kind of offended my first hobo

Homeless folks and panhandlers are a pretty rare sight to see in Japan. You spot the occasional guy sleeping in the subway station but...they never talk to you, and for all you know they're just night owls who've missed their last train.

Well, yesterday morning, as I'm heading to the bus stop, I meet my first hobo in Japan. Keep this in mind: I've been here a year and a half, living in a decent-sized city in Japan, and I have never encountered a bum. I encountered several a week when I was attending college in LA.

So, I'm walking, and this guy comes up to me and asks me for the time. Too sleepy to even think numbers in Japanese, I flash him my phone. He thanks me, but walks awkwardly next to me for a beat...and then he asks me for change. But, he uses a word for change I don't understand. He tries to explain: "You know. Change. For example, would you happen to have...500 yen or something...?"

[ For the record, 500 yen is, with the current craptastic rate of exchange, like FIVE DOLLARS. This shows you how having $5 in coin-form rather than bill-form can change your perception of its worth (and thus your sense of attachment to it). This also gives you an idea of how spendthrift Japanese society is, on the whole. ]

Once I realize what he's asking me, I'm quite shocked. His Japanese has been infallibly polite. Sure, his appearance is slightly disheveled -- crooked teeth and a bandage around one injured hand -- but I still had had no clue that he was begging for change.

In my surprise, I do an "Oh. What? OH! Oh." kind of thing. He jumps in with his own heavily accented English, "Ah, sorry, sorry, sorry..."

The reluctance on my face as I contemplate such a large piece of money turns his curiosity to other things. He wants to walk and chat with me until my bus comes. We sit on a bench, and he pulls out a folder of poetry he's written. It is all very sweet and nice and idealistic -- vast expanses of blue sky, birds flying free between the clouds, idyllic aspects of the natural , etc. He then pulls out a rainbow collection of markers and asks me to write a message in his notebook (in Japanese). I take the his notebook, and I can't help staring at his bandaged hand.

I'm struggling to write something nice and inspirational and not totally douchey, so he peppers me with personal questions in the meantime (personal for an American, maybe not so much for a Japanese person). "What's your ethnicity?" and "Do you have a boyfriend?" and then, "How old are you?" I tell him my age, after which he remarks, "Ahhh, so young! How old do you think I am?" I tell him I'm horrible at this sort of thing (really), then I venture, "Thirty...... (shocked look comes over his face)...three?" He looks crestfallen and abruptly says, in English, "NO." He's 27.

I lie through my teeth and assure him that, after reading his poems, I was thrown by his mature writing style and way of thinking about the world. I don't tell him that, once I'm close to him, I can see the weathering strain of hard times in his body, his posture, his hair, his face, and the delicate skin beneath his eyes.

faith and science, playing in the same sandbox all along

That is what this article by physicist-cum-pop-science-writer Paul Davies seems to suggest:

Taking Science on Faith (NYT)
Feed byline: "Until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus."

Pretty sensational (in the tabloid sense of the word), eh? Anyway, all I have to say after reading it is...uh, NO.

It quite annoyed me, both for it's inflammatory writing style and overreaching straw man of a conclusion. Also, it was kind of surprising coming from a guy on our side? He does make a lot of great points and all...it's just the tone it ends on that bugs me. Anyway, it's got quite the buzz going on now, and a lot of other people (links pulled from Seed's daily zeitgeist) have written out interesting, pithy responses.

[ Oh yeah, and if you jump through to Seed Magazine's page, check out the pdf cribsheets on topics ranging from photosynthesis to hybrid vehicles to genetics. Very nice! ]

mixing the old with the new

...is a fabulous philosophy for dealing with leftovers. I finished off the last of my hong siu dofu (red-cooked tofu) and garlic mashed potatoes with dill with the new addition of pineapple-glazed chicken wings. SO GOOD! I can never resist a succulent wing.

And now I will transition gracefully from talk of food to talk of bodily fluids, as I am wont to do. I do this by talking about how I'm transitioning! Right now! Like this! So elegant. So meta.

Anyway, how freaking awesome are medical exams in Japan? We just had a compulsory one for everyone at my work. In snappy assembly-line fashion, about 30 teachers were funneled into a room, checked through a series of stations, and pointed out of the room only to end up awkwardly in a trailer with the Mystery Machine (you press your boobs up against something that looks like an olde tyme television).

