Category Archives: Random

A Sweet Mystery at Last I’ve Found Thee

I’ve discovered a couple things these past couple weeks about the Japan Post Office.

1) A lot depends on which post office you choose.
2) It’s easier to send ink than knives.

On two different occasions in the past I’ve tried to mail knives to the USA and found myself explaining Japanese knife laws to, well, a large group Japanese postal workers. in their defense, they seem to think all folding knives are “switchblades” like those illegally wielded by Stephen Colbert.

When mailing the ink I had to prove, at least the first time I mailed some, that the ink was not a dangerous item. At one point the postal worker pointed to my signature confirming that they contents were not dangerous and went “Really? Really” (something like that).

Today, though, I took six different packages to a different post office. (Because it meant stuff was going out and money was coming in, She Who Must Be Obeyed offered to drive. This, it would seem, is a hobby of which she approves.)

She drove to a post office I’d never been to before but which she described as “her post office.”

As soon as we entered, we found out we were first in line and got immediate service. At that point, though, She Who Must Be Obeyed abandoned me to the clerk. The clerk took the boxes and his first concern was how many I had (six). He also pointed to my explanation that it was “bottled ink” and went, very politely, “what the hell is this?”. I explained it was fountain pen ink and he nodded and more or less went “cool”.

After that the biggest concern was that the shipping slips actually matched the correct boxes (they did).

It took five minutes for them to process everything and collect the money–whilst a small crowd assembled behind me–and then it was over.

I’ll definitely go back to the that post office again; that is, I will if I decide to keep buying and reselling ink. I also wonder how long they’ll actually believe I’m actually sending that many gifts…

The Best Laid Aside Plans

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It was one of those days again today, in an odd way.

The plan was simple and had simple steps:

get up early,
shave
bathe,
drink coffee,
eat breakfast,
mark exams until early stages of insanity set in,
drink more coffee,
stare at bourbon,
turn away from bourbon,
mark exams until full stage of insanity,
sort ink,
find addresses,
pack boxes,
mail boxes,
mark whilst insane.

All that was supposed to be accomplished by lunch. What happened after lunch didn’t matter because “insane”.

None of this, of course, factored in things such as “family” or “rationalizing laziness”.

I woke up early, then discovered that She Who Must Be Obeyed had got up sooner and was doing laundry, which meant “bathe” was sabotaged so I passed on “shave” as well. (Note: I have no sense of smell and wasn’t planning on going outside until later and as the wedding vows go “in sickness and in health, for cleaner or stinkier.” Look it up.)

I did manage to drink coffee and eat breakfast in there somehow.

It was, however, my job to hang the laundry that was blocking my shower once it was finished and after She Who Must Be Obeyed had gone to work. (Note: hypothetically speaking I was on an unusual schedule that involved working from home part of the time today.)

That meant the marking exams phase started late and although I drank coffee, I completely forgot to stare at the bourbon which meant I was never tempted to add it to my coffee. This actually put me ahead of schedule. Sort of.

At that point, I hit the marking wall and decided to make some ink swatches as samples for people interested in acquiring the ink. I also decided to skip ahead to the address finding and box packing. But that meant I had to find boxes. I also looked up the shipping costs and, oddly, didn’t think about reaching for bourbon although such an act would have been justified. Instead I reached for a knife and started cutting down the boxes of the smaller shipments to reduce the weight.

Once again, I started doing math to see if I was actually making money shipping ink. (I am, but I need to set out a more helpful list of prices for those interested in acquiring some and a better process for getting it shipped.)

At some point after that, I was forced to put off the actual shipping until tomorrow afternoon. (Note: our policies are that your ink will arrive precisely “some day”; we don’t, however, specify in which year that will happen. Thank you for paying in advance, though!)

Eventually, I got marking done, although I’m not finished.

As the saying goes: Tomorrow is another day.

I just didn’t realize that was a threat.

Ink and Marking in Confluence With Posts

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I’m in the middle of marking final exams which means it’s a great time to deal with ink. In fact, today was a confluence of different events related to recent posts.

Not only am I marking final exams, but once again, I have some concerns about the listening test as the first listening I’d recorded at home had sound issues that earned comments from one of the test proctors. I was worried they’d affect the results, but thus far the scores have fallen in the usual spread.

