Week Off

Back at work. Ahhh. Now I have the time to sit down and just relax, maybe crank out a report or two, and write a post for my blog. Lunch is in 40 minutes, so I think I'll devote that time to this post. It's good to be back though. A man's place is at an office desk looking at a computer monitor all day, not at home with his wife and children. The last week of my break was a bit of a strain coming up with things to do everyday. I watched a lot of television, mainly footy and Battlestar Galactica, which I have finally got around to watching. Like it. I made an ant farm for Will, but of course he is forbidden to touch it because he will destroy it. I got at work yesterday morning to find that indeed my desk had been moved. It is next to the window, so I can dream of being outside, when in reality I think I would set off an alarm if I attempted to go outside. Wage slave.
So what's going on? I start P90X on Thursday. BRING THAT SHIT ON! Yea. I did do P90 Sweat 1-2 a couple of times on the weekend. This is like the beginning level, and I remembered it was really tough the first time I did it in September last year, but I breezed through it now, barely raising a sweat. I stopped doing it though because I was afraid that it would give me a false sense of security going into P90X, and I don't want to be going into that with any illusions that I can handle it. It's going to fuck me up. My mate who I work with, J (Englishman, the last King of Cumbria, not to be confused with D, who is a better class of Englishman, or P, Texan (but not what you'd imagine, more like a middle-aged Lewis from "Revenge of the Nerds")) is going to, or says he is going to do it with me. He's already done it one and a half times, and he even has the actual real P90X pack, and it is signed by the man himself, Tony Horton. It says "Bring it! Tony Horton" on the top of the box in silver marker. We are going to do the fitness test and measurements tomorrow after work. I'm really looking forward to getting back to doing some physical stuff. Sitting down all day is really tough. Seriously. I was exhausted last night after work.
Swans played terrible again and lost to the Dockers. We always lose to the Dockers. We always beat Carlton. Games against St Kilda can go either way, but they are always called the worst game of football of the year. The thing with the Swans is that they are so consistent that it is getting really predictable. Some (most) would say boring. At least other teams have their ups and downs. We have been flat lining for eight years (with a spike in 05 when we won the Premiership). The commentators gave me the shits while I was watching the game though. Three minutes into the game, one of them starts yelling "Swans have only had one kick! Five minutes of football, Swans have only had one kick!" Yea, and when the game started neither team had scored. It's like on the news when you hear something like "Figures released yesterday are the worst since February." Hang on, that was only like fifty days ago. I haven't even had a haircut in that time. I guarantee the Swans will have kicked the ball more than once when the first quarter is over. No, I'll go out on a limb and say they will have kicked the ball more than once at the ten minute mark of the first quarter. Here's a tip for the commentators - any stat or bullshit thing that can be wiped out in a second isn't really of interest to the viewer. For example. "Carlton have not scored since the twenty- two minute mark of the second quarter. That's almost thirty-four minutes of game time – oh, hang on. They just kicked a goal." Because then you have to say "That’s the first score they've kicked since the twenty- two minute mark blah blah blah…" and then everyone who's listening knows you're a fuckwit. Better off keeping your mouth shut and letting the fuckwit beside you say it.
So Biggest Loser is over. I've only got the finale to watch, but I know who wins it – Bob. You can't lose half your body weight and not be the biggest loser. What a great guy he is. Just shuffles along, never quitting. So I know he's going to win, and I'm kind of sad it's all over. It's been inspiring while I've been doing my workouts to see these people pushing themselves harder than I ever have. I downloaded season 2 of the American Biggest Loser to see what that was like, and it's completely different. Everyone is the star of the own movie in their head. No humility or ability to see what's really going on. One girl, a medical student, starts crying after one week because she can't get enough to eat on the diet she's on. "I like to be satisfied after I eat." Clearly that's the problem. They fight and bitch, it's really horrible. I think I'll watch a season of the UK Biggest Loser, but I have visions of that being a lot of really depressing fat bastards saying "I'll do me pushups yea, but why fookin' bother, like."
