Monthly Archives: February 2010

Kick the laptop

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Went bed around 10pm despite it feeling wrong. Took some pummeling to make a skull shaped dent in the pillow. Woke like a light at 1. Looked at watch, saw 1pm, swore and jumped out of bed about kicking the laptop off it’s stool. Get shower going, flicking through clothes, unplugged phone, put back on bed to put laptop in – and then saw the sliver of dark between the window panels. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Checked to see which device has a time I can trust and went back sleep – this time wary of actually oversleeping.

Can’t stream the BBC News here which is a bummer. (The bed alarm just went off. Literally now. And I’d never set it. Odd). Sky news I can get but it isn’t one I like, There are no english channels on the TV though I didn’t expect them and I didn’t travel all this way just to watch TV. I don’t do that at home.

Little hot water machine/kettle device. 2 sachets of Green Tea, 2 sachets of Toasted Tea. No coffee. Luckily I had bought 2 emergency 500ml cans of sugar-free Red Bull yesterday for just such situations. This means I can enjoy the tea rather than hoping for the necessary caffeine.  This would seem to be the ideal time to quit the amount of caffeine I drink but then I’d have no vices. I would be pure of mind body and soul. And that wouldn’t be any fun would it? :)

Plan: after the toasted tea head toward the Backlog offices. I don’t care how long it takes or what route I take. Today I’ll be walking slow because I want to see, not look.

Just made the tea. Cup has no handles which makes it a small bowl then? And Toasted Tea smells like hot bran. I like bran and generally eat it out of a bowl but hm, Green Tea is it. Saw several Starbucks yesterday so all is safe there too.

High up there and now over here.

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Right now this phone says it is 1549, the time in Tokyo is 0049. I am 7849km from there and just crossing into Russian airspace from Estonian (I think) some 3240m above the ground.

Might be me but the selection of films isn’t so good. Surrogates lasted 10 mins before Public Enemies and that too wasn’t so great. Right now Terminator Salvation is on and it makes glad I did not buy it. Junky nonsense.

Japanese lunchbox. Once I worked out how to eat the noodles on top right they were okay. Probably should have alternated mouthfuls more for the taste/texture experience. (There was a choice of this or pasta something but I could have made that myself). Bottom left is some sort of onion/carrot salad with sweetcorn and a dumpling type thing filled with something not unpleasant. Top left – yellow is spicy chicken, brown is something pork, violent pink I have no idea at all, and I think the purple were seeds. The brown package is rice and the bowl is miso soup which was really good. The lump in the triangle bit was some sort of sweet I think. Texture was that of elastic putty and there was something brown in the middle.
The phone says it is 1613 and outside it is now black. It was light when it started. Map says St Petersburg is below.

And the selfish bastard in front just decided to recline. You should have to pay the person behind if you do that.

Time to play Vagrant Story.

……….

0330 Tokyo / 1830 UK and I am north of Omsk. Crossed the Urals some time ago and we look to be in the same timezone as India.
VS – that took ages to start and I got bored. You know those horseshoe shaped inflatable pillows? Couldn’t work out how get comfy.

Just started playing Broken Sword on the touch and they bring round Pearl and Dean icecream. How cool is that?

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1920 UK
Bored now. If it wasn’t for the fact the tv screen is practically touching my head I’d try and watch something. An act of dominance is taking space like that. Selfish and safe dominance. She’s damn short too, not like she needs the space.
5 hours left.

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2135 UK / 0635 Tokyo
Somewhere over the Chinese border
Used my knees to adjust the position of the short one in front, stretched up and tipped my head back and discovered I could see the screen. Nothing hugely appealed so went for Glorious 39
And what a great film. No sex, no violence just a fine film that I will buy on DVD and watch again. Interested to see what imdb give it though I’ll guess 5.5 to 6.5 (Just checked and it’s a 6.7)

2317 UK / 0817 Tokyo
Heavy eyes and headache arrive as what I think North Korea is crossed. 820 miles to go.

Food served and the last spoonful hits the t-shirt.

0037
I do not have the address of the hotel in Fukuoka. I have one for a hotel in Tokyo, that’s all. No way to get in touch with anyone so time to hope. This is entirely my fault. I’d reminded Hanni recently she needed it on the way to the US. I use the Tokyo hotel address and send out texts and emails as soon as we land. Luckily I didn’t need the address itself though as Ned was meeting me at the airport.

Some time later
Land, customs is a breeze. Ask a Virgin Atlantic lady where I need to be for the connecting flight. I give her the itinerary paper. She studies and tells me to go to Terminal 2 (I’m at 1) and where to get the shuttle. Off I go. When I get there I check the boards, see no flight number so I ask. I should be in Terminal 1. Get the shuttle back. Ask again, get directed and when I get up there the flight has gone (I was still 15min before scheduled takeoff). Hm. Now I don’t have the address and I can’t meet Ned, I can’t tell him where I am, can’t yet get in touch with Naoko. Did I panic? Hell no. I was far too busy with a blinding headache. I wasn’t walking slow because I was cool about the situation – it was because I could not walk fast.
Downstairs the lady at the desk tells me I have 2 choices and says which she would pick. Fine by me. 3000 yen (about £21) gets me a coach ticket to Haneka airport (I’m at Narita). Takes about an hour so the headache reduced some. Airport is really well laid out and get the right flight. It’s not long but I sleep a bit.
Naoko has emailed the address and directions for the tube or get a taxi. Headache dictates latter.  Room 6181 of the Plaza Hotel Teijin is very welcome indeed. Net is 23 down and 7 up, I have the right adaptor.

