mf.rox

It’s down at the end of the article, which is primarily about New Orleans and Lafcadio Hearne.

Big Easy blues 

In other news, I’ve been really sick, and I’ve been blaming it on the fish and chips I had at the British Bulldog pub the other night.  They won’t have the quiz there anymore, which is the only reason I go there, so good riddance to them.

Happily, Maomao’s heat only lasted for like two days and didn’t involve yowling.  I’ll go to the vet today (for real), to ask about gettin her fixed.

I’ve been pretty lazy in taking care of Kitty Mao Mao.  I should have gotten some sort of cat care book because I’d never had a female cat before, and it would be good if I had some way to  make sense of the strange utterances she makes (she chirps and other stuff I’ve never heard from a cat before).  I didn’t have a cat carrier for a while so I was afraid to take her to the vet, fearing an escape like the one Numa had made from a crappy cat-carrier a long time ago.  I finally got one, and I’ve taken her to get her two Tricat shots.

Well, yesterday, she started rolling around the floor and meowing.  I noticed that when I petted her, she sort of “assumed a position,” and made these weird cooing and percolating noises.  She’s in heat!  I’d known it could happen as early as four months, and often around six months, so I should have taken care of it before now.  I’m going to go out to talk to the vet tonight to see if I can do anything about it now, or if I’ll have to wait until this finishes.

but I do.

The Backlash Against Tithing, from The Wall Street Journal Online.

Overheard at a Thanksgiving party last night.

Drunk girl to guy: “Oh, you have a brother?  Is he Jewish too?”

Satire that originally appeared on Mop, with the story/comments translated into English by Joel Martinson of Danwei.  It’s very funny!  Check it out!

Wild Ultraman roaming the woods 

(To contextualize, this is based on the (probably) fake South China Tiger photos that appeared in a major newspaper recently.)

You can try it here:

Resolutely create your own socialist banner 

Thanks to Teya for the notification!

was surprisingly doable!

I generally feel competitive eating is gross and kind of scary (because I’m always afraid of choking), but somehow I’ve developed a soft spot for Kobayashi, the hotdog king. I think it goes back to Rachel being interested in him, and then I thought it was kind of cool that despite being so skinny and little he could beat all these big, fat Caucasians at eating contests. I also have an unhealthy interest in vomiting, and unfortunately Kobayashi, well, lost all the hot dogs he ate in his last Nathan’s competition. He’s been having some trouble with his jaw and had been really uncomfortable beforehand.

Somehow I found a link to his blog, put through Google translator. Translation engines make everything sound different — funnier, more poetic, or in this case, more hangdog. Up above the original translation I found someone’s corrected it to make the English better, but I like the first one I read more:

Jaw feel sick, the body-building also does not now, a meal is troublesome, and feel the day is a lot.

“The day is a lot.” I know what he means. I’ve felt like that sometimes.

In response, his fans write back things like:

Good luck to you please (▽ ^ * ^ *)

and

尊KUN KONBANWA ★ really so thin it. 最近寒くなってきましたし、体調を崩してしまわないかなんだか心配です。 Recent colder and colder, poor health because of a hunch or SHIMAWANAI worried. 一日でも早く顎の調子が良くなるようお祈り＆応援しています。 One day earlier jaw improving as prayer and cheering

加油, Kobayashi! Buck up, bison! Never say die! as Shonen Knife used to sing.

Translation of Kobayashi’s website.

I was doing copies near my house today and found this close exercise that someone had been Xeroxing. I swear to you, it’s real. I had the shop owner make a copy for me just so I could take it home. Here it is:

President George W. Bush is visiting an elementary school today and he a______ a discussion related to words and their meanings.

The president asks the class for an e______ of a “tragedy.”

One little boy stands up and offers, “If my best friend, who lives next door, is playing in the street and a car comes along and runs him o____, that would be a tragedy.”

“No,” says Bush, “that would be an accident.”

A little girl raises her hand: “If a school bus c_____ 50 children drove off a cliff, killing everyone involved, that would be a tragedy.”

