Category: Curiosities

Peace at last: Adamu is no longer homeless


I am finally on a lease, paying rent on a real live apartment. There is still much unpacking to do, but at least my desk and bed are set up.

After Paco screwed me royally back in October, there was a bit of an ordeal when I tried to get my deposit back:

1) I threatened to call the police if he didn’t send me my $500.
2) He threatened to “stab [me] in the face” if I continued “threating” him.
3) Many people thought it was a hilarious threat, but my family found out, causing them needless worry.
4) Paco backed down from the threat and sent me my money.

But the drama, hopefully, is finally over. Many thanks to Mateo and Saru for helping me move, and special thanks to Cousin for letting me crash at her place.

My new building is swank: sauna, outdoor pool, fitness center (that I need to hit pretty badly), tennis courts. The rent’s not bad either. I can finally live in peace after spending a month and a half homeless thanks to Paco the face-stabber.

Anyway, the reason I’m blogging this is because while we were moving my stuff in, Saru and I saw the most curious sight: a balding man in his 30’s wearing a karate uniform with a rifle (complete with scope) strapped to his back! Unfortunately, neither of us was in a position to get a picture of him, but I’ll be sure to if I run into him again (hopefully not in a dark alley).

Is there some form of martial arts that combines karate and rifleshooting? Some sort of karate biathlon maybe? If anyone knows about this, please do explain!

Another obscure art pioneered in Japan

This is something I spotted in the Wikipedia entry on chicken sexer, which I stumbled across while idly clicking through food related articles after, for some reason, deciding I needed to find out the history of ketchup.

Vent sexing

Vent sexing is not easy. The sexual organs of birds are located within the body; the professional vent sexer has studied their external appearance, which can fall into as many as fifteen basic patterns, and learned to identify which ones are male and which female. Vent sexing is a difficult trade to master; many professional vent sexers are Japanese, where the art originated. The mystery of vent sexing was revealed to the Western world when a seminal paper was published in Japan in 1933 by Professors Masui and Hashimoto, which was soon translated into English under the title Sexing baby chicks. After Masui and Hashimoto’s discovery, interested poultry breeders brought in people who had been trained by them to teach the art, or sent representatives to Japan to learn it. The skill is complex and has been likened to skill at playing chess and other crafts or games where pattern recognition is the key to success.

Appropriately enough, the only other language edition of Wikipedia to include a version of this article is Japanese.

Update: I found a Japanese page that has a photo of a chicken sexer at work.

This academic paper which uses chicken sexing as an example of acquiring subconscious perceptual skills is kind of interesting, and yet dull at the same time.

Upon doing a Google search, I found a great article on a Japanese chicken sexing competition from the 2001 Wall Street Journal archived on some website, which I’ll reproduce below.
Continue reading Another obscure art pioneered in Japan

Ancient Romans proved to be pretty much as you always imagined them

The Discovery Channel website reported a couple of days ago that an interesting piece of ancient Roman pop culture has just been discovered by divers exploring near Durham, England.

Divers exploring a river near a former Roman Empire fort and settlement in Britain have found a piece of pottery that depicts the backside of a rather buff gladiator wielding a whip and wearing nothing but a G-string, according to British researchers.

The image represents the first known depiction of a gladiator in such revealing attire. It adds to the evidence that ancient Romans viewed gladiators not only as fearless warriors, but also as sex symbols.

It seems almost absurd that gladiators weren’t sex symbols. A couple of days ago I posted a link to some fantastic ancient Roman graffitti. Here is what was written about gladiators.

II.7 (gladiator barracks); 8767: Floronius, privileged soldier of the 7th legion, was here. The women did not know of his presence. Only six women came to know, too few for such a stallion.

II.7 (gladiator barracks); 8792: On April 19th, I made bread

II.7 (gladiator barracks); 8792b: Antiochus hung out here with his girlfriend Cithera.

V.5.3 (barracks of the Julian-Claudian gladiators; column in the peristyle); 4289: Celadus the Thracian gladiator is the delight of all the girls

Sports Authority Japan: “We want to memorize player in your heat.”


