A New Location

I've moved my blog over to wordpress.

Have a look at: http://planetross.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there!

planetross

Giant Bonsai Trees

I have giant bonsai trees in my yard.

The people who lived here before me must have failed their bonsai class, so they planted them.

There is not much else you can do with giant bonsai trees.
They are too small to cut up for firewood and too big to stay in a pot.

They are useless once planted too!
You can never hang a birdfeeder or tire swing from them.
They only provide shade to ants.
Kids can’t climb them.
They never grow big enough to create a privacy barrier.

It’s sad really.
Poor giant bonsai trees.

note: I guess dwarfed giant redwood trees just look like regular redwood trees. They can still lead productive lives.

Greenhouses

Greenhouse Gases, Greenhouse Emissions, Greenhouse Effect.

I bet greenhouse manufacturers don’t like their product being associated with global warming.

Describing global warming using the greenhouse analogy is pretty easy to understand, but probably a lot of people subconsciously believe greenhouses are bad or at least look on them suspiciously.

In the summer, they are definitely bad to work in.

At 19 a friend and I removed the old plastic coverings from 10 large greenhouses.

That was hot work: we sweated like crazy working inside them.
I guess we could have removed the plastic from the outside, but we were 19 and not so smart.

They should put air-conditioners in those things!

note: If you are in a greenhouse during an earthquake, you don’t have to worry about being buried alive in the rubble. And if you are buried alive, people will be able to spot you quickly.

Salt and Pepper

Salt and pepper the best of friends side by side in matching shakers on the kitchen table.

But what if their names were switched: pepper was called salt and vice versa?
Would we be saying…

pepper and vinegar chips, pepper lick, PEPPER 1 and 2, pepper mines, pepper of the earth, Pepper Lake City, peppertines, peppery dog, pepper flats, pepperwater, and pepper the road?

saltridge farms, salt spray, Sgt. Salt's Lonely Hearts Club Band, saltmint (Patty), Dr. Salt, salt corn, saltoni sausage, green/red/bell salt, and put some salt on that ball?

Sheriff J.W. Salt from Live and Let Die?

note: I guess pepper would kill slugs, and salt would just make their eyes red and cause them to sneeze.

The Glass Eye

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.“ Tom Waits in Singapore.

Tom Shanks had lost one eye in a childhood accident and now had a glass eye.

He joined the local rugby team and on the first day of practice enthusiastically joined in the intersquad scrimmage.

20 minutes in to the practice game, the coach spotted Tom behind the play on his hands and knees.

“Get moving Shanks“, the coach shouted. Tom didn’t get up.

The coach ran over to him. “What’s your problem?” he yelled.

“I’ve lost my eye“, Tom replied.

“Quit screwing around“, the coach screamed.

Tom, still on his hands and knees, lifted and turned his head to face the coach.
“It’s gone” he muttered, as he lifted his eyelid to reveal an empty eye socket.

The blood drained from the coach’s face.

“Oh, here it is!” Tom said with relief; rubbed the eye on his shirt, popped it back into his head, and trotted back to the play.

Snake Wrangler

My older sister has always had a job. Always!

Collecting pop and beer bottles, shining our Dad’s shoes, picking blackberries, …

The most unique was catching and selling snakes at 10 years old.

Someone advertised for snakes in the local newspaper: 10 cents for small ones, 15 cents for big ones.
My sister enlisted her friends and myself; we looked in fields, flipped over plywood sheets in empty lots, and scoured the bushes.

We found a few and deposited them in our plastic bucket.

My sister had the great idea of looking in people’s backyards: compost piles were here goal.

She knocked on neighbour’s doors, told them of our mission, and was never turned away.
We collected about 90 garter snakes over a weekend.

The people buying the snakes wanted them for a university lab.

We were their only suppliers.
They were surprised to be doing business with a 10 and 7 year old.
We got about $11 for the snakes; pretty good money back in 1972.

