Don’t need a desktop or a SFF machine because I don’t need what it can do. I don’t need a laptop because what I want to use it for does not warrant the size, weight or ability. So – that leaves a notebook. Checking several sites in the end I opted for a Compaq CQ10. It’s running Windows XP (and it arrived with no activated crapware) so I’m quite happy there. All the programs I want are now installed, I have a few gb of music and when the extra gb of RAM arrives (it runs well but as it’ll take 2 it can have 2) it’ll be all the smoother. OS is tweaked a little, custom theme installed. And no work programs. Pidgin will be Live and ICQ only, no Skype, irc is there but not for work. It’s a work-free machine, one I can use and see just what I have created. I do have a couple of plans for some non-work work which I can move to it which will be better. And if I am out and it is lost / stolen then unlike my laptop I don’t need to worry about work passwords/data. So all is good.

Why ask for a username that will not be used? Why not say in big bold letters that your real name will be seen by everyone be they a site member or not? Why not respect the convention that a username is what others see, that your real name is never disclosed except by you? And why not realise that if you want people to discuss mental health issues – their own issues – you need to provide a degree of anonymity? Some people might not mind using their own name but the majority probably do not want their name alongside a mental disorder when they are googled. A quarter of Americans have a mental health disorder so if you know 12 people then 3 are affected (statistically anyway). But how many broadcast this fact? Bet it’s not the same quarter. Anyway, 2 Feb I open this site account and within 60 minutes it is deleted. I sent an email to the site owner expressing my concern.
On 11 Feb I got a reply. In the forum it’s my username, for the Rest Of The World it’s my real name. “Do you have any suggestions?” was in the reply.

“My suggestion would be to make it fantastically clear that your real name will be publicly displayed as soon as you join. Given the reason for the site and the stigma associated with mental health and the way that Google and others will never remove information I would expect any display of a real name to be double prompted with “Are you sure?”
I fully expected my username to be displayed everywhere. Literally everywhere, not my real name. I expected my real name to be known to you and you alone for some good reason.
What users choose to display is up to them. How users interact with others outside of the site is up to them. But otherwise I think the site should do everything possible to protect privacy and promote that fact. Promote the fact that you know it’s a sensitive subject but they are safe here with their username.”

On 23 Feb I got a reply (not quick are they?) saying changes would be made soon. I joined again 3 days ago with completely made up details and again the name displayed would have been the real one. If you insist on real names in any forum anywhere you run the risk of less particpation but in one that deals with a sensitive issue such as mental health then it can only be worse. It is worse because those that don’t mind others knowing will be open and those that wish they too could be open will not join. I don’t see a winner here, just loss all round.

I found a couple of other forums which I joined with the expected fake name. Both are established, both have users with thousands of posts. Back when I just had depression I also had access to usenet – a wonderful place until Google did it’s best to kill it. You can tell it was Google that did it because it’s full of spam with no effort to remove it. In usenet there were various groups for depression, most had irc chat. They were helpful to a point but there were many there who were swapping in-jokes and talking in a way that you knew there was a long relationship there albeit a text one. Odd in a depression ng and the same people led the discussions. Anyway, meds kicked in and I wandered off. A couple of years later I go back and it’s pretty much the same people in the ng and irc. I didn’t know if I was joining a social club, interrupting chat between friends or what. It was strange having the same people saying the same thing. I wondered if they were depressed or they needed that chat to stave off the depression or they were dependent on it. Yet here too it was loss. I got nothing from it and I have no idea what it was doing for them.

It’s a difficult thing trying to find some support. In real life it’s practically impossible and online it’s as bad. The lack of intimacy is fine, the fake names is fine but it’s the non-judgemental non-’this worked for me so it will for you’ people you want. It’s forum posts from others that fit your need you want to see. It’s somewhere to write where people say the right things back even though you probably don’t know what that right thing is until you’ve read it twice. So you end up alone with your thoughts, thoughts which the docs are hoping chemically influencing and possibly bad things happen yet when they do the Govt and others express surprise because they say so much help is out there and it isn’t. It really is not there. Which is sad.

And in case you are wondering, I’m absolutely fine. That website just annoyed me.

