Sorry. Hos before prose, bros.

Hah! Like the subject header? No, this month-long hiatus from blogging hasn't been because I've met some special woman. I just chose the header because of its whimsically delightful internal rhyme scheme. As for why I haven't posted ... well ... a bit of laziness, a bit of business, and a lot of not much to say. I frequently make psychic posts while waiting for and riding on trains, but I just haven't felt like sitting down at the keyboard and putting together a true post for the ole blog.

Until now.

And don't get your hopes up for unending paragraphs of my pristine writing. It's late, I got little to say, and I think I'll let my camera do most of the talking.

On April 3rd I moseyed over to Himeji, a town about 60 minutes from my home that's reputed to have Japan's best castle. These pictures were taken slightly before the Sakura trees were at their fullest blossoming period. (I know, I know ... "Look, Fellas: The first snapdragon of the season!")



Here's some photos of the garden directly adjacent to Himeji castle, taken on the same day.



A few weeks later, I went to Kyoto, about an hour from my home in the other direction. The first stop was Sanjusangendo Temple, a massive shrine that houses 1001 elaborate and semi-identical Kannon Buddhist statues.

I imagine that one question is likely raging through your mind: Sanjusangendo? A massive shrine thirty-three bays in length? Could this location also be known as Rengeoin, the site of the legendary duel in 1604 between the ronin swordsaint Miyamoto Mushashi and Denshichiro Kempo, head of the legendary Yoshioka Kempo School of Swordsmanship?

The answer is yes, and I'm impressed you knew that. Compare the above photograph with this old black & white photograph taken on the day of the duel:

And, just to elevate the general coolness of this blog (as if that were possible), I include another photograph, this one in rudimentary colors, of Musashi, the coolest fucking bastard ever to wander Feudal Japan, and the eventual outcome of his historic duel with Denshichiro:

In the same day, I also went to Kyoto's fantasmonious Kyomizudera Temple. Here's a picture of the view from there.


A few nights before this, I went out with some coworkers to welcome Jordan, my old colleague and new coworker, to her new job at Kaisei. As a general rule, the more eager Japanese people seem in trying to impress you with their culinary creations, the more nauseating the experience turns out to be. Take a gander at this gourmet dish I was politely assaulted with:


In the west, you're supposed to throw catch like this back. But this is Japan. And yes, I ate them both. Here's a photo of me holding one fish's head (which I was able to decapitate by using only the edge of my chopstick):


And then another photo of me, shortly after popping the fish's head into my mouth.

Two observations on eating fish in the traditional, Japanese style: (1) Skull fragments aren't as delicious as you might think; (2) Most Western cultures disembowel fish before eating them because the bowels are where compacted feces is stored, and unless some disreputable porno producer is paying you in ridiculous amounts of pure cocaine, there's no reason for feces of any sort to ever enter your mouth.

And not much else has been going on. I realize I never talked about the whole Hokie-shoot and the following blame game. Guns? Psychotropic meds? Gun-free campuses? Bullying? Lack of psychiatric oversight? Racist culture? The promise of media limelight? Who/what to blame? Well, I blame Cho. He felt inferior to everyone on the planet because he was inferior to everyone else on the planet. Sayonara, douche.

Along similar lines, I'm coming to a general political conclusion:

Liberals hold individuals responsible for nothing, but everyone collectively responsible for everything.

Thus, Cho is seen as a misunderstood and tragically confused martyr living in an oppressive American society and deserving serious post-humous lefty love. (I am alluding specifically to "Poor Cho" shrines set up on Daily Kos.) That such mourning seems strikingly counterintuitive and nonsensical only verifies the general emotional "truthiness" uber-libs perceive in their hearts. As more me, I prefer my brain to analyze questions of truth.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I sometimes worry I've grown too conservative in this past year. My liberal friends all seem to have given up on me, and when left alone to my own devices, I find myself sliding to an easy, natural predilection of political conservatism.

Oh well! Hope no one minds.

2 pieces of Good News before I sign off:

(1) Errol's coming to visit for the two weeks straddling July and August. His spontaneous silly walks ought to go over quite nicely here, and I'm super-stoked.

(2) I'll be following Errol back to the United States for a five-week vacation. Initial plans are to spend three weeks in Colorado and then two in Florida, where I would visit both Mr & Mrs Ryan B and hopefully Matt, Errol, and anyone else able to come out as well. I'm kicking around the idea of putting Florida first and Colorado second, but I haven't decided yet.

1 final observation/rumination:

Ole Pal Zach Thaxton will soon be facing off against fellow High School Alum Adam Atchison in the rough AM ratings war over Colorado Springs. This is interesting: I love Zach, but Adam's story of ascension is compelling in its own right. Where "Thax" was sincerely (and wisely) voted "most likely to succeed", "Atch" was derisively chosen Homecoming King, a designation widely interpreted as sarcastic, bullying, and cruel by the voting public. There were more than a few losers among the boys in the class below us, and I'm thinking specifically of, not Adam, but rather the muscle-headed fartknockers. From my vantage point, Adam seemed socially awkward, largely friendless, and notable mostly for his striking resemblance to Mr. Bean. High School can be rough, especially Heritage, and it's good to see a target like Adam taste professional success.

That said, if the ratings war must turn violent, I wouldn't be disappointed to hear that Zach brutally eliminated the competition with a trident.

OK! Now I lay me down to sleep. I'll try to post again. Sooner rather than later, this time.

Who's the nappy-headed ho now?

Hello Blogosphere! It's me! Sorry it's taken me a while to write. As you can imagine, I've been terribly busy, what with the Japanese school year beginning and whatnot. But this year seems quite promising so far.

My friend and colleague, Jordan, has been hired by my college, and I've been getting used to having a friend in my presence again. It's strange how accustomed to solitude I've become. But now I have a buddy to do stuff with. Sometimes, it's a little startling to be talked to on the train, or look up from the table at Jolly Pasta to see someone else sitting there. Overall, it's been quite nice, but the previous year spent alone hasn't done much for my social skills. My cantankerosity seems to have calcified, and the presence of others, although ultimately beneficial, is a difficult adjustment.

Oh well!

