Makiko Itoh : Not a nameless cat.

Yoko from Philadelphia recently linked back to an excellent essay she wrote back in 2003 called On Being a Japanese-American. While my background is a bit different, there was a lot that she mentioned that resonated with me, as it would I believe with anyone who has grown up in a dual-culture environment. Must reading!

I run ads on my two food sites. The ads pay for the server, some site related expenses, and a little bit more.

If only I didn't have to run any ads. Ads clutter up a site, even the most discreet ones. Ad insertion code is often gimpy. Ad code is often invalid. Some really bad ad code can even make a browser crash, a server crash, or break a page design. Mostly, ads suck.

After having wrestled with MovableType (and Typepad), skirted around WordPress, and dipped my toe in, and out of, ExpressionEngine, I am now quite happily esconced in the land of Drupal for most of my sites, including this one. The busiest one of those administered and published by me is Just Hungry. I spent the weekend tweaking it under the hood, as well as giving it a visual facelift.

I'm more than a bit confused, as to why this site seems to be confusing people.

Case no. 1: on StumbleUpon, the site is classified under, of all things, Dating-Tips. WTF? I don't ever remember offering a dating tip. If you want to find anyone more clueless about the Dating Game than I, I want to meet that person. (Not for a date. I'd be too shy.)

Case no. 2: I got this dubious email today:

When Oprah somehow picks not just one, but two, in succession even, of ones favorite books of all time for her book club.

I have stated here quite a few times (most recently) about my feelings of awkwardness (the perfect Japanese word for it would be kusuguttasa (くすぐったさ)) about the inclusion of Japanese culture into Western and/or American culture in recent years. One aspect that I don't think I've touched on is the use of Japanese phrases for American/western products. Some of these make sense, others are laughably off.

I am grateful to my parents for many things, and resent them for a few others. I think that's fairly average. But if there is one thing for which I will harbor a grudge against them until I die, it's that they didn't have my tonsils taken out when I was younger.

Every year, often several times a year, I get tonsilitis. Most of my colds come via my tonsils. I woke up this morning, unrested and tired, because my tonsils felt like two burning rocks of pain.

This Japanese blog post ran across the virtual desktop of my life today. (It was on the del.icio.us/popular list.) It tells a tale of unbelievable service by Nintendo. Here's a rough and somewhat abbreviated translation:

I'm more and more inclined to Julie's way of thinking about this whole thing.

(English speakers, please excuse me. This rant is in Japanese.)