More Photos

Some more photos from my phone.

Christmas has come to Japan, just a few days after Halloween. At least it's better than Australia, where Christmas stuff has been on the shelves for two months already.

Part of the train station/shopping complex at Kobe-Kasuko, where I went for Kids training today. I thought this part looked pretty nice, especially the fountain between the escalators.

Hankyu Umeda, the platform to catch the train to my place.

A fountain in the Hankyu Umeda complex.


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Writing time: 6 minutes
Time since last post: 15 minutes
Current media: None

National Novel Writing Month

For those who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRMO for short). While it's a bit late, and I have major doubts about my abilities, I'm giving it a go. Actually a second go. A few days ago I set up a blog to use to write it, and after staring at a blank screen for half an hour, gave up. The next day I saw a notepad at the convenience store near work with some words that go together grammatically but don't mean much, which I bought and started writing in. The words on the cover of the notebook are currently serving as a title, so don't read too much into the title. I've now set up another blog (pretty much the same as the earlier one, to which my writings will be added. This also act as the first stage of editing.

Given that I started 5 days late, I'm currently falling well short of the 2000 words per day I'll need to make it to the target length by the end of the month.

So far it seems to be sci-fi, which isn't really a surprise. A vague and somewhat pretentious prologue came out first. It almost reads like something that would go on my blog, which isn't really that surprising.

I'll probably involve the Extended Kingdom in the setting, but I don't know yet exactly what's going to happen.

So far, the idea I have is that it's some sort of first contact scenario, and the main character is an auditor, who discovers something odds going on on a colony planet, and investigates thinking it's corruption, but finds something more is going on.

Anyway, for those brave enough to read, the story has its own blog here.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: 10 minutes
Current media: None

Noisy Bars

Not much to report this week. I've worked, gone out a few times, stayed in a few times. Yesterday was a going away party for one of the other teachers at my office/school, which was OK, but the place was so noisy I wasn't really about to follow a conversation, so I mostly just sat around. This actually happens most times I've been to bars and clubs, and is part of the reason I don't really like going to those sort of places. I think that the smaller places I've been to over here are better, because even when they're full, which I haven't seen, you're still able to hear other people without shouting and such.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: 8 days
Current media: None

Osakajo

So this "weekend" (Wednesday) I visited Osaka castle, or as the natives call it, Osakajo. I feel reasonably safe in assuming that 'jo' is the Japanese word for castle.

Osaka castle is near the centre of Osaka, and in the middle of a park. I get the impression that 95% of all the trees in Osaka are in that park. The castle itself is actually a reconstruction built about 50 years ago, the actual castle having been ruins for quite some time. The castle grounds were a moderate size, taking maybe 30 - 40 minutes to walk around the outside of all the moats, and there were two sets of walls and lots of empty space that are now used as parks. The castle itself though wasn't that big.

It was 8 stories tall and maybe as big at the base as the house I lived in in St Lucia, maybe a bit bigger. There was a lift going up to the 5th floor, and some steep stairs up to the top floor for a view out of the castle (pics are at the end). Inside the castle going down is a bit of a museum giving the history of the castle, when it was built, who built it, who destroyed it, who rebuilt it, who destroyed the new one, etc. This was mostly in Japanese, so I mainly just looked at the pretty pictures, and fancy armour.

Afterwards I caught up with some friends in Umeda and went to the 280 bar (everything on the menu is 280 yen) and the B-Trip, which was almost crowded.

Anyway, here's some photos of the castle.









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Writing time: 37 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: iTunes Shuffle (VAST - Dirty Hole)

Another Photo

Here's a picture of the view from my apartment's balcony.


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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: None

Some maps

here are some maps of places I've been in Japan
My office
My apartment building (the building with the green roof)

Both are pretty much in the centre of the map in question.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: 90 minutes
Current media: None

Natasha Retires

I saw this on Google News last night, but was too tired to write about it then. Natasha Stott Despoja has announced that she won't stand for re-election when her current term in the senate ends.

I've followed her career since I first saw her as a regular guest on Good News Week. When I started university, I signed up to the campus Democrats group since they said there would soon be an event that she would be attending (I ended up not going, but it was only two dollars). She quickly rose within the Democrats (a big fish in a small pond), becoming the leader, but only staying in the position for a few months.

Stott Despoja has been a strong selling point for the Democrats, someone seen as being willing to stand for something, when others in the party have caved and made deals with the government.

I'm afraid that after this the Democrats decline will continue further, and they may even end up not having a member in the senate after the next election. Which is a bad thing, as they have managed to play a vital balancing role in Australian politics, holding back some of the excesses of the Coalition government. Their decline started when they compromised on their principles and did a deal with the government on the GST. Since then a voter backlash over that issue and almost perpetual internal conflict over the leadership have seen them fall from respected moderators in politics to a bunch of bickering babies.

At the moment there doesn't seem to be a party to take the place of the Democrats. The Greens are increasing their popularity, but they are not a moderating influence, their agenda and goals are different to that of the Democrats, and while I support them, it is not as whole hearted as I once backed the Democrats.

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Writing time: 35 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: Doctor Who 2005

An Empty Sky

There are a number of differences between living in Japan and living in Australia. The trains are better over here, I can't read the signs, the money is different, the chimes that are used to strike the hour on some clocks is used as a class bell with intervals of 10, 15 and 40 minutes instead of 60, and more. There is one big thing that I've noticed that speaks on a different level.

The difference is that I can't see the stars. When you look up at night all you see is a dark grey. On some occasions, I might see one or two, but no more than that. This feels to be a rather depressing sight, and I can't help feel it reduces the awe and majesty of space. I can remember looking at the stars when I was young, and then much later (about 17 or so) when I first really saw the Milky Way I was even more awestruck, and realised just how much of the night sky you miss by living in a city. And here, the loss is almost total.

I think that not having such a view I think must necessarily reduce one's sense of wonder at the universe as a whole, and the smallness of the Earth within the universe. As I'm writing, I'm wondering if some of the lack of interest in the world , and the universe in general, among people these days is due to the lack of opportunity to see the beauty of the night sky.

I wonder just how many Japanese children have grown up not knowing the beauty of a sky full of stars, and the inspiration such a sight provides. Hopefully, such visions can be seen in the less urban parts of Japan (I've been told they exist). More people should see such sights.

