This is a pretty serious problem: Toyota plans huge U.S. recall for dangerous floormats

It sounds more like a headline from the Onion, but it seems like it's responsible for deaths. I can attest to the dangers of certain types of floor mats because they caused problems in my car last year a few times.

I was using an aftermarket rubber floor mat on the driver's side of our Cefiro and the mass of the raised lip made the front edge heavy. The mat was naturally pushed forward when I moved my feet around while driving, and once in a while it would get pushed up onto the accelerator. When this happened, I immediately noticed that the pedal wasn't responding so I shifted to neutral and instinctively kicked the pedal a few times to work the problem loose. This caveman solution worked well enough, but it was pretty surprising to say the least. I dreaded the day when this would happen with my wife driving.

The thing is, I had no idea what was causing the problem at the time. I suspected a mechanical problem with the throttle, so I took it in to the dealer and "rush" ordered a new throttle cable and assembly. Meanwhile, I had the current assembly taken apart, examined, and lubricated. I also had the return spring on the accelerator pedal stalk changed for good measure. It took forever for the new part to come in and a couple weeks into waiting, the accelerator got stuck once again. This time, it took several rounds of furious kicking to get the pedal free. I'd had enough. I ordered the part through a specialty store in town and they got it for me in one day (fucking dealers!). The dealer changed it out. I was happy... Of course, a week later, the accelerator got stuck again.

This time when it happened, I was on a wide open road with nobody around, so after I shifted into neutral, I put my seat all the way back and took a careful look down at the pedals. Lo and behold, the floor mat had shifted forward and was holding down the accelerator part way. I went by my homeboy Ot's accessory shop and bought a nice set of lower profile mats that fit my car's floor design much better and don't shift forward. I haven't had problems since.

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The thing is, if you have one of the cars described in the recall, what you could do to prevent problems is IMMEDIATELY REMOVE THE DRIVER'S SIDE FLOOR MAT(S).

Long-term foreign residents of Thailand not fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to have a permanent residency or Thailand Elite card must apply for visa extensions, usually every year. It's pretty much expected to be a long and drawn-out process. This year proved to be no exception. We left Mahasarakham at 6:15 AM and arrived at Mukdahan immigration shortly after 9.

Because the idiots in our personnel department couldn't get our documents together, our trip had been delayed until one of the busiest days of the year - just a couple days before many people's contracts (and hence visas) end.

The whole day was long and tiring; I spent most of it standing at the application window watching our stack of applications not moving on the counter for about 5 hours straight and joking with the immigration official, fellow teachers, and other random applicants. Let's just cut to the chase and say that we left the immigration office after 7 PM, nearly three hours after official closing time.

I have to give props where they're due and say that the two officials working the window really worked hard and got everybody through with a minimum of fuss, all things considered. They were also very nice, patient, and understanding, which hasn't been the case in the past at either Muk or Nong Khai immigration.

The next and final step in this process is getting our work permits renewed, and since the aforementioned idiots in Personnel managed to delay our paperwork for this as well, we were unable to go today and are forced to go tomorrow. It has to get done tomorrow, or we have to leave the country and our visas will be canceled. That might cause a bit of a stir, even by the low standards of Personnel, so I'm pretty sure they'll be ready. I just hope they're done in the morning like we've been promised, because I'm teaching a community learning class in the afternoon...

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UPDATE 9/30: I FINISHED! I FINISHED! I FINISHED! No more of this bullshit for another year (except for reports every 90 days)!!!

We keep forgetting to take photos of her "bump", which although not evident in this particular photo, is quite... big.

Silk Escape Maps Concealed in Game Boards Helped WWII Prisoners

Wow, who would have thought? An actual interesting story at a big media site!

I really should take a photo because he (He may very well be a she, but who can tell? He acts like a he. Then again, he was smart enough not to go over the fence and get eaten by the doberman next door like his siblings, so maybe he's a she...) is now about four times bigger than when we got him and it's getting very cramped in his sleeping box. He started acting like a pet a week or so after he became the last chick standing, coming back to the box every day when it got dark and running around our legs for food... Now he's Max's first pet.

