Finding love at Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Nixes 'Singles Shopping'

A Wal-Mart spokesman declined to comment on the reason behind the program's cancellation. But customer Dale Firebaugh, who showed up Friday night hoping to meet his match, said store employees told him several people had complained.

"I'm disappointed," said Firebaugh, 63. "Where can someone over 40 who doesn't smoke or drink or go to bars meet someone?"

Alas.

Unbelievable mug shot

You just have to see it. (Via BoingBoing)

Prefectural governor under deluge of blog comments

Kanagawa Prefectural Governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa banned sales of Grand Theft Auto 3 to minors back in June. Gamers responded by flooding his blog, 松沢しげふみ　タックルレポート, with comments. Mainichi (English), Mainichi (Japanese).

On July 7, Gov. Matsuzawa said on his home page that he was unable to give answers to every comment, which prompted his critics to post a further 255 comments.

Matsuzawa responded by saying that he wanted game enthusiasts to carefully read the comments he has made on software regulations during past press conferences.

Matsuzawa said he would not stop writing his opinions on his Web page.

"I've received some terrible comments (on the page), but I think it's good for me to hear a variety of opinions," the governor said. "I will never stop my Web site."

The critics' comments cited in the article don't seem all that "terrible", but you never know what else might be on that blog.

I honestly don't think it's a bad thing to ban sales of violent videogames to minors, though maybe the age limit could be ratcheted down to 16 or something. I don't know, I just don't think it's a big deal. Maybe someone could respond to the commenter who said "If you have time to jog, you would do better to read people's criticisms of game regulations" with "If you have time to spam someone's blog, you would do better to work on ways to end world hunger". ;)

Apparently I can't read!

Eel Day (Doyo no Ushi) is July 28. I guess I assumed that it was July 19 because that was the day the About.com article appeared. Oh well, at least this means that I still have time to enjoy eel on eel day!

Mainichi has an article about how eel prices are skyrocketing in Japan due to a low yield in eel fry this year.

The precise reason for the poor eel fry yield remains unknown, but some blame the irregular weather or shifts in the Kuroshio Current, while others say it could be the after-effects of earthquakes and typhoons that struck Japan last year.

Eel fry are not bred and raised artificially. Eel breeding involves catching fry from rivers and deltas from December to April, then raising them in farms for about half a year before selling them to eat. Eel fry's mode of life remains unknown.

Eel traders have been hit by the double punch of expensive fry and more expensive oil, which has driven up the cost of raising those fry that have been caught until they are suitable to be sold to eat. Currently, eel is being sold at about 1,600 yen per kilogram, around 200 yen more than last year.

When Sean and I were in Japan, I believe we saw a show about raising eel fry. There were these pools, and divers went into them to show how the eel lived. That's about all I got out of it, seeing as how my Japanese skills were next to nil. (Not that they're any better now...)

Athens to have its own Pink House

An historic home is being restored to Athens from where it currently stands in Stone Mountain. Apparently, in 1860, the house was pink! You'll all recall my fascination with North Augusta's Pink House.

(Note that the Chronicle uses the phrase "flesh colored"--ugh, see, if they'd hired me on as copy editor I would totally have spotted that. Maybe that's what the guy actually said, but you know, I'd've cut it out anyway...)

Egypt

CNN has a timeline of past attacks on Egyptian tourist spots. I know that at least one of these attacks was targeted towards Israel.

It seems that the terrorists have been at it for a long time.

I was never really aware of terrorism before. Sometimes in movies the bad guy would be a terrorist, but I was never as worried about them as I was about a hostile nation. Somehow, I thought that terrorists really couldn't accomplish much, that they were just free agents running around doing their thing, and that their efforts were small and not worth worrying about.

But now I'm better aware of what their efforts can accomplish. More than that, it's become quite obvious that they sure are hard to stamp out. At least with an enemy nation, we know where to find the bad guys...

Microwaving rioters

Concerns have been raised about the US's new crowd control "ray gun".

The Active Denial System weapon, classified as "less lethal" by the Pentagon, fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds.

The idea is people caught in the beam will rapidly try to move out of it and therefore break up the crowd.

But New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday that during tests carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, participants playing the part of rioters were told to remove glasses and contact lenses to protect their eyes.

In another test they were also told to remove metal objects like coins from their clothing to avoid local hot spots developing on their skin.

I'd say the best thing to do would be to fire it in very short bursts...but I'm leary of microwave rays in general, and unless the device was built so that it wouldn't fire within a certain period, I'm not sure if it'd be a good idea to deploy it.

So, Heather, what's up with you today?

Well, I've watched some more Friends. Finished off season 1 and started on season 2. Ah, Ross and Rachel, how you torment me!

I also ate more than I should have. It seems that once I started eating, I had trouble stopping. I ate eggs over easy and toast, and not too much later I had two hot dogs. I'm still burping up hot dog taste. Yeeeeccck. That wasn't everything I ate, either, but I don't feel like listing it all. At least today wasn't as bad as yesterday.

