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For most people outside the US, the word filibuster (flibustier on the French coasts) might only raise some vague memories about scary-looking bad guys roaming the seas in order to loot, rape and sink whatever they get their hook on (no, not talking about Dick Cheney and Haliburton here). In US political legalese, however, it carries a very different meaning.
You better get acquainted with it, as you are likely to hear more of it, provided the Democrat senators get some of their spine back by then.
It is also the only legal barrier that stands between the 48% somewhat sane Americans and their newly elected Emperor’s theocratic vision for America.

To do very, very short:

A filibuster is a way for the minority party to oppose a law that’s being debated in the Senate and that would otherwise easily receive the necessary majority vote, by methodically obstructing the debate and hogging speaking privileges.

Senate rules state that every senator is entitled to two speeches of unlimited duration regarding the matter at hand. Further more, only a tiny fractions of such speeches (3 hours per session, to be precise) is required to be germane (somewhat relevant to the matter at hand), the rest can be about anything, and I do mean, anything (see below).

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I wish I could find something positive to say about all that. Something to heal what feels like one of the worst hangover I’ve had in many years, even though I haven’t even had the heart to abuse my daily dose of cough syrup, let alone wash it down with a quart of rum, for the past two days. Like everyone, I’m looking hard out there for comforting words and reasons not to depress.

But really there ain’t.

Instead, and because we need to try and get our mind on something else for a bit (though I most certainly will come back to it in the near future), here is something to listen to. [Update: removed mp3 file for Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s incredible cover of Over the Rainbow in an attempt to ward off the leeches]

Make of it what you will.

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So, waking up this morning was a bit like a movie:

You go to bed full of hope in the future, confident that tomorrow will be a bright and sunny day where nothing wrong can happen any more, all that, you know…

And when you wake up, there are undead people running across your lawn, destruction and desolation clutter every horizons and the teenage girl from next-door is devouring your boyfriend’s brains.

Or something along that line.

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Picture drdave-godzilla.png Being a bedridden moribund with not much better to do than following the outcome of the next Mister Homecoming America pageant, I guess I ought to be somewhat enthralled by the close race unfolding before our eyes.

Truth is: I don’t really care anymore.

First, Kerry is gonna win the election. by a landslide. [yea, you got that right…]

Many reasons to that. including, but not limited to, the fact that polls did not pay the slightest attention to the radically different political context of this year: much stronger mobilization, mass registration drives among minorities, youngins actually getting off their ass to go cast a vote, since p-diddy and eminem told them to do so… all them people who are usually not George’s best friends. And despite all this, the restrictive sample polled still can’t get itself to give a clear support to the incumbent.
Let’s just say it’s not looking too good for Mr. Yeehaw tonight. Which should have the added effect of pushing most of the undecided morons, off their fence, into Kerry’s garden (“undecided” being just the standard technical term for “whatever the majority decides… baaah…”).

I did not say that Kerry would be the next president, mind you: for that to happen, we would still have to see that poor excuse for an electoral system somewhat working in the direction of the democratic process. A concept that got lost rather early in the application of that massively irrelevant piece of law they call the US Constitution.

It is not totally out of the question either, that a bunch of young republicans lead by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld clad in black denim uniform and cow-boy hats would go and discreetly slit the throat of a few hundreds political opponent while Dubya declares martial law on the ground that Kerry couldn’t have won without the help of the Terrahrists.

Although my guess is that they’ll keep that for 2008.

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Since we all know how tiresome the meteorological insights of a stranger leaving thousands of miles away can be, I’ll try to be brief and promise you it’s the last time I mention the topic for the season (ok, maybe once or twice more, but really, I’ll make an effort). Allow me to state publicly:

I hate winters.

I hate cold winters.

I hate rainy cold winters.

I hate Japanese ill-designed house insulation… or complete absence thereof.

Something has to be done.

Taking my cues on the Animal kingdom, I am currently considering my two main alternatives: migration or hibernation.

Unfortunately, hoping on a plane to Thailand is gonna be tough, seing as I’m little more than a shriveled coughing ball of sweat and phlegm at the moment. I’d probably be considered a health hazard even for the most avian flu-hardened of Thai poultry.

Remains the other option: digging a hole in my garden deep enough to fit me along with a few months supply of oyu-wari shochu and rum, and only come out with the first days of Spring. But there again, my health condition, along with stupid matters of good neighbouring behaviours have so far put a hold to this plan.