The marking is being done with the MUJI fountain pen I gave my initial impressions of a couple posts ago. Although I like the nib, I can already sense a few issues that will make an eventual long term review–hints: thin, slippery, dry. It hasn’t made me reach for my old marking pen yet, though, but it’s still early in the process.

Then, in the middle of marking, the doorbell rang and three boxes of ink arrived. I’ve mentioned before my low margin, suddenly higher volume (barely enough to buy me a bottle of ink for myself) newly started side business but today it actually became a real thing. I’m now responsible for carefully packing and shipping things people have already paid for.

I also have to remember who ordered what and where they want it sent–I kind of wish I hadn’t written that all down in pencil–and get it to the post office without breaking anything. I then have to deal with the post office staff who think INK=WMD. I also have to decide if I want to continue this and how to make it a more organized thing. Then I have to do some math to see if the margin is merely low or actually negative.

Oh, and at some point I have to finish marking my exams. That is also rather low margin. And math is involved eventually.

Dangerous Bottles and Running Blockades

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I spent part of the morning trying to convince a man and a woman that bottles of ink were not dangerous items.

As part of a recent, very low margin, side business I’ve been dabbling in, I will track down inks exclusive to Japan and ship them beyond far horizons to recipients waiting on distant shores who’ve shipped specific amounts of cash across electronic horizons to my near shore/PayPal account. I do this because some of the inks are so popular, the stores won’t ship direct overseas. If they did, they’d get bought out quickly and local customers would never get any. (I refer to this as an “export ban” and what I’m doing as running a blockade.)

The inks have sold so well that Sailor, the company that makes the ink, has been forced to change bottle styles because their regular bottle maker can’t keep up with demand.

The problem is, in order to run the blockade, I have to use the Japanese Post Office and it isn’t always much help. (Yes, blockade runners totally used the post office.)

As soon as I handed the package to the staff at my local post office, the woman noticed the fragile sticker on it and said they didn’t ship dangerous items. I said they weren’t dangerous. She then dragged some man over and I then spent several minutes explaining to both of them what I’d meant by “art supplies” on the mailing label, and then adding the word “ink” to the label, and then filling in a couple other forms involved in shipping things to the Netherlands.

I then had to explain that, yes, I’d packed the ink bottles carefully and that they would most likely survive the trip, especially if delivery staff paid attention to the sticker that said “fragile”.

Eventually they let me hand over money for the shipping (more than I’d expected, making the margin even lower) and I was sent on my way. So, I presume, was the package.

Entering the Terrible Threes

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I’m still not sure why I’m doing this. It’s more of a habit at this point and I do it even when I have no ideas.

Whatever the reason I’m doing it, today marks the end of two years writing this blog.

I had planned to write some sort of epic anniversary post and offer some freebies, but life and work intervened to prevent me from assembling all the stuff I’d planned to assemble. I still plan to do that (the freebies) but it will have to wait until later in the week.

I remain shockingly resistant to little concepts like “planning” and “follow through” when it comes to this blog. For a while I had a bit of a plan going: do this post this day, that post that day, take pictures of stuff here and there, but the plans quickly crumbled into dust.

I also have been lazy about taking random excursions and writing about those. Instead I’ve been dependent, much more often than I’d planned, on personal posts that are little more than diaries where I complain about stuff. Those usually come about an hour or so before bedtime when I just can’t be bothered with the post I’d planned.

That said, I think the writing and coherence of the posts have improved over the two years, even when I’m typing random words a few minutes before bedtime. I still have stuff to review and a number of books to review but have resisted taking a day to do nothing but take and organize photographs.

The goals for year three are to, at long last, assemble an email list and offer a newsletter version of Mere Blather that people can subscribe to (and, in theory, include a post that doesn’t appear on the website).

I am also pondering taking a weekly Sabbath, probably on Sunday, where I might post a picture or two but don’t actually write anything. I imagine myself knocking out a couple posts that day and having them in reserve. Or just assembling posts into a newsletter. Or doing nothing and liking it.

I also have a long list of posts I never wrote that I stare at every now and then but never actually write. (In a couple cases I’ve forgotten what I mean by the notes I’d written.) I’ve also got an Amazon Associates account I haven’t fully exploited. (I would, of course, remind you that there is a donation button on the right side if you’re using a PC and way down at the bottom if you’re reading on a phone. You can even donate in Bitcoin if you can figure out how to do that.)