I took the straightest route today and was first at the nulabs office. Not a problem – headed downstairs and out to the bridge to watch everything pass by. The traffic is so quiet, it really is surprising. Cars in our village can make more noise than here. Ned and I went down to the shop later and he bought me this bun-like thing with cream or similar in it. Very nice, a little like a choux bun. The shop down there and as others have cigarette promotions. Not just behind a till but posters in windows, packs in the aisles with free lighters. There seem to be a fair number of smokers around and I suppose the tobacco companies are quite happy that UK-like laws do not come into force here.

Lunchtime I was taken to a place that did spicy noodles. There was a scale of 1-20 which was heat. Cool to extremely hot. 5 was where I went with and indeed it was spicy. So with chopsticks – a pack of forks had been bought for me if I needed them but they stayed in the packet – I was eating the noodles, egg, pork, green veg first dipping it into the sauce. By the end of the meal I was doing pretty well with the noodles and chopsticks and approving noises were made which was nice.

Matt T had sent the files over this morning so I forwarded them to Ishibashi in the office and only a couple of hours later they arrived. That meant I had to have something to put them in which could also hold those I would be given. Ned kindly took my to a store that did those. It is (1) very strange to have business cards still and (2) even stranger to see my face on them. I’m sure everyone says it’s a bad photo of them but mine really is. Last time I saw a photo of myself I was still at ~100kg and the weight loss is quite visible. Not like I can change it now.

Tonight there was a meeting of developers to talk about translations and maybe some other talk came in – difficult to judge just from some drawing/writing on the whiteboard. Everyone introduced themself and then Takayuki Miyoshi led the talk for most of the evening. After the more formal discussion drinks and food were bought and much informal chatting went on. I met almost everyone, exchanged many business cards and while language was a problem we still managed to talk about various things both to do with WordPress and not. Noel had arrived so we met for the first time. Met Yuki and I really like the gallery she created with WP. It would obviously have been so much better to be able to talk more freely but that’s that way it is.

Not sure what time we left, maybe 11pm or just after – and it was only a couple of minutes away from the hotel. Tomorrow I check what I am saying at WordCamp, go buy some stuff for the ladies at home and continue to walk around this city still amazed I am here. I want to stay until I am bored – then I go to Hokkaido and stay there until I am bored. Then Kobe, Tokyo, Kyoto … I would be here for a very long time. It’s going to be happy on Monday because I go back home to my family but also sad because there is so much more to experience here.

And Final Fantasy I and II were released for the iDevice today so I have those ready for the plane home.

One thing I noticed more today was the signage. I need to deliberately take more pictures of all the signs that have little monster/pokemon/dinosaur style mascots. It’s all so colorful and friendly, a stark contrast to the signage we have back in the UK which is dull, very dull.

Popped into a shop to get some chilled green tea drink and a coffee flavoured caffeine drink. Did so to practice saying arigato gozai masu. It’s getting easier to say it without feeling self conscious about it. Lunch I stuck to a coffee milkshake from Mos Burger while everyone else ate properly.

Late afternoon and evening I got to talk more with others in the company with our varying efforts at trying to communicate with the assistance of the translate tool at Excite. We got on pretty well though I have to say they were doing more translating than I was. It was all very informal though with everyone just chatting, no ceremoney or hierarchy visible and it could just have easily been a bunch from Automattic chatting drinking and having a laugh. Very enjoyable.

I found my way back to the hotel without getting to new places accidentally bar one corner right near the hotel.

Fukuoka is fantastic. It really is. If it were possible I would go home only when I got bored and I cannot see that happening.

Work and work chat was done but the good stuff … was introduced to some MAXIM green tea you buy ready in a cup. Very very nice. Went for lunch to a sushi place and the food was good. Squid was a little chewy and there was a savoury milk/fish oil thing which didn’t get completed eaten. Not because of what it was made of, just that it didn’t really taste of anything, Then we went (or I was taken but we still all went) to a shrine. Amazing.

Had to clean my hands with running water in one place then come in and buy an Oracle ticket. Mine was ‘Lucky’ and had sayings inside. Then this was tied to a string with many others wrapped around a frame. (There are pictures). The temple part of the shrine had 3 bells on great pieces of rope. Someone would clean their hands, thrown some money into this large slatted box then bow, bow again, ring the bell and I think bow again. This happened a few times while we were there. The temple also had an elderly lady and man go through and what I assume was a type of priest began a ritual. Naoko thought it may have been for a sick relative of their’s but it wasn’t clear.