Ned calls and meets me downstairs with Masanori from Backlog and Cacoo. We head round to their offices which doesn’t seem too far to get to but twice as far when coming back. I speak no japanese and everyone there speaks no english. I’ll be working from their offices – which are very nice – but Naoko and Ned will be around for translating. My body says it’s morning but it’s dark evening. First stop is a store where I get a chilled double espresso and then we get into a Yatai right by their offices.

I don’t make too much of an idiot with chopsticks. Some mince things (name forgotten), chicken balls and some pork skewer. Lemonade in a funky glass bottle seals it all. Much translated conversation about WordPress and Backlog and histories. Very pleasant conversation and a gentleman to our right who keeps saying that the new foods I am having are ‘challenges’. True, but the squid/octopus stayed in the cold box (these are challenges I will accept of course). The guys both brought me back to the hotel. I get to the offices myself tomorrow which will be good as the camera needs exercise.

The pillows feel like they are stuffed with pellets but I don’t care how I sleep because hey, I’m in Japan.

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Most of this post was written as it happened using the WP Blackberry app.

A phone

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Wanted a new mobile. The Orange phone packages were expensive so looking around Vodafone seemed to fit what I wanted. Placed an order online and got the email saying the phone would be with me soon, they’d send an email when it was despatched. It was close to 5pm. Next day no email, no phone. Next day no email no phone. Moments after 5pm I rang and was told I would have to ring the warehouse. It shut at 5pm though. Next day (that’s today) I ring them up. They are out of stock but are getting some in today. Great I say because I wanted it by Saturday. Can’t get it to me that quick though – it has to be Monday. They don’t deliver at weekends. So they let me buy something that is out of stock, they do not work weekends. I cancel the order.
I phone T-Mobile. They also have what I want (it was better actually) and I get through the credit check. (Moments after this Jacqui gets a call from the bank. The 2 credit checks have set off alarms on our account because we never apply for credit anywhere. Anyway..) The woman on the phone then says I have to answer 2 questions from my credit record because I am not there in front of her/in a shop. I check I can ask Jacqui as I head downstairs and am told that’s okay. I forget the first question but my answer was quick and correct. Then she says that there is a home shopping catalogue on the account and in what year did I make the first purchase. Jacqui knows masses about our finances, I know nothing but this is a total non-event to ask about. I have the choice of 4 different years. I say I am guessing and I say the second choice. It’s wrong. The woman on the phone apologises, gives me the credit check reference number and says if I go into a store I will not need to answer those questions.
In the city I walk into the T-Mobile store with plastic cards, passport, utility bill. I am told I have to answer exactly the same questions. I say I was told I would not have to but this is the manager telling me I must. I get the year wrong again. She tells me I cannot try again for 3 months at T-Mobile. She tries to sell me a phone that does not need such a check. Screw that.
Wandering back to the car park I pass an O2 store. I remember that not only are they more than I want to pay but that another credit check will also set off alarms probably. Skip past there. Vodafone store appears and despite their incompetence previously I walk in. Ask for the phone. Deputy Manager says No, sorry, sold the last one an hour ago. One of the assistants – as I am almost outside – says No, we have 2 over there…. and I get to buy the contract phone I wanted.

Nonsense.

If I could be

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Jacqui is completing an application form at the moment – what for does not matter here – and there are a variety of questions along the lines of “If you had a million pounds what would you do” and “If you could invite 3 other people for a meal who would they be and why” – that sort of thing. It’s all good stuff and she has asked me a couple as I wander through to get a drink. Today’s was interesting.

“One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”
Jane Austen

She asked me who I would be if I could be anyone for 24 hours. I said a woman. She said Who and I replied it wouldn’t matter. We’ve done this conversation many times so it was surprising that she didn’t see that answer before she asked the question. Anyway, she persisted and I did think. It’s pretty difficult. If you are going to do something for 24 hours then you want to get something out of it. So being Bill Gates or Richard Branson is going to teach you nothing just like being The Queen, or Prime Minister. There is nothing from there you could bring back after that time which would benefit you, be of practical or even theoretical use. Money you could spend in a day but power? In a day? With all the red tape and nonsense layers protecting us from the whims of them? Wouldn’t happen. In the end I said I would be her for a day. Not because I want to know what it’s like to be married to me (I really do not want to know how I am from that perspective) but because I want to know what it’s like to be her.
Years ago I rang Jacqui at work said “What does this mean” and help the phone closer to one of the girls who was crying. I knew she knew that one cry meant hungry, one was tired, one was nappy. But I’d done those 3 so I rang her. She didn’t know but the point is back then she had the routine down with the child care. So she got the house done, the sprog fed/watered/clean, had her own time and it was all organised. I had none. So I wanted to be like her. Organised. In the end I got there but I was never as good but I knew I could be there. With J’s MS though I cannot be there. I know some of what it’s done but I don’t know all of it, can’t do because it’s so physical. Had to buy some washing up gloves. Not because the water is too hot but because she cannot feel heat, has no clue how hot water is. Been like that for a while but until I mentioned the water she didn’t think to tell me. So I’d be her. That way I would know just for a day how hard (or easy, no pulling the wool after that day)(yes, I know it’s actually not easy) it is, how much she could and could not feel, all the physical effects. Not that 24 hours would give a clue what 24/7/365 is like but a brief glimpse would be good. Of course it may be a very bad thing too. (This answer won me some brownie points too.)
Same for any partnership though?