Hur mår ni? Vad sägs om en kopp kaffe, hemma hos mig...

I always wanted to go to Sweden. Especially Stockholm. I hear Stockholm is really nice. I can't stop thinking about that place... It's almost like I'm afflicted with something...Some kinda syndrome. Weird.

So this morning I'm sitting on my couch in my underoos enjoying my daily breakfast burrito of 6 egg whites, turkey cold cuts, and a sprinkling of mozzarella cheese. I flip on GMA and was pleased to learn that Ms Jill Carroll was released by her Iraqi captors!

However..... No matter how hard I try, I can't wrap my mind around her comments during the interview. She really wanted the world to know that her captives were A-ok folks -- really gentle, kind, stand-up guys who let her go potty and take showers. Model terrorists. Is the whole "missing the forest for the trees" just an American thing? Cuz she said some shit that really made me say "...huh"

For example:
I was treated very well!

...huh...You mean...like....aside from being kidnapped....right?

They never threatened to hit me!

...huh...cuz they were telling the entire world that they were going to kill you......but they didn't threaten to hit you! Good, good.

Change gears.

Sometimes I have a little switch inside my head that, when flipped, makes me hate someone. These comments really flipped my "dipshit lever" for a number of reasons. Sending a naive 28 year old woman into a war zone full of Muslim extremists is a really brilliant fucking idea. Even though she's been over there for a few years, she obviously has no concept of a bigger picture, and obviously thinks that the world revolves around her. Newsflash: It's not about you. It's not about your stupid career. It's about your family who was put through this whole ordeal. It's about you being used in an attempt to undermine the country that granted you the privilege (NOT the right, I don't care what anyone says) to practice free press, and most importantly and which you didn't seem to emphasize much in the interview, it's about your interpreter they shot in the head and discarded like a dog. What about him? How did he enjoy his captivity in the Baghdad Hilton? Oh, never mind, he never got a chance to bask in the world renowned Iraqi Terrorist Hospitality.

Watching this spoiled little brat on the TV going on and on about how wonderful her captives were damn near resulted in a TV covered with flour tortilla, egg white, and cheese. Yeah, it's official. You're taking crazy pills. I never thought I'd want to choke someone unconscious with their headscarf. Not a mention about the interpreter. Out of sight, out of mind I guess. It seemed a little unusual, considering what she wrote about him here. Maybe she was traumatized or whatever, but she seemed pretty chipper in the interview. And who knows, maybe she's right. Here's a picture she took of her captors.

Here's what I'm hoping:
...that she mentioned something about her interpreter getting murdered, but the news people in Iraq cut it out for personal/political reasons. That's what I'm hoping. But she sure as fuck didn't seem to hold it against her captors. They're cool in her book.

Ok, so the bigger question on my mind is whether or not the significance of this will be lost on our friendly terrorists in Iraq. I think it will, but I'm going to try and help them out a little bit. I already know I have terrorists reading my stuff, so maybe he can pass this on to his homies:

Habibis,
If you haven't noticed, Jill thinks you guys are really swell, and so do I! So why stop there? Here's what you can do:

Kidnap journalists who are really big on your plight (should be easy to find) and cut them off from their families, friends, etc

Murder their terp right in front of them (as long as they're an Iraqi Christian!)

Don't threaten to hit them, but feel free to tell the world that you're going to murder them if the USA doesn't meet an outrageous demand, and distribute a film of them begging for their life. Nothin' spells "humane treatment" like an internationally televised humiliation session!!

Let them crap, take showers, and give them icecream. Puppy play time would be a major plus.

Release them after 80+ days

If you follow those simple steps, you will soon find yourself with an army of Iraqi loyalists with some serious Baghdad street cred who are beyond the reproach of the US neocon-media, and readily embraced by the left. I'd also like to give you guys a "big ups" for timing this just as the left is wiping their hands of Sheehan -- with her off the blotter there's a new Iraqi rep in town, and Allah knows she ain't camera shy! Your cool points just increased three-fold in the US, so keep up the good work and continue to not behead people you kidnap!!

You guys are the best.

Signed,
Yankee Mike

If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes...

