Aaaaaaand we make fun of Japanese culture one more time. Oh well. They put the Statue of Liberty on top of their by-the-hour "love hotels", so it's all good fun (though in truth I've heard conflicting reports about what that says of the Japanese view of America).

Not much to say, really. I'm talking less these days; some combination of self-containedness and difficulty or unwillingness in connecting with people right now. And that's fine.

So for many years now, my friend and former housemate Rachel has used the word "unobtanium" to describe obscure CDs that you can't buy any more. I just watched the second half of The Core tonight, and it was already awful when I almost lost it because they said "unobtanium" with a straight face, as though it were a real material--it's what they used to make a ship that could travel to the molten core of the planet. I will say that as bad as the movie is, someone involved had some education, because this ship is named Virgil, who was Dante's guide through Hell. However, either the educated person involved was still a poor writer, or she didn't have enough input to the script, because it still sucked.