Naming fish by combining other animal names and fish (i.e. zebrafish) is ok, if not clever. What makes me feel a tiny bit bad is names like butterfish. If a person is called butterjohn, and gets caught and cooked with butter, I feel that is a bit morally wrong.

Not that cooking john with butter itself isn’t morally wrong but..names can have such a strange effect on minds.

The best part about beer/root beer is foam. If I can order beer and get a glass full of beer foam, I’d be ordering them all the time…

Mako pointed out that lionfish looks more like tigers. I agree. Fish researchers need to spend more time studying land animals.

For a while, charcoal facial soap was really popular in Japan – it cleanses pores very well. An additional catch was that when you wash it off, the charcoal even cleans the used water.

While I think the amount is not enough to clean dirty used water in Tokyo, i thought that would be really neat. My question then was, although people often say that running water is a waste of our precious water – but if we’re running clean water, isn’t that better than giving only dirty water back to the ocean? I suppose the process of making clean water woulnd’t be too environmentally friendly but still..i’m not sure who’s right.

When asked which birthday was the most memorable one (in terms of just age, not of the actual day), people often say 21 (or 20 in Japan) becasue of drinking permit or 18 because of voting and strip club priviledges or sweet 16. My most memorable b-day was when I turned 10. I remembered thinking “Oh boy..I’m 2 digits now. I will NEVER be a single digit again…”

I felt the power of aging for the first time that day.

Every morning, I feel like a newborn zebra – trying to get up and fail..try again..fail again…when what seems like an endless process ends, I finally stand on my feet, stagger a little bit, and start walking.

Every morning is an amazing moment of life.

War on terror.

A couple days ago, a suicide jumper jumped into my mixed drink. Mako interpreted the act as its message towards me that I should stop killing these innocent citizens of Haven Apartment.

Because of this event, I will probably be smashing even more roaches from now on except that thought resembles too much of what Mr.President says…that bothers me even more than those roaches crawling in my kitchen.

Lack of verbal communication is problematic in many situations such as producer-consumer relationships to romantic relationships.

There is at least one situation where lack of verbal communication is benefitial. That is, things that can potentially become food can’t usually talk with their eaters. If zebras can talk back to lions about their rights to live, maybe there would be a couple lions that choose to die from starvation. If lettuce starts protesting on their factory-made , destined lives, vegetarians who are anti-hurting animals wouldn’t be able to eat any fresh things. And personally, activist lettuce sounds so cool to me that I feel I would have to respect them even after their deaths.

So, maybe lack of verbal communication among different species helps sustain the natural system on this planet (to some degree, of course).

I saw a huge old map of Malaysia at an antique store. It made me wodner if the person who made the map had some grudge against that country: The title of the map said “MAL-aysia”, giving an impression of Malaysia being a bad part of Asia.

I’ve been living in the states for a while now. Some people tell me that I’m americanized: I agree to some extent and feel ok about most of the changes I’ve made.

BUT.

I can’t believe I’m acquiring a taste for root beer!! I always thought that was so naaasty until just a couple days ago when my tongue told my brain, “hm..maybe you should change the way you think..this is kinda good and additctive…” Can’t believe this..

I’m being tested for my typing skill now because the backspace key on this laptop is kind of broken and if I didn’t want to strain my right middle finger, I shouldn’t make any mistakes..

Many people like shiny things but I feel many people take the shiny concrete on a street too lightly. It looks pretty cool and the fact that they are on the street should be appreciated more..i think.

I love taking a hot shower with cold air coming in from the window. It reminds me of outside hot spring experiences in Japan. I feel like bragging how warm and free I am to the people outside who are squeezed.

I saw a toilet paper holder that was missing half of its body, which normally covers the toilet papers completely. I could see the toilet papers, the bars, and a sign saying “Patent Pending”.

I thought it was strange because first, I’m not sure if it has a significant meaning for anybody other than the creater or if it can be a threat to anybody who wants to imitate it. Secondly, if that really was a message the creater wants to send the users, why is it hidden behind the cover?

Most food requires less energy to eat than the total energy intake from the food but there are some foods that work the opposite way like artichokes. I wonder if I just eat these food, I can lose weight without much exercise..

The way my apartment is painted reminds me of whipped cream smeared on shortcakes. It’s like that sweets house Hansel and Grethel used to eat.

It could be a sweet thought except I really don’t like whipped cream and sweeet cakes…ugh

There are many areas on our bodies that are neglected when being washed. Such areas include a belly button, between toes, behind ears, AND knees. All these areas have a common characteristics: they smell horrible.

I ate a raw egg for the first time – in this country – a couple days ago.

For some reason, I couldn’t completely trust the eggs in the states and even though I really really wanted to have a raw egg with soy sauce on top of hot rice, I never actually did it. After I was tricked into believing the safety of American namatamago (raw eggs) two days ago, I found out that the northeastern region in US has been notoriously known for its history of having more frequent salmonella cases than other areas in the country..

Evidently, it takes 12-72 hours before the first symptom appears. I’m just waiting for the sudden tsunami waves in my tummy…any minute now.

Pomegranates are tastieee. As I picked each piece out, it reminded me of something: pulling out teeth.

It’d be difficult to trust any dentists who like pomegranates.

Mako and I must leave downtown NY for home before midnight; otherwise our trains turn into pumpkins and mice and start stopping at every station..it takes twice as long to get home.

Happy Pumpkin Month.