Tuesday 31 January 2017

Aaaaand Relax

After the stress of Elon Musk trying to steal money from me, I have now calmed down.

As a tribute to the first day of a new month (now with some more money) I have decided to write a short thing about nothing in particular, just because.

I bought a gym membership, my first in many years, and boy they're expensive here.  Prior to now I just used the club gym.  The only problem is that we haven't started the season yet (this last month of vegging has been glorious) and their ground is miles away.  I value sitting at home on the sofa for the couple of hours I get free a day, so I bit the bullet and bought a month at the local golds gym.

In related news, I've carried on the writing, link here.

Regardless of the quality of the writing, I'm happy this one didn't have a title picture with some weird rascist overtones.  I'm not going to link that one.  Don't go looking for it.

I will, one day, get round to adding pictures to these things myself instead of relying on the editorial team.  That way I can add funny MS Paint style faces and whatnot.  Definitely a great idea.

In other news there is no other news, really.  It's still pretty cold.  Not cold enough for snow.

I sent out christmas presents this year which arrived in england.  They were inspected by the post office because there were dangerous looking items inside.  There weren't, so they helpfully sent the not dangerous items back to me with a sign saying WELL DONE, NOTHING IN THIS WAS DANGEROUS, FEEL FREE TO SEND IT ALL BACK TO ENGLAND AGAIN.

No one will believe the incredible lack of logic in the decision so I'll take a picture and post it up next time, but this is actually what happened, I kid you not.  I haven't actually opened it yet to check that everything is still inside, but considering how frequently half my packages have stuff stolen out of them or just do not arrive at all, I'm not holding my breath.

But this is a positive February, so it will be fine.  Most likely.

Monday 30 January 2017

PayPal - Thieving Scum

I hate paypal, but I had to use them for some writing work I did a while ago.

I stupidly let the money accrue in the account, as transferring it cost a base 300 yen every time.  I came to take that money out, and now I can't access my account.

No worries, I'll phone them up.

6 phone calls later and they won't even pick up my number any more.  They just boot me off their lines and won't speak to me.

They have stolen a hundred quid from me.

It's a crying shame no one will read this because I would love to shout out to the world never to use them, and I would love them to go out of business (spoiler alert they won't because they're owned by amazon).

I am as angry as I have been in a very, very long time.

Paypal is a thieving organisation run by crooks.  The funny thing is, one of the founders of paypal is elon musk, the guy everyone thinks is going to save the world.  Once a thief, liar, crook and scumbag, always a thief, liar, crook and scumbag.  Beware that man.

Update - Got my money back!  Woooo!

Wednesday 25 January 2017

The Flu is Upon Us, Run for Your Lives

So Flu season is officially underway.

Every year, without fail, the dreaded influenza attacks Japan with devastating effect.

It's particularly virulent here not because they have weak immune systems, nor due to random mutations making their viruses stronger than elsewhere, but (I assume) due to geography and society.

Population density is very high here, especially in Tokyo and the cities.  If one person sneezes on a crowded train, can you hear the other passengers fall?  The answer is yes, because the sneezer can't even raise his hands to cover his mouth, so full are the trains.  This raises some obvious problems in terms of hygiene, and means that a single infected individual may make a great number of other peoples weeks worse.  I assume this isn't a problem in the middle of Siberia, where you're more likely to see a meteorite than other human beings.

The other problem is the people.  No one washes their hands.  Ever.  I've written about this a thousand times before, but it's worth repeating in case you find yourself here.  Don't touch anything, and always bring hand soap/alcohol with you.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I've never seen someone wash their hands in Japan, and I have used public toilets.  They consider rinsing fingertips under tepid water for three tenths of a second 'a thorough wash,' and go about their day as if they're not the reason everyone is always sick all the time.

My speculation on this is that a thousand years ago, when no one knew anything and a splinter could kill you, people ran their hands under water and gave up at that, because the whole thing was a futile attempt at keeping clean and what's the point.  That tradition is still observed outside temples and shrines and whatnot, where literally hundreds of thousands of people will pick up, mess around with, and then drink from the same half a dozen spoon/ladle things.  The water may come from a tap, but it can also be recycled, pumped around a closed loop and topped up with fresh water when it gets low.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

So water is clean, and touching water imbues the toucher with cleanliness, I suppose?

