Category: general

I just watched the pilot (thanks, Tycho), and let’s just say I’m interested. I’m not really sure what to make of it yet. It’s creepy, it’s a little gory, it’s perversely patriotic, and it stars a screw-on head who works for Abe Lincoln. What more can I really say?

(If you take that survey, try to keep your answers short, and don’t use any apostrophes ;P)

I woke up this morning thinking about asking Mom something, and for some reason I thought I was back home and that all I had to do was get out of bed and walk out to the office. When I realized I couldn’t, I was overcome with a need to hug her, and I felt very sad. It was an odd thing to have happen, because I haven’t lived at home for three and a half years.

More and more I think about moving back to Kentucky. Since I started working in news, I’m much more aware of all the crime in this area. I’m sure there’s crime back home, too, and occasionally I do read about something dangerous happening in Nicholasville or Lexington in my RSS feeds, but the crime here just feels so pervasive, and it seems like nothing can really be done about it. The city is $5 million over budget, so it’s not like they can start up a midnight basketball program or something (:>).

Most of the intelligent people I talk to want to move away from Augusta. It’s sad. This is a beautiful city. The Riverwalk is gorgeous, and the Canal is wonderful. There are plenty of places to ride a bike. Downtown is being revitalized.

But people are being attacked on the Riverwalk in broad daylight. There’s graffiti under the overpass on the Canal. And let’s not even start with downtown; crime is practically commonplace in certain sections. Not long after I started my new job, a homeless man was killed and stuffed into a trash can behind one of the businesses on Broad Street. And there have been shootings along a certain stretch of Martin Luther King Boulevard that I happened to drive through unknowingly one time.

I don’t want to live someplace that I can’t explore.

I guess we’re pretty much stuck for now, though. Having just finally gotten a job I love, I’m not willing to leave it. And Sean doesn’t want to leave his job yet either. But maybe in a few years…? Maybe we’ll do something then.

I hope it’s either move to Kentucky, or move to Japan.

This one doesn’t let you tell it how fat you are, though.

Dance! Dance with the camera, freakishly thin Heather!

Via Kirkie.

Okay, maybe not, but it is “bionic“:

While the TV show was just make-believe, the bionic car is the real thing. And in this case, the word bionic is condensed from a quite recent field of scientific discipline called “biomimetics,” which is derived from the words biology and mimesis (imitation).

Biomimetics is an interdisciplinary subject which combines engineering science, architecture and mathematics. The basic principle is to make nature’s problem solutions usable for man. The reason is simple: Nature, through billions of years of trial and error, has produced effective solutions to innumerable complex real-world problems.

The bionic car averages 70 mpg and tops out at 84 on the highway, and it isn’t even a hybrid. Its fuel efficiency is largely due to its aerodynamic design, based on the shape of a boxfish. Note that to reduce drag there are no side mirrors; that function is served by rear cameras.

It also apparently has plenty of room inside and puts off few emissions due to a system that converts nitrous oxide to nitrogen and oxygen.

Obviously I am really impressed by this, and I think the design is awesomely cute and weird, but I do wonder why they didn’t go for the extra step of adding hybrid technology…just as I wonder why Toyota doesn’t offer a Yaris hybrid.

It seems like automakers are focusing on bringing huge cars down to fuel efficiencies that already exist in small cars, and maxing midsize cars only to about 60 mpg. Do they think there’s no market for the most fuel efficient vehicle possible? Is there some kind of rule that automakers have to step up the gas mileage gradually, to keep the oil companies from suddenly losing money?

Why, if we have the ability to go further, don’t we go as far as we can?

(Maybe the change is coming, and it’s just taking too long for my tastes. This article indicates that Toyota executives want to have hybrid versions of all their vehicles.)

I don’t know if the bionic car will ever make it to market, but if it does I hope that by that time we are seeing gas mileages well past 100, and I hope that in order to keep up they will add hybrid or some other technology.

If all that comes to pass, maybe the car I buy after the Yaris will be a Mercedes Bionic ;>

I am, of course, interested in alternative fuels, flex fuel vehicles, and fuel cells too. (I’m still waiting for Mr. Fusion.)

Via Simon, I’ve discovered a fabulous column in a Japan magazine geared towards foreign nationals. It’s satire at its finest, and it’s called The Negi.

Get it? :D

Here are a few nuggets:

The Japanese vintage clothes industry is outsourcing labor to China as a means of cutting costs, The Negi can reveal. Traditionally, clothes manufactured in China have been shipped to the USA, worn by Americans and then donated to charities, before being repurchased and sold to Japan at a higher price. However, more and more shirts are now being produced and worn in China, before being sold directly to bulk buyers in Japan for sale at vintage clothing stores.