My sister put her share in the bank; I blew mine on candy.

Barber Shops

Barbers really have their act together.

They are the only profession to have a universally recognized symbol: the swirly red, blue, and white pole.
The obvious symbol choice would have been a pair of scissors, but some forward thinking barber must have envisioned women’s beauty salons claiming that one.

While optometrists still argue over the giant pair of glasses or the eyeball and Locksmiths are split on whether to use the key or the lock as a symbol, those barbers are sitting pretty.

Flower shops, coin laundries, pet shops, and dry cleaners can’t reach a consensus on anything!

Some ice cream shops have the

big ice cream cone that lights up,

but it doesn’t seem to be universal.

Anyone can have one of those;

I even have one in my house!

I raise my glass of barbicide to you, Mr. Barber.

note: Why are there no Locksmith Duos, Coin Laundry Trios, or Flower Shop 5s?

double note: photo of a wannabee barber shop.

Fireworks

I like fireworks.

I’ve seen some amazing 2-3 hour displays: non-stop boom, boom, boom.

They must scare the crap out of animals and mess up Google Earth photos.

My sister’s dog usually likes to go for walks, but from early October to mid November it’s a homebody. It hates Halloween; more specifically firecrackers, screechers, and roman candles.

As a kid, Halloween fireworks meant a cheapie bag of pyrotechnics.

I’ve had more fun with a book of matches.

They always concluded with something called “The School House”. It was just a Little House on the Prairies‘ paper school house that burned down when lit.

I’ve done better with a cereal box in the fireplace.

Kids in South America are lucky: no age restrictions for buying fireworks, no regulations, no nothing.
Light them off anywhere, tie them to your back if you like, anything goes.

In Ecuador almost everynight there are fireworks going off in celebration of some Saint’s day or religious holy day.

I think that’s why so many people are religious in South America: it’s the fireworks!

Stacks, Heaps, Piles, and Bunches

I’m a sucker for things stacked, heaped, piled or bunched.

My eyes are naturally drawn to them: pallets, baskets, umbrella stands, store displays, fields of flowers, rolls of wire, fruit markets, old tires, …

It’s a quantity thing: one is boring; more are better.

Those “colourful ball” play areas for kids are hard to pass. All those balls, oh to be 5 again!

Maybe this is why I like recycling day: plastic bottles all heaped together, stacks of flattened cardboard boxes and newspapers, and piles of garbage bags filled with hundreds of styrofoam containers.
I wait to take my things out. If I’m too early, there isn’t enough stuff to make it visually appealing.

My favourite movie shot: all those boxes in the warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark.

note: I was always a good chair stacker at school, and spent a lot of time in the library too!

Insurance

I have insurance: car health, home,… but I’ve never used them.

It’s nice to know I’m protected and I’m glad I’ve never had to make a claim, but I also feel like these insurance companies have screwed me somehow.

On flight insurance, I always make an ex-girlfriend the beneficiary.

She always said she wished I were dead.

The financial payout she’d receive if that happened, while I was flying, would just be an extra bonus for her.

I’m nice like that.

My 13 nieces and nephews are the beneficiaries in my Will.
They know this.
It’s a small insurance policy for me.

I figure they’ll be nicer to me in my old age if they know there is money involved.

One nephew always asks me what his “share” is at the moment.

He looks at me like I’m a “stock”: working hard - stock goes up ; travelling - stock goes down.

My nieces and nephews also know that if I die under mysterious circumstances, all my money goes to my ex-girlfriend.
That’s my true insurance policy.

I love my nieces and nephews, but I don’t trust them that much.

note: if my nieces and nephews make a deal with the ex-girlfriend, I’m in trouble.

Words and Symbols

I have a confession.

I can’t read………….. very well……………. in Japanese.

Speaking it is difficult enough for me, I gave up on acquiring decent reading skills a long time ago.
So for many things, Kanji (Chinese characters) are just symbols.

