Oh Noes.

The end of the melons is nigh.

This is the current state of the melons.  There's not much left.  I'm desperately clinging to the hope that there will be one tiny, miniscule protomelon so I can say I'm a farmer, but it's not looking likely.

There's nothing else left in the WORLD!

I don't think it's over watering because there are holes in the bottom of the bag and the soil isn't saturated, not to mention that the damn things grew like wildfire up until last week.  Damnit!

BURN IT ALL DOWN.

Melon Dramatic

So the melons are coming along nicely.  They absolutely shot up at first, but have kind of levelled out now.  The second wave of growth is coming through.

A total of eleven have germinated, leaving six stuck in eternal slumber.  The roots are starting to poke through on a few of them, so I'll have to decide which ones to keep and which ones to guerilla plant in a park somewhere around here.

Playstation controller for scale.

The spider plants have completely stopped growing.  One of two things is responsible for this - I've been keeping the melons wet as is the way of melons apparently, and that is either too wet for the spiders, or the precipitous drop in temperature this week has stunted their growth.  Seriously, it was twenty degrees last week and now it's nine.  And raining.  What is up with that?

The next step is presumably planting them into something bigger.  These pots are designed to be planted whole, the roots grow through and they disintegrate.  I think another week or so should do it, what with the weather becoming warmer for good.  Probably.

Melons Ahoy You Pervert

Not those kinds of melons.  These ones:

They're already desperately attracted to the sun so until I plant them outside I'm going to rotate them around.  By the pictures I've seen on the internet they seem to sprawl which would seem to suggest they just kind of flop over and face the sun as soon as they can.  But we don't suffer layabouts here, so they're going to grow upwards until they get their own place.

So far we have four confirmed germinations which is good news for melon lovers, as I only have three possible spots.  The strongest survive.  The weakest may well go into a playoff for the final two positions, both living in one pot with the aim being to grow little portable melons to send back to england.  I'm not sure of their edibility, but they might make good ornaments.

The other weaklings must, I'm afraid, head off into the sunset, unless of course I can sneakily plant them somewhere around here where no one will notice.  Guerilla gardening.

My Biggest Fan

So after the game against Secom I met the sponsors of IBM (besides the company itself) who had turned up for the big game at the national stadium (Chichibunomiya).  Those guys aside, I also met my biggest fan - click here to see.

My second biggest fan was this girl and her parents, along with her friends.

The youngster was practically thrown at me as we were leaving.

The woman on the right is the wife of one of our props, an exceptionally nice guy (as seems to be the case with the tight five in any team) who writes his own blog about food in Japan.  Occasionally he writes about boxing, but seeing as boxing is a dying art and food will never be so, there's a lot more to write about in the world of cakes than the ring.

Purely as an academic exercise as to how often and how much he writes, here is his blog:

http://ameblo.jp/shimoyaman2009/

It's incredible how much he writes.  Of course I can't tell you how good the content is or if his foodie credentials are up to snuff, but I assume through sheer force of volume, he has at least figured a few things out about noodles.

As another purely academic exercise (although this one involves some pictures) here is the blog I stole the picture of me from:

http://ameblo.jp/emifit/entry-11944727753.html

I include this because it has a number of pictures of the team, and the stadium, and from a neutral perspective it might be interesting to see the scale of the place and some other faces in the team - to gain a context for IBM rugby and the league we play in.

It's also my intention to write a review of the recent books I've finished.  The lack of sleep decimates critical thinking, but does wonders for working through backlogs of books.

To try and trigger a google search, here are the names of the books I've recently gone through:

The Hobbit

(The) Silmarillion

Ancillary Justice

Revelation Space

London Falling

So as per my usual timetable, those reviews will be up this time next year.

Don't Even Bother Trying to Sleep

So for the past few days I've been experimenting with not sleeping.  Again.

It's a recurring theme in my life and one that I will fight against until the day I die.

During the many, many hours I've spent awake I've thought about any number of things, but instead of boring you with them I thought I'd share a picture I took with a film camera a couple of weeks ago.

It's not the enormous film camera I showed in the last post, it's just a normal 35mm camera of unknown origins.

A sunset, not a sunrise.  Despite the number of sunrises I've unwillingly been witness to, I've never found the strength of will to overcome the headaches and actually do something productive with a camera.

I like it, which is unsurprising because I'm showing it to the internet and I took it.  It's a very low quality scan (250kb) done by the photo place, and I don't have a print to see just how it would end up looking in the real world - but I really quite like it nonetheless.

