A Case of Legitimate Incredulity

There's been an awful lot of digit ink spilled over the comments of some random old politician I'd never heard of before. I had no intention of spilling any more. But.

There's a Japanese world news program that my wife and I like to watch in the mornings. She likes it because it's a very good program. I like it because the man announcer's head is shaped exactly like an egg and that amuses me.

The story started off with video of the old politician dude making his crazy comments, with subtitled translation. Then it cut to woman announcer who said:

What the f*ck!? Holy living f*ck did that stupid old f*ck just say what I f*cking think he said? Is there some kind of bad f*cking translation issue, here? Seriously: what the f*ck?

That's a very loose translation, but what her lips weren't saying of that, the rest of her face definitely was. When the time came to move on to the next story she had to pause, take a deep breath, and say, "next..."

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Victoria Jackson's head looks exactly like a thumb in a wig with a face painted on it. Don't believe me?

Yo Duh Lay He Who?

About 50 years ago a young loner in Tokyo discovered yodeling on the radio. The story doesn't end there, though, no matter how badly you may want it to.

He taught himself how to yodel and... Hold on. How do you know when you've got it right? ... Oh well, never mind. Now he could yodel and he started to appear on Japanese television. My mind balks at the thought that those two things are connected.

But our story moves on to Switzerland, where Takeo Ishii performs at a beer hall in Zurich for money. For money! And it wasn't him paying the beer hall for the privilege, either. One thing (yodeling) leads to another (more yodeling) and he gets to be on TV in Europe, culminating in the greatest nickname ever conceived: the "Japanese yodeler."

And now, the sentence that inspired me to write this blog post. I'm just going to quote it directly because there's no way to improve on perfection.

Ishii met his wife Henriette in 1981 and proposed to her three years later at an onsen (hot spring) in Japan, where he yodeled his proposal to her.

That's good stuff.

Wicked Service!

I have a memory of driving down Hemlock Street on my way downtown and seeing a small cafe claiming to be wicked and to have great waffles. Even more intriguing to me than its odd location - just a block away from somewhere yet decidedly nowhere - was that combination of wickedness and waffle. That's not a combination you see every day.

Well, unless you drive along Hemlock every day.

The Wicked Cafe