An industry insider explained that, aside from the obvious cost savings, the system solves another key problem: the increasing scarcity of used American clothing in a size that fits Japanese people. The new Chinese pre-worn clothes are reportedly much closer to Japanese sizes.

[…]

As a steel pole was set in concrete near the Hachiko Crossing this past Sunday, Hisao Saito worried if this might put his long career in advertising to an end.

For the past 10 years, Saito has stood on the corner wearing a sandwich board advertisement for the “Golden Ball!” pachinko parlor. However, recent months have seen signs of a shift in the industry, partly in reaction to Japan’s protracted economic slump.

Cost-cutting moves, along with advances in technology, have led to a sharp increase in metal poles replacing low paid, homeless men.

[…]

Last Square Meter of Japanese Wilderness Found, Paved

Construction Ministry officials expressed excitement last Tuesday as they watched the nation’s last patch of wilderness get covered in concrete. The day also saw the unveiling of architect Daisuke Mori’s nationwide “Let’s Enjoy Wild” project, which uses plastic sheets and lights to “convey the peaceful aura of pure nature.”
“Some people are worried that this event will end the steady flow of irrelevant construction jobs and cash to rural Japan,” said Minister Kenichi Ebisawa; “but much of the concrete that we have already laid has become cracked from plant life desperately trying to push through. A second layer of concrete is obviously required.”

Scientists predict that by 2047, the combined weight of concrete will cause Japan to sink into the ocean. Undersea concrete reinforcing pillars are already being planned.

[…]

Morning Musume to Hire Fetus

In its unflagging search for new and younger talent, J-Pop girl band Morning Musume has reached out to an as-yet-unborn demographic for its next member. The still-unnamed prodigy was discovered during ultrasound auditions in Harajuku, where expectant mothers queued for hours in the hope that their progeny would be chosen for the big time.

[…]

Shrapnel-Absorbent Officers in Bid to Thwart Terrorists

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police department is to mobilize shrapnel-absorbent officers on the city’s train and subway system. The move comes in response to recent reports warning that Tokyo might be the site of a terrorist attack.

The highly absorbent officers will be deployed throughout the Tokyo transport network, and are intended to shield travelers from shrapnel in the event of a terrorist bombing.

The officers will also act as a deterrent to would-be bombers. Police Chief Kazuo Nobutaka explained that the force’s latest weapon against terrorism had been trained in the art of standing on a box while looking around. Officers were apparently instructed to look for people with an expression that said “I have dynamite strapped to my body.”

No arrests have been made yet. However, Nobutaka is confident that the scheme will prove a success. “Suicide bombers will think twice about exploding themselves on our trains, for fear that the police will arrest them,” he said.

In pure Onion style, each column ends with “News In Brief”. Here are a few examples:

Police Crack Down on Wave of Legal Immigrants
Hostess Overcome by Ennui
Timid Couple Visit ‘Like’ Hotel
Many People Unaware Niigata Is Famous for Rice
Kyoto Retracts Protocol Declaring “Chou Samui Desu Ne!”

It looks like I’m going to have to become a regular reader.

Apparently the author, Kevin Cooney, is affiliated with a comedy troupe called Tokyo Comedy Store. They do acts in Shibuya and at Tokyo bars. It’d be fun to check them out sometime.

For awhile there I thought my blog must be pretty crappy, as it hadn’t received a single spam comment.

But today I was riddled with not one, not two, but three spam comments.

My blog is all grown up! *sniffle*

Captchas are now enabled. Apologies for the inconvenience :)

Really, CBS?

From Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning fantasy flick “Spirited Away” to the violent voyeurism of “Ghost in the Shell,” kiddie fare such as “Pokemon,” TV shows on cable’s Adult Swim and video game offshoots such as “Final Fantasy,” anime has spread its tentacles across American culture.

Snerk. Tentacles.

Women, surging ahead in the video-gaming industry, have embraced anime and manga in a similar way.

Do videogames go hand-in-hand with anime? This is not a connection I have explored before.

Regardless, this article is awesome purely due to the following:

“It was more men before. Nobody knew what anime was. It was a small group of dedicated fans mostly in high school,” said Tony Oliver, the voice of hero Rick Hunter from the famed anime television series “Robotech,” which ran in the U.S. from 1985 until 1988.

