Author Archives: DELively

More or Less Seething

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I’ve started a new contract, sort of, with the company I work for, but I’m not happy about it. At least I won’t be until I start actually working. The more I sort of have to work, the more angry I feel.

The new(ish) rules governing these “work” days operate on a kind of double-dipping. I am on call all day, and am even required to have my phone with me in case I’m called in, but if I’m not called in I’m expected to produce some kind of evidence that I’ve worked even though I’ve not been asked to work. (And the company won’t subsidize the phone even though I’m required to have it.)

As such, I’m still stuck at home doing stuff and hoping I’m not called in on days I’m watching our youngest. (Note: since no schools are in session, it’s unlikely I’ll be called in but the possibility is still annoying.) This makes me angry as it leaves me unable to relax because I have to do busy work. Quite frankly, if they gave me a specific assignment it wouldn’t annoy me as much as the “just do it on your own” attitude.

Complicating matters is the fact I haven’t actually signed my contract yet. I’m not, technically, holding out. I simply asked a question that hasn’t been answered yet. In fact, the email asking the question hasn’t even been acknowledged.

That adds to the anger and doesn’t exactly motivate me to do my best work for the company.

For a while I tried, but after a while it’s like sending Christmas cards to people who never send one back. Eventually you give up trying.

Lost in the Ink World

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Yesterday I mentioned how I went to a knife show and somehow managed to buy ink. Today I somehow managed to sell almost all of that ink. The problem is, now I have to go back and hope the monster I unleashed hasn’t cleaned the place out so that I can buy and sell more.

After I posted pics of the ink on Instagram (mostly to test the waters for potential buyers) I also helped some locals find the store and at least one of those locals will buy one of each. Given the reaction of the clerk when I ordered one of each of the eight flavors they had, I’m sure that having a couple more people show up and ask for all eight was a real surprise.

Note: I will have to use that when I approach the stores when and if I decide to formalize the business: I can move markets. For fifteen minutes or so. I also have customers in North America, New Zealand, The Philippines, Europe and India. If I were not lazy I’d have more. Maybe I’ll leave that last bit off.

Now I’m taking careful notes to avoid repeating the one serious mistake I’ve made. (My confidence is low.)

I’ve also continued to play with the accounting software. This is another post, but let’s just say for now I ran an experiment. Then I had to repeat it. Then I swore. Then I repeated it. Then it seemed to work.

 

 

Lots of the Same

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Went to a knife show but ended up acquiring ink.

Today there was a knife show sponsored by the Japan Custom Knife Makers and the Japan Knife Guild. I wasn’t planning on buying anything, but at these shows you never know.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, a lot of the makers were displaying similar kinds of knives. The main theme was small fixed blade knives that are popular among some knife geeks in the USA but are problematic here in Japan. In theory a fixed blade with a blade under six centimeters long is legal to carry. However, as soon as you pull it out and use it someone will complain.

After a couple sweeps of the tables my Canadian friend and I headed down for a beer and then, after he went home, I headed down to Maruzen where I tried to convince a woman to make me a leather pen case (she turned me down). Then I went across the street to Takashimaya to pick up a couple bottles of their bespoke ink and discovered they had eight different flavors.

I bought all of them as I’m pretty sure I can sell them. However, on the way to the register, the clerk pointed out three flavors by a different company. I didn’t buy them, but that gives me an excuse to go back.

Back Slidin’ Away

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I was up then I was down now I’m up but balanced.

Today was day 600 of the diet/life style change I’ve been mostly adhering to. I reached a bottom end and decided to put some back on but the bad habits sent me shooting way back over my goal. I’m still well below where I started, but I can feel the weight gain.

Luckily I’ve hit an equilibrium where I’m not adding or dropping. However, I’d prefer to hit that equilibrium a lot lower than where I’m at now.

I dug into my food journals to find the menu I followed when I lost the bulk of the weight. It is intimidating and inspiring but the biggest problem is I’ve lost the motivation behind it all. Work related stress has thrown me off the game lately.

That said, I like being able to buy trousers of more than one style now in Japan rather than online and the clothes I own now are the measure of what I need to be doing.

The girls are away for a couple days which gives me a chance to reboot things without any attention being drawn to what I’m doing. It also gives me a chance to double down on bad habits. We’ll see which wins.

 

Such Haste to Messiness

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The girls have been gone only a few hours and the apartment is already mess. Except for the speed this is normal. In my defense, the dishes were dirty before they left.

I, of course, agreed that I would wash them, and will, eventually. First, though, I confirmed what day the girls would return so that I can plan what day to wash the dishes.

As I’ve written before, this is the old normal. I’ll also have a couple days to do some running around–I did some today, but more on that in a future post.

The trick, of course, is to revert to primeval only those rooms that were already kind of messy. That way I only have to return them to the state they were in. If I can improve them, and quite frankly, there’s little incentive to do so, then I earn bonus points.

Any other room that gets messy, though, is work that has to be done. The rooms that were nearly pristine before the girls left have to be returned to their nearly pristine state.

On a good day, I can do this quickly.

I could do that on a bad day, too, I suppose, but just can’t be bothered usually.

Worst and Worser

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I should have quit after five.

Actually, I did quit after five, but then I came back for five more.

In the game I still manage to play a few times a week I have have accounts on both the Asian and North American servers. Because of a better connection, I’ve been more successful on the Asian server than on the North American.

That said, the game seems to be programmed to make you play in alternating streaks of success and abject failure. Because of this, I’ve learned to follow the advice of a more successful player who recommended playing five games and then deciding if you should stay in or not. His rule is that if you reach five games and have less than three wins, you should quit playing for a while and come back later.

