What a great game between Melbourne and Sydney yesterday. A draw! We probably should have won it in the third quarter, but then Melbourne probably should have won it in the last, so a draw was a pretty good result for us. Melbourne look good this year, especially up forward. Their back line was pretty vulnerable all day. We played well too. Sydney are usually shocking starters to the season. And a great game to watch, too. I heard that the Geelong St Kidla game was an abomination. Glad I missed that one. I saw what Fevola did, jumping onto that guy's back. I'm enjoying watching his life fall apart, too be honest.
The Masters starts in a couple of weeks. Please be exciting. Golf is in all sorts of trouble. I'm not sure that having Tiger back at No. 1 would solve the problem, either, except that there would be some awesome golf in there somewhere. My tip for the Masters (going 2 for 2 because I tipped Phil last year) - Rory Sabatini, the firebrand South African.
I ran 13 km yesterday, and boy, are my legs tired. It takes ages to run that far. I'm two weeks away from my goal of 15 km, and after that I have finished round 5. Next round I might do a few shorter runs of maybe 6 kms every week instead of the really long run once a week. 3 runs, 3 resistance, and a stretch or yoga. I have to try and get more sleep, too. The coffee and kitkats are under control.
It was Jo Jo's second birthday on Saturday. One of Junko's friends came over with her boy who is the same age as Jo Jo, and we had a cake. Jo Jo's a good boy. Funny. Happy birthday, Jo Jo!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Round 5 - Day 69
You'll be glad to know that, after 2 years of whining, I've cut down on the coffees and kitkats. Instead of 4 cans a day, I'm on 1. Instead of 5 kitkats a day, I'm on 1. It's only early days, but I feel good, much more relaxed than usual. I bought a flask to bring milk to work, so I'm having my milk cocoa and my milk tea, but no sugar.
Footy starts in a few days. Good to get into the rhythm of all the panel shows and stuff. For me, it's Footy Classified and On The Couch on Tuesday, AFL 360 on Thursday, Footy Show on Friday, then the game on Sunday afternoon if I'm lucky, usually Monday. It's all I watch for six months. My favourite is Footy Classified, and I usually skip over On The Couch until the interview, Footy Show is good for a laugh. AFL 360 is the new one in my rotation. I don't mind it. It's probably positioned as a less combative version of Footy Classified. I don't know how they are going to differentiate themselves from it though. Regardless, they all talk about the same topics, so after I watch one, the others get a bit repetitive. It just so happens that Footy Classified is the first one I watch. If I had to dump one it would be On The Couch. Mike Sheahan shits me. But I'll watch it for Paul Roos, if what I hear is right and he's on the couch instead of Hird this year.
Predictions? Essendon - finals. Saints finished - nightmare year for them, dream is over. Maybe miss the finals. Richmond - 10th. Sydney, will get beaten by Collingwood in the Prelim, who will go on to win the flag over Fremantle. Brownlow - Adam Goodes for number 3. Off-field, one player will be done for performance enhancing drugs. 1 rape, 2 bashings, 3 DUIs. Fevola will be arrested for attempted murder.
A couple of things recently have got me thinking. One is a video I saw on Liveleak. Apparently there was some kind of viral outbreak among pigs in South Korea, and they had to put a lot of them down. Kill them. So this video is of a massive ditch in the ground, probably the size of an Olympic swimming pool, and about 4 or 5 meters deep. so what they did is herd hundreds if not thousands of live pigs into the ditch, over one of the edges, and just filled up the ditch with these pigs. You should have heard the screaming. Imagine killing the children of a thousand women in front of them, and you might get a sound like that. Inside the ditch (it was nighttime, and the whole area was lit up so they could do the work) was writhing, screaming pink mess. Then I'm assuming they just buried them all alive.
Another thing is a book I got from a friend here at work. "Meat" it's called. It's kind of a horror/sci-fi story about one group of people who treat another group just like we treat cattle. I'm really enjoying it.
Lately I have come to see vegetarianism as probably the most radical political act a person can do without breaking the law these days. Eating meat supports so many terrible things, all in the name of efficiency and profit, always at the expense of the animals and the poor. You see something like the video of the pigs and wonder, what right does anyone have to treat another living being like that? Their lives are less than worthless. Here it is if you really want to see it.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=086_1300057764
I gets you wondering about your own culpability.
