As you may or may not know, JPop singers have a tendency of not impressing me.  Perhaps it’s my lack of interest in the genere, perhaps it’s my desansitization to something or another… anyways, the bottom line is, JPop singers have a tencency of not impressing me.  Which is why, when I came across this footage of Utada Hikaru, singing… a song, I was genuinely and pleasantly impressed.  Now, to begin with, I became familiar with the musical styles of UH back in the days when I was in college. (Two friends & I had to sing “Automatic”, by UH, in front of our Japanese 1002 class for extra credit; and need less to say I wasn’t all that impressed with UH.  I had an adverse reaction to the word “automatic” for about 8 months after our “performance”.)

So imagine my shock to find this genuinely impressive performance by UH, posted at YouTube.  To the extent that I thought I I’d share.  Enjoy.  =^^=

It was that time of the year.  The time when people bid farewell to the past
year and ring in the New Year with celebrations.  Whether for better or for worse, this year’s
Qurbani, or as I like to call it, “Cow-Day” fell on January 1st.  By the time it was morning, the Mosques were
blaring the usual assortment of whatever it is that they proudly blare, while I
continued my proud tradition playing Street Fighter II on New Year’s.  (Not much of a tradition, I know, but still…)

Anyways, it was Cow-Day. 
Contrary to the obvious, we opted for a goat this year.  There’s less of a mess, and the
post-processing can be done in-house.  In
a semi-related note, the Islamic calendar is 11 days short of the Roman calendar,
so the street shall run red with blood again, sometime around this
December.  Yaaaaaaaaaay!!  =^^=

Ahem.  Anyways, Islam
has, amongst other rules & regulations, rules & regulations for
food.  Specific rules & regulations,
like how an animal should be killed. 
Whether for better or for worse, modern technologies of mass slaughter,
for cattle or people, did not exist back in the days when Islam came into
being.  Thus it was decreed that there is
only one Islamically correct of slaughtering cattle.  Manually.

One would tie/hold down the animal, recite a designated
prayer, generally something along the lines of sacrificing the animal in the
name of god, and slit its throat. 
Specific regulations apply during special occasions, but for the most
part, the proper Muslim can only eat properly processed meat.

Despite of how easy it looks, slitting a throat is extremely
difficult, and requires a lot of skill on the part of the person doing the
slitting.  People holding the animal also
need to be careful, because blood has a way of squirting everywhere, almost
like in Anime.

Contradictory as it sounds, the object is to try and make
the animal suffer as little as possible. 
Granted, less suffering and a quick death are desired primarily for the
safety of people, but still.  The knives
have to be sharp enough to cut through thick leathery skin at a single
slice.  If things don’t work out by then,
everyone present will have a desperate animal on their hands.  While goats are somewhat better to the extent
that, a handful of people can hold one down; a lot of unsuspecting people sacrificing
cows have found them selves on the wrong end of the horns.  Inevitably, every single year the law of
stupidity is supported by people who are willing to spend tk. 60,000 on a bull,
but refuse to spend more than tk. 1000 in preparations to kill the bull.  Occasionally, there’ll be news of butchers,
or spectators who are killed by a runaway bull.

For a change, things went according to plan, and before we
knew it, we were blowing up goats like… well blowing up goats.  For those not in the know, a little obstacle
to skinning… anything… comes from the fact that the skin is attached to the
flesh through a layer of fat.  And the
simplest way to separate most of the skin from the flesh is to make an incision
in one of the legs, and pump the animal full of air, preferably with a pump or
something.  (We were using our landlord’s
bicycle pump.)