Either way, for those of you who’ve suffered through these posts on a regular basis, thanks. I hope to keep you entertained for at least another year. (Not that you’ve been entertained thus far, but isn’t it pretty to think so?” )

A Waste in Time Wastes Nine

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My brain is rebelling against having nothing to do. Unfortunately it’s rebelling by doing nothing.

For various complicated reasons, I’m not teaching an evening class this term. This means my Tuesday and Thursday evenings are now free.

This gives me lots of extra time to do things I’ve been putting off doing. As Hamlet said, right before he changed his mind, “‘Tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wished”. Unfortunately, unlike Hamlet, my brain isn’t changing. It’s still in busy Tuesday and Thursday mode and it doesn’t seem to know what to do with all the free time.

I worked some yesterday, but today I couldn’t be bothered. The same thing happened on Tuesday.

I think part of it is the disruption of the rhythm I’d established during the course. Teach, wander down to Tokyo, drink coffee, write post, teach, travel, relax, go to bed at midnight.

Now, I’m home in the afternoon and I’m not used to all the down time. Rather than fill it, my brain is determined to waste it. I think we all have a natural tendency to enter denial mode when our usual excuses are no longer available. It’s easy not to do any writing or editing if we’re too busy with other things. However, when those other things go away, our brains start looking for new things.

I’ve even done the “just do it for two minutes and then you’ll catch fire and keep working.” And it’s true, that works for about 10 minutes, then something starts gnawing at the back of my brain and I decide to try something else. Usually something that involves a game.

Eventually, I’ll establish a new rhythm and start filling my evenings with things both productive and fun. Of course, soon after I do that, I’ll probably start the evening classes again. Even if I don’t, I’m pretty sure I can find a distraction.

Almost Never Looking Down in the Mouth

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I horrified a dentist and his English teacher today.

For the next four Saturday mornings, I’m taking over lessons for an acquaintance who’s going on a couple work-related trips. His student is a dentist whose goal is to start giving presentations in dentist conferences around the world.

Both the dentist and my acquaintance commented that my teeth looked very straight–which means they both need new glasses/contacts. They speculated that my straight teeth must be the result of frequent trips to the dentist.

The dentist asked me when the last time I’d been to the dentist was. I thought a bit, did some algebra and said “Around 1998.”

They both freaked out, then assumed I was joking, then freaked out again when I assured them that, no, I hadn’t been to the dentist in a millennium, er, in THIS millennium.

Because they were horrified to the point of being speechless, neither pursued my reasons for not going. The teacher, instead, encouraged me to get a check up and cleaning from the dentist/student because it was cheap.

I would have pointed out that it wasn’t a matter of money. It’s also not a matter of fear of dentists. (Remember, I’ve had needles stuck in my eye; I’m not that worried about my teeth.) My father hated dentists and his dream was to find a dental team that would knock him out and fix everything wrong with his teeth in one epic visit.

In my case it’s a more a matter of laziness. The last time I went was because I’d lost part of a filling and I wasn’t that impressed with the work done by the dentist. This hasn’t inspired me to rush off to the dentist. Also, having seen the dental troubles my father had at a young age and work he had to sit through, I’ve managed to take much better care of my teeth. I’ve also heard that dentists in Japan will sometimes clean a few teeth, then schedule another appointment to clean a few more before schedule a third appointment to clean a few more because national health insurance.

Now that I know an English speaking dentist, I may have to overcome my laziness and get my check up for this millennium.

Dangerously Expensive Free Times in Tokyo

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After I moved to Tokyo, the company I work for used to send me around town to teach various classes at various companies and schools. Because of the nature of the scheduling, I often found myself with a couple hours to waste before my next job.

This is a dangerous thing for a pen addict.

One of the dangerous things about giving a pen addict lots of free time in Tokyo is the store Ito-Ya. It is several stories of pen, ink, paper and paraphernalia that in its prime (before it became the Apple Store for stationery) was a great place to explore. Like a good bookstore, every time I went there I found something I couldn’t live without and had to take home. The fountain pen store (located in the alley behind the main store) is still worth a visit.

