Slate's Rob Long on the GOP's "Almost Famous" celebrities,

On a trip to the basement of my office for some sort of bite-sized snack I witnessed a technician servicing the lonely and rarely used coffee vending machine outside the confectionary. He was refilling what seemed to be some kind of petroleum based product. Funny, I always thought toxic waste was removed from machines not refilled with it, but the coffee vending machine breaks all the rules ---not just the health department's.

What I saw when he moved aside simply can not be repeated. I don't have the time nor the vocabulary to explain the horror of what I witnessed. Let's just say that I've always steered clear of vending machines that add milk to your beverage on request, but after looking behind the curtain I'd advise the WHO to order immediate destruction of all these evil hot beverage machines.

After watching the trailer for Garden State the first thing that popped into my mind was not "When's this film coming to Japan?" though a close second, but who's song is that?

*Such Great Heights 6MB

I knew there was something familiar about The Postal Service and a quick scan of the band bio confirmed my nagging suspicions. Their main vocalist is Ben Gibbard, the same Ben from Death Cab for Cutie, a favourite as of late. Two of Death Cab's album's Transatlanticism and Photo Album have been on heavy iPod rotation since purchase, and Give Up won't be far behind soon. Gibbard's soft and soothing vocal style really seems to suit this type of lo-fi music I've grown to love lately, be it guitar based rock e.g. Death Cab, All-Time Quarterback or the drum machine, keyboard based lo-fi electronic style of The Postal Service.

When the hell did I start talking with my hands so much? It never occurred to me until I noticed myself explaining the benefits of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to a client like I was conducting the New York Philharmonic. I'm not gay and none of my friends are politicians, weather men or Italian, so what gives?

I recently contributed a photo to File, an online photography magazine. Other current contributors include a few favourites of mine Jose Luis Martinez, Justin Ouellette, Neal Curley and Eliot Shepard. They're also building on a nice collection of galleries, one in particular that caught my eye was "Three Polaroids from Crete" by Jim Green.

I've never met him, but will have the oppertunity to do so this weekend under the most unfortunate circumstances. His daughter tragically passed away due to heart and lung problems last Friday after a month long battle in the ICU. She was almost nine month old.

I could never know the pain and grief her parents must be feeling right now, but I'm in a relatively similar stage in my life with a daugher born only a few months earlier and when I try to put myself in their shoes I fall to pieces. She will be greatly missed, and even as a casual reader of his weblog I can tell she made them very proud to be her parents.

How many times does one have to fall on slick wet pavement before thinking about buying new sandles. Well, apparently the exact number is three. Ouch.

Put Frankie to sleep and watched the last of three DVD's rented last weekend. Having passed by this film since it came out on rental, and only faintly remembering the theater run, I figured it would round out my other selections. Nicholson, Cage and Clooney ---safe bets, usually.

I'd have to agree with Erik's review in saying this remake of the 1972 Sci-Fi romance is one of the most visually appealing films I've seen in a long time, if not the most. Slow moving in the film's mixture of earth flashbacks and space scenes, but that slow pace just helps in making it all the more emotionally powerful. I love the theme of a "second chance" and the question it poses regarding knowinly choosing fantasy or cold reality to feel someones love again, a theme I enjoyed in Vanilla Sky. IMHO George Clooney's best performance to date, and I'd say the same for Soderbegh but will hold my breath till Che is released before possibly having to repeat that claim.

If the person who lives near the Sagamiono Starbucks and happens to have a wireless network SSID "cordneos" or something like that reads this would you mind opening up your network? Please. Or if you can just go ahead and slip me the WEP password ---that'd be just super.

Picked up issue #35 and #38 of lodown magazine, a unique german skateboarding, music and graffiti mag found at murasaki sports. A few too many ads for my liking but the graphic design and refreshing photography was well worth the price, plus English interviews always help. There's also a book by the same name from lodown's art director Thomas Marecki.

Should have seen this coming, so-called blackhat hackers that want to protest the RNC in New York by ---not letting anyone read its website. The real protesters in NYC will have a hard enough time getting credible media coverage without these asshats violating the opposition’s free speech. I despise Bush as much as the next bag of bones with a pulse but it makes no sense whatsoever to thwart someone’s free speech then in return expect to be heard freely yourself. You can only have two positions on free speech, for it or against it. Sadly these hackers have made their position clear.

