Am I scaring you? 

OK, it's starting to look like I have stuffed Trey in a trunk somewhere, just so I can dominate his blog. I swear: his whereabouts are verifiable and we'll be hearing from The Man shortly. In the meantime, I'll continue the "Engrish" theme only, this time, it's more subtle because the grammar and spelling are all correct (well in the newspaper-headline sense of correct grammar anyway):
Seal engraver, kabuki actor among honored cultural contributors
Please don't call P.E.T.A.. It's not what you think.

Trey-clock now at 28 days and ticking...

Also ticking, the recountdown: just five days left....

Who put such frightening things so close to halloween? I've been giving myself the shivers by looking at the state-by-state election scorecard on Slate:

Election Scorecard

Lately, with each new poll result, the predicted outcome flip-flops (sorry) from one candidate to the other. Maybe it's because I can't vote that this is freaking me out.

Also alarming is a review of my post from last week, and the incredibly unfunny quip about Johnny Damon's hair. If I offended anyone with that, it totally wasn't worth it. So, I'll pick on the Canadian: Larry Walker has three brothers named Gary, Cary, & Barry. Thats.... scary.


...no brothers named Darryl.

Here's something else that's pretty scary: right after I declared a fascination with natural disasters in Japan, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake rocked the joint. Add that to the list of topics I'll avoid from now on. Heck, it's time to put these goulish topics to rest with some Engrish:

OK, new record: three posts in one day. I had to throw this link in because news stories simply do not get any more Canadian than this:
Bear breaks into stolen beer cache
The "stolen moosehead" saga has actually been a long-running one. Check the related-story link on that page.

Ooh, here's something else for Trey:
sleplnig skucs

The Trey-Clock now reads 21 days since his previous post. Let's see if we can flush him out with another Bushism! Here's two of my favourites:

"And what my worry is is that, you know, it [a reimported drug] looks like it's from Canada, and it might be from a third world."—St. Louis, Mo., October 8, 2004.

"Secondly, the tactics of our—as you know, we don't have relationships with Iran. I mean, that's—ever since the late '70s, we have no contacts with them, and we've totally sanctioned them. In other words, there's no sanctions—you can't—we're out of sanctions."—Annandale, Va., Aug. 9, 2004

That brings me to the one and only political statement I will make on this blog. My fondness for his verbal acuity aside, "W" does apeal to one of the many focus groups inside my head: I call it "let's party". I know, the days of alcohol are way behind him but, if it were possible, who would you prefer to go on a drunken bender with? Bush hands down right? There's no question in my mind: just imagine the hilarious dialogue that comes out when he's NOT sober!

...which reminds me of something completely unrelated. My family rode out a pretty major typhoon, that ravaged the Japanes archipelago this week. Check it out:

No, that's not a giant surfboard; that's the roof of a bus.

As much as I appreciate the wonders of modern technology, the rare instances of nature trumping it hold some fascination for me. The above case is one example and here's another:

Some dude with a rock-hopper is probably thinking "I could hit 30mph on that!" Be my guest.

And finally, I think I dislocated my shoulder jumping onto the Astros/Red Sox bandwagon this month. I want to congratulate Johnny Damon, not for his grand slam last night, but for the fact that he cut his hair:

With the mullet gone, he no longer looks like the love-child of Fabio and Billy-Ray Cyrus.

Cue the fanfare, today is my birthday. Do I feel older? Well, yes. Just like yesterday, I am 9 months older than Trey. Actually, I offically started feeling old earlier this year, when I noticed that I was buying the same cereal over and over again. That's right: I'm turning into a one-cereal guy, a guy who has had enough variety already, know's what he likes and is sticking with it. It's all downhill from there; soon I'll be a one-beer guy, a one-make-of-car guy, and a theres-only-one-politician-for-whom-I-am-willing-to-vote guy. And, before I know it, I'll be referring to guys like this as "dang fools":

Dude, that picture of scorpion lady is starting to really freak me out. Thusly, I am intent on writing a long blog just to push her way down the page. To the bottom of the scrollbar with you!

My wife, sister-in-law, and two kids (aged 3 & 1) had an enjoyable 14-hour flight to Japan on Monday. The basic plot went something like this:
-Flight is mostly full so no bulkhead seats are available, leaving the 4 of them confined to their three seats.
-As there are a few empty seats in other areas, my wife politely asks a few of her immediate neighbours if it would be possible for them to move to another seat. As a Japanese woman, my wife has a black belt in politeness, when it's called for.
-Despite politeness of the highest degree, the request violates another fundamental tenet of Japanese culture: not getting involved in other people's shit. It's a little-known fact that this principle actually trumps politeness. Ergo, nobody responds to the request.
-Inevitably, our son reacts as a 16-month old boy usually does, when confined to a 0.2 cubic metre space for more than a couple of hours: he starts to wail.
-My wife, who has built up an extreme tolerance for this kind of noise, starts to get some enjoyment in aiming the screaming toddler in the general direction of the aforementioned "mind-your-own-business" neighbours. Ignore this, haha!

...too bad I missed it.

So now our daughter is in the land of her hero, Kitty-chan (you gaijin may know her as "Hello Kitty"). She loves all things Kitty but I just hope she doesn't catch her in bad mood: