on the left side of the road, and he was supposed to be the third thing on this list but since he's basically the same thing, he doesn't get his own number.

So I wished I'd had my camera twice today, but I stopped carrying it along in the car a long time ago (it's a heavy DSLR). Plus, we just sold Nam's pocket camera to a friend, so maybe we need to buy phones with better cameras or something.

Max and I have shared a truly bonding experience in the Boohbah Zone.

Go check it out, especially if you like tablas loops and screaming frogs.

This makes much more sense if you pretend they're both in labor.

Our nanny's husband has been bringing over various culinary delights (of mostly the jungle food variety) recently since he knows I get a kick out of it and so far, have not refused to try anything. In fact, he's brought over so much that I've not had the time to blog about all of it yet (the photos are ready though, so everything will be covered eventually). A few days ago, he brought over a real treat.

I knew what it was right away because I've seen so many nature programs about Amazonian fish: That's a small pacu. Some googling showed that it's probably called a red-bellied pacu. The huge pacu you see on fishing shows are usually black pacu. Pacu of any kind are not native to Thailand but seem to thrive here in the tropical conditions, and since pacu can eat basically anything with their gnarly goatlike teeth, food isn't a problem either. I'm not totally sure if Yao (the nanny's husband) caught this in a river or a fishing park, but it could be either.

The photo above was taken right before Mr. Pacu got placed in the steam pot. We steam a lot of the fish we eat these days with little or no seasoning so Max can eat with us. Many fish in Thailand taste just fine this way, as log as you season or use a dip afterward. Pacu, however, turns out to be quite devoid of any real taste - the texture is nice and firm, but the flavor is lacking (which is not the case with, say, tilapia or striped goby, or even most river catfish around here). Pacu would be a good candidate for garlic/butter/white wine pan frying I suspect, where a bland fish can really shine.

Sure is a pretty fish, though.

The Death Of D1 - The Rise And Fall

My bootleg drifting vids will one day be worth millions (of Zimbabwe dollars?).

The Japanese pumpkins I planted inside and outside our fence have really taken to the climate here and were in full bloom last week. That's when our nanny told us you can eat the flowers and stems - I never knew that!

Before eating, the small hairs on the stems (that cause contact allergies on many people) have to be scraped off. After that was done, we lightly steamed them and ate with no seasoning. I won't go so far as to say they were delicious, but they were pleasant to eat on another level, like having the very essence of nature in your mouth. I can't imagine eating them any other way, really.