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Writing time: 40 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: Battlestar Galactica 3x04 with podcast commentary

Tax Strategy Patents

Today I got my second article up on Slashdot. This one is about a rather absurd consequence of the American policy of allowing patents on business methods as reported in the International Herald Tribune. A number of smart tax lawyers have realised that under this policy, their clever schemes to avoid tax can be patented, and they can prevent other people from doing the same thing without paying them money. So far the USPTO has granted 50 patents for such schemes, and more are being processed.

Now I'm against patents on methods in general for several reasons, but these patents go an extra step further in being so much against what patents should do. The truly ludicrous part of patents on tax reduction strategies is that once someone has a patent on a scheme, I am no longer allowed to follow the law without getting their approval. So they are able to take advantage of the tax law, but I'm not. This goes against a rather fundamental principle of an ideal government whereby everyone is treated equally under the law.

Fortunately some groups are realising this is an issue. Unfortunately it's mainly other tax lawyers who are feeling the sting. They are lobbying the US congress to create an exception to patent infringement rules to prevent them from being restricted in this manner, similar to the way there are restrictions on the patenting of medical procedures.

The whole idea of patents on methods is rather dangerous. A patent is for an invention, a device, a thing that does something. Anyone can come up with the idea "there should be a machine that does x". The person who comes up with the idea "there should be a machine that does x" does not get the patent. The person who makes a machine that does x gets a patent on that machine, and only that machine. They get a period of having a monopoly to make that machine. They do not get a monopoly on doing x. If someone else makes a different machine that does x in a different way, they're free to do that, and can even get a patent on their machine, if it too is original.

Patents on processes are very much giving patents to the person who says "there should be a machine that does x", and they are usually so vague that they get used as a patent on doing x. This then prevents other people who come with a new way of doing something, they get sued for infringing the vague patent that shouldn't have been given. Patents should only be given for specific devices that have been actually created.

The biggest area these types of patents are a problem is patents on software. Any software patent is process patent, as there's no device or machine involved. And they are used to prevent others from making programs that do the same thing or using certain technologies. Also, all software is essentially a mathematical algorithm, and it has long been a principle of patents that mathematics cannot be patented. 2 + 2 is a natural fact, and cannot be controlled by anyone, nor can any other piece of mathematics.

Anyway, with the tax patents the problems of process patents are now closer to affecting those who actually make the laws, so hopefully we are a step closer to getting patent laws closer to what they should be.

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Writing time: 50 minutes (less time talking to Mum on the phone)
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: Doctor Who 2005x02 The End of The World

Hit Counting

I've always been kind of curious how many people actually visit my blog, while at the same time not wanting to know exact details. Last week I was doing some work for someone else's site, and I got a bit more interested in knowing how many people do visit, especially as I'm now doing this for others to read instead of for me to write. Anyway, to make a long story short, I've added a hit counter to the sidebar of my blog. It's down below the archives, links, and labels. It was the first one I found that didn't require an ad for the people providing the service. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that blogger doesn't provide the ability to do this themselves, as it's the only thing I've really wanted to do with the blog I haven't been able to without resorting to another company.

Anyway, just be warned, I'm watching you (in the sense that I now know if someone (anyone) has had a look at my blog since the last time I checked).

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Writing time: 6 minutes
Time since last post: 26 minutes
Current media: iTunes Shuffle (Riverdance - Riverdance)

Tripping on the B-side

On Monday after work I caught up with one of the guys I've met over here. He's a friend of my housemate, and he invited me to join him on his regular Monday bar crawl (we both have Tuesday and Wednesday off, so Monday is party night).

We met up in Umeda and met up with another friend of his outside a Family Mart (a convenience store chain) which they've renamed the Hottie Mart, due to frequency of hotties who walk past or into it. We bought some cheap booze there to start the night.

After a while sitting talking on a bench outside the Hottie Mart, we went to Captain Kangaroo, a bar that serves very good burgers and served Fosters beer, which I had a hard time convincing them that people don't drink Fosters back in Australian. Anyway the burger was quite good, and after happy hour at Captain Kangaroo ended we headed over to the B-Trip, one of Japans many small basement bars.

The B-trip has red decor, a nice bar and some darts machines. We hung out here for the rest of night just chilling out. I played two games of darts, winning the first (before I started I was feeling a bit of form, and before my warm up throw I said I'd be lucky if I hit the board, then proceeded to get a single-bull, a double-bull and something else). The second game was later on and I lost by a much larger margin than I won the first by.

While we were there, some German tourists came up to us and asked us if the part of town we were in was the red light district (they weren't exactly subtle about it). The guys I went with were able to tell them where nearby to go, but the bartender told them where the best place to go was (no I didn't pay attention to what they were told), and even showed them a website for the place, which was apparently a fair way away.

Anyway, that's about it. Overall a good night out.
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Writing time: 12 minutes
Time since last post: 30 minutes
Current media: iTunes shuffle

Yakinomi

Last night I went out to dinner with a large It group of people from work, as it was one of the teachers' last day, and a few people have started recently (four in the last month or so), so we went to a Yakinomi restaurant.

Yakinomi is a novel concept (which I've since been informed was imported from Korea), whereby each table gets a large pot filled with coals and a metal plate shaped like an overly large orange juicer on which you cook meat, other animal parts (for some reason guts and stuff was listed as hormone on the menu, I still didn't try it), and vegetables. Dinner was quite nice.

The yakinomi cooking thing

It was a fun evening, and a good chance to get to know some of the other teachers better (especially since none of the bosses went). Some of the Japanese staff who handle sales and lesson bookings (everything but the teaching really) came along as well. I hadn't really noticed at work, but in a casual setting not wearing office type clothes, some of them were pretty good looking.

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Writing time: 26 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: iTunes shuffle

Some random photos

Just a few pictures that have been lying about on my phone.


The pseudo Italian place that I've had dinner at most nights (20 out of 27 including tonight).


The Sunday before last a group of people (including me) went to an all you can eat and drink restaurant in Juso, and afterwards went down to the river to hang about for a bit before the last train. This is a view looking across the river.
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Writing time: 6 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: Geeknights

Just met a neighbour

This evening while I've been messing about on the computer, the doorbell rang. I went out to check it, as the few times I have heard it ring, it has been someone delivering stuff for me (not that I expected this to happen this time). It turns out it was one of my neighbours who had forgotten his key, and wanted to climb across from my balcony to his balcony to get into his house. At this point I'll point out I live on the sixth floor, so he's a bit braver than I am. As it turns out, the door to his balcony was also lost, so he climbed back over and called his housemate to see when he's getting home.