I don’t know how to write, read, or pronounce them, but I know what they mean : like a red octagonal sign usually means stop.

I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying what buttons to push on machines: elevators, bank machines, rice cookers, cameras, remote controls, VCRs, ticket machines…..

No problem.

It’s not so bad being illiterate.

Most days when confronted with buttons I feel like a little kid with the animal sound toy: press the duck - it goes “quack”, press the cow - it goes “moo”.

On a bad day the cat “oinks” though.

Fishful Thinking

If I could be any kind of fish, I’d want to be a starfish.

Just lying around in the sand, surf, and sun. Getting picked up once in a while. Everyone thinking I’m cool.

It’s what I’d like to be doing most days!

I’d still have 5 appendages, if I count my head.

No big adjustment there.

No one would eat me.

That’s a definite plus.

note: Being a shooting-starfish would be even better.

Doughnuts

I’m not a point card person, but I do have a Mister Donut card.

I’d been saving up points to get a free pencil case, or maybe a cushion the size of my hand (maybe it’s a hand cushion?), when disaster struck.

I lost all my points.

They are only good for one year. Happy anniversary loser. What a rip-off!

I’ll have to increase my doughnut consumption this year.

I love doughnuts.

Honey dips are my favourite: simple yet sugary. I don’t understand people who like those dry “old fashion” ones. They should just stick to pound cake.

But I’m not a total doughnut totalitarian.
When I bring doughnuts to work for my co-workers, I include a few old fashion ones.
I’m nice like that….

and my boss likes those crappy doughnuts as well.

note: for more on how I feel about point cards check-out:
http://planetross.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/free-stuff/

No Coffee for Old Men

Tommy Lee Jones is the poster boy for my favourite canned coffee in Japan.

You can buy hot coffee, tea, and corn soup from vending machines here. It’s very popular. In the winter a hot can of coffee makes a good pocket warmer as well.

I like Tommy Lee Jones as an actor. He’s usually in high quality movies and does a good job. I bet he cringes when he sees himself playing the bad guy in Steven Seagal’s Under Siege. I cringe when I see that movie too, or any Steven Seagal movie.

but…

The picture of Tommy Lee Jones plastered all over vending machines everywhere is horrible. To put it mildly, he looks like a “bag of shit“.

What message is the coffee company trying to relay to potential buyers?

“Drink our product and look like this”.

Maybe I should switch to a different drink.

I hear Mickey Rooney just got the Coca Cola contract!

note: the picture I have isn’t the really bad one. I drove all over town trying to find the worst picture, but they’ve changed the photos to Mickey Rooney.

Before drinking Coca Cola

After drinking Coca Cola

Flashlights

Flashlights are handy, but why the name?

It’s a cool name, but they don’t flash anymore than other lights.
You can make any light flash if you turn it off and on again real fast.
You can piss off a lot of people doing this as well!

Portable Light Beam describes it better, and doesn’t confuse people with all this flashing business.

I remember flashing my car headlights to let other drivers know there was radar up ahead. I was a good citizen.

If you really want to mess with your head, try playing pool while a strobe light flashes.
I get sick just thinking about it. It makes for a long game of pool as well.
My friend tried to compensate for the strobe light by blinking in unison with it, but he lost the game anyway.

I guess he just wasn’t a good “strobe light pool player”.

note: I bet flashlight battery sales went way up after the Star Wars movies started coming out.

Saving Money

There are a lot of good ideas about how to save money: pay yourself first, have money taken off your paycheck and deposited into another account, or use methods described in books like Rich Dad Poor Dad or Your Money or Your Life.

I keep a graph of how much money I make and spend a month. I always have.

I have a table as well that I can compare various expenses on a monthly basis.

Does it help me save money?

Not really, but it keeps me aware of where my money goes.

The graph is on a piece of paper pinned on a corkboard. I know I could do it on the computer, but I like to physically write in the numbers and draw the lines.