I definitely suggest blowing it up to full size and just looking for a few seconds.  It grows on you.

At least it did with me.

The usual disclaimers with my insomniposts, I can't be held accountable for readability or spelling due to the fact my brain is eating itself instead of sleeping like a normal brain.

Oh and I almost forgot, I saw a cool train on Sunday:

Happy Birthday to Me

Before you read this note that it's very late and I'm rushing to get to bed, so there will be many typing errors - many of which will never be fxed.

Okay that one was a joke.

But the rest are not.




So today is my birthday.  If you're reading this then the chances are you're family and therefore in England.  As such, it's probably still my birthday.  Or does that count?  Is timezone directly related to birthdays?  I.e. does my existing in a different one mean it happened at a different time?  Geographically and physically speaking that's an ugly idea, but I rather like the sound of timezones being actual entities that aren't simply human creations and therefore my birthday is still ongoing for you.  I may get you shit presents for Christmas but at least I've given you an extra eight hours.  But only on my birthday.  And I want those hours back when I come home, whenever that may be.

I'm writing this on the back of an envelope on the train and a mother of four just gave her eldest (8 years of age) a full can of coffee.  It's 10.30pm.  I'm not a parent but that seems silly not to mention unfortunate for whoever is living under that apartment when they get home.

I went to a training session for my new job (same company, new area).  I contemplated ending it about 50 times.  "This is a child.  Do not punch the child."  I may be exaggerating but not nearly as much as you might think I am.  It started okay, but after the nice american and patronising but amicable enough ozzie left, a loud, possible tourettes suffering yank took the floor and I spent the next 2 hours with a headache listening to 20 minute anecdotes about whatever shit took his fancy.  He was given coffee at an early age and probably has 3 brothers.  Prick.

Anyway, there were no windows so jumping out of there was out of the question.  I considered breaking a chair and beating myself to death with a chairleg.  Then I thought that I may as well beat him to death.  THEN I thought that I might get put in a cell with someone just like him in some kind of Bardic or cosmic comeuppance.  So I just sat there hating him.  I have 'training,' tomorrow and the day after so Christ knows if either of us will make it out alive.

So you're wondering why I'm on the train at what is now 11pm.  IBM training is on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  During the weekday it starts at 7.45 and finishes around 9.30.  It actually finishes around 10 because everyone just practices their own thing, whether that be passing or kicking or whatever.  So here I am, absolutely dreading the next couple of days of 'training,' and hoping that I can just get to sleep tonight.

I often find that I write the most when I'm feeling blue, and that's certainly the case today.

I loathe birthdays, with the very limited exception of a couple of friends and family, I find the entire ordeal entirely pointless.

I think I've used this picture before, but I have rarely felt more like the bear during any part of my life so far.  I don't know why specifically today, but I'm definitely feeling down at the moment.  The girlfriend got me a very thoughtful present and made dinner so that's cheered me up somewhat.  I'm waiting on presents from Grandad and Mum so when they arrive I'm sure I'll be able to look back on today and smile at this post - but for now I miss everyone dearly.  I even had a little weep on the train home; combining the extreme fatigue of today (training was very hard and I was borderline postal by the end of the 'training,' today) with my generally negative attitude towards events like today entirely accounts for the sadness so I guess I'll just try to not think about it.  It's times like these that I consider a stiff drink.

And that was today.  I woke up at 7.45, spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where my socks were.  I spent a goddamned lifetime listen to an utter berk talk bollocks, then went to training which was admittedly life affirming.  I got home about 30 minutes ago and now I'm off to bed.

Happy Birthday I guess.

Chest Bump

So I played for Lion this weekend.

I started for only the second time this season, and I managed to snag a try by being in the right place at the right time when one of us put a kick through that bounced horribly for the other team.

I also bruised my windpipe, by letting someone hit me in the chest. The result is that I have a tiny amount of blood present every time I cough, meaning that my mouth constantly tastes like blood. Which is gross. I didn't carry on because coughing up blood is as scary as hell, and because my chest, and by extension shoulders, neck and back, were bloody sore. I went to the hospital and had an x-ray, despite knowing it was pointless and was promptly sent home. I'm still coughing a tiny amount of blood so I'll go back to the hospital and tell them to cauterise it or something.

