338,000

It is just a number, right?

And I thought I was bored today

Wow, the things people will do in the name of entertainment never cease to amaze.

Swing it back left

Must be a pain in the butt to be in the headlines every single day of your life, especially when you have limited intellect in the first place... But honestly, cheapshots at the president are a little too easy -- it's much more enjoyable to admire the political differences in The Great White North. As a person who has been to Darfur within the past few years, I must confess this conservative parody on Canadian inaction strikes a chord. Now, how to reconcile that chord with my predisposition to liberal pacifism? When I have the anwer to that, perhaps I will run for political office.

You need to shake the hands of the guys at zonicweb.net for their Museum of Bad Album Covers. My favorite, is this.

Up and Running

Up and running now....Not quite sure what our goal as a blog is, but i was surfing yesterday and found this little gem of a link. I am not going to get into the hypocritical nature of this particular gentleman citing dictators and reactionaries, nor will I delve into the obvious shortcomings of a worldwide senate with equal voting rights for member states regardless of size. However, I will note the second to last section and confess that I couldn't agree more.

Introducing Tassy

Def and Dumb

• Note: No activists were on hand to be harmed during the writing of this post.

Seems Russell Simmons, the chairman of Def Jam Records, is, well, uh, disturbed. Evidently KFC has been killing chickens in a way that he does not prefer. After all, chickens are people too, or at least individuals, and interesting ones at that. Alleged abuses include live scalding, painful debeaking (is there any other?), abuse and torture. Probably some name calling going on there, too. Anyhoo, Simmons clarifies his objections, courtesy of meatnews.com :
When a company targets our community, disrespects us as consumers, and sells us products ridden with negative energy and laced with toxins, that is our business," Simmons said.

Okay, where to start. Who is our community? Has he renounced his ethnicity and become an Avian-American? The alleged/actual abuses occurred at a Pilgrim's Pride plant in Texas that supplies KFC. They are not the lone supplier for KFC. So how does KFC/PP target whoever-in-the-hell his community is? That's a lot of work just to sort them tortured, Family Size Value Buckets from the rest, track Mr. Simmons across the country and have them available for his dinner. Oops! He's a vegan. So are vegans the target (If not, why not start)?

"...sells us products ridden with negative energy..." Uh, whatever.

He's joined in this quest with fellow Mensa-ite, Pamela Anderson. Hey, Pamela! If you really want to help out all the oppressed animals on the planet, why don't you divest yourself of those two habitats you stole from the fishies? And Russell? Maybe they are getting hurt before they're killed but let's start with us carbon-based bipeds first. I'm going to volunteer you as a human shield for Greenpeace to protect them from them mean ol' thugs at London's International Petroleum Exchange.

P.S. - What's a swampy?


Carter in a Can - Again!
A real kick-ass sub. And why not? He's a Naval Academy graduate, naval officer, former president and a real-life nyook-yoo-ler physicist (fourth paragraph).

Tainan Festival Cancelled
The nascent Tainan Whale Sushi Festival was abruptly cancelled after veterinarians, coast guard officers and experts from the Taiwan Cetacean Society mishandled the prime catch of nine killer whales. Expectant residents, patiently awaiting a replay of last year's free feast, dourly turned away after it became clear the "experts" were going to hog it all for themselves.Pan-blue supporters immediately rioted, stormed and occupied the DMV and demanded an inquiry into the cancellation of Entertaining Spectacle.

Croquet ?

I found a croquet set in my house...Anyone up for croquet this weekend if the weather is nice? Apparently the game can be played by up to 6 people, so sign up in the comments.

We need a 100 foot by 50 foot space with grass for an official course. How about one of those weird empty parks by Mitsukoshi? Or the usual football field?

I'd also like to include some beer drinking if that's acceptable. I'll supply free beer.

Rules and course lay-out here.

Name Debate Concluded

OK, so I'm on now and the great drunken name debate is over. Calls for those names mentioned last Saturday at Salut have been nixed at the encouragement of Red A (happy 35th buddy) ... "Fuck 'em. Piss 'em off, put whatever you want." Here's something totally different even my closest comrades can remember, and yes it is an OLD one and not self inflicted, fitting aforementioned requirements laid down by our beloved lone star administrator...thanks for the forum J...

Korean Wave hits Taiwan

If you watch or are forced to watch Taiwanese television and especially Channel 41 in Taichung, you will already know that Korean soap operas are very popular now. I just finished watching the season finale of Stairway to Heaven. (Spoiler: The actual Led Zeppelin song is never played in the series.) The scene where they dress up the blind heroine in a wedding dress and take her to her own 5 star wedding without telling her was very touching. I also liked the character who was the heroine's stepmother's ex-husband. His flamboyance would have fit in well in a Taiwanese night market.

I also was forced to endure several episodes of Lovers in Paris. The best part of this show was the dopey lead female's facial expressions and all the shots of whitey walking around in Paris while the characters speak Korean and hand Euro bills to each other. (Spoiler: in a sop to Korean nationalism, some Eurotrash attempts to harass the heroine and is knocked down by one of the Korean male leads. The one who is slight of build and wears spectacles. Now, while this is sort of a fantasy for me too, I know in real life women go to Paris for the explicit reason of being harassed by overly romantic Frenchmen.)

The other one I recall was about an imperial cooking school for Korean girls set in olden times. Google reveals it's name as Jang Geum. I never knew cooking was so cutthroat ruthless - you need to be devious to cook at the imperial level.

Not only that, you can find more and more Korean restaurants in Taichung, especially faux Korean food, i.e. a Taiwanese entrepreneur who has never had Korean food slaps a Korean flag or symbol on the sign and adds Kimchee to his normal dishes. (In fact, from careful study of Stairway to Heaven, I would imagine Korean food consists of steaks and red wine.)

Meanwhile the Taipei Times reports that Korean books are all the rage in the nation.

So, I was not surprised to find The Marmot's Hole posting about another Korean export gaining popularity in Taiwan, this time with Taiwanese men.

So I ask, how long before we can hear the sweet sounds of feminine Korean voices while idling our evenings at PJ's?

And on lead guitar we have...

We at Ni Howdy (We? I'm royalty now.) strongly believe in the concept of sage leadership and responsible task delegation. The aforementioned "We" will soon be a reality. Invitations have been extended and we will be a team blog. While I wait for replies, you can check out the mug of one of the new members. No name yet. I'll let him gild his own lily.

If Karl won't, then I will.

So Bread is going back to Montana to become a ranger, forest, that is. Well, I hope he is abreast of all Montana law. It is illegal to have an unchaperoned sheep in the cab of your truck.Can rangers drive station wagons? Why only sheep? Have Montanians so udderly ravaged the little crittters that legislation is the only means to protect their virtue? Wasn't Montana founded by a colony of Kiwi criminals?

Time for a Break

Enough of this. Smoke time.