Fish

Thoughts & Sayings (December 2012)

Here are some thoughts and sayings I posted on Twitter and/or Facebook in November. To my knowledge, I made these up (for better or for worse). Sit back, relax, and enjoy the write!

Encouraging Words

1. The same inputs can yield different results if you simply force them.

2. A fish needs a bicycle to get from one place to another faster than on foot.

3. I can’t think of anything to say. I guess I’ll use hand gestures.

Twisted Words

4. My sayings are so corny that I know one day I will reap what I sow.

Holidays & Events

5. Spotted at a protest following the 2004 U.S. Election.

6. I quit cold turkey for Thanksgiving.

7. This Thanksgiving, be thankful you’re not a turkey. Oh, never mind.

8. China announces its new leaders. Snow White is not among them.

9. Happy Election Day! If you’re not American, just tell a pollster how you’d vote if you could.

10. In a goofy, Mickey Mouse deal, Disney buys LucasFilm. Coming soon: “Star Wars – The Musical,” “Star Wars on Ice,” and “Star Wars Episodes VII – to Infinity and Beyond.”

Random Musings

11. Hasbro should make a Clue board game featuring blockbuster movies, people, places and things, where Harry Potter did it on Tatooine with a phaser or Spock did it at Hogwarts with a light saber.

12. Get hundreds of new Twitter followers every day. Tweet good content.

13. Omy – the symbol for methane on the Periodic Table.

14. This morning my child went from tired to wired in 15 minutes.

15. Why is a car a lemon and not a carrot?

Click here to visit the Thoughts & Sayings page, or click here to read the previous batch of Thoughts & Sayings.

Images courtesy of Microsoft.

M.G. Edwards is a writer of books and stories in the mystery, thriller and science fiction-fantasy genres. He also writes travel adventures. He is author of Kilimanjaro: One Man’s Quest to Go Over the Hill, a non-fiction account of his attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, a collection of short stories calledReal Dreams: Thirty Years of Short Storiesand Alexander the Salamander, a children’s story set in the Amazon. His books are available to purchase as an e-book and in print from Amazon.com and other booksellers. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand with his wife Jing and son Alex.

For more books or stories by M.G. Edwards, visit his web site at www.mgedwards.com or his blog, World Adventurers. Contact him at me@mgedwards.com, on Facebook, on Google+, or @m_g_edwards on Twitter.

© 2012 Brilliance Press. All rights reserved. All characters and events appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted without the written consent of the author.

Ten Reasons to Visit Paraguay (A Satire)

Dear Reader,

Here is a list of reasons why you should come to visit Paraguay.

10. Pretend you’re a gaucho at a cattle ranch in the Chaco.

9. Learn some Guaraní phrases and have no idea what you’re saying.

8. Share some tereré with your ten newest Paraguayan friends.

7. Search for old Alfredo Stroessner memorabilia.

6. Speak Plattdeutsch and eat schnitzel in a Mennonite Colony.

5. Look for “Tigres” that look like jaguars.

4. Play “spot the knock-off” in Ciudad del Este.

3. Fish for piranhas in the Rio Paraguay.

2. Find the Taiwanese Embassy in Asunción.

1. Hunt for Nazi fugitives who assumed new identities.

You will only understand the profundity of this list by visiting the unique country that is Paraguay.

More About Paraguay

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I Survived Eating Pufferfish

I was extremely busy last night and crashed when I returned to my hotel. It’s physically draining to be running around all day, hurrying up, stopping, waiting, springing into action. Tomorrow night will be a very busy day for me as the most important dignitaries arrive here in Busan for the APEC Summit. To read all about the APEC Summit and the goings-on here in Busan, visit http://www.apec.org/ or http://www.apec2005.org/. The latter site goes into much more depth about what’s happening now here in Busan than what I could describe in a single blog entry. It is quite an exciting time to be here in Busan. I’m amazed to be on the front lines watching the action and advance preparations unfold. I’m not a spectator, mind you, but I am watching while I work hard doing my small bit to make sure the show goes on smoothly. The big show, the APEC Economic Leaders’ meeting, is yet to come on November 17, 18, and 19. I will be here all the way through the Summit and will watch the last major plane fly away a few days later.

Yesterday I tried “bokguk,” or pufferfish soup. The pufferfish, also known as the blow fish, is a spiny creature that blows itself up into a balloonish shape when it is frightened by potential predators. The defense mechanism is one way for it to appear larger than life, scaring away the predator. The pufferfish is also poisonous, secreting a poisonous toxin intended to kill its predator. Many Americans know that Japanese enjoy eating pufferfish, better known in Japanese as “fugu.” Stories occasionally come out of Japan claiming that someone died from eating “fugu,” typically caused by the improper preparation of the “fugu” dish. In Japan, chefs receive extensive training on preparing “fugu” properly, removing the poison glands so that the puffin fish meat remains untainted. It is considered a delicacy in Japan.

I did not realize that Koreans also eat pufferfish, although this fact makes perfect sense since Busan is just a few hours by boat off the coast of southern Japan. In Korea, pufferfish is not generally considered a delicacy, and here in Busan, numerous shops serve the fish in a soup for about 5,000 Korean won (about $5.00). The soup includes bean sprouts and chives and can be served either spicy or mild (depending on whether you want to eat it with red pepper paste. It is typically served with rice and a variety of panchan, or side dishes. The pufferfish meat is cut into large chunks and served in the soup. One typically eats every part of the fish except the head, organs, and spine. The meat is delicious. Served fresh, the taste and texture do not taste like fish at all. To use an overused cliche, the meat tastes more like chicken. (Actually, it tastes more like frog leg.) Perhaps best of all, the pufferfish has so few bones that it is very easy to eat.

I’ve wanted to try “fugu” ever since I first read about it when I was a teenager. Perhaps I’m crazy wanting to eat something that kills some people (I think the victims are typically children or the elderly). I have no desire to eat live octopus, which here in Korea the cephalopod is occasionally known to kill an unwary diner if the struggling animal lodges itself in the diner’s throat and suffocates the diner, as happened to an unfortunate Korean man in the past year. I personally think it’s cruel to eat live animals and would rather that my food not move on my plate while eating it. I have the same apprehension whenever my wife’s family eats “drunken shrimp,” a Chinese delicacy featuring live shrimp soaked in alcohol. I just cannot bear to eat an inebriated shrimp starting up at me with those big black eyes, as if to say, “Hey dude, surf’s up!”

According to Wikipedia, all species of pufferfish off the coast of Korea are considered poisonous. It mentions a hilarious episode of “The Simpsons” in which Homer Simpson eats pufferfish and is mistakenly told he has just 24 hours to live. Like Homer Simpson, I too ate pufferfish and lived to tell about it. Perhaps more daringly, I ate pufferfish at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant I’m sure is run by a Korean family as a small business. I’m positive the cook did not attend professional pufferfish culinary training. Well, I survived anyway. Will I try it again sometime? Oh, I suppose I will, depending on the occasion, now that I know how delicious it is. Hopefully next time I will try it at an upscale restaurant, where I would feel more comfortable about how my meal has been prepared.