Fantastic, you say, but the best part is that you get to do a little traditional origami before the exam! Check out the pee test cup, plus folding instructions and wee (snirk) vial:



Total genius, although I got a little flustered in the bathroom when I had to pee like the dickens but, argh, I had to make some precise folds first. Uh, I couldn't tell from the packaging whether or not it was flushable, but that seems like the point of a folded paper cup...soooo I flushed it. Possible apologies, environment.

clever, clever boy

This is fantastic:

President Bush Takes Credit for Stem Cell Breakthrough (wired)

Ohhhhh, this administration! They're all about firmly embracing science...when it's convenient. Keep it up guys, 'cause next you should be inspiring some radical new forms of contraception, eh?


(previous post re. skin-cells-to-stem-cells research)

sh-sh-shakin'!

(...a la Rooney! It's a cute song.)

Two decent earthquakes today! One roused me from my sleep in the morning (and little better than my first alarm clock, to be sure).


And another rocked me back to sleep tonight. Sort of.


Exciting, eh? I live verrrry close to those X's.

Well, actually, this is Japan, so really there were like 10 earthquakes in the past day (most of them little), plus having grown up in California and all...it's kind of hard to find them a big deal. Now that I've said that, I'll probably lose all my shit in an earthquake sometime in the next month.

It would be just my luck to have a quake shake free all the bubble wrap and tape I so painstakingly applied yesterday...

reinforcing the cocoon

I spent most of today being lazy and slothful, but I also spent a few productive hours weatherstripping my apartment. I didn't really do this last year and somehow I still survived the winter...but anyone who's been here a few years likes to brag about how last year was a warm one.

As the first snow came a couple weeks early, I figured I might as well take precautions. Although it's warmed up a bit since, the early chill has scared everyone into weather-proofing and sent car owners scurrying to get their snow tires fitted.

Weather-stripping is all cutting, pasting, and double-stick-taping, and I do so love arts and crafts! I put foam strips on my sliding glass doors, bubble wrap against two of my windows, and thin foam against my third window. I am skeptical of the effectiveness of the setup, but at least it's kept me busy. I'm a bit addicted to these sticky foam strips (not to mention the bubble wrap!), so I'm trying to figure out every space, seal, nook and cranny where I can apply them in my little flat.

My paper house is now trimmed with insulation. How novel, indeed.

please don't ever make me prepare a whole turkey

I spent about half of today trying to cook a non-traditional slightly-belated Thanksgiving meal with my guy. We were just cooking for us, so we brined some chicken and made mashed potatoes with carrot and dill, carrot leek and thyme soup + baguette, Greek-style braised green beans, mulled apple cider, and an...interesting variation on creme brulee.

Everything turned out good, I guess, but I just don't think it was worth the insane amount of prep-work. I was just SO completely exhausted by the time the food was done. I can't imagine what mothers everywhere go through when they prepare a full bird and all the traditional fixings. God, I don't even like turkey. (Sorry this is kind of incoherent, but I've sunken into a carb-coma.)

Good cooking, for me, is all about the work-in/taste-out ratio. This is why I end up eating quick-and-dirty easy meals every night -- done almost as soon as you get hungry, and tastes fantastic because everything tastes fantastic while you're hungry! But, it was a lot of fun preparing food in the kitchen together, so at least there was that.

I am thankful for many things this year -- a job that pays well enough, my 楽 and fun lifestyle here, my quirky family and friends back home, my wonderful boyfriend, and so on...there are probably many things I can't think of because of the all the sugars fogging up my brain.

Anyway, I love my life! ...and I can't make sense anymore...so tired....signing off now. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

pretty much recovered

Yep, I can tell because for dinner I ate a pizza with a base of oily pesto and toppings of mozzarella, salami, asparagus, and a gooey soft-boiled egg. I would have taken a picture but after I popped the egg it was faaaar from photogenic. The restaurant named this pizza ミラネーゼ("Milanese"), and the basil pesto base was called ジェノベーゼ ("Genovese"). I imagine Genoa and Milan would be a little bewildered. (It's a crazy world I live in!)

I really miss Italian food from the states (sorry, but I've never had Italian food from Italy with which to compare). It's just that the Japanese are a bit too adventurous -- nay, downright irreverent with their interpretations of ethnic cuisine, and the ever-reliable pastas and pizzas have not escaped unscathed. Pasta types other than blase, textureless spaghetti or penne are oft overlooked. Pizza crust is often soggy and the cheese tastes processed. Pizza or pasta toppings regularly include corn, mayonnaise, squid, sea urchin...or all of the above. (yargle.)