They all wear masks which is a horrible idea to try and stop getting ill (the masks, they do nothing), but is a great idea if you are actually sick and don't want to make anyone else ill.  For whatever reason, they do not cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze, instead preferring to throw their hands back, find the nearest person and cough/sneeze as loud/hard in their victims face as possible.  This is why masks are a great idea, because they can do that to their hearts content while limiting the risk to their victim.  I doubt the masks do much in this instance, but it's got to be better than nothing, right?  Right?

They absolutely learn about cells, viruses, bascteria and transmission in school, I've seen the books and posters telling the kids how to actually wash their hands and not cough in other peoples faces, but absolutely no one takes notice.

And the hospitals here don't have a bonkers death rate after surgery, so the doctors wash their hands.

As a nation, they know about the transmission of disease, but the grand total of shits given is zero.

In thinking about it, I suppose that's similar to our obsession with soccer.  We are absolutely horrible at it, and we'll never be any good, but everyone gets their hopes up like a bunch of idiots and then get angry and start rioting when we lose.

As a nation, we know soccer is a lie and terrible for our national health, but everyone still gets angry.

Tuesday 10 January 2017

The Cold! The Cold!

So I've caught a cold.

I hadn't slept in a few days (bar a few hours here and there) so I had to take a day off work yesterday.  I was basically carrying around the typical flu symptoms along with a severe case of zombie, and for some reason random nose bleeds, which led me to the conclusion that 'teaching,' a bunch of kids probably wasn't the best idea.

I managed to get some rest last night which led me being able to work today, which is good because money - but I'm starting to lose the energy I had at the beginning of the day.  Luckily my classes are complete and I only have to do typical busywork like making worksheets and whatnot, so the next couple of hours will pass quickly and I can get back to my sofa.

My fridge is currently a haven for unhealthy goods.  If there were a tax on owning unhealthy things I would be bankrupt with all the goodies I was sent over Christmas.  Yes, I am writing this from a place of smugness, and yes you will be jealous when you see the photograph with all the sweets I have.  But no, I am not giving you any.  They are all from england and good chocolate is rarer than wagyu beef here.

(...  Unfortunately I don't have any pictures on hand, so you will have to imagine the subtle golden halo and hymns that emanate from my open fridge.)

In other news, I tried to make a christmas dinner.

Coming into the endeavour with no experience I expected it to be a complete disaster, so I also made a backup meal of hamburgers.  In keeping with my attempts to make everything as difficult as possible, I bought ground beef and made them myself, topped and bottomed by rolls made from the home bakery.  The burgers were tasty.  Very, very tasty.

My mum sent me over some stuffing for the big occasion which ended up being some of the most delicious I've ever tasted (it's the same stuff we ate with every roast back home) and the chicken.  Well.  Only pictures will suffice in this instance.

Om nom nom.

It turns out that Japanese chickens are about half the size of english chickens, so the stuffing exploded out during cooking.  It didn't matter though, because the whole thing was unbelievably delicious.

If I'm using too many superlatives for your liking, please understand that I am a horrible cook and for a meal to end up edible, let alone tasty, is an accomplishment for the record books.

You might also notice that there aren't any vegetables.  This is because the chicken was more spread out when it was raw, and took up more of the dish, only to curl up when it was cooked.  The picture is also a little deceptive in that the dish itself is actually very small.  If I were to add potatoes and carrots, I would have to wedge them in between the chicken and the dish.  Hardly conducive to good browning I'd say!

Food nobbery(sic) aside, I'm glad I decided against adding veg because this whole endeavour took a bastard long time and was a pain in the backside.  Along with the burgers, ice cream and cake we made (those last two were group efforts) we ended up spending most of the day on the food.

Chocolate, ice cream, roast chicken, chocolate cake and burgers.  Now that's a christmas dinner.