Anyway, that was my first meeting with someone from my building who doesn't share my apartment.

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Writing time: 5 mintues
Time since last post: 5 minutes
Current media: iTunes on shuffle

Starmaking Quidditch

I'm currently reading a Harry Potter novel (no 5 to be precise), and in the process had a new thought, which I'm sure more keen and literary readers had a long time ago, but nonetheless I will discuss and elaborate upon here.

The main team sport in the novels is Quidditch. A team is made up of a goalkeeper, 3 chasers (a bit like forwards and are the main ordinary scorers), 2 beaters (they distract the other team by trying to hit them with some of the balls), and a seeker, who tries to capture the smallest of the several flying balls, which is called the snitch.

There are two ways to score in quidditch. The first is by throwing the main ball through one of the three goals, which is worth 10 points. The second is that the seeker scores 150 points when they catch the snitch. This also ends the game.

It should be rather obvious that the team that catches the snitch has a significant advantage when it comes to comparing the scores at the end of the game. This is especially the case in the games presented in the Harry Potter novels, where the scores before the capture of the snitch rarely get anywhere near 100 (the first game in this book has the snitch captured while the score was 40-10 against Harry's team). The seeker is very much the person who determines the outcome of the game.

And for those of you who haven't read the novels, can you guess which position Harry plays? The seeker. Thus, Harry is in the position of being a major part in the success of his team.

I believe the game of quidditch was designed in such an unbalanced way so that Harry can play such a major role in the games. This thus emphasises his importance in the stories, and makes him more special and amazing.

It does however detract somewhat from the game of quidditch as a sport. I can think of no other team game where one position is so blatantly more important than any other in determining the games outcome. It must be extremely depressing for the players on a team to have a significant lead over the other team lose the game because their seeker didn't catch the snitch.

Anyway, that's the idea. Quidditch is a severely broken game designed more to build up a character than be a realistically designed game.

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Writing time: 30 minutes (minus a distraction, see next post)
Time since last post: 15 minutes
Current media: iTunes on shuffle

Mathematicians have a sense of humuor

A newsletter I subscribe to on cryptography I got today pointed out this gem of a book. It's called A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates and is by the RAND corporation. The title is pretty self explanatory, but for the real fun, check out some of the reviews people have put up on Amazon.com


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Writing time: 10 minutes (mostly setting up the links)
Time since last post: 5 days
Current media: None

Sky Tower

Today is the first day of my weekend (I get Tuesdays and Wednesdays off), so I decided to do a little sight seeing. Since I'd heard of it I decided to go see the Osaka Castle. While I was on the train into Umeda, I read my copy of Lonely Planet Japan and found out that the Osaka History Museum is close to Osaka Castle, and thought that would be a nice double feature. Then I read a little more and found out that the Museum is not open on Tuesdays.

Since at the moment I'm trying to live somewhat frugally, what with only having an advance to live on until mid November (it's enough to get by on, but I can't really do a lot of the tourist thing on it), I decided to leave the castle and museum for Wednesday next week (only one touristy thing a week at the moment). But since I was in Umeda already, I looked to see what else I could do, and found that the Umeda sky tower is only a few blocks from the Hankyu (train) station.

So I made my way over to the Sky Tower. It's a complex of four buildings, one small, one mid sized, and two really tall buildings, plus two gardens and a lot of open space. At the top of the two tall buildings is a viewing area. So after having a look at the gardens on the ground, I paid my Yen to get a lift to the top. The lift starts out inside the building, but after a few stories, is just enclosed in glass, allowing you to see out on the way up. The elevator takes you most of the way up in the western tower, and to get to the observation level you take a glass enclosed escalator up another few stories and across to the eastern tower. Then an inside escalator to the enclosed observation level, which has a very good view (photos are below). The western side has a nice cafe area and a sign telling you when sunset is, and it would be good to see the sunset up there, and maybe hang around a bit longer to see the city at night.

Finally you can take a set of stairs to the very top, which is open to the elements, but doesn't really show you much you can't see from the level below.

Looking out on Osaka from about 147 meters up, you really see just how much of a sprawl it is, with hardly a gap in sight. Except for about a hundred meter wide stretch along the river bank, there was hardly an empty bit of ground that isn't road or railway track.

Anyway, without further ado, here are some of the better pictures (these are much better than the ones from last night, I've played a bit with the settings, and of course the light was better) (OK, maybe some ado).
















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Writing time: 1 hour 4 minutes (I got distracted while adding the photos)
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: None

Sports Day

Today was a national holiday here in Japan, but I still had to work today. Something in my contract about not getting national holidays off. In exchange I do get about a week after Christmas, but not before.
Anyway, back on topic. While I was walking home from the train station this evening I heard a bit of a commotion, drums, that sort of thing, and some sort of float being carried down the mall area. So after getting home and emptying my pockets and putting on my jacket, I went back down to see what was happening.

It was some sort of celebration, I presume for Sports Day, with a number of groups bearing their own floats. They were paraded around the local park, about half a dozen or so. Then there was a bit of a pause, then a little dragon display, then the floats were paraded off the park again. Around the park were a few game stalls for the kids, including a mini pachinko parlour, and a few junk food stores, one a fairy floss (white only) and another selling chocolate coated bananas.

I had my phone with me, so I now present some photos of the event.



















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Writing time: 30 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: Battlestar Galactica

Is it spam?

Yesterday I got an email offering to sell me packs of carbon nanotubes of various types and qualities in quantities ranging from 2 grams to 1 kilo for a mere 500 euros per unit, with a special deal of 3 for the price of two. Since I have no need for carbon nanotubes, except for the fun of saying I have some, I'm going to pass up on the offer.

But I'm debating if it was spam or not. One the one hand, it is an unsolicited advertisement from a company I've had no previous dealings with, so by that measure it is spam.

However, the message was all correctly spelled, had proper grammar, only included numerals and symbols in appropriate places, had no exclamation marks, and links to what appears to be a legitimate website.

The company has used a mass mailing service to get it message out, but they did send it to my email address at the UQ Physics department, and it is vaguely related to the field of physics I was working in, maybe only one or two degrees of seperation. So while it is a bit indiscriminate, at least it's not like some things that are advertised in other spam (viagra, american mortgages, dodgy jobs involving making bank transfers, nigerian 411 scams, investment oportunities, depression medication, and other such things) they aiming a bit more narrowly.