Footy starts in a few days. Good to get into the rhythm of all the panel shows and stuff. For me, it's Footy Classified and On The Couch on Tuesday, AFL 360 on Thursday, Footy Show on Friday, then the game on Sunday afternoon if I'm lucky, usually Monday. It's all I watch for six months. My favourite is Footy Classified, and I usually skip over On The Couch until the interview, Footy Show is good for a laugh. AFL 360 is the new one in my rotation. I don't mind it. It's probably positioned as a less combative version of Footy Classified. I don't know how they are going to differentiate themselves from it though. Regardless, they all talk about the same topics, so after I watch one, the others get a bit repetitive. It just so happens that Footy Classified is the first one I watch. If I had to dump one it would be On The Couch. Mike Sheahan shits me. But I'll watch it for Paul Roos, if what I hear is right and he's on the couch instead of Hird this year.
Predictions? Essendon - finals. Saints finished - nightmare year for them, dream is over. Maybe miss the finals. Richmond - 10th. Sydney, will get beaten by Collingwood in the Prelim, who will go on to win the flag over Fremantle. Brownlow - Adam Goodes for number 3. Off-field, one player will be done for performance enhancing drugs. 1 rape, 2 bashings, 3 DUIs. Fevola will be arrested for attempted murder.
A couple of things recently have got me thinking. One is a video I saw on Liveleak. Apparently there was some kind of viral outbreak among pigs in South Korea, and they had to put a lot of them down. Kill them. So this video is of a massive ditch in the ground, probably the size of an Olympic swimming pool, and about 4 or 5 meters deep. so what they did is herd hundreds if not thousands of live pigs into the ditch, over one of the edges, and just filled up the ditch with these pigs. You should have heard the screaming. Imagine killing the children of a thousand women in front of them, and you might get a sound like that. Inside the ditch (it was nighttime, and the whole area was lit up so they could do the work) was writhing, screaming pink mess. Then I'm assuming they just buried them all alive.
Another thing is a book I got from a friend here at work. "Meat" it's called. It's kind of a horror/sci-fi story about one group of people who treat another group just like we treat cattle. I'm really enjoying it.
Lately I have come to see vegetarianism as probably the most radical political act a person can do without breaking the law these days. Eating meat supports so many terrible things, all in the name of efficiency and profit, always at the expense of the animals and the poor. You see something like the video of the pigs and wonder, what right does anyone have to treat another living being like that? Their lives are less than worthless. Here it is if you really want to see it.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=086_1300057764
I gets you wondering about your own culpability.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Earthquake! Day 62
So I'll give a rundown of my experience with the earthquake.
Friday afternoon, the boss is away, not much work to do. Everytime I look at the clock, it's 2:23, or 2:37. But it's Friday afternoon, and I'm thinking of stuff to do on weekend.
Then I start to feel a little dizzy. I think it was about 2:45. It's like feeling lightheaded. I've been here long enough to know that I'm okay and it's probably an earthquake. We get an earthquake probably once a month, usually really minor ones. Part of life. A few times a year you get one that gives the building a jolt, and the blinds start swaying, and everyone gets a little excited, but they are rare.
So I look around and a couple of people are looking around too, so I know it's an earthquake for sure. "Jishin!" I hear people saying.
This is when they usually stop, but this one just kept going. Then a hard jolt, and that's when I started thinking about the three floors above me. The building is really rocking, and the blinds are smacking against the window, and some of the office ladies are, not screaming, but exclaiming. Then everything calmed down a little, and I guess our building kept swaying for a while after the earthquake stopped, because it took ages to stop feeling dizzy.
My initial though when it finished was that a lot of people had just probably died somewhere. I didn't think about tsunamis or anything. I mailed Junko, who was driving at the time and didn't notice it. I updated my Facebook page. I went outside to check that my motorbike hadn't toppled over (it hadn't). Then I had a coffee with a friend, then went back to my desk and back to work. Of course everyone was buzzing, and a couple of co-workers asked me if I was here for the Hanshin earthquake in '95 (I wasn't). They said that was stronger. My dad mailed me, and my sister called at 5:10 and asked me if I was okay, and said that there was a tsunami and it was wiping out villages in Sendai. That's north of Tokyo, and I'm in Nagoya which is hundreds of kms to the south. Then I went home and turned on the news, and saw what everyone else was seeing.