The following is not my graph, but a reasonable interpretation of my financial status:

Surfing with the Aliens

When I was 15 years old, a man in my hometown vanished.

When he disappeared, he left the following note for his parents:

“Dear Mother and Father. I have gone away to walk aboard an alien spaceship, as re-occurring dreams assured a 42-month interstellar voyage to explore the vast universe, then return. I am leaving behind all my possessions to you as I will no longer require the use of any. Please use the instructions in my will as a guide to help.Love, Granger”

He was a mechanical genius: restored a steam engine, built a replica Kitty Hawk war plane, and fixed the unfixable.
He was also intrigued with UFOs and built a flying saucer shell on his parents’ property.
As far as I’ve heard, he was a friendly eccentric character.

I was fascinated with his disappearance.

42 months later, he didn’t return. I was really hoping he would come back with amazing stories to tell.

Years later some hiker’s found his remains behind one of the local mountains. He’d blown himself up in his truck trying to reach the stars. (dynamite is not good rocket fuel)

I still like to think he really did go away with the aliens, and he’s out there somewhere surfing with them now.

Some mysteries shouldn’t be solved.

note: for more info on his disappearance check out these links:
http://www.ufobc.ca/Reports/Collection/collection18mar85.htm
http://www.tranquileye.com/truth/casebook/granger_taylors_flying_saucer.html

Van Pod

My van is 15 years old.

It’s a reliable beast, but cutting edge technology it ain’t.

Roll up windows, arm-strong steering, and no sounds or lights to let me know when a door is open or I’m not wearing a seatbelt.
It is also equipped with a cassette tape player.

I have about 50 cassettes, nothing more recent than 1998. I rock out to Def Leppard, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Spin Doctors, Eddie Money, …

My friends laugh at me, ask me if I watch video discs and play Atari 2600 as well.

Recently a friend loaned me an adapter that plugs into the tape player, so I can listen to my i-pod now.

It’s great!

What music is on my i-pod?

Def Leppard, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Spin Doctors, Eddie Money, …

The Mean Cactus

I like cacti, or cactuses as I like to say.

I have quite a few. Most are prickly, but still manageable.

Getting poked in the finger once in a while goes with the territory. If I wanted the easy life, I would have Chia Pets.

but

I have one cactus that is untouchable.
Its spines are painful, drawblood, and embed themselves in my flesh.
It’s nice to look at, but it’s dangerous.
It bullies me. It taunts me. I swear it has lunged at me a few times.
It’s just plain mean.

And it is getting bigger!

note: I would have put on a photo of it, but it won’t let me.

Sunsets

I’ve never really gotten too excited about the whole “watching the sunset” thing.

Sure, if I’ve got nothing else to do or nowhere else to be, I’ll watch it: usually on holidays.

But it happens everyday.

I’ve heard it rises everyday as well, but sleep interfers with any first hand knowledge on the subject.

I want to see the sun not rise.
I’ll pay big money for that. One of these days I’m going to fly to Tromso, Norway to watch that.
That would be something to see!

I guess if the sun never sets there, it doesn’t really rise either. They should advertise that too.

In Through The Out Door

Yesterday I was just going to enter a parkade circular, so as to exit the parkade, when a car came out of my entrance.

I’ve never seen that before! That’s not allowed.

Once you enter the spiral you have committed yourself to leaving the building. You can’t just pop out anywhere you like.

Someday I would like to drive up a parkade circular. Maybe I can bribe a parkade nightwatchman to live my dream.
It would be more fun if I could change my steering wheel to the right-side to do it though. Hugging the center I could really get up some speed like the drivers in The Fast and the Furious 2: Tokyo Drift. (crappiest movie ever)

In Japan the circulars are clockwise. I assume they are counter-clockwise in North America. I forget.

I forget which way water drains in the Northern and Southern hemispheres too.

I guess I could go look in my toilet, if I really cared.

Visiting the Equator 3 years ago, someone demonstrated the water spinning phenomenon.