After finishing five matches and losing all five in brutal, horrible, very bad, no good ways. I took a short break.

When I came back, though, I went 0-5 again. I played better but couldn’t get any wins, but it was time to quit.

Then I went to the North American server for a few matches and played much better. However, even though I was winning, I thought it best to quit while I was ahead.

I might play again tomorrow, but it’s probably best I don’t.

Playing with the Numbers

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I’m beginning to understand corrupt accountants.

I’ve mentioned before how Japan has made me a minor currency speculator but today I was playing with a program and moving numbers around.

For my minor business/hobby, I’ve finally decided to keep more formal notes of my expenses and earnings and setting aside a small chunk of money to be used solely for the business/gambling.

That involved opening an account book on Gnucash (because free). However, because it is a double entry bookkeeping system I also had to learn to make the mental leap about balance and every income is an expense gets a line where it gets spent and, well, it gets.

At that point I started having fun manipulating the numbers in order to make the bottom line look exactly the way I wanted it to. I also experimented with different types of entries to make it do exactly what I wanted it to do.

I think I’ve finally figured it all out, but now it’s time to make an actual inventory database. That will lead to other problems, but I’ll worry about those later.

 

Almost Less Than Worthless

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We are taking over our in-laws’ automobile and have to get rid of our old one. It’s not worth much but it’s worth more than simply dumping it, even though that option is quite tempting.

Every now and then, here in Japan you see news about illegal garbage dumps. Usually the dumps consist of cars and large appliances.

This is partly a problem because the government now charges you for getting rid of old stuff. Because of this used-goods stores will offer pathetic amounts for your electronics and electrical goods. You may only make a few hundred yen for your refrigerator–which will be sold for 8,000-10,000 yen depending on its size–but it saves you money because you don’t have to pay the recycling tax. On the other hand, if you live in an area with no used-goods stores, the only way to avoid the tax is to use your stuff until it dies once and for all forever and then illegally dump your stuff in the woods somewhere.

In the case of automobiles it’s worse. The government has mandatory inspections that get more frequent the older the car gets. Because of this, the car depreciates quickly. Once a car reaches age ten it is almost worthless and you can’t even coax college kids into buying it as the maintenance will be more than the car is worth. (Note: the primary market for decade old cars in Japan seems to be foreign teachers living in rural areas.) The only selling points of a car that old are the condition of the car, if the car has a low-powered (aka, a more “fuel efficient”) engine and the length of time left before the mandatory inspection.

In our case, our car has a couple strikes: 1) it is a 2004 model which means several sales companies wouldn’t even give us a price; and 2) it only has a couple months left before its mandatory inspection which mean it will soon require a few hundred dollars in expenses. As such, it is almost worthless (unless we can find an English teacher in a rural area and want to pay tax on the sale). That said, because we live in a suburbanish area (long story) it’s not worth our energy to drive to a rural area and dump it.

We will sell it though, because we need to get the new car before the next mandatory inspection. If we miss that deadline, then we probably will dump it somewhere.

Old and Dusty

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They are out of date, but I’ll eat them anyway, because it if it doesn’t kill me, it will give me a writing topic.

I was cleaning out the earthquake kit because it’s time to replace and upgrade the perishable components. As I was digging, I found a few items I’d forgotten about. Two of them are only two years past their “best by” date. One is approaching three years.

Many of the things around them are also past their “best by” date, but if they pass a visual test and a smell test (performed by someone else) I’ll go ahead and consume them.

All this gives me data I can use when I restock the kit. What holds up well? What was a waste of money? Why is the afterlife more full of fire and brimstone than I was expecting?

If I have any doubts, I will throw stuff out. A few years ago an entire bag of beef jerky looked suspicious even though it wasn’t past its “best by” date yet and it ended up in the trash.

I’ve also eaten ancient ramen soup and tried to use ancient instant coffee (the former was okay; the latter wasted water and time as it was one block that didn’t dissolve).

I also have to update the other bags and try to make better notes about the contents.

Or, I’ll just wait a few years and see what’s still edible.

 

 

Walking the Cozy Streets

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The bus was going to take too long so I decided we should walk. It turned out to be a good idea.

Because it was nice weather and because I was “working” I took our youngest one station away to the main town to visit a street dedicated to sweets and candy.

After lunch, we walked up to a bus stop, but quickly figured out that a bus to where we wanted to go probably wouldn’t arrive in our lifetime. Even if it did, because it was Saturday and the streets were going to be crowded, the bus wouldn’t get us where we wanted to go in our lifetime.

As such, I decided we should walk. About a third of the way to the candy street, we suddenly ran into barricades. The streets had been blocked off for a special event (we’re still not sure what it was) and that let us walk comfortably down the center of the street. usually this section is crowded because it’s two busy lanes of traffic flanked by small sidewalks full of tourists.

Eventually we got to the candy street, which is an ally full of small candy stores and sweets factories.  We quickly raided our favorite candy shops for our favorite sweets. Two of mine came with warnings (more on that in a future post) and then we had taiyaki. I had the sweet potato version (sweet potatoes are a local delicacy) and our youngest had a custard version. (Note: I only allowed her to do this because the purple sweet potato version was unavailable.)

Then we walked back. The most interesting things to see were an abundance of people in edo era clothing who were apparently part of the festival, and an abundance of police, who’ve been put on high alert after recent attacks and before cherry blossom season.

We returned home to eat even more sweets, which was probably a bad idea, even if it was a delicious one.