Fun Tourist Attraction?

Hmm... Define "fun" please...

Kooks, Tin Foil Hats...

This looks promising:

tinWiki is the first online encyclopedia dedicated exclusively to all the topics that inspire the authors to consider tin foil hats. Topics such as conspiracy theories, UFO cover ups, extraterrestrial programs, New World Order, Illuminati, secret government programs, top secret bases, and nearly any other "alternative topic" are the focus of this collaborative wiki.

It'll be pretty hard to top my all-time favorite, The Kooks Museum, though...

In-N-Out

You know you're in California when...


... you have lunch at an In-N-Out.

A strange thing happened just after taking this shot. I had no sooner snapped it when some sort of security person scooted up to me in a golf-cart-type vehicle and told me that it was forbidden to take pictures. Having no desire to be deported back to Canada via Guantanamo, I meekly turned off my camera and put it back into its case. I suppose the "no pictures" rule may have had something to do with the fact that I was technically on a university campus (UC Irvine). Nevertheless, North America seems weirder to me every time I come back...

The Trumpet

A little ditty from the archives for my American friends currently fighting the forces of darkness and stupidity. Enjoy and be inspired!

Sing Along with JFK-The Trumpetalt. link

The Apocalypse Is upon Us

Read the awful, shocking, horriific, you'd-never-imagine-it-in-a-million-years truth here.

Fun Facts: Canadian Oil

Being something of a geezer, I can remember a time when you could watch the news or look at the front page of a newspaper and there would be no mention of oil. Not a single utterance of the word, unless you were at the gas station having your oil checked while filling up your car. Come to think of it, it wasn't that long ago when I could watch TV without being bombarded with ads for banks, investment services, retirement funds, and the like. (I recall when these first started showing up thinking to myself, "what the fuck are they selling, and to whom?" What did I know, eh?). But I digress!

I was thinking about oil this evening and found myself at the CIA's World Factbook site (an excellent resource site, in case you're not familiar with it). I was curious about world rankings for oil production, reserves, imports/exports, etc., and was mildly surprised about some of the numbers for Canada.

With over 178 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, Canada is second in the world only to Saudi Arabia (264 billion). Canada is seventh in the world when it comes to oil production (over 3 million barrels a day). Canada is also seventh in oil exports (over 2 million barrels a day). (The lower rankings in production and exports are, I believe, largely explained by this.)

Now things get a little weird (well, it seems weird to me). Canada also imports over a million barrels of oil each day. Now I suppose that someone a bit more up on their economics and what not could offer up a number of reasons for this (transportation costs, effects of a global economy, the Tooth Fairy, whatever). Personally, I don't care what the reasons are. This is plain stupid.

Speaking of stupid, wouldn't it make more sense for the American government to be kissing some good old English-speaking Canadian ass in return for oil? We're a humble folk. A little peck would do, and we'd probably give them a fair price. Of course the Americans are a proud people and they might feel a sense of shame at kissing ass so close to home. If that's the case, though, one wonders why Bush and company didn't just invade Canada. It's a lot closer, it would have been a lot cheaper, and certainly it wouldn't have been nearly so messy. Hell, Canadians like Americans, and we're always only too happy to humor our friends (and share a joke with them...). Me casa su casa, eh?

That's Odd...

Did something happen while I was out...?

Poor Dictionary Decisions

Probably the only thing worse than choosing the wrong meaning of a word from the dictionary is deciding not to use the dictionary at all. Sometimes students (or this restaurant in China) are tempted to take the easy route by using translation software. Beware!

In the war against The Zombie Menace...

... the sharks are our friends. Absolute must-see viewing!



[H/T: Lawyers, Gun$ and Money. Go ahead and click through--you won't be disappointed!]

A Picture Is Worth A Million Words...

You've gotta see this one (SFW).

Poor Dictionary Decisions

This time from an Ob/Gyn department. (Sorry, you'll have to click the link. I wouldn't post such filthy language on this blog! Heh...)

Awful Album Covers

[Numbed by overwork to a state resembling brain death, I plunder the work of others in search of ideas. Thanks Eli.]

Any site that claims to have the 50 Worst Album Covers, had better back it up with some real "winners" (and they do!). Some personal favorites:

Chicken Coupe de Ville
There's so much visual information on this cover that a good CSI team could re-construct this guy's entire life in a couple of days (never mind simply figuring out what kind of music is inside). The pickup, the mullet, the song titles, where to begin...

The Handless Organist-Truly a Miracle of God
Good fucking grief. I'm sure The Handless Organist can play up a storm, and I wish her well (honestly). I gotta wonder, though, about the kind of thinking that would allow someone to see a person with no hands and call it a "miracle."

John Bult-Julie's Sixteenth Birthday
Nobody would blame you, gentle reader, if you thought your eyes were deceiving you, but what you see is what it is...

Jimmy Jenson-Understand You're Swede
Hey, Jimmy, where you goin' with that axe in your hand?

Slim Goodbody-The Inside Story
What the fuck!?

Johnny Janot-Expose Yourself to Cajun Music
For Glenn and Dave. Heh, just kidding around, guys!

Stairway-to-Heaven-O-Rama

The other day I found myself (quite unintentionally, I assure you) listening to "Stairway to Heaven," rock's greatest, most-played, most beloved, most requested, blah blah blah, etc. song of all-time. Like most people (I assume), there were a few years in my life (over the hills and far away) when the opening strains of this song would send chills of pleasure coursing through my very being, followed shortly thereafter by an almost Pavlovian impulse to strike up my Bic lighter and hold it high above my head as I sang along with the tune.

