Autosave? My ass!

The post below – as you can see from the tags – had A LOT more in the body, but for some reason WordPress didn’t save it, and now it’s gone. Thanks WordPress for messing up a couple of hours of work. You suck.

 

Moments in ridiculousness and other stories.

It’s not all hand-wringing and fantasizing about the end of the world on this blog.

It’s like a million dorks just jizzed in their pants all over the world, as Spock and Kirk (Nimoy and Shatner) reunite at some conference thingy.

Some things should have been left in the 80s and DO NOT deserve to be revived… unless they’re mullets.

In America, children have to be taught how to play. Read that sentence again and realise just how much childhood has been killed.

If you have some time on your hands then here’s some scientific mysteries to wrap your intellect around.

Here are some colour photographs from pre-revolutionary Russia.

Oh, and this is what a trillion dollars would look like.

Japan files:

Standing only bars, or tachinomi, are enjoying a renaissance thanks to the recent belt tightening going on in Japan. Those belts must be so tight by now, they must be threatening to cut off circulation to the lower half of the body. I guess that’s another reason for the falling birth rate….

 

Japan Stuff

Hey reader,

It’s been a historic week in Japan with the change of government and all. To be honest I never really thought I’d see it, but since the LDP has spent the past few years changing prime ministers more often than their underwear, and each one being steadily more uncharismatic and prone to foot-in-mouth disease than the previous one, I guess it was only a matter of time. That and the economy is not getting any better and simply the LDP ran out of ideas.

So there are a lot of expectations for the new mob, except that most of them are rich old men like the like lot, and also inherited their seats from relatives – like the last lot. Heck, even the new PM was a member of the LDP until the 1990s – and his grandfather was the first LDP PM. You just can’t escape a shadow like that so easily. The bureaucrats certainly don’t seem to be panicking. The important thing is going to have to be patience on the part of the public, and for the DPJ to actually make good on some of their big promises.

Newsweek had a series of three interesting articles about Japan which were written before the election, but they’re a good primer for what’s been ailing Japan politically and economically in recent years as well as what needs to happen to make Japan a prosperous nation again.

The NY Times has a a look at the hostessing culture in Japan. What’s going to be interesting to see is how the continuing economic malaise is going to affect this particular part of Japan’s economy. The clubs and hostesses (and hosts) rely on a steady stream of cashed-up clients and as the cash dries up it remains to be seen how these young people are going to make their money. In a worst case scenario, Japan could end up like Thailand, but things would have to get much worse for it to happen to that extent. Currently Japan’s GDP is about 18 times that of Thailand’s.

Adbusters looks at Japan’s malaise in psychological, rather than economic, politcal or cultural terms.

And this driver represented Japan’s malaise on a highway by driving 47km in the wrong direction.

This article brings a lot of Japan’s quieter and more sinister aspects out for an airing.

The Return of Charisma Man!? One can hope! (Probably the best comic ever about foreign life in Japan)

Oh yeah, and my corrupt, company-destroying former boss is in prison. Yay!

 

Continued Injustice

Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to a further 18 months imprisonment in her villa in Burma. This effectively removes her from being able to take part in the next scheduled ‘elections’. The country continues to suffer under the rule of the junta.

I hope that one day soon I can see her walk to freedom and Burma rise again, like Nelson Mandela did in South Africa not so long ago.

 

And if things weren’t bad enough…

It turns out George W. Bush started the Iraq invasion to stop a couple of mythical monsters. Seriously!? YES! Another reason to stop the insanely religious of all persuasions from ever holding political office.

That foreclosure problem in the USA has hardly started hitting its stride. Those green shoots are dying fast, eh, Mr. Obama?

The Arctic Ocean could well be a toxic mess by the end of this century. I guess it will be that way almost everywhere. I guess if we haven’t fished the oceans to death by then, the fish wouldn’t be able to live there anyway…

Enjoy it all while you still can.

 

RIP John Hughes

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was probably one of the top five formative movies of my teenage years. I wore my original edition Save Ferris t-shirt until it fell apart. I loved The Breakfast Club too.

Thanks, John, for the movies and successfully reflecting the values of a generation – while being so cool about it.

UPDATE – This blog is amazing – from a lady who was John Hughes’ penpal for a couple of years in the 80s. It goes to show that not only sometimes Hollywood people are human, but also that John Hughes was truly an awesome human being.