He loves to eat crabs. Who knows why, but these little marsh crabs sometimes wander into our yard from the pond across the street. When Pinkie sees one, he picks off all their legs and arms, then pecks out the eyes. If I catch him doing it, I'll usually smash the crab's carapace and then Pinkie gets to eat a fine kanimiso. It's his favorite treat. Today I ran over a fairly large one on the way out of the driveway. I took it to Pinkie and realized that at some point he must have gotten pinched, because he was a lot more cautious than he was the first couple of times I saw him go at it. This crab was already dead and smashed, though. Pinkie started to chow down and I left for work a second time.

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Related: Pinky's still alive and Five jive colors of haplessness

Also: Here's a photo of the kind of crab mentioned above that I took a couple years ago, before our house was complete.

It's official: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking

This category over at Reddit has been providing me with awesome breaks in between grading final exams this week: IAmA

Very recent examples:

I landed in Sydney, Australia with no work visa, no friends or family, and only less than three dollars in my pocket.

I'm 26, and I used to be a manager at a GameStop...You know there's things you want to know...

I'm a 26 year old gigolo in New York City. I just started earning enough to quit my day job.

It's time to unleash your 1337 skills! When on the Facebook main page, press the following keys on your keyboard:

Finish by pressing Enter.

Then try scrolling up and down the page or clicking around to see what you've unlocked.

In Japanese, this specific position might be called a reverse inari-otoshi (falling inari). If you've ever seen an inarizushi up close, you may understand why. It's usually performed on an unsuspecting high school friend who is sleeping face-up, and does not make you automatically gay among your peers, however disturbing the imagery might be (this is all hearsay; I didn't even go to high school in Nippon).

Say it three times with me: Inariotoshi, inari-otoshi, いなりおとし

That is your cultural baggage of the day; some things cannot be un-read.

(image from Cyanide and Happiness via Adam)

We just figured out today (the photo was taken two weeks ago) that he was imitating one of his favorite Baby Signing Time DVDs.

My Vietcong homie Hui sent this along (he calls me Tojo so it's all good):

Too awesome.

I'm always the one saying that Facebook will screw us all over. Before something big happens, though, here are some things you can do to safeguard your privacy under the current setup: 10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy

I only have one other tip to add to that list: Check your privacy settings once in a while, because I've noticed some of them mysteriously reset to their default settings.

This is some funny stuff:

This is pretty dope. If you keep clicking, it feels like those fast learning scenes in the Matrix.

Read it very carefully, especially if you're a native English speaker.

Damn, I can't believe he kicked - I swear I just saw him in a new show pretty recently. He must've had some super fast cancer or something, poor guy. RIP

He keeps trying to drink light from flashlights and it's quite hysterical.

"A rare parasite which burrows into host fish before eating and replacing their tongues with itself has been found off the Jersey coast."

(via Luis) / (original source with more info)

There are many more over where these came from.

Look for post-micturition convulsion syndrome at 0:21.

You may be able to try it out without an invitation: http://lite.facebook.com

That is all.

It seems the Welsh have submitted fully to their nanny state and its uber-PC agenda. I present to you the faded glory of Spotted Dick with its newly government-approved nomenclature: Pudding renamed Spotted Richard

Today suet pudding, tomorrow your right to breathe, I tell you.

They should have tried a compromise. You know, something a with a bit more pizazz. How about Speckled Prick or Dotted Cock?

What they settled on for an alternative, Sultana Sponge, is kinda more disgusting in a contraceptical kinda way, if you know what I mean... A bit of Sultana Sponge with heavy cream, anyone?

And how about renaming their town while they're at it?

Speaking of writing class, one of the earlier assignments was to write from the point of view of an object. Imagine my surprise when one of my students said she wanted to write from the POV of a "Dutch wife."

This term actually came up in her Thai-English electronic dictionary and upon questioning her about it, I came to understand that she was talking about a dakimakura, or body pillow. I suggested she use the word body pillow, but was intrigued by the use of "Dutch wife." You see, in my experience with the Japanese language, it basically only means a blow-up sex doll, and I didn't even know it was used in English. Here it is, though, complete with the meaning of dakimakura listed at the top: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_wife

So I guess this is just part of learning something new every day. Also, it's hard to get my mind out of the gutter, because THE GUTTER IS ITS HOME.

I'm teaching a writing class right now. Today I'm drilling the students with short, timed writing exercises. I forgot to think up fresh writing prompts before class, but that's what the internet is for, right?

This site is proving very helpful: The Imagination Prompt Generator

It's a girl! It's a girl! It's a girl! It's a girl! It's a girl! It's a girl! It's a girl!

