hrh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Mw6b1T50U

...the overlap.

Crap!

I really wish I could read Japanese.

I'd love to know more about your work.

I haven't gone out to take pictures.... yet.

But I did get a new camera recently. It's nothing great, but my last camera died.

Of course, that means I no longer have an excuse for not taking pictures.

Should I assume from what you said, that writing your thesis (is that what's it's called) is going slower than you'd like?

Thanks for saluting me for being the "Knight of Networking". When I find people I like here, I try my best to keep up with them. Of course, other times I disappear for several days. Or longer sometimes. But I find it easy to be friends online, easier than offline.

Speaking of friends, how is it that your policy of not adding anyone as a friend changed? I noticed that change quite awhile ago.

I like your profile pic also, nice tasty buns with just the right amount of meat to bite.

Hope you're doing okay these days.

Merry Christmas!

I've been talking about helper monkeys all week. I thought about helper zombies or mummies but I think they would move to slow to be of much use in the workplace. I'll wait for the pictures, Japanese mummies may have ninja traits that could be of use.

You're not here?

Then how'd you post that?

Hrmmm.....

Oh, Pushers or creepy Groper pictures. That is all I know about the Japanese rail system. Also anything having to do with Japanese giant hornets or the sports drink called Vaam.

That's nothing-reminds me of a time on the subway in Osaka a guy in a wheelchair and his helper/attendant/minion fought to get on (8 am or so) then had to fight to get off the next stop. No, seriously, I do truly hate the trains at that hour, but wonder if it's the moment of intimacy that truly fuels Japanese group-think as we know it

Anyway, I'm not quite a troglodyte as I do have a garden to wander into when I'm tired of rummaging through boxes I never got around to when I moved, or elbow's sore from resting on a desk that's far too short for me while online, but yeah, maybe some sort of third space "human contact without actually talking" would be nice, at least between nights out. But, alas, there are no starbii within quite a few km. And Misdo makes my head hurt (OH-oh-OH!! Do-do-do-do-do-do-donatsu!) after an hour or two, and I don't smoke nearly enough to keep up with the ojisan's at Doutor, so what's a guy to do?


btw any place for good barbque in Tokyo? There's a wicked shop called Savannah in America-mura if you ever come over to Kansai. I hear there's a Greek restaurant over there. THAT makes me jealous...

Heirloom Rice? That is sweet.

Have you seen:
Rice the band


After a bit or research it appers that the Ascii gods divine

=P~

as the drooling smiley which looks like


in graphic form.

I need a cosmic irony smiley, something that expresses
"Seymour Cray, supercomputer architect, died of head and neck injuries suffered in a traffic collision. His vehicle a Jeep Cherokee was designed using a Cray supercomputer."
or
I expressed reservations at the meeting about our ability to complete project X, now I am in charge of project X (insert cosmic irony here)

Some sort of smiley thumbing its nose to the sky.

I guess I should be almost glad that I scared you a bit. I suppose my entry was to give a glimpse into what goes on in my mind, and if you were scared, well, it worked.

Glad it didn't frighten you off though.

I can be a bit of a snob about some types of people too. Or rather stereotypes of people I should say. People who are straight edge is one 'type' who generally bug me, but then I get to know one and she's really nice. They always just seem so smug.

Can we please invent the history eraser button for days like this!?!

Eliot Spitzer has us covered though
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/health/EOLGUIDE012605.pdf

I highly recommend filling some of these forms out and sliping them in here and there anytime you are forced to fill out forms. It will send a clear message, but if questioned just looks like you mixed things up at your house.

I have now tried out the recipe! I was really worried about how it would turn out, as I attempted to convert all the cups in grams, which was more complicated than I thought...

I have to admit, it's a teeny bit heavy for my liking - I'm more a light fruity sponge girl. However, my parents (who were very sceptical of the idea), really liked it!

Thanks for giving me ideas! I've been searching around the web for various other recipes. Next on my list are zucchini raisin outflake cookies!

I've had chocolate zucchini cake before. It sounds gross, but tastes great.

I don't remember any orange glaze though.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. And thanks for remembering that it's on Bastille Day. I used to give that as my answer when people would ask my birthday. Now Bastille Day is celebrated as a Psychiatric Patients' Freedom Day, which I think is kind of funny for me.

And I did have cake, though it was ice cream cake.

I guess I have different categories of friendship. But when it comes to thinking of 'true' friends, I get very strict. I have other friends - friends on committees. But it's more of a friendly chit-chat, how's the family, kind of thing. It's not close on a really emotional level. Yes, I guess some of those people are friends in the eyes of most people. I can see that. And maybe what I consider to be friends are people that others would single out as best friends. I dunno.

I guess I've generally never had many friends by whatever definition you use, so maybe that's why I look at friends more intimately than most. Now that I'm getting to know more people, my view of who's a friend is actually widening.

No, this isn't MySpace thankfully, so you don't have to add everybody in sight as a friend. But that doesn't mean you have to go to the other extreme and add no one. I'm still trying to figure that part out with you.

Chocolate zucchini cake? That sounds disgusting in princple, but with the amount of courgettes we have may be worth trying. I think during the War they came up with all sorts of strange stuff with courgettes because they lacked so many other things - I think courgette and ginger jam (jelly) was pretty popular, and my mum has told me they used to make a molasses from marrows filled with rum, or something or other.... it all sounds so wrong to me!

I don't think ants cause problems in themselves, unless they decide to build ants nests around your plants (which they tried to do with our artichokes). I guess it's conceivable that as they like sap so much, they may try collecting it themselves, but I've never seen it, and I don't think they would ever collect that much. The major problem they cause is really with the aphids and blackfly, partly because they cause MASSIVE infestations. I would just be wary that if they are crawling all over your plants, they are probably scouting out places suitable to farm aphids. But maybe ants are different in Japan.

Not much rain here. We had some rain, but it's been so dry and warm, it almost instantly goes...

Is the climate really changing that much in Japan? It just seems to get drier here and winters less colder. I can't remember when we last had proper snow. It's partly why the ants are so bad. Winters are too dry.

Okay, I'll accept that you're uptight about wanting to make sure you don't have anyone on your friends list.

As for photography, I'm thinking of doing just as you suggest - taking the camera and some bear spray out into the wilderness and taking pictures there. Then I don't have to worry about other people, and it'll give me some practice using the camera.