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I am currently eating mapo dofu flavored potato chips. Japanese potato chip flavor technology is so far advanced, I can't even imagine life without it.

I do miss sour cream and cheddar chips though
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 7:20 AM on July 20, 2018

I've been getting back into drawing and design for roughly the first time since high school. I've been doing Meat Day (Niku No Hi, because 29 in Japanese can be read as ni-ku, and niku=meat, so the 29th of the month=meat day) pop-up events for my old restaurant at a place in Tokyo owned by friends, and I started the first one off with a take on the Punk's Not Dead album cover. My place was called Magical Animal, and our mascot was a pig with wings and a unicorn horn, and I put it into the design… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 6:30 PM on July 9, 2018

I'm in Japan, and most people I used to play with stopped a long time ago, so, uh...

0405 5280 1459

Thanks!
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 2:40 PM on June 22, 2018

So, uh, (gulp)... I got a gift from someone just now (hey, thanks!) and the game full on froze. I quit out of it, and relaunched the app as normal. I ended up getting the ToS, and then a greeting from Professor Willow welcoming me to the game and congratulations on catching my first Pokemon, and by the way, what's your name and what do you look like?

So, sheer terror at the thought of losing a day one (in Japan) level 38 account, I closed the app, reloaded it, same thing.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 3:25 PM on June 22, 2018

Wow. It seems there's a daily limit on the number of gifts you can receive, which is both awesome (I got so many gifts from all of you that I hit the limit) and poopy (I have gifts I can't open until tomorrow!).

I wonder if they're going to nerf the gift giving at some point. Getting twenty pinap berries or ten great balls in on gift, I've spent more time today throwing away items than actually playing the game. The gifts are now the only reason to really soon pokestops… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:31 AM on June 23, 2018

I think I spent rare candies on a Snorlax. I feel your pain.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:43 AM on June 23, 2018

I just hatched an alola meowth and a Grimer. One was oddly from Evanston, Illinois, a short drive from where my family lives in the states, and the other was from Germany. Make sure to scroll down to see where your hatchlings come from, that's pretty awesome. The twenty gifts a day thing, and the "no way to sort friends" thing aren't great, but with any luck, that'll get fixed.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 12:35 AM on June 24, 2018

Thanks, Cold Lurkey! That Grimer was pretty solid, 13/15/14, 93% overall and is now a Muk about to become my favorite gym mon. With the poison/dark typing, it's only weakness is ground. Luckily there aren't any strong ground attac... Oh. Groudon. D'oh.

Still, he's great, thanks!
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 9:16 AM on June 24, 2018

Now, if you were on team yellow, you would have instinctively caught that typo before posting. Woo instinct rules!

/crickets
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 7:03 AM on June 26, 2018

I've somehow only just come across The Mountain Goats, and honestly, the song This Year came to me in a drunken, depressed train ride home from work. I'd been watching music videos on YouTube, which I almost never do as a way to kill a commute, and I was just feeding my depression with darker and darker songs, and then this popped up in the suggested video feeds.

It's been an incredible boon to have run into this song when I did. It's become something of a mantra, and… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 4:16 PM on June 8, 2018

Maybe we should postpone celebrating the 20th anniversary for a full year, and then go out and get Metafilter drunk.

No need to wait! Have the anniversary meetup in Japan! The drinking age here is twenty!

though there's no standard ID nationally, and driver's licenses aren't as common, so no one *really* checks IDs. Really, MetaFilter could have been drinking for years of only it was here!
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 3:43 PM on May 23, 2018

I fought with your father in the title wars. He was the best poster on the blue, and a helpful presence on the Green. Before the dark theme. Before the Cabal.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 8:33 AM on May 8, 2018

you didn't cut off his arm and legs and leave him to die near a river of lava, by any chance

At last, the hidden, dark truth of FIAMO comes out.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 6:03 PM on May 8, 2018

This is tough, because while there are a ton of possible answers, at this point, I'd rather have dinner with my closest friends who seem to be drifting away a bit because I'm never available to hang out. People I used to see weekly if not more, who I go months without seeing because my kitchen schedule means I don't get to interact with non-kitchen, non-bar, non industry people (and some of those people are delightful, it's just...).