Ah, Tony Oliver. Right now, somewhere out there, he’s probably wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

They also got the webmaster of robotech.com to comment, for whatever reason, and here’s his gem of wisdom:

“Back in the day, anime was all science fiction,” he said. “Now it’s everything: war, horror, romance.”

Yeah, they didn’t have, say, historical fiction or dramas back in the day. (You meant to say “in the U.S.”, right, Steve?)

The article also delves into yuri and yaoi, because, honestly, what self-respecting piece about anime wouldn’t? :>

Cross-posted to Japundit.

Check out this awesome conversation, apparently transcribed by CNN.

Bush: What about Kofi Annan? I don’t like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically cease-fire and everything else happens.

Blair: I think the thing that is really difficult is you can’t stop this unless you get this international presence agreed.

Bush: She’s going. I think Condi’s (U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) going to go pretty soon.

Blair: Well that’s all that matters. If you see, it will take some time to get out of there. But at least it gives people….

Bush: It’s a process I agree. I told her your offer too.

Blair: Well it’s only or if she’s gonna or if she needs the ground prepared as it were. See, if she goes out she’s got to succeed as it were, where as I can just go out and talk.

Bush: See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.

Blair: Cause I think this is all part of the same thing. What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if he gets a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he’s done it. That’s what this whole things about. It’s the same with Iran.

Bush: I feel like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We’re not blaming Israel and we’re not blaming the Lebanese government.

Some of Blair’s comments are interesting, aren’t they? If the US goes in, we have to succeed, but he can just go in and talk…:>

Update: More greatness, from a Reuters article:

“Thanks for the sweater, it was awfully thoughtful of you. I know you picked it out yourself,” Bush said.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Blair.

XD

So my Mary Kay lady said she was having a huge sale on July 17, her birthday, and the first three callers would get 35% off. At first I was like, well, that’s not really in my budget, but as I kept thinking about it I realized that I should take advantage of the deal while I can. In her email it said she’d take orders until midnight on her birthday, and the earlier people called the more of a discount they’d get. She said if we called late to leave a message.

So I figured, well, I’ll call at 12:01 a.m. on July 17. That’s fair, right?

:>

Expecting to get a cell phone’s voicemail, I was understandably shocked to hear a tired male voice answer.

“Um, may I speak to B please?”

“Who is this?”

“Heather Meadows, one of her Mary Kay customers.”

There was silence for a few moments, and then the man said with a slightly exasperated chuckle, “Can you call back?”

“Um, yeah,” I said, feeling stupid. “Could I leave a message? She said there was a big sale today, so I wanted to get in on it early.”

“Yeah. Oh,” I heard him say.

“Um, it’d be a pretty big message since it’s an order. Do you think you could turn your ringer off so I could leave my order on your answering machine? I’m really sorry about this, I thought I’d get a recording.”

He was surprisingly amenable to the idea–“Okay, I’ll try to turn the ringer off”–and I told him I’d call back in five minutes.

Which I did.

But I feel like a bitch :>

It’s not my fault, though, is it? That was a reasonable assumption, right?

Regardless, I did apologize to her husband several times…

(And I saved $27.30, assuming I get the 35% discount…

(Do the ends justify the means?

(And hey, the old me would have been totally petrified by having a live person answer, and probably would have hung up without saying anything…but instead I managed not only to maintain my composure, but to get what I wanted…that counts for something, right? ^^;;)

Thanks to Charles for the link!

(See, I avoid the word “meme” as much as possible)

So Dariush started this (at least in my blog circles), and Stu decided he wanted to include me, so here I am. I’ll list all the places where I get done up in this post. It may grow into quite the tangled web!

If you comment here:

1. I’ll respond with something random about you.
2. I’ll challenge you to try something.
3. I’ll pick a color that I associate with you.
4. I’ll tell you something I like about you.
5. I’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I’ll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I’ll ask you something I’ve always wanted to ask you.
8. I’ll pick a song that reminds me of you.

If I get too many challenges, I may suffocate under the backlog. I still need to draw Yuffie for Tim! (Not to mention there’s a little something I promised Magazine Man I’d do, oh, last year. :P) In any case, here’s the roundup so far:

Stu has challenged me to read a book of poetry and write about it. Here are my responses to his rundown.

Dariush has challenged me to listen to Foreigner. (Considering the rest of his rundown, I wonder if this isn’t a gaijin in-joke…) Here are my responses.

Goei has challenged me to pick a few songs he’s listed on his blog and give them a listen. I think I’m going to enjoy that one :) Here’s his rundown, and here are my responses.