“I’m afraid not,” explains the President, “That’s what we would c____ a Great Loss.”

The room goes silent. No other children are heard next. President Bush s_____ the room. “Isn’t there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?”

Finally a boy named Johnny h_____ up his hand. In a quiet voice he says, “If Air Force One, carrying you and Mrs. bysh, was struck by a missle, that would be a tragedy.”

“Correct,” e______ Bush, “that’s right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?”

“Well,” little Johnny says, “because, as you just told us, it wouldn’t be an accident, and it wouldn’t be a great loss, either.”

If you look up the phrase blue mutants on Google, my blog will come up at number three! Yay!

I’ve been trying to make definite decisions about what grad schools to apply to, and sure enough, my dad had to say something that would freak me out and throw a spanner in the works. He suggested I look at programs in Canada and Australia too.

I don’t think I’m going to do that, though. Acutally, I’ve already looked at some programs, but I don’t think I’ll apply. One of the reasons I was thinking of going to grad school was so that I could get out of China for a while, but the thought of going from one foreign country to another isn’t so enticing. I’ve spent a good amount of time in Canada and like it, but still, living there would be something really new to get used to. I don’t know if I want that right now. Maybe I need a rest from living abroad. I’m also not totally familiar with the Canadian education system, which I imagine is strongly influenced by the British one.

Another reason I wanted to go back has to do with Social Security. It would be nice to work for long enough in the US to get money from Soc. Sec. when I retire, even if it is a negligible amount. I’ve been thinking if I study for two years in the US, and during that time earn money, whether from an assistantship or a part-time job, that’ll put me closer to getting some sort of Soc. Sec. benefit in the future. I know I have over half of the credits needed to get something (although I wish I could get the exact number). I’d like to slowly get closer to the number I need, and this is a good way to do it without necessarily moving back to the US forever. I mean, maybe after grad school I’ll stay in the US, or maybe I’ll just come back for the summer for time to time, but after two years I’ll be closer to getting SOMETHING, right?

Upon reading a post about the fabled graffiti writer King of Kowloon, I sent this inquiry to the blog Learning Cantonese:

Once in a while in HK I used to see lampposts encircled with English graffiti. It was written really small, in black, and used the phrase “cats and kittens” a lot. Someone told me this was done by the King of Kowloon too, but your article and the ones it links to makes it sound like the stuff I was reading was really different than whatthe KoK was doing. Is anyone familiar with the graffiti I’m talking about? If so, who wrote it? It was in Kowloon, with a lot in the HK Science Museum area.

(Note: King of Kowloon never wrote in English, it seems, and most of his graffiti was about how he had the right to rule the area while government officials were usurpers.)

I got a reply:

Inspector Ma Lau Jai wrote:
MF - indeed I do remember the cats & kittens stuff. I used to patrol that area and see it a lot but it must have been removed as I’d completely forgotten about it and haven’t seen it for years.

The ‘culprit’ was believed to be a wierd Chinese spinster in her 50s-60s who lived in the vicinity and wandered around muttering to herself & feeding stray cats. She was always quite well dressed and stories abounded regarding what had triggered her looniness off (usually centred on a British soldier/sailor/cop who’d loved & left her). Again I’ve not seen her for years so perhaps she, sadly, has passed away.

On the subject of eccentrics, there used to be a pair of blond English twins in their 40s-50s who would prowl around Mid Levels & Lan Kwai Fong cackling to each other and also feeding stray cats. They would literally hiss at anyone who gave them more than a passing glance. Haven’t seen them for at least 7-8 years. Any ideas where they’ve gone?

Mystery solved!  Thanks, Inspector!

Right now China Radio International is playing “The KKK Took My Baby Away.”

At first I thought this story was a hoax, and then I saw some pictures of the poor guy.  He lives in Indonesia, and a construction site injury + human papilloma virus + a poor immune system resulted in parts of his body being taken over by weird, root-like growths.  Up until now, he’s received poor medical care, being in an isolated area, but now that his condition has received some publicity, a doctor at University of Maryland has gotten interested in his case, and who knows? he may be cured.  Apparently there will be a documentary on him on the Discovery Channel in about a week.

