Anti-Viagra

As yet untested.

Now, we all know that when having a little trouble raising the flag, so to speak, some assistance can be provided by modern pharmaceuticals. Be they bona fide or not, they all have the same goal: getting you a hard-on.

However, a more common situation has been overlooked. It happens all too often in fact, especially for me here...*cough. Whether you are at work, a presentation, the bus, school (ho hum), the hot nurses office, the lingerie section, strolling through Harajuku, the...ok I'll stop.... Wherever it may be inappropriate to wield the pork sword, how can one help it? The traditional method of ugly, ugly thoughts (for those without serious fetish problems) is but a shot in the dark and a distant hope.

Gentlemen, wherever there is not: a required cold shower, the thoughts of a particularly nasty STI, a lack of alcohol in your blood...choose the latest solution in rod-removing technology!

Choose Hard-off.

やった！ - Woohoo!

Who has the best phone in the UK?

Ah say who!? It could be me soon. Oh yes, who would be the mobile phone daddy?

According to an article on BBC news and the Reg, and the relevant press release, DoCoMo is entering Europe again. MM02 has turned around on a deal to launch i-Mode services in the UK. This pleases me greatly. MM02 actually has many user throught Europe and services will be made available on all of their networks. They say that some current phones, and those from major Asian manufacturers will be able to use the service. Since my phone comes from one of these manufacturers, I'm hoping that I will be able to use it. That would be supremely awesome. Also, it would be cost effective as my phone would have cost, probably, over 200 quid back home - four times the price I paid here.

This is kinda freaky. Being here at NTT, I've learned about some of NTTs general European ambitions. I have decided to bow to our new technology overlords (NTT DoCoMo is the world's leading mobite company and NTT is the largest domestic company in Japan) and bend to their commercial will.

I'll look into it more later, but I can tell you that the mobile services here are MUCH better than the UKs current set up. You text-monsters may also have to accept cheaper and better e-mail services! Email here is rediculously cheaper than calling, and there is no over-priced crappy text services, so that's why you see people email constantly and talking less.
I wonder if my phone's barcode scanner will work in the UK... :)

Linkies:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4054717.stm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/30/o2_i-mode_plan/

Forced Out

I'm being forced out of my flat back home.

Fuckers. For some reason, they'd rather lose rent looking for a new tennant than have me move back in, as I had agreed. Worse still, they let me know a month before I'm due back. So now I have to worry about another thing on top of all this uni and work crap. I'm pretty angry.

I'll be looking to see if there's a legal solution, but I need to do it quickly and now is a bad time. Not good news.

Revisiting the past

I'm talking commuter pass here.

Yes, I have not posted for a while, and as usual some great things have happened which I have not written about. However, the most striking was my realisation that, in fact, in reality, in all honesty, in all its horror...it's all ending soon. That's right, I have little over a month left. I still have to set a final leaving date, but I need to do so soon in order to secure my pay for next month.

Yes, this amazing journey is coming to an end. I keep remembering all the things I've done, all the places I've been and all the people I have met. There has been talk among the interns of what it will be like to return home. After spending six months in such a different climate, culture and society, we are finding ourselves quite used to the diferences we experiance every day.

One thing is for certain, it's going to be bloody cold when I get back. Two of us, from Germany and Scotland, are anticipating great discomfort in our respective winters. Winter is coming very slowly here. Some days, the temperature drops to 15C, and you have no idea how cold that feels after a 35C sumer!

Another thing is the diet. I've eaten very few western foods over here (e.g. sandwiches, pizza, pasta, burgers, cereal, even frickin toast), and am used to eating in Japanese style. Japanese style meals are served in several small dishes, instead of one, and no dessert (bastard). Also, of course, the foods are completely different - lots of vegetables, fish, rice and chopsticks. I am now a chopstick Kung Fu Master. Fear my rice-eating skills! Regardless of my new super power training, I actually like eating this way now.

The trains...rule! Taking a train in the UK will be a sad, vacant experience now. The busses are also pretty cool too, although I have only taken them in the less dense areas like the trip to work. I hear that in Tokyo it's a different situation due to the traffic. I have only taken the bus once in Tokyo but it wasn't so bad.

Hopefully I will keep in contact with some good friends I have made over here. Therefore, there will be a few European break holidays next year :D I'm already expected in Paris for some good drinking with my two clubbing partners in crime.

When I arive home, I expect to receive a bit of a shock. This place has been so different, and all my experiences have left a deep impression on me. For a few days it will be strange being back home. More to the point, I like it here! I don't really want to go back. Trully, more than being uncomfortable back home, I'm worried about missing it here. Home is home, and this is just a long tirp abroad. I'll be trying to weasle my way into a way back before I leave, so we'll so how that goes.
Last year's holiday was trully awesome. Two weeks exploring alone. It really was a dream come true back then, just as this is another dream come true. Before I left, I said that this contract would serve as a "feasibility study" into the possibility of moving back for the longer term.

Ladies and gentlemen (and strange creature escaped from out labs), I can whole-heatedly say that the study has passed with flying colours. So I'm looking forward now, always looking forward for the next opportunity to return.

Speak Engrish!

Ok, many of you know the great site engrish.com

Here is just one of the small collection of my own pics. It may have been the guiness in me, I almost never realised.