There’s nothing much on the new blog, but its location is here:

IbaDaiRon Blog (New)

(This doesn’t really mean I’m coming back to blogging here. At least, not yet…)

Twenty-one years later to the day and I’m still here.

I’ve lived in Japan longer than any of the kids in my first-year EAP class.

Dayum.

Some people just ain’t got no sense, huh?

Several times in the past I tried to cut down on the amount I was blogging, but I just never seemed able to kick the habit.

Turns out the secret is just finding other things to do….

In keeping with the tradition I started last year, of creating a New Years image using the strokes from the character for the year according to the Chinese zodiac, I offer you The Year of the Rat:

It didn’t turn out quite as well as last year’s Boar, but then I only had three strokes to work with this year. Anyway, we do the best with what we’ve got, eh?

Here’s hoping 2008 is happy and healthy and prosperous for all!

(This one is a bit over the top, no?)

Well…it looks like they’ve been pwned by some Turkish cracker.

I’m really glad I decided never to use Nuke on my website.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people.

(I wonder if David has even noticed.)

You may have already heard about this. Here is a link to Tuchman’s “Behind the Scenes” write-up of the report. Basically, a group of wingnuts in the heartland are interpreting Isaiah 35:8 (”A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.”) to refer…wait for it…to U.S. Interstate 35.

Isaiah 35…I-35…get it?

The loon behind all this, Minister Cindy Jacobs, was shown in the broadcast report. I like this bit from Tuchman’s piece:

She says she can’t be sure Interstate 35 really is what is mentioned in the Bible but says she received a revelation to start this campaign after “once again reading Isaiah, Chapter 35.”

She received a “revelation”? Well PRAISE JAYZUS! I wonder how it was delivered, though. During the high point of a hot flash? Or written in the little stars she saw after hitting her head on something? Sheesh. Damned right she can’t be sure. I’d wager she ain’t right. In the head. And this is someone that someone else somewhere has ordained and certified to lead other sheep?

Jacobs also points out that perhaps there is a link between the area near this highway and tragedies that have happened in history, such as the bridge collapse on I-35 in Minneapolis last August and the assassination of JFK 44 years ago near I-35 in Dallas. That’s why prayer certainly can’t hurt, she adds.

So…it’s a “Highway of Holiness” that’s cursed? Does that even make sense?

Sometimes I’m just too shocked to even laugh. We may as well just let our hair grow and climb back up into the trees.

This isn’t all that surprising when you think about it, though.

After all, back in September he had a “Close Encounter of the Third Kind” of his very own:

(Looks like someone warned him about those extender jaws! But look at that suit she’s wearing…to DIE for!)

Hello webmaster…Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts ! it was a great Thursday.

Vanna White

OK, Vanna!

Hey, Pat, I wanna buy a vowel! Spin the big wheel, Vanna!

Big money! Big money! WHEEL OF FORTUNE!!!

But you’d be surprised how many people seem to be ending up here as a result of googling for them.

So I thought it would be interesting to see what this post does to my hits over the next few days.

(I’m adding the “Breast-soothing” category tag, which is supposed to be for things about music [get it?], to the post as well, so I guess I should include something about that as well: Hmm…anyone familiar with the group Lifehouse?)

Hey…I just got to wondering…do Arab women have large breasts? I remember meeting an Egyptian woman or two who was rather well endowed…but then they were both kinda big bints all around, if you know what I mean.

This is the kind of thing you wonder about late on a Sunday night when you’re a man living in a country where you had—even before going on those potentially disfiguring BP drugs—a larger bosom than most of the women around you.

(And just in case anyone was wondering, no, my manboobs have not gotten any bigger. That I’ve noticed.)