I smell a hemi...

I cannot begin to tell you how much I don't like the commercial of the two hillbillies driving down the road and, apparently, sniffing the passing traffic for large engines. Thanks, Dodge.

It's not everyday you get to talk to a tech saavy pirate. - Zach, the AOL trainer

The zombies will eat you first. Then you won't have to watch the rest of us get eaten. - Bart Simpson. (As Bart sees it, Lisa is lucky to have the room facing the graveyard)

I love waking up drunk in the mornings. - Homer Simpson

How often have you driven by a house fire and wondered, "How can this benefit me?" - Faux Fox commercial

"My tires have been severely damaged. The prophesy has come true." - Sideshow Bob

"Do something my real father could never do. Help me learn that the stove is hot." - Homer Simpson

Did you hear abut the suicidal dyslexic? Flung himself behind a moving bus. - Old, corny joke

Go Steelers! What a great game. I enjoyed every minute of it. But there was one thing that did not set too well with me. It was when Coach Dungy put in the punt team and Peyton Manning told them to go back out. He should have at least made some show of asking the coach, or discussing it with the coach or something. He kinda made Dungy look like a rookie assistant coach, to me. No matter how good he is or how confident he is, and no matter if he thinks the coach is making the wrong call, for Manning to just countermand him like that did not look good.

Bush Man spoke fairly good Japanese. We used to run together when we'd head north or south in Japan, away from the English subtitled areas of the country. Me and the Bush Man had only a few adventures together, but we had good ones. Ones with story lines that include dead kangaroos and rental cars. You will get that next blog, which may be as soon as tomorrow.

Anyway, Bushie always took care of ordering in noodle shops, getting the taxi to drive us where we wanted to go, getting directions on the street, and messing with gullible barmaids. He came in handy, for sure. And me and him had been on two ships toghther, so we were pretty good friends.

One night in Oturu, which is way up north, not too far from Sapporo, he had been providing translation during a cold, yet surprisingly action packed evening. We had heard about this one place that really started juking about 1 AM and were trying to navigate the labyrinth of back alleys that make up the Japanese night life areas. We didn't know where we were or if we were getting close to the place. So we stopped in a small grocery type store to ask. The guy working was mid to late twenties, clean cut and pleasant. In Japanese, Bushie asked him about the place. In perfect English he replied, "I'm not sure exactly where it is." Bush was momentarily thrown for a loop because he was expecting the answer to be in Japanese and, while he seemed to think he understood the answer, he was pretty sure it wasn't Japanese. After a couple of Kirin Ichibans, Bushie wasn't particularly quick about these things.

Long story short, we asked him a bunch of questions about Japanese stuff that we didn't understand, like the crossed arm salute when you walked into a place. We knew it meant we were not welcome, we just didn't understand why. His take on it? "I don't know why they do that. Ignorance, maybe?" He answered each question as best he could and was real friendly. He had gone to California for his college. UCSB, I think it was.

After we had asked him everything we had been wondering about and were getting ready to go back to looking for our nightspot, he turned to Bush Man and said, "Mind if I ask you something? Why do you talk like a girl?"

Bush Man froze, slowly turned, and then turned real red. "Huh?? Like a girl?" "Yeah, like a girl. Where did you learn Japanese?" "My girlfriend taught me." "Oh, that explains why you talk in the slang of a Tokyo schoolgirl." I laughed and walked out. Bushie smiled a little and slinked out.

We found the place and had a good time. Being the only Americans around in a small, frozen city has it's perks. Either you have a good shot at curiosity smooching (they wonder what a gaijin is like) or bragging smooching (where they get to tell their friends tomorrow that they were smooching an American last night). Like we care what the reason is, right? Pucker up.

Don't be a scofflaw, out
Ramblin' Ed