It was just a trick, as we were only 2 meters on either side of the Equator.

I think you have to be farther away to see a difference: at least 4 meters maybe.

Supposedly at the Equator it’s easier to balance an egg on the head of a nail also. Now I know why I’ve never been able to do that very well before.

note: I bet there are no parking circulars on the Equator.

Magic Numbers

Standardization makes life easier, but why these numbers for these things?

88 keys on a piano: why not 90 or 100?

6 strings on a guitar: sure there are 12 string guitars too, but why not 7 or 8 string guitars?

9 players on a baseball team: what’s up with that short stop?

11 players on a soccer team: why not 10, 12, or 15?

4/5 forward gears in a regular car: I’d like 6, and maybe 2 reverse gears too.

2 plug-ins on electrical wall outlets: I always wish there were more. 4 would be nice.

28 days in February: can’t the other months share a few days to even things out?

and

Scoring in tennis: love, 15, 30, 40, deuce, ad in, ad out.

There are some traditions worth keeping, and then there is confusion and insanity.

note: my other blog: http://planetross.wordpress.com/

same crap, different pile.

more comment friendly.

Driving Tan

When I drive on a sunny day, I roll down my window and suck in that fresh air.

Actually, my air-conditioner is pretty crappy, so I can either sweat it out or have that nice fresh air I was talking about in the first sentence.

I get a pretty good driving tan most years.

People drive on the left side of the road here in Japan, so it’s my right arm that gets really brown.
I think of my driving tan as a cheap status symbol.

“Yes, I’ve been driving a lot recently; thank you for noticing. Why yes, the sun was out while I was driving.”

Most Japanese people drive with their windows rolled up tight and the air-con blasting.

If they do have a window rolled down, it’s usually because they are at a drive-thru window picking up burgers.

A lot of women wear long gloves to protect themselves from driving tan, or any other type of tanning. At least I think that is why they wear those long gloves; I could be wrong.

Maybe they are all going to fancy garden parties where they eat cucumber sandwiches with no crusts and drink barely alcoholic drinks from long glasses.

Some people have a farmer’s tan; a lot of farmers have it for some reason.

It looks ok, until the shirt comes off and then it just looks sad.

Unless it is on a shirtless woman, then it looks pretty good.

I like the driving tan look better than the farmer tan look.
But that’s just me.

I’m a driver, not a farmer. And I have the tan to prove it!

note: I guess a lot of farmers have driving tans, but you just can’t see them. Poor farmers.

Backpackers

How people act while backpacking always amazes me.

Many backpackers can be fit into one of the following categories.

The Homer: Never changes their thinking on anything: home rules apply. They flush toilet paper in 3rd world countries, think siestas are stupid, and eat dinner at 6 pm sharp.

The Hippy: 24 hours after getting off the plane they are clothed in tie-dye, henna tattooed, pierced, and beaded up. Usually there is a mystical journey of discovery in progress.

The Mover: Go, go, go! Around the world in 6 weeks. Saw everything and have photos and t-shirts to prove it. They have visited a museum, bought stuff at a market, and taken a tango lesson before most people have gotten out of bed.

The Un-Jaded: Amazed at everything and never lose their sense of wonder. They could see 100 temples, shrines, cathedrals, or craft markets and still be incredibly fascinated by them.

The Secretive: Nocturnal; non-communicative; and vanish mysteriously with their stuff, without their stuff, with your stuff, or with the police.

The Tightwad: Will bargain with starving children to knock a penny off the price of a postcard. They visit every cheap place to stay, restaurant, shop, and tourist agency before making any kind of decision. Usually seen pocketing food during breakfast, so they don’t have to spend money on lunch later.

The Betters: Whatever you’ve done, seen, or bought; they’ve done better, seen more, or bought cheaper than anyone else. They not only visited Machu Picchu, but hang glided above it while Sting performed a free concert.

I guess I’m in The Labeler category: The person who pidgeon holes everyone else.