Like the title of this post? Can you name what movie it's from?

Here, lemme help out those of you who grew up in a bunker. I'll provide another line:

My birthday is April 10, 2017. How long do I live?

Four years.

More than you. Painful to live in fear, isn't it? Nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch.

Oh, I agree.

Wake up! Time to die.

So why am I even talking about this? Oh, I'll tell you why, and it has to do with drinking. Heavy drinking. And I'm not just talking about drinking by yourself, listening to Bryan Adams, and staring at pictures of your ex, which a friend of mine does every weekend. I'm talking about drinking with other people.

I've always thought, and by "always" I mean "in the last few years," that people are who they are not when they're sober, but when they're drunk. I know, I know, this sounds obvious, but most of the time you just hear that drinking "lessens inhibitions" and shit like that. Negative. That's oversimplified. I'm gonna take leap over a narrow (but deep!) chasm and say that you are who you are for real when you're shithoused.

"Hey fuckstick, what's the difference?" is probably what you're thinking right now, so I'll tell you. It's the difference between "I'm violent when I'm drunk" and "I'm non-violent when I'm sober." Subtle, but very very different.

I find apologizing after a night of drinking unacceptable. People should be apologizing to me for not acting a certain way when they're sober, not for acting a certain way when they're drunk. I find one night of aberrant behavior far less offensive than, say, being deceived for months and months on end by someone's false sober behavior until I find out how someone really is when they drink. Don't apologize to me for being a drunken asshole one night. Apologize to me (or have your parents apologize to me) for being a repressed, deceitful person who I don't even know when I thought I did. What's it like living a lie? That's like apologizing to me for wrecking my favorite shirt after blasting me in the chest with a harpoon gun. *THWACK!* "Oh shit, sorry bout your shirt man."

I'm not going to lie though. I've apologized for drunken behavior many times. "Is your girlfriend ok? Can you tell her I'm sorry? I don't normally push women into garbage piles for cheap laughs." Wrong, Paul. You do. You do. Aberrance is defined as straying from "the norm." Let's not bullshit ourselves. Aberrant behavior and sobriety are the same thing.

That being said, I'm happy to think that, while my aberrant sobriety is a bit different than who I really am (when I'm drunk), I'm not a completely different person. I am, however, a huge jerk. A real piece of work. A complete asshole who will do anything for a cheap laugh, and generally go out of his way to encourage group-wide explosive laughter at a single person, usually a woman, the cuter and nicer they are, the more relentless the ribbing. And God help anyone who is rude, discourteous, "edgy," a walking stereotype, makes a factual error during a discussion, however miniscule, or a combination of any of those things.. Another thing I'm prone to do is become obsessed with a word, such as "mongoloid," or in the case of this weekend, "lesbian". I think it's Travis's fault, cuz I'm not even into lesbians like other folks are. All I know is that during a discussion about racism in Japan and the USA, all I could muster up were statements like, "I know you're Japanese and you may be biased about racial issues in Japan and whatnot, but what does all this have to do with you being a lesbian?" and "That's fine, and you make a valid point, but dyking out is a sin and I wish you'd stop."

Results: Explosive laughter, more lesbian references.

So I guess that's it then. When all the layers are lifted, when all the pretty wrapping paper and bow have been torn off and the mental packaging strewn across the floor, what you're left with is a misogynistic assclown who, even though he can't partake in a healthy debate because he's drunker than 4 people, can muster up the coherence and muscle power to repeatedly call a very nice person a sinful bull-dyke.

Classy. Educated. Mature. That's me. Period. Point blank. Case closed.

Your continued readership of this blog acknowledges and encourages the fact that I am not responsible for who I am, nor am I responsible for you, should you be swept up in my swath of destructo-drunkeness.

I apologize for living a lie and being so deceitful during my chronic sobriety. In all sincerity though, nothing would give me greater pleasure than tipping back a 5th of Vodka with each and every one of you and embracing He Who is Me...

And making fun of you.

xoxoxo

-P

Linguistic Training

Let's do some language-related training today. We'll start it off with this:

Quote of the Day

Wow...I didn't know her husband was a black.

Yes, innocent errors in language made by non-native speakers can have enormous connotations.

