If dogs could speak...
Sunday, April 30, 2006
My kingdom for a castleIt is well known that Japan is an expensive country, especially for housing. With a population of 130 million living on a land smaller than California, most of it mountainous and earthquake-prone, it is no wonder that tiny apartments and condominiums (called "mansions" in Japan) can cost millions, hard to believe even for Californians used to housing sticker shocks.
That's no longer true. There is a large house that's been for sale in Japan at a very reasonable price, 41 million yen or 360,000 Bush dollars, give or take a few currency exchange percentage points. The bonus is that the three-story house was built as a honest-to-goodness castle, in feudal-era castle style atop a tall hill with steep rock walls. Inside, every room is decked out in traditional Japanese design, complete with tatami mats. However, the rest is modern construction and offers all current creature comforts and conveniences (maybe including musical toilets).
The castle was built only 15 years ago by the president of a construction company who had to put it up for sale when his business ran into financial trouble. The main drawback is that the castle is located in the small village of Yatsuo in Toyama Prefecture, in snowy country on the western side of Japan, fairly far away from the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka. That's probably why it has been on the market since last June, waiting for the next warlord.
So if you have always thought that your home is your castle, here is your chance to make it real. The commute might be a little long, but the view is spectacular. You can see it in the picture above left (click on it to increase floor space), and buy it from the real estate agency Shimada Jyutaku. Just remember that samurai, geisha, moats and crocodiles cost extra.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 7:18 AM 6 comments
Saturday, April 29, 2006
You Are No DogI don't know why some people think they are good enough to be like dogs.
First there was this electrician in Oakland, California, who was arrested last October when he was caught working in the nude. A customer had hired Percy Honniball to do some wiring work, and came home early one day only to find Honniball in the house completely naked. He explained to police that he decided to strip before crawling under the house to avoid dirtying his clothes, and because working nude gives him a better "range of motion." Maybe he was wanted to use his Sawzall, and it was more ergonomic that way.
Honniball's reason may have been totally believable, but the cops still charged him with indecent exposure, with an extra penalty for having a strange name. This is the fourth time in six years that he has been arrested for working nude, and it cost him dearly. The homeowner in this case paid him for the job he completed, but deducted $200 to change all the locks in the house. And now he might have to go to jail where working naked is never a very good idea.
Then last Saturday a 23-year-old guy named Michael Urbano in Hayward, California -- yes, people are weird in California -- came home supposedly drunk and high at 2 in the morning, couldn't find the keys, and decided to climb down the chimney. About 3/4 of the way down, he got stuck. His cries for help eventually woke up his neighbors at 6:30 am, who summoned police because they thought he was a burglar. After the cops found him, they had to push him up from the bottom of the chimney while also hooking him and pulling him up from above. If the hook caught him only in the nose, he was lucky, because when they finally got him out, they discovered that he was completely naked. He said that before starting his chimney adventure, he took off all his clothes to "reduce friction." Apparently that wasn't enough to ensure a smooth descent. He is now also in jail on drug charges, maybe sharing a cell with his naked buddy Percy. They can compare war stories and wounds when they get bored.
Today's message is: Put your clothes on, people! Naked is for dogs. And a man has got to know his limitations.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 10:07 PM 6 comments
Sunday, April 23, 2006
The Gadget GenerationThe dog is out of town on a top-secret mission, so today's dumb blog is written by his slave. With none of the usual wit or charm. And past the 6 am deadline because the lazy bum decided to sleep in.
We live in an age of gadgets -- laptop computers, handheld computers, cell phones, pagers, personal digital assistants. OK wait, maybe not PDAs anymore. They were all the rage a few years ago. Everyone in this Silicon Valley had one or wanted one. Or was just waiting for the next model to come out, because it can flash, beep, vibrate, and beam you up. In meetings you sometimes see people writing on the board in the Palm handwriting code called Graffiti (which represents each alphabet letter with a unique unistroke character). At parties and conferences people exchange email addresses by synch-ing up their PDAs. It was the new social handshake, only more geek and a lot more obscene.
But, like many fads, PDAs didn't last long. The ones that are half PDA, half phone like the Treo, or that can receive and send emails like the Blackberries are still around, growing even. Without those features, most people found it easier to jot things down in a paper notebook or on a napkin, rather than having another thing in their pockets or hanging from their belts. And so companies started getting out of the business. Sony dropped their Clie line (the dumb name alone was enough to kill it). Then Handspring merged with Palm when they found out there wasn't enough business for both. Now rumor has it that Dell is planning to take their Axim line off the market too, and that would be another clear signal of the sad and impending death of the PDA in its present form.
