Pull Down Your Pants...Do It!

NOTICE-THIS IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TONGUE-IN-CHEEK BLOG.

We have a toilet plunger part that breaks repeatedly about every six months. Basically it's the chain that attaches to the lever and plunger. It happened again yesterday. Of course the problem is, one can't simply replace the defective part, because stores don't carry them. One has to BUY the entire fixture. And we all know what that's about. Corporate greed. The bottom line. The "you dumb ass turd, why are you trying to fix it...BUY A NEW ONE" principle of commerce. The Anglo-Sino trickle up business theory. YOU know what I am talking about.

So, not to beat a dead damned irritating horse, but this fixture in my toilet is but one of a long line of Chinese products, which are inferior, and are prone to breakage. I blogged, a few months ago, about this Oriental proclivity of pumping out crap merchandise for the American Market...and it is difficult to find products that ARE NOT made in China. However, I have no more to say regards this sloppy MoFo attitude of theirs...for now.

Last night I was lamenting on the phone to my brother, who lives in the land of perpetual wonderfulness, Southern California (with his naturalized Chinese wife), about my toilet chain problem. He suggested that I do away with the chain and go get a fishing leader of appropriate length and use that instead of the chain. Great idea.

Unfortunately at this time of the year, the only place to find such an item out here on the plain Plains, is at that epitome of evilness and corporate greed, not to mention the largest purveyor of shoddy Chinese products IN THE ENTIRE WORLD...Wal-Mart.

Yes I gave in, and tossed my moral convictions. I found a 9" fishing leader which when doubled back on itself, fits perfectly on my toilet plunger. I purposely DID NOT look to see where it was manufactured. Ahem.



I wanted to relay this story visually and of course, as I did with my urinal post of months ago, I Googled toilets, image tab. And came up with some interesting photos.

This first one is Toilet Mountain. Discarded toilets, I know not where, but given the amount of crapola from our elected officials these days, I suspect it's outside of Washington...as in D.C.



My favorites however are from our former foe of infamy, Japan. I never realized that the crapper which we Westerners know, and use so well, is not universal. Evidently in some parts of the Orient the crapper (of John fame) is but a hole. Not even a rectangular U.S. Army type latrine in the woods hole, a hole. Although they have expounded on the basic hole...albeit, it still requires squatting, but still, refined. To illustrate, the following is offered in case any of you ever travel to Jaypan (Alabama pronunciation). Beyond this, I have nothing else to offer.













OK, just in case you didn't get that, there is this:



REMEMBER...if you lose balance...you gonna fall down on shit!

ADDENDUM -
As walking man points out in his comment below, the Japanese also go to the other extreme with their feces deposit system.

I just happen to have a photo of something not quite as he describes, but definitely a variation on a theme. My brother got the equivalent of a doctorate over the years in just such circumstances, except of course, he was reading...as opposed to playing Mario Brothers.

Ballgame

As much as I don't like to do this (mainly because I don't want to get sued), I borrowed this article from boingboing.net. This is not really very funny, except of course, the guy loses his balls. Which on a lower humor level is sort of funny. I hope I've not reduced this blog to that category...but, hey, get your laughs where you can, my proctologist always says.

Really folks, this is truly tragic. Think about it...your dad decides to de-ball you at age eight. You have no say so regards the matter. Your voice never changes and...you prefer probably anything rather than sex, for the rest of your life. Plus, to add insult to your ballessness, it turns out to be for naught...and then later when you are middle-aged, some crazies decide you are a symbol of all that is wrong with the world. Your life is in danger, and to protect you, your sibs, toss out the two things that can complete you on your journey to the next level.

A classic tragedy, in the Greek sense.

Barbara Demick of The LA Times reports on Sun Yaoting, China's last living eunuch (Left, standing with his biographer, Jia Yinghua).

In 1911 when he was eight years old, his father castrated him with a razor in preparation of "an imperial life of riches." It didn't qute work out as his father had hoped.

After the Communists came to power in 1949, Sun and other surviving eunuchs were despised as freakish symbols of the feudal past. He was nearly killed during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, and his siblings were so fearful of persecution that they threw away his bao, or treasure: the severed genitals that eunuchs kept pickled in a jar so they could be buried as complete men.

It was not until the final years of his life that Sun was recognized as a rare living repository of history. A biography based on hours of interviews in the years before his death in 1996 was recently translated into English. The book arrives as a museum dedicated to eunuchs, built around the tomb of a 16th century eunuch, is undergoing a major expansion. It is scheduled to reopen in May.

I am trying to envision this museum...and it's exhibits.