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[01 Jan 2020|12:00am] |
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| The Terrible Mr Harland |
[04 May 2009|10:40pm] |
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Pure Energy ♪ |
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I keep forgetting to post about this! Remember The Terrible Mr Grimshaw? It was linked on Penny Arcade way back in 2003 with the intro, "Apparently some people I know decided to record one of their co-workers during a session of Counterstrike and made a techno mix out of it...I don't think he was on the winning team."
I always thought that the person who posted the song was having a laugh at one of his coworkers, but according to this 2007 comment on a 2003 blog post by Kurt Harland Larson (the guy who actually made the song), it was Mr. Grimshaw himself that had it posted everywhere!
I carefully (and, if I say so myself, artfully) placed the speech bits over some really crappy techno tracks that I laid down one day when I was testing out a new version of Acid. When I was done, I gave the song to only THREE PEOPLE in my company: Trevor [Grimshaw] and two of our friends. I did NOT distribute it out into the Internet. GUESS WHO DID?? Yup. Within 24 hours, Trevor managed to get the song listed everywhere, even Penny Arcade mentioned it!
Check out Kurt's post for the entire awesome story. You might remember him as the lead singer for Information Society.
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| If only it ended like this... |
[24 Mar 2009|12:11pm] |
So a friend of mine asked me what I thought about the last episode of BSG (he watches it on the web and hasn't seen it yet), and I told him it ended pretty predictably. They tied up most of the loose ends, except for one where they basically said, "it's a mystery!!!1" which was kinda lame.
Then he said, "I always thought it'd be cool if..."
( spoilers if you don't know who the 5th Cylon is... )
Guys, would that not have been awesome?
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| Black Day |
[15 Feb 2009|12:21am] |
I was certain that I've said everything there is to be said about Valentine's Day in Japan. You know how it goes: women give chocolates to the guys they like on Valentine's Day, and the guys reciprocate with gifts one month later on "White Day" on March 14.
Women also give "obligation chocolate" (義理チョコ) to bosses and male coworkers to stroke their egos, "friend chocolate" (ともチョコ) to their female friends, and all women buy "my chocolate" (マイ・チョコ) for themselves.
Yes, I thought I'd heard it all, and I'm sure you have too, at least until I had the following conversation with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) spatulagirl the other night:
Melanie: have you heard of Black Day?
Monica: what is black day?
Melanie: in south korea
women give choco on feb. 14
men on mar. 14
and, if you didn't get anything on V-Day or White Day...
then it's BLACK DAY on April 14th, and you go to a chinese restaurant and eat Black Noodles and mourn your single life
I LOVE IT
Monica: AHAHAHAAHAH
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| Rosemary Lemon Garlic Chicken |
[05 Feb 2009|12:00am] |
Rosemary Lemon Garlic Chicken has 4 ingredients.
To make: throw them all into a crock pot and cook for 6 hours.
THAT'S IT.
The meat falls from the bone and is infused with flavors deep and tart and rich and warm. It's studded with moist, spreadable cloves of perfectly cooked garlic, and translucent slices of nearly liquefied lemons.
I could eat this forever. I would put off sex for this chicken. And guys, I don't even like chicken.
Here's the recipe. Some of the commenters said that the lemon made it too bitter. I used Meyer lemons which are a little sweet, have very little pith, and taste like they were picked ripe on a warm afternoon. They were so good in this recipe that we ate them with the chicken instead of discarding them.
I was turned on to this recipe via a pair of posts in the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) what_a_crock community by happytootum. She also took the two photos above.
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| No-Knead Bread |
[29 Jan 2009|05:07pm] |
I baked a loaf of No-Knead Bread tonight. Chewy on the inside, crusty on the outside, a hint of tang, and only three ingredients! I think this is going to be a regular thing.
This recipe caused quite a sensation when it was published in the New York Times a couple of years ago. People started buying up dutch ovens like crazy, and Target reportedly ran out of a $45 enameled cast iron pot when it was rated as comparable to $200 Le Creuset pots in Cook's Illustrated. (Mine is a blue Martha Stewart that I got for $45 at Macy's.)