And even though it's my job, and a… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 7:52 AM on April 30, 2018

Having only ever once been to a bar with a stage in front of everyone, I can't imagine that sort of karaoke. In Japan, though it's been a long, long time, karaoke is done in small rooms with the group you go to the karaoke place with. No public singing. It can be great. That said, I am the full on god of (Wanted) Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi. I have, in fact, been everywhere, and yes, still I'm standing tall, for verily, I have seen a million faces, and indeed, I have rocked them all.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 8:31 AM on April 15, 2018

I've mentioned this in other places, but Serendipity by New Glaurus provoked such a strong memory of growing up in the Midwest that I actually cried, in a good way.

The beer is a fruit ale that was made when the cherry crop they rely on for their (absolutely fantastic) cherry ale had a bad season, and they couldn't source enough cherries of the grade they needed. Instead, they added apple and cranberry to the recipe, and turned out a beer that tastes like fall in the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 6:44 PM on March 31, 2018

In, though I'm almost certain to be out of the running by the end of the first round. I have no idea who is good, so I just defaulted to my usual poor choice of having two big ten teams meet in the final four. That never goes poorly for me.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 8:16 PM on March 12, 2018

I'm thankful for an ANA sale last January that we found out about just in time, flights from Japan with no fuel surcharges, and making the (hopefully) final switch away from teaching EFL in Japan that's allowing me to fly home for my first thanksgiving with family since 1998. I'm thankful that I'll finally have the chance to cook thanksgiving for my family, and that I'll have Mrs. Ghidorah (who's also become a badass cook) there with me to get everything ready, and to make it all look more… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 12:45 PM on November 19, 2017

I'm with biffa on this one. I mean, I've only just begun to form the barest rudiments of an idea, and today I came home to some very nice looking jasmine tea and some absolutely gorgeous playing cards ("inspired by Hong Kong's eccentric cuisine") from mdonley! The cards are perfect for the flight Mrs. Ghidorah and I'll be taking on Monday, which is awesome because we'll have beautiful cards to play games with on the flight, yet terrible because I haven't really even processed that… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 6:05 AM on November 17, 2017

Mrs. Ghidorah and I took a day on Wednesday and took the cats to the vet for their shots and check up. Both are fine. We saw Thor, and it was enjoyable. Yesterday, while smoking Andouille (a restaurant in Tokyo uses it, and I'm one of maybe two or three people in Japan that make it), I also smoked a piece of pork belly.

Seriously, if you haven't tried it, and you're okay with meat, and you have access to a smoker, just a little chunk of pork belly (maybe an inch or two… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 2:46 AM on November 11, 2017

Once, back in my science fiction convention going youth, in southwest Michigan, I witness Bobo (a god, if you will, not *the* God) perform a miracle. We had just sacrificed an image of Barney, who was an anathema to Boboists. We had the whole thing on videotape (this being the mid-90s, before digital anything, much less mobile phones with video cameras). We had impaled a small Barney on a very large bottle rocket, and set the whole thing off in a drainage ditch near the hotel that security had… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 7:48 PM on November 4, 2017

He wasn't my favorite toy or anything, but I had a pull-string doll of Count von Count from Sesame Street. Pull the string, and he'd say his catch phrases and such. I went back to visit my mom years later, and found the toy in my old room, and pulled the string out of curiosity. Age had done a job on the mechanism inside, and out came this hellish, slowed down voice slurring "coowwwwuunnnnttiiiiiinnnnnng iihhhhhhzzzzzz fffffuuuuuuunnnnnnn tuuuuuu duuuuuuu… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 7:02 AM on October 15, 2017

I don't refer to my Pooh Bear as a toy. He occupies a place of honor on the nightstand next to the bed. He will be 37 years old this year, and is my oldest and most precious friend. He moved with me to Japan when I came here, and has provided a shoulder to cry on when I needed it most, never judging, always there.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 8:15 PM on October 15, 2017

Ghee (like the butter used in Indian cooking) Dora (like the explorer).

It took me a while, but I figured out clavdivs years ago. That hasn't stopped me from always thinking "clav divs" everytime I see the name.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 4:11 AM on August 25, 2017

Congrats, cortex, and thanks, Matt, for figuring out ways to keep everything going. Oddly enough, I found out about this on Facebook, maybe a sign I need to spend more time here.