Canal City was right next door. Multi-storey building with the cool shops, lots of places to eat. One or two restaurants had plastic replicas of the sushi and other foods they served right outside. Might sound gaudy but it looked great. There was an arcade at the top which had everything arcades in the UK should have. Lots of games, gambling machines, grabber machines. Lots of lights, all the right noises and a couple of the machines just wouldn’t be seen here, looked made just for the local market. There was a pogo game. Stand on a pogo stick type thing and when it says go you start pogoing this bunny around a track. Very amusing to watch and it looked really tiring. Do that twice a day and that’s all the exercise you’d need. Didn’t play on anything myself – too busy looking and taking it all in. And there was an arcade some floors below which you played for sweets. One machine where you had to drop some sweets onto a moving platform which would then push things off the front? In the UK it’s usually 10ps. And they even had a grabber for ice-cream. A tub of haagen daz no less.

Back to the office for more work type stuff and I was discussing some of what I do a slot appeared for me to present at Wordcamp. Not a whole big slot thankfully, probably a “This is how I got involved with WP, this is what I have done/do” and then something about submitting a plugin.  I’ll be figuring out the details tomorrow.

Back when we first got company business cards I was sent a box of however many, 100, maybe 200. I think I used one. I just don’t move in the right circles for business cards so when this came up a while ago for new ones I passed – why have an expense for something that would look nice, be able to say I have but never use? And where am I? Somewhere that a business card is a vital piece of etiquette and I’ve got none. Matt T. will be sending some files tomorrow which means I can get some printed before Wordcamp. If you read my twitter stuff you’ll know I said I was the only person in the company without my face or a face as their gravatar. I like that but I did wonder whether a face should be on a business card. It’s an area I know nothing about.  Anyway these will be with extra cool because they will be Japanese :)

Tonight we went to another multi-storey building and each floor was a separate restaurant. We were on the 8th. The food was all raw and on wooden skewers. On the table was a shallow bowl of a thickened milk coloured liquid, a shallow bowl of what looked like fine breadcrumbs and an inset deep fat fryer. So choose the food, dip it, roll it, fry it. All sized to be about 2 minutes to cook. It was a buffet so get what you want and bring to the table. Because it was a table for 4 the fryer was long and had 4 compartments so no mixups could happen. Others for 2 people had a single split I think. Lots of local people eating there and that is always a good sign. They also had several varieties of little cakes which I think is a good sign and they tasted great.

After that Naoko and Hashimoto brought me back to the hotel. Well, they brought me back to the end of the road. After they had gone I saw a shop open so bought some pocky and that chilled green tea. I did the ‘Arigato Gozaimasu’ thanks too which impressed me as I got the same back. Means Thank you very much. So exit shop, look around and promptly head off somewhere new again. A few streets later I realised that it was actually quite late and managed to find my way back here. This place looks so very different during the day. But it all looks great.

Photos and video so far and for the rest of the week will be here: http://markr.smugmug.com/Automattic Descriptions will be added more slowly. Picture quality and composition matters not really so expect little in that regard and you’ll be fine.

Twitter. Similar thing here. You have to follow certain people, there is an expectation that you will listen to someone you know simply because you know them. There is a world of difference though between a chat down the pub and what is traded online as we know. But you can’t unfollow them because they’ll wonder why. Again it’s this expectation, this etiquette thing. Maybe it’s just me?
And the other thing which really annoys me about Twitter is the repeat #tags about events. #uksnow was fine, #iphone was not, #meme and others never will be. In fact it’s not just tags, it’s @famousperson. Like Stephen Fry will reply? I have no idea what that Kutcher bloke does apart from exchange bodily fluids with Bruce’s ex. I don’t want to see all that because it looks like the equivalent of the person on stage at Glastonbury yelling out “Who want to come up here with me” and being faced with a sea of screaming jumping wild lunatics. I’m sure these @famouspeople simply use twitter to boost their fragile egos and give their days meaning. Irritating.