I have a Palm m500 I bought years ago but used very little. It was one of the smaller and lighter models at the time but had only a monochrome display so I got it cheap. For a while it was convenient to use it to store phone numbers and addresses, as a kind of Rolodex that you can carry with you, but it soon became more hassle than help, so I started taking it with me less and less. Now it is actually the uncool gadget to have around, because it is so, so... 2000, and there is no point to have it if you can't synch yours with someone else's. Maybe I should eBay it, as mint condition. And get an iPod instead. I hear it's the in thing now.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 9:18 AM 4 comments
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Doggie HoudiniI wrote last week about a golden retriever in New Hampshire that was on the loose for two years, only to get trapped again with a piece of ham. This was a total disgrace for the canine species and a hot topic in dog blogs the world over. How can a dog give up a life of freedom, ignore the call of the wild and visions of running carefree in open meadows, all of that gone in a brief instant in exchange for a small slice of smoked meat? That, simply couldn't be.
Then another news item came in that showed that there is still hope for dogdom, not all has been lost. Two weeks ago in Virginia Beach, Virginia, animal control officers put a bulldog named Rosco in the slammer when they caught him attacking another dog. Rosco had just jumped a fence at his home to get out before he got into the altercation with the second dog. At the animal jail, he wasn't happy being locked up. By the next morning, he was gone.
The officers are now guessing that he chewed on and bent the latch on his outdoor pen, and pushed the door open. After that he still had to jump high enough to get on top of a seven-foot concrete wall, and squeeze his way through several layers of barbed wire to get out. Rosco left no good-bye note, no taunting threat to the kennel keepers, but his triumph was unmistakable. Hasta la vista baby!
Sadly it was really hasta la vista. A day later the cops found Rosco at a lake four miles away, too exhausted to run away or fight back. He is now back in the kennel, this time with a big padlock on the door to prevent his Houdini act. The latest report is that he is still in jail, waiting for his trial for canine assault and prison escape.
There is a Free Rosco Fund being set up to support a rescue squad to help get Rosco out. The special commandos are Siberian huskies, well trained in the science of yard excavation and night escapes. The tunnel is already half-way to the cell. We break out tonight. Don't tell anyone, and don't you blog about this.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 10:17 AM 7 comments
Sunday, April 16, 2006
The Road WarriorMany people including me complain about their commutes in California. The roads are crowded, the other drivers are crazy and rude, and the weather is terrible as it's been in the last few weeks. All of that combined makes for a depressing way to spend a large chunk of your life so your can make enough money to live here.
But that was before I read about Dave Givens who won first place in the "America's Longest Commute" contest sponsored by Midas, an auto repair company. Givens drives 186 miles -- one way -- to go to work, from his home in Mariposa, California to his company in San Jose (also in California, but after that distance, he could have been two states away). He has been making this 372-mile commute journey which takes him seven hours each day, five days a week since 1989.
Givens says that he loves his job at Cisco, but doesn't want to give up living on his ranch in the Sierra Nevada mountains, near Yosemite National Park. His prize is $10,000 in gas money (that should be good for two weeks in his case), some free car maintenance service from Midas and cooking lessons from George Foreman, Midas's ad man who doubles as failed boxer and grill machine marketer.
Compared to Givens I really have nothing to complain. My commute does seem to take three hours, but I am thankful it's only 16 miles each way. The dogs can actually run faster.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:12 AM 6 comments
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Round and Round We GoPeople sometimes wonder why dogs chase their tails or circle around a spot several times before they lay down. But is it only dogs who do silly thing like that?
This week a Drug Enforcement Agency employee sued the government for supposedly releasing to the public a video that was embarrassing to him. In April 2004, Lee Paige was demonstrating gun safety rules to children at a youth meeting when he accidentally shot himself in the thigh. He was waving a gun talking about handling precautions but forgot that the gun was still loaded. Someone in the audience captured the incident in a video and submitted it to the DEA, but it was leaked and became widely circulated on the web. Paige says that he is now the target of ridicule everywhere he goes, the "biggest joke on the Internet." The lawsuit accuses the government of violating his privacy and seeks an unspecified compensation amount. What he did to himself was dumb, but it doesn't mean you have to go tell everyone.