Did someone say sticker swap? For that snazzy metafilter sticker, I could swap an array of Japanese craft beer stickers!
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:16 PM on July 31, 2017

I'm one of those that's gotten towards not wanting things, partly as a defensive mechanism from suddenly being able to afford much, much less than before. I only very rarely buy goods for myself, and most of my money goes to keeping House Ghidorah afloat. I made two purchases recently, and my regrets will probably keep my gunshot for a while. I picked up some new flip flops because shoes in my size in Japan are rare enough that I jump on the opportunity, yet they don't fit well, and my feet are… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 7:33 AM on July 16, 2017

I, too, have never been in Cliff Claven's kitchen.

Also, no broken bones, never smoked anything (while everyone else in my family is a smoker). What can I say, 80s anti-smoking ads (kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray) did a number on me. No downhill skiing or snowboarding.

I have had multiple cortisone shots, both between vertebrae and into the tissue in my heel. While the sensation of a thick… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 11:14 AM on June 27, 2017

NowthatIvegotoneponycanIhaveanotherFilter:

Is there any chance there might be a way to allow question asking from mobile? I'd say 90% of my MeFi time (like, say, now) is done on my phone, and I suspect that's not uncommon among other members. I know there were solid reasons for not allowing it a couple years back, any chance that's changed?
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 9:15 AM on June 9, 2017

I would be a walrus. In college, we were flipping around the five channels we had, and on PBS, there was a show about walrusessus. It showed how they managed to use the whole herd to protect the young and confuse a polar bear. They explained that walrusi sometimes gorge themselves for 24 hours straight, just eating non-stop (and it's a good thing for them. Later, the show sent an underwater robotic camera to record the walri in the ocean. The last thing it recorded was the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:06 AM on May 7, 2017

That, or a very well loved house cat.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:07 AM on May 7, 2017

Usually, me, but it's a kitchen in a house in Japan, so, yeah, the tiny grill for cooking fish that fits under the stove that's pretty much standard in any Japanese kitchen. We've used it once (I think I made foil wrapped garlic bread in it. It didn't work). And the stove is kind of dumb. The left gas burner just shuts off from time to time. It's all modern and stuff, so the gas shuts off when that happens, but lord, it's annoying when you're trying to make a grilled cheese sandwich and you… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:01 AM on April 16, 2017

I'm not sure whether I should use my skills of pearl-clutching. Maybe my Lucerne hammer of indecision will guide me. Or perhaps not. Magnificent.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 4:28 PM on April 1, 2017

I made my standard "Big Ten will look great, get your hopes up, then fail miserably bracket." Northwestern will flame out, a couple other teams will win a surprise upset, then be slaughtered in the second round. Wisconsin and Michigan State will grit their way much further than they have any reason to, until their fan bases start to believe, then bam, horrible, shameful death.

Then they sickly feeling of having to choose between Kentucky or Duke for the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 12:17 AM on March 14, 2017

Half of my bracket is perfect. The other half of my bracket is utterly wrong. And somehow Michigan is playing the role properly held by Michigan State: Big Ten team that advances further than it should, gets hopes up, etc.

Yes, I know Purdue is still alive, but I can't take them seriously, and often forget they're even in the big ten.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:25 PM on March 19, 2017

Wow. I haven't really been following the tournament, but I managed only one of the elite eight (Gonzaga) but picked them to lose to Arizona, so I've got an 0fer on the final four. Ouch.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 6:29 PM on March 26, 2017

I've always had a fascination with the last final bit of land that points out into the ocean, like Lands End, or Tierra del Fuego. Somehow it took me until after I turned forty to finally go to a spot that qualified. Mrs. Ghidorah and I took a trip down to Tateyama at the bottom of Chiba. We met up with a good friend who lives down there, had lunch, and he drove us down to the southernmost tip of the peninsula, and I had a moment to just stand on rocks looking out over the ocean. It was quite… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 7:20 AM on March 26, 2017

Updates on the state of the site kind of freak me out when I see them. I'm glad* that everything is going so well, and thrilled that this place is still going. I know the election and the aftermath have been huge strains on the mods, but making the allowance for massive political threads has been a great source of, well, not necessarily comfort, but commiseration for the community, and for me an important outlet at a time where there really aren't all that many people IRL I can talk to about the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:18 PM on March 22, 2017

Sciatrix, for the tofu, just an idea, but I usually press it overnight, then baste it with a glaze of soy sauce, sesame oil, black pepper, and kochujang (Korean chili paste, I've seen it written in English a hundred ways). Because its temperamental and likes to stick to the grill, either using one of those fancy fish baskets for grilled fish, or get a couple really cheap square grills, and place one on the grill, with the tofu on it. When it's time to flip the tofu, put the other square gently… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 4:44 AM on March 12, 2017

Secret identities?