So, it probably is spam, but it is not obnoxious spam, so I'm not going to mark it as spam in gmail, just archive it.

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Writing time: 20 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: The Daily Show

Some Pictures

So, I've just figured out how to get pictures from my phone to my computer (I had to buy a microSD memory card for the phone, and now it's just like a USB drive). Thus, without further ado I present:

My Bedroom

and the view from the staff room at work

Yeah, I know the pictures aren't great, but it's a 2.1 mega pixel camera phone (I have a rant on those, but I'll save it for another time), so don't expect too much.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: an hour or so
Current media: The copyright notices in different languages at the end of Stargate Atlantis.

Timing Issues

Looking over the last few posts I've noticed a seeming discrepancy in some of the timing notes I include at the end of each post. This is because Blogger uses the time I start writing as the time of the post, not when I hit the publish button, and I can't be bothered changing it.

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Writing time: 3 minutes
Time since last post: 5 minutes
Current media: You already know

Damn Sony

Over the last few days, the headphones I use with my iPod have stopped working (the right earpiece no longer makes any noise), so today I went looking for a new set. The store I went to had a large shelf full of headphones, but most of them looked like cheap crappy things. In the end I reluctantly decided on a pair of Sony headphones for about 3000 yen that looked like they'd last more than a few days and had a cable that reached from the pocket I keep my iPod in to my ears.

I was reluctant to buy Sony because they've done some rather bad things to customers over the last year or so. Malware on CDs that can help computer virii hide on your computer and mess up the drivers on your computer and the following response when found out, the continual fumbling with the PS3, and others I can't think of of the top of my head have made me decide that I wouldn't give my money to Sony.

I haven't really kept to that, because there have been things I've wanted and bought without bothering to check who made them, and only found out after that Sony was involved in making it (Mirrormask is a good example). Today, the Sony headphones seemed the best out of a poor showing.

I was terribly disappointed when I started using the headphones. The sound quality is terrible, and I needed to turn the volume right up to be able to hear what I was listening to. The sound is tinny, and none of the equalizer settings helped out much. I'm thinking of getting another set once my advance comes through in the next few days.

I may even fork out 4500 yen for a set of apple headphones, as the set that came with my iPod were quite good, and lasted for a lot longer than most headphones do.

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Writing time: 13 minutes
Time since last post: 30 minutes
Current media: still more Stargate Atlantis

Growing Hair

It's been a little over two weeks since my hair got shaved to within a millimetre or two of my scalp. At that time, I looked almost like a skinhead, and I was a bit concerned that the company I work for would think I'd gone to far in the other extreme (They had already told me I would have to cut my hair before showing up for work in Japan). However it's grown relatively quickly, and is maybe almost a centimetre long now so it's no longer at the point where I can grow facial hair longer than the hair on my head (trust me, it looks terrible when the hair on your head is shorter than the hair on your face).

If my hair continues to grow at this rate, it should look almost normal around Christmas time, and I may have to get at least one haircut before my contract is finished. Once I'm done though, I don't plan to cut it again for a while (After the next eight years I'm just going to get a regular haircut though, none of this no 2 blade stuff).

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Writing time: 15 minutes
Time since last post: 20 minutes
Current media: still Stargate Atlantis

They Really Should Know Better

Yet another example of some engrish, this time at a place that really should know better. At this place, one can make use of the Malti Media center.

And where did I see this shining example of engrish. At work. That's right, the school that teaches English has a misspelled sign. I think I'll mention it on Thursday when I have my next shift. It really doesn't do much for the reputation of the school.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: Stargate Atlantis Season 1

Addicted?

Since I've been in Japan, I've drunk coke a bit more frequently than I used to (just a bit, I'd already got back on the softdrink wagon a while ago, but with coke instead of pepsi). During the week though I got a few really bad headaches. At first I thought it may have just been that I was eating on a different schedule, which can sometimes do that. Yesterday, the headache was really bad, and was still around a little this morning.

This morning, since I have had a few bad experiences with getting what I thought was water from a vending machine (I'm not even going to risk trying the one labeled Pocarri Sweat), I went back to having a coke. A while after this I noticed that my headache was almost completely gone. I had another coke with lunch, and although the I still have the headache, it's only a minor thing which should be gone in the morning.

After I noticed this, I got thinking and realised that the days that I had the headaches were the days I decided not to drink coke. So this has me wondering, is japanese coke that much more addictive? I don't think I'm drinking more than I did in Australia, and going without for a few days there didn't trigger terrible headaches. And I think I had some coke last night and it didn't ease the problem.

I think I'll have a coke tomorrow just in case

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Writing time: 17 minutes
Time since last post: 50 minutes
Current media: Serenity

Engrish On A Plane

Since I didn't get a chance to see it while I was in Australia, I may try and see Snakes Flight while it's showing over here

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Writing time: 1 minute
Time since last post: 1 minute
Current media: Rowen Atkinson Live

Illiterate again

One thing that is different about being in Japan is not being able to read much. Most signs are in Japanese, forms are in Japanese, newspapers and magazines are in Japanese, TV is in Japanese, and most other things are not surprisingly, in Japanese. This means that I am unable to do certain things I took for granted back in Australia.

For example today I got a commuter pass for the train I catch to and from work. To do this, I needed to fill out a form. If someone from work hadn't given me a copy with what I need to put in each space, I would not known how to fill it out.

Opening up a bank account was a similar situation, although for that I had the mishap of forgetting my hanko, so I had to make two trips.

I am fortunate that all the train stations are labeled in kanji, hiragana and English. I've heard that as little as three years ago, this was not the case. The signs are also quite comprehensive, with guides to where to go to transfer between lines, between train types (hankyu to subway, or hankyu to monorail, for example). So far I have not had any troubles catching trains.

Restaurants are OK, as most have either menus in English or menus with pictures on them, or both, and you can get away with just pointing at what you want. The only problem is I don't know how to ask what something is if I don't know what it is.

Anyway, in summary, the language problem is annoying, but not really a major burden.

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Writing time: 26 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: Rowen Atkinsons Live

Lookout

It would appear that giant insects are attacking Germany.

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Writing time: 1 minute
Time since last post: 5 minutes
Current media: none

First real day

Today was my first real day of work. I got to the office OK, and the people seem nice. There is a very angry Australian there, but the rest seem normal.

