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Day After Songda
Although me and mine (thx Kev) were unscathed, I saw a lot more damage around town as I drove to work today than I thought there would be. Some roads were being repaired, with fallen trees and bicycles being removed first, then the actual paved surfaces being refilled in areas. As seen above, many cars can be seen with broken windows patched over by cardboard or trash bags. In the gravel parking lot I use for work, there were piles of window glass and shattered sideview mirrors all over. I feel kind of sorry for the owners of the cars, but they really should have known not to leave their…
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Storm has passed
Everything is OK.
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‘zat you, Dorothy?
It’s very close now. Nothing much to report, except that the neighborhood strays are fighting for porch space.
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Evacuation Tip
If you are in Japan during a major disaster and need a place to evacuate, do not blindly follow the people in front of you – they are just as lost and clueless as the people in front of them. Follow the homeless, they know the best places to go. Today they are sprawled all over the massage chairs on display at Jusco, our local department store.
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Typhoons # 18 and 19
The company is making us go home at an unprecedented 2:00 in the afternoon so you just know we are in for a real beating. I haven’t been this happy since the fifth grade… Just waiting for that bell to ring… In other news, there was another magnitude 4 earthquake here this morning. It feels like the world is going to end, and all I can think about is the recess bell.
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Fugu Fishing
Adam displaying our first catch of the season – a trophy fugu!
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Sure Won’t Happen Here
Even more news from our future host country this week: Follow the Leader: Israel and Thailand set an example by arming teachers. Thailand has followed Israel’s lead by allowing school teachers in the troubled southern areas to pack guns at school. I think this is a great idea – who better to keep our children safe at school than their teachers? When I was young, my dad went to a lecture by Mel Tappan (he recorded it on cassette and I think it’s still in the garage somewhere), and brought back a paperback copy of Survival Guns. I believe that book addressed the issue of school shootings and teachers who…
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Eating Fido
As a wannabe chef, I might have thought about making a submission to the Carnival of the Recipes #3, a showcase for recipes from all around the blogosphere, but got pretty miffed when I saw the introduction at the top of the page: This week, we have a lot of great recipes to choose from. I am adding a rule, though – The Carnival of the Recipes will not link to any recipes involving household pets or horses, I don?t care if you live in France or Korea! I really do not want to offend the author of the page or start any shit, but I’m sorry – that’s sounds…
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Gettin’ windy again already
The earthquakes passed and the gigantic wall of water ala Lucifer’s Hammer never came… But someone’s must be doing an effective rain dance because there’s another goddamn typhoon due to hit tomorrow – the weather this year seems intent on beating the shit out of us here.
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Big Aftershocks
There was a magnitude 5 shaker in Wakayama earlier this evening when we were in a liquor store – all the stacks of bottles started moving back and forth, which was not the most reassuring of circumstances. A large aftershock came about five minutes ago… It was also a mag 5 but it felt a lot stronger here and they’re predicting tsunamis this time. There’s an emergency broadcast running in English and Japanese… Our little island should be okay. My place is half a mile from the coast so we should be cool. The shitty thing about living on an island is that it isn’t covered in the news… They…