I'm Batman.

I'm also pretty shocked that that wasn't one of the first comments.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 4:37 PM on March 5, 2017

I'm a little torn, partly because I've been so wrong, so often, anything I offer up is probably going to get a reaction of "wait, what about your comment here, Ghidorah?" The other part of me is how embarrassingly bad my reaction was to the discussion of cis and trans when it first really became a site wide discussion. I can't really point to a single comment, since I seemed to have believed that the best thing to do when you're in a hole is to keep digging. I reacted poorly, and… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 10:43 PM on January 29, 2017

As mentioned above (by, uh, everyone), Trump lacks the capacity for respect towards others. He has built his public career (I won't say his fortune, that was given to him) on a series of actions and words that lack all possible respect for many people and every group that, essentially, isn't his.

"Us liberals" were asking people to be respectful of Obama because people were using coded language, dog whistles, and outright racist terms to… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 5:44 PM on January 16, 2017

To tack on to what Going to Maine is saying, trying to excuse Trump's lechery by comparing him to Clinton, or even to JFK, or trying to excuse his gleeful use of racist dogwhistles and the racists who support him by saying Nixon did it, or that Humphrey or Harding were corrupt misses the point. We were supposed to have grown as a country. We were founded by people in an era we now see as backwards, and we reject many things they held to be self-evident (that slavery was okay, that women… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 12:22 AM on January 17, 2017

With respect, but as the person who is being referred to when pigfucker is brought up, I reject the idea that we should equate the president with a gun wielding mugger, or, at the very least, if that's the obvious equivalency (aside from barely literate rage thug, which seems to fit better), we should be jumping up and down and lighting signal fires to show that this, at long last, is how far we've fallen.

The name calling, as distasteful as you might see it is… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 8:31 AM on January 17, 2017

I would say that I'm also one of the people whose politics and understanding of the world has been shaped by this site. I can understand the goal of wanting to offer a place where people can engage without being ridiculed for their positions, but tell me, what would you trade for it? Would you trade this site's acceptance (even if it's not perfect, it has certainly evolved) of trans members (and the trans members who feel comfortable here because the members of the site have listened to them) to… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 3:33 PM on January 17, 2017

Wow, supercrayon, uh...

I made it as far as the comment about a post on Sex in the City that claimed it was a "girlzone" post, then went on to explain that only one of the four actresses would be considered worthy of going on a date with.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 6:30 PM on January 17, 2017

Fuck. All I know is that I spent an evening with friends I haven't seen in a long time, friends that, as I've mentioned in past threads that I'm finding it harder and harder to remain friends with, for a myriad of reasons, most of them having to do with the rankest pre-anything101 kind of decency. I ended up drawn into a debate where a friend of mine, a relationship I've had for long enough that he's not friend, he's family, tried to tell me that trying to, in his words, force people to use… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 9:44 AM on January 19, 2017

I learned that I need to find a hobby. A new coworker asked me what my hobbies were yesterday, and I couldn't answer. I've been so busy for the last couple years that now that I have time to slow down and actually have some free time, I honestly don't know what to do with myself. Huh. That's kind of weird.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 8:56 PM on January 14, 2017

.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 4:34 PM on January 7, 2017

My quonsiniation has occurred! Thanks, lunch, for the books (they look pretty interesting), and for BMO! Truly this has been a fantastic Quonsmas.
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 7:03 PM on December 26, 2016

It was kind of an off year present wise, neither of us could really think of anything we wanted (aside from the Nintendo classic, which is unfindable). I tried to introduce stocking gifts to Mrs. Ghidorah, but... well, let's just say I got a beautifully wrapped packet of saltines in my stocking.

Party/entertaining recipe: pork rillettes, which I like to call pork butter. Take about a kilo of fatty pork shoulder. Cut into chunks about half as big as a fist. Put in cold… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Ghidorah at 11:12 PM on December 24, 2016