Once the goat was properly blown up, it was hung upside down
and the skinning process began.  Given
that the skin was intended to be donated, it needed to be extracted with as few
cuts as possible.  (Which was why the
goat was blown up in the first place.) 
While the air pressure helped, the skin was still not completely
detached.  It was still attached in some
parts of the body through a thin layer of fat. 
The simplest solution to that problem is to slowly shove one’s hand into
the sheet-like fat connecting the skin to the flesh.  It’s kind of hard to explain what it feels
like to shove one’s hand, up to the elbow, into a goat.  It’s warm & squishy.  After all, the animal was freshly killed, and
one IS shoving one’s hand into layers of fat. 
The muscle may still be alive, even though the animal as a whole is
dead, so there’s a possibility that the body will still be quivering.  Still, all the blowing & fisting aside,
the skin needs to be meticulously cut around certain areas, like legs and
various orifices in order to preserve the skin *and* the meat.  After all, the animal’s digestive and urinary
systems were stopped in mid function. 
Needless to say extra care is always taken when discarding the innards.

Once the animal is skinned, it’s ready to be chopped up into
pieces.  It’s exactly as it sounds,
and… sadly, despite how much I wanted the head as a whole, it was processed
regardless.  (I had plans of cleaning the
skull and hanging it in my room. =^^=) 
Anyways, the carcass was processed fairly quickly, the meat was divided
into equal proportions, ready for distribution & donation.

Remember the specific rules I mentioned?  They revolve around distribution &
donation.  Depending on what you’re
sacrificing, you’re supposed to distribute a pre-designated portion of the meat
amongst friends & family, and donate another pre-designated portion of the
meat to the indestitute.

Unfortunately the local tradition and lack of consideration
manage to mutate this into an entirely different beast as well.  The distribution generally consists of
heading over to a relative’s house with a bag of meat; exchanging pleasantries,
and then heading back home with another bag of meat.  Those with a large number of relatives, like
yours truly, go on “rounds”, instead of single trips.  Some come to mutual agreement about not
distributing bags of meat amongst themselves.

The “donation” consists of even more added
irritation of distributing meat amongst the able bodied and for the most part
not-entirely-destitute-people while they’re practically rioting outside one’s
gates.  Once again, a lot of people cite
religion and tradition as the reason for continuing this.  Whether by luck or brilliance, we however,
decided on donating the meat to a local orphanage.  Atleast they won’t be selling it to the
restaurants.  (Or so I’d like to
think.)  A side note to anyone interested
visiting Bangladesh,
roughly during a month or two after Cow-Day, if you’re eating at a restaurant,
avoid all beef related dishes.  Chances
are, the meat was bought off of the streets. 
Literally.  To make matters worse,
some people do not “donate” the better parts of the animal they’ve
sacrificed.  That combined with the spicy
nature of traditional Bangladeshi food generally make it difficult, if not
impossible to determine the origin and state of what you’re eating.

Aaaaaaaaaanyways, come every Cow-Day, I tend to get into the
same argument, generally with the same people who can’t stand the idea of
killing an animal, but they enjoy eating meat. 
I personally, prefer to know where my food comes from, whether it’s
water from a restaurant that violates the health code bringing you a glass of
water, or meat from the heart of an animal that was walking up the steps thirty
five minutes ago.

I’m tired, my work is done, so I’ll be off for the
night.  I’m considering whether or not to
expand on the fact that ALL of the cattle killed have intelligence, and
personalities.  Maybe they aren’t as
smart as dogs, or cats for that matter of fact; but a their intelligence is
definitely on par with a growing puppy. 
Or kitten.  And if you’ve ever
shopped around for one, you know they sure as hell have personalities.  Maybe I’ll discuss this in another post, that
or in the comments section… but for the time being, I am off to an early
dinner (I’m thinking fried chicken), before heading home…

Mata

One of the little irritations in my life the “web
installer”.   You know when you’re downloading a software, or an
upgrade to a software, and the website points you to a compact little 1MB exe
file?  So you’re thinking, that’s nice,  Atleast the program’s not
THAT badly in need of a fix.  Until you run the exe file and learn that
it’s a web installer, and it needs to downlad 30 MB worth of files.  And
the [expletive deleted] manufacturer either REFUSES to post a link to the
distributable 30 MB file, or the “Full” downloadable version is a
450MB ISO file.  This is an especially irritating problem for me, since I
don’t have internet access at home.

