I'm a huge fan of Twitter and can be followed here twitter.com/mhegge. As in any social networking tool, the service is only as good the number of people you know on it and I've found it difficult at times to describe exactly what twitter is and does as it seems to be many things to many people. Public IM, microblogging, or just a simple tool to broadcast your status to friends and family. Roll the tape.

This incredible video of a speeding car running a red light and three lanes of traffic was apparently taken at the intersection of 72nd and Scott Rd in Surrey British Columbia. Anyone think it's a fake? Notice the flash from the traffic camera as the offending car enters the intersection.

72nd and Scott Rd traffic cam 1.83 MB

"The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything." Lee Iacocca

"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time." Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

"Time is the wisest counsellor of all." Pericles

"In business, three things are necessary: knowledge, temper, and time." Owen Felltham

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit." Unknown

"You can't waste time and you can't save time; you can only choose what you do at any given moment." James Gleick

"Time is the measure of business." Francis Bacon

"The years teach much which the days never know." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"How did it get so late so soon?" Dr. Seuss

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day." William Shakespeare

"Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems -- but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems incredible." Salman Rushdie

"The surest way to be late is to have plenty of time." Leo Kennedy

"Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time, which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it no small deduction for the life of man." C. C. Colton

"Time: that which man is always trying to kill, ends in killing him." Herbert Spencer

"Who forces time is pushed back by time; who yields to time finds time on his side." The Talmud

"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity." Henry Van Dyke

Above the urinals in my office some comedian has taped up signs reminding you to Flease Plush. How strange is it then that I've become so distracted by the sound of those mangled words that I forget to flush? I'm exhausted, and I think my brain is rebelling against all the coffee mate I've been feeding it as of late.

On the way home after picking up Masako and Frankie, feeling hungry, I decided to make a pit stop at the maccas drive-thru. I ordered at the window and the girl asked me if that was "for here or to go". Seeing as we were already in our car with engine on, we decided on the 'to go' option. Masako started laughing, which in turn made me start to giggle, and Frankie, not wanting to be left out, let out a darn good fake laugh from the back seat. It's been a stressful week, for all of us apparently.

Is there a name for those moments where you feel you shouldn't laugh but can't stop yourself for whatever reason? I was always very prone to these episodes in school, and the angrier the teacher became the situation always seemed to get funnier.

Digging in my pocket trying to reach some change for the laundry machine I pulled out what seems like the largest piece of lint my pockets have ever produced. It was really that big. Big enough to knit a very small mitten, and no matter how I try to justify it's existence part of me knows it just can't be. Something doesn't feel right, something is off here.

I'm fairly good at emptying my pockets before tossing them in the laundry hamper, and when I do use tissue it never goes in my pocket (can you say incubator), so where did it come from? The little bits of lint my pockets naturally produced would have been promptly picked out the moment I put them on after a wash, something I learned to do as a smoker to prevent my Bic lighter from getting clogged. But this was different. The shape and colour indicate it as a build up, a gradual build up over time of cotton fibers, like someone cleaned the dryer lint trap and stuffed it in my pocket as some kind of sick, sick joke. I wonder if there'll be anything left but a zipper, button and a handful of rivets in 5-10 years if this trend continues.

I miss the superb bento selection at my old 7-11, but they've got bawls here! I've been trying to get my hands on that stuff for years. Not too sweet, perfect amount of carbonation and best of all -- highly caffeinated. Now if it was just half the price we could get some work done.

After what feels like my longest streak of did-I-really-just pay-5-dollars-to-rent-this piece-of-crap-movie, we finally watched something good in Crash. A heavy, heavy emotional film full of racial stereotypes (some of which I didn't know existed) and intertwining human relationships that I could not recommend more.

I'm really loving the new album from Death Cab for Cutie - Plans. The video for the single Soul Meets Body reminds me of The War of the Worlds, minus the vaporization of bodies and the pending extermination of all human life. All those musical notes coming out from under the ground and slowly dying off in the end, and the acting is, well, you decide. I've noticed a lot of talk about this major label release being a more refined, cleaner sounding album and while I agree and enjoyed previous Death Cab efforts I find the criticisms misplaced cool-kid whining.