Cook's Illustrated also published a revised version of the recipe with a little vinegar and beer added to round out the flavor. People seem to like it even better but I'm kind of worried about the increase in baking temperature to 500°—aren't most dutch ovens only rated up to 450°?
Anyway, it is super yummy and the house smells amazing. I left a note for my roommates to help themselves to it—we'll see how much is left when I get home tomorrow.
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[11 Jan 2009|05:59pm] |
Roommate: (sighs) I love Alec Baldwin.
Me: I know, right? I don't care how old or fat he gets, he will always be hot.
Roommate: (brightens) I just thought of someone I think you should meet!
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| beautiful beautiful |
[22 Nov 2008|02:40pm] |
Judging from your posts, most of you are really digging on Mad Men. Have you seen the gorgeous fan illustrations that Dyna Moe has been posting in her flickr account? Well she just released a calendar.
I try to keep stuff that is already all over the internet to my twitter or AIM status, but this is too beautiful to skip. Sorry if you've already seen it 100 times!
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| Pioneer Square Starbucks: avoid |
[17 Nov 2008|09:42pm] |
26ish dude, drunk: Hay you wanna trade this PSP for your iPod touch?
Me: No. *hand on iPhone*
Dude: *leans closer* Look it's got a bigger screen!
Me: No.
Dude: ...Oh. Do you wanna hang outside then?
Me: No.
Dude: *shuffles off*
The police are questioning him outside now.
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| Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain ♪ |
[30 Oct 2008|12:49pm] |
I'm in Oklahoma for my sister's wedding. So far we have:
- shopped at Wal-Mart
(full disclosure: I got two great party dresses for $15!) - heard a song called I'd Like to Check You for Ticks
- experienced the banjo riff from Deliverance as a ringtone
- bought these:
At Wal-Mart:
Sister: So the last thing we need for the BBQ is a case of Bud Light.
Mom: (whispers to me) I'm not wasting 150 calories on Bud Light! Do you want to get something else to drink?
Me: (nods)
Mom: How about Dos Equis?
Me: I dunno, I had one at the restaurant last night but it tasted kinda strange.
Sister: (chimes in) That's 'cause beer's not allowed to be more than 3.5% here!
Me: No way!
Sister: Yep. They even used to have dry counties here not too long ago.
Mom: So what should we get if we don't want to drink watered-down beer then?
Crotchety Old Lady: Hot chocolate.
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| 31 things I love about being back |
[22 Sep 2008|01:18am] |
heirloom tomatoes, yellow nectarines, artichokes;
old vine zinfandel, tacos at Chipotle, everything at Trader Joe's.
gifts with purchase, pirate bands, microbrews;
cheap eats at happy hour,
rosemary bushes in parking lots,
the biggest blue sky I've ever seen.
colorful sensets, black PNW overcast,
the burning smell of autumn on a rainy day;
wet leaves, hanging out, hugs.
being in the same timezone as my family,
free night and weekend minutes, "text me";
nonsmoking culture, cable TV, my housemates.
casual Spanish, clothes dryers, kitties.
red potatoes. rye bread. blackberries.
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| Animal Crossing |
[01 Sep 2008|10:48pm] |
Um, I know it's an old game but do any of you play Animal Crossing on the DS? I just started but maybe we could, you know, hang out in each others' towns. Or maybe you have an old save somewhere and even though you don't play anymore you have some fruit you could send me. Or we could trade! I have oranges and coconuts.
My friend code is 4768-9837-2502
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| Pickpocket |
[23 Aug 2008|02:18pm] |
I spent my first few weeks in Portland interviewing for rooms to rent in shared houses. I really liked the two girls I met at a 3-bedroom townhouse off the lightrail line, so if everything goes well I'll have a key and a lease by the end of today.
After a visit to IKEA to buy a bed yesterday, I stopped by a bar downtown to watch the Olympics. I had a big zippered totebag with me, sans laptop but filled with my iphone, gameboy, electronic dictionary, wallet, and passport.
