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Shiomori … Moldovan skin-headedness … O soglia mia 22nd of March, 2006 POST·MERIDIEM 02:35

Joel at Far Outliers gives us details on a Japanese custom, 塩盛り, pronounced shiomori and meaning “salt helpings”, which involves piles of salt on either side of the door to a restaurant. Now, the most widely known reason for these was to ward off evil spirits; but Joel’s informant gives a more practical one, involving oxcarts, oxens with a liking for salt and impulse stops for food on the part of the drivers. It’s kind of comforting to me to see a sensible basis for at least one of these religious-idiosyncracies-of-the-East stories.

http://​en.​wikipedia.​org/​wiki/​Moldova#Relations_with_European_Union is something I find really weird:

On May 1, 2004 many EU enthusiasts waving the EU flags found their flags confiscated by police and some were arrested under the clause of “anti-nationalism.” 

Looks like some elements of the government there have neuroses on this issue. Pro-EU is only anti-nationalism for the terminally skin-headded and violent.

Word of the day: „die Seezunge“  is German for “sole,” the fish. Comically, yes, it means “sea tongue.”


Hi there Aido, its your cousin Martin here. Do you ever write anything a bit more easy to follow. along the lines of Kicked ass at work today, done some really good code. Heading to amsterdam at the weekend. bound to have a great time. I have a great tan, dyed my hair jet black and got a large tatoo of a celtic cross on my arm. I am going out tonight for a few beers ( about a dozen.) Life is Great, Berlin is great, I am happy. That way I could go Aidan seems to be really enjoying himself out there, wish I was there, instead of just getting a headache trying to read you blogs. Hope you are keeping well. all the best!, martin

Hahah! Yeah, I did more or less that with the weblog for a few years, but my life isn’t that exciting, I tended to have months where I had nothing new to write about. Whereas with this approach, I’m not saying I’ll have more readers, but there’s certainly more written. And, shh, I was trying to be quiet about the tattoo.

How are you? I should write you an email someday soon—meant to do it in response to the address update, but you know how it is.


That’s a better reason than liking to be difficult and having pride in intellectual pretension, which is certainly why my blog is the way it is :-)

Ach, Emma, if the graduate student updates and news from Montréal are intended to be difficult, you’re doing a very poor job of it :-) . But then I write what appears on this site, so maybe my judgement is skewed ...

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