 

A little light reading

I’m off to Vietnam for a couple of weeks. I finally worked how to make another blog, so allow me to present “a fnersh ambling” for your travel blogging pleasure.

This place will be reserved for useful info, rants and other whatevers. Updated infrequently, of course! My dear reader, you must be annoyed. Apologies.

I the past twelve months I’ve read a few books but two standouts are Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” and “No Logo”. Now they were works of someone of astounding intelligence and boundless courage. Recently she gave a speech which updated some of her ideas and reflected recent events. Every word is gold.

There have been so many more gems. Oh so many. But time and tide wait for no one. Time to weigh anchor and set sail.

 

Stuff ‘n’ nonsense

Gawd this is crap. My computer is now over three years old which means it would be drawing a pension and peeing it’s pants in human years. I can’t have more than three applications open at once without it crapping itself and freezing up for a couple of minutes at a time once every thirty seconds or so. It’s already done it twice just typing up this paragraph, so I hope you appreciate the frustration I’ve endured to bring this to you, dear Reader. A new PC would be appreciated if you’re feeling generous… I didn’t think so either.

The scientific world was very pleased to note the discovery of a 47 million year old fossil of a primate, Darwinius masillae, nicknamed Ida. This fossil is very interesting as it is a distant relative of chimps, apes – and us. The article goes into some detail about why this discovery is so interesting.

Speaking of things archaeological, a brewery in Delaware has starting brewing beers based on ancient recipes, including one Finnish ninth-century brew, one based on cocoa and one dating from 9000 years ago in China. I wish I could get my paws on these for a taste!

My latest bit of conspiracy entertainment has been the activity over the 2012 collapse of civilization or new beginning of an age of enlightenment. Basically it’s a New Age apocalypse (since the Christians got their hooks into 2000) and deserving of such suspicion and ire as any other end-of-days scenario. It’s really got the new-agers’ knickers in a tizzy and some of the ‘docos’ I’ve been downloading have been hysterical in their leaps of faith and gaps in logic.

U2 put out an album recently in case you didn’t know, and it’s likely you didn’t since no one’s buying it. In other news, the mainstream media have caught on to the idea that U2 haven’t done anything good for at least 10 years and should’ve quit while they were ahead – you know, after The Joshua Tree… wait… that was 20 years ago!

A DVD that stores data in five dimensions and can hold up to four terabytes of data!? Sign me up! The online dictionary built into Firefox desn’t even recognise the word ‘terabytes’, that’s how crazy (and awesome) it is!

Jake Nyberg is a hero and should at least be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize or something like that. These men are also legends. So are these men.

Sesame Street is 40. Wow.

In Japan, the declining birthrate is still the elephant in the corner of the room. It’s going to completely change this country over the next fifty years and yet no one is seriously doing anything about it. As the economy declines and women hold off on marrying for longer, some men are simply giving up on the idea of finding a decent job and a woman and becoming ‘herbivorous men’.

Some Japanese women haven’t forgotten the art of shameless self-promotion though…

The H1N1 debacle continues and even though they aren’t shutting down schools in Japan (or in other places) any more, it makes you wonder what they’re going to come up with next. One scenario is that vaccinations against the flu will become mandatory, using the fear of a second wave to coerce people into agreeing to it. The problem with that is that what goes into the vaccines. Just ask any US military personnel. Vaccines have becomes places to experiment on human subjects, often without their knowledge or consent. Scary? You betcha.

If you love travelling and you also happen to be paranoid – like me – then this could likely make you want to stay in your room forever.

Speaking of staying indoors, stories like this make me so grateful I live here in Japan and not in Australia. What a sad place it has become if people have to live in fear – and those with the power to do something about it, don’t.

In a shocking development a study has concluded that eating too much makes you fat. Sounds pretty obvious hey, but the interesting thing from this study is that exercise – or a lack of exercise – has almost no impact. It’s the food, fatty.

The US has mislaid quite a few items of military hardware over the past few decades; guns, ammo, tanks, even a whole destroyer. However it’s the missing nukes that we should be really worried about…

George Friedman has seen the future – and it aint pretty…

Americans have often been described as ‘cowboys’, but it turns out that ‘pirates’ may have been a more accurate description, at last of the ‘Founding Fathers’ who penned the constitution. It looks like they (Thomas Jefferson at least) could have been influenced by the model of pirate democracy that was practiced on the ships that haunted the Caribbean and Atlantic.