And two months ago, Curtis Gokey, a municipal worker in Lodi, California, sued the city for $3600 of damage to his car when a city truck backed into his car. The only problem was that he was the driver of the truck at the time, and admitted that the accident was his fault. When the city denied his claim, saying that he can't complain against himself, his wife Rhonda filed a new claim under her name, for an even larger amount, $4800. She said, "I'm not as nice as my husband is."
The moral of the day is, Stop making fun of doggies. They might chase their tails, but at least they are minding their own business. And they keep the lawyers out of it.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 9:04 PM 5 comments
Sunday, April 09, 2006
The Pillars of RichesSaratoga, California is an affluent town of multi-million dollar homes where live top executives of the Silicon Valley and Asian business moguls who want to keep a second home in the U.S. (By the way, million-dollar homes are just slightly better than middle of the pack here, so they are not even worth mentioning). Like all rich communities that have money left over after paying the politicians and the teachers, and paving roads until they are satin smooth, they have to think of something catchy next, a signature project that says loudly that we are filthy rich and we have cash to burn.
Some places build bridges. Saratoga built stone pillars. On the median of a wide boulevard connecting Saratoga and an adjoining town, Sunnyvale, they decided to erect 13 pillars, part of a $3 million city beautification undertaking. As you enter the city, you first encounter four waist-high, stubby boulders followed by a cluster of nine bigger ones about nine feet tall, perhaps suggesting that you have reached the top of the money pile. This public art work cost $40,000 which is really play money here (90% of that is probably designer fee since the structures appear to be nothing more than Home Depot rocks and mortar).
Now that it's all finished, nobody likes it. In a recent survey, only one in 80 city residents thought it looked okay, an approval rate lower than Bush has been getting this year, and you know that spells big trouble. High school students have their pillar jokes. More serious critics derided the pillars as Stonehenge wannabes, or a creation out of the Flintstones, the subject of ridicule in a town most careful about its prestige and image.
Then there was the matter of bad luck. In a city split 70% "Westerners" and 30% Asian, the Westerners didn't like the fact that there were 13 pillars in total. The Chinese complained about the four smaller rocks at the front, since the number four symbolizes death for them. And feng-shui experts said that the design violated basic harmony principles and because it didn't flow smoothly, did not provide good life energy to the surroundings. And Madame Bousseau the Psychic looked at her crystal ball and proclaimed that the tapering tops of the rocks may attract unwelcome visitors from the ether.
Even the mayor and members of the city council who originally voted in favor of the project, are now unanimously against it. They talked about covering the pillars with latticework and vines, or placing wooden beams across the pillars to soften their appearance, but in the end, voted to spend another $15,000 to simply knock down the entire thing. One councilwoman, Kathleen King, summarized it best, "You can't gild a turd."
I took a quick poll of the many designer dogs favored by the rich in the area, and they also agreed that the rocks should go. In the competition of dog marking, the cute poodles and bison frises always lose to blue-collar big dog invaders from nearby cities, like Siberian Huskies. I hope they replace the pillars with lots of tall trees, or lots of fire hydrants. It's good for the feng-shui.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:31 AM 7 comments
Saturday, April 08, 2006
An Utter EmbarrassmentA dog escaped from his yard and was on the run for two years, surviving by raiding garbage cans and getting handouts from neighbors. So how do you capture him?
That's what happened to Sam, a golden retriever in Stratham, New Hampshire, who ran away from his home with Reg and Dennis Sklarski in 2004. He didn't go far but stayed in the nearby woods and spent his days and nights just cruising the roads. Over the months and years, neighbors often spotted Sam and called the Sklarskis, but they were unable to track him down and entice him back. In January, they brought in experts armed with infrared cameras and tried to trap him with a remote-controlled net, but to no avail. They then used a helicopter to do aerial searching but missed him repeatedly with a tranquilizer gun. Short of calling in the FBI and Homeland Security, they were nearly out of options.
In March, the SPCA got involved and set up a new trap with their own remote-controlled net. All the town folks who had been leaving food out for Sam agreed to stop. It took five weeks, but on Wednesday, volunteers spotted Sam in the area and watched him approach the contraption on a video monitor. Sam was cautious. He sniffed the air and the ground and looked from side to side, and slowly crept toward the food dish. When he was directly under the target, they dropped the wide net. He still almost managed to get away, receiving a cut lip in the attempt, but he was finally caught. The bait? A big, juicy piece of ham.