Ampontan at Japundit evaluates a new book, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers, and a review of that book. As usual, his discussion is thorough and insightful. Here are a few nuggets:

“The determination to combat the egotism brought forth by capitalism and modernity was a major element of the students’ idealism.” In a book whose premise is the coercion used to get pilots to volunteer for kamikaze missions, it’s odd that the author would claim one reason the student pilots volunteered was an antipathy toward capitalism. Considering the intellectual leanings of American university professors in general, however, perhaps it’s not so odd after all.

[…]

I understand that Ohnuki-Tierney’s objective is to examine how educated college students came to put into practice an ideology most did not share by being coerced to volunteer for suicide. Yet, one cannot help but wonder how interested the author would have been in the virulence of Japanese militarism and its ramifications had the kamikaze pilots consisted solely of people who were garbage men, barbers, and udon/soba shop proprietors in civilian life.

[…]

The author fails to consider that because Japanese university students majoring in the liberal arts received draft deferments until late 1943, many of those in school who were subsequently drafted and became kamikaze pilots were likely in school to save their own necks rather than to ponder the intricacies of Kant and Nietzsche. Indeed, as is shown in the movie Wings of a Man, some professional baseball players took advantage of draft deferments for college enrollment by playing baseball during the day and studying at night. A severe case of resentment might well explain the military veterans’ brutal treatment of those who had college deferments. It certainly wouldn’t be unique to Japan.

[…]

Some people think that bullying in Japanese schools is caused by the examination system. What this book may show indirectly is that bullying has long been a part of the vertically-structured Japanese society. Women have been guilty of this, too: the expression yome-ibiri refers to the mistreatment meted out by women toward their daughters-in-law, particularly when the young married couple lives with the husband’s parents. Indeed, from a long-range perspective, Ohnuki-Tierney’s book may also indirectly demonstrate that this aspect of Japanese society is actually improving.

[…]

A comparison of Donald Keene’s review with the excerpt of the book reveals that a large chunk of his article–for which I’m sure he was paid–was lifted in toto from Ohnuki-Tierney’s introduction without attribution. Elsewhere in the article, however, he specifically cites the author and properly quotes passages. Perhaps this cavalier attitude derives from his having become a living god in his own field, having a foundation that bears his name, and the fact that the few people who are moved to read the book because of his review will have forgotten what he wrote by the time they get around to it.

Ultimately, Ampontan dismisses the review as rubbish, accepts parts of the book with caveats, and recommends this site for further information about the kamikaze.

Good stuff.

Matsushita to sell 103-inch plasma TVs

Can you imagine the multitasking I could do on that thing?

This, however, is dumb:

As liquid crystal display TVs encroach on the market for 40-inch TVs and above — which had previously seen as plasma TV’s turf — developing even larger-sized panels is important for plasma TV makers to remain competitive.

Plasma just looks so much better than LCD. I don’t know what’s wrong with people. But assuming the world is going for LCDs over plasma, making bigger screens is nothing but a short-term solution.

The new panels will meet full high-definition specifications, meaning they can produce images at the highest standard of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels of resolution.

Well, I would hope so. I imagine the image will look granular anyway, though, just like how computer displays used to look on my old TV/VCR combo.

…and I just have one question.

Could the girls’ henshin possibly be any longer? I’d really like to know ;P

I slept until about 2:30 p.m. today, which is unusual for me these days. Apparently that was enough sleep to put me back into REM, because I had a really distressing dream right before I woke up.

I was out bowling with a huge group of people–apparently people from high school, because Kelley Kmucha was there. We’d been bowling with balls that weren’t bowling balls, and as such the lanes weren’t lit up and there were no pins. The ball just rolled down to the end and came back through the ball return.

After awhile people started discussing what to do, and I said I’d really like to do some actual bowling. Several people agreed, so I went to find a ball. It took forever; some of the racks had been changed into lockers, holding balls that apparently belonged to regular bowlers. I walked all the way to the other end of the bowling alley and back before finally finding some balls I could select from.

I picked up a swirled blue and white ball, and it felt light enough, but when I looked at it it said “15” on it. “Is it mislabeled?” I wondered. But since I hadn’t been able to find another one, I carried it back to the lane and set it down.

The lane was still dark, and I realized I was still wearing street shoes. I went to get my purse, wondering if I had my ticket for free games I’d gotten the last time I was at Brunswick. This concern over paying for the game rapidly turned to panic, as my purse was nowhere to be found.