They can usually be seen drinking and playing card games with all the other perfect people.

Smorgasbords

Aren’t smorgasbords the best thing ever?

All you can eat buffets: big stacks of clean plates at one end, and a guy with a big white hat carving beef at the other.
In Japan they call them “Viking” style; but it always sounds like “Biking” when they say it.

Argentina has got to have the best ones. Full on Chinese food, not too many salads to pass by, 2 or 3 guys working the meat grill, desserts to die for, and ice cream too! I don’t think they can be beat when you factor in the cheap peso.

My friend got banned from a smorgasbord for peeling the batter off the battered shrimp. That’s a no-no.

Smorgasbord translates into English as “sandwich table“.
It sounds better in Swedish though.
I don’t think I’d get too excited about an “all you can eat sandwich table“.

But…

I think I’m going to start calling sandwiches “smorgs”.

“I’m having a peanut butter and jam smorg for lunch today. Yum!”

Pigs

My uncle is a wheat farmer in Manitoba, Canada.

His farm is big; like the size of Luxembourg big!

The last time I visited, I followed him around as he fed his assorted animals: cats, cows, chickens…

Every Spring his next door neighbour, who lives about as far away as Belgium, gives him 2 piglets. In the Fall my uncle butchers them.

As he put in their feed, I noticed one of the pigs was a lot bigger than the other one. The big one pushed the smaller one out of the way and ate most of the food.

“Do your pigs have names?” I asked.
“Ham and Bacon” he answered.
“Which one are you going to kill first?” I inquired.
“The biggest one” he replied.

Moral of the story: Don’t be a Pig.

note: If I were a pig, I’d want to be anorexic or bulimic.

Nightly Conversation

Do you talk in your sleep?

I’ve been informed that I do.

I never used to. I wonder when this started?
I’m not even saying anything good either: I’m saying 1 2 3 over and over again.

I don’t think I like this development.

I travelled with an Australian guy who moaned for 30 minutes every night.

Sometimes right when he fell asleep, sometimes just before he woke up in the morning.

I don’t think he liked that very much either.

I once met a guy who was a sleep walker.
While travelling, he stayed at a hostel in Amsterdam.

The hostel had 2 locations on opposite corners of the same city block.

He went to bed at his hostel and woke up around the block outside the other hostel.

He did this in his underwear!

The worst part must have been running back to his hostel.

Maybe talking in my sleep isn’t that bad.

note: maybe I'm a dyslexic rocket launch control person.

Marbles

Do you remember Marble Day at school?

I do. What a great day. I waited all year for Marble Day.

Sure, you could play marbles any day, but not at school in the open and everything!
Look at me! I’m playing marbles Mr. 3rd Grade Teacher; and there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it.

Marbles had great names: cat’s eyes, steelies, pee wees, cobs, king cobs, crystals… but the best name was bullfudger. I’m sure there are a lot of other cool names for them too.

I carried my marbles around in a Crown Royal bag.
How cool was I? Pretty cool, I kid you not.

Even the rules had cool names:

Keepsies: you win the marbles used by your opponent.

Quitsies: allows any one to stop the game without consequence. You could either have “quitsies” or ”no quitsies“.

How cool is that? Pretty cool!

I guess “quitsies” and “no quitsies” are the unwritten rules for most things in life anyway.

Marriage: sometimes it’s quitsies and sometimes it’s no quitsies depending where you live and who your lawyer is.
War: usually no quitsies applies.
Work: sometimes quitsies; sometimes no quitsies, if you don’t get your final paycheck.
Sports: quitsies all the way. Just watch professional tennis to see what I mean.

note: keepsies applies to everything, and I’m calling double keepsies infinity just so it’s clear.

Used Golf Balls

Used golf ball sales people.

You know the type: hanging out on the other side of the golf course fence, sitting in a lawnchair next to the sign “Cheap Golf Balls“.

