Kanji Tattoos are all the rage now, with people thinking they have stuff like "courage" or "strength" or "good in bed" written on their arm/ass/penis/boob/whatever. I have always been sure that the Japanese and Chinese were looking at these and secretly sniggering, just like we snigger when we take a look at Engrish.com. Now they get their revenge.
I can't tell you how annoyed I get when someone says "oh you know Japanese?" (which in itself is a joke) and then they continue with "Can you tell me how to write '(fill in the blank with some fruity word)?'"
I inevitably reply "I can't read or write Japanese." And the conversation is done, but I leave it feeling violated at having been asked to come up with something that stupid that might sit on someone's arm for life.
But this article is where it's at. Finally, we see that there are thousands of fools out there with gibberish, maybe even some Chinese guy's sweet, sweet revenge engraved in their skin.
You'll have to sign in, but just use the username and password of anonymous. This is gold.
So you may have (but probably not) been wondering where the hell I was over the past few days that I neglected to update you on your French lesson. The short (and only) answer is that I was in Irvine, California to visit UC Irvine's Urban Planning Department. It was a good trip. I have no idea why someone would ever even think about moving back to cold, depressing, cranky Boston after being out there. Regardless, I have a funny, if not short, story.
My flight first routed me to Houston, where I hung out in the George Bush airport. Yes, they actually named an airport after Bungling Daddy Bush. Thank God it wasn't GW, at any rate. I particularly enjoyed the statue of George senior with a windswept suit and tie, with his coat thrown over his shoulder. What a pose! How heroic! Moronic. Texans truly are weird.
After Houston, I took a flight to LAX, upon which I was informed by native Los Angeleans that the only way to get from LAX to Irvine at 11:30 at night was a cab and for sure I would pay out the bum. Not a pleasant thought.
Upon my arrival, I realized that my hastily-formed plan of going to an information desk would be an exercise in futility, simply because it was indeed 11:30PM and nothing is open, even at the airport, at that time. So I milled around the baggage area trying to figure out what to do, and most importantly trying to figure out how the hell I'd get my hotel's phone number.
But then the big man approached.
He was huge, shaved bald, scary, and in a pimpin suit. He looked at me and nodded. The three things he said to me were:
"My name's Roy. I got a towncar. Where you goin?"
I, of course, was speechless. I didn't want to pay some random guy with a towncar to drive me to Irvine, an hour away. But what the hell, it was 11:30 and I wanted to get to the stupid hotel. I told him Irvine, he told me 85 bucks.
Ah what the hell.
So big Roy grabs my bags, we walk like 14 miles to the parking lot, to his towncar, and got our asses moving.
Now, I know you're thinking "85 bucks?! Ripoff!" Now you try making a rational decision after a day of flight, 3 time zones, no food, and it's 70 degrees and you're wearing a Boston-geared jacket and hat. Right.
It got me to thinking. This is a legitimate business here. Not really legit as in legally sanctioned or following any sort of structure, but legit in that it makes money. Wait around at the pickup area of an airport, and there are surely hundreds of people a day looking for a way to get somewhere. Get them before they get to a cab, woo them with your towncar, and you are set. Most of them are in a state of semi-consciousness like I was (I swear it's the air they use in those planes), so you won't get much of a fight. It's like shooting fish in a barrel!
Though this is an idea that has occurred to many others, I file it away with my other business ideas like the clear front refrigerator (with LCD darkening), the tapeworm, and other less-than-legally-responsible ideas. Someday, when the world has drifted into anarchy, I will implement them. Mwa ha ha.
...
As a hopeful entrant into the ever-expanding field of transportation planning, I've been watching the developments of Maglev trains for a while with a great deal of interest. It's a technology that has been around for years but it has been too expensive for economically-feasible projects. But I guess technology improvements and transportation needs have finally intersected so projects are starting to gain momentum. There are projects even in the U.S., if you can imagine that, where the automobile is king.
But this article gives me pause. This country is full to the brim with NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) citizens. No one wants to be disturbed by anything that may be absolutely crucial. To get away from our disgusting oil dependence, mass transit is a very viable option, especially for growing cities like Pittsburgh. The fact that the mere sound of something could stop a project dead in its tracks (haha nice pun) is something I find mildly disturbing. Of course it is a viable concern of peope who may be near maglev tracks, but people would rather live with 10 lane highways? There are some times when I want to say "screw the people whining, because they'll whine no matter what you do."
And it's true. Americans, apparently, were born to whine. Hopefully in the future the sound of a maglev will drown out their pathetic mewling.