I've been spending large chunks of my weekday afternoons writing at Serious Coffee downtown. Fairly priced good strong coffee, friendly enough staff and free Wi-Fi. Starbucks can't compete with that, although I do prefer the Starbucks decor to Serious Coffee's grandkids-have-sticky-hands upholstered seats with the plastic still on.

(consumer whore alert) Far from needing a new watch, but if I did I'd defiantly be looking at the Nixon line, more specifically the sick Nixon Rotolog. Real wood inlays, and the nice minimal face spins past the window to indicate time.

Tonight after dinner, due to a combination of over-tiredness and a momentary flash of insanity, Frankie decided to push the powerbook off the arm of the sofa sending it down to the unforgiving fake hardwood floor. We witnessed the horror from only a few feet away in what felt like super slow motion. I would have guessed an object the same size and weight as my powerbook would have hit the floor and wobbled around for a few seconds like a quarter, instead it landed on the corner housing the battery, paused for a split second and fell flat with a discomforting slap.

It seems to work fine, and it was closed so there was no damage to the display, but the base is a lot more um, bent than I like. Fortunately the bent section on the front right side is where the battery is stored and the weakest portion of the computer, so hopefully it won't affect any of the other more important components. I don't suppose a fix could be downloaded from apple for this? Or maybe I can get her to push it off the sofa arm once more, coaxing it to fall on the opposite side to bend it back into place. I'll weigh my options as I back up the hard drive.

Who's up for some text based Where's Waldo? (hint: Command /Ctrl+F and skip to the chase) And if you tire of that quickly, as I imagine you might, entertain your bad self with a little 1D Tetris. Highscore 999876800.

Punch you in the face?

Bark like a dog, then punch you in the face.

Not a whole lot. Having never had a Klondike Bar I would be hesitant to "do something" for one, though the idea that others would preform some sort of task other then paying for a Klondike Bar does make them more appealing. That said, I wouldn't go out of my way.

Hold you and your colleagues hostage on the 20th floor of the Internal Affairs headquarters until the truth comes out showing I was framed for the murder of my partner as well as pension fund embezzlement.

Go down to the corner store and buy one. About $1.50 or so sounds reasonable.

"Records searched by historian and author J. G. MacGregor indicate that about 1560 gold seekers passed through Edmonton in 1897/1898. Of these, about 775 tried the Klondike Trail through Fort Assiniboine and over the Swan Hills. Of these, 160 reached the Yukon, 580 turned back or stayed in the area, and 35 died on the Trail. Records show that about 4000 horses left Edmonton for the Yukon on the overland trail. Only half reached Peace River, and not one reached the Yukon. Many of these horses died on the trail over the Swan Hills, and a hill near Deer Mountain was said to be white with horse bones." - The Klondike Trail Society.
Mmmm, who wants an ice cream?

Eat runny eggs in slow motion. I've always wanted to write that, and this seemed like the best opportunity I was going to get.

Stick needle in eye. Preferably not my own.

Set fire to an orphanage. Klondike Bar? Sorry, I thought you said [inaudible]. How embarrassing.

A pox! A pox on those who use the cargo elevator for non cargo related activies, like I don't know --- a cigerette break on the rooftop. Some of us have work to do (then bitch in our weblog about it). Make way for my trolley wheezy!

Last night I read a small blurb about a book titled Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Not a favourable review mind you, but I was curious to learn the joke behind the book's name. As if by magic the answer popped up in my RSS reader a few minutes ago so I read it out to an Australian co-worker. Apparently they have a similar, yet dirtier version of the same joke in Australia about a koala that eats, roots and leaves.

And no I'm not being ironic with my punctuation.

A cautionary (and utterly hilarious) tale about cloning Bill Cosby. The second episode's a little out there, that's if you don't consider a family of cloned Cosbys out there in the first place.

Update: Channel101 received a cease and desist from Bill Cosby's attorney. I have all four episodes, but out of fear of creating my own legal issues I won't be hosting them. BoingBoing is linking to a couple torrents.

Listed in no particular order.

Discuss in the comments.

