If you thought the last entry’s graphic was nerd-a-licious, take a gander at this one:
Click the graphic to see it at full size.
(What? Don’t know the bases for this joke — the planet Alderaan and “Han shot first” — are all about? Shame on you!)
Here’s a great new t-shirt design from the creator of the Diesel Sweeties webcomic:
(What? Don’t know what carbon-14 dating is? Shame on you!)
For those of you who are programmers who were looking for the Ruby library for the Kiko API, it’s alive and well — you can get it from this entry in the Tucows Blog.
Here’s yet another entry about my 1998 trip to Japan, inspired by Sarah “The Hollywood North Report” Marchildon’s blog entries about her moving there to teach English for a year.
Depending on how old you are — or what magazines you read — you may or may not be familiar with Saul Steinberg’s cover for the New Yorker titled A View of the World from 9th Avenue, which depicts how a Manhattanite supposedly sees the world:
This cover has inspired a number of parodies. Here’s one: it’s Ted Rall’s A View of the World from Pennsylvania Avenue:
(For those of you outside North America, Pennsylvania Avenue is the street on which the White House is located.)
When I was in Japan, I visited the school at which my friend Anne taught English. I was there as her assistant for the day; my job was to talk to the students, give them English practice and an opportunity to meet a real live foreigner.
The strangest thing about the experience was the sense of deja vu that I got during the exercise: every Japanese person at the school remarked at how good my English was. Until that time, I’d only gotten that reaction from white people — it happened a lot in the 1970s — but these days, it’s incredibly rare that someone says this to me.
They thought I was Japanese and were surprised to discover that I was Filipino. “You don’t look it,” they said.
“Give me a pole to dance around and look again,” I replied.
They didn’t get the joke.
In one of the school hallways, I saw these large sheets on which the younger students had done an English exercise. I got a laugh out of them and had to take these pictures.
The first one was a list of things they associated with America:
Remember, this was October 1998, so Clinton was president, and this only a few months after Clinton’s admission that he’d had an “inappropriate” relationship with Monica Lewinsky. As for “Mr. Big”, I have no idea what they’re referring to.
Here’s the next poster: a list of things they associated with Britain:
Once again, this was October 1998, just over a year after Lady Diana’s death. It’s interesting that the students would associate gardening with Britain; although it’s a fair association, I doubt you’d get that answer from a North American student. I like the “Pank music” item too.
And finally, Canada. How do they see us?
Another moment from my 1998 trip to Japan:
One of the first things I did upon arriving in Japan was to pose for a photo with the worst-named non-dairy coffee creamer anywhere: Creap. As the label implies, it’s meant to be an amalgam of “creamy” and “powder”.
Still, it’s not as bad a name choice as Darkie toothpaste:
More often than not, my reaction after reading the editorial pieces on Accordion City local alt-weekly rag NOW Magazine is to respond with one of my favourite retorts: “Wow. I’ve seen better paper after wiping my ass.”
I have to react that way again after Doug sent me the link to NOW’s editorial piece on Kimveer Gill, the gunman in the recent school shooting at Montreal’s Dawson College. In the faux-intellectual it’s-someone-else’s-fault posturing that passes for cognition at NOW, news hack Carolyn Bennett perpetuates stereotypes about Montreal and Toronto, waxes nostaglic about vandalism and worst of all, pins the blame not on poor lil’ Kimveer Gill, but TEH INTARWEB:
Too bad this seething, hateful young man couldn’t experience the academic society he despised. Too bad he targeted an institution that might have brought him inspiration. Too bad he preferred the false intimacy of the Internet.
Too bad one of the other Vampire Freaks on the Web didn’t stir from his or her tortured swamp of self, have the objectivity to read Gill’s blog and reply with an “Are you okay? Wanna go for tea and talk about it?”
Too bad.
No one really posts blogs to share. People post blogs because they hope for an audience. Kimveer Gill posed for the camera. Posed. Too bad he didn’t have a good friend instead of an online “community.” Too bad he didn’t have a teacher to steer him in a constructive direction.
My experience has shown that you can build healthy, supportive communities and friendships online, and that you can build screwed-in-the-head, dysfunctional rabbles in face-to-face meetings (the NOW editorial board comes to mind), which is the way it’s been done for the millennia preceding the ‘net. Blaming the internet for the homicidal spree of a young maladroit is a facile writer’s crutch; it’s sloppy thinking.
As Doug said to me via IM: “Man, why didn’t anyone tell me that NOW pays good money for disjointed ramblings on topics I know nothing about?”
(It might make a good gag gift for Deenster…)