Big mama is watching yooz

WARNING. THIS POST IS OFFENSIVE TO WELL-MEANING PEOPLE.

It occurs to me that, amidst this storm of outrage over the recent spate of controversial LJ purges, an opportunistic sock-puppeter could make a killing. Here's how:

1. Create a sock puppet journal.
2. Make your puppet a pervert who lists only verboten interests (eg: "incest," "doing cows," "Mr. Children," "Bush," etc.)
3. Sock up some quickie squickie ficcies, making sure to submit them to popular coms.
4. Wait for the deletion or kill the sock puppet yourself.
5. Have your real journal cry about the death of the puppet.
6. Get involved. Get outraged. Tell everyone in loving detail about how your sock died a sudden and terrible death.
7. Bask in sympathy.

Or you could just tell everyone you had a friend whose LJ was deleted and skip all the in-between stuff.

Okay, all kidding aside, deleting journals solely on the basis of what they've got under their LJ interests is a terrible thing. I'm not one to get up in arms about this kind of thing, but I think anyone with a fannish LJ should be aware of it. And it's not a bad idea to check your profile page and icons and whatever the heck else they're patrolling now in case you have any verboten words in there.

SILEC strikes again

So my adult students and I were talking about fugu, the infamous pufferfish that can kill you if you eat the wrong bits. The internal organs are chock-full of poison. One of my students had something interesting to say about that:

Female farmer: Hm, the poison is from the ransou.
Me: Huh?
Male doctor: (checks e-dictionary) Ovary.
Me: Oh, so only female fish are poisonous.
Female farmer: Yes. (raises arms) I have ovary! And Yumiko-san too. (then points to male students) Not them.
Me: I have it too!
Female farmer: But I'm not poison.

Feminist statement yo.

As a sidenote, my family once caught pufferfish while we were fishing in the Philippines. But we threw the suckers back, since we aren't stupid.

* * *

Another interesting cultural tidbit I learned tonight:

Me: How often do people change their tatami mats?
Tatami maker: I tell my customers to change them about every 4 to 6 years, but they usually wait 10 years or more.
Me: It's the same with carpets back home. Most people never change them.
Tatami maker: Ms. Stephanie, do you want tatami for your apartment? So you can have a Japanese experience?
Me: You're a salesman tonight, aren't you.
Tatami maker: New tatami have a nice smell. Did you know, Japanese men like to change to new wife and new tatami?
Me: You mean at the same time?
Tatami maker: Yes.
Me: That's horrible! (everyone laughs)
Tatami maker: But it's very expensive.
Me: Oh yes, your tatami are very expensive.
Tatami maker: No, not the tatami. The new wife.
Me: Because of the wedding?
Tatami maker: Not the wedding.

It turns out he was talking about the palimony money. Hm, score one for feminism again, except not at all, really. Oh, Japan.