I originally found this article on www.asianpopcorn.com, and it includes a link to an article in the Daily Mirror, which isn’t exactly a reputable paper … but the doctor it mentions does exist, and does teach at U. of Maryland in Dermatology.  I’m going to search the Discovery’s Channel’s website to see if it mentions the show.  But meanwhile, here is a link to the article, with a picture of the man.  It’s not as gross as I had feared, but you should think about if you really want to see it or not before clicking.

There’s another interesting post on Japundit about a new book called TOUJOURS TINGO, which is all about the things we don’t have words/phrases for in English. It includes this gem:

Oka/SHETE - Ndonga, Nigeria: urination difficulties caused by eating frogs before the rain has duly fallen.

According to the book, the title of this post is an Austrian German insult meaning, “you can slide down my hunchback using your tongue as a brake.”

This reminds me of a conversation I had with Teya a while ago. We were talking about things in Chinese you can’t say in English, and I couldn’t come up with any examples. Later, I thought of “hen li hai.” It’s like saying sort of scary, or awe-inspiring, or powerful, or intimidating, but not really. It’s most like the “terrible” in Ivan the Terrible.

Link to the article:

http://japundit.com/archives/2007/11/06/7345/ 

I found out about this today when reading Japundit!

They even had a link to the page in Sanrio catalog!

When I posted the movie picture a couple days ago, I forgot to say where it was from! It’s a frame catch from AACHI AND SSIPAK, directed by Jo Beom-jin. In the picture, you can see some members of the Diaper Gang, who were my favorite thing about the movie. They’re a group of small blue mutants, created by their parents’ addiction to juicybars. Sadly for them, they lack the ability to crap, so they have no way to get juicybars except by resorting to theft.

They were adorable! I can’t say enough about how cute and charming I found them, even though they were often carrying large weapons. They were just so wacky and anarchic, running around like maniacs. They had cute little voices too, and would all get excited and then chirp things out again and again. Thinking about it a little more, they reminded me of the eight-year-olds I used to teach in Shenzhen.

Why is it that blue mutants are always so cool? I think back to mutants I have loved, or at least remembered for a long time, and a lot of them were blue — it seems like the coolest ones. There was the Diaper Gang; the Mutant King from CASSHERN, who was blue when he came out of the neocell culture (I was pretty disappointed when the mutants became normal-looking later on); and of course Deslock, from STAR BLAZERS. Deslok and the Mutant King even shared the blue skin/yellow hair combination.

And speaking of CASSHERN, which I probably do too much, it seems like the makers of AACHI AND SSIPAK really liked too. The Diaper King’s speech to the mutants was either a parody of or homage (I’d suspect the latter) to the Mutant King’s speech, right to the banner in the background and the red cape he was wearing. I should post a couple frame catches just to prove my point.

When I’ve mentioned my fondness for blue mutants, some people have said to me, “You must have really liked the Smurfs.” The answer, surprisingly, is no. I don’t actually have any feeling for them at all. Maybe the the series was on at the same time as CCD so I never got to watch it? I remember watching it only a few times. Or maybe it is that I find the Smurfs predictable. I can’t imagine being surprised or astonished by anything they’d do. They don’t seem anarchic — now that is a quality I like in cartoon heroes! But I’ll save that topic for another post.

Lately I’ve been wondering if some of the stuff I’ve been finding on the internet is real, or if I’m being taken in by some sort of joke. Here’s a link to what is supposedly an illustration from a Japanese textbook. As far as I can decipher, the characters are correct and really say what they’re supposed to say, but the picture is so weirdly sexy … and the fetus kind of gives me the creeps. It looks like a little, curled-up ten-year-old boy.

Textbook illustration of pregnant woman

From Cinematical.com:

“Nothing makes me feel at home at Fantastic Fest like a cute Korean animated movie about a futuristic world powered by excrement, where tiny blue mutants with diapers on their heads are threatening to take over the world in pursuit of addictive popsicles.”