Now for the defence: I had to tackle him in a moronic position because there was a 2 on 1 overlap and without me making like a scarecrow, he would have just passed out of the tackle and they would have scored. So there. Anyway, that aside, I have some more pictures from climbing last week, and a couple from the game this week.

The guy behind (his name is Yuu) has got the best expression I think I've ever seen in a picture.  Look at that smile!

This is me prepping for one of the pictures further down the post.

This is me trying to smile while weighing a lot.

This is me failing to smile for long enough.

This is, without a doubt, the best picture of me that I have ever seen.  I'm trying to smile while holding onto the wall with one hand - and it just isn't working.  I smile every time I see this!

This is the obligatory end of season team picture.  I'm bloody cold at this point so have my tracksuit and hat on.  We won all our games this season so we're going to play in a promotion match in two weeks, against Japan Airlines.

And this is just another shot of me getting up to the protrusion for the photo.

Not What I Promised

These two photo's aren't the ones I promised, but tough cookies, because they're the ones you're getting (at least for now).

I played my first game for a new rugby team.  They pay for my travel and give me free bananas, so it's a good deal for all involved.  (I don't like bananas, but don't tell them that.)

There are two incredibly frustrating things about this team though.  Firstly, they like to kick.  They like to kick a lot.  I was told beforehand that their kickers would regularly gain sixty metres, that the standard of kicking was superb.  The standard of place-kicking is sublime, there's no doubting that.  This is one of the few teams I've played in where scoring on the wing doesn't preclude the extra points.

Kicking from hand however; that's a different matter.  It's okay.  It's not spectacular.  In fact, of the four tries scored against us, two came from poor kicks gifting the opposition lots of space.  Space they decided to use by running the ball.  They scored because they didn't kick.  There is a lesson here somewhere.

I am not a great kicker - certainly not the 60m kind.  However none of these players are the 60m kind either (certainly not from what I saw yesterday) so I am equal to the back three in that regard (at least in my humble).  They've pigeon-holed me as some kind of ape who can only run. The truth is, I'm an ape who realises that kicking gains you thirty metres, loses you the ball and subsequently puts your team under pressure.  A truly exceptional kick will alleviate pressure, but the word 'exceptional,' is indicative of how often those kicks happen.

The second frustrating point is that the team is already set.  I'm the fourth player in a backline of three, one of whom is the captain.  The odds of me breaking into this team seem slim.  Combine the inherent cronyism evident in any established team with my lack of Japanese rugby culture (kicking = good, running+tackling = bad) means it's going to be bloody hard to get a first team position.

This, however, won't stop me from trying.  Even if I only get twenty-five minutes in this team (like at the weekend) it might be in front of someone important in another team, who just happen to lack a winger or full-back.

Just to make my point, if J.P. Pieterson were Japanese, he would have kicked it and this try wouldn't have happened:

Obviously J.P.  Pieterson is a massive dickhead, who was hitting players and giving crap all game (sledging goes so far, this cock takes into criminal territory, I'm surprised he wasn't arrested after the match) but his running gained at least 150m in this game, and those are metres with possession.  They're invaluable.

The third thing, now that I think about it, is defence.  Pieterson smashed a couple of England players, Ashton did the same for us.  The score in the game I played in was nine tries to four.  Defence really isn't a priority in Japanese games.  They didn't score down my wing when I was on, which would otherwise be a massive boon for any winger, but I don't think they care enough to even notice a statistic like that.  At one point I'd tracked back to the opposite wingers line in order to help out.  They chipped it over me and scored anyway, but I was in foreign territory for sure.

In all, a bad day.  The realisation that playing for this team is inevitably going to involve keeping the bench warmed up is a bummer.  Then again, maybe it will spur me on to play harder.  Or maybe I'll just give up.  It'll be an interesting test of character for sure.

And at last, the pictures.  Only two I'm afraid.

Random Photography Roundup

So this set of pictures is from last week.  I've been rather busy, and as such haven't had time to update the blog.  These pictures are from our semi-final game against Tama; who like to gouge eyeballs and generally play below the law.  Such is the way with Japanese teams who aren't physically strong enough to compete legally.  Bastards.

Anyway, I'm going to put some more pictures up tonight, and I'll annotate those tomorrow.

This first picture is our winger.  He thinks he's a fly half, but he really isn't.  There's always a cheeky smile going on around him though, which makes super closeup perfect for this guys face.