One of the other little irritations in my life is the Windows XP™ installation
policy  You know when you install a program that supposedly takes up 500
MB, yet after installation, a whole gigabyte worth of free space becomes
occupied in your HD?  Well Windows XP™ does that.  It creates a
backup copy of the installer for recovery purposes while installing the
software so you’re basically using up twice as much space as you’re told you’d
need.

So there I was, visiting the MSDN™ site.  Microsoft™ had issued a game
development tool (XNA Game Studio Express™, a.k.a. XGSE™) and I figured I’d
take a look at it.  As expected, XGSE™ requires Microsoft™’s .net
framework and Microsoft™ Visual C# to run.  Unfortunately, while .net is a
~20Mb straightforward download, C# is not.  It’s a web installer. 
With a 30 MB download in tow.

XGSE™, which I had hoped to install at home, REFUSES to run without Visual C# runtime files, so I
ended up trying to figure out a way to get the Microsoft™ Visual C# Express Edition installer without having to
download a 450MB ISO file.  Then it finally hit me.  Windows XP™
creates a backup copy of installers of all the programs it installs.  So I
did a little search through the temp folders, and  viola.  I had me a
copy of the 30MB Microsoft™ Visual C# Express Edition installer.

In a sweet sweet instance of poetic justice, I used one irritating policy
practiced by Microsoft™ to bypass another irritating policy practiced by
Microsoft™.

=^^=™

…or technically, my cousin’s family.

Their family dog, Caesar, passed away last Friday, December 8th, sometime around 4:00am.  The impact of his death was wide spread amidst my relatives; since we’d gather at my aunt’s house on many a occasion.  Or for no occasion at all.  Despite the Bangladeshi views on dogs, everyone had more or less adapted Caesar into the family.

It was hardest for my Cousin, who had gotten Caesar as a pet almost 10 years ago.  She went to Japan this January for her studies, and was planning on a surprise visit early next year.

Caesar had been suffering from ever increasing bouts of epilepsy over the past few years.  Last Wednesday, he had become severely ill. My uncle and aunt opted for a vet; and Caesar, atleast temporarily, seemed to be recovering due to the medication he received.  Unfortunately, things did not turn out as everyone had expected.  A hollow consolation comes from the fact, that from the looks of it, or more accurately, the accounts of the looks of it, he did not suffer.

Not surprisingly, spending an afternoon at my Aunt & Uncles’ felt “off”.  From the lack of an energetic reception at the sound of the doorbell, to absence of the familiar sight of Caesar running circles around us… there was no one treading through the house, or come running whenever and wherever the opportunity of being fed presented itself.

He will be missed.

Terribly.

========================================================================
EDIT: I fixed the links, so now they work.  YAY!! =^^=
========================================================================

I’ve recently come across a book called The Alphabet of Manliness; and I like it
to the extent of plugging it on my blog. =^^=  It’s by the same guy
who runs The Best Page In The Universe. 
My suggestion would be to read this, this, this, this and some of this article.  If you’re amused
by what you’re reading, buy the book.  (Roughly $10. )  If
you’re offended, don’t send the guy hate mail, because Bob knows he might
actually reply…

Come to think
of it, I like the replies he
posts…

Er… granted, three of the four potential readers of this
blog (with an emphasis on potential) are women.  But then again, the
writer of the book clearly states near the beginning that “I would say that [this book] is only
for men the same way that lesbian porn sites in the internet are only for
women.“  So there you have it.  It’s not
for the easily offended, and it’s definitely no skim milk body lotion or shower
gel, but think about it like this…  how often will you get the
chance to surprise your friends, family and/or colleagues with a sudden
increase in manliness??

Here’s footage of Congressman Jim
Cooper indirectly admitting that the title of “The Alphabet of
Manliness” is sexier than the title of his book.

…
now if THAT doesn’t get you running to your local B&N, I don’t know
what will…

http://kuler.adobe.com/ is a site which offers web color theme/scheme by the buttloads.  Interesting… actually.  I myself have taken a fancy to Granny Smith Apple, Winter Cool and Cherry Cheesecake, as seen in the Highest Rated section.

Have fun…XD