Just wanted to express my affection for Ta-Da lists. I try to write proper to-do lists every morning, but some how that little scrap of paper always gets misplaced or multiplies into two or three other notes by the end of the day. Things have gotten quite hectic lately, to-do items spread all over the place, so I gave Ta-Da Lists a try. Clarity. Create, share and keep track of to-do lists and it comes with an RSS feed or each or all of your lists smooshed together. I've also been using Basecamp (free version), which ta-da lists are a part of, to help keep track of another personal project I have going on right now.

Tada means free in Japanese. I wonder if they know this.

This morning as I past the McDonald's near my office the automatic doors opened and out rushed the smells of grease and tobacco smoke into the frigid morning air. This combined with the sight of commuters side stepping their way around the puddles of icy slush after a night of snow reminded me of living in Ontario. It's funny the things that can trigger such vivid memories no mater how repulsive or unwelcome.

Browsing through Amazon last night for my nephew�s birthday gift I came across the strangest product review for the Raffi Singable Songs CD. Raffi (Raffi Cavoukian) is Canada's most regarded children's performer and author, and his album Singable Songs has been a classic since the 70's. Most reviews are of a similar nature; "My kids love it, blah, blah, blah" "This is our kids favourite..." until you get to the review by someone from Langley, VA. Someone's got an interesting sense of humor, but on the other hand this explains why my caretakers always strapped me down before every Raffi listening session (as they were called) in the room with a giant wall-mirror. And no, Ethan I didn't get you the Raffi CD. Don�t forget I'm the cool uncle who lives far away and doesn't have to help assemble anything ;-)

While in Canada I picked up a pair of slippers to use at my mother's house. She keeps a notoriously cold home, and with the hardwood flooring it seemed like a wise purchase. I've bought slippers before but usually after a few weeks the novelty wears off and they end up forgotten and abandoned under the bed. I had planned on leaving the slippers there for our next visit, but one thing led to another and I ended up dragging them back to Tokyo and have been wearing them everyday since. What's next? Newspaper reading? A pipe? A dog to possibly fetch those slippers and newspaper? Only time will tell.

Emma T. Peel wanted me to know that my vi@g*r@ had been shipped along with it's tracking number. How nice, especially seeing I didn't order any in the first place. Suckers.

And as an added bonus she threw in a few famous quotes for me, possibly to memorize. Maybe for some sort of test later on, I don't know.

If I told you that I recently dreamt about people dressed up in monkey suits terrorizing stereotypical Parisians, frighteningly similar to the Bloodhound Gang's video for The Bad Touch, would you think any worse of me? Oh really. Is that right? Well then, nevermind. I wonder what's on the discovery channel.

What could be stranger than a typhoon in December? How about a beautiful sunny day with a temperature of 25 degrees. Shorts and sandals optional, but surely doable.

Oh [enter your chosen divine entity here], why can't I dance like Jay Kay? You know -- that guy from Jamiroquai. If life was a Bollywood movie, where conflict was settled over big dance numbers, and I could bust-a-move like Jay, no one would ever mess with me. But no big hats. If the deal is you give me funky Jay Kay dancing powers but I have to wear those ridicules Dr. Seuss hats then forget the whole thing.

My ever-growing Mac OS X dock. Olive green wallpaper from the Veer collection.

Not exactly everything, but a good (or is that bad) round-up of worst-of's from NPR's editors. I particularly liked the bit about the bumper sticker on the explosion-prone Pinto that read "Hit me and we both die."

I'm surprised The Yugo made the list but the Lada wasn't so unlucky. We owned a Lada Niva when I was 4 or 5, and from what I remember it spent more time in the mechanic's garage than in our driveway. On the bright-side we got to know Toronto's public transportation system inside and out.

Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi) delivers this killer rambling analogy of the music industry, and the notion of music as 'property' when asked how he feels about people sharing his band's music on the internet.

Hold on. Today's Wednesday? How and when did that happen? I'm not sure if I should take it as a good sign that the week is half finished, or a troubling sign that my brain was still working in a Tuesday mindset.

This year's Buy Nothing Day is Friday November 26. Luckily that's the day my monthly train pass expires so I guess I'll just have to stay home. Take that doomsday economy.

