In my world, this a practical, rational and reasonable purchase.

My wife has the best sense of humor.

...and the hundred yen store has the craziest stuff. Yes, these are inflatable breasts. Sold for a dollar. And then Sandy let me take pictures of her. I really bought 'em as a gag gift for Jr, but I couldn't resist trying 'em out.





All hail Japan.

I totally get paid to do this stuff...

Following a full morning of teaching at Tsuyazaki Elementary - note my handy whiteboard of poor hiragana - ably assisted by Sandy's notes from the previous night -





- we marched the kids out to the beach [like herding cats, seriously] -




- where they spent the afternoon making sand and seaweed sculptures. How cool, huh?

The Fukutsu Peace Concert

Last weekend a bunch of the kids at my school were part of the Fukutsu Peace Concert. Very cool and very fun.

As a bonus, I got to figure out that perplexing elephant story from the Christmas concert Sandy and I went to...

Turns out it's based on a true story - Amazon.com: Faithful Elephants : A True Story of Animals, People and War: Books: Yukio Tsuchiya,Ted Lewin:

"In an unnamed war, Tokyo was being bombed ``day and night.'' The Army commands that the dangerous animals in the Tokyo Zoo be poisoned so that they might not escape in the event of a direct hit (witness a double-page spread of a dead tiger, a bear, a lion, and a large snake). When it is the elephant's turn to die, he refuses to eat food which has been poisoned and his skin is too thick to take an injection of poison, so the decision is made to starve him to death. Two more elephants must follow, and the real tension produced in the story is the pathos surrounding the torturously slow death of these big pets by depriving them of all food and water. No punches are pulled: these dying elephants use some of their last strength to perform a trick for which they have been customarily rewarded with food and water. They die, horribly, and are mourned by the zookeepers who ``raised their fists to the sky and implored `Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop all wars!' ''"

Bush does good. World stands in awe.

Bush's Hawaiian Education:

"I realize this is last week’s news, but I’m a great believer in giving credit where credit is due. By designating the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as a national monument, Bush has put one more level of federal protection around a vast spread of islands and irreplaceable marine life.

As he rather touchingly insisted, this is a big deal—140,000 square miles of water that contains more than 7,000 rare species. Word is the president decided to declare the area a marine sanctuary after watching a documentary by Jean-Michel Cousteau. The thought that it might be possible to move George W. Bush to action by something as simple as watching a movie came as a new thought to many who are dying to try it on other issues."

Comics at the Smithsonian

Probably the first time I miss living right 'round DC.

Scipio gives an entertaining play by play of the the event, but the pull quote was from this bit by Denny O'Neil, classic Batman writer, and writer of one of the seminal series in my own personal "path", his late 80's series The Question.

The Absodennyrbascon: Smithsonian Panel, reviewed:

"Denny O'Neill (charmingly self-deprecating): 'Back when I was first working in comic books, the public considered us only half a step up from pornographers--'

Tom DeFalco (interrupting so as to steal the limelight with a lame joke, just as I'd expect a Marvel writer to do): 'You mean half a step below!'

'Well,' Denny immediately replied, casually withering in the superiority of his grise-y eminence: 'Maybe at Marvel.'"

Well, this explains just about everything about me, dunnit?

"Hi, I'm Rob and I'm an info-holic."

Addicted To Knowledge:

"Neuroscientists at the University of Southern California have proposed a simple explanation for the pleasure of grasping a new concept: The brain is getting its fix. According to researcher Irving Biederman, the 'click' of comprehension triggers a biochemical cascade that rewards the brain with a shot of natural opium-like substances."

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

Well done sir.

Well done.

Check out the link for further commentary.

bof_comic: BoF # 36

This is the mainstream.

Warren Ellis speaks truth.

Warrenellis.com:

"One of the points of my forthcoming novel is that once something’s put on the internet, it’s not “fringe” or “edge” anymore. By dint of being freely accessible on the world’s most massive information network, it is de facto The Mainstream."

Assuming is Thinking

Certainty in anything is both a neurological and cultural impossibility.

Thinking, about anything, is nothing more than a series of assumptions and presumptions based on what the perceived best possible evidence appears to indicate to you at the time.

To stop assuming is to stop the thought process.

The fallacy of the "real world".

The Lazy Way to Success: Your Calling and The Real World:

"For the record, I am not a big fan of the so-called “real world.” The real world has been built on the fraudulent premise that hard work has value.

So here it is at point-blank range: Hard work is worthless. No, it is worse than worthless. It is downright harmful and should be avoided at all costs.

I believe everyone has the potential for greatness. Realizing that greatness is everyone’s birthright. Pursuing anything else cheats you, cheats the real “real world,” cheats the Universe, and cheats whatever Power administers the Universe.

I see squandering the better part of one’s day when one is most energetic, most alert, and most creative on some “tolerable” job as a tragic waste of one’s gifts and time. Far better is to identify, develop and enjoy those gifts."

Hitler Nazi Sex Midget Porn

Desolation Jones is a great dose of psychedelic Raymond Chandler. Well worth reading.


NEWSARAMA.COM: WARREN ELLIS ON DESOLATION JONES:

"NRAMA: The big impetus or macguffin to the first storyarc, Made In England, was reels of World War II era porn featuring Adolph Hitler. Not to be too frank. but where'd this idea come from, and why can I not get the mental picture out of my head?

WE: It's not totally outside the realm of possibility. While Hitler railed against pornography, he also collected not only nude paintings (at one point having the biggest collection of such in Europe), but also the dirty stories that used to be run in the National Socialist newspaper. Eva Braun was a dab hand with the handheld cinecamera, most notoriously shooting home movies of Hitler on holiday. Now stick the perverted little bastard in a bunker with his girlfriend and a movie camera and lots of people who obey his orders as if he were the Messiah. What do you think he's going to do?

What would YOU do?

NRAMA: Ahhh… next question."