C. Buddha's Hasty Musings

Literary Rules

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:04:18 +0600

Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat)
Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
Be more or less specific.
Remarks in brackets (however relevant) are (usually) (but not always) unnecessary.
Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
No sentence fragments.
Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
One should NEVER generalize.
Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
Don't use no double negatives.
Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
One-word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
The passive voice is to be ignored.
Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
Kill all exclamation points!!!
Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
Puns are for children, not groan readers.
Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

Forwarded by one of my students.

Sunrise from our back porch

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:49:28 +0600

Even with houses being built up all around us, the best views will remain.

Insect appetizers

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:24:33 +0600

These went really well with the snake soup last week. We forgot to take photos of them past the prep stage, though. They were salted and deep fried, and then their heads were taken off which allowed easy deveining ala shrimp. As far as I could tell they were a cross between a cricket and a potato bug (mmm, potatoes), but as large as your thumb.

Look alikes

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:35:40 +0600

Go see the whole gallery.

Little Tokyo Article in Forbes

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:22:03 +0600

Little Tokyo seeks to build back Japanese vibe

Would that be the ultrahip fused with impeccable tradition topped with affluence type of vibe, or the overdeveloped danchi and Jusco hell that ends up overrun with mujin loan ATMs and 100 yen stores type of vibe? Maybe I'm missing something. Losing Little Tokyo would be sad. Losing everything else to preserve an empty shell would be tragic.

Bike vs. Human Bobsled

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:21:55 +0600

Wow. Some people really are born with no fear.

Birth of a U.S. Citizen Abroad, reported

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:54:24 +0600

Now all we have to do is wait for the results. If everything goes well I'll go to pick up his passport in two or three weeks.

The entire application took less than an hour, including filling out forms for reporting the birth of a U.S. citizen abroad as well as a passport (BTW, did you know there are "passport books" as well as "passport cards" now? The former are standard passports and the latter are for visiting countries bordering the US and US territories or something like that.).

One funny thing is that the interviewer didn't believe that I didn't have dual Japanese/American citizenship although I thought I explained what a Japanese American is very well. Oh well, the mixing pot is sometimes hard to imagine unless you've been there (the interviewer in question wasn't from the US).

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Max did fine on the plane and in the Bangkok confusion. He only threw a fit once, and we happened to be at Nam's aunts' house in Lad Prao at the time, so everything went very smoothly.

Monkeys

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:09:11 +0600

Excellent zombie apocalypse survival flash game

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:46:50 +0600

In honor of the recent xkcd comic (for which I somehow lost the link): The Last Stand 2

BONUS: Excellent chambara action as well

Literal Video Version: A-Ha

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:24:54 +0600

For the 80's music video nerd in you:

I recently had an 80's themed dream: Adam Ant and Robert Smith were inventing Jolt in Charlie Sheen's backyard as a sort of before-its-time Junkyard Wars competition.

That is all.

AE86 Milk Road Drifter

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:14:43 +0600

For Adam - Ueo Katsuhiro: The Greatest?

Back Soon...

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:37:50 +0600

We are off to Bangkok to claim Max's American citizenship. Wish us luck!

We should be back on Wednesday of next week. We will probably not be checking email until then...

This be rat snake soup (tom yam)

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:09:30 +0600

If this gets to you, wait until I post the appetizers.

It tastes like chicken...

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:13:21 +0600

I had snake soup for breakfast this morning. It was one of the snakes on this page.

More to follow.

No more hi-octane ethanol-free gas in Mahasarakham

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:08:08 +0600

This photo was taken back in March.

This was the last gas station in Maha Sarakham to sell 95 octane gasoline with no ethanol added. It greatly surprised me to find them selling it because all of the other stations had gradually phased it out by the end of the previous year - PTT and Petronas were the first to go, then Esso, then finally, what I thought was the last holdout, Caltex. But I stopped at this station (I even forget what company it was!) on the way back from the road to Borabu, a neighboring town, and got a full tank of the good stuff - unadulterated 95 oc (and it may very well have been the last tank my car will get, ever - it's VQ30 is running fine on 95 gasohol, tho).

The problem is, this station is too far away and off the beaten path. When I went to the labor office (located on the road to Borabu) to renew my work permit a few days ago, I looked at the pumps when passing by and saw that they had finally switched to the ethanol crap like everywhere else.

Sad.

Note: The VQ30 in my A33 Cefiro is running on 95 gasohol. The RB20 in the S60 Crown is running on regular (non-eth) 91. They are both running fine, but I'd still prefer to run them on non-eth 95 because it runs smoother, gets better mileage, and isn't robbing food from people's mouths.