“Engrish,” as it is affectionately known, is the phenomenon of advertisements and other products from Japan featuring English slogans/instructions that make no sense yet maintain a definite corporate-ese feel to them. If you ever go to Japan, you will be able to see many examples of this ever-present, often hilarious reminder that in general the Japanese can’t seem to get their brains around the English language. But coming from an American company there is simply no excuse for this:

The player brings great shopping experience to each customer.
Talented staff with abundant products afford of full-line and knowledge.
TSA, large-size full-line sporting goods retailer,
offers service synthetic from a hard side to a soft side.
TSA is most loved by all people that enjoy a sports,
and wants to become the existence trusted most from them.
We will play game with our originally to become successful player.

What happened? Their “organism plan” offers no immediate clues.

I decided to run a test:
Continue reading Sports Authority Japan: “We want to memorize player in your heat.”

Vincent Gallo’s Sperm


In an attempt to get away from my brush with evil (Sorry again to Dave and aburoie!), I would like to share with you something a little more positive (if a little disturbing). Vincent Gallo, actor and star of the great Buffalo 66 (and apparently he made a cameo appearance in Goodfellas!), is offering to father the child of any “non-dark” woman willing to pay him $1 million. This has to go on my list of “future aspirations” (except for the racist parts). I mean, even considering a scheme like this seriously would take an ego bigger than Lake Erie. I’m not there yet, but one can dream:

Vincent Gallo’s Sperm

$1 Million

Price includes all costs related to one attempt at an in-vitro fertilization. (A $50,000 value) If the first attempt at in vitro fertilization is unsuccessful, purchaser of sperm must pay all medical costs related to additional attempts. Mr. Gallo will supply sperm for as many attempts as it takes to complete a successful fertilization and successful delivery. Sperm is 100% guaranteed to be donated by Mr. Gallo who is drug, alcohol and disease free. If the purchaser of the sperm chooses the option of natural insemination, there is an additional charge of $500,000. However, if after being presented detailed photographs of the purchaser, Mr. Gallo may be willing to waive the natural insemination fee and charge only for the sperm itself. Those of you who have found this merchandise page are very well aware of Mr. Gallo’s multiple talents, but to add further insight into the value of Mr. Gallo’s sperm, aside from being multi talented in all creative fields, he was also multi talented as an athlete, winning several awards for performing in the games of baseball, football and hockey and making it to the professional level of grand prix motorcycle racing. Mr. Gallo is 5’11” and has blue eyes. There are no known genetic deformities in his ancestry (no cripples) Continue reading Vincent Gallo’s Sperm

My new life in Japan


Conversation I had with MF a few weeks ago while we were taking a look at Japanese satellite TV operator SkyPerfecTV’s channel offerings:

MF: you should just quit your job and fly to japan next week
MF: screw the apartment
Adamu: dont tempt me
MF: you can get a job at nova
Adamu: haha
MF: and then go home to your sweet, sweet tv
Adamu: ok now that IS sad
MF: and a big can of kirin
MF: or asahi dry
Adamu: asahi
Adamu: id have to have a good tv
Adamu: maybe i could get those tv goggles
Continue reading My new life in Japan

Just a mutant frog.

Lou The White Frog Is A Connecticut RarityMutant frog

This frog was all white, with black eyes. Mr Taylor says, “We looked it up online and it didn’t seem too rare. Just a mutant frog.” Because it looked unique, though, the family kept it over the summer. The frog was set up in an aquarium habitat, where he spent most of his days resting on a rock near the water. Says Mrs Taylor, “We didn’t even think it would live.”

The white frog did live, however, and on a diet of crickets and mealworms that the Taylors bought for him and by September “Lou Albino” (named after the pro wrestling manager Lou Albano) had doubled his original size, to three inches.

East Asia in sexual trouble

Coming Anarchy filed a report on the latest Durex Global Sex Survey (get the PDF here). Some disturbing numbers to report out of East Asia. First of all, Chinese women have unnecessarily exciting lives, demonstrated by the following rates:

China Japan World
Unplanned pregnancies under 16 17% 1% 4%

Unplanned pregnancies, 17-19 18% 2% 5%

Unplanned pregnancies over 19 20% 6% 10%

Sexually transmitted infections 18% 8% 13%

East Asians don’t particularly like their sex lives, but don’t seem to have high aspirations, either.