These days I usually just change the station because, really, I don't need to "listen" to "Stairway to Heaven." I could easily call it up from the memory banks if I had to-- every note, every word, complete. Needless to say, I don't often feel the urge. I guess habituation, de-sensitization, etc. are a kind of curse, because the song hasn't changed at all since the first time I heard it. No, the only thing that's changed is me.

Anyway, enough of this philosophical cud-chewing!

There's a website that has 101 different versions of "Stairway to Heaven."

There's the "backwards" version, complete with lyrics:



There's the "Beatles" version:



There are versions done in the style of famous composers. Here's Glenn Miller's "version":

"Miller" Stairway

What if it had been performed by The Doors?

"Doors" Stairway

Here's a version performed by Frank Zappa:

Frank Zappa-Stairway to Heaven

"Stairway to Heaven" is the biggest selling sheet music in the history of rock, is still played thousands of times every year on FM stations all over the world, and is consistently voted the "greatest song of all-time."

How long can this go on? Maybe we should ask this kid...

Drivers Take Note

This just in: later this month police officers all over Iraq will begin strictly enforcing the country's seat belt laws...

Smoke on the Water

This must be seen and heard to be believed! Rock on, dudes!



[H/T: Japan Probe]

Pop Quiz

What do baseball players and rappers have in common?

Dostoyevsky Comics

Batman as "Raskol", a tormented, poverty-stricken student with a dangerous new "philosophy"; The Joker as the mean-spirited pawnbroker; Commissioner Gordon as "Porfiry"; Robin as "Sonny", a cross-dressing Christian...

Yes, they're all here, in Batman by Dostoyevsky.

[h/t: God of the Machine]

Have You Ever Been to Sea, Billy?**

Adventure and Romance on the High Seas

Being the jaded type of guy that I am, it's not often that I'm startled out of my boredom by something that I've happened to have read. This caught my attention, though:

Almost everybody in the fishing business has had sex with a manta at some point...

--Comedian and ex-fisherman Taro Makeburu

Something to think about next time you're watching National Geographic or old Jacques Cousteau programs...

[** No Sir, but I've been blown ashore many times!]

The legendary Captain Highliner

Tantalizing...

Tantalus' punishment [...] was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any.

As you can clearly see in the picture on the left, the "mystery money" I told you about last Friday is still there, unclaimed, in the toilet. Not only that, but some Samaritan has taped it to the wall of the stall, probably in the hope that the "owner" will see it and, in a rapturous fit of recognition, know it as his own long lost cash, and that will be the end of it. Really, though, I think the time for such an outcome has come and gone (just like the original possessor of the money).

You may call me a cynic, friends, but I believe this latest development is but the opening gambit in what might prove to be a long, tense battle of nerves. Only one thing is certain--somebody is going to get that fucking money. But who? I suppose only time will tell, but...

Students are off on their summer holidays, as are most teachers. The corridors are empty, the toilets unused. It's hot. I'm thirsty. Nobody would know (would they?). I grow weary...

Toilet Paper Money

A few days ago, while in the toilet down the hall from my office, I noticed something a bit odd. Sitting there on top of some spare rolls of toilet paper was a one thousand yen note (worth about ten dollars). It had every appearance of having been placed there intentionally (to what end I can only speculate). As if that weren't odd enough, when I went to the same toilet today, the money was still there. As I sat there I pondered the strangeness of this...

How did the money arrive there on top of the toilet paper? Several scenarios occurred to me:
1) It fell out of someone's pocket, perhaps as he was standing up/pulling up his pants. The next person in the toilet found it and set it in a "safe place" with the expectation that the owner of the money would return to look for it.
2) Someone (for some reason) was sitting on the toilet with the money in his hand. At the point when he had to access the toilet paper (surely a "two hand" task for most of us) he set the money down in a clearly visible place, expecting to pick it up again when he was finished his "business." He must have forgotten about it.
3) The money was placed there as a temptation to the greedy and dishonest. Leaving the stall with the note would result in the sudden appearance of a television crew and the extreme humiliation of the one who so foolishly fell into their trap for a lousy ten bucks.
4) The money was strategically placed on the rolls of toilet paper as a political statement decrying the evils of capitalism and showing us that, really, it's all just "ass-wipe."
5) The money appeared there by means of a magic spell or through time travel or it came from another dimension. Perhaps a little bird flew in the open window and left it there.

Such were my musings as I sat there. But then some deeper, more troubling implications began to dawn on me. How could ten bucks sit there, so vulnerable, and for so long, without somebody just picking it up and walking away. This is, after all, a university. There's enough there for two beers at a bar, six beers at a supermarket; enough for three packs of smokes. Ten bucks is ten bucks, after all. I wondered if this were an indication of some deep-seated stupidity among students at Japanese universities. Or, perhaps, this was a sure sign of the stereotypical Japanese "honesty" that I so frequently hear about.

Anyway, it was at this point in my speculations that I detected someone else entering the restroom, so I decided that it was time to wrap things up and get out of there and back to work. It so happened that I had my cell phone in my shirt pocket, so I decided to take the picture you see accompanying this post as "evidence."

Actually, taking this picture proved to be something of a minor embarrassment for me. It was not until the very moment when my thumb was applying pressure to the "snap" button that I remembered: my phone always makes a very audible "camera shutter" sound when I take pictures. It did so this time. Immediately I heard a gasping-type sound from the other side of the cubicle. "Fucking shit", I thought to myself. Whoever that is on the other side knows there's someone in the toilet taking pictures! He's probably wondering what exactly I'm taking pictures of and what kind of fucking retarded pervert I am.

About 20 minutes later I felt that enough time had passed for me to safely leave the toilet. I don't think anybody saw me slinking back to my office...