Car crashes and surgery are very exciting and all, but after the dramatic bit, there’s this long, slow, dreadfully-boring process called recovery. With its considerably-more-tedious cousin paperwork.

The paperwork has been in the form of the clerk at the insurance company that holds the policy for the car that ran me over. The office I’ve been ( Read more... )

This particular posting will have no pictures in it. I promise. You definitely wouldn’t want to see them.

With the surgery all explained to me, all the consent forms signed, and me all washed and dressed up in a surgery robe with this strange T-shaped bandage on instead of underwear (turns out when one of your legs Don’t Work No More, you need to ( Read more... )

On Wednesday afternoon after the MRI, a police officer phoned me telling me that the eyewitnesses pretty well agreed with what I remembered happening, to wit, the car turning left without checking his mirrors or anything. Then he asked me for my license and insurance information and I was a bit incapable of getting to my bag. I told him I’d send a ( Read more... )

In my previous entry I said things which turn out, upon closer investigation of the facts, to be somewhat different from how I understood them. This may be related to me having just been run over by a car.

When someone asked me, “Shall I call an ambulance?”, the response that I gave was not, as I thought, “Please do”. A review of the video ( Read more... )

On Wednesday morning I woke up, feeling tired and burned out. I wished that I didn’t have to get out of bed. I was on the verge of calling in sick at work and just taking the day off, which in retrospect would have been the wiser course of action. Instead, I just decided that I’d get up and go to work regardless of my actual desires.

I hopped ( Read more... )

The Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway recently revamped their toll system. If you have an electronic toll transponder, the rates range from ¥500 to ¥900 to take the expressway. But if you pay in cash, then you’re charged the maximum ¥900 toll.

But that’s where it gets interesting. If you pay cash, what you actually get is a free pass to drive on the ( Read more... )

I wasn’t particularly surprised to see the number of bicycles that’d been blown over after the storm last night.

I was quite impressed, though, at the number of motorcycles that’d been blown over. Fortunately none of mine were among them.

When I heard rumours that Microsoft was going to announce a tablet, I had a sort of a jocular internal idea of what Microsoft’s idea of a tablet would be.

These included:

• an x86 CPU
• lots and lots of superfluous ports so that you’ll end up with something festooned with wires to plug everything in
• visible screws holding it all together
• a physical ( Read more... )

One of the great things about living in the future is that you can treat movies like books. Since I have a future-phone, I can just load it up with movies and watch them whenever.

Right now I’m watching The Straight Story. When I get tired, I’ll pause it, go to bed, and pick it up tomorrow. It’s fantastic. But, so far, it’s given me the best ( Read more... )

I went for a quick bomb up and down a famous Japanese road called “Irohazaka” today. Its name translates loosely into English as “Alphabet Hill”-each hairpin bend on Irohazaka is named after a character in the classical Japanese syllabary. There are 50 classical Japanese characters, and there are 50 hairpin bends on Irohazaka.

I’ve ridden up and ( Read more... )