I shall therefore do with the next best treatment modern science can offer: hourly cough medicine washed down with a grog, only leaving the kotatsu to refill the rum flask… Might keep with that plan for the rest of Winter, actually.
風邪を引いた。冷たい〜ょ 😥

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Picture amanis_bar.jpgPicture amanis_corner.jpgPicture amanis_miror.jpg


If I tell you the place is really gorgeous, unusually classy for Roppogi (that is to say: doesn’t look like Roppongi much), will be filled with cool people and feature a jazz ensemble and some smooth beats courtesy of yours truly (the beats, not the ensemble…) you should already have more than enough reasons to come see me tonight at Cafe Amanis.

But just to make sure, I shall also add that there will be an Open Bar (yea, that means free booze) tonight (28th) from 6 to 9… Still cheap after, but it will probably be too late to catch up with the heavily inebriated crowd by then.

If your wage-slave hours do not allow you the slightest bit of fun on a weekday, then you can still come check out the place with the mere mortals, on Friday (29th), Saturday (30th) or Sunday (31st): I’ll be there, along with heaps of drunken people wearing silly outfits.

As an extra bonus, you might get to see me in my special Halloween leopard-print g-string costume.

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Picture CIMG0294.jpg I usually do avoid the whole party report thing, hope you do realize that…
Mostly because I know that, unless you have been drinking free booze all night long, it just isn’t that interesting to hear. Beside, we all have too many snorting-blow-off-hooker’s-tits stories to go around… don’t need any more, do we?

However, tonight was particularly fun, as we were joined for the evening by Jus’ new beau and his friend/colleague, both professional Pride fighters. Following the stereotypical anti-stereotype that wants all massive professional killers to be cuddly huggy-bears in private life, they were absolutely adorable, and quite fun to be around…

So we had Andre the Giant (and in case you are wondering, all the other people on the above picture were already fairly tall) and Justine’s very own Shrek the peaceful ogre.

I must say having them around made the whole Metropolis gaijin meat-market shindig much less boring…
Oh and by the way: that chick, let me venture she didn’t exactly win the prize on the research and effort put into her costume… then again, I can only guess: by the time we made it there, she was merely strutting around the vip lounge in a mini-bra and a glittery piece of fabric that barely managed to hide her g-string….

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And now, award time for most moronic idea of the month, with automatic entrance to the yearly draw.

If you are gonna be cheap enough that you keep old bottles of top-shelf vodka prominently disposed behind your bar to try and give it that international hip flair it quite obviously hasn’t… At least:

  1. Make sure your new barmaid is aware they aren’t the real thing.
  2. When picking a transparent liquid to refill the bottles with, use water, not fucking bleach.

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Picture choco-potato-chips.jpg If I tell you “Milk Chocolate-Coated Potato Chips”… the first thing coming to your mind might be: “Japan!“…
(a close second being “gross!”, if you are not into experimental gastronomy).

And you’d be dead wrong. On both counts.

Come on now, I hope this is not the kind of low standards you’ve grown to expect from this blog: if it was indeed made in Japan, it would at the very least be peppered with nori shreds or sold in giant heart-shaped boxes covered in pictures of sickeningly cute bunnies and atomic vampire robots (yea. both)…

Not in this quaint, sober, nearly tasteful, two-tone, Pringle-style, cylinder box.

No. Let’s be serious: Japanese researchers probably stumbled upon some variation of the Milk Chocolate-Coated Potato Chip (with extra wasabi flavor as an option) decades ago and quickly canned it as way too tame for the domestic market.

American researchers, on the other hand, immediately saw the full potential of such a symbiosis…

All conspiracy theories apart, one cannot help but wonder about the hidden motives of a corporation whose food product combines, in one single ingredient, the two most addictive substances known to Man: Chocolate and Pringles.

Quite obviously somebody has been greasing a few hands at the FDA to slip that one through…

And the kicker? Masako brought this back from SF as a typical sample of them wacky American foodstuff…
ミルクチョコレートポテトチップス。変な日本の食べ物？
違うアメリカから！
もう変なですけども。。。

by ·Comments Off on Giant Lizard Attacks Japanese Coasts

Picture typhc.png The signs are unmistakable: the End of Days is approaching.

Not only has my garden turned into a lovely little pond outpouring into a nearby river that, upon closer examination, would seem to be the road…
But simultaneously — and despite the distance I haven’t ruled out any correlation — Duran Duran has just noisily resurfaced: crushing ten years of dwindling hope that they might never be heard ever again outside of late night VH1 and supermarket PA.

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