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I had another examination on Friday and the doctor said the wound is continuing to heal well. I’ll have two more examinations before the trip to Australia at Christmas and then when I get back will evaluate where things are.
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Adrien asked me if I could pick up a catalogue from the Seiko Museum in Ginza and so I popped over there on Saturday to do just that. John had a school excursion that day and I thought it might make an interesting outing for the other two but Rowan looked like he might be coming down with a cold so I took only Emma. I wish we’d spent longer looking at the displays in the museum but I was primarily concerned with the catalogue and once we had that in hand, we left pretty much straightaway.
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Speaking of Emma and John, I neglected to mention last week that they both had their sports festival (undōkai) events the Saturday before last. Perhaps this is the norm at Japanese primary schools now but Eri and I were both surprised that Emma’s event merely involved dancing, as opposed to more traditional track and field events. Both schools ran their events at the same time, so I went to one while Eri went to the other. Fortunately, there was enough time after Emma’s event ended that I had time to walk over to John’s preschool with Rowan and so I got to see a bit of each.
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Speaking of things I forgot to write about last week, I got my flu vaccination. If I’d waited until mid-November, I could have got it for half price through work but I didn’t want to wait and so paid the full ¥4,000.
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We’ve been having Internet connectivity problems for the past couple of months. This is my least favourite computer problem to troubleshoot because of how many factors there are to consider: the Wi-Fi, the router, the cable in the building, the cable to the building, the ISP’s servers, the ISP’s Internet connection, etc. Even though the router seemed like one of the least likely culprits, our one was quite a few years old so I replaced it with a TP-Link Archer AX80/A. We’ve already had some issues since I installed it so I don’t think that was the source of the problem but it has at least improved the Wi-Fi connectivity throughout the apartment.
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The NBA season is almost here and I signed up for a monthly League Pass subscription through both the official NBA app and the Rakuten NBA app (which is what we’re supposed to use in Japan) so I could see which is better. I can’t believe I’m saying this but the Rakuten app is leagues—ha!—ahead. That said, a monthly subscription is ¥4,500 so I’m not sure I want to pay that for the next nine months or so. Although, the Spurs look like they might be worth watching this year thanks to Victor Wembanyama (Wikipedia) who has looked amazing in the preseason so maybe I will.
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I watched more episodes of Seinfeld and Loki this week and it occurred to me that part of their appeal is the cleverness of the writing. This is easily seen in Seinfeld but I’d argue it’s also true for Loki (at least in the first season—I still haven’t started the second season yet). As fantastical as the show is, the fact that Loki is inherently disruptive makes perfect sense.
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I quite liked this video by Dr Geoff Lindsay about ‘hard attack’ (Wikipedia), the use of something like a glottal stop before an initial vowel (as opposed to a consonant). In particular, I was surprised to learn that part of what makes German sound so aggressive to native English speakers is the number of work that use hard attack.
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I had no idea that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs put out a new album last year. Nothing seems as instantly iconic as their earlier stuff but I do quite like ‘Fleez’ (Apple Music).