My day was pretty easy, I got a free lesson to start with and I only had one or two people in each lesson. Most of the lessons were higher level students, but there was one low level student. The higher level students don't need to have me simplify my words as much, although I still need to work on that.

So far, things seem to be going OK.

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Writing time: 2 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: none

Thorpedo Water

This is a little old but I've been busy over the last few days, so a few posts are going to follow this one quite quickly.

Last Friday when I was wondering around Toyanaka looking for the city office to register as an alien I got a little thirsty and decided to get a bottle of water from one of the many, many vending machines around the place. So while I was pondering my choices, I noticed on of the bottles was labeled "Thorpedo" and had a picture of Ian Thorpe on it. So, I decided to support my countryman and bought the drink.

Now I was thinking that this was just some bottled water, so I was unpleasantly surprised when instead of nice pure water it tasted like some horrible, really flat lemonade. This was not what I wanted.

I'm curious if Ian Thorpe has actually even tasted this drink, and is not just letting them use his name and picture for money without a care for what it's used for. I mean, this stuff really tastes foul.

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Writing time: 15 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: The Daily Show

More Engrish

I saw this one at a book store that has a moderate english selection. In the science fiction part, they had some Star Treck books. This is pretty amazing as the Star Trek books with the correct spelling were right there for them to check the spelling.

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Writing time: 2 minutes
Time since last post: 2 minutes
Current media: Battlestar Galactica season 2 soundtrack

Hair cut

At the going away party that was held Saturday before last (the 16th) I got my head shaved. Nova had said I had to have a haircut before I started working for them, and for quite some time, I had said that when I finally did get a haircut, it would be all the way. So I stuck to what I had said and got my head shaved. I got one of my housemates to do it, as he had shaved his head a few times before. The following are some of the photos with commentary, and then some thoughts on the matter.


The first cut is always the deepest.


work in progress

The ponytail

After getting a hairdresser to neaten things up.

OK, so there wasn't much commentary.

Since then it has grown back faster than I thought it would (although it may just be that when your hair is only a few millimetres long another millimetre looks like a lot). It'll be a while before I need to comb it or anything, but it no longer feels like a bald head. It also looks a lot darker than it did while it was long, but will probably look brown again when it gets longer.

One bit of advice, and this is with all due respect to Justin, make sure the person shaving your head doesn't get in to the drinks before the head shaving.

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Writing time: 35 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: Battlestar Galactica season 2 soundtrack

Engrish Ahoy

So far while in Japan I've picked up a few instances of Engrish. The first was at the airport where there was an ad for "fine groumet food". Today while wondering around Osaka, I saw an optometrist offering "freams, lens, and cleaning fluid". More will be reported as I encounter them.

Edit: 10:23 22/9/06 I just bothered typing up the third example I remembered a while ago. One the toilet each day after the cleaner has been in my room the toilet has a strip of paper telling me the toilet has been sanitarized.

Edit: 20:30 23/9/06 At the train station I had the choice of getting a single trip ticket or buying a commutation ticket.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: nothing much

Coup in Thailand

As mentioned previously, earlier today there was a coup in Thailand. The following is a sort of response to this and some thoughts on the events leading up to it.

First up, I've been periodically keeping an eye on the news in Thailand thanks to wikinews, which has a relatively high amount of news from countries which other news sources tend to neglect like Thailand. Thus I have been following the story of Prime Minister Thaksin and his governments fall into disfavour.

The situation has it's roots in Thaksin's apparent use of his power as Prime Minister for his personal and family gain. Thaksin and his family were major shareholders in one of Thailand's big telecommunications companies, and just before they sold out to a foreign company the tax law was changed so that the profit they made from the sale was much larger than it would have been before the change. This is the most blatant of Thaksin's acts and the one that brought a great amount of pressure on his government.

To try and defuse the situation, Thaksin decided to call an early election, hoping to get a new mandate from the people to continue to lead the Thai government. Unfortunately for him, the two main opposition parties boycotted the election because they believed it would be run unfairly by Thaksin. Thus even though Thaksin's party ran unopposed in a large number of electorates, they did not get a large proportion of the vote. Lots of people didn't vote. In Thailand, voters have the choice of voting for none of the candidates, and where a candidate doesn't get a certain share of the total vote, they won't be elected even if they have the most votes (I can't remember if this only applies to electorates with only one candidate). This happened in a number of electorates, leaving Thaksin in a bind as to form a new government requires a meeting of the full parliament, which at the time didn't exist because some electorates didn't have an elected representative.

Since then, the Thai courts have decided that the election was invalid and that a new one, with the opposition parties involved was to be held in around October.

This brings us pretty much up to today, where this morning the head of the military sent some tanks (14 according to the wikipedia article) in to Bangkok to surround the main government offices and take captive the deputy prime minister. Thaksin was out of the country (at a UN meeting) and will doubtless be staying away for some time.

The military leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin issued a statement to the Thai population after he had siezed control (you can read it thanks to the BBC), stating that the military control was only intended to be temporary and power will be returned to the democratic process as soon as possible. The same statement also prohibited gatherings of more than 5 people, and a few other things.

This is about the twenty-third attempted coup (I think about twelve of those were succesful) Thailand has had since the 1930s, which is a pretty high number. Most countries have had zero, and only a few have busted into double digits. Predictably, foreign responses have been negative, saying that democratic rule should be restores as soon as possible. News coverage has varied. I've been watching CNNj (the only english channel on the tv in my hotel) and the fact they've concentrated on is the subsequent drop in the value of the Thai Baht and the impact on the Thai economy. The BBC has had a more political view of the matter. There are also a few blogs from locals on events (here, here, and here).

The one factor I haven't mentioned yet, and will probably have a big effect on the outcome is the Thai king. He is apparently close with the general in charge of all this, and is a significant if indirect player in Thai politics. I think the stronger he is for a return to democracy, the quicker it will happen.

Now for some opinion. Military coups are bad. Very bad. Military rule has historically been bad for the country, bad for the people, but good for the few in charge. A military should be controlled by the people, and only used for the benefit of the people. Depriving the people of their liberty and elected government is not doing this. Also, constitutional change should not be done at the point of a gun. Independence sure, but once a country is established, violence should not be needed to enact such changes.

Also, most of the complaints have been against Thaksin and his government, and not against the current system of government, so there seems no justification for the way they have wiped the Thai political system clean (parliament, senate, high court, etc).

