Well, as I sit here, I fear the worst. Japan has done next to nothing to address the Corona situation. Here in Sapporo they closed schools for about 2 weeks at the start of March… and that’s about it. Almost a laughable (little) amount of testing has occurred, just check the stats. The government, both […]
Well, it descends. All around. Nowhere to hide. No country to escape to. I’ve never liked crowds, which has always made Japan a tough sell for me. Now is the time to cuddle up with a few good books, build a model, make some artwork, study for a Linux exam that may or may not […]
For the last several months, in addition to my continuing disengagement in Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (the current big three in terms of damage to the human soul), I have been actively avoiding the news. It’s not a total unawareness of current events, but a general decrease in the sources of information about those events. […]
Basically 90% of the media I consume comes from podcasts. I listen to them from the early morning on, and I am always looking out for interesting audio to fill my earbuds as I attempt to zone out on my morning and afternoon commutes. I mix it up quite a bit, sometimes educational, sometimes a […]
I’ve been experimenting with Zentangle, an artistic technique that is meditative, relaxing, and not dependent on skill. Some might call it advanced doodling. There might be more to it than that. But I think the results speak for themselves. Bare in mind that I can hardly draw a straight line. I have been very impressed […]
Well, that was interesting. 30 blog posts in 30 days. Some were better than usual. Some were just content for content’s sake. I learned a lot in the process. I became even more familiar with some of the nuances of WordPress. I mastered the use of the WordPress Mobile app. I was also able to […]
It seems like every expat I have ever interacted with in Japan came here to be in closer contact with some beloved manga they read back home. They wanted to get closer to the source. To read it in Japanese. To spend hours in manga cafes just like the locals. Well, I don’t read manga. […]
Well, it appears quite a bit a time has passed since my last post. This always frustrates me to no end. So in order to seriously jump start my blogging, I declare the month of November as Blogvember! Since it is also NaNoWriMo, and also since I am not in a novel writing mood just […]
At heart I guess I am about 8 years old. If I happen to find myself in a 100 Yen shop, I immediately gravitate to the toy section. I can spend hours scouring the shelves, hoping to find some cheap hanafuda variant to add to my collection while my wife stocks up on random household […]
I had been a ruthless accumulator of things. Everything was piling up, especially books. Though our apartment is fairly well organized and generally clean, I couldn’t help but notice a kind of burden my pack-rat lifestyle was reeking on my mind. I also wondered if there were other unforeseen benefits that might occur if I […]