In other news, after taking a two-month intensive language course, I'm pleased to say that I'm now fairly communicative in Japanese. Today, at my college's annual kickoff party in a ballroom on the 9th floor of Kobe's super-swanky Crowne Plaza Oriental Hotel, I impressed my colleagues by saying, "Tokidoki, watashi wa hitori de sukoshi monkey-dansu shimasu" (sometimes, when I'm alone, I do a little monkey dance). Then I would waddle around the ballroom waving my hands over my head. The sight of me doing this in my new suit seemed to be a big hit among my Japanese co-workers. Anyway, the gag wouldn't have been possible were it not for the free and plentiful beer. Or my newfound Japanese abilities. Thanks beer and Japanese class!

Let's see ... what else ...

I hear the lovely and talented Anna Nicole Smith has shed her well-endowed coil, and is now snorting blow and ground-up diet pills off the shiny surface of the giant male prostitute's ass in the sky. Good for her! And I also hear the touchy matter of paternity has been settled as well (even without the aid of Montel!). Larry Birkhead, the lucky winner and father of Anna Nicole Smith's insanely rich progeny, compared the favorable results of the paternity test to winning an Oscar. This is why I love to pop in the world of celebrity news now and then: to win an Oscar, you must (theoretically) be a devoted and cinematic talent or at least be popular among the empty-headed and fickle Hollywood elite; but to father Anna Nicole Smith's fabulously wealthy heir, all you need to do is ejaculate in Smith's vagina, and then hope your sperm can successfully duke it out with all the other sperm in there.

Anyway, I realize it's not an Oscar, a Grammy, an Emmy, or even a Tony, but I'd like to award Larry Birkhead the first annual Crepuscular Ray Spermy Award.


The Broncos 2007 schedule is out. The Broncos will play both of last year's superbowl teams ... on the road. Ouch.

Rosie O'Donnell (isn't someone supposed to be stomping on her balls?) thinks 9/11 was a government conspiracy. This, of course, puts her in a select but rapidly growing segment of liberals I think of as the left's embarassingly retarded wing. Personally, I'd be surprised if the Republicans won the presidency again in 2008 (no fresh, viable talent). However, should the retardation of the 9/11 Troof Movement continue to spread across the Democrat party, it will only help the cause of conservatives. Although it's true that most Americans seem to be suffering "buyer's remorse" on the Iraq war (Hitch & I are still hanging tough, BTW, knees locked and unwobbly), the mainstream left is mistaken in assuming that most Americans are ready to have their intelligence insulted by the vapid rantings of braindead hippies. I think the right is far better at ostracizing and separating from the loony nitwits amongst them than the left is from theirs, and, as always, whichever party correctly ascertains and seizes "moderate" territory will win.

And then there's the whole "Don Imus thing," to borrow a phrase from regular Crepuscular Ray comment contributor Z.G. Thaxton, who, coincidentally, often suffers a harsh and rigid censorship that he imposes upon himself. (Just blog anonymously, amigo!) Anyway, Imus' remarks were unwarranted and impolitic. He should've said, "those young women who play for Rutgers ... their hair is distinctive in a racial sense and, based solely on their appearance, I judge their adherence to traditional standards of sexual behavior to be dubious at best." But no, he used the word "nappy" in combination with the two-letter abbreviation of whore, and that's all it took for the left to throw their skirts over their heads and run around shrieking.

I think what really killed him was the incessant apologizing he did afterward. I think one apology would've been appropriate, but apology after apology after apology? Howard Stern's said far stupider shit than that, yet he's never lowered himself to the astounding degree Imus did last week. The repeated apologizing seemed to become the story, and soon Imus started looking real guilty. Then he made the mistake of apologizing in person to Al Sharpton, a Jew-hating, race-baiting, rape-hoaxing, poverty-pimping perennial presidential candidate with (I must admit) an amazingly awesome mane. All Imus had to do was say sorry (once) and then ignore the criticism (the controversy would've blown over without Imus fueling it through bizarre self-abasement), tell the critics to lighten up, or, if all else fails, simply quote those calling for his head.

Here's my favorite Al Sharpton quote:

“White folks was in caves while we was building empires... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”

Sure, a quote like that is enjoyable and hilarious on many different levels, but it also automatically disqualifies Sharpton as any sort of moral authority and instead establishes him purely as a homophobic, ignorant, and semi-literate superbuffoon.

Anyway ... after much reflection, I've decided that the real loser in the whole "Imus v. Nappy-Headed Hos" is ... well ... Don Imus! Ha! No onse else is really suffering.

OK, I'm sleepy. Goodnight Blogosphere!

Another video Ryan can't enjoy!

Greetings, all! It has come to my attention, via the comment feature, that not everyone can view my videos, and can I please stop posting them.

Ahem:

NO!

Here's why:

• Ryan brought up my zombie love slave. It's not that I'm embarrassed of her, but I wasn't going to publicly mention our relationship until we had both discussed and agreed on an appropriate time and venue. Now she's pissed that I told a few friends and shows her displeasure via a mixture of the silent treatment and scattered attempts to eat my brains. Thanks, Ryan. Now I'm tempted to post 50 videos out of pure spite.
  
• Time it takes for me to post a video with short comment: 30 seconds
• Time it takes for me to write and then post a substantive article with lots of pictures and phony bumper-stickers that you can't really buy (sorry, Matt): 15 hours

From those second two facts, one might deduce that I'm really busy during my spring break here in Japan, and I just don't have time to post substantive updates. That's very true. I find that in a daily schedule packed with video games and masturbation, it's difficult to find time to do the things I really enjoy.

Like this blog.

So, until I have more time, you'll just have to endure these silly clips between my sporadic yet massive prose bombings. If it takes a week to download a video, I suggest you get started on the "Hobo With A Shotgun" video I posted a few weeks back. Although it got zero comments, several Crepuscular Ray fans have telephoned me and told me how touching it was.

That said, I do, in fact, have a massive, substantive post all written and ready to publish. I originally wrote it to commemorate one year of living in Japan, but then I decided that marking the revolution of the Earth around the sun is a tired and cliched way to observe the passage of time. I won't do it. Next thing you know, I'll be bundling time in multiples of five and ten. Why? Because that's what every other stupid human on this planet does. Five and ten aren't meaningful--they're completely arbitrary. No, my friends, the new post will go up immediately after I've enjoyed my 422nd pain-free bowel movement since the dissipation of my anal fissure, and not a moment before!

