“I must say, though, that I wonder how many of you support the use of cats for scientific research?”
"We tried it once but the cats really weren't up to it, bad writing skills and few worthy PHD's among them. I don't think any of them actually got tenure, which is sort of sad."
— Barry SheinDilemma's Horns
The most difficult part of trying to get a few decent screen captures from the Aya The Witch DVD is summoning the willpower to stop staring at her.
Protection Money
Social conservatives are expressing (possibly-authentic) surprise that the Democrats’ current stimulus bill includes funding for contraception. I’m not sure why they didn’t expect it. After all, Congress has been spending our money like drunken whores for decades, so of course they associate condoms with cash payouts.
Dear Japan Airlines,
Do you really think that this is the right time to send out a mailing for a 7-night, $3,375 (plus $90 misc fees, plus $580 extra if you’re not sharing a room with someone) vacation tour package?
Fun with loanwords
In the children’s novel 魔女館へようこそ (“Welcome to the Witch’s Mansion”), casting spells involves cooking. There’s a particular recipe that’s very important to the story, and is printed in full at the end of the book. It took me forty minutes to figure out what it was called.
悪い魔法を封じこめるウ・ア・ラ・ネージュ
For the kanji/kana-challenged, that’s “Warui Mahou o Fuuji-komeru U A Ra Neeju”. The first half is a straightforward prenominal phrase, “…which confines evil magic”, but what is it?
First clue: it’s a dessert recipe.
Second clue: the ingredient list consists of eggs, sugar, cornstarch, milk, and vanilla extract.
Third clue: the recipe requires separating the eggs to make メリンゲ (Meringe) and カスタードソース (Casutaadosoosu).
Fourth clue: the end result involves placing the poached meringe on top of the casutaadosoosu.
Answer below the fold…
Honestly, I think it's some of their best work...
Oh, sure, I make fun of the people who design stage costumes for Hello!Project. It’s the least I can do, given the insane amount of effort they expend to overdecorate their helpless victims.
So when they do something simple, with just two colors and no feathers or tulle or ruffles or rhinestones, I think it’s only fair to say something nice. I mean, it’s even age-appropriate!
Dear Hello!Project Costume Designers,
I realize that Ayumi Shibata and the rest of Melon Kinenbi are being kicked out of the agency along with all of the other adults, but do you really think this is a viable option for her post-H!P career, or did you do it to satisfy certain personal needs?
"Don't bend your belly-button!"
Tuesday night, I managed to scrape together enough time to finish the novel I’ve been reading in Japanese. I was a bit disappointed in the ending, not so much in how the kids defeated the evil witch as in why it worked. But that’s a blog entry for another day.
Tonight, I’m going back through it, looking for the words and phrases that I didn’t find in my pocket dictionary (aka, “DS Lite running Kanji Sonomama”). Some of it I still can’t find (particularly mimetic expressions), but there are some fun ones.
First up, 「へそを曲げる」, which JMdict translates as “to get angry; to become perverse”, but it literally means “to bend your belly-button”. The impudent young warlock who says “heso o mageru na yo, baachan” to the cranky old witch clearly means “calm down, granny”, but since the thing she’s upset about is his lack of respect, it doesn’t really work.
