This bridge looks familiar.

My grandfather sent me this joke. I will probably use it in class at some time, so I figure I would post it here.
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Another decent joke I can use at NOVA. Feel free to post the answer if you figure it out.
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Sean linked to a quiz made by one of his friends, Lyle. I took the short and humorous quiz to see if I would be a good partner for him. I am not. How about you?

I don’t think it’s going to work out…
If we went out it would be a disaster. Trust me, it’s better if we part here
Take the Should Lyle go out with me? Quiz

HP Labs apparently does more than research computers. They discovered that the value of a person’s personal info is determined by how far that person feels it deviates from the norm. Geez, today must be slashdot day or something.

Remember the scene(s) from Jurassic Park where the Chaos scientist argued that life will find a way to reproduce, even if they are all females? Well this slashdot story reminds me of just that.

Pass a machine-unreadable bit of text to a poor soul signing up for porn. Make this the same image as from a site like hotmail. He decrypts the text and passes it to the machine, which can then use it to sign up for another account to send spam. This in turn generates more porn visitors, and therefore more people working for the porn spam machine. SUCH INGENUITY!! I am impressed!

Today was amazing! First I went to get my haircut. It is a nice little place near my apartment. I went there and was handed some magazines of men’s haircuts to choose from. That in itself is cool because I always feel too dumb to look for a style in the US. Then the dude cut my hair only using scissors! No razor for the sides, and a lady came and shaved the back of my neck with warm shaving cream and one of those big fat razor blades. I even kept how he styled it, rather than changing it to my own style like after the vietnamese women do it in America. Next time I think I will have them shave and shampoo me just for the pampering. Way worth the $30 (about the cheapest you can get here is $20).

Then tonight I went to RUNESU onsen. It was amazing and anyone who vists me is going to be taken there. It is $15 for three hours. There are massage chairs like in the Sharper Image, a wave pool, spas, a big water slide, and of course the onsen bath. That was the best part. The water was ugly brown like it is in my bathtub. So that made me feel better about having bathed in that color water before. There are also saunas and a freezing cold pool, which is especially good to alternate between. Unfortunately I forgot my swimming suit so I couldn’t swim, but I will certainly go again and let you know how it is at that time.

I went to Kenrokuen today. It was gorgeous! I went with Georgia, who works at Al Plaza with me, and Toby, who works at Katamachi and is dating Georgia. We were especially lucky because it was snowing when we got there. We took lots of pictures of course. You can view them here.

As you probably know, the Japanese government has placed a ban on US Beef following an occurance of Mad Cow. This of course makes perfect sense and is entirely reasonable to me. Japan tests every cow for the disease. The United States has up until now tested none. The US had also up until now slaughtered and distributed “downer” cows that are unable to stand up, which are the ones most likely to have the disease.

Interestingly, one of my students in voice pointed out that America has banned the import of Japanese beef since Japan had an outbreak three years ago. This was news to me of course. I had never heard of a ban. I see no reason why America, which exports tons of beef, would want to import it from Japan. American beef is cheaper, and beef is just beef. I could care less what country the cow came from.

This surprised my students. At grocery stores the beef is labeled what country it comes from (Japan, America or Australia). They also had differing opinions on which was best. Some liked Japanese beef because it was juicier and more tender. Others did not like this because it was fattening, but liked Australian beef which is leaner but not as tough as American beef. Most seemed to prefer Japanese beef, but Australian was a contender. No one seemed to like American beef*. Amusingly, they aplogized before speaking negatively about American beef. As if I care!

However, this idea that I would be offended is pretty universal. They seem to hold the notion that one will naturally prefer his own country’s food. I have yet to ask someone which country has the best food and receive a reply of anything except “Japan”. In fact, it is almost always “Japanese food, of course”. They then are shocked to hear that Chinese, Mexican and then Japanese are my favorite foods.

* previously, a student had bemoaned the loss of Gyudon [essentially a teriyaki beef bowl] at Yoshinoya due to the ban on US Beef. Yoshinoya is a Japanese version of something between a Waffle House and McDonalds. It is open 24 hours, has the kind of family restaurant feel with bar stools. They are grotesquely fast cheap–300 yen for a beef bowl in 30 seconds. It is their speciality. They accomplish the price by using American beef exclusively. Unfortunately, they had to change to Pork bowls since they can’t import US Beef anymore. The most interesting aspect is that you order your food at a vending machine, and hand the server your ticket.

My Way reports that Toyota has passed Japan and has become the second largest car manufacturer in the world. Typically, Toyota sales are up, Ford’s are down.

However, the most interesting aspect for me is that Ford owns Land Rover! Volvo and Jaguar I already knew of course.