Let's see here ... mentioned a zombie love slave, playing video games, masturbation, bowel movements, and an anal fissure in my checkered past. Of course, I was just kidding about all that stuff. Heh heh. Heh.

For instance, I never poop, but even if I did, it wouldn't ever hurt.

Heh.

Enjoy this music video from LCD Soundsystem called "North American Scum." I kind of like it for some reason.

MC Rove ... the brokest rapper! Sellin' crack after the show, yo.

Delighted to see Freedom of Buffoonery is alive and well in the United States! Yo, check dis shit:

God, I miss the 80s.

Before the "No Spin Zone" there was "a world of danger, intrigue, and magic." We have some hard-hitting journalism here. Caution!

Post #73, in which I rudely respond to idiotic bumper stickers.

I believe it was my own dear father who used to say, "I pride myself on having a worldview too complicated to fit on a bumper sticker." I always found this quip striking and memorable, suggestive of nuance yet marked by simplicity--exactly what one should look for in a bumper sticker. Not surprisingly, I've adopted this guiding principle of my father's, and back in the days in which I drove and owned cars, my bumpers went proudly unbestickered. Trailing drivers were forced to wonder at the cultural and political beliefs of the enigmatic yet undeniably skilled driver in front of them.

From behind the wheel, I found bumper stickers generally a source of scorn and contempt. Sure, there were clever and amusing ones, stickers which jokingly referenced the size of Einstein's manhood or the inherently evil nature of higher education, but most bore tired political slogans for complex issues--cliched mantras, essentially, that had been chanted so many times all insight had been lost. Regardless of party affiliation, stickers were basically ostentatious presentations of gross over-simplification, resoundingly and blindly embracing one side without acknowledging or even effectively countering the arguments of the other. The purpose of the stickers seemed less about persuasion and more about announcing affiliation.

And all this struck me as inherently ugly and vulgar. I've met plenty of people who incessantly publicize their politics in daily conversation...people who, shortly after a first introduction, give their unsolicited opinion on very serious and controversial matters in which reasonable people can agree to disagree. This behavior is annoyingly snobbish as it suggests the person's company is to be kept exclusive. Such unsolicited political opinions act as a conversational litmus test: they are presented shortly after the exchange of names in order to determine if further association is necessary. Don't agree with my thoughts on, say, abortion? Well, I've no need to speak any further with you.

I typically loathe such people, and I'm certain I'm not the only one who does. It's been said that politics and religion are fairly safe bets for unpleasant conversation topics among strangers, and understandably so. Why, then, do we adorn our cars--the vehicular manifestations of ourselves--with such messages? Traffic, the interplay of automobiles, is basically conversation among strangers all united with a common purpose: to reach a destination. We signal when turning, we let people in our lane (or not), we sound the horn in alert or anger or as an announcement, we cut people off, we pass, we tailgate, etc. I like this conversation the way it is--there's something pure about it. So why the rude interjection of religion and politics? It's not as if anyone's ever been convinced by a bumper sticker, right?

Of the many cultural stereotypes of Japan, "Japanese people = polite" seems to be grounded largely in fact. Nevertheless, I was surprised to note that I've yet to see a bumper sticker. This realization came to me the other day, and I decided to take a bunch of pictures of cars--beautiful cars with shiny bumpers untainted with stale opinions--and use them as blank canvases in which I respond to bumper stickers I still remember from my driving days back in the United States. To make things fair to the original bumper sticker writers, my responses will be in bumper sticker form.

Seeing as how I currently live in the vacuum equivalent of a social life, with no liberal friends to talk to or interact with, I am slowly reverting to my innate conservatism. I don't believe conservative stickers are 100% correct or unassailable by critical thought. They just don't annoy me as much right now. Therefore, I hope no one minds me ruthlessly slaughtering a few cherished slogans of the left.

Any objections?

No?

OK, then ... bumper stickers on the left are authentic stickers I found for sale on the Internet, and stickers on the right are my reply. Click the pictures to enlarge. Enjoy!

Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #1: Historical Lament
These stickers can be about anything from Adam & Eve to Renaissance homosexuals & astronomers to Columbus to the settlement of the American (or Australian) continents. Is there anyone alive today who had anything at all to do with these things? Of course not. It's just bitching for the sake of bitching.



Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #2: Dippy New-Age Babble

Free Tibet? Why? Because putting vague Hindu imagery on your bumper makes you feel more enlightened than most of the cars on the road? Please. If it said "Free Iraq" you'd be derided by your fellow "progressive" loonies as an ignorant neocon. Other dippy new-age bumper stickers feature silly crap about God being a woman and the driver being a witch or a pagan or some other commitmentless "religion" adopted primarily for shock value. And don't even get me started on those "Eracist" bastards.



Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #3: The Noble Teacher Myth

Sad, but true: (a) the majority of the nation's public school teachers are culled from the bottom one-third (in terms of GPA) of college undergraduates; (b) there is zero correlation between teacher salary and student performance; (c) US public school students' performance on standardized tests are laughable in comparison with the rest of the modernized world. And yet we're all supposed to buy into this notion that teachers are there just because they've got big hearts full of love and they're all capable of getting higher-paying jobs elsewhere.

C'mon: they're largely liberal goons intellectually incapable of working anywhere else (outside fast food) and so instead have decided to monkey around in the heads of gullible kids.

Also, I don't want to rip on Public School teachers unfairly. I went to private school, and most of our teachers were morons too unqualified to teach at a public school.



Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #4: Raising Awareness of Whatever

I'm amused by the notion that things are so horribly screwed-up today that everyone--every last person--shouldn't meander in awe of the beauties of this planet, but rather stomp through life shrieking at the horror of it all. Y'know, 'cuz that's what enlightened people do.



Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #5: Peace = Pleasant and other shocking revelations

I was thinking about it: while brief states of peace are always nice, struggle is what we, as humans, do. We struggle to make money as part of the larger biological struggle to eat, which inevitably initiates a smaller struggle to defecate in the appropriate place. We also struggle to make manifest our wishes and desires, and in social situations this struggle is to get the right people to like us, and the important people to think like us. Some people enjoy this life of struggle, particularly aspects which entail struggling against other humans, while others instead struggle for peaceful relations among everyone. But the fact will always remain that, as long as people struggle for competing and mutually exclusive goals, conflicts of varying degrees of messiness will inevitably evolve. There is no one single correct way to deal with every conflict, and sometimes the conflict is made tangible in ugly ways that aren't pleasant for anyone.