Everything's as it usually is here where I live, except the TV is all about the earthquake, every channel. A chain text mail is doing the rounds telling everyone to use less power, but I don't think it's official. I haven't seen any damage at all around where I live. Shops open, no one panic buying water or food or anything, although my friend said he went to a hardware store on Sunday and all the bottled water was sold out. The roads were a little quite this morning (Monday) because Toyota and a lot of other companies around here have closed factories due to an uncertain power supply, but that's the only real difference I can see. On TV it looks crazy, and it's weird to think it's happening in the same country I live in.
The nuclear reactors are the big news now. I don't think it's anything sinister by the Japanese authorities, it's just that people here have a hard time recognizing a problem until it reaches the level of catastrophe. Having lived here so long, you see it over and over again. I'm not sure why they do it. Maybe it's a fear of admitting defeat. So when they say that yes, some radioactive gas has escaped, but don't worry about it, IT'S NOT A PROBLEM, that's when people get scared and start running. People don't know this about the Japanese, but they are terribly reckless. They think about things long and hard, but then often make the same decision as an impulsive idiot would have made. It's weird.
They say that another big earthquake is coming, because things have shifted around so much that it is highly unstable. We'll see. Who can predict these things? I feel bad for all the people in Sendai. A whole village just wiped away. Amazing. And I hope that if the reactors do blow up, the wind is blowing away from me. Or if not, I hope that I mutate into some kind of super being.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Round 5 - Day 58
Weekly, I consume approximately:
18 cans of coffee: 1800 yen.
20 Kitkats: 1200 yen
6 bags of chips: 700 yen
3700 yen a week. Holy shit.
I do this because I like this stuff. But I want to stop. I'm eating and drinking more sugar than ever, and the chips are just something to do while I watch TV.
So what are the alternatives?
Popcorn. I bought a popcorn maker, but it kind of sucks. I can only put a few kernels in at a time or else it gets jammed up. I'm lucky it didn't catch fire the first time I used it when I put a whole cup in there. But if I take the time, I can make a nice bowl of popcorn, and with butter it's good tucker. So that's the chips sorted.
The coffee. Drink milo. Or tea! I'm sick of the restless, jittery feeling I get after lunch when , let's be honest, I've had my morning can of coffee, my morning tea can of coffee, and my lunch can of coffee, and I feel like a tweaker. I must find a way to bring milk to work. Keep it cold somehow. There are no fridges here at work because I don't know why. Maybe I will buy a flask or something.
The Kitkats. I can have one for lunch. A fun size one for 20 yen. What's the difference between having one, and having three? When I have three, I smash through the first one, chomp on the second one, and then I don't remember that I've eaten the third one until I reach for it thinking it is still on my desk in front of me. So I don't need three. Or two. I should just eat the first one slowly.
This isn't about health, really, though my sugar intake is pretty high. It's about relying on shit that is bad for me. So I can have my kitkat, and then maybe some nuts or trail mix. I can have my hot, milky cup of beverage, only it's milo or tea, and there's no sugar in it. I can have my crunchy snack while I'm watching TV, only it's popcorn and not chips.
So my weekly consumption now looks like this:
5 cups popcorn: 400 yen
6 Kitkats: 120 yen
1/2 bag of Milo: 200 yen
1 kg Nuts, trail mix: 1000 yen(?)
I have never seen trail mix here in Japan. I'm sure it's on Amazon, though.
At most, this is going to cost me about 2000 yen a month, probably closer to 1000. I will buy a small flask tonight for the milk, and it will have paid for itself in two weeks.
I ran 10 km on Saturday. Easily the longest I have ever ran. The first few kms were really hard mentally. I just kept telling myself that it's always like this, and everything will find it's own rhythm and the last half will fly by. Which it did. It took me 56 minutes. I assume that's pretty slow. I didn't buy any runners, but I should because I got a pretty big blister on the ball of my foot and maybe the sneakers I'm wearing now are to blame.
I fixed my motorbike up and I'm rolling again. I have an old BMX that I would like to do up to give to Willy some day. On Sunday I wanted to buy a stand that I could clamp the frame to to make working on it easier. I went to the bike shop down the road, and they had a "Display stand" with hooks for $40 that was not exactly what I had in mind, so I thought, and it's always when I'm in a shop that I have this thought, I'll check the internet! So I went home, and checked Yahoo Japan auctions. There was a nice proper stand with a clamp, used, for $100. I did a search for the stand on Goolge, and for new it goes for double that usually. Good quality, seemed sturdy, some good reviews, so I decided that I would bid, and see how it goes, though the auction had another four or five days to go. I'll check Amazon Japan first, I thought. Bang! New ones for sale for $105 dollars. Sold! Arrived Tuesday. Umm, winning!
