I Got Really Drunk Last Wednesday

Wednesday afternoon, I went to a hardware shop at VivoCity to buy a shower hose because the joint at the shower head of the old one had gotten broken the previous night. It was a metal joint and had been leaking for some time. When I tried to tighten it by hand, it simply cracked and broke into pieces.

After buying it, I entered the Giant supermarket and noticed a missed call. Why do I miss calls so often?

It was from the boss of those engineers I had worked with. I returned the call and he told me that he was in Singapore and asked me if I would want to see him. Of course I said yes.

It took me about half an hour to reach the lobby of the hotel he was staying at and I found three others, two of whom I’d never met before. They came for a managers and supervisors’ meeting at Tai Seng.

I was very glad to see them especially because, having been under virtual house arrest for my work since before Christmas, I hadn’t really talked to anyone since the beginning of the year.

It turned out that one of them was a graduate of the same university and we talked a lot if only because of the fact. We also talked about the November trip to Milpitas, which I immensely enjoyed.

At about 8:30 pm they went back to the hotel to leave for the airport. Moderately drunk only with beer, I hopped in CC. I didn’t expect find anyone to talk to. Surely enough, I kept drinking alone and started feeling so stupid and unbearably isolated. Thinking I was wasting my time and drunk, I left. But not before I sent SMS messages to L to tell her I was almost completely drunk. I managed to board a 124 bus to come back home

Beicho Kuchi-makase: You Have to Pay Now + How Asahi Reporters Conduct Interviews

数日前、朝日新聞のウェブサイトのレイアウトが変わっていた。10月から更新されていなかった「米朝　口まかせ」は探してようやく見つかった。更新されていた！ただ、有料になっていて読めない。ずっと読むのを楽しんできたのに。「食と料理」もどこへ行ったのか。これも有料化だろうな、きっと。

同じく朝日。日豪外相の共同会見で、カー外相が河野談話の見直しを「望ましくない」と述べたと伝えている。外国の要人によるこの種の発言があるたび思うのは、どういう状況で発言があったのか知りたいということだ。勘ぐるのは、例えば本人が何も冒頭発言などで言っていないのに、朝日記者がわざわざ、「日本政府の歴史認識に関する姿勢についてどうお考えですか」と質問を投げかけて、記者が聞きたい「その一言」を引き出す手法ではないかということ。歴史認識について質問されたら、「正しくなければならぬ」というのが当たり前の回答だろう。日本政府の認識に「誤り」があるのかどうか何も具体的に触れなくても、記者は日本政府による歴史認識の誤りが指摘されたような記事にする。今回は、「近代史で最も暗い出来事の一つであり、見直しは望ましくない」と発言したとあるが、河野談話がどうして生まれたのか、何を目的にしていたのかについて外相がどこまで詳細に知っているのかがはなはだ疑わしい。