That said, WELCOME TO HUMANITY. IF YOU DON'T LIKE WHAT THE STRUGGLE MIGHT ENTAIL, PERHAPS YOU'LL FIND DEATH MORE PEACEFUL. (hint, hint.)

Starboard bumper sticker courtesy of Cox & Forkum

Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #6: Dude ... think for yourself!

Who is the moron who actually believes sporting a bumper sticker instantly makes a person a rebellious maverick? You''ll find a sticker on one in every three or so cars. Furthermore, if I "Question Authority" just because your bumper sticker told me to, isn't your bumper sticker now my authority? And if your bumper sticker is my authority, then what's the point of questioning its message if its message might be determined wrong under my piercing scrutiny and thus rendered unworthy of questioning?

Now I have a headache. Bottom line: this theme is stupid because it assumes the reader is unfamiliar with the concept that forms of authority might be fallible, and it positions the sticker-bearer as some kind of enlightened figure who knows what's valid and what's bullshit.

Know what's bullshit, pal? Your stupid bumper sticker.



Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #7: Miscalculated Self-Congratulation

It's tough to admire a braggadocio, particularly when they've wildly overestimated themselves or their accomplishments. This is something that bothers me on both sides of the political spectrum. I think it's moronic when conservatives celebrate their imaginary morally-superior or chosen-by-God status, and I think it's moronic when liberals insist they're better educated, mysteriously enlightened, and ... well ... "progressive". Both sides erroneously think it is they who represent the little person, the poor person, and the oppressed person.

What the ego-maniacs fail to realize is that while it is easy to fashion an imaginary reputation of high esteem for yourself, it's just as easy for others to conceptualize you as precisely the opposite.



Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #8: Driver VS Internal Paranoid Fantasies

Your life isn't David and Goliath. There is no "The Man", and even if there were, you certainly aren't "stickin' it to him" with your stupid bumper sticker. With conservatives in charge of the executive branch, liberals seem inordinately predisposed to this theme, as seen below. However, I still remember the moronic "Janet Reno is out to get me" conservatives of the Clinton years.



Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #9: It rhymes? Must be true.

Anyone who's had to hang out with education majors knows their annoying predilection toward rhyming maxims. To be perfectly honest--and this goes back to Theme #3--education students are a bunch of fucking morons. And it hurts to say this because, technically, I'm one of them. Here's a few sayings I had to endure from nitwits while getting my M.A.:

• lesson plan model = "Think, Pair, Share"
  
• teacher's 'ideal' classroom presence strategy = "Be the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage."
• Groupwork is Poopwork!
  

OK, the last one I made up myself, but you hopefully understand the astounding idiocy I had to endure on a daily basis. It was like babysitting at retard day camp or something.

I digress. I now hate all simplistic, cutesy, rhymesy slogans. In fact, I'm beginning to think manifestations of this theme have actually been false in nearly every conceivable instance since Ogden Nash wrote, "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."

The following picture is an example. I ran out of automobile surface area, but rest assured: I could've written 30 or 40 more bumper stickers pointing out the shocking stupidity of this one rhyming piece of shit.



Idiotic Bumper Sticker Theme #10: I went to school in the short bus, but the DMV gave me a license anyhow!

Zach's accused me of profanity ...

Well I say that's Bullshit!

(with apologies to Mel Brooks...)


More big stuff is on the way ... until then, enjoy this video of two lovely women talking dirty to each other.

There's some people I want kicked in the balls. Now go!

Thank you for visiting, and welcome to a very special Crepuscular Ray posting. Today, I'll be going over a list of people who I would like to see experience a special sort of pain, the kind of pain which is simultaneously piercing and numbing, a pain which causes the inflicted to double over and often slightly cross their eyes.

I realize a post like this might be interpreted by some as slightly threatening and hateful, so let me make myself clear at the outset and resolve any misconceptions: I truly hate these people, and I am officially threatening them with bodily harm of the most comedic kind.

That said, I realize that I will likely never encounter any of these people (except the Western Europeans), so I am officially requesting my friends and loved ones to carry on my wishes if the opportunity presents itself. This will forever be known as the Crepuscular Ray Fatwa:

Followers: should you lay eyes upon any of the following personages outside of television or film, you are henceforth charged to cease all activities, disregard your own safety and legal well being, sprint to the target, and, with a maximum of force and minimum of mercy, drive your foot into his balls. Repeatedly, if possible. Should the target bear female anatomy, you are to deliver what my semi-retarded ex-roommate Travis termed a "cunt-punt."

Do this in remembrance of me.

Successful followers will earn a place in the Crepuscular Ray Hall of Fame and bounties of varying degrees.

First Up:

The somewhat effeminate O'Donnell closely approximating what he'd look like if someone kicked him in the balls.

So captured al-Qaeda Uber-Goon Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) admits to having planned and financed the 9/11 atrocities as well as playing a role in a slew of other terror acts, both carried out and in the planning stage. He's in US custody, soon to face a military trial and the same fate that Hermann Goring and assorted other Nazi nuts faced in the previous century following the Nuremberg Trials. Fantastic news, right?

Not according to Rosie O'Donnell, who refuses to believe that KSM bears a shred of responsibility for 9/11 or any of the other 26 plots he claims to have been a part of. And when waifish ex-survivor bimbo-cohost Elisabeth Hasselbeck called the terrorist a terrorist, Rosie got upset because "calling him a terrorist robs him of all of his humanity."

The person O'Donnell so passionately defends is quoted as saying in his confession, "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head." Perhaps O'Donnell thought this was a simply a quote from Borat and stifled laughter at the quaint and silly anti-semitism. Or perhaps O'Donnell was swooning in admiration at the rest of KSM's confession, in which he claims al-Qaeda's global terror campaign is fully justified due to years of misguided U.S. foreign policy--a line of argument which precisely mirrors the retarded babble that flows forth daily from extreme-leftist bloggers, academics, and politicians.