Recently I've seen a surge in people wearing these Phiten bracelets (fabric-covered PVC rubber cord containing powdered titanium) and necklaces. This so-called therapeutic brand of accessories are really catching on in Japan. My neighbourhood has its own Phiten store with life size cut out of professional athlete endorser Randy Johnson, and they were apparently worn by the entire Japanese Olympic volleyball team. Even Phiten's TV commercials run during prime-time, and seem to market to the every-person and not just as an athletic accessory, hence all the men in suits I see wearing them on the train. Through the act of "Phild Processing" titanium the super jewelry is said to relieve pain and stiffness in muscles, and improve blood circulation by regulating the body's electrical current. Alrighty then.

I've never entered any Phiten shop or bothered to listen to a sales pitch so I found this account on skeptic James Randi's site of Phiten's test for potential buyers very interesting. Phiten has a US website, but do people actually buy into this type of junk science overseas? If so, I've got some magic beans I need to get out of storage.

An excerpt from Barbers of Belmont at soundportraits.org There's no black sheep stylist in Uri's family, well not that he's admitting to anyway. Reminds me of McSweeney's Interviews with barbers

Living in Japan I see the English language mutilated on a daily basis. Nonsensical English on clothing, advertisements, stationary and catch phrases repeated ad nauseam. Then again, I have to give Japanese credit for not tattooing these on their bodies. We can't say the same for many in the west who, despite their best intentions, just can't seem to get it right the first time, which when you think about it is pretty imperative considering the temporary nature of a tattoo.

Personally I think Kanji tattoos are silly, but if you feel the need to show your individually in a foreign language please, please, make sure and double check your usage by those who actually speak the language. And when consulting with a native speaker be sure to watch for raised eyebrows and signs of held back laughter.

Update: Looks like the website I linked to above Hanzi Smatter, a website dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in Western culture, ran out of bandwidth. A little googling came up with Jeremy's take on Kanji tattoos, and a few words of caution on character stroke order.

A little known fact (was at least to me) is that during a thunder storm, Japanese children are taught to lean forward and cup their hands over their belly buttons to protect it from the thunder. Apparently, in Japanese folklore, the god of lightning and thunder (Kaminari-sama) is thought to steal belly buttons. I'm not aware of any preference for innies or outties, but I would assume the smell of fear plays a big part (e.g. dogs, bees).

A massive condominium has been in the works near my office for more than a year now, and it looks like they're putting the finishing touches on now. Being a mostly residential area the majority of buildings don't even come up to its knees, so it's safe to say it sticks out like an infected thumb. As floor after floor was being built, I wondered if they had decided before hand on an actual number of floors or were just winging it according to budget. For a moment I imagined my daughter supervising the construction --- ordering floor after floor built in record time until the structure came crashing down in a fit of giggles.

You can really get away with some insulting statements as long as you end them with a cute little ASCII smiley face. Isn't that right ---you bunch of fucking idiots :-P

How many times does one have to fall on slick wet pavement before thinking about buying new sandles. Well, apparently the exact number is three. Ouch.

When a baby's toy emits a series of beeps and boops in the form a children's song it can give you a sense of hope and joy to hear about the whiteness of a certain lamb's fleece, the colour compaired to snow. And upon hearing that two young boys share the same first, last, and two middle names you can't help but smile.

But there's something about the drawn out, off key notes that are produced when the toy battery dies, transforming the tune from uplifting and joyful to dark, morbid and a bit depressing, tempting you to stick something rusty and sharp in your eye or jump from a high ledge. On the way home from school Mary's lamb is jacked at gun point and sold for kebab meat by the little boy who lives down the lane, ring leader of the local black market wool trade. And upon hearing the ridiculously long name "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" both Johns are teased and ridiculed by their peers in the school yard till they run home crying like little girls with skinned knees.

The pen is deadlier than the sword. Yet a keyboard, if used correctly, has the potential to inflict just as much physical damage, especially if you use the corners in a quick jabbing motion, or utilize the attached cable creatively.

If you were to walk a mile in my shoes, you'd then have stinky socks. Hey, gimme back my shoes.