So what are some of the former Bush war criminals aides up to these days? A lot are busy making money in their former fields, but Condi Rice is now a professor at Stanford, an appointment which is being met with some resistance by the students of that university.

An interesting piece about the continued rise of single motherhood.

Enough for now – more later…

 

Long time no see

It’s been a while eh.

Excuses:

1) My internet got cut off. Pretty drastic I realise but I had a run-in with my internet provider. In Japan they like you to pay by automatic bank transfer but since banks in Japan work by your name in Japanese I’ve always had problems with this. If you’re a foreigner your name gets rendered in katakana, so by that measure my name has been written by the authorities in no less than four different ways! Also having a middle name has been a problem since Japanese people don’t have middle names. Anyway, the ISP wanted me to switch to this system, I sent in my deatils and they couldn’t get out any money. In their infinite wisdom they sent me a letter telling me I had asked to have my internet disconnected! Wrangling ensued. They couldn’t reverse the decision so the internet was duly cut off and I had to send back the modem. I had to then apply for a new connection which took a few weeks for them to set up(!) and then they sent me a new modem and voila! I’m back!

I could’ve switched to a new ISP, sure, but the only one who does English support of which I’m aware is Yahoo! and I’ve had friends have problems with them so I didn’t want to deal with them.

2) Work. With the economy the way it is, parents are cutting back on expenses and one of the things that have been cut is any extra education for their kids. So my company closed one branch and they’ve cut a number of staff. This has not been good for the stress levels, as you could imagine. Thanksfully things have more-or-less settled and I have gainful employment – for now.

So now let the rants commence. Please excuse my sources being so far out of date!!

 

Now, with 39% more secret ingredient!

High ho, high ho. It’s weekend time again, thankfully.

The weather’s just starting to come good and the cherry trees are starting to blossom, so it won’t be long before every open space near a sakura will be populated by people sitting on blue plastic tarps, drinking and eating themselves into oblivion. It’s a great time of year. It looks like I’ll be catching up with some ex-Nova buddies next Sunday for the annual Himeji Castle pilgrimage.

It’ll be the same day as the Tatsuno Spring festival but after I went last year with my mother, I don’t think this year will live up to the good time had last time. It is interesting though, with people parading through the old town dressed up in samurai costume – even with warriors on horses. It’s a good chance to take heaps of pix, as I did last year.

There’s also the crowning of the new Miss Tatsuno which has got to be one of the lamest beauty pageants in the world. For the record, there are TWO Miss Tatsunos for some reason… safety in numbers? Maybe it’s so they can go to the bathroom together – who knows. What a year is promised to the winners though, with the chance to appear at every local community event as the eye-candy! I wonder if the girls really get many opportunities arising from the role…

I’ll be in a secret location for a few days from April 1 to 4. All I can tell you is that it will be sunny!

I’ve been going on some dates recently but it’s proving to be quite frustrating at times. I prefer women who are interesting and are good to talk to but it’s hard to break through the Japanese shyness barrier. I’m sure Japanese women are interesting and brainy – as well as sexy – as I’ve met quite a few, but when you’re going on a date with one there’s often this coyness that descends, making conversation a real minefield. Coyness can be sweet (as Morrissey sang, “Coyness is nice…”) but say the wrong thing, or be too assertive and it’s game over man.

I’ve been trying to go out with one woman but it’s been a chore just to get some free time. Also she won’t go out of the house unless she’s 100% healthy, so a couple of snuffles and she cancels. We’re up to three or four aborted dates versus one actual date so I’m thinking of just not bothering. Her English is OK and she’s a cutie but she’s shyyyyyyy….

I have also been on a couple of dates with a woman who speaks absolutely no English, so that’s been an extra challenge. Dictionaries have come in very handy! She’s a sweetheart but I honestly can’t see us being more than dinner friends. The language barrier really is so hard to traverse. It is an interesting experience to try to develop a relationship of sorts in a language completely not your own. I hope she’s enjoying the adventure as much as I am.

