Monday, December 29, 2008

Help with Curry


Hey! Anyone free on Tuesday to hang out? Helpwillcome and I were thinking of getting together for lunch or dinner before he heads back to L.A. (claw) on Wed..

Monday, December 22, 2008

Merry Bat-Christmas, Everyone!


Now that Mr. Pony's got me thinking about Batman, here's a bit of special christmas glee from the least grim period of the dark knight's history.

If you can't trust Santa, who can you trust?

Rainbows, Warriors, and Rainbow Warriors



Following up on our dim sum conversation, here's a story from July 27, 2000 explaining how Hawaii football dumped the Rainbow mascot for Warriors.

"Being called the Rainbows, especially for men's teams, left them open to ridicule," Mosley said. "Warriors has a much stronger connotation."

And this from the next day:

But after receiving praise for highlighting native culture in the new design, the university is being criticized by gay rights advocates. That's after athletic director Hugh Yoshida acknowledged the decision to change the logo stemmed, in part, from concerns about how the rainbow has become a symbol of gay pride and acceptance.

"That logo really put a stigma on our program at times in regards to it's part of the gay community, their flags and so forth," Yoshida told KGMB-TV in remarks aired yesterday. "Some of the student athletes had some feelings in regards to that."


If the football team showed some serious interest in studying Hawaiian warrior traditions, I might be more sympathetic. But they have adopted the Warrior mascot merely to be macho in a 21st century American football grunt-shove-growl-and-smile-for-television kind of way. Somehow I don't think King Kamehameha's warriors would have been very scared of these guys.

Stories about Spam fill a slow news day



Barack Obama Snacks on Hawaiian Spam Sushi

President-elect Barack Obama is spending the Christmas holiday Hawaii – relaxing in the sun, playing golf and eating Spam.

On Sunday afternoon, while playing golf with friends at Oahu's Olomana Golf Links, Obama, 47, who grew up on the island, stopped at a snack bar and bought two hot dogs, soft drinks and two orders of a local luncheon specialty called spam musubi – Spam
and a fried egg on a bed of rice, held together with a strip of dried seaweed, according to reporters covering his trip.


The snack bar clerk later told the
New York Times' Jeff Zeleny the president-elect's tab came to $17.75. Asked how his game was going, Obama answered with a smile, "I'm not that good." He also invited reporters to order a beer and put it on his tab, but none took him up on the offer.

--------------------------------------------


Barack Obama Snacks on Hawaiian Spam Sushi| Barack Obama
I agree that the sad state of journalism reflected by this article is an issue of concern, especially since it appears even the New York Times is interviewing the snack bar clerk. But even more importantly... can anyone here confirm that the Olomana Golf Course snack bar actually incorporates a fried egg into their spam musubi? Cuz that sounds ridiculous-- or maybe ridiculously good.

Giant Monster in My House

I was on the phone with Galspanic when I saw this giant mosquito (?) flying around my living room. It doesn't look like much now that I've murdered it, but when its wings were flapping, its legs and feeding tube flailing wildly, and with the blood-curdling scream it was emitting (the screaming part is a lie), it was pretty impressive.

Incidentally, does anyone know where I can buy either a very tiny or very giant penny? I think I could take some pretty cool photos if I had something like that.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Hawaii has rednecks!

This story made my day.

HILO, Hawaii (AP) — A Hilo Chevrolet dealer who tried to crush his Asian auto competition found the stunt a little harder to pull off than expected.

Island Chevrolet general sales manager James Severtson arranged for a Chevrolet Suburban SUV outfitted with massive tires costing $5,000 apiece to drive over a Honda Accord.

On the first attempt Friday, the monster truck blew a hydraulic hose and leaked vital fluid while the Honda remained intact and ready for more.

After several hours, the truck was repaired and driver Ryan Kepiki tried again, this time with a Hyundai Excel sedan parked next to the Honda.

Kepiki drove over the cars' hoods, destroying the windshields to the seeming delight of the rush-hour crowd.

Severtson said the dealership had been planning the crush-fest for a while. But he said it was a happy coincidence President Bush approved a bailout for U.S. automakers as the weekend arrived.

"We'd like to send the message that the best way to support your country is to buy an American vehicle today," Severtson said.

Go to the local paper Web site for more detail and PHOTOS.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Dim Sum


Demon is in town. Anyone up for Dim Sum this weekend?

Monday, December 15, 2008

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Friday, December 12, 2008

Me Myself and Lego


Forgive me for not knowing about the myriad of Flickr sites dedicated to recreating iconographic images from pop culture. . . in Lego. I thought you guys were kinda weird for being all into Lego, but you're clearly not as obsessed as some people out there.

Anyway, as a fan of 90's hip-hop, here is my first Leg0-related contribution to the blog.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Steven Chu to be energy secretary. Just kidding: Bush to be president for 4 more years!

It's completely unreal. We're witnessing changes so monumentally different than the status quo and so exponentially closer to the direction we should be going that it's like we're living in some kind of Aaron Sorkin film. Either that, or it's all fake...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.

The Nobel Laureate is Steven Chu, who received the Nobel Prize in 1997 for atomic physics, is the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (which, under Chu, has been working to develop alternative energy sources), and is a professor of Physics and Molecular and Cellular Biology. This feels unprecedented. We're going to have people up there who like science

Wow. I mean...wow.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE4B41WG20081205

I dont really want to spoil it. Just look.

A Question from Great Britain

Captain BritainFor various reasons (which I cannot divulge) I'm thinking of getting the Grant Morrison run of the X-Fellers. Does anyone have an opinion on its relative worth or disworth?

Monday, December 8, 2008

No wonder we're screwed


SUVs at altar, Detroit church prays for a bailout
Sun Dec 7, 2008 7:00pm By Kevin Krolicki and Soyoung Kim
DETROIT (Reuters) - With sport-utility vehicles at the altar and auto workers in the pews, one of Detroit's largest churches on Sunday offered up prayers for Congress to bail out the struggling auto industry....

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Doctors who terrorize

Fugu has witnessed these horror shows firsthand. To be fair, I have met very nice surgeons. But others are from hell.

Every nurse has a story about obnoxious doctors. A few say they have ducked scalpels thrown across the operating room by angry surgeons. More frequently, though, they are belittled, insulted or yelled at — often in front of patients and other staff members — and made to feel like the bottom of the food chain. A third of the nurses in Dr. Rosenstein’s study were aware of a nurse who had left a hospital because of a disruptive physician....

A survey of health care workers at 102 nonprofit hospitals from 2004 to2007 blames "badly behaved doctors for low morale, stress and high
turnover. ... Recent studies suggest that such behavior contributes to medical mistakes, preventable complications and even death."

Lego Eddie Izzard Death Star Canteen


I hadn't seen this, have you all?

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

When superheroes are not enough...



A style that's become hot enough to be kickin' in Glastonbury now for a few years, and I didn't know about it, even with my love for superheroes and all things costume!
My accupuncturist tipped me off on this, and I'm ashamed that it wasn't scooped by our own Nihongo beat reporter Odori. What's up slacker? there's this new rage going off and you're not on top of things? For shame Odori! What are you doing? Covering "real life news"?