Following my obsession with the word mongoloid, my friends informed me that some students in their English classes were referring to mentally retarded people as "mongoloids". I've heard people innocently referred to as "half-breeds" before too. Why? Because that's what their dictionaries said. Why wouldn't they say it? In any case, I do everything in my power to encourage the aforementioned mistakes (with the exception of the 'black' mistake... Even I have limits, however flexible...).

I also take it a step further by purposefully making errors that seem like innocent mistakes, which allow me to say horrible things and not be shunned for it. You thought Borat had the market cornered on that? As you can see by watching Borat's adventures, people can be really forgiving when they think that innocent errors have been made. When I was in college, the first Korean word I learned was "byung-shin," which means "retard", and not in a nice way. Five years later when I found myself as a Korean language student at DLI, I asked a teacher if the building had "byung-shin shisul," which means "retard facilities", and feigned confusion when the teacher laughed hysterically and told me not to say that.

Teacher: Oooooh, Pi-il-byung, you must not say that. You must say shin-che-boo-ja-yoo-ja
Me: ....byungshin?

Pi-il-byung means "Lance Corporal P."

Shinche boo jayoo ja literally means "Body-without-freedom-person." Byungshin means "sick/ill body/spirit." I'll stick to byungshin. "Bingshin" is a variation on "byungshin", and it also means "cold shoes." So the next time you see a Korean, here's a little joke you can tell them:

What kinda shoes to penguins wear?
I dunno, what kind?
....bingshin

Cuz, you see, you're answering the question, saying "cold shoes", and calling them a retard at the same time.

Classic.

That's pretty much all I remember about Korean...

I wish I could remember all the funny mistakes that people make here, and I'm sure I make some real doozies too. The best errors come from people who are really good at English, maybe because they're not so concerned about being perfect, or because the funniest mistakes are the most subtle mistakes. My favorite would have to be when a friend suggested I drink some "Pepto Gizmo" for my stomach ache. I thought it was so awesome, I made up some pictures and sent them to her.




Yeah, I got some time on my hands.

However, the most commonly misused word in Japan would have to be the word ENJOY. There is no end to the ways that Japanese people can find to screw this one up. It generally turns into them getting really drunk and screaming ....ENJOY!!! at the top of their lungs when they see you on the street.

That never gets old.



So now my friends and I play "Enjoy tag," where we take pictures of "Enjoy" examples and send them to each other. You could probably find a different one every day.

Mattah fact, lemme do a little test.

I'm going to do a google image search and type in "enjoy" phonetically in Japanese characters. All of the below results have "ENJOY" written phonetically in Japanese in them, which looks like this:


Notice how it's in every picture.

Enjoy Study Abroad English Conversation Handbook


JVC "Enjoy DVD Present Campaign"


Enjoy BB


The bottom says Enjoy Swimming phonetically in Japanese. (Like, if I read it aloud I would be saying "Enjoy Swimming" in a Japanese accent.)


Enjoy Elementary School English


Enjoy Programming in Visual Basic


And here's an example written in plain ole' English:


The list goes on and on.

This place rules.

Get-a-kick-out-of-shit level: Very high.

It's safe to say...I enjoy..

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

Update:
I was trolling the blog of a girl I know who is studying in Japan. Here's a screen shot of the original with some translations provided. hehehe

Piksher Time!

Once again, I shall attempt to show you some of what I see every day, and try to transmit some of my get-a-kick-out-of-it-ness to you.

I was at a pet shop yesterday, and no, not because I’m a huge fan of the Pet Shop Boys, but because I like looking at the birds. Most of the birds at Japanese pet stores are hand-fed (which is where you hand feed them from when they’re babies so they like humans) so you can play with em. I like doin’ that. Anywho, the only thing more ubiquitous in Japan than yippy little girls wearing stupid clothes are yippy little dogs wearing stupid clothes. I found some good Engrish doggie outfits and I thought I’d share them with you.



Apparently in Japan, Dog like a flisbee with you.

The really awesome thing about this doggie wear, though, is that depending on how you read it, it can mean many things. Is it:

A flisbee with you dog like?
Like a flisbee with you dog?