I asked a large group of people (this is where Kelley Kmucha came in) if they’d seen it, and they said no. So I started scouring the bowling alley, in more and more of a panic. I asked everyone I saw, and then I started opening doors I probably shouldn’t have been opening to see if it had somehow gotten into closets and back rooms. There was a purse in one of them, but it wasn’t mine. It was a similar shape, but it was red and had gold hoop handles.

Finally, having exhausted those options, I headed back out towards another group of people to ask them if they’d seen it. As I started to indicate my right arm to describe that my purse had short straps, I suddenly realized that my purse was hanging off my arm.

“What does it look like?” one girl asked me.

“This is it!” I cried, and fell to laughing uncontrollably. Where had I picked it up? When had I picked it up? Was everything intact? I unzipped the first compartment…and it was almost completely empty. There was a notepad and a pen in there, and a couple of other useless things. “My wallet’s gone,” I said, feeling the panic rising again. It seemed to me that something else was missing, but I couldn’t think of what.

“Well, I’m glad you found your purse!” the girl said.

“But they have my wallet. ID theft!” There was, of course, no cash in my wallet, but all my credit cards and my drivers license were in there.

I fumbled for the flap in front to see if my cell phone was still there, which it was, so I hurried to call Sean, who was at home.

“Hey babe!” he said. “Get this. Bono sent out an anonymous email, because he thought it would affect his career to put his name on it…”

“Honey, I have something very important to tell you.”

“Well, do you agree?”

Frustrated, I said, “I don’t know, and I don’t care! My wallet has been stolen! I need you to come get me. Well, wait, I can drive myself home. But I need you to call American Express and the bank and cancel the cards!”

“Oh, no, don’t do that!” Sean said.

“Why not?” I asked. Would cancelling the cards affect my credit? How would I keep the thief from using them?

By then I was in a crowd of people heading for an exit. As we shuffled towards the door I suddenly spotted a Wachovia bank card on the ground.

Gasping, I picked it up–but it wasn’t mine. The name said “DON CARBONELL”.

“Anyone lose a bank card?” asked a man nearby, holding up a card from a different bank.

“Is it Don Carbonell?” I asked morosely.

“Yeah,” he said. I shook my head, waving the card I’d found at him. All around me I saw other people picking up more bank cards.

The rushing crowd had by this time pushed out the door and onto a gravel walkway. This didn’t seem to be the exit to the parking lot. Instead, there was an expanse of gravel that ended at some grass that led to a ditch and then a chain-link fence. The sun was setting over a body of water on the horizon.

“Crap,” I said. I leaned Don Carbonell’s bank card up against the door frame and worked my way back inside. “Sean, are you still there?”

“Yeah. Just tell them,” he began, and I could tell that he meant for me to call the banks myself, “that every nutty hotdog was fried. Or whatever they were.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

I was very angry at this point, because I didn’t have phone numbers to call, and I didn’t want to wait until I got home, so why couldn’t he do it for me before my credit cards got used somewhere?

Then I woke up…and as I did, I was so relieved.

And now I remember that I had another dream back beyond this one, in a different cycle of REM sleep. I can’t remember too many details from that one, but I do remember that a handful of people and I ran to get into a train to avoid a battle, and as we were settling into our seats (which were laid out like subway or intra-city train seats, along either wall, rather than long distance seats) a bullet shot through right next to one woman’s head. Then, as the train pulled away, we heard the sounds of battle receding behind us, and knew we were safe.

I opened my purse, saying to the man next to me, “I wish I hadn’t lost–” And then I saw that my purse was intact. “Oh! I still have my wallet and ID! Well, it’s too bad about my camera, and all those pictures, and my brand-new memory cards–wait! Those are in here too!”

I realized that I had been expecting to lose these things because I had lost everything in the fire, so any traumatic experience in which I lose my home should automatically include losing my personal identification and my precious camera. I was ecstatic that this wasn’t the case.

I know where these dreams came from. The purse one comes from the other day, when Brooke accompanied me to Wal-Mart. She took my purse out of the shopping cart and brought it into the car with her. When we got back to my house I was getting out of the car when I realized my purse wasn’t sitting next to me.

“Do you have my purse?” I asked Brooke. Surely she did. Surely it wasn’t gone.

“Yeah, I put it on top of the car,” she replied. “Didn’t you get it?”

I think my moment of sheer panic lasted a full second…and then, “Don’t fuck with me,” I said. I apparently have no sense of humor.

The dream about the war and believing I’d lost my camera comes from some general paranoia I’ve had lately about our apartment burning down again, and from thinking about how horrible it must be to have a war waged in your country while you’re just trying to live your life.

Needless to say, I’m glad they were just dreams.