Category: etc.

In a guestblogger post on the NY Times’ The Moment, some guy in Berlin named Nick Currie, claims that the Japanese word for Muji addicts is Mujirers.
This is wrong. And by mixing up the L and R, it is wrong in a way that boomerangs nicely on people who poke fun at Japanese speaking English. [Not that I think that’s what Currie, of all people, was doing.]
Mujirer is a transliteration of Mujiraa [ムジラー], which is, in fact, what some people call Muji addicts. [As a 10-year-plus Muji obsessive, I confess I’ve never heard or read this term, but it’s out there, so I’ll go with it.]
The Japanese syllable ラ, is the one that’s used to transliterate both L and R. Sonically, it’s somewhere in between. Where Mujiraa is easy and smooth to say in Japanese, in English, Mujirer sucks. Before this Mujirer thing gets too far, I suggest using comparable Japanese words to come up with a better Roman spelling:
One possibly etymology for Mujiraa [ムジラー} is Gojira [ゴジラ], the Japanese name for Godzilla. Compare that to Mozilla, which is transliterated as mojira [モジラ], and except for the long A at the end of Mujiraa, you could make the case for Mujilla.
But I think there’s a better option. The Japanese transliteration of killer–and killah, for that matter, as in Ghostface–is kiraa [キラー]. This pattern would transliterate Mujiraa as either Mujiller or Mujillah. Either one of those is more accurate and sounds better than Mujirer. Use the former for Muji nerds, and the latter for badass Mujihadin who are smuggling suitcases full of that no-label stuff back from the mothership in Yurakucho on a regular basis.

Oh my heck, if you read the Washington Post’s article on black folk in Utah, be sure you read it to the end. I love my people and all, but seriously, it is time to wake up:

When [Rodger] Griffin [an African American HR administrator who moved to Utah from Delaware] was voted secretary of the Utah Correctional Association, the 300 people casting ballots did not lay eyes on him until he rose, expecting the applause showered on every other winner asked to stand. What greeted him instead was “exactly” the silence Cleavon Little encounters in “Blazing Saddles,” when his character, the black sheriff, enters a small Western town.
“I’ve had so many weird experiences like that,” said Griffin. “I went to San Francisco, and people didn’t stare at me. And it made me very uncomfortable, because everyone always stares at me.”

A Different State of Race Relations

In 1996, I went to some weird little Internet expo at the New York Coliseum. The folks from Suck.com were there, and I got this bottle of Suck Classic Cola. It was my first piece of WWW swag [no one really said “dotcom” yet in 1996 who didn’t work for Time Magazine.]
I know of one other bottle. At least until he quit, it was on the bookshelf in a friend’s office at Time Warner [which, ironically, was built on the site of the NY Coliseum]. Except for three <3-hour periods when I moved, and this morning when it dropped on my foot, mine has been in my refrigerator since 1996. 1996 was the year Suck memorialized Coca Cola’s beautiful utter failure of Gen X marketing, OK Soda by calling for OK fans to send them cans, promotional materials, even vending machines.
It is in that spirit, but without a bunch of old Coke bottles coming to me, that I hereby inaugurate The Suck Cola Registry, a virtual gathering of all the world’s remaining bottles of Suck Cola.
If you have a bottle or know of a bottle of Suck Cola, please add it to the Registry. by providing the following data:
Cola Owner
Cola Photo [jpg or URL]
Cola Location [i.e., city/state/country, not “in a box in my storage unit”]
After your Cola information is reviewed and validated, you will be issued a Suck Cola Registry Number. I have designated my bottle SC0005, having reserved the first four Registry Numbers, SC0001-SC0004, for Suck.com co-founders Joey Anuff and Carl Steadman. Thank you.
Related: 10 OK Soda cans [empty] in various designs and excellent condition, currently $1 on eBay

P1050990.JPG, originally uploaded by mordechai der yid.