Near Ito-Ya is a large LOFT, a large MUJI and Tokyo station. Near Tokyo station are two other dangerous places: Maruzen Books (link in Japanese) and the Yaesu Book Center. I spent lots of time perusing the English sections of both of those bookstores. Yaesu is nice because it meets my standard for creepiness. The English section is on the eighth floor and you can only take the elevator halfway. Once you get there it’s kind of cramped.

For book lovers, the most dangerous place in Tokyo is the Jimbocho area. It has dozens of tiny bookstores selling a variety of used books in a variety of languages. In one store I could have bought an entire James Joyce research library with scholarly books and journals in English and Japanese. You can easily waste several hours here just looking at old Japanese books.

Last, of the most dangerous areas is Shinjuku. It’s got two Kinokuniya bookstores (one older, one relatively new), a modern, but very nice Tokyu Hands, an entire block of camera and electronics shops and Kabukicho, Tokyo’s red light district.

Kabukicho isn’t that interesting during the day, but it’s worth a quick walk through. But also hidden away in Shinjuku is Kingdom Note, a fairly posh pen shop with lots of original goods, including pens and ink, and lots of used pens.

Near all of this, on the other side of the station is the SeKaiDo main store, which has several floors of art supplies.

I’m glad I didn’t learn about it when I had all that time to kill. I might have tried to become a painter.

Rage-Quitting Without Stopping

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It was a good idea, but the timing was wrong. Then I should have stopped but didn’t.

I tried to do a couple things today and they didn’t go well. Or, at least, I wasn’t in the mood to do them and that caused things to turn out less as well as I would expect.

I then tried to relieve stress by playing a couple games. Unfortunately, because I was already in a bad mood, I didn’t play the games as well as I could have. In fact, I found myself swearing at the screen and looking for a safe place to throw my keyboard. (It was not mindless rage, just rageful annoyance.)

(Note: rageful is totally a word. More or less.)

This caused me to forget the basic rules of gaming:

–If you’re not having fun, stop.
–If playing makes you more angry than you were before, stop.
–If you’re ruining your stats, stop.
–If you are thinking f@#k my stats, you should have stopped a long time ago.

In my go-to game, World of Tanks, I was especially bad. Instead of having fun and ridiculing myself for my silly mistakes, I was playing like a reckless beginner and could see my stats falling. Rather than rage-quit and walk away, my frustration caused me to redouble my efforts which doubled the rate of the free fall. It was as close as I could get to rage-quitting while still playing.

Eventually, I stopped and found other things to do. The things were no more productive than world of tanks, but they didn’t make me think about throwing my keyboard across the room.

That only happened when I tried to think about a topic for this post. (One of the things that didn’t work out well today was my first idea for today’s post. Long story.)

You Really Gotta Want It

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My first ever argument She Who Must Be Obeyed involved a credit card. Today we managed to collaborate over one, but I’m afraid we’ll have to do it again and things will get bad.

Soon after I started dating She Who Must Be Obeyed we went shopping for something or other and I used my credit card. The problem was, I was apparently the first person in history to attempt to use a credit card at this large shopping center. The clerk studied the card, sighed in an “are you f@#king serious” way, and then put the card, at least to my eyes, through the machine upside down.

The machine beeped and the clerk shrugged. I said to try it again. At this point, She Who Must Be Obeyed jumped in and told them I was using a debit card (which we had talked about before in the community English class she’d joined; long story). The clerk seemed relieved and I started to hand the card back and I insisted she try again.

She Who Must Be Obeyed tried to intervene again and at that point I said “Don’t help” and she complied by storming away. Eventually, the clerk called someone and the card cleared. However, the clerk never stopped looking at me with suspicion. She Who Must Be Obeyed eventually spoke to me again.

I bring this up because today, at long last, I decided to apply for a Japanese credit card. The problem is, the Japanese are still, to my mind, behind in designing and using browser based forms. As such, each form has lots of extra steps and different lines have to be done in different sized Japanese letters. Even with good Japanese, there’s so much technical jargon it’s even hard for Japanese to do.

Therefore, She Who Must Be Obeyed stayed nearby as I attempted to fill out the form. After almost 45 minutes, and several backtracks to figure out what was wrong–luckily this form was modern enough to save previous work–I finally got the form submitted.

Now, I have to wait and hope I get approval. However, the odds are not necessarily ever in my favor. (I know one person who was rejected several times and ended up having to get a kind of debit card.)

If it doesn’t clear, we may have to go through all this again and that could be problematic.