It's the end of the year as we know it,

And I feel fine.

Tonight I am going to party Southern style, if the advertisments hold true. One of my co-workers is from Atlanta, and found a place that serves southern cooking--- well, at least the Japanese version of "Southurn Cookin".

Oh? What is this beast, you ask? What makes up this curious idea, this peculiartity of food preparation? Well, Southurn Cookin (and, that is really the way to spell it if you are going to be true to form about it) is most notably: Gumbo, scrapple, grits, fried everthing, lotsa grease, chitlins, ham, more chitlins, collard greens, ham, Pepsi-baked ham (and, I wish I could be joking on that), fried corn, cornbread, corn muffins, pork, ham---ok, you get the picture. Top it off with chicken fried steak, and that is the glorious cuisine that we call Southurn Cookin.

But, at last report, the "Voodoo Wings" offered on the menu were as bland as can be, and expensive, to boot. If you are going to call something "voodoo" my opinion is that it must have so much garlic and vinegar in it that you have to be bewitched to eat it (or believe it, as in the case of Voodoo Economics).

Nevertheless, this is where I will count down my New Year. Then, on to Tokyo, so if you don't hear from me in a while, fear not, I will return with more to tell. I will be travelling on the Shinkansen, the bullet train, and will have at least something to tell about that. So, until then, have a happy, safe new year, and I hope it is good for all of us in 2006.