I love pizza, though, so any time I see a restaurant with a real wood-burning oven, I have to give it a shot. At least the crust will be fool-proof, right? So far I'm 2 for 3: one really amazing pizza (the award-winning "Samurai" pizza at a place called Cheese-Cheese in Sapporo), one pretty good pizza bianco at a place near me, and then today's mediocre "Milanese."

One month till I'm home and I can gorge myself on California Pizza Kitchen! Their Pear and Gorgonzola is my ambrosia...

like the boyscout motto

...something about preparedness...whatever I forget.

My sage wisdom for you: a suck-ass blisteringly cold day can be turned into a fantastic cold-can't-touch-me day with a thermal turtleneck and thermal leggings under your usual clothes (even better if they're tucked in interlocking layers!). Only $15 from Uniqlo -- take that, nature!

The weather report has been wrong like every day this week. It's all, "hey! So, yeah, today was snowy, but tomorrow! ...yeah, tomorrow's looking fine!" and then it snows. A little bit sometimes and other times a lot (right now -- a lot). Tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny...so...snow.

Speaking of snow, I was talking to the accountant at work today, and now I think he's maybe the craziest 60-year-old ever. He came up to me like, "Boy, I really hope it keeps snowing through the weekend!" and I did sort of a "What? WHY?"

"It'll be good for the skiers and snowboarders!"

"Uh, but the slopes aren't open yet."

"Ah, well, it's mostly up north, yes. But if you take your equipment up you can go to down the slopes now."

"Hunh?"

"I think I'll be going to the local ski slopes this weekend!"

"Wait, what? How will you do it if they aren't open?"

"Oh, well, it's very expensive to use the lifts at the ski resort, so I usually don't. I just carry my skis to the top."

"WHAT?! What...how...whuh....isn't it TIRING??"

"Oh, yes, I sweat a lot, but it's good exercise. And it's almost free."

So yeah. This guy walks up mountain faces with his equipment (and he favors the deep powder faces) and then skis down them. I mean, just so we don't all feel too bad, I think he's also a marathon runner. While this is in no way possible for my lazy ass, christ...can you imagine how cheap it would be if you bypassed the lifts by walking?! Do people regularly do this? How long would it even take?

Holy Crap-ola

Here's a mind-blowing recent development in medical science: scientists seem able to create stem cells from ordinary skin cells, rather than plucking them from embryos. Can you imagine the possibilities for stem cell research, which, until now, has been crippled by ethical controversy? (Curse you, moral upbringing!)

If this works, the you're-killing-an-embryo moral opposition becomes moot. YET, somehow, I get the sense that most opponents would still be very reluctant to change their view. Even I feel like there must be some other contention point over stem cell research, and I was behind it 100% when we were murdering babies in petri dishes. Call it persistence of belief or perseverance or whatever...I know there's some cognitive term for it that I can't think of at the moment. Then again, maybe it's just the lingering need to explain away a deep-seated fear of technology, the future, and the singularity. (by the by, did you hear? Ray Kurzweil is making a movie.)

Stem Cell Breakthrough Is Like 'Turning Lead Into Gold' (Wired)

New Stem Cell Method Could Ease Ethical Concerns (NYT)

Anyway, this is one science-in-the-media story that I really hope isn't just hype!

reasons to love starbucks

...because they're too easy to hate.

1. Toasted ham and cheese sandwich
2. Creme brulee latte (I haven't actually tried this yet but I don't see how it could go wrong.)
3. Cranberry bliss bar (Brought back this year! I was addicted last year.)

These three together = my perfect winter on-the-go meal.

Test your vocab...

...and donate rice! You can feed hungry mouths while feeding your own lexicon. It is a good day for armchair activists and word nerds alike!

first snow of the year!

and the leaves still havent dropped yet! i was just reading an article on spacing.ca about why that is...

buses are being either outfitted with/stripped of chains - snow is rapidly melting. it is 7:33 and my bus now 7 min late. pretty much unheard of in Japan(...unless youre in okinawa, where they live in a whole nother state of mind).

i am overdressed in parka, mittens, scarf, and hat (thank god i didnt wear the snowboots) because it's not actually that cold. the high school girls brazenly wear their short skirts...but then again, im quite sure they dont have a choice. remnants of misogyny still.

nose is doing the leaky-faucet-thing. i have a shitty meeting today. my stomach is still unpredictable. sigh.

childhood favorites

Why are orange tabbies so damn cute?

Continuing my sick-vegetable weekend, today I managed to get a hold of Milo and Otis. This remains one of my absolute favorite cheesily-narrated animal movies from when I was a child (its only competitors being Homeward Bound and that horrible one with John Travolta and whatsherface.)

