michael lambe's scrapbook

Well mates, it’s late on Saturday evening and I’m beat, SO I don’t want to be posting photos, videos and lengthy anecdotes BUT I am devoted to ye all so I’ll give you a taster… Tomorrow, you WILL be exposed to tales from the manga museum, a video of art in progress, visions of ourselves as manga and a happy encounter (よき出合い) with a most affable Finn. I would love to post this all to you tonight, but it is late, and I am weary and I must needs rest my weary Lambe bones… Goodnight my dearies… Goodnight!

Still I have no computer (writing this at school) so no more (or very few) blogs for a while. Probably. The shop called and told me changing the CD-Rom drive was going to cost ￥40,000 (that’s about 200 of your Earth pounds – no sterling sign on this damn yankee imperialist poota!) and would take about two weeks to fix. Just what I wanted for Christmas.

My schedule over the holiday is as follows:

20th – Flying home to England (via Helsinki). It takes about 14 hours. So I’ll be watching lots of movies and partaking of the free airline booze. I’m staying at my sister’s in Birmingham and enjoying her fine cooking until…

23rd – Middlesbrough. Family gathering. Ding-dong merrily on high etc…

4th/5th January – Going to Cambridge to see old buddy Rik Abel for the first time in four years. RIK! MAIL ME YOUR PHONE NUMBER AND ADDRESS!!!

9th – Flying back to Japan. Arriving on the 10th. Back to work on the 11th.

Should be a good trip. I will of course be taking many pictures and videos and so on, so be prepared to be regaled.

I took my computer down to Joshin today to get the CD-Rom drive fixed, thinking to myself that it couldn’t possibly take more than a day or two to sort it out, and was told it was probably going to take three weeks. THREE WEEKS! This being Japan you see, they have to follow procedures. And those procedures must be followed to the letter. And those procedures take time.

So it’s quite likely I won’t be blogging much for a while… sorry about that. I’m currently using somebody else’s computer to type this, but obviously that’s not terribly convenient…

I feel a bit lost (lonely even) without my own computer. How will I live without my daily dose of the intraweb?

どうしょう？

It has been pointed out to me (quite rightly) that the video I posted the other day was a tad on the long side. I know most people don’t have the time to listen to me rambling on about fungus etc – so I shortened it. It’s in the same place but it’s shorter, so if you REALLY want to, you can watch it again and enjoy my seamless editing ( + one extra piccie).

My CD-rom drive is busted. Currently when I try to burn CDs – it spits them out. When I try to play them it makes a dramatically hideous groaning noise. And obviously, trying to get a track off a Mandala CD to put on a new video I’m making of Arashiyama is out of the question too. So tomorrow I’m off to Joshin (electronics store) to get it sorted. Then I can finish off my Arashiyama video and post it right here.

Tonight I’m watching Neil Gaiman’s Mirrormask. I expect I’ll enjoy it. And I expect I’ll be telling you about that sometime in the future too.

And Rik. Where are you?

I thought someone might want to see what an autumn rice field looks like.This is in fact what an autumn rice field looks like. I took this picture with my mobile phone a couple of weeks ago in Yamashina. I’ve been teaching part-time at a company there for the last 18 months or so. Then the other day I got this (out-of-the-blue) mail:

Hello Mike,

I’ve got a bad news for you…

Eikosha will stop English lessons this month, so

25th will be the last lesson.

I hope this would not affect your income so badly.

Emi

Which, although the financial thing is no big deal, it was just a bit of pocket money really, does seem you know a little odd and sudden and, without an explanation, kind of rude. So I asked why. And after a few days of silence I asked Emi if she had received my mail asking why. Then I got this one:

Hello, Mike

The reson is …I am not sure, but

Mr. Akitsu had thought the lessons would be 1year or 1 and half

from the beginning, so may be he thought now is the time to stop lessons.

Emi

Thing is, though he may have thought that, he never mentioned it to me. Which I think qualifies him as a rude bastard, don’t you?

Well, I don’t feel like blogging today. But my mate Rik Abel has started blogging again, and he’s wildly intelligent and stuff, so read his instead until I pull my socks up again. The link is to the right of this page under the aptly named “Links”.

It’s been raining heavily all day so I stayed in bed with Tolstoy, or rather a book on Tolstoy. Just got mail from Hyon Ju. She runs a little Sunday breadshop down by Gojo. Very tasty bread, but the weather is keeping her customers away. She reckons she’ll be lucky to sell half of it. The wider implication of this? Free bread for me if I go down there around 5 o’clock. Lots of it. Yum.