Regardless, KSM deserves the firing squad (which he'll likely get after a thorough military tribunal and months of liberal wailing). And Rosie O'Donnell deserves some massive testicle trauma, which he likely won't get unless one of my disciples helps me out. In addition to my undying admiration, a place in the Crepuscular Ray Hall of Fame, and a debt of gratitude from planet Earth, I'll offer a bounty of 1,000 Japanese yen to anyone who kicks Rosie O'Donnell in the balls.

Number Two:

Cute! Too bad she's, like, totally stupid!

Anya Kamenetz is a young rising star in the world of mindless liberal polemics. She's written successfully on financial crises that face college students and graduates, and I got no problem with that. She has also written about war protesters, the majority of whom are not (to her) brain-dead hippy wannabe's who've smoked themselves retarded and feel that artsy protest tactics and thoughtless recitation of stale bumper-sticker slogans are more persuasive than original logic and rhetoric, but rather "practical, committed guardians of the future." Of course, she's young, and since she's hot we can hope she might yet emerge from her morony. But we should enjoy her today as she currently provides an endless supply of easily mockable material and Crepuscular Ray fatwa fodder.

Take, for example, her recent blog posting on the far left laugh track Huffington Post. The entry, Our First Muslim President, on Democrat presidential contender Barack Obama, is a prime example. I'll print it here in its entirety, interspersed with my reactions:

Kamenetz: Is there anyone else who thinks it's awesome that Obama grew up Muslim?

Me: Like, totally! It's awesome that he once was Muslim, and now is, like, soooo not! I mean, who better to fight Islamic Fascists than someone who once suffered under their boot!

Kemenetz: The LA Times has the utterly charming story of his early childhood in Indonesia today--playing in the muddy streets, raising pet crocodiles, and attending mosque on Fridays.

Me: Muddy streets and pet crocodiles! That's soooo utterly charming! Like, wow!

Kemenetz: America, the world's most multicultural society, is currently in a no-win standoff with Islamic civilization.

Me: "No-Win"? LOL! Like, that's only because gutless and blind extreme leftists have yet to be convinced that if the militant wing of Islamic civilization achieves its stated goal of a global caliphate under sharia law, it'll be the end of women's rights, freedom of religion, and freedom for gay people to like ... breathe and stuff! A few more 9/11s and it'll, like, totally go from "no-win" to "must-win!" For sure! [giggles!]

Kemenetz: Who better to reengage with the so-called "Arab street" than President Barack Hussein Obama? How great an effect would it have on the Islamic world to have the most powerful man in the world saying, "I was taught the wisdom of the Koran, and I believe in the Constitution too" ?

Me: Like, I am so with you on this!! Since standard Muslim theology as well as sharia law equates conversion from Islam to another religion to be akin to treason and thus punishable by death, an Islamic apostate as U.S. President would likely further inflame the Arab street! Totally wicked!

Kamenetz: And not only that, he actually lived in a developing country! He went to school with 'middle-class' kids who had no shoes! Talk about an invaluable perspective for the leader of the free world.

Me: For sure [giggle!]! Why even bother debating?!?! Let's just choose presidents based on where they've lived. You're, like, soooo totally deep, Anya!

Kemenetz: This one story made me more excited about Candidate Obama than anything that came before it. Some people say he's not "black enough"? Whatever. He should be playing up his cultural uniqueness for all it's worth. Don't be afraid of the M-word.

Me: Yeah! Like, you said: totally whatever! Ummm ... what's the M-word? Muslim? Mulatto? Miscegenation? Mindless? Moronic?

Actually, I don't really mind Barack Obama. Like most candidates in both parties, he's making an ass out of himself pandering and double-speaking on a daily basis, and I find that quite entertaining. And so is Kamenetz' blog. But she still deserves a kick in the groin for adopting points-of-view as vacuous as her writing style. Should you deliver the winning kick, all previously mentioned prizes are yours.

San-Ban!

Behold: The Great Goracle, Environmental Televangelist! (Do as he says, not as he does...)

If you want to conform to hip political discourse in the Western world, you need to find some over-the-top way to exaggerate the evils of President Bush. Show the world you've sacrificed any semblance of rationality and nuance, and behave as if GWB & Cheney are Satan-spawned monsters who dine on newborn children and destroy rainbows and butterflies with magical rays of pure hatred. Give Bush no credit for anything his administration does right, and attribute to him ultimate blame for any horrible thing that happens in the world.

Concurrent with this mindset comes the demand that you view Bush's vanquished foes as tragic heroes--brave warriors undone by the sorceries of Bush's dark Merlin (Rove) and a misled American public too stupid to understand true greatness.

As for me, I'm delighted that neither Gore nor Kerry became President. Kerry was a pampered and unlikable lightweight incapable of articulating a coherent strategy on the Iraq war. A couple years after losing the election, Kerry effectively flushed his future down the crapper by making an unfunny joke about American soldiers winding up in Iraq because they're theoretically uneducated nitwits. The remarks were clearly made in a speech, but, according to Kerry, the conservative side of the blogosphere's exposure of the comments were tantamount to another right-wing dirty trick, and instead of behaving with contrition and remorse, Kerry reacted like a weak and whiny bitch. So long to that loser.

Gore's a different story: he has yet to humiliate himself in such a fashion that all but the dopiest of leftists will cease to cling to him. Not that he doesn't try. Since his 2000 defeat, he's taken turns at teaching journalism, preaching about the evils of Bush and war, and has finally resettled on that old Democrat mainstay, the environment. We all know about his documentary, and, although I haven't seen it, I understand that many timorous viewers were later unable to turn off the light ... and then they realized that they were wasting electricity and now are no longer able to turn the light back on.

Personally, I'm not sure what to think of Global Warming. I realize that the majority of "the scientific community" is convinced that Planet Earth is disastrously heating up and it's humankind's fault, but I also understand that the global community of climatologists--those scientists who would know best--remain sharply divided as to whether the warming of Earth is caused by human-created CO2 emissions or is instead part of a natural cycle. In cases such as this and abortion, I tend to believe that humanity should err on the side of caution. Since no one knows for certain, but so many suspect, it would make sense to behave as if Global Warming were in fact every bit as dangerous as it's hyped. So I guess that makes me a tree-hugging granola who, in principle, agrees with the all-knowing, all-seeing Goracle on the matter of Global Warming.