Joseph is an inspiration to me too. He's hanging in there, pushing the milk through. He's got milk spots which look like a mad case of acne, so he's a bit of a shambles. His eyesight is getting better, and you can see him focus on things now. He cries a lot, usually because his stomach is blown up like a balloon from swallowing too much air when he drinks his milk. His burps must feel so good. Anyway, the 3 am wake ups are routine now. Usually after a bit of a burp and maybe a nappy change he calms down and I can put him back to bed. He sleeps with Junko, and Will is sleeping in my bed now. Junko has the double and I have the single (placed next to each other) so it's a bit crowded, but I love sleeping with Will. I can't see the point of teaching babies that at night when it is dark and scary and they have dreams and nightmares that they are on their own, and if they really want a cuddle they have to scream for twenty minutes. Whenever I go home people say, "But what about, you know… when you want to do it?" Married five years, working, two young children. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The other night Will was asleep and he said something. I said "what?" and he said "densha." Train. No surprise, really. I downloaded a few episodes of Play School and he's all over it. It's up there in the Pantheon with Gumby and Pinocchio now. We have had a Humpty Dumpty toy since mum sent it to him a couple of years ago, but it wasn't until he saw Humpty on Play School that it meant anything to him. Now he would choose Humpty over me if only one of us could be allowed to survive.
I don't know if you saw in the news back home, but a really famous guy here, Kusanagi, was arrested last week for being a public nuisance. If you could imagine Rove being in a boy band for twenty years since he was 16, that's his image. The old ladies love him, he does tons of TV and commercials and movies, and is perhaps the cleanest cut celebrity in Japan. The Government employed him as their "Image Character" for the conversion to digital television. He loves Korea, and has done more to improve relations between Japan and Korea than any politician. He speaks Korean and he's a regular on TV over there too. Then last week he fucked it all up and got drunk, and was arrested by police in a park near his home. He said he can't remember anything because he was drunk, but he was naked and screaming "shingo!" in Korean which apparently means "call the police". But interestingly it is also the name of one of the fellow members of his boy band SMAP, Shingo Katori. So no-one's really sure what he meant. The cops arrested him, and then the next day they searched his house! WTF? Apparently they were looking for drugs, but they didn't find anything. Kusanagi apologized a couple of days later, but it's all over. All of his commercials have been taken off the air, and all the companies have annulled their contracts with him. Career death. Not like America where you can show your snatch and knock out a photographer and get even more famous.
People have the wrong idea about Japanese TV. They see things like, what is it, moving wall(?) and stuff on the internet and think it is just crazy. What they don't see on the internet is the countless hours of absolute dross that is on every night. Want to see a show about the best way to stack your plates so they don't break if there's an earthquake? One hour special, complete with physicists. Apparently you stack the larger plates at the bottom. Something to do with lowering the center of gravity. What about the best way to stir your coffee so the sugar completely dissolves? You don't just go round and round, you do a figure eight pattern. "taabyulansu" is the key, said the scientist (say it slowly). And all of these shows have a panel of mindless entertainers whose job it is to jazz it up with jokes. And they are the same people over and over again. They are sometimes on different channels at the same time! They are special guests on shows that they were on the week before! Now, I have to say, I cannot really understand what these people are saying most of the time. It might be that these people are comedic geniuses, and anything is worth watching if they are on. In fact, there are a couple I know are among the funniest people in the world. It might be like seeing Steve Martin, John Candy, Graham Kennedy, and Rodney Dangerfield every night on TV. But on the other hand, for every genius there are a dozen dolts who flood the market and just bore everyone to death. But there are something like seven channels, which have to fill each and every day with Japanese language stuff, and they have no ideas. Let's visit a ramen restaurant. There's a show. Which is stronger, a squid or an octopus? There's a show. "My Wife is a Foreigner!" That's a show. Where are the best brooms in Japan made? That was a show. I can't watch it anymore. Thank god for Torrents and unlimited downloading.
So tomorrow I'll do the fitness test and measurements and post the results.
Oh well, better get some work done I spose.