Gary's Boring Blog

Spanish Charm?

"A fattie."
"Pig-faced".
"Dark, without being black".
"Mentally handicapped".
"Speech Impediment".
"Hungry-looking".
"Buck teeth".

No, these are not quotes from the latest FOX 'reality' show 'My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance', nor are they the transcript of an argument between Becks and Victoria.

They are apparently taken from the job interview notes of a large Spanish supermarket chain. The notes were dumped in rubbish bags outside the company's HQ, and some enterprising radio journalist found them.

Spain has the highest unemployment rate in Europe (11%), and this kind of discrimination is quite normal, apparently. I'll make sure to knock Spain off my list of 'places I wouldn't mind living in'.

(The FT article I found this in was heralding the fact that Ikea, the Swedish furniture folks, were expanding in Spain, and bringing fairer employment practices with them.)

(comment from Toni)
Hello, about "Spain has the highest unemployment rate in Europe (11%), and this kind of discrimination is quite normal, apparently. I'll make sure to knock Spain off my list of 'places I wouldn't mind living in'." ... well, Im spanish and meet some spanish people work in Japan and return soon becouse Japan sux; "people are very very cold". If you don´t meet some country no talk, please :-) I meet Japan and I like it and I like Spain too :-)

Fatherhood is Sexy

At work the other day, a colleague (23 years old or so, female) and I had this conversation:

Colleague: Gary, you are more cool/handsome (she said kakkoii) recently, what happened?

Me: Er, thanks...er, no idea really...

Colleague: Must be because you are a father now.

And with that, she wandered off, leaving me a little bemused. I then remembered seeing a TV show about what attracts men and women to each other. Here's the gist of the argument, as far as I can recall.

-Men like blonde hair more than dark hair. This is written in their genetic code. The reason for this is that blonde hair signifies youth, and men instinctively want to mate with young women because the chances of the woman conceiving a healthy child are greater with younger women. As I said, this is all completely natural, and men can do nothing about it.

-Women, on the other hand, look for protection in a mate. Back when we lived in caves, it was important for a man to be physically strong in order to fight off the bears, woolly mammoths and various other beasties. As we have progressed, this need for protection has waned a little, but women are still attracted to physically attractive men, but also to men with good, stable incomes. Fighting off the tigers has been translated, in the modern world, into fighting off the taxmen and other bill collectors.
(Similar Theories)

I'm not sure if this explains why I would, now that I am a father, appear to be more attractive to a member of the opposite sex....

It may help to explain why the women in Joe Millionaire, a tripe TV show, were so interested in the rich, single hero of the show.

the women...found David to be "their image of a typical, boorish American, until they find out he's got $80 million. Then, all of a sudden, he's attractive."

Trying to understand blogs

The Guardian has an interesting article about what this blogging nonsense is all about.

Not sure about the pie-chart, though...I don't often write about Iraq, P-Chan only gets the occasional mention, my rantings are clearly far from incoherent :-), and as for getting laid, that area is fine as well, thank you very much.

Extract:

Bloggers enjoy describing themselves as pioneers, though their ideas of innovation are sometimes suspect. "We are writing ourselves into existence," some ecstatically proclaim, as if Pepys and Boswell and the historic legions of their fellow journal-writers had never existed. o weblogs, nor even to the Internet. ..A weblog is something fundamentally new. Something no one can quite put their finger on, not yet. And those who try to define the phenomenon in terms of current institutions are completely missing the point.

Only in America...

Janet Jackson is to be sued for exposing her breast during the Superbowl half-time show.

This is clearly insane, and continues in a long tradition of ludicrous lawsuits filed in the US.

1)McDonalds Coffee
Clearly the winner in the 'idiot lawsuit' category is this one. If you remember, Stella Liebeck bought coffee from McDs, spilt it on herself, and got burned. She successfully sued for 2 or 3 million dollars, complaining that there was no warning on the cup.
Apparently, she considered suing the manufacturers of her car, because they had not put cup-holders in the vehicle.

2)Bullet Manufacturers
More controversial, but in Chicago, I think, a guy went crazy a few years ago and killed a lot of people in an office building, before killing himself. The relatives of the victim, having no-one else to sue, decided to sue the manufacturers of the weapon. They lost, I believe. They considered suing the manufacturers of the bullets as well.

3)Fat kids
Obese kids are now suing fast-food manufacturers for selling unhealthy food. Apparently, there is no clear warning on a Big Mac or a Whopper that says 'this food is unhealthy - We do not advise you eat it every day, 3 times a day.'

Garner's advice - try suing your parents for letting you eat this offal all the time!