That said, when Al Gore constantly flies around the world in his personal jet (which burns far more fuel and emits much more CO2 than a simple SUV) and slanders disagreeable PhD-bearing climatologists--scientists far better educated on the topic than he is--as "deniers" (as if Al Gore's hypothetical holocaust were somehow remotely as real as one which actually did happen) I start to dream about brutally kicking that fucking retard in his shriveled balls.

And then reports surface that Al Gore uses nearly twice as much electricity in his massive mansion in one month than the average American family uses in an entire year, and it's all I can do not to start lacing up my steel-toed workboots and booking a flight to Memphis. To be fair, this report was issued by a right-wing think tank with a political axe to grind, but Gore's laughably weak refutation of the accusation has all-but-convinced me that it's completely legit.

Considering hypocrisy of this magnitude, it's difficult not to come to the conclusion that Gore is the environmental movement's equivalent of a Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, or Ted Haggard. The main difference here is that the religious right, which is constantly maligned as being backward and hypocritical (hell, I insinuate as much from time to time) were quick to publicly repudiate and ostracize Swaggart, Bakker, and Haggard. No such repudiation will ever come from die-hard environmentalists or other leftists, who appear (a) tragically bankrupt of integrity, or (b) witless thralls completely lacking in the ability to think critically about their heroes.

So kick this slimy ecovangelist in the balls, minions! May your foot fly straight and swift! The left will hate you for it, but you're really doing them a favor.

And finally ...

Western Europe: That's a lot of balls to kick ... might want to pack a few extra pairs of shoes.

I think it's important that Americans stop apologizing to Western Europeans, and instead start kicking them in the balls. Here's why:

Every time I meet a Western European here in Japan, their standard position is that I, as an American, somehow owe them an apology. I've met Spanish, Swedish, English, Irish, Dutch, German, French, and Italian people over here. Without exception, each affects the "you farted" facial expression or makes some snide comment when I tell them I'm from the United States. For some reason I have yet to figure out, the traveling lifestyle tends to draw liberals more than conservatives, and, as a result, the source of their prejudice is largely political in nature: They don't like Bush, they don't like the war, and they don't like me because it's all my fault.

To their shame and discredit, most liberal Americans make a big show of immediately dropping to their knees and apologizing to their Western European betters on behalf of the entire United States for the nefarious actions of the democratically elected president. I know they do this because I've seen them do this on numerous occasions. Debased Americans are then accepted by the Western European as an honorary enlightened person with a mere nationality handicap.

Not me, though. The more antagonistic a Western European becomes, the more "American" I talk. I inflate the number of guns I (don't really) own, the size of the SUV I (don't really) drive, the number of relatives I (don't really) have serving in the armed forces, and the degree to which I support the President. Few things please me more than disappointing someone waiting for an apology I don't owe.

Kobe and Osaka have a fairly diverse international community (for Japan, anyway), and should I ever meet an Iraqi who tells me that, due to a guidance system malfunction, a cruise missile destroyed his house and family, I'd be quick to apologize and do anything I could to help. Even if his situation weren't as dire as that, I'd still be sensitive to tragedies and inconveniences caused to him by the war my country conducts against elements of his.

While exploring this region of Japan, I've met many Africans, South Americans, and (not surprisingly) lots of Asians from both Central and Eastern countries. I've also met a fair number of Eastern Europeans, including a Serb who engaged me in a long and lively conversation on video games. I've even briefly met an Iraqi here once (said he's lived here with his family for 15 years), and I've met plenty of other Arabs and Persians. Guess what: none of them have ever acted as if I owe them an apology.

Just the Western Europeans.

The irony is that, among all the world, Western Europeans are least deserving of an apology from the United States or from any random American they might encounter. Think about it: what have we ever done to Western Europe that merits their spite? If you wanted to showcase the noblest and most selfless achievements of the United States in our history, Western Europe would arguably be the first place you'd mention.

But now they've designated themselves apology receptacles on behalf of an aggrieved world. I say instead of apologizing, we kick them in the balls.

At least then we might have a reason to apologize.


Hope you like the new page design!

Curse the Allied War Effort!

For the first (and hopefully last) time in my life, I have been directly inconvenienced by actions taken by America during the second world war. What a pain in the ass. It was almost enough to make me wish Tojo and Hitler had won. Check this out:

Sunday March 4, 4:33 PM

LEAD: 10,000 people in Kobe evacuate for removal of World War II dud

(Kyodo) _ (EDS: UPDATING)

About 10,000 residents in Kobe evacuated Sunday while members of the Ground Self-Defense Force worked to remove an unexploded shell apparently dropped during World War II.

The Kobe municipal government sealed off a 300-meter radius around the site while the GSDF personnel were removing the detonating fuse from a 250-kilogram dud at a construction site in the city's Higashinada Ward, city officials said.

The bomb, apparently dropped by the U.S. military during the war, was discovered in the initial phase of a condominium construction project, the officials said.

Hanshin Electric Railway Co. halted train services between Nishinomiya and Mikage stations for about five and a half hours during the bomb removal operation because the construction site is located only 150 meters from railway tracks.

Star Wars!

No one called me on it, but the video I posted yesterday had already been posted on this blog. Ooops! Sorry.

Here's another video. In my addled state, I can't tell if this is incredibly lame or incredibly cool. Help me out. I am no longer capable of formulating opinion without the help of my compadres.

Brave Warriors ... Riders of the Plains ...

Maybe I'll post a new video every night this week. Wouldn't that be somethun!

Here's a music video that not only entertains us through outstanding musicianship and dancing, but also manages to honor our Native American forebearers in a very deep and symbolic way.

Hey, blogging's easy . . .

. . . when you never spend more than 45 seconds writing! I think I'm just gonna post video clips from now on.

I'm Crepuscular Ray for Action City News. Back to you, Thax.

I have no idea what the hell this clip is about, but it strikes me as fundamentally hilarious on multiple levels. Commentary from our own little newsman is formally requested.

America--FUCK YEAH!

Usually, upon viewing something with the feel of pro-America propaganda, I feel my skin begin to crawl. It's not that I hate the United States--I love it, and I rigorously defend it from people who've nothing nice to say about it. The source of my discomfort comes from the realization that propaganda with dubious veracity typically has the opposite of the desired effect on audiences, and the entire enterprise, which entails government manipulation in the marketplace of public ideas, strikes me as fundamentally undemocratic and orwellian. That's why I'm bothered when governments I like engage in propaganda production.

Thus, I cringed throughout the first ten seconds of this video clip:



After it was all over, however, I felt a sense of relief that the United States government had nothing to do with the production of this video. This relief, however, was replaced by a sense of projected embarassment on someone else's behalf. Two crucial opinion-shaping institutions in the western world--academia and the electronic media--exhibit growing anti-American bias. This may be mildly true in the United States (I'd reference Ward Churchill, but I hear Errol's insane antics have forever weirded him off CU's campus), but it's even more true in Europe, where, for example, BBC, the most trusted media outlet in the continent, recently admitted they suffer from an anti-American bias. It's stodgy academics and slanted journalists and entertainment producers who need to have their minds changed about the United States, but I suspect videos such as this elicit little more than a snort of derision from those quarters. Hence, my projected embarassment on the behalf of the producers.

And then I thought about it a bit more. All the video flatly states ... is true.

Sure, the United States has selfishlessly screwed over a significant amount of poor countries over the past century. We have been mostly fair but tremendously dedicated capitalists, and our business acumen has enriched our own citizens often at the expense of poorer countries and their exploited laborers abroad. Our weapons of war have repeatedly, through malfunction or user incompetence or purely rotten happenstance, taken the lives of thousands of innocent people. And our massive production industries have created environmental hardships for multiple countries around the world. Hell, the United States likely wouldn't even exist today had our ancestors not routinely enslaved and massacred weaker groups of people.

That's a tremendously dark picture, and I don't really fault critics of the United States for experiencing feelings of cynical pessimism (I frequently experience them myself). But I do fault the majority of critics for allowing their minds to stop there. I fault them for closing their eyes and plugging their ears and relentlessly claiming that, though they grew up patriotic, they've since taken the red pill and have followed Neo down the rabbit-hole where they've achieved enlightenment and no longer need to listen to viewpoints which contradict theirs. The notion that the United States is, in actuality, the one true evil empire befouling the planet is an irony too delicious for many to move away from.

The reason that irony is so delicious is because it betrays an obvious truth: with regard to the United States, the glass is obviously half-full. You'll find it's true if you scour all sides of all issues with your critical intellect fully engaged. If you haven't the time or the intellect, then take it from me: a man with no family or social life, but with plenty of time, an internet connection, and a curiosity to listen to all voices on any issue which is of interest to me at the moment. I've turned into an all-seeing, all-consuming devourer of news and information. Sure, my sanity is questionable (see last post), but when I'm lucid (as I am now) you can believe me when I say the United States may have a grey-colored past and present, but the truth is our shade is far closer to white than black. Americans do far more good to the world than evil, and, who knows, maybe in coming weeks I'll introduce a moral weight scorecard to this blog with graphs and pie charts that prove what I'm talking about.

Until then, you'll have to accept the simple apparent truths that are right in front of your face and on videos such as the one above.



PS: Matt's a big poopy-pants.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Hi everyone.

School's done. Been busy taking Japanese class. Real busy. Five days a week, four hours a day plus 90 minutes of homework busy. Nothing interesting going on in my life, whatsoever. Thus, prepare yourself for an excruciatingly dull post.

Matt sent me this sketch the other day. He originally drew if for his psychology-student friend who is conducting some kind of psychoanalysis based on artwork from headcase acquiantances.

At first glance, I immediately thought "gay." Perhaps this sketch is Matt's long-awaited and bold "Embrace Me for the Flaming Homosexual Artist I Am" piece for the contemporary visual arts community, which has traditionally been very homophobic. But then, I looked closer at the picture and realized that the art community has never really been homophobic, and Matt's not really gay, and there's no homoerotic content in this picture whatsoever. This was a series of stunningly disappointing revelations.

This raises the question: why do I desperately want to make the assumption Matt is gay?

Maybe I just wish he was gay, so I could legitimately make fun of him for being gay, in that un-PC way that's so popular among rowdy packs of guys these days.

Or ... OR ... ! Maybe I wish Matt was gay for "other" reasons ... ! If you know what I'm saying, wink wink!

And, of course, by "other" reasons, I mean, maybe, if Matt were gay, he could help me coordinate my outfits and give me advice on how to better communicate with women.

Alas, Matt is sadly not gay (which I suppose is good news for his wife), I don't really have any "outfits" in need of coordination (just random pants and shirts whose daily selection is determined largely according to the magnitude of their odor), nor do I have any female situations that might require the counsel of a trusted homosexual.

Sigh. I'm a man with no homosexual friends in no need of homosexual friends.

Anyway, sorry for the lame post. Here's Matt's sketch. I manipulated the colors in the piece so it would better match the color scheme of my overall web page.


PS -- The rumors that we've all heard appear to be true. Errol Jones, aka "Blackass", aka "E-Money", aka "T-bone" (am I missing any nicknames?) has discovered a (surprisingly attractive) woman unoffended by his filthy apartment and vehicle, mismatched socks, and rather creepy sense of humor. At first, I didn't think it was serious, but then Errol related to me that she complimented the texture of shirt of his that he likes to call his "Captain Kirk Shirt."

"I call it my Captain Kirk Shirt," he replied, presumably without an ounce of embarassment, to her tactile sampling of the fabric.

"A Captain Kirk Shirt?" she answered back. "But you're sexier than Captain Kirk."

I know what you're thinking. After hearing James Tiberius Kirk so casually blasphemed, Errol likely fell into a deep rage and spit in her face, or, at the very least, made the "impending backhand slap" hand gesture. Alas, none of these. Instead, he was jubilant.

"Sexier than Captain Kirk!" he cried. "Holy Shit! I didn't think that was even possible!"

And that's how I knew our little man was gone.

along similar lines... HOW TO POOP.

Here's a mostly-animated video from my current country of residence:



I like to watch this video and marvel at the fact that, not only do I live in this bizarre wonderland, but I somehow like it here enough to attempt mastering the language with the intent of lengthening my stay. Speaking of language, after the young tiger cub masters the intricacies of procedure number two and is awarded a pair of shorts, he exclaims, "pant-su ni kimochii!" I believe he's saying "pants feel good!" I'm unclear as to whether wearing the pants feels good, or being rewarded by his parents for making early strides to integrate smoothly into a hygenic and orderly Japanese society feels good. Personally, since I now live alone and never suffer visitors, I eschew wearing pants at home and do my all household stuff in boxer shorts and a t-shirt. I think that feels good.