Because I can't sit through a movie anymore without pulling up IMDB or the wiki, I eventually scrolled through the IMDB to find that, tragically, many Milos and Otises were killed in the making of the film. This isn't that surprising now, as I watch Milo fall down waterfalls in a cardboard box and the both of them get attacked by a bear. But when I was a kid, I believed with my whole heart that Milo and Otis braved the dangers of the wild together, and grace and fortune smiled down upon them the entire time.

Now, watching the movie is a little sadder, but I still kind of love it. Dudley Moore's hammy "animal-ization" of all the different animal characters' voices is really brilliant. The animals are so freaking cute. It would take a staggering volume of film to cut together a film featuring so many different animals in so many environments. The classical music is choice. And even though every time any animal gets in danger, you can't help but think, well, that's where we lost Otis #17, at least it might make for a very morbid drinking game?

Watching the movie also reminds me of a book I loved as a kid. I can't remember the name, but the cover featured a green field with an orange tabby kitten in the middle. The book was about the kitten, named "Pickle," who (predictably) was always getting himself into trouble.

I really miss those days -- the days when I could easily believe in brave puppies, impish kittens, and the anthropomorphism of animals.

stiiiill sick

Okay this is actually a little more like food poisoning than I thought. While yesterday was okay and I ate fairly normally, I spent most of today suffering for it (but not so bad as the first night). Hopefully it'll run its course soon.

My stomach is so gurgly! It's weird and unnerving. Every commercial about gastro-intestinal medicine suddenly has my rapt attention.

Anyway, as an end to a highly vegetative day, I just watched The Prestige, which was fan-tastic. I mean you've got fucking BOWIE as Tesla, Michael Caine, the guy who plays Smeagol (I still can't see him as anyone but), Scar-Jo, Christian Bale, uhh the sherrif of Rottingham from Robin Hood (aka Lord Marbury from West Wing)... yes, talk about a loaded cast. And it's about ILLUSIONS!

my body is staging a mutiny

I think I had one of the worst nights of my life yesterday. I don't know what happened. It started after lunch with kind of a dull discomfort in my belly, then continued till night when I ended up in a fetal position on my bed due to sharp, twisting stomach cramps. I tried to hit the sack relatively early but was roused from my bed by the sudden desire to be completely at one with the bathroom (to put it nicely).

Anyway, it was not pretty, and I was violently sick for something like four hours before the pain abated enough to sleep. I've woken up today very, very weak, but it seems like my stomach is okay now (fingers crossed).

What the fuck? I've had food poisoning/stomach flu before, and though hellish, it was neither as severe nor painful, and the sickness usually stretched out to 3-4 days at least. I can't decide whether it's better to have one day of really violent symptoms or 3-4 days of milder ones. Anyway, I'm gonna have to be more careful about what I eat for a while. Today will be a day of laundry and slowly putting food and water back into my body.

who wants a banger in the mooouth?

Holy. Fucking. Shit. I just downloaded the Bangers & Cash EP by Spank Rock and Benny Blanco. It's amazing. Maybe not as good as Spank Rock's solo album, but it still gives me my fix.

b-o-o-t-a-y, you ain't got no alibi
you ugly, yeah yeah
bitch, fuck me

(from B-O-O-T-A-Y, clearly a classic in the making with air-raid sirens and repeatedly shouted dance mantras and everything. If you're a rabid feminist or otherwise have a stick up your ass, you may want to stay clear. It's totally not their best song, though.)

Bangers & Cash is like the dirty rap / dirty beats of Spank Rock combined with the get-down-and-shake-your-shit guilty dance music pleasure that is 2 Live Crew. Stepped up a little. "Loose" is my favorite song so far (maybe you can find it on elbo.ws).

Yeah, so, I really just wanted to use the joint effort as a segue to talk about Spank Rock. I love this man. Seriously, if you like dance music, or underground rap (of the infectiously dirty variety), and don't mind a little dabbling into electro, WHAT-EVER just get YoYoYoYoYo. So Good. Easily one of my top 3 favorite albums of 2006.

I cannot wait till I'm back in the states and I can hunt down all these people and start going to live shows again!

Vid linkage:
Spank Rock interviewed by Flavorpill (Ronnie Darko dancing = too cute)
"Loose" at some FADER release party (how awesome are his glasses)
Spank Rock performing "Bump" (great song) with Amanda Blank (she fucking rocks, I'm kind of in love with her too)

Oh, nerds

For any of you who read xkcd, one of the nerdiest webcomics out there (which I am proud to say I understand about 90% of the time), you can finally see what the creator, Randall Munroe, looks like! Couldn't you just eat him up?

