Friday, June 29, 2007

Aloha: It means "Hello," "Goodbye," and "Look, it's raining again"

Hawaii is wet. Very wet. As I sit in the DeRego house, legs folded indian-style, water plummets from the sky. Engorged drops race down, accelerating inverse to the square of the remaining distance from the ground, which, saturated, soaks up each bullet of aqua. O rain gods! O tropical paradise! O two-weeks vacation!

I arrived in Hilo on Wednesday night, sans luggage--Joe, we shouldn't have stopped for Subway, the check-in line for baggage was long--and greeted by humidity that does funny things to women's hair. Rain pours down on the isles of Hawaii continually, moving, constantly shifting its target. I am reminded of Seattle, and the comparison is apt, aside from the tropical forests all around me. I truly feel as if I am in a foreign land.

And I am. This is one of the 50 states in the union. Each state a sovereign entity, each a government, a being of its own, within the larger federal union. Since arriving here I have been struck by this fact: we live in a union of states, each of which could be a separate nation, with its own legislative, executive, judicial branches. Yet, in order to form a more perfect union, these 50 states are joined into one nation, the greatest nation on earth at this moment. This train of thought has probably been brought on by Tom Wolfe's wonderful book Hooking Up, which I finished on my flight over. Here's a bit of his terrific prose, on the place of the US in 2000:
Indirectly, subconsciously, [the average electrician, air-conditioning mechanic, or burglar-alarm repairman's view of the world] had to do with the fact that his own country, the United States, was now the mightiest power on earth, as omnipotent ass Macedon under Alexander the Great, Rome under Julius Caesar, Mongolia under Genghis Khan, Turkey under Mohammed II, or Britain under Queen Victoria. His country was so powerful, it had begun to invade or rain missiles upon small nations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean for no other reason than that their leaders were lording it over their subjects at home.
Wonderful stuff. Pictures to come.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Monday, June 18, 2007

Islam irony: "We are not extremists or terrorists. It's ok to explode a bomb on your body"

Muslims, especially in Pakistan, are fuming and inflamed over England's latest knight, Sir Salman Rushdie. England is accusing them of being extremists and terrorists, Muslim claimed as they lit British flags afire and burned effigies of Rushdie and the Queen. England is shocked. Some citizens may have responded to news of the uproar with comments such as "as long as it isn't Beckham" while others, most likely in London's immigrant neighborhoods, gathered in large groups while yelling "more lighter fluid" and "I love these burnings!"

Look at the guy on the left. He's cracking a huge smile.

Actually, the real tidbit is this passage from the Daily Mail story.

"This is an occasion for the world's 1.5billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," said Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan's religious affairs minister.

"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism," he told his country's parliament.

"If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so, unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title."

The parliament in Islamabad - supposedly a key ally in the war on terror - then backed a government-sponsored motion demanding an apology and the withdrawal of the honour from the The Satanic Verses author.

So, according to the ul-Haq, the west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism--which he wants us to know is incorrect and insulting--therefore "if someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so." One assumes this person exploding "a bomb on his body" isn't doing this at home when no one else is around but rather would be in a public area so many people could witness this act of protest. Isn't suicide bombing synonymous with extremism and terrorism? Maybe ul-Haq didn't think about what he was saying....

Saturday, June 16, 2007

General Interest Update

As the three people who occasionally look at this blog may have noticed, I have not been posting very many pictures on this blog lately. There are two reasons: First, my laptop's power adapter is broken. Second, it takes too much time and effort to get the laptop up to the library and then post the things after watermarking them, before which I need to select which ones I'm going to post. So until the laptop is powered up again, I'm going to be making a stab at actually blogging. I have no idea if this is going to work, but look for more text posts, videos, links to funny web comics (I've recently discovered Megatokyo. 5\/\/337!). I also will try to put up some news analysis--which will probably be light, insightful, ground-breakingly uninspired--and maybe, just maybe, some humor.

Hope it works out well. Now for something completely different: a page from Superbad.com.

????

I don't know the context.

"Go for the beer, Boo! Go for the beer!"

Toddler's First Drink

According to a story on Drudge, a toddler was accidentally served a margarita in a sippy cup. The article states that

"The boy's mother...opened the lid and was hit by the smell of tequila and Triple Sec. The toddler grew drowsy and started vomiting a few hours later and was rushed to the hospital."

"Applebee's Vice President Randy Tei said the restaurant keeps apple juice and the premixed margarita concoction in identical-looking plastic bottles on ice behind the bar. A manager on duty mistakenly grabbed the margarita bottle instead of the apple juice jug, Tei said."

"It will no longer keep the juice and margarita mix in similar-looking containers, Tei said."

Now this is all fine and good, (unless you're the puking baby), but what I'm wondering is why didn't the manager smell the tequilla and triple sec? And does Applebee's premix its margaritas? The only way the manager could have made this mistake would be if the margarita was premixed in the bottle. But Applebee's have full bars in their restaurants. I'm not suggesting that the manager intentionally mixed a margarita for the kid, but one could imagine this manager looking around for some apple juice, not finding any--is apple juice even on the Applebee's menu?--and just grabbing the margarita mix. Wait, if according to Applebee's, "It will no longer keep the juice and margarita mix in similar-looking containers, Tei said," then how the hell did the alcohol got in the drink? Why didn't the manager merely pour a virgin margarita? (The mother said she smelled the alcohol).

That's it! The manager must have mixed in the alcohol, or the AP reporter was lazy and misquoted.....

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Ron Paul on Colbert



Notice how the audience only cheers the anti-Bush positions. Ron Paul says he wants to do away with the UN and not one peep.

"If you saw the Pope in jeans, you'd be like Catholics are idiots."

My Generation, sung by The Zimmers, a bunch of old people



Final shot may catch you off guard. The 90-year-old lead guitarist is really something else.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Dance for your diplomat! Dance! Now, Riverdance!

Wang

According to the AFP, (via Drudge), China is running out of surnames. For example,

"Current Chinese law states that children are only allowed take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang."

This of course leads to problems...

"Guan Xihua, a household registration officer with the Beijing public security bureau, said the lack of variety caused trouble in daily life and the new regulation would slash repetition."

Now the Chinese are attempting to solve the problem by combining the surnames of the parents (the husband's and the wife's maiden name). Now we can have the Wangwangs.

(The content of this post has been modified).

Travolta is a vampire!

Apparently he only goes out at night in order to avoid the paparazzi--and by "avoid the paparazzi" he means to suck the blood of the innocent in order to prolong his undead existence.

Notice the similarities??

Whoa!

If you ever wanted to watch a tv show or anime or movie or music video online but don't want to search, this is your site: TV Links.
(photo from: http://static.flickr.com/44/151086288_c10778a64a.jpg

Monday, June 11, 2007

For Mok-san...

Trinity Blood (1-24, I think there are 2 not included here).

For Paul up north...

Here are my favorite video sites:

Veoh
YouTube
Daily Motion
Throw Away Your TV
MyRawr (Full Movies)

And some anime links...
Samurai Champloo
Witch Hunter Robin

Witch huntin'

Text post here...

Been watching an-I-me! Witch Hunter Robin -- sweet. Noir -- looks good after one episode.

Domo, Six-san.

Also watched all of the Blame! anime on YouTube. For the most part, waste...of...time. Although it does provide good fodder for AMV's. A bit too abstract to be great, although it does have its moments. Also, almost done with Samurai Champloo. Check these out if you got the time, especially Mok-san.

Tusky

Here are some pictures (taken by moi) of items from the library's ivory collection.