Amazon is awesome. I order something on Thursday, it's on my doorstep Friday when I get home from work. If they let Australia have an Amazon, you guys can say goodbye to things called "shops" where they buy shit and put it on a shelf hoping that someone else will buy it off them for double what they paid for it. No. Actually, you'll need a place where you can go to try out the products you are thinking of buying on Amazon, which is basically the role shops here in Japan have now.
I was thinking of starting with the BMX rebuild tonight, by sanding down the handlebars and prepping for painting. I'll keep track of my progress on this blog.
18 cans of coffee: 1800 yen.
20 Kitkats: 1200 yen
6 bags of chips: 700 yen
3700 yen a week. Holy shit.
I do this because I like this stuff. But I want to stop. I'm eating and drinking more sugar than ever, and the chips are just something to do while I watch TV.
So what are the alternatives?
Popcorn. I bought a popcorn maker, but it kind of sucks. I can only put a few kernels in at a time or else it gets jammed up. I'm lucky it didn't catch fire the first time I used it when I put a whole cup in there. But if I take the time, I can make a nice bowl of popcorn, and with butter it's good tucker. So that's the chips sorted.
The coffee. Drink milo. Or tea! I'm sick of the restless, jittery feeling I get after lunch when , let's be honest, I've had my morning can of coffee, my morning tea can of coffee, and my lunch can of coffee, and I feel like a tweaker. I must find a way to bring milk to work. Keep it cold somehow. There are no fridges here at work because I don't know why. Maybe I will buy a flask or something.
The Kitkats. I can have one for lunch. A fun size one for 20 yen. What's the difference between having one, and having three? When I have three, I smash through the first one, chomp on the second one, and then I don't remember that I've eaten the third one until I reach for it thinking it is still on my desk in front of me. So I don't need three. Or two. I should just eat the first one slowly.
This isn't about health, really, though my sugar intake is pretty high. It's about relying on shit that is bad for me. So I can have my kitkat, and then maybe some nuts or trail mix. I can have my hot, milky cup of beverage, only it's milo or tea, and there's no sugar in it. I can have my crunchy snack while I'm watching TV, only it's popcorn and not chips.
So my weekly consumption now looks like this:
5 cups popcorn: 400 yen
6 Kitkats: 120 yen
1/2 bag of Milo: 200 yen
1 kg Nuts, trail mix: 1000 yen(?)
I have never seen trail mix here in Japan. I'm sure it's on Amazon, though.
At most, this is going to cost me about 2000 yen a month, probably closer to 1000. I will buy a small flask tonight for the milk, and it will have paid for itself in two weeks.
I ran 10 km on Saturday. Easily the longest I have ever ran. The first few kms were really hard mentally. I just kept telling myself that it's always like this, and everything will find it's own rhythm and the last half will fly by. Which it did. It took me 56 minutes. I assume that's pretty slow. I didn't buy any runners, but I should because I got a pretty big blister on the ball of my foot and maybe the sneakers I'm wearing now are to blame.
I fixed my motorbike up and I'm rolling again. I have an old BMX that I would like to do up to give to Willy some day. On Sunday I wanted to buy a stand that I could clamp the frame to to make working on it easier. I went to the bike shop down the road, and they had a "Display stand" with hooks for $40 that was not exactly what I had in mind, so I thought, and it's always when I'm in a shop that I have this thought, I'll check the internet! So I went home, and checked Yahoo Japan auctions. There was a nice proper stand with a clamp, used, for $100. I did a search for the stand on Goolge, and for new it goes for double that usually. Good quality, seemed sturdy, some good reviews, so I decided that I would bid, and see how it goes, though the auction had another four or five days to go. I'll check Amazon Japan first, I thought. Bang! New ones for sale for $105 dollars. Sold! Arrived Tuesday. Umm, winning!
Amazon is awesome. I order something on Thursday, it's on my doorstep Friday when I get home from work. If they let Australia have an Amazon, you guys can say goodbye to things called "shops" where they buy shit and put it on a shelf hoping that someone else will buy it off them for double what they paid for it. No. Actually, you'll need a place where you can go to try out the products you are thinking of buying on Amazon, which is basically the role shops here in Japan have now.
I was thinking of starting with the BMX rebuild tonight, by sanding down the handlebars and prepping for painting. I'll keep track of my progress on this blog.
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