A food-marketing slogan adapted from the south pacific cannibal's own "You eat what you are". Marketing analysts dismissed trying to adapt other cannibal catch phrases such as "Mmmm… man-flesh!" , "My neighbour, it's what's for dinner." and, “Caucasian, the other white meat. ”

As a side note the Atkins marketing people declined our request for an interview. ;-)

How do you politely ask to see the legend diagram in the bottom of the box mapping the chocolate shape to the filling type, that is without offending the person making the offering of chocolate?

Well, I froze under pressure and now stuck with a chocolate with some sort of creamy lemon filling. I think I’ll leave it on my desk for someone to steal along with a small but growing pile of senbei, manjyu and individually wrapped soy based treats.

Yes and she's ugly. Some might even say she's really, really ugly. As someone somewhere might have said, "She may be evil, but she's still ugly." or that might have been stupid and ugly, but the point to get across here is the thing about her being ugly, can't stress that enough.

1. Dude, we're so bad-ass sneaking into a documentary film.
2. I don't even know why I'm here. I already voted for Fantasia.
3. Well if you're already going to the gun check, thanks. Be careful it's loaded.
4. Why does this Moore fellow criticize our poor president? It's not his fault he's a sorry excuse for leader and had to lie to get us into Iraq but we're at war damn it!
5. I heard Bush makes a cameo.

Saturday, Masako and I, leaving Baba to baby-sit, headed to the cinema to see the latest Hollywood SFX film. We decided to take the SUV as it was pretty hot outside and having to walk to the train station just seemed well, troublesome. Even if we got stuck in traffic we could just crank the A/C anyway.

Arriving at the theater we quickly confirmed our seating at the automatic ticket kiosk, ironically flanked by three theater staff. Two machines, three staff.

No trip to the cinema would be complete with out a visit to the snack bar. I went for the Big Freeze special set. That's a Large popcorn with double golden topping, Large "Brain Freeze" slush drink in limited edition collectors cup. The poster said something about collecting all five cups, and when I do I'll be happy as the boy in the poster seemed to be. Masako got the same.

I give the film two enthusiastic thumbs up. Lots of thrills and spills, including my 1.8L beverage during that timber wolf scene! *chuckle* no biggie, there's always more where that came from right.

If you haven't guessed already the film was The Day After Tomorrow and I did bring away a few important lessons. One, Will Smith is going to be in a really cool robot film sometime soon that will challenge the way we think about um, robots. And second, that kid from Harry Potter is no longer a kid. Those must have been some long filming days as Harry seemed to be sporting a five O'clock shadow in some scenes. Oh and the Vice President in the film reminded me of no one in particular. Especially no one in the current Bush administration that is.

Disclaimer: For those readers in which English is not their first language or for those without a sense of humor please know the following;

We don't own a car and haven't for the past five years. We take the train everywhere. Mostly everything else you can dismiss as poorly crafted sarcasm except for the ticket kiosk thing. That was just plain weird.

No this isn't another one of those "Man I really hate Spam" posts but simply a note for family, friends, acquaintances and the occasional internet stalker that sends me email. I'm getting sick of having to sort through my Junk email folder everyday (oops) so I've decided to heighten the level of spam filtering and automatically delete detected spam or even have it just bounce back to the sender. If I have not replied to a message and either the message has been bounced back to you or you feel it might have been detected as spam simply resend the mail but try to make it well, less spammy.

For example; If you want to tell me about this great herbal alternative to Viagra that you've been using don't call it "viagra" as this usually results in a flag going up. Instead spice it up a bit. You know, call it V-i-A-g-R-a or mix in some numbers or something. Don't be lazy, There are 600,426,974,379,824,381,952 ways to spell viagra people!

If you want to fill me in on a surefire investment you learned about try to refrain from using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. I can't stress this enough people, it looks like your YELLING AT ME, and that tends to frighten the unsure investor.

Forget about all the whole "cheap online Canadian prescriptions" thing. I'm Canadian and I live in Japan so you�re really wasting your time on me. And puh-leeze just let me say the term "online" is so 1990's and makes you look a little desperate for adjectives.

That's all I can think of right now. So know this, just because I don't reply or your message is bounced doesn't mean I don't love you.

With most of the 24 hour news cycle devoted to the 60th anniversary of D-Day, and also the death of former US president Ronald Reagan this weekend a newly released USA TODAY/ CNN/Gallup Poll shows that 76% of Americans feel that Ronald Reagan was personally involved and was a deciding factor in the June 6th 1944 invasion of France.

