My Beer Personality

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.

What's Your Beer Personality?

Is that so? I'd much rather drink a Coopers Pale Ale... showing off my beer snobbery in one fell swoop right there!! (and giving me another chance to post a picture of what drinking Coopers can do for your mood - thanks to Karl and Steve - Steve missed out on the Coopers!)

I am a map fetishist. Give me a map, or more, and I will pour myself and my imagination over it for hours. Found a good one here. It covers the history of the Middle East in 90 seconds. Just who has occupied it over the last 5000 years? This is an excellent bit of animation to give some explanation.

Subversive Documentaries

Been a little while. Been busy with work and play.

Got myself a new bass and amp as well as some effects to play around with. Gotta love music shops having sales and eBay! I can get that fat Sonic Youth crunchy sound as well as the Peter Hook/New Order sound done *just* right! Happy days.

Found this good article written by John Pilger. If you're not familiar with his work, he is one of the few good investigative reporters in the world. His documentaries are made independent of the mainstream media, and so they don't often get played on the TV. Funny that. Hasn't stopped him though - which is a good thing for the rest of us. This article comes with some recommended viewing.

Open your mind, people!

Japan's Train Culture

If there is a feature of life in Japan that appears in more TV dramas than mobile phones, it's got to be the train. Last year we had the TV adaptation of "Densha Otoku" (lit. 'train geek' - but usually translated as 'train man'), from a novelisation of a blog about a nerd's seduction of a beautiful, and seemingly unattainble woman.

Most of us NOVA types need to take a train every day to get to and from work - along with about half the population, it seems. Today's article comes courtesy of The Age, taking in many aspects of the local train culture and obsessions of those fascinated with it.

One thing they barely touched on in the article is the subject of Eki-ben or Eki-soba. Eki-ben stands for 'eki-bentou'; the lunch boxes you can buy on the station platforms. Some stations are famous for their inclusion of local delicacies, and thus have become destinations in their own right. Same goes for eki-soba; soba being the type of noodles on offer, although other varieties such as udon-noodles are also often on offer.

Himeji Station is famous for its eki-soba. The shops have recently been upgraded with the opening of the new platforms, with the decor playing on the tradition and nostalgia of the original eki-soba shops of the past. Thankfully the standards of cleanliness are more modern.

It's been a while since I had a bowl of eki-soba - I don't catch the train to work any more - but I can assure you, it's a cheap and tasty snack or light meal for the person on the go.



Image courtesy of wikipedia

So, you wanna know about Japan?

Allow me to link you to a site which specialises in finding great clips from Japanese TV.

It's called .... wait for it, wait for it..... TV in Japan!

Uninspiring name, but there's certainly truth in advertising here. There's also quite a lot of advertising; on the site and in the content too.

If you are contemplating a move to Japan, then I truly recommend this site to start acclimatising to the kind of telly you're likely to watch (endure?) before you get your satellite TV hooked up!

As for anyone who has ever lived in Japan, it will surely bring back memories!

Enjoy.

Today's stupid (and scary) quote of the day

Courtesy of The Independent comes a pretty terrifying story about some unusual injuries discovered among the corpses of Lebanese killed during the recent attacks on Lebanon. The evidence seems to point towards the Israeli military using non-conventional weapons that burn flesh to the bone and shatter internal organs without leaving any outside traces.

Buried within the piece though is this revelationary quote: "The Israel Defence Forces said yesterday all its "weapons and ammunition are legal under international law and conform with international standards"." Comforting thought....

It's a shame that the actions of the government can't also be legal under international law and conform with international standrads, but that's what we're coming to expect from semi-fascistic states these days.

Sad, but true.