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/news/2007/11/xkcd#

Although it's a webcomic with a lot of oblique references for math/science heads, it's got several strips that are pretty relatable if you're merely just neurotic.

"I think the comic that's gotten me the most feedback is actually the one about the stoplights[*]," says Randall Munroe, creator of the hugely popular comic with the unpronounceable title. "Noticing when the stoplights are in sync, or calculating the length of your strides between floor tiles -- normal people notice that kind of stuff, but a certain kind of person will do some calculations."

*I think one of the commenters is right when he suggests that maybe Munroe actually meant this comic about turn signals, not the linked stoplights one. [Aside: I think it's adorable that g-mail makes a point of using proper grammar. In linking that comic, the pop-up link creator said, " to what URL should this link go?"]


I am fully guilty of comparing the beat of my turn signal to other people's, the beat of other people's signals to my music, the beat of my music to my windshield wipers...

You guys remember that commercial where everything everyone is doing outside the car is in-step with the rhythm of the music inside the car (somehow I feel like this is a VW commercial from when the Bug was coming back)? And it's cool and kind of twilight-zone and you think "man, I love it when that happens." Well, maybe you do. At least, I get a kick out if it when it happens because it's like, amidst all this seemingly random chaos, everyone's personal rhythms are coming together for an instant. (As an English teacher abroad I can probably turn this into some kind of cross-cultural communication metaphor but fuck that shit.) Anyway, can you imagine every aspect of the world pulsing together at one consistent frequency? Actually, come to think of it, it would be very A Wrinkle in Time, wouldn't it?

kaiten umai sushikan

torch-seared 3-piece nigiri set. 575 yen. (check out the different textures!)

Edit: kaiten is sushi that goes round on a revolving belt, pretty much like luggage at the airport. If you're from the states, you're probably familiar with "sushi boat," but I was shocked to discover that no one actually sends sushi on boats floating on a moat around the chefs here. Is that just a weird western adaptation?

Anyway. The top was beni-toro (salmon), the middle was O-toro (top quality tuna), and the bottom was buri-toro (Japanese amberjack, apparently). -toro means the fatty belly cut of the fish. Top and middle were great, the buri was meh.

Brian's Brain

Virtually answering my kouyou post, this really captures the fall-winter transition. It's been a long time since I've bought a greeting card, but shoebox cards were always cute and sassy with minimal (or only appropriate) cheese. The shoebox blog is pretty much the same deal (I like it).

I have rapidly chugged a mug of coffee this morning in an effort to battle the sleepy and tired. Stomach is noooott haaapppy. :[

Sent to you by Kat via Google Reader:

Brian's Brain

via tinylittledivision by brian on 11/13/07

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dinner at Le Mac

I went into a random McDonald's today, and it kind of blew my mind. I had heard that McD's was attempting to turn its image around and possibly with Japan as a jumping-off point (can't find the articles now, dammit). Today was the first time I noticed.

It hit me as I was noshing on my crack-fries and sipping my crack-shake. I was staring across my table at a modern, burnt-sienna (Crayola, anyone?) leather chair with simple metal legs. Other, more isolated tables had molded metal arms and legs with nice off-white leather (or convincingly fake leather). Booth seats were in unobtrusive earthtones as well. The wall paint/paper featured a stylish graphic design. The corridor walls featured dark wood tones, which continued into the bathrooms to meet with frosted green glass mirrors.

I mean, all fast-food restaurants that have made it to Japan are nicer here than they are back home...but this was something else.

So, the entire time, I was thinking, where the fuck am I? What the hell? I go to McDonald's expecting either: a) red and yellow and white plastic everything, dingy floors, grudgingly-rotating chairs attached by an arm to the center of the table ... or b) purple, pink, and green everything, dingy art-deco wallpaper and too much clip art and too much vinyl.

Hehe! I was looking for the articles I was thinking of, and I stumbled across this little McRib discussion at Chowhound (hilariously fluctuates between homage/condemnation). I kind of have to try one now.

Hmm, these other articles do reference the new-image campaign.
McDonald's to revamp brand image
[Siam Future]

Under the theme "I'm Lovin' It'', the costly campaign, introduced by the parent company two weeks ago, requires financial contributions from overseas subsidiaries in 118 countries, according to the local operator, McThai Co.

McDonald's new two-year campaign intends to promote the brand as a lifestyle instead of a name associated with an occasional meal out. It will create a more contemporary image in an effort to woo back young diners.