Usually they are sitting on a piece of land that has just absorbed your last golf ball.
What opportunists! 100% profit! Bastards!

Are there any other lost items that you can sell in the open and not be arrested for?
Selling lost umbrellas, pets, wallets, or dental retainers will probably find you explaining yourself to the authorities.

It’s not fair.
I bet those used golf ball sellers don’t pay tax either.

Aquariums in Japan

I’ve just realized that I am an aquarium junkie.

I’ve visited 4 different aquariums in the last year; one of them twice!

After what I’ve written earlier about Animals in Zoos,

http://planetross.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/animal-penal-system/

I think I am a hypocrite.

I guess I don’t feel the same way about fish as I do about animals. I do feel sorry for all non-fish creatures at aquariums: I hope that redeems me somehow. Even that is hard; those dolphins and sea lions always look so damn happy during the shows.

But the fish…

I have no sympathy. I guess I’m heartless. I like to rationalize it by thinking it’s better to be in an aquarium tank than in a restaurant tank or a fisherman’s net.

For the record: there are no sashimi/sushi restaurants at aquariums in Japan. Japanese people have their limits I guess.

I’m not a pet person, but at a local festival I ended up taking home a goldfish someone else had won. I put it in my biggest glass bowl, bought some fish food for it, and was getting all attached to the little bugger. Then it died.

I think it died of happiness; but I could be wrong.

So what do you do with a dead goldfish? I flushed it down the toilet: returning it from whence it came.

I told my Japanese co-worker this and she thought I was strange.

I gave her the “returning it from whence it came” argument, but that didn’t work.
She said since it was a pet, I should have buried it.
I think I need to go to a Fish Sensitivity Counselling Seminar.

note: I hope they have fish and chips for lunch.

double note: I have 2 blogs. Same crap on both, but the wordpress one is better for feedback and hits. Check it out! Go on! I dare you!

Ron Mueck: Amazing Sculptures

I’m not much of a Museum person, but I visit the odd one once in a blue moon.

I like art; it’s just not on the top of my to do list.

BUT

by chance, I saw some of Ron Mueck’s work in Kanazawa, Japan.

He Rocks!!
Unbelievable stuff.

Life like? I wouldn’t have been surprised if the pieces got up and started walking around.

I’m not easily impressed, but this stuff was freaky real: faces, bodies, even the soles of the feet were amazing.

If you have a chance, take a look at his stuff in the flesh. Photos just don’t do it justice.

This is a link to more info and great photos of Ron Mueck’s work.

http://paintalicious.org/2007/09/14/ron-mueck-hyper-realist-sculptor/

Tourist Attraction Improvement Guy

Tourist Attraction Improvement Guy! That’s my new dream job.

Just going around telling tourist attractions how to improve their trap… uh, I mean attraction.

Lighthouses: You only visit a lighthouse because that’s the next thing between good stuff and more good stuff. You have to pass it, so why not stop in for a look? They all look the same: by the ocean, big house with a light on top, white.
I’d put a really big switch on the outside of it that says, “Off/On“. Great photo opportunity. I’d bet more people would visit, or at least remember the stop. (same thing would work for Nuclear Power Plants too)

Anywhere that has a plywood/stick your face in the hole/take a funny picture thing.
Make the cut-outs naked and doing rude things. (doing rude things to other naked cut-outs would be better)

Signposts showing distance from other locations.

Put a few original locations with the distance from them; for example…

ex-wife: 5,000 km
job: 2,184 km
Tim Horton’s Donuts: 3,987 km
there: 1 cm
photographer: 5 meters
the moon: 400,000 km
being a millionaire: a long way
normal: see “being a millionaire” above

Spicing up tourist attractions; that’s for me!

note: photo model courtesy of planetross modeling inc.

Home for a Rest

Holidays are unnatural.

You work yourself in to a nice little routine for most of the year, and then you blow it on vacation.

Driving long distances, waking at strange times, eating strange food at strange places, carrying a camera around, visiting things definitely not on the road between home and work, and sleeping on strange beds.

