"One of these things is not like the other". Seen (if memory serves correctly) in a bar close to Meguro Station in Tokyo in (if the metadata is to be believed) in 2010.

It won't be long now.

If I ever won the lottery, I wouldn't tell anyone, but there would be signs, such as acquiring my new supervillain lair on the Kuril island of Onekotan, which let's face it is a brilliant name (Ainu in origin, rest assured my henchmen will return it to its rightful owners, apart from the lair bit).

I was looking at getting a place here, but the numbers didn't add up.

Scary thought: had I made some slightly different life decisions around the age of 18 [*], I could have gone at Oxford around the same time as Liz Truss, and from what I have read, would very likely ended up in the same socio-political circles as her.

Need more lettuce... www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/...

It took me a while to work out what these little torii are...

For once, an article much less eldritch than the headline suggests. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Decided my growth mindset will not be enhanced by sitting in front of a zoom presentation between 5pm and 6:30pm after a full day of poking at obscure sequences of alphanumeric characters, so "bunked off" early and went shopping. Such Bad Corporate Employee!!!1!!!

Not just AI slop, it's Musk AI slop. Eww.

A bit sedimentary, this one.

I've been seeing the image on the left floating around social media, but it sadly lacks explanation of the exotic Oriental concepts contained therein, so as I am off work today with a brain stuck in silly mode, I have attempted a tribute act to the written works of @gaijinmommy.bsky.social

Just imagine how mad Chinese people on social media will be when they find out Taiwan has Donki stores. www.donki.com/store/shop_l...

Just popping out for a lettuce. And a hammer.

I've been seeing the image on the left floating around social media, but it sadly lacks explanation of the exotic Oriental concepts contained therein, so as I am off work today with a brain stuck in silly mode, I have attempted a tribute act to the written works of @gaijinmommy.bsky.social

A worthwhile read. theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

to Surface or not to Surface the Dilemma of the ages

One day I hope to try this カラケ食.

By residing in Japan during the summer months.

The Tokyo Sky Tower lighting up the High Touch Town.

Descending into the bowels of the Earth... Why yes, I am going on the Oedo Line.

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

I wonder if Ishiba's former (or current) hairdresser was ever consulted for their opinion?

No comment, other than to note that the Google Map pin should be on the south side of the crossroads, and if Commodore Perry had relied on Google Maps to find locations in Japan back in the day, he may never have made it to Tokyo Bay.

PSA: if anyone so much as mouths the phrase "Margaret Thatcher of Japan", they will receive a lettuce up where the sun don't shine.

Sadly this means I will likely never see a poseur techbro dancing through the streets editing an Excel sheet with hand gestures, or whatever it is these things do, before being run over by a Cybertruck.

So yeah, I noticed an escalator pit at the station end of the Shibuya Sakura Stage building and in a moment of madness descended towards the Earth's core where I discovered a hitherto unknown tunnel which took me via an elevator through a subterranean bicycle garage and somehow I emerged ...

Well, it has evidently dried out and returned to normal service.

Dare I penetrate Shibuya's pink pulsating tunnel?

Shibuya by night.

I was distracted by a movement outside which turned out to be because it's that season where the trees start disrobing. Also a bicycle.

Ah yes, I have a brain like that too. theoatmeal.com/comics/brain...

"Mind the gap"

Oh Firefox off, I have a working brain, I do not need the resource-burning slop machine to hallucinate stuff in the name of "saving time" or whatever. @firefox.com

ニコニコ😊

Oooh, it's Oct. 2nd, which marks the day more years ago than I care to remember when I left home at the age of 18, took a ferry and a train to a foreign country, became an "illegal" immigrant, supported myself by selling newspapers and forgot to ever go back "home". Turned out OK, I guess...

Well that was stupid of me, I managed to splash a little bit of water on the lower part of my main monitor and now the little control buttons are acting like they are haunted, primarily by spontaneously springing into life and dimming the screen to illegibility every minute or so. 🤦‍♂️

So this morning I massively overslept, which I hardly ever do, and the best (well, least worst) excuse I can come up with is that in Tokyo, today is 都民の日, but my brain somehow thought it was 冬眠の日 because it is unused to temperatures below 25C.

Meanwhile, clicking on a FB link to a US media site results not in dubious Temu devices, but in an ad for bathroom fitting services in the Netherlands...

For one happy moment there I thought I'd slipped back in time a quarter of a century or so (in which case I'd go and visit my old self with a few important nuggets of advice).

The Daikon Prairie echoes to the beat of the o-matsuri.

So our son is going on his first school overnight trip in a few weeks, for some reason we thought somewhere in Nagano, so we booked a night away in Chiba by ourselves for the first time since forever. Turns out the school trip is actually to Chiba. They will be staying about 30 minutes walk away...

This timeline just keeps getting worse and worse... www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

If you have a spare 1.5 billion yen, and always dreamed of living in a fantasy of sharp-edged beige (and other colours sourced from the Catalogue of Anti-Colours) featuring killer stairs in Meguro, I have just the place.

Sometimes the other extra is worth it.

We do however have a little Zen garden thing in the sky.

Today's quest in search of knowledge and enlightenment takes me swimming upstream against the commuting hordes at Tamachi, but not alas inside the Bandai-Namco headquarters.

Colonel Sanders is still in Tsukimi mode (no sign of Xmas nuggets) and therefore has lost the race.

There are unmistakable signs that Hallowe'en is approaching.