Finally, one that I had never heard - this in fact is the winner of the 2002 'Stella Awards' , named after the aforementioned Ms Liebeck

4)Sisters Janice Bird, Dayle Bird Edgmon and Kim Bird Moran sued their mother's doctors and a hospital after Janice accompanied her mother, Nita Bird, to a minor medical procedure. When something went wrong, Janice and Dayle witnessed doctors rushing their mother to emergency surgery. Rather than malpractice, their legal fight centered on the "negligent infliction of emotional distress" -- not for causing distress to their mother, but for causing distress to them for having to see the doctors rushing to help their mother. The case was fought all the way to the California Supreme Court, which finally ruled against the women. Which is a good thing, since if they had prevailed doctors and hospitals would have had no choice but to keep you from being anywhere near your family members during medical procedures just in case something goes wrong. In their greed, the Bird sisters risked everyone's right to have family members with them in emergencies.

Thanks to Antipixel Jeremy for the Janet Jackson story.

As an aside, which has NOTHING to do with my America-bashing above, I once spoke to Latoya Jackson (later a Playboy pin-up) on the phone. There was a phone-in contest, and she was manning the phones. I won one of the prizes, which was a video and a signed 12" single. I wonder where those valuable items are now...

Sofubo-Baka Extravaganza

Megumi's Dad, not to be done in the Oyabaka stakes, has put together some pictures (and a short video) of Rosie Kokoro, on his webpage.

*Sofubo = grandparents
Baka = foolish/sillly, etc
Sofubo-Baka is a new expression I coined to explain deep pride, bordering on the extreme, in one's grandchild/children

Japan and equal-rights

The Japan Times is running a story about how the governor of Osaka cannot present the prize at the coming Sumo tournament because she is a woman. Women cannot enter the ring (dohyo), so Governor Ota, for the 4th straight year, has been refused the privelege of fulfilling this ceremonial duty.

Osaka governor barred from dohyo

In the UK, Membership of the MCC (cricket club) used to be off-limits to women. This changed in 1999, after 212 years of being all-male. I wonder if there are any obvious examples of this kind of discrimination in Britain, where the Queen is not allowed to go somewhere, or for example Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher was not allowed to fullfil some duty...

Subaru

This is Tomo and Rie's daughter Subaru Kobayashi, born on Jan 8th, a month after Rosie.

Cheap Broadband Arrives in UK!

After making fun of the UK broadband market (and BT in particular) a couple of weeks ago, I spoke to my Mum yesterday and found out that she has 'broadband' at home. The provider is Tiscali, the price is 15.99 per month, or around 3,000 yen. So, at last, some companies are trying to offer reasonably priced always-on access. At 156K down, the speed is not blazing (I will be paying the same amount for 40M, or 40,000K down), but it is a move in the right direction. Good on you Tiscali, and Renato Soru.

Ohinasama

Rosie was lucky enough to be given a great present of a set of traditional dolls, or ohinasama, by grandparents Araki. We will display them until the Doll's Festival on March 3rd. As you can see, the whole set is very large, and took a long time to put together. The figures all wear real kimonos, and some of them have goldthread in them!

Rosie Gallery

More details about the Dolls Festival.

Rosie - latest pics

I have put a few new pics on the gallery. These were all taken with Megumi's Mum's new mobile phone, so the quality may be a little poorer than usual.

Rosie Pics

CHAMPIONS

I played for the company futsal (5-a-side) football team in a tournament on Saturday, and we won the whole thing! To give you an idea of the level of the tournament, we won one group game 10-2, and the rules of the tournament stated that goals scored by female players were worth 2 goals! One of our female supporters played for a few minutes, stood in front of the opposition goal, and did, in fact, score.

2 things of note about the tournament. Firstly, I scored 10 goals in 6 games, including a hat-trick in the first game which we won 3-2. Secondly, I also picked up 2 yellow cards in the tournament, the first time this has ever happened. One was in the final, for a challenge on the goalkeeper which I deemed merely boisterous, but the referee thought was 'dangerous'.

The first one was the enigma. I was on the sidelines, and joined the game as a substitute. The player going out left the field on the far side, and I moved onto the pitch. The ref then said that the player leaving must leave from the 'correct position'. As we waited for him to trot across to the near side, the ref then brandished a yellow card at me because there were 6 players on the field, and this is illegal (the game had stopped for a throw-in). Quite why it was my fault that our player left the pitch in the wrong place I'm not quite sure. And why the ref felt the need to flourish a yellow card, instead of just saying 'please make the substitution correctly next time' is another mystery.

Oh well, as I said, we won the competition, and played some very nice football.