Also,
Chains take pains to reinvent themselves in bids to match hipper decor of newer rivals
[Nation's Restaurant News] (kind of tabloid-y)

McDonald's, amid some misgivings by franchisees, now is embarking on a domestic image overhaul that's an outgrowth of a campaign begun eight years ago in France, where hundreds of branches added hardwood floors, exposed brick and such theme packages as the "Mountain" ski chalet or "Sport" model with TVs showing athletic events. Some French McDonald's also went high fashion with a revamping of the chain's logo from red and yellow to maroon and mustard.

The chain's current stateside upgrade campaign seems more forward looking and studiously contemporary, though doubters have questioned whether the exterior revamping is too radical and might squander the brand equity of some instantly recognizable architectural elements.

Well, sneaky business tactics aside, I'm all for the transformation. Bring on the "linger zones." If you're saying I can sink into a couch, plug in my laptop, hoover junk food and find a decent restroom, I'm THERE. And let's get these transformations going in rest-stop McDonald'ses too, eh? (Highway 5, anyone?)

紅葉情報 (kouyou jouhou)

It's a sweetly rhyming phrase, and it's been popping up all over television and internet news these days. It's even being thrown around offices, staffrooms, and classrooms. The buzz in noticeable. Yet, it's not some international event or major issue that's surfaced -- it's merely a seasonal addiction that comes with autumn.

Kouyou, while literally meaning "crimson leaves," is the term given nore generally to the time period when the leaves are changing colors in the fall. It's a time to say goodbye to the old season and welcome (or dread) the onset of winter. It's a time when people wax nostalgic, getting that faraway look in their eyes as they hold a mug of hot drink and sigh, "this year's kouyou is really beautiful, isn't it..."

[It also mirrors the cherry-blossom-madness that will come half a year from now, in the spring.]

Right now, people are flocking to the areas most dense with deciduous foliage. There, they can observe the striking red-orange of momiji (Japanese maple) against the pure yellow of the ichou (ginkgo), and all the shades in-between. At scenic viewpoints, they can breathe in the coming of winter and revel in nature's metaphors.

If you're curious, here are some kouyou jouhou (kouyou information) charts I found on the web today -- just a few of hundreds, probably. You can see that this is an obsession for them -- not a hobby. I would guess it's the product of a culture's singular devotion to nature (on the whole -- whale and dolphin issues aside!) and chronic dependence on weather-talk.



via Walker plus (prob for nature lovers)



via weathernews



via Yahoo! weather

I hope I get to see some pretty kouyou this weekend!

(The links will all probably be dead after December.)

ladies who brunch

I went over to my friend's apartment today and had a scrumptious brunch with some wonderful company. She -- a fabulous cook with a diverse set of skills! -- had set out a beautiful array of breakfast-y and lunch-y foods, including banana-chocolate muffins, an omelet with roasted garlic, an avocado salad, fresh fruit, fried onigiri, and more.


Her stark but very accommodating apartment arrangement almost makes me wish I didn't have a bed, kotatsu, and a sofa cramping the center of mine. Almost.

Nibbling while chit-chatting and languishing about is really the perfect way to stretch out a Sunday morning that is typically far too short Hopefully we will do this more often -- perhaps with us moochers pulling our weight in the kitchen more. :)

---

So, the other day, I was shopping at an "America-style" mall that opened up here a few months back. Fully-indoor malls are pretty rare here, as most people seem to prefer the walking arcades conveniently attached to subway or train stations. Anyway, like any American mall, this mall had it's share of garishly-decorated stores filled with only knick-knacks and questionable (tongue-in-cheek?) novelty items.

Of all the crazy "import" goods, this Conguitos (what does this mean?) candy was definitely my favorite:



(The heads bobble!)

comfort food

Bumping elbows in my tiny Japanese kitchen, G and I cooked up two of my favorite things this weekend:

- mushroom risotto
- sweet potato soup with nutmeg and maple syrup

we used maitake mushrooms and added a bunch of spinach, cut into ribbons, at the final stretch. usually I prefer pecorino but we used parm this time around. risotto is all about tender, painstakingly slow addition of stock, so it's a labor of love but So worth it. you can sub whole milk for the cream and the texture is still fantastic.

For the soup, with last time's episode fresh in mind, I let it cool before blending. this was a mistake, as the starchy, fibrous sweet potatoes become too gummy to blend easily. so, I recommend blending this one hot, in smallish batches. upping the amount of spices doesnt hurt either.

these two dishes are real champs at fighting the gloom of cold, rainy days.

