absolute rubbish

watched an absolute rubbish flim that goes by the name of Dreamcatcher. can't even begin to point out what was wrong with it. every single aspect of the film was piss poor. it's one of the films where you wonder if it was meant to be comedy and you just failed to pick-up on it. from my recollection a friend of mine said this was good and thats why we chose it. any advise, recommendations or anything that comes from that person's mouth in the future will be summarily diregarded. wonder if anyone in america has tried to sue a film production company for wasting their time. blaaahhhhhhh!!

out with coffee

There nothing really new here. I’ve just decided to face up to facts and admit that my constant state of nervousness, stress, anxiety and general lack of well-being is because of caffeine intake, mainly from coffee. In an effort to answer “no” to more of the questions posted here.
I am going to finish up and against advise I will basically go cold turkey. There are numerous withdrawal symptoms documented. On this third morning of no coffee I had pain at the back of my knees and also muscle pain in various areas of my back. I did sneak in a cup of green tea this morning
which does contain caffeine but to a much lesser degree. Interestingly enough those niggling little pains went away which makes me think that caffeine is indeed at play here. It’s weird having to listen to your body. Aussie lads only really learned to listen to the most overt messages sent from our bodies.  
  

MID-WEEK MANTRA

SAY NO TO BEER, SAY NO TO COFFEE!!
SAY NO TO BEER, SAY NO TO COFFEE!!
SAY NO TO BEER, SAY NO TO COFFEE!!

work email

must, must, must find a way to resist checking work related email on the weekends or days off. easiest solution is to get away from internet access and a computer. sounds easy but bit hard for me cause I use the internet alot for my leisure activities as well......ahh...any advise is most welcome.

weapon against wax

upload: tokyogoat.

a follow-up post from the previous entry. just wanted to present a sample of a common item used by the japanese to clean their ears. as an australian who was taught not to put anything in their ear I was horrified that people dug deep into the depths with these long bamboo sticks that are slightly hook shaped at the end. my love for these however has grown to the point that I am considering becoming a serious collector. most sovenir shops throughout japan boast these, usually adorned with their local "famous" item. Aomori is famous for apples.

ear wax for 1,120 yen

have always known that I have a tiny hole in each eardrum of each ear. these little holes, that appeared naturally, serve a positive role by allowing sinus fluids to escape via my ears in the form of ear waxy type substance, releaving ear pressure and the like.

over recent years i have been increasingly aware of not be able to hear perfectly well and of there being a constant ringing in the background. along with this was a knowledge that my ears were very sensitive to loudish noises with irritation and agitation easily following.

now it's shocking the number of years that these things are allowed to continue until someone does something about it. after some superficial cleaning of the ears yesterday morning the decision was made to get myself off to an ear specialist and have a long overdue deep wax build-up cleansing. so following a quick websearch such a specialist was located within 2 minutes walk of my apartment's front door.

off i went with my national health card with Karin accompanying me to assist in communicating in the ever mysterious tongue and completion of the pre-consultation health questionnaire.

a short wait had me then sitting in an old dentist type chair, a metal funnel type object in my ear and an ever so slightly geeky, goofy-like, Japanese doctor peering, poking, proding, scraping, vacuming. the left ear was reported as "mmm...sukoshi aru'...or there's a little bit there. the right ear as "ARE!! ..takusan arimasu" ...or Gee! there's alot in there. So after a greater degree of peering, poking, proding, scraping and vacuming the doctor announced that the procedure was finished. I then learned the shocking and embarrassing extent of the sitution as I turn my head toward a small boat like paper tray on the doctors side table. An approximate total of about three kidney bean sized, hard, black rocks of ear wax sat there. "Whats that?", I wondered!! "Where did that come from?" I questioned!! "Are they little bits of cotton wool with some black stuff on the outside??" Alas. I reluctantly accepted the truth.

Mumbling a few words along the lines of "Oh, I am surpised",　"that's unbelievable", "that's filthy", "Sorry to trouble you ", and "Excuse me", I shuffled out the door , handed over 1,120 yen and vowed to spend the same, on the same, each year for the rest of my life.

the cicadas sang clearly, beautifully and loudly today.

plans? plans!?

So the Tokyo summer is kicking in and having an escape plan is highly recommended and indeed a good idea, all things considered. But as per usual, my stock standard and actual response to the numerous, idol-chat queries into my travel plans is: "plans?...umm...I don't have any plans. I will be at work."

