Author: Heather Meadows

Here’s a cute little ramble about Junichiro Koizumi’s hair.

Koizumi always goes to a barbershop in the basement of a downtown Tokyo hotel, where he sometimes stays for more than two hours.

One time, he went in at 11 p.m. and did not come out until 1:30 a.m.

This became fodder for the rumor mill in the political community. The barbershop, the rumor went, must have a hidden passageway and Koizumi must be sneaking out to meet with someone in secret.

And that is also the reason why his hairdo is invariably the same before and after his barbershop visit.

Readers of Snopes send in some very good questions, including the following:

A friend of mine asked me if I’ve ever hear of invisible witches or ghosts that suck the blood out of a person’s arm while they are sleeping. Apparently, she saw “marks” on her boyfriend’s arm and this was the story that he told her.

—

Is it true that a girl cannot get pregnant if her mate smokes the seeds of marijuana when he smokes marijuana, please tell me if this is true because a lot of people tell me it is true and a lot of people tell me it’s not and I don’t know whaether to believe it or notbecause this town lies a lot. thanks.

—

can you tell me how i would analyze the effect each statistic has on the world.

I think that last one is quite profound. I’d like to know that, too. ;>

In other news,

An Italian couple stole 50,000 euros from a woman in the Sicilian city of Palermo after convincing her they were vampires who would impregnate her with the son of the Anti-Christ if she did not pay them.

o_o…

Danny Bloom at Japundit links to an article by “Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers” entitled “So You Want To Be a Sushi Snob?” It could be funnier, but it is amusing. Also, I discovered that I’ve been eating sushi incorrectly. Here is the proper method, apparently:

No! No! No! What are you doing? You do not put the Wasabi (Wasabia japonica) directly into the small bowl of Shoyu (Soy sauce). No one wants to see your plate with some revolting muddy green sludge – a putrid floating pile of flotsam and jetsam – in it. Disgusting. Have you no class? Take your chopsticks and lift the raw fish off of the top of the Nigiri (raw fish on a small rice ball), turn it upside down. Place a small portion of Wasabi on the underside (now facing up) and dip the upper-side (now facing down) into the Shoyu. Do not touch the Wasabi into the Shoyu. Then replace the fish, right side up, back on top of the Nigiri and eat. Try not to get any Shoyu on the rice directly. Also, please, in-spite of yourself, don’t have little pieces of rice floating around in your Shoyu bowl either. What do you think this is, an Olympics swimming competition? Of course please refrain from using your unwashed fingers to touch your food – we’re trying to eat with adults who have some class and a proper upbringing. We’re not eating with a bunch of animals here. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?

After eating each piece of Nigiri, take some Gari (Ginger) – and it had better not be red colored ginger, either – and chew it to clear your palate so that you may enjoy the fresh taste of the next piece of sushi. Repeat.

Rogers adds,

California Rolls and so-called Maki-Zushi (sushi that is rolled up in seaweed) is for kids and drunks who cannot hold their chopsticks.

So, there you have it.

What are you doing to me?!?!?!?

You have enough stuff to be subbing. You don’t need to do Full Metal Panic! TSR.

No, really.

Families enjoy festival at canal

On Saturday, visitors packed the Augusta Canal Headgates in Martinez for an old-fashioned festival dubbed Summertime on the Canal. Festivities included eating contests, children’s games, entertainment, homemade churn-style ice cream and an antique car show.

Sandy Boner, the manager for the canal community center’s department, said she was surprised at the event’s turnout, stating that there were about 200 participants at 10:30 a.m.

I had no idea this was going on! I didn’t do a thing yesterday. I totally could have gone to that!

the Wit (52% dark, 34% spontaneous, 33% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you’re probably an intellectual, but don’t take that to mean you’re pretentious. You realize ‘dumb’ can be witty–after all isn’t that ‘the Simpsons’ philosophy?–but rudeness for its own sake, ‘gross-out’ humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat. I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer. Your sense of humor takes the most effort to appreciate, but it’s also the best, in my opinion. Also, you probably loved the Office. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart – Woody Allen – Ricky Gervais

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 43% on dark You scored higher than 43% on spontaneous You scored higher than 68% on vulgar

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

The AP and Kyodo commissioned polls to gauge the opinions of US and Japanese people, and jointly published the results. Here’s an article on Yahoo! with some general discussion, along with some quotes from pollees. Here is an interactive page boasting the full poll results.