Good Quotes: Amy Krouse Rosenthal

This is for those of you familiar with my compulsive need to rearrange my furniture every month; her description really hits it on the nose.

Seriously, people. It's the like the sense of rebirth you get from a dramatic new haircut, but with much less personal risk.

Sent to you by Kat via Google Reader:

Good Quotes: Amy Krouse Rosenthal

via Apartment Therapy - San Francisco by elizabethc on 11/8/07

There's the buzz you get the first few times you walk into a room after you've just rearranged some furniture. Oh, yeah, the couch is over there now, next to the plant . . . and the chairs are here. This is great! You linger in the doorway and admire it for a few moments, savoring its exciting freshness (it will be two or three days before you're accustomed to it), remembering how it used to be, and how this setup is so much better.

-Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Image: gracey via morguefile

To all Good Quotes

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mo-blog test

blah blah

G.R.E.A.M.

Alright, here it is. The first post on yet another new blog. A trial post, really. Why, you ask? Why must I keep flitting from service to service?

Well, I had a lot of issues with Livejournal. They seem incredibly slow to make progress. They seem quite satisfied with their community-based livelihood, and I understand that. But I want integration and development and most of all javascript sidebar widgets, heh! I don't really care about communities, userpics, mood, music, etc. And what the hell is the deal with people not being able to leave a name with an unregistered comment? Only anonymous / LJ user / OpenID? Ugh.

Blogger is almost too easy for the nerd in me, but all the fun customization really wins the day.

In the end, it's true. Google Rules Everything Around Me. (dolla dolla bills y'all...)

Gah. Tonight I am going to bed with a sweatshirt on over a long-sleeved shirt, with my PJ pants tucked into my socks Princess-Jasmine-style. Winter is nigh upon us, my friends...

put down the tablet; back away from the photoshop.

[I've moved over from LJ but I want to keep all my Nat'l Blog Posting Month posts together, so I'm reposting them here. Originally posted Nov. 7, 2007, at 5:59PM.]

This is possibly one of the scariest things ever:

Fug the Cover: Julia Roberts

I do like the red of the rose and the red of the font against the overall paleness. But everything else about the cover is all kinds of unsettling, and isn't it ironic that this issue features a "special report on art"?

I don't think the writer's comment quite expresses the level of "AAUGH!!" I feel when I look at it. The crazy angle of her head aside, IT LOOKS LIKE HER HEAD WAS PASTED ONTO SOMEONE ELSE'S BODY AND WILL FLOAT AWAY. It's true that this is not at all unusual in Hollywood...or Hollywood-based porn, really. Still, I'm sure she has a nice enough body that it didn't need to be faded/softened/lightened so that it'd disappear into the background.

If you can get past that bit of editing, your eyes will naturally be drawn (as in all J. Roberts photos) to her gonzo mouth. Then you'll think, okay that rose has -- for some strange reason -- been PHOTOSHOPPED BETWEEN HER TEETH.

Then you'll realize -- ohhhh. It's so they could more easily photoshop a Longfellow quote on to the stem of the rose. Uh huh, yeah. Makes sense. But you know, a flower stem is only so long, so they couldn't quite fit the whole shebang.

It's actually a sweet poem and fitting for an issue about art, so here it is in its entirety:

"Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother's face,
Her aspect and her attitude."
[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), "Keramos."]

---

Carla:
i don't want to stare at her teeth ever
she has scary teeth
it's like they are sentient
Kat:
yeah, i know
i think her real teeth are aware of this egregious photoshopping slight
and they're coming to get the editor
Carla:
the last thing s/he'll hear is "graaag chomp chomp chomp chatter chomp"

(NaBloPoMo2) 悩んでる (what to do, what to do?)

[I've moved over from LJ but I want to keep all my Nat'l Blog Posting Month posts together, so I'm reposting them here. Originally posted Nov. 6, 2007, at 11:06PM. This one's fairly ironic to read now.]

This is day two and I'm already like WHAT THE CRAP CAN I BLOG ABOUT?!

Well, blogging itself, I guess? Boring, but it's on my mind.

So, I can't decide. To switch to blogger or not to switch to blogger? What do you guys think (all five of you)?

My reasoning thus far:

1. Livejournal templates are really annoying to customize (if you don't feel like getting your hands dirty with html and CSS). At the mo, I don't think I'm enough of a serious-blogger-cum-elitist-computer-nerd to design my own layout. All I want are freely customizable sidebars that can have javascript widgets (read: I want my awesome shared Google reader feeds in your FACE).