There weren't a lot of people sitting at the bar. I had my tote hanging off one of the arms of my barstool when two girls stepped up to the bar in the space next to me, on the side my bag was on. I'd just asked the waitress to close out my tab, and she brought me a credit slip to sign and returned my credit card. I reached for my bag, bringing it into my lap, and pulled out my wallet to put my credit card away. I was doing so many things at once that I only vaguely recognized that my bag was unzipped already, with a tangle of my headphone cords hanging out. I absentmindedly made a cursory inspection—everything expensive was still in there, and my wallet was in my hand. This all happened within the space of 30 seconds, so I didn't give it much thought.
The girls swung around from my left side to my right and sat in the two stools next to me. One of them put her bag on the counter. It was a fake Chanel in my favorite shade of pink. "That's a great bag," I told her.
"There ain't nothin' in it," she drawled, smiling. From the outer appearance it indeed looked like it was nearly empty, but what a weird thing to say! "I don't keep nothin' in it," she continued. Okaaay, I thought, in that way you do when someone says something that could potentially trap you in a boring conversation.
Having paid, I left and walked home, at which point it dawned on me: the first girl was the sakura: there to distract me while her friend reached into my bag. I checked my bag again: I was lucky that it was so deep—you'd have to be in up to your elbow to get anything of value, and I'm sure the headphones, newspaper, notebooks, and all the other crap toploaded into my bag didn't help them. Still, the case to my $450 electronic dictionary was completely unzipped, and I probably would have lost it if it hadn't been stuck to the inside of the case with adhesive tape.
The empty Chanel bag is interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if they immediately transferred what they pickpocketed into it: if the owner complains that they stole her ipod, they could easily say that it was theirs. It would be the owner's word against theirs, and they would be the ones with the goods in hand.
I'm glad I didn't lose anything but it's a little depressing. I know better than to leave my purse on a table while I refill my coffee, but pickpocketing? That's something that only happens in Europe, or if in America, only in the olden days.
Anyway, I'll be keeping an eye out for those two. I would love to catch them in the act!
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| On Moving, DRM, and the Kindle |
[10 Aug 2008|02:28pm] |
I finished moving from Japan to Portland about a week ago.
There is already a perfect treatise on how packing really means throwing tons of shit away, and it was my constant solace as I hauled box after box downstairs to the dumpster. I easily sold/threw away 90% of my belongings. 90%! Four large suitcases... times ten! Now throw away 36 of them. That is how I spent the end of July.
If my dear friend Melanie hadn't helped me, I doubt I would have made it. As it was, I threw away my last trash bag minutes before running to make the bus to the airport. My realtor, thinking he would pick up the keys and wave goodbye as I trotted off into the sunset, ended up helping me haul my suitcases to the bus stop himself. Needless to say, we were both running.
About a week before my move, a friend of mine asked me what I thought about Amazon's Kindle. I shrugged. Hadn't given it much thought, I said. Most of the stuff I read is on the internet. (And to be honest, I probably read two books in the last year; a fact that I have never confessed to anyone but myself before now. Nobody wants to admit to not taking part in the noble pastime of reading for pleasure, but as entertainment, I find it scarcely different from watching TV.)
That isn't to say that I didn't buy any books though! My shelves, teeming with half- and quarter-read management philosophy, recipes I've never cooked, patterns I've never knit, kanji I've never studied! Fiction that I enjoyed and saved because it was a good read and I might want to read it again! Might! For someone who scarcely reads I sure had a lot of books! And another confession (that I'm sure all my friends noticed but were too polite to comment on): my bookshelf has always been an overfilled mess. I moved into my apartment intending to spend some weekend arranging it just so, and one year later its state was unchanged.
What do I think of the Kindle? I think it's fucking genius. DRM? Copy protection? WHO CARES! Before this move I was so angsty about DRM, certain it would seal the American public's corporate sellout, but now! Now if you can reduce my possessions by even a fraction you can DRM it all you want. I don't care if the file deletes itself in six months if you can just rid me of these damn OBJECTS! The same goes for DVDs—I was grateful that I'd decided to get most of my TV shows via iTunes instead of buying boxsets. Nothing to ship, no objects to feel attached to: at $1.99 an episode you could delete my archive tomorrow and I wouldn't be too torn up about it. Because really, how many times am I going to watch that old episode of Lost?
