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The Japanese Toilet (Toire)

No, stop thinking in French! It’s pronounced “toy-ray”, an informal way of saying toilet in Japan, and is quite the phenomenon. Starting in the 1980s, the automatic bidet toilet seat was invented and rapidly gained popularity. Travel to Japan (outside of pandemic times) and you’ll find a high-tech toilet in most homes and hotels. These…
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Storms and Shenmue

Another lockdown update, as the country slowly re-opens and establishes a new “normal”. More baking, gaming and DIY. The weather hasn’t been encouraging for gardening. Shenmue 3 I ended the last post on a pessimistic note about Shenmue 3. It felt dated, clumsy, graphically disappointing and carried on the tradition of abysmal voice acting. It’s…
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Baking, Gardening, Gaming

Life in lockdown continues. It was an excellent time to start cycling as the roads were much quieter, but as more people return to work a sense of normality is returning to the roads. It’s a good excuse to get outside for some regular exercise. Shadow of the Colossus Shadow of the Colossus is complete,…
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G&G (Gardening and Gaming)

Busy times in isolation. I have been outside for most of the last few weeks preparing the garden for the summer ahead. The weather has been great recently and the jobs never stop. I planted the raised beds using square foot gardening, a simple approach particularly for the simple-minded gardeners out there (like me!). It…
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Raising Beds (and Chaos)

I’ve been busy. Busy executing a woodworking project more ambitious and ill thought-out than any that has come before, and all in the midst of an unprecedented national and global crisis. I have reasons! First, it’s a project I can work on without having to leave the house. Second, I was able to acquire a…
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Things Change: Coronavirus the Pandemic

*Takes off novelty ears and puts on pathology hat* Things change rather quickly, it seems. I wrote my last post eleven days ago. I’ve never seen a situation evolve as quickly as this. Almost 140,000 novel coronavirus cases and over 5,000 deaths globally. It’s a officially a pandemic. (though we pretty much knew that already,…
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Destination Disney (and musings on coronavirus)

Traveling is becoming more fraught in the peri-pandemic days of coronavirus. Italy has seen the most impact of COVID-19 (the clinical syndrome caused by the novel coronavirus) in Europe to date, though cases have reached the UK and Republic of Ireland. More people were at the airport than I had expected, and it was business…