New iMac Revisited/Bloody Computers

I got the new iMac last night, tried to install the OS, no action at all. Since it is a used machine, I was a bit concerned, but thought that there was probably a user error in there somewhere. I asked Mac expert Dirk today, and he suggested a few things. I also called the shop. They told me that my version of the OS may have a problem (ie it didn't come in a nicely packaged box...)

I have figured out that the error was in fact mine, and there is probably nothing wrong with the iMac!!! That's a relief.

You think YOU Work Hard??

Read this report from The Japan Times about over-work in Japanese offices. Here is a short sample:

A cell-phone message can come at any time of the day or night: "Where are you now? What are you doing?" His philosophy: "If you don't supervise your subordinates, they won't work." But "this isn't supervision," says Sasaki, "It's a reign of terror!"

She is, accordingly, terrified. Every time her cell phone beeps she has a panic attack. She suffers bouts of nausea, followed by bouts of binge eating (in three months she gained 7 kg). "Sometimes I catch myself thinking, 'If I cut off my hands, maybe they'll let me rest . . . but no, I'll have to cut off my legs too.' "

If it ever gets that bad, we will be on the first plane back to the UK, to find some David Brent-type character to work for!

(found the link to this article on Hunkabautta)

How Much Is Your Business Worth?

As promised yesterday, I went and ordered my new computer yesterday. After checking out the delivery costs, extra memory costs etc, I told the salesman I would like to buy it, and proceeded to the counter. There, a surprise awaited me. Here is the salesman's spiel:

If you sign up for ISP X right now, we can give you a 15,000yen discount on your computer. The regular monthly charge for the service will come to about 4,000yen all-in (for 40M ADSL), but the first 3 months are free. You need to commit to using this service for 1 month, so basically, you can use the service for a month or two for free, then cancel, and you will still get the 15,000yen discount.

Now, just to put this into perspective, 15,000yen is about $150. That's a pretty good discount, in my book. By comparison, BT in the UK is offering FREE connection charges (usually 30 pounds) as part of their campaign to spread broadband use, and also a FREE USB modem. Mmmm, tempting, but I think I'll stick to the offer I got from the mysterious ISP X! The total value of the discounts I will receive from this ISP will come to around 30,000yen, or $300.

Finally, one of my colleagues decided to change his ISP every time his free service ran out (usually every 3 months), and see if he could make it through a whole year without paying for ADSL service. I'm not sure if he succeeded in the end, but that sounds like too much effort to me...

New iMac

I'm excited. Megumi has given me permission to replace my old iMac, bought in 2000, for a newer model. I have looked around and decided to buy a used 17' iMac, which I will be going to order tonight in Akihabara.

With this, I will be able to make DVDs of Rosie from the footage we have taken with the video camera, so look out relatives!!! I will soon be able to move on to the next level of oyabakaness!!

Mizuho, Japanese banks

Mizuho bank has had a series of computer errors since it was formed by the merger of 2 large, failing Japanese banks. In the latest, the bank forgot to pay interest to account holders.

TOKYO, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Japan's Mizuho Bank, part of Mizuho Financial Group , said on Monday it had shortchanged customers on interest for some 70,000 accounts due to a systems input error -- the latest computer embarrassment for the world's biggest bank.

Here is the bit I love...

Since deposit rates in Japan are close to zero, most customers probably didn't notice -- the total interest that the bank failed to pay came to 1.4 million yen ($13,240). The most interest it failed to pay for an account was 1,890 yen, the least was one yen and the average was 19 yen.

Yup, the MOST was 1,890yen, which is less than $20, or around 10 pounds. In the summer of 2002, Mizuho cut the interest rate for deposit accounts to 0.001% per year from the previous 0.02%. A deposit of 1 million yen in the bank's ordinary deposit account will generate 10 yen a year in interest. For those not living in Japan, 10yen will give you 30 seconds or so of a local call from a phone booth.

As noted when this report came out, withdrawing money from a Mizuho ATM/cash machine 'outside hours' costs 105yen, or around 10 years of your interest on that 1 million yen (around 5,000 pounds).

Rosie Dazed and Confused

Just a couple of quick pics from Megumi's mobile phone - Rosie looks somewhat bemused in the first one.

Illness forces Early Retirement of Legendary Footballer...

Funny man Mark from the Saitama Jets has written about my flu prematurely ending my season. Here is an excerpt:

With no real scoring threats, the Jets are unlikely to dramatically improve their record without Garner.

"We'd been hoping to get him back in the lineup, but I know he's been frustrated by the lack of improvement," team captain Mark Eite said. "It's very unfortunate, but I guess something that comes with age. I had hoped he'd be able to keep playing until 33 at least but we now may have to start looking for new midfield options."

Mark, you are a funny bastard...