One reassuring point is that so far there has been no violence involved in the coup.

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Writing time: 2 hours 15 minutes (includes research time)
Time since last post: 0 days
Current media: Stargate SG-1

In the Land of the Rising Sun

I have arrrived in Japan, and am typing at Osaka Kanzai International Airport (KIX). The flights went ok, a few hassles along the way but nothing impossible to overcome. Now I'm just waiting for the people from the company to pick me up.

I've just found out that there has been a coup in Thailand, where my sister is currently living. While it seems to have gone peacefuly so far, I am a bit worried.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: none

Change in counting

Looking at the last two posts I noticed I used a different method of counting the days to go. Hence the lack of consistency in the title posts.

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Writing time: 1 minutes
Time since last post: 5 minutes

1 Day To Go

Tomorrow I fly to Japan. I've moved all my stuff over to my uncle's place, and today I'm cleaning the room, leaving it in a decent condition for whoever moves in.

On Saturday night I had a going away party. It wasn't huge, but a few friends came over and a generally goodtime was had. The big event was the cutting of my hair. Word of advice to everyone. Limit the alcohol consumption of the barber-to-be.

I'm a bit more daunted by this move than previous ones. It's not the distance, the not knowing anyone on the other end of the move. It's the not being sure of what I'm doing. Every other time I've moved there's been a certainty of purpose that's missing this time.

In any case, I'm going. What will happen, happens. I'll save as much as I can, enjoy the travelling after and then decide on what I want to do after that.

My initial thinking for after that was 1 more year of study to become a high school teacher, but through a podcast I listen to about a masters degree in Science and the Public at a university in the US, which sounds quite interesting, but funding it and my living expenses while there would need to be worked out.

Well, cleaning awaits.
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Writing time: 40 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: Six Feet Under - Season 3

4 days to go

In 4 days I'm going to be moving to Japan. I'm not sure I'm one hundred percent ready for it. I know hardly any of the language. I'm not sure if I want to do it.

Well, it's a year at most. I've found out a few friends from university are also heading over to Japan soon, so I'll be able to see some people I know while I'm over there. That makes it a bit less daunting. I've also learnt that it's easy to get work teaching English, so if I find I don't like the company, it shouldn't be too hard to find work with another company, although accommodation would become an issue.

I think I'm mostly prepared to move my stuff to my uncles. Most things are packed up. Some clothes will probably get put in garbage bags for storage. I don't see much left to pack to store, but I think I need to rethink my packing to travel with.

I got Mum's laptop this evening, and have put on a few programs that I'll use a lot. iTunes, Firefox, Launchy, and a few others.

I also wrote up a will today. I used a will kit, and it's not very complicated. My sister gets everything. No flowers at the non-religious commemoration ceremony, and if my estate can afford it, my ashes are to be sent into outer space.

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Writing time: 1 hour 13 minutes (less time spent getting witnesses for my will, talking with housemates, etc)
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: Six Feet Under - Season 3

Adventures in eBay

As part of my packing up and moving process, I'm getting rid of some stuff. Mostly it's stuff that I packed into a box last time, and have not touched since then. Some has just been thrown out, some I've given to housemates and friends. Some I've tried to sell on eBay.

This has had mixed success. Two out of four items sold, one for the starting price and one for $1.50 over the starting price. I had thought I was being generous with the postage charges I specified when setting up the auctions. Unfortunately, one of my buyers was in Western Australia, and when comibing postage and packaging, I actually came out about 3 dollars down. Fortunately I was ahead on the other item that sold, so I'm not out of pocket overall. Next time I won't fix postage until I know where I'll have to send it.

I also now have to pay the listing fees, which now that I've found where they're listed, shouldn't be troublesome.

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Writing time:
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Some notes on labels

With the whole consolidation of labels and other issues relating therein The following is a description of what most labels actually mean

Stuff: Things happening in my life. What I'm doing.
Thoughts: What I think about things.
Politics: Things involving governments at all levels
Work: Things regarding employment, and the search of
News: About things in the news. Usually goes with thoughts.
Death: Death
Rant: like thoughts, but a bit more angry
Romance: Usually introspection on the lack of romance in my life
Tech: Technology related things, computer games, podcasts, hardware, etc
Family: Things involving family
Rambling: like thoughts, put with less purpose and direction
Fiction: Fictional writing
Government: musing on the nature of government



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Writing time: 15 minutes
Time since last post: 0 days
Current media: Six Feet Under - Season 2

Blogger Labels

Yesterday I noticed that next to the dashboard on Blogger there was an option to convert my blog over to the Blogger 2.0 beta. Naturally, I couldn't resist. The chance to have a whole bunch of new features to play with and bits to toy around with is always going to get my attention.

One thing that got my interest was labels. A way to categorise posts. So I went through and added labels to a bunch of posts. These were mostly based on the technorati tags I had used on the entries. At the end of this first stage of labeling things, I wasn't entirely happy. For a start there were a bunch of labels that were only used once, the list looked really long, some of the labels were really just duplicates or subsets of others. So initially I tried to look to see if there were some setting I could set so that it would only show labels with a few posts. But such a setting doesn't exist. So I then looked at the html version of the template with the widgets expanded. It was a bit odd, but with some help files it's reasonably clear. So I tried putting a condition in that it would only display the labels with a count of more than 2. I try that and the labels disappear. A bit more playing around I find out that equals and not equals work, but greater than won't and a less than sign is just not on. So I just put in a few nested conditions with a few not equals going up to the limit I wanted, and now the only labels showing are those with at least two posts. In hindsight I don't really need the condition saying only show the labels with a non-zero count.

Anyway, this is mainly so that if someone else is trying the same thing they find it a bit easier than I did.

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Writing time: 30 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: Six Feet Under - Season 2

Something that's been bugging me for a while

There is a staff member at the Subway at Inala that has really big sideburns. And she's a woman.

Call me old fashioned, crazy, or whatever, but women should not have sideburns.

That is all.

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Writing time: 5 minutes
Time since last post: 1 day
Current media: Bullshit!