While I’m on the subject … I quite like twitter. Love it for news though sometimes it feels like overload when coupled with everything else I stare at and it’s always the first app to be closed (Tweetdeck with multiple columns depending on news type) and it’s good for people too. But I have never liked the unfiltered approach. And although I like it I continue to think that the whole service is utterly disposable. 140 characters does not distill, it’s just 140 characters. No idea how many times I have tweeted and I don’t care. Take them all away and I wouldn’t even get annoyed. Would not care. Why would I? If someone said “Ah, but at 17:16 on November 12 you tweeted that…” like I’d give a damn. Wouldn’t know why, wouldn’t be bothered to find out. If these smidges of conversation matter so much why not record what you actually say 24/7? That would make more sense wouldn’t it? Anyway….

Kiwi is a mac twitter client and it has some good rules for highlighting and hiding messages (it does regular expressions if you understand those). It doesn’t do lists yet but I can move all my lists stuff to another ID anyway. But what is best is that I can ignore a whole person. I’m testing it now and test hiding 2 people. I say hiding but it’s actually just coloring them orange so I can check I don’t catch anything wrongly. And I need to check replies/dm’s.
So I can exclude all mac-related tweets when Apple do their fangasm presentations, can exclude the annoying @famouspeople and can ignore those people who I really should just unfollow but feel obliged in some way to keep on the sidebar.

Just off the center of the city was the health centre we needed to be. It wasn’t urgent but then it was 4pm and the F1 was due to start at 5pm. So there was some incentive to ignore the scenery. Leicester is – some say proudly – a multicultural city. The problem is that other cultures may not appreciate what “sunday” is. What we expect is quiet streets, hardly anyone around, being able to move quickly. In this area of the city it was like Saturday. All the shops are open, kids wandering about, people stopping at junctions and having a chat while still in their damn cars and while it wasn’t a carnival it was certainly very lively in an old, slow, treacle-like way. Took us forever. Well, okay, maybe 30 mins longer than it should. I had by now given up on the F1 start and was hoping to see the end. We get to the health centre and I wander in.

I have to get past the “guy at desk” but he’s pleasant enough. Then use lots of foam on my hands to be sure I am “clean” and I go through to the waiting bit. After my repeating D’s d.o.b. a nurse comes over to me. I reckon she qualified in the 70′s. She’s pretty old and talks down to me. Her first question “So what are your daughter’s symptoms?” Eh? What? We’ve told NHS Direct, we’ve told the National Pandemic line and you wizened creature want me to tell you? “My wife has rang everyone, we have the code and I’ve left work to come and get it” (which was true. I had moved away from my keyboard). She accepted that. Then she shows me the leaflets, packet of Tamiflu etc and as I take the packet she sees my hand. “What’s that?” I told her it’s a steel ring. “How did it get there?” I was bored one day and wondered if I could get one in I reply (which is the absolute real honest truth). She then says it makes me look like I’ve been to prison and they are tracking me (that’s a new one) and from that moment on she talks to my hand. Really. Lots of “yeah, I will, she will, okay, thanks, we will, yes, uhuh” as she goes through the big words on the Important Piece Of Paper and eventually I get away. She was one strange staff nurse.
Get back home back going out and round the city which took longer (F1? What F1?) and stopping at a couple of pharmacies to stock up on sore throat spray, soluble painkillers. D is now (it’s about 23:00) starting to feel a little better. Her boss has been called and he has to complete oodles of paperwork and her interview tomorrow is looking dodgy. Not the best start to the week for her but then we all have one and then another and then … it’s how things are.

As for the F1, the BBC stream was interrupted many times so I’ve emailed O2 about my contract and I’ll move.

Until her sickness do us part: why men leave ill partners
Men are seven times more likely than women to leave a seriously ill partner, a study has found. So why are males less able to cope? Times Online

I joined a forum recently for me. Nothing at all to do with Jacq. I joined one night in one of those brief moments where I (foolishly) believe that typing words into a forum can help. But in matters of the mind it cannot, at least not for me. It always struck me as odd that people will gather and talk about how they used to drink, what they drank, where they drank etc. Surely such AA meetings just reinforce drink? If you are going to stop, stop. Worked for me. Anyway, back to chatting online. There are a fair number of resources for mental health problems but they don’t actually fix anything. I’ve said before that I have a domain with a blog and I go there to rant about things, ponder, wail and everything else negative. Because you don’t know where it is the space is safe. I really can – and do – say what I want. And then I erase it some time later because the act of writing and publishing was good enough. But it doesn’t stop the same irritants happening again. Nothing can.
So in those moments – had one earlier whole going round Tesco with Jacq – “Hey, do you also seem to go shopping when all the other stupid people go? When people that cannot see wheelchairs are there? When people tut tut as you go by? When people just haven’t a single bloody clue how bad they make the whole experience? Won’t get out of the way?” – where I think talking to someone about it might help I have to realise there are only 2 outcomes: (1) the person agrees with me and we start ripping into everyone and everything or (2) the person says No and I call them an idiot. So it would not be constructive to talk, it’s destruction on both paths. Negative.
Maybe it’s the man thing – that we need a fix, we need the solution.