Now this doesn't sound very interesting at first glance. The reason for this is because it's not.

fire work

do i really want to expose myself to the scorching furnace of the sun for several hours to mark out a spot at one of this years tokyo fireworks festivals. the main, and perhaps only, reason i would go is to attempt some fireworks photos. [despite their general lack of appeal to me]. the list of reasons i wouldn't go is long and varied. have to decide quickly.

blogs in space

after following a few links from a SMH article yesterday I submitted this blog to be transmitted into outerspace. My co-worker, Rob, correctly pointed out that at first this idea, indeed, sounds way cooler than it actually is. people have been transmitting radio signals and the like out there for many, many year. but anyways the obligatory badge was posted and linked down the right hand side there somewhere if you're interested. aliens coming to earth and wanting to contact tokyogoat is about the only hope of fame and fortune I have at the minute. loser.

wretchedness

upload: tokyogoat.

needless to say going back to work after a long weekend is always a bit of a challenge. tomorrow we face that challenge once again. will be relying heavily on this image to get me through the day.

today was a big cleaning day however. i won't go into the details of what was discovered. i'll leave it with the following 2 sentences.

1: tokyo summers are wretched
2: everyone that lives in tokyo must fire off at least 2 cochroach bombs over the coming weeks.

waterfall

upload: tokyogoat.

Just blogging this cause it is probably the best pic I have taken so far. There was some help from photoshop but over all the camera/ND8 filter/tripod/remote shutter release came up with the magic.

We were in the northern part of Japan's main island on a driving/photo tour. I didn't realise how much i enjoy driving. it all came back pretty quick and I soon felt very much myself. the price of all our vacations just went up by the price of renting a car.

this is who I am

upload: tokyogoat.

this really does say it all. one of the indicators that flickr is flying high is that there are loads of developers putting some really cool things together on their own initiative. Thanks to fd for point the way to the badge creator. fd has some other flickr toys as well. Here is an album creator, which is also super cool. the lovers of firefox have also made a bunch of side bar plugins which are great as well. here is one called flickr fox by some dude named phil mccluskey

a shady lane...everybody wants one

Freeze...
Don't move...
You've been chosen
As an extra,
In the movie adaptation,
Of the sequel,
To your life.

Brighten Up the Corners
Pavement

wacky antics from those crazy kid co-workers

the funny part here is that this IS actually funny.

spidey

hey you

"Why don't you keep your ill-informed, ill-conceived, self-serving, unasked-for, unwanted suggestions to yourself?" Yeah, that's what should've been said. But instead, knowing that it wouldn't be understood either way, this peace offering dribbled out, wrapped with a red faced and tied with a wrinkled bow of frustration, "yeah well...err...we can discuss it later for everyone's understanding."

breath

upload: tokyogoat.

it's important to remember to breath in this modern sedentary world. many struggle through using only 10% of their lung capacity and wonder why life seems like a constant state of anxiety, stress, heart palpitations and heartburn. as simple as it seems the recommendation is to stop, breath some air, perhaps even do some exercise to bring on necessary deep breathing. failing that one could turn to breathing exercise a la yoga or visit the place in this picture.

Well-worn rocker

upload: lil.

blogging a photo from my flickr buddy Lil

Didn't really have much to say about it other than with the turn of the sesaon, the warmer weather having arrived and the relentless stinking heat on it's way these dancin' fools will have a few solid months of scratching around like chickens at the entrance to Yoyogi park on a Sunday. Good luck to them I guess.
Good pic though. Nice one Lil. Check out some more.

cool

upload: tokyogoat.

a couple of weekends ago we went to the Thai festival in Harajuku. Everyone insists on saying it is in Yoyogi but I maintain that in fact it is not but is in the NHK grounds. Anyways, as can be seen at most outings in Tokyo it was packed. The plague. So to make the hours slip by we had a couple of beers. This shot was of a new-ish beer to Tokyo "Phuket". Tasted like beer it did. Lucky for that eh. Was glad to have a chance to meet with some friends who'd had a kid a year ago. Ended up at karaoke.

another holiday

upload: tokyogoat.

so here we are on a Friday night having returned to work today after 3 days off and we are faced with the weekend....ahh it's a hard life. Calls for some beer.

japanese-water-drain

upload: tokyogoat.

another place we visited over golden week was the yanaka area, near nishi-nippori. there are numerous temples and old shopping alleys. we were on shopping bicycles, a big plus in one way but stopped us from strolling through all the back alleys that i love so dearly. as per usual i can't really report too much on the historical aspects of the area but i did take a few nice photos. much more instant gratification there. ahh...cheers.