A couple times a week I poke my head in at salon.com, take a look around, read the book review and a few articles --- great writing. I'm not so pleased about having to view an ad to get access to the articles but I understand they have to make money somehow and the quality you get at salon is usually well worth 20 seconds of ignoring the screen and clicking next. I don't mind doing that once, but twice in the same day? That's pushing it and makes a mockery of the words "day pass". Turns out now the cookie salon gives you is now only valid for 8 hours, yet with the help of the wayback machine I can see that as early as February this year salon's day pass was 18 hours, not exactly 24 hours but better then only 8.

To be fair if I ever paid for a website's "premium content" salon.com would be a shoe-in and would most likely do that if I lived in North America and could get the free magazine subscriptions.

[added to new "nitpicking minor details" category]

In Italy, and France, The above quote from a New York Times article on French author Corinne Maier's new book "Bonjour Paresse", which translates into "Hello Laziness". I wonder whether the word "sloth" came from the animal, or was the lanky limbed tree climber named after it's apparent laziness? Either way I'm sure they would be in favour of compulsory siesta.

Links stolen from Vincent

When a baby's toy emits a series of beeps and boops in the form a children's song it can give you a sense of hope and joy to hear about the whiteness of a certain lamb's fleece, the colour compaired to snow. And upon hearing that two young boys share the same first, last, and two middle names you can't help but smile.

But there's something about the drawn out, off key notes that are produced when the toy battery dies, transforming the tune from uplifting and joyful to dark, morbid and a bit depressing, tempting you to stick something rusty and sharp in your eye or jump from a high ledge. On the way home from school Mary's lamb is jacked at gun point and sold for kebab meat by the little boy who lives down the lane, ring leader of the local black market wool trade. And upon hearing the ridiculously long name "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" both Johns are teased and ridiculed by their peers in the school yard till they run home crying like little girls with skinned knees.

A good gauge on how much I enjoyed a film is whether or not I'm still thinking about the story the next morning. That of course helps when watching the movie before going to bed but, nevertheless an impressive feat.

On the train this morning I couldn't help but think how eerily normal all the characters where in that film. From Warren's painfully everyday grandmother-esque wife Helen, "don’t dilly-dally", to his friendly trailer park neighbour and occupational therapist wife. Warren Schmidt's total moron for a future son-in-law Randall, as he tries humorously to shovel air during Warren's father of the bride speech. A speech in which Warren desperately tries to recall a pleasant moment shared by the two of them. These types of characters aren’t usually written into Hollywood movies and for understandable reasons. They remind us how average we really are and how funny we aren't (most of the time).

After ejecting the disc and returning it to the blue padded Tsutaya envelope Masako and I shared a moment. Without words we came to agreement that we would never get old and normal, and that if I ever started collecting ceramic figurines that she should promptly put me out of my misery.

In the office I've always been one to "borrow" my neighbours pen, re-use file folders found in the trash and manufacture makeshift notebooks out of the pile of abandoned one sided print-outs. In other words I've never had much use for the coveted office supplies catalog, the administrative assistance bible, the sacred volume marked with one quarter size green, yellow and light-blue post-it notes. Multicoloured highlighters don't interest me let alone an entire box of multicoloured highlighters.

I was asked for my recommendation in a notebook case, one of those foam sleeves that show an egg safely being dropped on it in the brochure. Easily I was able to recommend the case I use for my powerbook but wanting to give a few more options I sought out the precious Askul office supplies catalog. A language note: Askul is short for ashita kuru (arrive tomorrow).

This catalog has everything. I'm not just talking about items like stationary supplies, thirty plus models of calculator, office furniture or computer Peripherals, but things that just don't conjure up images of the workplace when thought of.

How about expensive Godiva chocolates? The coffee and espresso machines I get, but seeing that I'm rarely able to obtain hot water for my cup noodle lunches it makes me skeptical about the espresso macchiato. In offices that buy this equipment who gets to play barista? Is it a rotating duty? And if so, who will fulfill their duties while listening to long-winded orders of Caffè Con Panna and decaf, non-fat caramel lattes. How will they file their TPS reports when they're warming up my poppy seed banana pound cake?