Before Sean got home, I ran a couple of errands: I faxed a resume at the UPS Store, and dropped off all my oversized pants at Goodwill. My car didn't want to start, initially. I let it cool off some and it finally worked. I just need a new starter, I guess. I have no idea how much that will cost.

After Sean got home, I split my time between Friends and cuddling in bed with him. Well, cuddling isn't the right word; it's freaking hot, hot enough that even Sean felt it and was only wearing shorts. So we sat/lay around and were affectionate with each other. We talked and kissed and gave backrubs and such. Sean was messing around on the laptop, too.

My computer's been running slowly, so I archived a little today, and deleted temp files, and ran virus and adware scanners, and updated Windows, and all that hoopla. I'm almost done. Hopefully my computer will behave a little better after all this special treatment. I really need to buy some more DVD-RWs, though. I have something like 115 gigs of stuff to archive. (I'll need another CD rack, too...:P)

The job front doesn't look any better today than it did yesterday, or the day before. I did get another rejection letter from Columbia County today, woo hoo. I've applied for a few more things, but I haven't heard anything yet.

I would really like to see more Kyou Kara Maou. Like, all the episodes after 45.

And that's about it.

Today does not seem to be a "house day".

:)

How lucky we are

My cousin Carl is in Africa right now, doing some sort of volunteer work. I'm unclear on what it is specifically, but it seems to involve missionaries, teaching English, and health care. He recently spent a day assisting in surgeries, and his recounting of the experience is eye-opening.

The first was an old man having prostate problems, which is not unknown to me, and had to have it removed. In america it's an outpatiant process done with lasers. A steel tube up the peepee and zap, however, here it is something different. It is cutting in through the abdoment, moving through the bladder, and removing it... with you hands. I watched as David McAdams reached into the body of a man blindly and had to shift as he manually, with his hands, removed this mans very large prostate.

It's something completely new to me, and though I watched probably with wide eyes, I was amazed at what sacrafice even surgeons are making when they give their time here. They sacrafice proper tools, proper procedures, and fifty years in medical advances to go back to the dark ages of surgery.

There are some pretty sad stories in that post, but also some uplifting bits.

Some interesting Japan news

Teacher whacks student with kendo sword

Kashiwaba?!

Female worker trapped in haunted house's bath

It's not a real haunted house, like I first assumed. Also, the headline doesn't indicate that the woman was seriously injured. She was.

'Matsuri' will make East Village comeback after 10 years

I would love to go to a Japanese festival in New York City! How cool would that be?

Hiroshima peace museum to display Einstein's letters on A-bombings

I'm not sure what they mean by "Albert Einstein's letters to the late translator Seiei Shinohara that show the physicist defensive over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki".

Op/Ed: Tourists must not be allowed to ruin Shiretoko

Whenever a beautiful place gets world recognition, it's in danger of being overrun and spoiled by tourists. Hokkaido's Shiretoko peninsula seems to be facing that possibility now.

CNet's Top Ten Web Fads

Get ready for a trip down memory lane.

Internet phenomena. Memes. Grist for the e-mail forwarding mill. Whatever you call them, Web fads are entertaining, unintended consequences of life on the World Wide Web. Once the masses could put anything online easily, they turned up weird fetishes, hilarious parody, jaw-dropping narcissism, and moments of brilliance. And over the past 10 years, some of these ideas broke through to the mainstream. Whether it was dancing hamsters, a kid enjoying his day as a Jedi Knight, or the sudden ability to publish your thoughts online with just a few simple clicks, the following 10 Web fads still make us laugh, make us wonder, or make us feel guilty enough to update our blogs.

Ah, Hamsterdance...

How President Bush picked John Roberts

This article at the New York Times (via Drudge) describes Bush's selection process via the testimony of one of the candidates, plus insider reports.

Judge Wilkinson's conversation with the president about exercise and other personal matters in an interview for a job on the highest court in the land was typical of how Mr. Bush went about picking his eventual nominee, Judge John G. Roberts, White House officials and Republicans said. Mr. Bush, they said, looked extensively into the backgrounds of the five finalists he interviewed, but in the end relied as much on chemistry and intuition as on policy and legal intellect.

"He likes to have the info, he likes to have the background, but he also is a field player," said Dan Bartlett, the counselor to the president, in a briefing to reporters on Tuesday night. "He likes to size people up himself, make his own judgment."

The Hollow Men

Here's an amusing article on CNN about a British comedy troupe called the Hollow Men. Reading their banter reminds me strikingly of Fred and George from Harry Potter.

"We're constantly changing things as we get on stage -- tweaking things, adding bits," says Armand.

"Often without telling each other," says Spedding.

The four met as students at Cambridge University, where they were drawn to the drama department. "Gradually, we found each other and found out we shared a kind of common sensibility," Tanner says.

"Plus, no one else wanted to work with us," Armand adds.

These guys have a show on Comedy Central, with a six episode run. Makes me wish I had cable ;_;

Yay, Canada!

CNN: Canada legalizes gay marriage

Alex Munter, national spokesman for Canadians for Equal Marriage, which has led the debate in favor of the law, was triumphant Wednesday: "It is a signal to the world that Canada is an open and inclusive society that believes in the notion of full citizenship for all."