My Sexy Toilet! (a photojournalistic exhibition)

I'm sure all five or six of my readers constantly wonder about the aspects of my life which revolve around expelling internal waste. Luckily for you, I've decided to break my silence.

Before we go any further, I'd like for you to imagine your own toilet for a moment. Perhaps it's sparkly clean; perhaps it's dinghy and dirty; perhaps it smells lemon-fresh; perhaps it smells a different sort of fresh.

Regardless of your crapper and its specifics, I am willing to stake my life on a single assumption: your toilet doesn't feature a bevy of soft-core pornography sculptures relaxing in a mock Japanese Hot-Spring.

Does it?

I thought not.

Behold all and tremble in erotic excitement at my sexy toilet, yet another reason to come visit me in Kobe:

A toilet so sexy, sometimes I flush it just for fun.


A closeup of my sexy quintet in varying states of nudity.


Click to enlarge! (If only they worked that way in real life...)


Just like real-life super-sexy women, they're made of shiny plastic.

Perhaps you're wondering what kind of kinky adults-only porno-emporium your intrepid weblogger had to brave in order to obtain five-inch plastic pieces of sex perfection. The answer: a regular, run-of-the-mill toy store (these were one aisle away from the Lego's) that was a floor below the menswear store where I recently got measured for a business suit. I was feeling slightly emasculated after allowing an effete Japanese fellow armed with metric measuring tape to advance to first base, and so, after exploring racks upon racks of gun-studded robot toys, my gaze drew me to the mysterious porno-sculpture section. A few strange looks from the cashier and a slow ride on the train home later, my toilet achieved a state of raw sex-appeal likely never before seen since our hirsute ancestors first installed an excrement drainage trench in their dank and pee-sodden cave.

Cool, huh? Feel free to share your own sexy toilet stories in the comment section. Until next time, I leave you with this video a powerfully sexy toilet that, almost unbelievably, fails to achieve half the raw sexiness of its primary user:

The only thing worse than children? Parents.

I'm not a big fan of children. I've never quite understood the appeal. Take, for example, very young children: when they're not bawling and screaming over the stupidest thing, they're drooling and peeing and pooping all over the place, a loathsome behavior compounded by the facts that they're utterly uninterested in cleaning up after themselves and barely bright enough to realize how disgusting they are. As they advance into prepubescence their intelligence awkwardly stumbles after, always tottering a few paces behind the threshold of tolerability.

As annoying as this is, it also represents the single enjoyable thing about young children: their gullibility. They so desperately want to be regarded as highly as an adult, they will say anything--no matter how retarded--as long as they think it will make their handlers happy. While it's always a hoot lying to children, their innate self-conscious stupidity has always distressed me for some reason. This has been a mystery to me until a recent epiphany: the stupidity that I see in children doesn't vanish in adults, but rather only becomes slightly more muted. Children remind me of what I dislike about humanity, and, as a human, I find this (and them) discouraging.

That said, it's parents that I find even more annoying than children. It's parents who fool themselves into thinking that they really do possess the godlike intellect their children naively assume. Thus, instead of perceiving their offspring as cruel mirrors which reflect the shortcomings of human genetic conditioning (as children should be seen), they see their little worshippers and assume the adulation is evidence of their own innate greatness.

Once a mother or father reaches this point, they become supremely annoying. Parents recognize their children are stupid and gullible, and they use this period in their kid's life to imprint their own worldview and ideology. Hearing children echo their weakminded drivel back to them gives them satisfaction not gleaned from conversing with fellow adults, who are more likely to scrutinize and criticize and arrogantly postulate their own perspective.

This brings me to two youtube clips, from both sides of the political/cultural spectrum, for your viewing disgust:



Ah, yes! Poor, idiotic, 9-year-old Rachel must be the apple of her moronic parents' eye! That she has so uncritically bought into her parents' mysticism is only proof of its validity! Never mind that her voodoo-esque blessing of a bowling ball results in a performace 200 points shy of bowling perfection, she mimics Mommy and Daddy's "wisdom", and that's all that matters. As for the uncomfortably awkward attemped conversion of the hot blonde: Why go to the trouble of proselytizing yourself when your kid can be brainwashed into doing it for you?

Oh, and don't quote me on this, but I think the church featured at the end of the clip is the same one formerly headed by the prominent pastor in Colorado Springs who got busted buying regular massages (plus happy endings and probably sodomy and felching too) from a male prostitute in Denver. I wouldn't mind hearing what Young Rachel thinks about the head of her flock "tossing another man's salad."



The girl in this video is hyped by her hippie folk-music handlers as "the Coolest 8 Year Old in the World." Of course, when one considers the frequent edits throughout the clip, it's easy to recognize that the supposedly precocious and shrewd girl is really just aping short lines and gestures from a coach, which is why the coach likely watches the clip and thinks of him/herself as "the coolest 36 year old mind-meddler in the world." Perhaps if the girl was a normal adult, instead of mindlessly parroting an equation as moronic as "KKK=Nazis=Republican Party", the coach would've received a rational response, such as "well, I don't care much for the Republicans, but comparing them to Nazis? Are you fucking retarded or do you not know anything about the second world war?"

The delicious irony is that one of the supposed messages in this diatribe is that children should be "treated like human beings." But the creation method behind this entire clip is predicated entirely on not treating the girl as a human being, but rather exploiting her enthusiastic emulatory zeal and oh-so-cute stage presence. That's not treating someone like a human being. That's treating them like a stage prop.

Anyway, the point here isn't that ultra-charismatic Christians and ultra-liberal hippie producers of musical excrement are horribly annoying parents. Just about all parents of young children that I've met are horribly annoying. Missionary-girl and Hippie-girl are only easy examples to illustrate my point. I could probably find more clips to show you what I'm talking about, but I need to go to bed now so I can get up early tomorrow and watch the Patiots-Colts game.

In the mean time, if you find a smug parent of a young child, you have my permission to punch him or her in the face and then spit on their child.