Monday May 12
 
02:11
 
What I Want To Be

It’s taken me a long time to realise it, but tonight after watching The Apprentice USA Season 2 I can be sure: I want to be a big breasted kept woman married to a rich billionaire. 

Life is so easy if you’re a woman: If you’re ugly - plastic surgery; if you have small breasts - plastic surgery; if you want to get laid/have no money and want to drink alcohol/bored of an evening - go to nearest bar and shout “who wants to buy me a drink?”

Wednesday April 23
 
09:03
 
The Ugliest Band In The World

Last night I went to see what can only be described as the ugliest band in the world - Biffy Clyro. They are, however, a band full of surprises: they are Scottish but sound American; they’ve been going for years and I’ve never heard of them; and, most importantly, despite being hideously ugly - beards, unkempt hair, tattoos, etc and despite me not particularly liking the CDs that I’ve heard from them - they are one of the few bands that has blown me away live. I can’t remember any time in the past when I’ve heard new material at a concert and instantly liked it - usually I need to hear music on CD first.

Maybe now the CDs with grow on me, … though if I can’t get the image of the band out of my head, that’s very unlikely!

Wednesday March 26
 
23:49
 
This Is Becoming A Habit

Last night I went to see The Pigeon Detectives - one of my favourite British bands - in Tokyo.

They played a long set and the music was fantastic, but there were two huge problems.

Firstly, they didn’t play my favourite song “You know I love you”:

You know I love you
Take off your clothes
It’s alright
It’s alright

This is the song that got me into The Pigeon Detectives - a surreal experience of being in Woolworths, possibly the most bland and boring and safe chain shop in the world, and hearing a song about trying to seduce a woman into having sex being piped through the store.

This happened when I went to see Bjork in Japan also - she didn’t play my favourite song. It’s becoming a habit, dammit. Luckily the next band I’m going to see in Tokyo - Biffy Clyro - I’ve never even heard, so no problems there. I’m only going to see them because (a) they are Scottish playing in Tokyo, and (b) my brother will be here at that time, and I want to show him different sides of Tokyo. What better way to treat a guy flying to Tokyo from Scotland than to show him a Scottish band?

But The Pigeon Detectives not playing my favourite song was made even worse by the fact that they didn’t play an encore. So here was me standing thinking “Well, they’ve kept the best till last, right?”

What band doesn’t play an encore? People hung around for over 15 minutes waiting for them to come back out - even the venue owners thought they’d come back out, because they didn’t raise the lights. PATHETIC. Leave lots of little Japanese disappointed - way to handle your international fanbase guys.

Friday March 14
 
18:40
 
Just Kill Me Now

My company suddenly blocked logmein today, which I was using to get around the ban on Gmail, and to get access to my home PC.

It shows that they must be analysing the log traffic in closer detail than I thought they were; I’m pretty sure that no-one else was using logmein, so it couldn’t have shown up in huge amounts. Mind you, with the creation of Lick The Lard, the update of The Korean Blog List, and the movement between hosting companies, I have been using it quite a lot recently.

It reminds me that nothing is private when you use company internet. If they’re looking at that level of detail, who’s to say I wont suddenly find my own websites banned because they find I’ve been logging into Wordpress and posting during the day?  Still, they’ve not blocked blogger or Wordpress.com yet, so hopefully blogs are OK.

Life is going to be mind-numbingly-boring without unrestricted internet access again… <sigh>

I have my own laptop at work, which I used to connect to a free Wifi network before discovering logmein. That free network is now gone. I’m thinking of signing up to EM Mobile broadband for 3.6Mbps or 7.2Mbps mobile internet - but that would involve a 1 or 2 year contract, and I have no idea whether I’ll be in Japan that long. I don’t like commitment ;)

Friday March 7
 
18:13
 
Eyes On Speed

Training again today - and entire day of speed reading training. You wouldn’t think that a course on reading would be hard work, but blimey, when you push yourself, it is.

I improved from about 230 words per minute and 60% comprehension to 410 words per minute and almost 90% comprehension. Pretty good improvement, I think.

The trainer recommends the Rocket Reader website for further training. Unfortunately it’s only free for 10 days. There must be some free sites out there.