Irresponsible Pharmacy

Last week I was at the chemist picking up some medicine, and while I was waiting for the store person to find the right box on the shelves, I saw something weird on the counter. It was a display stand for something called Original Hopi Earcandles. It was a tube of some sort of cloth, apparently impregnated with some sort of herbs and other things, which you stick one end in your ear, light the other end, and it does something. It spends a lot of time on the history of such things and how they are made. Then near the end it starts to make claims about what it actually does. This is all couched in weasel words. to quote "Earcandles may be beneficial in the temporary relief of the symptoms of". Note the may there. They then warn you not to use it if you have a perforated ear drum. I'm sure most people with perforated ear drum are aware enough not to stick anything in their ear.

The next bit is where they admit they're full of it. This is straight from the brochure

The Hopi EARcandle is not a medication. The indications are supported by the experience over many years of doctors and naturopathic practitioners. They do not constitute a guarantee of medical efficacy and if symptoms persist please consult your physician

Not a guarantee of medical efficacy. So in other words, they're not sure enough to really claim it does anything. They're not even sure enough to do some real testing to back up their experience.

It's also not great that later in the brochure they include a plug for a Dream Your Inner Healing cd.

To quote Penn & Teller, it's Bullshit!

The thing that really gets me is that this is being sold at a chemist. If some stupid hippy joint was selling this stuff, I wouldn't be surprised and would expect nothing less. But a chemist has a certain obligation to the community. This obligation arises due to the trust the community places in a chemist. They are the purveyors of medicine and other health products like ventilators, splints, bandages and more than I can think of. For a chemist to sell such quackery breaches the trust the community has with the chemist. It also gives undue respectability to the earcandles. And money to the unscrupulous who make such rubbish.

Chemists have an important role in society, and they should not sully this by selling garbage just so they can get a little more cash.

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Writing time: 24 minutes
Time since last post: 3 days
Current media: Farscape - Different Destinations

22 words, 61 syllables

I'm putting this up here just because I'd like to be able to find it online sometimes.

The prolongated application of polysyllabic vocabulary infallibly exercises a deleterious effect on the fecundity of the expression rendering the ultimate tendency apocryphal

WoW not so wow

I was shopping for a headset with a microphone on Saturday, and while I was waiting at the checkout I saw they had on sale a two week trial of World of Warcraft for $2. I've heard mixed things about World of Warcraft, but for me the sticking point has always been the price. About $90 bucks for the game and then $20 or so dollars a month is more than I am willing to pay for a game of that sort. $2 for two weeks though is within the bounds of what I think is a reasonable price.

So after installing, which took a while (I hadn't realised it was a full dvd), it had to update, which was a 465MB download, I finally got to play. The game play is quite repetitive and there's not enough story to keep you interested. The other big problem is travelling between places. The whole wondering around the countryside takes forever, and making my character run in her underwear is only amusing for a few minutes at most (If I have to watch a person run around all day, it's going to be a woman. And it's not like it makes a difference game play wise)

I'll probably play a bit more over the next two weeks, but I don't think it's the great game so many people seem to claim it is.

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Writing time: 20 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: Six Feet Under (Season 1)

Limits and Morality

One of my housemates has a habit of getting somewhat philosophical when he gets drunk, and recently this has got me thinking about a few things a bit more than I would usually.

The most recent position he put forward was that the ultimate aspiration/achievement is the freeing oneself of all limitations up to and including morality and the laws of physics. This is achieved through enlightenment, which apparently you only get when it happens, and is not able to be worked towards. Of course, you know you've been enlightened because that's part of the knowledge you get with enlightenment. And no one else can verify this, because enlightenment comes from within, and cannot be taught or worked towards.

He acknowledged that this is very much like traditional religious faith, and occasionally he has delusions of being the antichrist. We have very different notions of truth (For me, truth is the external reality, observable by all). He thinks truth is something internal, individual, and not able to be directly compared with others truth. And that this internal truth outweighs any other evidence if you feel it to be true enough (very much along the line of Stephen Colbert's Truthiness).

But the thing I've been thinking about the most is the whole freeing of all limitations. My thinking crystallised on watching a trailer for the next season of Battlestar Galactica, which was "Somethings you just don't do, colonel. Not even in war."

The idea I have is that being moral takes two steps. The first step is deciding what is good and what is bad. This should always be under consideration, and open for debate, etc. But the second part is then saying, these things I consider bad, I will not do. You limit the things that you are willing to do, based on what you think is good or bad. People will disagree with the what you might think is good or bad, but the restricting yourself to only doing good things is an important part of being a good person.

One other important aspect is that these limits are self imposed. You have decided not to do these things. Being forced to do things by others is still not good. The society you live in and your experiences will obviously have a strong effect on what you choose as good and bad, but ultimately it is your own choice what your actions are.

This idea of good people limiting their action came up on an episode of Penn Jillette's radio show about why should America obey the Geneva conventions, and one of the callers put in a similar idea, that because America wants to be the good guys, they need to live up to a higher standard of behaviour, one that includes not torturing prisoners, not attacking civilians, etc. This again is the idea "I want to be a good person, therefore I will not do bad things".

It does come to mind that this leads to a rather passive idea of good being the avoidance of bad rather than a goal in and of itself. You could look at it a bit like the Hippocratic oath "First do no harm", start out by not making things worse, then actively try to improve them.

In conclusion, I think that to be a moral person one needs to place limitations on themselves.

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Writing time: 25 minutes
Time since last post: 5 days
Current media: Learn Japanese Podcast
Technorati tags: Philosophy, Limitations, Thoughts

The London Terror Thingy

A bit over a week ago it hit the news that the poms had busted a group of people who were planning on blowing up some planes in mid air. The plan allegedly involved using a binary liquid explosive smuggled onto the plane in component form and mixed up on the plane. Since then the governments have enforced a stupidly high level of security at airports, A huge number of people have either had flights delayed or cancelled, and the media has gone on another fear mongering frenzy.

My initial reaction was that the heightened security and so forth was a massive overreaction, which I still say is the case. There are several reasons for this.

First, there is the way this plot was detected. This was achieved through old fashioned crime detection techniques. It did not need any of the extra powers governments have said they needed to detect this sort of thing and all the extra security added to airports wouldn't have done any better than the security a decade ago. So if the tools we had before we did any upgrading due to terrorism are working, what justification is there for extra powers that come at a great cost to our civil liberties.