China Japan World
“Happy with my sex life” 22% 24% 44%

“Don’t have a high sex drive” 17% 16% 7%

“Sex life is monotonous” 17% 13% 7%

“I wish I had sex more often” 20% 25% 36%

Note that China has an historical aversion to sex of sorts, although things are changing there rapidly. Still, Japan is much sluttier than China: the average Japanese person has had ten sexual partners, while the average Chinese has had only three. Surprisingly, though, vibrators are slightly more popular in China than in Japan. Go figure.

UPDATE: Younghusband linked to the Japanese reaction in the comments over at CA. Priceless quotes:

Chisato, 28: “The problem is that many men are not aggressive enough in Japan. They are timid and do not hustle hard enough to get the opposite sex into bed.” SUSTAINED

Kawachan, 19: “Japanese in general are pure and not as perverted as other countries, when it comes to sex.” OVERRULED

The pitfalls of the furry bra

At the risk of looking like Japundit, I present the Triumph® Heated Bra™, designed in response to the Warm Biz campaign.

This prompted a discussion with my friend “K.” As it turned out, she was an expert on furry bra physics:

[11:05] K: you know, i saw that earlier today and it doesn't make sense
[11:06] J: yeah... i imagine that boobies don't get that cold
[11:06] K: well, if it WERE that cold out... it's hard to wear a shirt over a furry bra
[11:06] K: but if it's warm enough for no shirt, then you don't need a warm bra!
[11:06] J: stop hating on the furry bras
[11:07] K: i don't hate it, but i'm saying that they didn't think it through
[11:07] K: like, it might be nice at a january football game
[11:07] J: yes
[11:08] K: but you're more than welcome to wear one
[11:08] J: mmmm fur
[11:09] K: it's like that diamond-encrusted bra... it's just... not comfortable!

UPDATE: I later showed this to a Japanese ladyfriend, “M.” Her response, in its entirety:

[10:46] M: that is pretty

So long and thanks for all the fish

Iruka

Curzon over at ComingAnarchy.com has this to say on Japan’s scientific whaling program, which incidentally will double the number of minke whales caught this year:

Be against whaling if you like, it’s all a distraction from the vast overfishing of fish, not whales, that is the real environmental issue of the day. And as for the ban on hunting whales, nothing makes people want to eat this relatively untasty meat than being told they can’t eat it by a bunch of self-righteous outsiders.

I’ve never been all that opposed to, or all that bothered by Japan’s whaling policies, so I don’t see much point in beating a close ally over the head about this. And Curzon’s right that there’s no better way to really make whale meat a part of Japan’s culture then to tell the Japanese that it isn’t.

So, I don’t have much to add to that.

However, with regards to the program’s function as a distraction, I think Japan should be glad that environmentalists were too busy gearing up for this fight to pay much attention to the Taiji Dolphin Slaughter. (Japan might also be glad that one of their nickname for the whales, 海のゴキブリ or “cockroach of the sea” hasn’t been widely translated in to English. Why in God’s name anyone would want to eat a cockroach, I’ve not the slightest idea.)

The Taiji Dolphin Slaughter, you say?

Surely you remember last month’s massive Worldwide Day of Protest against the Japanese Dolphin Slaughter?

protest

No?

Actually, I almost didn’t hear about it either. In fact, the only reason I even knew about it was a full page advert in the NYT announcing it. And then I forgot all about it until I read Curzon’s post earlier today.

Anyway, go check out some video and what happens when an environmentalist with a computer has way too much time on his hands here.

Sure, this is some pretty greusome stuff. But I’m not sure it’s all that different from the still moving fish, with its belly meat lined up on a bed of grated daikon, one pays damned good money to be served on a plate at a nice sushi restaurant.

Besides, Japan fought to save the dugong. Don’t they deserve some credit for that?