I'm guessing the disposable paper plates and chop sticks are for company picnics, but what's with the window washer, Drano and pine solvents? I've never seen the building janitor doggy-earring any of these pages. But what really scares me is the shampoo, rinse and condition, tub mildew killer and bath towel sets. All we need now are bunk beds and a good cavity fighting toothpaste, all of which I hear can be special ordered, and we never have to go home again. So next time you jokingly say "I've been living at the office lately." you can mean it literally.

Ever since I worked as a daytime bartender in a Trendy Thunder Bay nightclub, I've taken to wearing polished leather shoes full time. And yes I understand that the words trendy and Thunder Bay sound funny together and that they should. But what I mean is trendy for northern Ontario standards, and even that makes me giggle. It's just that simply stating we served beer with a class and didn't have bear or moose on the menu just doesn't have the same ring to it.

I bought my first pair of fake doc martins when raking in minimum wage serving/spilling rye-and-cokes and never looked back. From that point on I came to judge many a stranger by his or her footwear. "Hmmm, 1970 era Nike�s eh?", I'd think to myself, wondering whether or not they were newly purchased and were going for the retro-look or they'd simply been wearing them since the Nixon administration. Intent is everything when talking about fashion.

In my first year of high school Country-Rock, to this day I still shudder when I hear these two words together, and cowboy boots were all the rave amongst the pick-up truck driving crowd that hung out in the automotive mechanics wing of my school. You would have thought this type of student, which compromised upwards to 75% of the student body, who kept pin-ups of Garth Brooks and Richard Petty in their lockers, and who frequently argued over in-depth topics such as "Ford vs Chevy" or "Arctic Cat vs. Polaris vs. Ski-doo" would have discovered the highly fashionable aspects of the cowboy boot long ago.

Wearing pointy snake skin footwear didn't automatically make you cool per say, case in point being my father. He rarely wore anything but denim and cowboy boots, a man who owned a closed full of boot-cut jeans well before the GAP made them an �essential�. I had a close friend fall victim to this trend, whose first act after pulling them on was to try and light a match off the sole like he presumably saw in some western. Sure I rant about fashion faux pas committed in the past but coming from a person who once wore scrubs from the local psychiatric hospital bought at the Salvation Army with suspenders and cut-off short with long underwear underneath finished with 18-hole combat boots should have no right to criticize.

Back then if someone were to judge me by my second hand combat boots they might come to the conclusion that I was tough, rugged, sensible, reliable and thought highly of punk band The Dead Kennedys due to the DK logo etched into the heel with white out. Yet if they were to look at my smurf blue hair and safety pin ear ring they probably would have rethought the sensible bit.

For some reason I can't stand running shoes. They just never look good on my feet even with shorts when I resort to Birkenstocks. It might have something to do with the shape of my legs, I can't explain it. I'd rather trek the back streets of Tokyo barefoot then wear shoes endorsed by a professional athlete. Now days I wear nothing but black polished doc martins and, possibly due to the way I walk, the toe of my left shoe is always scuffed up to the point where you can see the bare leather under the black. I haven't polished them in a while, going for that rugged, sensible look again sans smurf blue hair.

I once heard someone say you could use the same comparison on a persons watch instead of shoes. Nonsense I say. I wear an '83 model Casio G-Shock and I'm neither 20 BAR water resistant nor am I ever constantly five minutes late. Yes, and my watch being a 1983 model. I bought it three years ago and it's meant to be retro. It�s all about intent.

A new video project set up to gather and distribute 30 second video messages from people around the world on how they view America. If anything irks me it's when I read or hear on TV how the world should stay out of American politics and go play in our own backyard. Of course this can only happen when American politics seriously concider citizens of the world and stop stomping the flowers in everyone elses yard. link via fray storyblog.