Nam is currently at 26 weeks, and we couldn't be happier!

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Nam's belly is 2 weeks bigger than normal, according to the doctor... I'll get around to taking a photo sometime.

I'm working on an e-learning site for my uni. It, along with The Maximum, is taking up all my time.

That is all.

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That's a belly crossfade at just past the 5 minute mark! At last, a better use than beer holder!

As an added incentive to switch to something better if you already haven't, consider what happened to my Yahoo Japan email account (used as a third backup) after I didn't log in for four months: They deleted all my messages and declared the same would happen time and time again unless I logged in more often or subscribed to one of their pay services like broadband or "online security!"

Then, waiting in my inbox was a mysterious email saying that all of my deleted messages could be restored - for a fee, of course. This whole affair reminds me of Hotmail of olden times, except that Yahoo Mail has nothing, absolutely nothing to offer users that they can't get more of - and in sweeter packages - elsewhere.

F 'em.

I don't know why I like this vacant look so much, but I do. I think it reminds me of spacing out so much when I was a kid - when my imagination was unbound by the constraints of adult reality.

I've tried a few, and this one gives the most consistent results from different areas, even though many of them are supposedly based on the same speedtest.net parameters: http://speedtest.3bb.co.th/

He came home from a trip with mommy and threw a tantrum so long and so hard that he finally barfed all over daddy. Then he nearly wriggled out of daddy's arms when put in the shower. Then he fell asleep for 30 minutes, woke up in a foul mood, and bit mommy's shoulder and wouldn't let go.

I cannot imagine what having two will be like.

Clint Eastwood can't stop making awesome movies.

A few weeks ago, Nam wanted to buy some more maternity clothes so we got in the car and headed off to Non Kuan Chang (sp?), a nearby village with the best silk shop in the region. The shop is run by my coworker's mother-in-law, with several looms and weaving machines on an elevated bamboo work area outside and an extension of their big house used to hold/display finished products. I took photos there the first time I visited Sarakham seven or eight years ago and need to do so again; today I'm not writing about silk though.

Max had fallen asleep in the car on the way, and since it was a cool day I just opened the car windows and parked right in front of the shop so I could hear if he woke up. I walked around looking at this and that for a while (after trying a couple traditional Thai silk shirts over the years, it's clear that they are simply too hot for me), but eventually got sleepy. I decided to take a nap on the shiny hardwood bench on the porch while Nam and the shopkeeper did their thing. I'm not too ashamed to admit that I woke myself up by snoring and also slightly drooled on a nice shiny silk pillow. I hope it wasn't for sale.

After Nam chose a really cool piece of mommy clothes, Max woke up and got clingy on daddy so it was decided that mommy would drive home while big sleepyhead entertained little sleepyhead in the back seat. On our way home, on the narrow village road running between the silk shop and the highway, I spotted an apparition straight out of my dreams:

He was a young male being kept by a family under their house-on-stilts. A young boy was feeding him and ran away when Nam stopped the car and I jumped out. His mother came out to see what had happened and I asked if I could take some photos. Unfortunately, I only had my phone.

The coolest thing? He was so friendly! Even though I'm pretty good with animals, I hesitate to approach ones that are big enough to hurt me and not even feel it. This big guy was really calm, though.

I'd been itching to get photos ever since the last time I saw a pink buffalo, so I was very happy. Very, very happy.

Ursula K. Le Guin reviews Margaret Atwood's semi-sequel to Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood. Oryx and Crake was just some of the freshest writing I'd seen for quite some time and some scenes were kind of reminiscent of the Earthsea novels now that I think about it. But was it Science Fiction? Aside from Atwood's protestations, I sure think it was - and it was SF of the best kind: The kind enjoyable by people who don't read SF.

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Roxanne Shante, the first really popular female rapper, gets a doctorate and gets Warner Music to pay for it. It's not hard to see what they were thinking when they wrote they would fund her education for life in her contract back in the early 80's - they thought it would never come about. Haha, suckaz! At my department, we would make the joke that she should now study for her post-doc, post-post-doc, and that other degree with platinum olive leaf clusters and tri-ringed shiny tassels.

UPDATE: It was all bullshit. SLATE pretty much debunked every last word of it. Why you frontin', Roxanne?

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"A federal warning to beware of campers in national forests who eat tortillas, drink Tecate beer and play Spanish music because they could be armed marijuana growers is racial profiling."