Wal-Mart Nixes ‘Singles Shopping’

A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to comment on the reason behind the program’s cancellation. But customer Dale Firebaugh, who showed up Friday night hoping to meet his match, said store employees told him several people had complained.

“I’m disappointed,” said Firebaugh, 63. “Where can someone over 40 who doesn’t smoke or drink or go to bars meet someone?”

Alas.

You just have to see it. (Via BoingBoing)

Kanagawa Prefectural Governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa banned sales of Grand Theft Auto 3 to minors back in June. Gamers responded by flooding his blog, 松沢しげふみ　タックルレポート, with comments. Mainichi (English), Mainichi (Japanese).

On July 7, Gov. Matsuzawa said on his home page that he was unable to give answers to every comment, which prompted his critics to post a further 255 comments.

Matsuzawa responded by saying that he wanted game enthusiasts to carefully read the comments he has made on software regulations during past press conferences.

Matsuzawa said he would not stop writing his opinions on his Web page.

“I’ve received some terrible comments (on the page), but I think it’s good for me to hear a variety of opinions,” the governor said. “I will never stop my Web site.”

The critics’ comments cited in the article don’t seem all that “terrible”, but you never know what else might be on that blog.

I honestly don’t think it’s a bad thing to ban sales of violent videogames to minors, though maybe the age limit could be ratcheted down to 16 or something. I don’t know, I just don’t think it’s a big deal. Maybe someone could respond to the commenter who said “If you have time to jog, you would do better to read people’s criticisms of game regulations” with “If you have time to spam someone’s blog, you would do better to work on ways to end world hunger”. ;)

Eel Day (Doyo no Ushi) is July 28. I guess I assumed that it was July 19 because that was the day the About.com article appeared. Oh well, at least this means that I still have time to enjoy eel on eel day!

Mainichi has an article about how eel prices are skyrocketing in Japan due to a low yield in eel fry this year.

The precise reason for the poor eel fry yield remains unknown, but some blame the irregular weather or shifts in the Kuroshio Current, while others say it could be the after-effects of earthquakes and typhoons that struck Japan last year.

Eel fry are not bred and raised artificially. Eel breeding involves catching fry from rivers and deltas from December to April, then raising them in farms for about half a year before selling them to eat. Eel fry’s mode of life remains unknown.

Eel traders have been hit by the double punch of expensive fry and more expensive oil, which has driven up the cost of raising those fry that have been caught until they are suitable to be sold to eat. Currently, eel is being sold at about 1,600 yen per kilogram, around 200 yen more than last year.

When Sean and I were in Japan, I believe we saw a show about raising eel fry. There were these pools, and divers went into them to show how the eel lived. That’s about all I got out of it, seeing as how my Japanese skills were next to nil. (Not that they’re any better now…)

An historic home is being restored to Athens from where it currently stands in Stone Mountain. Apparently, in 1860, the house was pink! You’ll all recall my fascination with North Augusta’s Pink House.

(Note that the Chronicle uses the phrase “flesh colored”–ugh, see, if they’d hired me on as copy editor I would totally have spotted that. Maybe that’s what the guy actually said, but you know, I’d’ve cut it out anyway…)

CNN has a timeline of past attacks on Egyptian tourist spots. I know that at least one of these attacks was targeted towards Israel.

It seems that the terrorists have been at it for a long time.

I was never really aware of terrorism before. Sometimes in movies the bad guy would be a terrorist, but I was never as worried about them as I was about a hostile nation. Somehow, I thought that terrorists really couldn’t accomplish much, that they were just free agents running around doing their thing, and that their efforts were small and not worth worrying about.

But now I’m better aware of what their efforts can accomplish. More than that, it’s become quite obvious that they sure are hard to stamp out. At least with an enemy nation, we know where to find the bad guys…