I've spent the last three and a half minutes redecorating my desk in the effort to make more from less. I removed all books from the corner leaving the lonely brick that held them up against the side of the removable partition separating my world from that of the lotus notes administrator. I un-tacked a clipped a magazine page from Transworld Skateboarding on my front wall and arranged the thumbtacks in a straight line symbolizing where the backside nose grind 180 photograph used to lie. And as a finishing touch I took a rag and wiped down the table top leaving two strategically placed coffee cup rings in the right front portion of my desk, symbolizing the eternal circle of life and also where I usually put my coffee.

I can't think of anything that would go better with curry then cheese, well maybe deep fried sausage. Coco Ichiban (pronounced: Coco Ichiban) is a chain Japanese curry shop and if at Burger King you can HAVE IT YOUR WAY® then at Coco you can HAVE IT PRETTY MUCH ANY GODAMN WAY YOU LIKE ® I say 'pretty much' because you probably couldn't ask for it to be served in your pocket or in your shoe, but then again I've never tried so I couldn't really say.

Coco Ichiban has got to have one of the most customizable menus on the planet, so much so that the back page of the eight panel menu lists five steps titled "How to Order". First you pick your meat, seafood, vegetable or miscellaneous. Choices range from menchi-katsu (battered deep fried hamburger), deep fried squid, cream filled crab croquette, eggplant or tofu which can only be classified as miscellaneous. Thirty-four choices in total, basically anything that can be thrown into the deep frier. Octopus, no problem. pickeled eggs, why not. Shoelace, sounds good. Next comes your choice of curry. If you don't specify then pork curry is the default "gravy" as they say in India, but you also have beef curry to choose from.

If you're one of those guys, and I say "guys" because I've never heard a woman say this, that loves really spicy food or rather likes taking about how they can stomach the rarest of chilies. You know the type, they can chow down on foods proceeded by the words "Suicide" or "5-Alarm" in which they need to sign a legal medical wavier to eat and the entire time brag about how "this is nothing at all, i've eaten much spicier". Meanwhile you can see the steam shooting from their ears, their tongue cracking like chapped lips in dry winter air and the waiter frantically hitting the 911 speed dial which happens to be labeled as one. If this describes you then you'll enjoy the next step of choosing your level of spiciness which ranges from 0 being the default level to 10 being the level in which hallucination is almost expected. As if this wasn't enough you can still pick from about fifteen different toppings like corn, garlic, scrambled eggs, bacon, kimchi or cheese.

With all the possible combinations available to me, I pretend to ponder the menu for a minute as if to impress the minimum wage high-school student behind the counter into thinking I'm making an educated well thought out decision, contemplating what a level two kimchi garlic omelet sprinkled with deep fried corn might taste like. A quick look at their menu would leave you to believe that pretty much anything goes in this place. If you wanted to try mayonnaise curry I'm confidant they'd throw a dollop in the frier for you and make up a price, in fact I think it's one of the toppings. With all this power at my fingertips I never fail to choose the same thing. "Creature of Habit.", my father used to jokingly say at our local chinese restaurant before predictably ordering his signature consomme soup and open-face hot beef sandwich. Me, I'm a chicken-katsu and cheese person but only two-hundred grams rice.

That reminds me. You can also customize the amount of rice to a hundred grams, 300g being the standard. If you can down 1,300 grams of rice, served in a plate the size of a small tire, in a certain time frame you get it for free. You get your polaroid on the wall and upon hearing your story of gluttony a small family in Bangladesh will curse the infidel pigs and their curry shop of unlimited combinations. When you die during your triple coronary bypass you get another polaroid on the back wall, except in this one you're not holding up your licked-clean plate with pride.

So when you're in Japan, alone and hungry (alone because it wouldn't be my first choice for a date) remember Coco Ichiban. You heard it hear first, or maybe second but I defiantly gave you more detail.

This afternoon Masako and I made a our way to Odawara from my in-laws place to see Deep Blue. Not to be confused with Deep Blue Sea, this Deep Blue, Deep Throat staring Linda Lovelace or another film by the name "Deep Blue Sea, The" from 1955 which I never heard of, just found on imdb when researching this paragraph.