It’s enjoyable in a “shooter of the day” sort of way: it’s something different. If you don’t like it, well you tried it at least.

To be fair, I love traveling.

I seriously really love traveling a lot. I’m more use to long trips though: 1-2 years. It takes me a while to get into the groove of things.
A short 5 day holiday just seems so rushed: “wham bam thank you ma’am” and it’s over.
It’s like lighting off a few firecrackers, when you’re use to a 2-3 hour fireworks extravaganza.
It’s nice, but just not the same.

I guess it scratches the itch, but it’s not the full body massage.

note: I need a few days off to recover.

Ghost Towns

There is something about ghost towns that I like.

They are failures in the longevity department, but somehow that’s part of their appeal.

Visiting a ghost town is like seeing someone wearing a California Golden Seals hockey jersey: it’s sad and cool at the same time.

Whatever first attracted people to an area dried up, ran out, disappeared, or failed.

The people moved on like Nomads or Bedouins, but they couldn’t take their permanent tents with them.

Drive-In movie theatres remind me of ghost towns.

Something from the past that left visible remains on the landscape. Just a big area with a falling down screen; a few hundred metal posts sticking out of the ground at regular intervals; and a dilapitated building in the middle, that used to sell tubs of popcorn and housed the projector.

It looks like the Drive-In movie people forgot to take their tent poles with them.

Watching Trees

People love watching trees in Japan.

In April, it’s cherry blossom viewing. Everyone and their dog go and sit on blue tarps under cherry trees and drink heavily. I do it too, but I usually watch the women who are watching the trees.

In October, it’s Kouyo: the changing of the leaves. People always ask me what the word for Kouyo is in English. They usually seem disappointed when I say, ” the changing of the leaves”. I think they expect some great one word answer.

Tour buses haul people around the countryside in April and October. It’s a big business.

I like both these times of year, but I’m more of a root person. My sister is too.

When we have travelled together, we point out interesting roots to each other, take photos, and have little discussions over the merits of our discoveries.

We know a good root when we see it.

Trees have their seasons, but roots are all year round fun.

Dead Man Sandals

I’m amazed at how many single shoes I see lying on the sides of the road.

Usually they are running shoes. I haven’t seen any pumps, gumboots or sandals.

My first thought is usually that someone must have been hit by a car, but I don’t think there are that many people getting hit by cars. And the police would probably pick up any shoes as evidence anyway.

Are people throwing shoes out of their car windows?

In Australia myself and a few others were in a National Park following a river that cut through a canyon. We walked beside the river where we could and swam certain sections where we couldn’t walk.
We found a sandal on a rock, and about 30 minutes later we found its partner.

My friend picked up both and wore them for the rest of his Australia trip. He probably still has them. They were nice sandals.

We called them his Dead Man Sandals.

Supposedly somewhere in Africa an Aid Agency was distributing clothing and shoes. The local people wore the clothes, but they didn’t wear the shoes.

They thought the shoes must have been from dead people, as no one would just give away such nice shoes.

Parking Lot Wanker

What’s with some people?

I parked my van in an isolated spot in the parking lot so it wouldn’t get scratched, and some loser parks right next to me.

He or she could have parked anywhere, but no……. they chose to be jerks and picked the spot next to me.

Look how close they parked!

They are even over the designated parking lines!

Those lines are there for a reason: they are not guidelines you can just ignore.











I spent a lot of time making my van look good:

washing:10 minutes, 2 weeks ago

detailing: spraying the rust on my rear bumper with rust protectant, emptying ashtray, and putting on a classy bumpersticker.





Yes, that’s the remnants of another classy bumpersticker: Astroboy

When I saw this after returning from making important purchases involving canned ready-to-eat products, I can assure you I examined my van closely for scratches. There were lots of scratches, but none with yellow paint. (that car’s yellow paint at least)

I was lucky this time.