When asked for comment Vice President Dick Cheney was quoted as saying,


(file under satire)

NPR has an interesting interview with Jad Adams, author of Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle, about the cultural role the potent green liquor played among artistic circles in 1890s France. According to Adams Absinthe was to the painters and writers of the 1890's as marijuana was to the artist of the 1960's. Absinthe is still freely available in Japan.

Every day I write an average of 20-30 work related emails. I set up my signature including the usual Name, Title, Company/Dept. Name and Address using lotus notes but I always add the closing according to the person the mail is to be sent to. Today though, I made an ever so slight typo in an email to VERY important person in my company, typing "t" instead of "g" in my closing of Regards. You can see my pickle.

I'm wondering why the spell checker didn't pick up on that? Notes (R5) spell checker doesn't understand hypertext links "http://" and email addresses "@domain.com" but let's retards right on through.

a hilarious photo essay chronicling the opening moments of the new Blogger launch.

It's officially the Golden Week holiday which started yesterday, but many companies don't always give an entire week hence why I'm stuck staring at my Dell drinking vending machine coffee. On the plus side most of the people I support took today off, so I've been able to catch up on my weblog reading. I recently started using an RSS aggregator (little behind in that respect, I know) populated with favourite weblogs and news websites.

We've really made no big plans for the coming week, most days, if weather permits, will be spent at Enoshima beach, catching up on some books I've started but never finished (Hegemony or Survival, Einstein Never Used Flash Cards and Me Talk Pretty One Day to name a few ) maybe even tune the guitar and learn a new song.

One thing I am going to try though is stay away from the "political blogging". That doesn't mean I will stop reading talkingpointsmemo.com etc. for a few days, I just won't be commenting on much during the holiday. My brain needs a break from all this, but most importantly my heart.

Top twelve reasons homosexual marriage should not be legal:

1 .Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control.

2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people can�t legally get married because the world needs more children.

3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears� 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

5. Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn�t changed at all; women are property, blacks can�t marry whites, and divorce is illegal.

6. Gay marriage should be decided by people not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of the minorities.

7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That�s why we have only one religion in America.

8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

10. Children can never suceed without a male and a female role model at home. That�s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven�t adapted to cars or longer lifespans.

12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a �seperate but equal� institution is always constitutional. Seperate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as seperate marriages for gays and lesbians will.

-credit goes to GatorGSA and link via SeanBonner.com

An excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times from Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness) on the difference in government polices in Canada and the US regarding marijuana usage and in particular medical marijuana.

On one hand, starting this fall pharmacies in British Columbia will be selling marijuana for medicinal purposes, without a prescription. But south of the boarder penalties for a first marijuana offence range from probation to life without parole. Schlosser writes that 90 percent of the 700,000 people arrested in 2002 were arrested for simple possession.

Criticism is coming from Canada though. Users of medical marijuana accuse the BC government of overpricing and supplying "lousy pot".

Buying an espresso drink in Japan can sometimes be a hair-pulling experience,

"A few weeks ago I went into a Starbucks in Shiga and ordered a double espresso. The clerk (can't call her a barista) looked at me as if to ask, "Do we sell that?" Then her supervisor stepped in and handled my off-the-wall request."
-Nils in Kyoto

So when we were in Victoria last Christmas I was amazed at the effort our barista put into creating this beautiful flower in the foam of our lattes. I almost felt bad drinking it.

But they're taking it to a new level here! -link via boing boing

messing with my web directories. Now most everything except for this weblog is pointing to vudeja.com. I really can't remember why I never just set up a blog to point to the root in the first place.

Instructions:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions. via Achikochi

Heading home on the train last night I sat down next to what seemed to be two couples, say in their mid sixties or so. Each couple sitting across from one another and from their attire seemed to be coming back from an afternoon hike in the mountains.

But what stuck me as odd was the intensity of their conversation, the heated debate, and the hilarious jokes told, maybe recalling a funny moment on the hike or at lunch that day. But honestly I have no idea what they were talking about and not because of my Japanese skill level, but because they used no words and communicated only in sign language.

Every day we talk, but do we ever really say anything?