The second reason has come from some articles I've come across on the nature of binary explosives, and in particular the chemicals that were supposed to be used in this plot. Binary liquid explosives are popular in movies (see Die Hard with a Vengeance for an example) but are not as practical in real life. The chemicals that were alleged to have been used are especially impractical. One of the reactants is very reactive, and difficult to safely store, and has a very strong odor, making it very hard to get onto a plane (a shampoo bottle is not a safe container for this stuff). The other chemical is not as troublesome, but the mixing process is. Firstly, it's a very exothermic reaction, and the completed explosive is very sensitive to shock and temperature. To make enough of it to sufficiently damage a plane requires a significant amount of time, and even if you try doing it in the bathroom so the person sitting next to you doesn't ask what it is that you're mixing up, after an hour or two in there, someone going to complain to the crew. Premixing isn't going to work either, because of the sensitivity of the final product. (The main source for this is the Interesting People mailing list, the actual message is here. There is a followup that describes an binary explosive used in demining here.)

A third factor is a few of the things I've heard about the people arrested. There was no great knowledge of chemistry, no detailed plans of what was to be done, no plane tickets had been bought, and some didn't even have a passport (more info here).

The media has had a field day with the sensational aspects of these events, but haven't looked at all the details that mean it's not as bad as they were saying. Over in America, CNN spent a whole day scaring its viewers about how vulnerable they were.

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Writing time: 41 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: Bullshit!

Threatdown

For all you Steven Colbert fans, have a look at the Threatdown Generator.

In real world news, a cease fire has commenced between Lebanon and Israel. And about bloody time. Israel this time has really responded with much more than necessary force. Bombing civilians, hospitals and refugee camps while trying to get to Hezbollah will not make you friends in the Lebanese community. Nor will it get you friends in the peace loving community.

Israel is in a tough position. The nations neighbouring and around Israel know it's history, and know people who were affected by it's creation. They also know people who have been attacked by Israel. This is not Israel's first prolonged engagement with countries neighbouring it. There have been about 20 or so conflicts of various lengths since the creation of Israel. Israel has generally done well in these conflicts, such as the gains made in the 6 Day War.

Israel appears to have generally tried to play the role of the good guy, just trying to protect itself from others. This is partly true, it's neighbour don't particularly like it. But if you play the good guy card, then you limit your options if you don't want to lose that appearance. Good guys don't kill innocent civilians. Good guys don't bomb refugee camps.

I think Israel needs to change it's strategy. For as long as it's existed, Israel has believed a good defense involves a good offense. This has some truth, but doesn't consider the larger picture. Every time Israel kills someones family member, they make more people in the region dislike them. What Israel should do is draw a line in the sand (it's borders, for example), and say "no one crosses this line". They then set up on fine defense along that line. This shouldn't be hard. Israel knows their stuff. Nothing crosses the line, be it tank, jet or missile. But they don't strike back. Pure defense.

This has several positive factors to Israel. First, it allows them to keep up the good guy image with the rest of the world. Second, it makes it harder for neighbouring countries to maintain anger against them. Once you get a generation or two that have never had to worry about Israel striking out at them, they're much less likely to strike back at Israel.

The downside to such a scheme is that it will be unpopular with those who want the fight to continue.

Anyway, that's my idea on how Israel should proceed.

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Writing time: 3 hours (I'm pretty sure I didn't take the whole 3 hours. There was a bit of reading up on the conflicts Israel has been in, and listening to a few podcasts. and answering phone calls)
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: silence. A few podcast played while I was typing.
Technorati tags: Israel, Peace, thoughts

Buy or Rent?

Buying a house is a huge deal. The amount of money needed to buy a house is more than I've had in my entire life, total (well maybe not an absolute dump in the middle of nowhere, but nothing worth living in).

There are people out there who advocate that buying a house is better than renting, because if you are renting your just making someone else's mortgage payments, so why not make your own payments and have an asset at the end of the process. Plus there is the security of owning your own home, etc.

Recently I've been thinking this is not the way to go. The big reason for this is interest. The interest on an average home loan is a bit more than the actual amount borrowed. Yay compound interest. So for every dollar of house you get, you pay another dollar to the bank. This is the killer. Let's say I rent a house, and I manage to save an amount of money equal to my rent each week. This is about the same ratio of interest to principle. 1 dollar to the house provider, one dollar to savings. At the end of the process, assuming the payments are about the same size, the home owner has paid a certain amount of money and got a house worth about half that amount of money. The renter has paid the same amount, doesn't have a house, but does have cash of about the value of the house. Plus they will have all the interest on that cash. And remember, interest on the mortgage was about as much as the principle. And even if the interest rate for savings accounts is a lot less than the interest rate for mortgages, it's still going to add up. And that doesn't even consider the possibility of investing the money somewhere where it will earn you even more money.

Now this analysis ignores a few factors, like rates, inflation, increase in the value of land, insurance, etc. Without thinking about it too much, I think these other factors would tend to balance out.

So it looks like I've got a long future of renting ahead of me, and hopefully my savings will grow as I go along. Of course, to do that, I need a god damned job.

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Writing time: 16 minutes
Time since last post: 2 days
Current media: silence

A Coffin Too Small

I got back from Rocky on Friday. I got a plane back. The plane I caught was not a jet plane, but propeller based. A bit smaller than the jet I got up there, but the flight time was the same and everything else was pretty much the same.

The funeral for Mal's mother was more religious than Mal's at the beginning of the year. It was led by a minister instead of just some guy from the funeral director. There was a more religious bent to the reflection from the minister.

One thing that got to me was that the coffin seemed to small for her to fit in. I remember thinking something similar at Mal's funeral. Perhaps if I'd been able to go to the viewing of the body (morbid as that seems) I'd be able to see if they actually fit without problem in the box. Admittedly it doesn't really matter to them if they are squashed into the box, but it is a little undignified.

Also, for something due to be cremated, the box seemed quite sturdy and elaborate. If I ever get to the point of specifying such things, I'm to go in the simplest, plainest box possible, cremated and my ashes then sent either into deep space or the sun (I'm not sure which yet. Both have a certain eloquence). I don't know if I'd want some sort of memorial plaque thingy (instead of an actual thing on the earth with my ashes). Graveyards really depress me, and is not a place where I'd want to spend a great deal of time in, even if I was a pile of ashes.

Mal's father handled this funeral a lot better than he did Mal's. He was aware of what was going on and even had a few drinks at the wake. At Mal's funeral he had a fit outside before the event and was taken back to his hospital unconscious before the service started. This was good as it prevented further distress for the family.

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Writing time: 26 minutes
Time since last post: 4 days
Current media: He Died With A Felafel In His Hand (the movie)