Why are we still reading paper books? The main reason I hear is that people prefer reading a book to reading off a screen. Be that as it may (though I think the technology will get there soon), I think the issue is more about possessions. I bought them; they're my stuff. We assign great value to books, probably more than their cover price, because they're full of information, because they make us feel. They're apparently so valuable that the post office even offers discounted shipping for books. But isn't this value more perceived than real? Or rather, isn't it the content of books that we value, rather than the objects themselves? Can't we please divorce the data from the format?
Standing in my apartment, staring at my ridiculous stacks of books—that heaviest of baggage—I started doing some math. How much would it cost to ship them home? More to the point, how many of them would I even read again (less than ten percent), or read again more than once (maybe one percent)? Add up the cover prices and it would surely be cheaper to buy them new than to send them home, even with Japan Post's discount book-rate. I swore then and there to never buy another book. I will become an avid patron of the library! Tachi-yomi, here I come!
In the end though, I did end up shipping some books home, forcing myself to keep it to one box. What can I say? I love them.
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| Ouendan |
[12 Jun 2008|10:31pm] |
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I've been going to a few Orix Buffaloes games with Mr. bblue23 lately. If you look at the stands in the far background of this photo, I think you can get an idea of their general popularity in Osaka, where the Hanshin Tigers rule. But attending a stadium game without having to deal with crowds suits me fine.
This shot was taken from the unreserved seating section of the stands yesterday, squarely in the middle of the hardcore fans' cheering section. Whenever the Buffaloes are at bat, we stand up, and chant/cheer for the players at bat under the direction of the ouendan leader. Each player has their own song, and thanks to Mr. bblue23's printout of the lyrics, I've managed to mostly memorize exactly three of them. "Shouting out the cheers is such a great way to let off steam," he told me, and I couldn't agree more.
We went again tonight, although I was a bit nervous: it was ¥200 beer night, and a crowd of drunk sports fans was the last thing I wanted to deal with. Not to worry, he said: "Everyone in this section is completely focused on cheering. You won't see many people drinking," and true enough, I counted only one.
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| Making Umeshu |
[06 Jun 2008|05:55pm] |
Took a break from work today to make umeshu, checking another item off the list of things I want to do before I leave Japan. (Whether I'll be able to taste it or not before I leave is another matter!) More pics here.
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| Arashiyama & Ginkaku-ji |
[31 May 2008|07:51pm] |
My mom and a friend are here in Japan, and we've been doing a bit of sightseeing. In the past few days we've gone to Arashiyama and Ginkaku-ji, which are turning out to be two of the best places I've visited in Japan. (Why did it take me so long to get there? XD)
Anyway, I'm getting started with flickr, so if you have an account, let me know so I can add you.
(vulpes, you might like the totally creepy inari shrine we saw in Arashiyama. The story is in the comments.)
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| Leadership |
[17 Nov 2007|10:19am] |
"Ohhhhhhhhhh! Auntie Anne's!"
My coworker raced over to buy a pretzel. We were in the US on business, and had taken the afternoon off to go to a mall. Having grown up overseas, she was just as delighted as I was to revisit the brands that hadn't made it to Japan yet.
Watching the lone woman behind the counter in action was like seeing a video in slow-mo. Surly and unresponsive, she made zero eye contact throughout the cash transaction, after which she sluggishly dropped the pretzel into the bag, then shook the can of flavor powder into the bag itself. Two shakes. I was shocked.
After we had walked a good distance away, my coworker said, thoughtfully, "you know the girl who served us? What did you think of her?"
"Well... she didn't seem to have any motivation at all, and I wouldn't want to eat anything from that store. And seeing that kind of attitude makes me really worried about my country, and makes me wonder if I really want to live here again." I paused. "What did you think?"
"I think that if she were my employee, I would fire her," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Well sure, but there might not be anyone else who wants this job."
She shrugged. "Then I would make the job more attractive."
"How would you do that?"
She thought for a bit. "First, I would make sure that I was completely enjoying my own work."
from shmivejournal:
Have you ever had a dream about someone, and when you woke up you found that you had changed your opinion about them completely, even though absolutely no facts had changed?
Great stuff in the comments.
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[01 Nov 2007|11:46pm] |
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One of Matt's literary translations was featured on Boing Boing today.
Who recommended it to BB? Oh, just William Gibson.
Congrats Matt!
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