Back at work, brain still not functioning, so now I am being a Good Corporate Employee and catching up on the recording.

Has a suspicious-looking chicken been sighted in the Paris area recently? www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Once more unto the breach, my fruity friends!

One of these things is not like the others...

You can block them all at once right here bsky.app/profile/eva....

Should’ve known this pic was coming. 🤗

"Despite early, and familiar, property law growing pains, the East India Company may be the prelude to a British Empire based on real-time appropriation of resources and territory".

Compromise: they get to introduce this rule, but they must hold a binding referendum on reversing Brexit where only people who can prove they speak an "A level standard of English" can participate.

Every time I enter the EU, I ceremonially mouth #FuckBrexit.

Still looking for someone, haven't found a single person so far (that I can contact). I have a 46-episode script that I need translated. This would be a paid job!

The grab-bag of random expired test kits continues to produce consistent positive results.

It won't be long now.

Bluesky cephalopod cuisine doing its thing in my timeline...

While I'm waiting for something to happen, here's a picture of a nice brick wall I found the other evening somewhere between Shin-Banba and Kita-Shinagawa stations.

'k, now I am definitely sliding into a fever dream, and/or an alternative timeline. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmjL...

Well, the other type of expired test we have also shows positive for me, mainly as a control to verify they also still work and hopefully rule out false negatives from the rest of the household.

Taking bets now on whether my wife also has it, as she was coughing a little and appears to have fallen into a very deep sleep, which is totally untypical for her at this time of day.

'k, the results are in. Test on the left was the placebo verification.

So in the spirit of scientific validation, and as we have quite a stash of expired tests, I dropped the unadulterated liquid from another test in the same batch in to its test strip, and it came up a clear negative, which indicates the first test may not have been a false positive...

Temperature is up and down like a yoyo and I have a constant headache, but no sore throat or anything. Yet. There is a slight upside as this will get me out of something early next week I was hoping to avoid...

My only hope is that the test kit expired in early 2024 so is producing spurious results.

"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 ...