Deep Blue (the one we saw) is a beautifully filmed documentary from the BBC series The Blue Planet fit for the big screen. A wide IMAX screen would have done more for the film but who am I to judge. Directed by Andy Byatt and Alastair Fothergill with all accompanying music by the Berlin Philharmonic, it's like watching the discovery channel on a really big TV.

Narrated by Michael Gambon, I can't help but notice that a british narrator always seems to raise the educational content of what you're watching. If Michael Cane was to narrate COPS it would be described as an educational look into the American inner city and trailer park criminal justice system, then promptly droped from FOX.

Some of the footage was a little grainy and may have felt more comfortable on the cutting room floor, or rather in the cutting room garbage can. All was forgiven after the impressive arial feeding frenzy, a swim though a school of jelly fish and unbelievable shots of creatures that thrive beyond the range of natural light in the depths of the marianas trench. The film's website has a wealth of information in the form of behind the scenes videos and interviews but unfortunately because of the Flash I'm unable to link to anything specific so you'll just have to explore the depths of that one on your own.

It's raining outside, so better bring an umbrella. Alternatively a raincoat would also suffice, if that's your thing.

There's something nerve-racking about when the guy using the urinal next to you feels the need to unbuckle his pants and top button just to go pee. It's not that I'm watching or counting how many times he shakes, it's just a little difficult not to notice someone undressing so close by.

I wonder if he's ever thought about what that little zipper was for, or the slit in the front of boxer shorts. "These are all designed for easy access when relieving oneself" I'd tell him. "And to prevent one from having to tuck the back of your shirt in again and again and again, depending on the amount of coffee or oolong tea you consume per day."

I hope that if I and Mr. "I-have-to-pull-my-pants-down-to-pee" ever happen to cross paths again in the bathroom he would be willing to try out some of these suggestions or at the very least extend the courtesy of a one or two urinal buffer zone.

I have this odd, tight, numb feeling in my legs and hip, like the lower half of my torso has been dipped in a giant vat of cooling caramel sprinkled with safety pins with the safety off. It's really that odd. My best guess would be that it's from sitting at length with my legs in the shape of a pretzel last night at the izakaiya, or quite possibly the happoshu.

I long for my chiropractor or massage therapist in Canada (both covered by BC medical btw) to bend and break me in previously inconceivable positions expelling every bit of gas from my joints, or an hour long oil massage kneading all cares from my back and shoulders. I do understand the dangers that come with "spinal manipulations" and that some compare chiropractic treatments to voodoo or witchcraft but it would feel soooo good right about now. Up to this point the happiest days of my life include our wedding, the birth of my daughter, and the day I had both a massage therapist and chiropractors appointment only hours apart.

At this point I'd gladly let an friendly overweight Thai woman administer a traditional Thai "beat the crap out of me" massage for 400 baht. She'd try to up it to 600 baht, then I'd threaten to take my business across the street and that's when we'd settle on 500 baht but no free herbal tea afterwards.

The pen is deadlier than the sword. Yet a keyboard, if used correctly, has the potential to inflict just as much physical damage, especially if you use the corners in a quick jabbing motion, or utilize the attached cable creatively.

As some of you may know, Kevin of bastish.net fame will be packing his bags for Sweden and leaving behind this dusty one-horse town.

I'd like to get together for a few drinks this Thursday around 6:30-7ish in Ebisu. So if you'd like to attend please leave a comment with an email address here as the location may change.

Time: Thursday August 5th around 6:30-7:00
Place: Khumbila -Nepali & Tibetan Restaurant
3 minutes from Ebisu Sta. Hibiya line, Yamanote line

If Wayne Campbell worked in the IT Industry, he'd have an extensive collection of expired security passes and a lanyard for every colour in the rainbow.

Rumors are flying around that Eric Bana will be the next Agent 007. Bana would become the second Aussie Bond since George Lazenby's one shot deal in 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

I thought Eric Bana did a great job when he played a member of the elite Delta Force in Ridley Scott's jingoistic military ad "Black Hawk Down". I fell asleep watching Hulk on the plane and something tells me pretty much anyone could have played that roll but I can't quite imagine the roll of Bond played by Bana, well not just yet. I'm no fan of Bond films but I hope they make the right choice or we may see the Bond franchise take a turn for the worse ala Batman.