Many foreigners in Japan have dated and developed relationship with Japanese women and have sometimes gone on to marry them and live long and happy lives with them. I’m glad I’m friends with some of them as they give me hope! Others (like me) have been burned by the experience and have often been left wondering just what is this creature known as the Japanese female. This article may shed some light on the subject and it brings to the fore that Japanese women can fall into two distinct categories, which for the sake of argument I’ll term as outward and inward thinkers. The outward thinkers tend to have travelled or lived in other countries and have taken on a more international way of thinking. They are certainly more assertive and opinionated and probably more widely read. They are also more likely to settle on a partner who complements their personality. The inward thinkers tend to have not travelled much and if they have they’ve probably only been on tours with other Japanese people, and for short periods of time (ie. less than a week). Their expectations are fuelled by their parents, fashion magazines and (in short) society. They tend to want to marry a rich man who will give them what they want. There’s no thought given to love: marriage is the goal, the means to an end.

As the man in the article says, “You see, you have it backwards. So many Japanese women put the cart before the horse: you think that if you get married you’ll finally be happy, if only, if only you could just wear the dress and walk down the aisle, then you could truly find bliss. But guess what, marriage is not the path to happiness, it’s exactly the opposite. Happiness is the path that leads to marriage. Only when you are truly happy with someone and you love them to the core of your being can you even broach the idea of marrying that person. Tough concept, I know.”

Good words.

Japan’s rice farmers are doing it tough, and things aren’t getting much better. They can’t make much of a living and as most of them are currently over 60, before too long rice farming will become a thing of the past.

According to the Australian Treasurer, Wayne Swan, the Australian economy ‘can’ emerge from the current economic downturn in good shape. The newspaper has changed that into ‘will’ in the first paragraph of the story, and the headline also makes it clear that prosperity is a certainty. Memo to the editors, there’s a world of difference between ‘can’ and ‘will’!

Kevin Rudd went to Washington, met Obama and like Obama he come back with ideas that have left us wondering if we really just got an extension of the previous regime. I went on about his not-so-green environmental policies before, but now Rudd’s doing a Howard on Afghanistan. My sentiments on the invasion and occupation of the Middle East are quite clear, but you really have to wonder exactly what Obama said to Rudd to get him to be such a lapdog as this. This is going down as Obama looks to expand the war into Pakistan, more Australians are dying there and the Afghan people are proving to be more than a match for the invaders.

With Obama continuing the American Project and betraying the faith placed in him by the American people, with continued economic collapse threatening our civilization and people already living in tent cities, it’s interesting to note how people are responding. Some are going back to gardening, with a vengeance.  It’ll be very interesting if the collapse of the global network fuels a resurgeance in local community activism.

One problem with this is that the seeds people buy are only sold through a few massive agri-business corporations. This article looks at how something as seemingly important as the Doomsday Seed Vault on the Norewegian island of Svalbard in the Arctic Circle is a front for guaranteeing a seed supply in the event of biological warfare based on the very seeds used to grow our food. If you think it’s just conspiracy, these companies have already developed vaccines that induce abortions as well as corn that renders men infertile. Genetics is scary… and don’t mention population control.

Rolling Stone has put out an article which attempts to place the economic crisis into the context of a massive takeover – of the government by a few extraordinarily rich people. It makes a convincing case. It does get a bit wordy for the financially illiterate like myself, but it’s worth persisting. The final paragraph sums things up pretty clearly though; “These people were never about anything except turning money into money, in order to get more money; valueswise they’re on par with crack addicts, or obsessive sexual deviants who burgle homes to steal panties. Yet these are the people in whose hands our entire political future now rests.”

The U.N. wants to re-organise the world economy around a green-energy model, which they (naturally) will oversee. I can’t see that happening at all, to be honest…

I gave the Russians and Chinese proposals for a new world currency an airing before and it looks like the Americans are seriously considering it, which stunned the world markets, forcing an immediate retraction. Horse. Barn door.

North Korea’s said it’s going to fire an experimental communications satellite into orbit so Japan’s going on full alert in case it self distructs and rains debris over the countryside. Things are a little tense. For the record, the last time the North Koreans fired this kind of rocket they did it without warning and launched it across Japan before it landed in the Pacific Ocean.

Another cog in the incredibly complex climate machine has been identified and quantified: atmospheric dust.

Not much wacky stuff here. Apologies.

Tom Ellard has posted a bunch of Severed Heads videos online though, so please enjoy.

See you under a cherry tree with a bottle of sake and some onigiri!