Yamagen is the club manager.  He's helped me a ton since I started playing for the Gaijin, and he even recommended me for the national 7's trials.  A nice guy, even if we can't talk because I'm terrible at Japanese, and he's terrible at English.  His written language is pretty good though, for some reason.  Maybe he reads forms all day.

Neither French nor Spanish, this basque ambassador always starts fights, and subsequently gets sent off.  I think his record is 1 minute on the field before being yellow carded.

I took this picture because the taxi doors close themselves in Japan.  Look, no hands ma!

The ground we played at was on top of a department store, undergoing repairs by the looks of things.  The scale of development is quite incredible - the number of different organisations that must come together in order to build something of this size on such prime real estate is mind boggling.  Or it might all be owned by one of the mega corporations that own Japan; a more likely scenario now that I think about it.

This was in one of the flower beds, I don't know what it means, what it stands for or why it's there, but it's 'cute,' (if that's your kind of thing) so it sums up Japan quite conveniently.

Our actual fly-half, getting on in years and only three feet tall, weighing as much as a newborn; still does a job and tackles everything.

The guy who forgot our kit in the previous game (match report link here) who plays centre, and enables a number of options with decent distribution (even if he's stopped giving me the ball, preferring the other centre!).

We lost to Tama by 1 point, so this kind of sums up the long walk home mood of the team.  We should have gone through, and I personally had three opportunities to ensure we made it to the final.  I am bitterly disappointed in my own performance, it simply wasn't good enough.

The long walk home.

Just a random couple riding past on a bicycle.  I don't know why I took this picture.

There was a giant ferris wheel at the place.  I don't know why.

The same ferris wheel.  It really was rather large.

The ubiquitous bicycle picture.

This random guy turned up when we were ruing the loss, only to turn on an mp3 player and start blasting music to no one but himself.  Bizarre.

Mao had shoulder surgery the week before this game, and the great big Samoan was sorely missed.

It's traditional (insofar as paper was invented) for Japanese people to give each other business cards at every opportunity.  I managed to take a picture of this guy as he handed one to me.

I like taking pictures when something is in the foreground, so the subject is actually only a small part of the overall picture.  I don't know why.

Another Fijian, big Joe and I have a bet to see who will score the most tries this season.  As the season is over, I don't know who has the highest tally.  Considering I haven't scored in a while, and he always scores one or two a game, I'm guessing he beat me out.

Jesse, whose shorts I lost (and someone else found) talking to someone.

I couldn't decide what was more interesting to photograph, Jesse or the water.  I took both, to make sure I had the right one.

I took a couple of pictures of these two, but I don't know which one is better.  Answers on a postcard.

And the second of the two.

Do not feed pigeons.  Ever.

When you're least expecting it, I'm there with the camera.

Natsu is the other guy who helped me go to the national trials.  He translated my form for me, and helped me work out where the station was, and what time it began.  Thanks Natsu!

Not the most flattering photo, but he's been an enormous help to me and the team, so he deserves two pictures.

The Fijian contingent is quite strong in the gaijin, and they love showing up for the photographs.

Part one of the series entitled: 'Why I don't have pictures taken of me.'

Part two, sporting a fetching burger.

Joe trying to steal the burger.

It's rare to see a Fijian not laughing or smiling.

But here is one such picture.

I wonder if he's doing a supermodel face?

Or a stroke?  Then again, I don't come off any better in any of these photographs.

Something funny on that phone.

Not looking.

He's got that bloody camera again.

He's just been told that he owes me a thousand yen.

Nik, looking how I felt.

Jesse, walking into an out of focus ferris wheel.

Everyone seems to have kids, and they go around attaching themselves to pretty much whoever wants to give them attention.

Liam has a stock photo face.  This is it.

Poor Sean, full after being made to drink too much.

Peekaboo.

Another one where someone isn't looking; it gets some nice pictures on occasion.

A picture of a person with a camera taking a picture of a person.

Let's go home.

The same deal as before, whoever has the patience for kids will put up with them.  It's a really friendly bunch.

Teaching the kids how to use technology at a really early age.

I would say he wasn't expecting the picture, but every time I turned around he was pulling a face, expecting me.  A difficult subject to capture.

Some guy looking for money under a vending machine.

The natural disposition of a Fijian; laughter.

Bored of having pictures taken of him.

And finally, a woman in a kimono that I met on the way home.  They normally have interesting patterns of flowers and whatnot, but this one was more abstract which made it interesting in itself.

And that's it.  Check back later for some more pictures.