There is a phone downstairs and one next to me up here. Here is what happens when J calls me:
“Hi, sorry and I know you are busy and have work to do but the food will be on the table in a minute if you want to come down”
Here is what I want to happen when J calls me:
“Food”.
I just want the reason. All those other words just annoy me, they get in the way, it takes longer to say. She knows that I just want ‘Food” but finds it really difficult to reduce an entire sentence or two into a single word. And I cannot see her view either.

Sometimes someone from Social Services will come round and J will talk to them, tell them how she is etc. I have no idea why she does this apart from the woman thing about needing to talk, to share etc. I’m quite plain: “Will you help?” and when they say what passes for No – but they can’t just say those 2 letters – I tell them that there is no point, why are they here, they can tick the “Saw them today” box. Social Services? Complete waste of everyone’e time. They kill children don’t they?

So, back to the article. I wonder where and why these men talk? I have doubts they do. I suspect it’s just coping mechanisms because talking about something that cannot be changed in an exercise in pointlessness. It’s also wrong to say “less able’ because maybe we were never taught or never learned how to cope. It’s not a class in school but it is something you pick up from people you hang around with so if they don’t, you can’t learn. “less able” seems more negative way to say it.

Would have been more interesting to see an article where physical disability was a significant element as that changes things on a huge new level.

Everything was normal yesterday morning. Nothing at all unusual. At some point mid-late morning (I forget the time. It’s in irc logs but it doesn’t matter) I had just chatted with Hanni on skype and gone afk from irc as I felt odd. Literally a few moments later I felt an incredible pain in my chest just under the sternum. I about doubled over, went very sweaty and I shook. Got to the bedroom and lay on the bed. Pain didn’t go, felt sick, still clammy. For the first time in forever I took my pulse. It was 52, regular and strong. That number worried me. Anyway, pain still there and I was feeling worse. Back to ‘work’ and I checked the nhsdirect site. It said ring 999. So I rang nhsdirect, said I probably didn’t need anything but some advice. She asked me some more questions and then she called 999. Hm.
Got downstairs and still in the same huge pain. Told J I didn’t feel so well and as I got to the door the ambulance arrived. Thankfully it’s siren wasn’t wailing, didn’t notice the lights.
I got an ECG done, did the usual Temp / BP / Pulse / history. Must have been a quiet day as I got taken in for a better ECG. The guy in the ambulance had already said it was not my heart. He didn’t know what it was and that I could stay in the hospital so they could work it out. As far as I was concerned though if my heart was good then the pain would be fine. At some point in this the pain had started to reduce but not so much it went completely. Part of it was probably worry about the pain. So, I’m not dead, not dying and this pain seems to be waning. And that was that – back home, back to work. Pretty quick too – though my signing some paper to say the equivalent of “Promise I won’t sue and this will keep you in the clear too” helped a lot. Very strange time. And why is pain so tiring?
I feel guilty that I used an ambulance and took time up when I wasn’t ill. I know I was ill but not ill ill, not in need of an ambulance. But how do you know? After how much new and unexpected pain close the heart do you wait? Not like you can rewind and call it earlier is it? I did apologise to the ambulance guys and said I’d rang nhsdirect. His reply was not to worry – they are known as nhsredirect. That was Friday.

And today I’ve felt generally crap. Nagging headache, bleurgh sort of thing.

That pulse. Took it last night and was getting around 62. Sat at the computer earlier today I was around 64 I think. When the ambulance guy took the pulse I said I’d got a 52 and he said he got a little over that. He asked about the exercises I do, figured I worked out. Like I have the time. Still, doing the house, bouncing up and down stairs many times a day and walking the dog twice a day must count for something I suppose.

Here’s hoping for a healthy Sunday!