I don’t know – that’s for literary critics and poets to argue, but I think we can all conclude that the key word here is flisbee.

Moving on.



Most people think of the Samurai Spirit or some such nonsense when thinking about Japan, but not me. I think of Japanese Dog Spirit. I like how the rising sun is a little doggie paw. Tojo is spinning in his grave. I should get a dog, put that little sweater on it, and walk around Yasukuni Shrine.



This one is just silly because they misspelled “chicken” and….what the fuck is that doing on a doggie sweatshirt???

So I’m on the train and I’m fucking around with my phone like everyone else around me. My phone has a lot of whack ass functions that I haven’t really bothered to play with, but since I was bored I came up with this picture.



I put the text in there from my phone too. That man’s head is in the middle of my hand.

So I was sitting there and I took a picture of something that I’ve been wanting to put on here for a while – the Priority Seating sign. This sign has always been an anomaly to me. You’ll soon see why.



According to this sign, the following people, from left to right, will be given priority in designated areas:

People with candy canes in their anuses

People with a peg-leg wearing a moonboot on their foot.

Kuato

People with distended abdomens/the morbidly obese

People who have been shot with cupid’s arrow.

On to the evening’s festivities.

A friend of mine is about to go on a 3 month trip, so we had a little bash. I think that the most memorable part of the evening was when my friend’s girlfriend was latched onto me like a little remora crying like a baby. Drewski was bent down next to her saying “WHO’S THE BIG HAPPY GIRL. WHO’S A HAPPY GIRL. YOU’RE A HAPPY GIRL. YES YOU ARE. YEEEEEEES YOU ARE” like someone would to with a little kid, and I was doing the whole “convulsing uncontrollably in an attempt to conceal my laughter”.

Here’s a picture of her before she spiraled into uncontrolled sobbing:


I know what you’re thinking, and no, my shirt does not say “TUBA”. It says CUBA, because I support Fidel’s regime.

I also know you’re wondering why my friend’s girlfriend is hanging on my like some strange Asiatic leach. My friends’ girlfriends love me. That’s why.

Here’s the whole crew.



At one point during the night, an Iranian spat on the girl in the back. Iranians are such gentleman. It was one of those weird situations that I think we’ve all been a part of – a Japanese girl is freaking out and screaming, and some 5’4 Iranian guy is threatening everyone. There were a lot of Iranians there. I don’t think I’ll ever go there again. Those guys can take their slimy hair, cheap sweaters, and sleazy cologne and shove it. Plus they’re crazy and all coked up and that makes me uneasy.

So anyway, I drove up to Tokyo today to get some boxes for a friend that's gonna travel around Asia for a few months 'cuz storage in Tokyo, like everything else, is prohibitively expensive. On the road up there, I saw something that I simply had to have a picture of.



I wonder what kind of drunken conversation spawned the idea for that van's paintjob. Thankfully, I didn't crash my car while getting such an earth-shattering picture.

After getting the cargo and eating some din-din, I was listening to Inter FM and won a pair of tickets to see some movie called Dig. It's some movie about some bands, one of which is called The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Anyway, the DJ started talking about the whole Jonestown debaucle in 1978 and that it "took place in a small country in South America." As soon as he said that I had my phone out ready to dial the number, because I knew a contest was about to kick off. As I predicted, he wanted to know what country the Jonestown Massacre happened, so I wasted no time punching the numbers in, got through (I think I was the first person), and answered correctly.

Anyone seen Dig? Is it good? Not that I care, cuz I'm going for free.

Just call me google-san.

...And once again...

This was one of the more uneventful weekends during my last year here.

That's right, as of this past week, I've been here a year exactly. That means I increase a step in my pay, which is no less than $76 smackers a paycheck. Hell yeah. I think that of all the Saturdays in the past year, I've spent a total of 3 in my house.

I decided against going out on Saturday for a number of reasons, mainly because I went out on Wed and took Thurs off, i,e. I was out all night. I was also really tired after a good roll on Saturday during the day. Another reason is that I had a nice little bruise on my nose.



That's my sad meathead face. *sniff*

One of the advantages of having a nice big schnozz is that it gets hit a lot, which feels really fucking great. Especially in the form of an accidental elbow smack.

