Yes, smonster. Let's just say I will encourage my husband to step up his job search efforts out of state.

Be absolutely sure you know what any kanji, or other Japanese or Chinese characters, mean (and any possible other interpretations - see "ass antlers") before you have them permanently affixed to your body.

yes. One of my friends (the one in new Orleans!) had a coverup done of a kanji that she ha thought meant freedom(?) but later found out meant something more along the lines of "free freight". She's kinda hella amused by it, but wanted the new tat more anyway.

I'm still blushing. Our babelicious Senate candidate just caught me objectifying him on DK. Luckily, I did not actually write "babelicious".(he is a yummy treat, though) But, OMG, the one time I have some guts...the one time I get read by a BNF...) Even if he wins, I still have to change both my names and move away. I can haz asylum?

Yay, Aims!! That is very cool! Can you be a long term sub without a teaching cert in Michigan? I know in Illinois and Tennessee, you can be a day-to-day sub without one, but to be a long term sub, you have to be certified.

And, trust me, if you are a good sub (which, duh, of course you will be) you will work every single day you want to work.

In Arizona, you just have to have a college degree. My brother did it a few times. This, ironically, is more than our governor ever managed.

There's a website somewhere with photos of tattoos in various Asian languages, with commentary from people who actually speak those languages about what the characters mean. Most of them were something like, "Well, the person who has this tattoo says it means 'river.' I guess if you turn it sideways and remove those two lines and add another line here, you'll get this character that means 'elephant,' that in Japanese is pronounced almost the same way as the word for 'river.'"

Dana, mega-ugh. Best of luck to you getting through it and your husband finding a job elsewhere.

Kanji symbols are... controversial in tattooing, from what I know. I think they are passing out of fashion, and are often roundly mocked by Japanese/Chinese speakers.

Bobcat Goldthwait has a tattoo on his buttcheek of (wait for it) a Chinese cymbal. [link] (Possibly NSFW, and offensive for racial caricature)

Yeah, I've also seen a good site mocking bad Hebrew tats. Most of which are of the "take an english phrase, transliterate the letters without translating the actual language, and print it left-to-right" flavor of errors.

I have a friend with a tiny tear drop tattooed on the inside of one of her fingers.

Is she Hispanic? There's that whole tradition of Cholo tears.

My brother and I tried to get Dad to get a different tattoo. Some suggestions were: a partially peeled banana, the word "PIMP" in gothic letters, and the kanji for "potato."

In the end, going with his initials was the smart thing to do, since we clearly don't have his best interests at heart.