Sunday musings

An update on the computer situation - I've bought a new one. However, it's being custom built and shipped from another country so it's on the way. I am not sure when it will arrive but even if it is this week I probably won't have it till next as Tech Support at school are going to load all the programs onto it and that will take a day or so. Plus this week is the deceptively named "Golden Week" and so that will slow things as well. It's deceptive as this year Monday's a national holiday and so are Thursday and Friday but we have to work Tuesday and Wednesday.

Sitting here typing it I realise that I may have made a major mistake when buying it. I forgot to ask if it will be a Japanese keyboard. Yikes. All the roman letters are in the same place on a Japanese keyboard but not the symbols. Plus the space bar is quite a bit shorter which makes for an adjustment when typing. I've gotten used to it, and thanks to my typing teacher in high school know where all the symbols are if I configure the system to an North American English keyboard (yes there is a difference between NA and the UK) but still. Having Japanese characters is pointless and frustrating.

Which brings me to another Japanese computer issue. I've recently discovered that while some websites have convenient "click here for English/Japanese/French" buttons others just automatically look at your ISP address and adjust their site accordingly. Augh! A few minutes ago I was looking at a site about Banff and there was no way to change it from Japanese. Oh the irony.

Finally the song running through my head this afternoon was Cheek to Cheek - "heaven, I'm in heaven..." Why might you ask? Firstly because of my shameful addiction to American Idol. I can't believe that it is Sanjaya's song that got stuck in my head from last night's show. (Yes, for those of you who are also following but in North America, I know that the Japaneses broadcasts are a couple weeks behind the NA shows. It crushed me when I went on the AI website to find out who will be voted off over the next few weeks.)

The song though came to me when I made a new discovery this afternoon - Subway. Oh to have a subway sandwich. It was so good. Sandwiches are not something that the Japanese are particularly talented at. First of all everything's made with gluey white bread, secondly there's rarely more than two choices (both with meat) and thirdly, and I think this has something to do with a Japanese tradition of have a large variety of foods every day (lots of small dishes instead of a couple big ones) , when you think you've found a winner often one half of the sandwich is veg and the other has meat. You never get two halves of the same sandwich. Plus ever since a conversation with a Brit during my recent travels I've had a craving for a ploughman's sandwich but do you think I can find Branston's pickle in Osaka?? Pickle anyone?