My friend said that we should go out, cuz the people might think I'm a toughguy and they wouldn't "mess with us". I answered that no, that was a bad idea, cuz then I'd get my ass kicked by a toughguy/group of toughguys.

As opposed to what I normally get my ass kicked by.

Which would be 140lb Japanese dudes.

Like the one who gave me the bruise.

He's real good tho...

*ahem*

Moving right along, I was skyping with Brando the other day, and we were looking through our gostats.com search phrases. I found that some people had stumbled upon my page via some interesting new searches.

Japanese Sharking is at an all time high. At first, I thought it was because there were a lot of animal rights activists against Japanese Sharkfin havesting methods, but Brando informed me that it was actually the act of sneaking up behind a woman and pulling off various articles of clothing and capturing it on film. De-lightful.

Now that I've mentioned it again, I'm sure I'll get more hits from more perverted fuckers.

Ok, here's the list. People have typed the following phrases into search engines and found my page:

"scare the hurricane"
how to say fag in italian
illegal tiny immigrants fucked in pussy
creepy shit
picture, jawbone, donkey
site:blogspot.com sharking video
NASTY HOSTAGE SITUATION - CLEAVER TO LITTLE GIRL THROAT
Dominos pizza owner and anti-semitism
suck on this you whore video samples
"our god is an awesome god" "chuck norris" robot

THIS IS THE WORST DISASTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES murdered randomly lick muh butt

I'm pretty sure the last one was orchestrated by Mr Brando, but I can't be sure.

In other random news, today I saw I saw the Emily Rose movie. It was ok, but I have to say that the chick who played Emily Rose did a good job. After the movie I stuffed my gullet with as much meat as I could at a yakiniku place. Mmmmmmmm yakiniku....

More later.

Yeah, uuh, cool "post".

A recent LA Times article combined two things that I really like -- tactical use of "quotation marks" and making something seem like a big deal because it wasn't common knowledge.

I've talked to Brando about this a lot, that is, how people use "quotes" for their own evil purposes. Here are some examples:

Uuh, did you get a load of his "wife"?

Yeah, I suppose that girl has a nice "face".

Brando's a pretty "smart" guy.

etcetc

The article is entitled U.S. Setting Up Special Forces Operations in Embassies. Allow me to point out some of the Tactical Use of Quotations (TUOQ).

Sample 1
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Steve Mavica, a spokesman for Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., said the teams are known as "military liaison elements" and operate as single individuals or small groups.

Sample 2
Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, said the program was started "a couple of years ago" but was not more specific

Sample 3
The newspaper said the liaison teams gather intelligence on terrorists. Whitman would say only that they help provide a regional military commander with improved "situational awareness," a term generally synonymous with intelligence.

I bet for someone who knows nothing about the military, nothing about intelligence gathering (and how many methods are used), and what kind of job Special Forces guys do, this article would seem pretty scary. Like there are these steely-eyed, green faced men skulking around our embassies, carrying out raids and torturing people, instead of what it really is, which is more like chubby dudes in their late 30s wearing Hawaiian shirts and schmoozing with the local populace and local militaries. Allow me to expose the LA Times for what a group of cynical, anxiety inciting jackweeds that they really are.

I feel that in sample 1, "military liaison elements" is put in quotes as if saying "pshaw, right." Since a good amount of the LA Times readership probably doesn't know anything about the SF, they probably see this as a brush-off by the SOCOM spokesman, and will assume that "things are amiss."

In Sample 2, it is said that the operations "started a couple years ago." Maybe the editor felt that providing an exact date would put the La Times' readers at ease a little bit, as if it would make any difference whatsoever. Saying when a military operation "began" is a little hard to pin down anyway -- when did the planning start? Was it when the guys arrive in country? When they were assigned to whatever teams? Which one? I reckon "a couple years ago" is a sufficient answer, and doesn't mean anything more than that.