2. Livejournal commenting is dumb. What the hell, "openID", "logged in Livejournal user", and "anonymous" only? I mean sure, people can pick anonymous and then write their name somewhere in the comment, but what a pain in the ass.

3. Indeed, Livejournal was one of the first real blogging communities -- emphasis on community. But, pre-blogger Blogspot has been around for ages, too (although a lot of the cooler templates have disappeared), and for the past FIVE YEARS the free realm of LJ has been stagnating. With mega-giant Google backing, Blogger is seeing rapid progress towards becoming more integrated with other services.

4. I'm not really into LJ communities or socializing via blog circles. I am really into the Google universe (reader, gmail, gcal, picasa...).

5. Most of my free time + blogging zeal happens at work; however, there's a nice network filter at work that blogs all the edit/post pages of LJ, Blogger, Wordpress, you name it. (but not ning.com! hmm.) I can, however, do the sneaky thing and blog via e-mail. The thing is, blogging via gmail to LJ formats all wonky, while emailing to Blogger is totally fine.

Yada yada. So what's stopping me? Having to start fresh, having to notify everyone, wondering if people will still read my blog if they can't access it from their LJ friends page, uh...er...

Okay, one side of this argument seems much more substantial.

This is what's good about getting things down in writing. It makes your laziness and love of procrastination starkly clear. Looks like I'll move to Blogger once I get it all tested and whatnot.

---

In other news! Tonight I had dinner at an adorable cafe in the back of a lingerie store that is also a bakery. Their menu is based on soup/salad/sammich sets with an attached パン食べ放題 (all-you-can-eat bread). The best part is that every time I go there with my boy, he is quite conspicuously the only male patron (and glaringly foreign, at that) breezing through the racks of lace-y, padded bras to hit the bread buffet. Hee hee.

(NaBloPoMo1) caramelized leek soup explosion

[I've moved over from LJ but I want to keep all my Nat'l Blog Posting Month posts together, so I'm reposting them here. Originally posted Nov. 5, 2007, at 11:15PM.]

This recipe asks for like five ingredients and cooks them in hardly as many steps, so that makes it a winner in my book.

Just so you know: I used mirin (Japanese sweetened cooking sake) instead of vermouth and salted instead of unsalted butter, and added some pecorino for happiness, so I didn't salt it in the end and I omitted the sugar.

Thus, I spent the past hour pointedly neglecting a pot full of sliced leeks -- stoically resisting the itch to stir, letting the little crescents BURN yes BURN I mean gently sear to a beautiful golden hue coating the bottom of my giant pot. After a couple pounds of leeks had reduced to a clump of dark golden nothing, I added the final quantity of stock and brought it to a boil. Then I had a little think.

Most of the reviewers recommend blending/pureeing at least part (if not all) of the soup to give it more body, unless you want a rustic french-onion-type soup. I've been digging creamy-without-cream soups lately, but I don't have an immersion blender. In the past, I've given small quantities a spin in my normal blender while leaving a tiny vent open in the lid...with no complications. I was impatient to eat, so I went for it with about 2 cups of soup in the blender.

FOOM! Gooey leeky-ness all over my just-cleaned kitchen wall and dripping down and behind my little stove. I lost probably a good eighth of the soup to the explosion. I was pissed. Like, punching the walls and stomping around and throwing stuff pissed. But it's kind of hard to be pissed about something making a mess and then making a mess, you know? So I mostly just swore a lot in English and cleaned up with unnecessary and misdirected force. (GRAH!! *hurls paper towel in trash*)

At least the soup came out tasty in the end. Yum. Semi-blended.

Speaking of explosions:



I'm doing this! National Blog Posting Month! It means posting in your blog daily for the month of November (I started a bit late, so I guess a bit into December too?) -- with no weekend vacations! Yay! Day one! Huzzah. Okay so really, I was enticed because "NaBloPoMo" is such an awesome portmanteau, and portmanteaus are life in Japan. We'll see how long I can really stick with it. It looks like they have some pretty involved communities/social-networking set up there but...I can't be arsed.

Okay, moving on. So you know how I posted a few entries back with Gmail gripes? Well, according to Lifehacker, it looks like they've revamped their contacts manager! Among other things! Yay for progress. Hopefully this means more intuitive filter setup. Now the question is when do I get to play with the new features?

Until then, I am appeasing myself with some double-chocolate-and-cranberry oatmeal cookies (based on this recipe), dipped in a little applesauce. Two things that consistently turn out delicious. No 'splosions.