It's just sad beyond belief. For two years, this dog did the species proud, being sly, cunning and resourceful, surviving tough New England winters and living the good care-free dog life. And to give up all of that over a piece of ham? Totally shameful. Let me tell you, a Siberian husky under the same circumstances would have been halfway to Nome, dining on wild rabbits, coyotes and buffaloes and generally living the high life. And if they wanted to catch us, it would have taken a lot more than ham and a stupid net. Maybe ham with Cheez-It on top, or perhaps a ham candlelight dinner with a husky babe at the very minimum. Now, would someone rub my belly, please?
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:57 AM 4 comments
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Are we floating yet?I wrote yesterday about the persistent rain we've had in California during March and even now going into April. Californians are thoroughly confused, and that goes well beyond their legendary inability to drive on wet roads. There is probably not a single umbrella or raincoat anywhere in the state. Life here normally comes to a standstill when it rains. People stay home waiting for it to end -- usually in the next two minutes, but this time it hasn't stopped in the last two months. And since houses in this area tend to be small with even smaller yards, people are just going crazy with adults, kids and beasts all crammed into tiny spaces. What's a sun worshipper to do?
A Dutchman, Johan Huibers, seems to have figured it out. He is building a replica of Noah's Ark, and plans to set sail from his home near Amsterdam in September and navigate the canals of the Netherlands. So far he has used 1200 trees and spent over a million dollars on the structure which is about the length of a football field, supposedly one fifth the size of the original (which was built large enough for cyclops and gargantuans). Huibers is doing that, he says, to renew interest in Christianity and teach young children about the Bible. The ark will be part religious monument, part floating zoo.
He said that the idea came to him in a nightmare that Holland was flooded. Just as Noah built an ark to save creatures of the world, Huibers plans to house 300 farmyard animals on his boat, including horses, lambs, rabbits and chicken, most of them baby animals to save space. No huskies though. He is probably justified in his fear that the dogs will exercise their natural superiority and dominate (through eating) the other animals, and leave him with a petting zoo full of huskies -- nothing wrong with that, but their howl might keep him and the Mrs. up at night. Like most wives, she was already thinking that her husband's ark has a few screws loose and has told him to go "dig wells in Ethiopia." That must be the Dutch equivalent of "pounding sand" or "flying a kite," except that in this case a well will just produce even more water than we know what to do with.
At any rate, I agree with Huibers. The rainy situation calls for firm action. I am on my way to Home Depot for more lumber and duct tape, and we set sail tonight. Are you with me (or are you with the weather terrorists)?
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:45 AM 6 comments
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Check the calendar, check the mapWhen you are born in California or move permanently to the state, the first thing you get is a California Bill of Rights, which basically says that you are entitled to sunny blue skies and 75F weather year round. And when I say sunny blue skies, I mean exactly that -- just vast stretches of blue and nothing else. Kids in California have no idea what it's like to look up at puffy white clouds floating in the atmosphere and imagine cow heads, space ships or Janet Jackson having another wardrobe malfunction. It's better for their mental health that way. There are other minor things also, like two "pho" (Vietnamese noodle) restaurants and Chinese supermarkets in every neighborhood, a Costco store every ten miles and an Ikea every fifteen.
Of course you also get a second bill which requires you to pay at least half a million dollars for the tiniest old shack about to fall over every time the ground shakes (I almost forgot, shaking is another thing you get for free). You must also pay a 20% price premium for very regular gasoline so that sheiks can build their castles in the sand and Alaskans can put up bridges to somewhere nobody lives (Alaskans get upset when you call them bridges to nowhere, and they retaliate by calling you ex-cats and dirty names like that).
But those sunny blue skies are beginning to seem like a cruel illusion, just like the Alaskan bridges. This March, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland and just about every city in the Bay Area broke records for the highest number of rainy days in the month. San Francisco had 25 days of rain out of 31, and San Jose had 21. Thunderstorms, creek floods and landslides everywhere. Precipitation is up 30% over average. I know it's not a lot compared to some other places, but doggone it, we pay for our beautiful weather, and we expect it.
March was supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, but it's pouring again today, and the forecast is for more of the same next week. So much for these dumb lion and lamb animals. How about weather for huskies? It is painful to watch the guys tiptoe around in the grass to do their business. Those dainty big feet are made to run a thousand miles through snow to Nome, not to dance around in wet mud.
One time many years ago we were traveling through the Southwest of the U.S., visiting New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Those states have very similar landscape in places, and the trip was getting long and tiring. There were days when we got up in the morning and went out to the car, and looking at the unfamiliar surroundings, we often had to stop ourselves to think, where are we today?
So really, where are we today? What happened to our California? And if you have our Sun, we want it back.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 8:47 AM 8 comments