Sample 3 quotes "Situational Awareness" like it's some kind of special lingo, and then says that it's "generally synonymous with intelligence." The recent popular media definition of intelligence is that it's some autonomous, sacrosanct, anonymous creature that routinely violates human rights. By saying "SA is the same as intel," the LA Times is intentionally manipulating the meaning of a commonly used military/government term (SA) and associating it with the aforementioned evil institution of "intel". SA can be something as simple as opening up a newspaper or talking to the kids on the street. While this is a form of "intel," I don't think most Americans would consider reading the newspaper to find out traffic and weather information an "intelligence exploitation operation". The LA Times is preying upon the prejudices and ignorance of the American public in a not-so-subtle way, manipulating ignorant (and most likely opinionated) readers to incorrectly read between the lines, and I find that irritating.

Some of you might think I'm reading into this too much, but the LA Times likes publishing shit like this. Perhaps you remember something I wrote about before in response to an LA Times article. Their position is clear; I know where they're coming from. To be honest, if those statements weren't in "quotes," I probably wouldn't have had any problem with the article. It would have been a pretty innocuous page. But there's a reason for the quotes, and I think it's pretty obvious where they're coming from.

So in closing, I’d like say to the LA Times: Good “article.” I found it really “enlightening.” Your “editors” and “journalists” continue to overwhelm me with their “political savvy” and their ability to get to the present the “truth.”

And that, my friends, is another little example of TUOQ.

Nagosakastan

One of the main reasons I like to write on here is to show people who have never been to Japan a little slice of what Japan is like. So far, I haven't had too many stories about domestic travel (because I don't do it that much), so this edition will be devoted to my trip to Nagoya and Osaka this weekend, with some groovy shots of the Shinkansen, aka the Bullet Train.

So after watching the Juggernaut cartoon about six times at work on friday, I cruised home, changed, and headed to Shin-Yokohama station to hop on the shinkansen.

Here's what it looks like coming into the station:


I made it to Osaka, and hung out with my friend. We had dinner, and since he owns a bar, we went there and began a night of good, wholesome fun.

The area the bar is in is called Soemoncho (pronounced Soh-Eh-Moan-Cho) and I suppose it's the "entertainment district" in Osaka. It's really shadey and scummy, so I really like it. Here's what it looks like during the daytime.



Now I know what you're probably thinking: "Wow, in an area full of Chinese gangsters and Yakuza, I bet shit is pretty serious."

Yeah, real serious.



No Parking. I know that sign strikes the fear of god into my heart.

Before, I mentioned that I like looking at something off camera when I'm getting my picture taken, as shown in a previous post. I seem to have met a kindred spirit.



I was shocked. I was like, "Holy shit! Your friend is choking. Go give her CPR."



My friend in the background was very concerned about her well being, but it turned out everything was ok.

Later, we met up with some other people, including some Brazilians. Mmmmm Brazilians...



Looks like someone is having a pretty overwhelming night.



Nice tattoos huh? Seeing a trend here?

So after taking a brief nap (6am - 11am, i,e. checkout time from the hotel) I hopped on a train up to Nagoya. I didn't take the bullet train because while it's about 45 minutes or so, I didn't want to pay an insane amount of money so I shelled out about $35 for a 2 hour ride. The time in Nagoya was a lot different -- I hung out with some friends of mine from the Rowing team in college. They're not the "go-out-and-drink-all-night-with-dirty-foreigners" crowd, so the night was mellow and more grown-up than I'm used to, which was nice and refreshing. I hadn't seen some of them in about 9 years, so it was nice to become reacquainted and catch up with what everyone's doing.

I stayed over at one of the guys' apartments and shoved off fairly early. My favorite part about taking the shinkansen from Osaka or Nagoya is the view of Mt Fuji from the train. If you're ever in Japan and you ride it from Tokyo down to either of those two cities, make sure you're on the right side of the train on the way down and the left side on the way back. The last few times I've been it's been hazy and shitty outside so I couldn't see it, but today I got my wish and was able to snap off a good picture.



I'm not sure if this works or not, but I took a little movie on it. I think it captures the surrounding area pretty well, as well as the speed that the shinkansen travels.



Hopeully that starts workin'.. Or I'll try to re-upload it. In any case, it was a bit of an expensive (well, really expensive) weekend, but I never sweat spending money to hang out with friends.