• Daily Life

    Falling Stars

    I got to see a falling star this morning, the first time in many years, and immediately made a wish. Partway through, though, I stopped myself and changed the object of my wish. Instead of seeking some inner peace for myself, I wished happiness and contentment to come to my wife (who has the onerous task of having to put up with me more than anybody else), and then for the long list of people who despise me so that they can be relieved of the ill will that must be hard to carry around. (It soon dawned on me…

  • Daily Life

    Bountiful Blessings

    This morning was another gloriously beautiful late autumn morning with the full, beaver moon glowing until well after the sun had risen and mists floating up above the Tama River to create wonderfully serene scenes. Pity the mess in my head can’t turn in a similar direction. I’m a wreck. Over the past week, my boss has used her position of superiority to abuse me, sometimes publicly, for not using bold text, using the “wrong” font (in internal documents), directly addressing her in an email instead of just cc’ing her and blasted for not delivering work I was never supposed…

  • Daily Life

    Mondayitis….Every Day!

    Monday is gloomy and depressing in my soul-sucking job, with today being particularly so because I am the sole native English speaker working and we are inundated with work and every effort I make berated for its shortcomings. I woke feeling painfully gloomy, was shortly greeted by a Zodiac reading forecasting an awful day, my Wahoo didn’t work, and I just can’t spark myself to get into action. Yet, I was blessed on the morning ride. The full beaver moon setting over the Tama River was simply breathtaking. I stopped before starting and went back to pick up a real…

  • Unknown Nichigo

    Went Viral! (And Didn’t Have a Bloody Clue!)

    It’s pretty clear my career is finished so one of my current greatest worries is how I am going to repay the mortgage on Kangaeroo Corner and, being grossly over-educated and severely lacking talent, becoming a YouTuber making viral videos has popped up in my mind as a way. Given that I am paying serious thought to the above idea, it’s pretty clear I have no sense of reality. So, it didn’t really come as a surprise to learn that I posted a video that went viral and I had no idea about it’s popularity until yesterday….10 1/2 years after…

  • Daily Life

    A Cry in the Dark

    Riding in the morning now is cold, dark and gloomy….kinda like the state of my mind for quite some time now. But, and I guess this is like my mentality, too, there’s also an exquisite beauty to the late autumn mornings. Mists over the Tama River are breathtaking (that could be weight and age, though!). And the gradation of the sky as the sun prepares to rise is a delight, glowing a reddish orange at the horizon and slowly darkening into a deep blue, almost black the higher it goes. The pampas grass looks like a pink blanket over the…

  • Daily Life

    Roo-ed Good Health!

    Not much is going well (except rude good health), but I got a lucky break today and feel pretty chuffed about it. Following the morning’s customary ride, I got home and discovered the kangaroo badge I had velcroed to my bike saddle bag just two days ago was gone. I kicked myself with the reminder of my incredible propensity for breaking, losing, damaging or otherwise rendering unusable just about anything I ever get my hands on. Then, I happened to look at Strava and noticed that a follower had posted a photo of the lost badge! “You bloody ripper,” I…

  • Daily Life

    Unearthly

    This morning’s ride was like being on another planet. For a brief instant, it seemed like I was riding into one of those scenes of other worlds in outer space that used to be depicted on the covers of pulp sci-fi books. Unseasonal warmth continues and I still manage to wear a summer kit in the pre-dawn hours one third of the way through November: a time when I’m usually in full-fingered gloves and with at least a vest or long-sleeved summer jersey. Nice! Bring on the global warming (with apologies to the younger generations who’re gonna have to deal…

  • Daily Life

    Yakuza Battle! 多摩川での仁義なき戦い!

    My normal morning ride was rudely interrupted today when I had to stop at a set of traffic lights I usually only use for reference because there were dozens of cops loitering there. Japanese authorities have a tendency to over-react, so even though there were at least 30 officers, several patrol cars, an ambulance, paramedics and firefighters hanging around the Hino Bridge area, I didn’t think too much of it. I did think it a little strange that the bike path was roped off and cops mounting guard and patrolling on foot. It was only after discovering news on Facebook…

  • Strine Sports

    2023, A Japanese Odyssey

    A mate of mine has just accomplished a superhuman feat that filled me with admiration and maybe more than a little inspiration: a (barely) 10-day bicycle journey from the south of Kyushu to the northernmost part of Honshu as part of an event called the Japanese Odyssey. My mate, who I haven’t named because I haven’t sought permission to write about him and who I think is so humble he usually lets his actions speak for him, went on a trek of about 2,500 kilometers long and some 30,000-odd meters of elevation. And he finished this while only just into…

  • Daily Life

    Happy Bird-thday, You Pterror!

    Today is Dino (the dinosaur)’s third birthday. Our little rosy-faced lovebird has been with us for three years, and has been pretty much a constant companion since the early days of the pandemic. She is my best mate, but at the same time, the bane of my life. She demands ceaseless attention, unless she’s laid a few eggs or found herself some paper. If she has laid, as she did to mark her third birthday, she tends to sit on the eggs in a corner of her cage. If she’s about to lay, the preceding couple of weeks are nearly…