A Drunken Rant From My Nuclear Wasteland: Cooking Tips, Pointless Rants, Your Mom, Cheap Obama Jokes And Other Reasons To Rage Against The Dying Of Existentialist Training In Primary School.

I would like to say something about video games and the people who make them.  If you are making a video game and you have a boss fight followed directly by another boss fight with no time in between the two you are a cheap asshole.    People work your way up to the fight give it your all and instead of having the downtime to replace your items, health, ect you go directly into another large fight that you had no idea you would unless you used a cheat guide.    I shouldn’t have to use a cheat guide or a walkthrough in order to play a fucking video game.  Not only that but if you die fighting the second boss guess what you have to fight them both over even if you kicked the first one’s ass.  Fuck you guys, seriously fuck you.

Cheap ass motherfuckers…

OK I have used walkthroughs for games before but that is when I was really stuck on something and wanted a little extra help.  I’m not saying it’s wrong to use them but it is very annoying to make a game you need the thing to play.

I like Tetris…

I don’t know if my heart isn’t in it any more or I found shit to do but I really don’t post on here much anymore do I?  Maybe it is the fact there are only so many Obama Teleprompter jokes you can make before you just don’t care anymore.   You all liked me more when I didn’t have a life didn’t you?   Either that or you are happy I have mostly shut up.   The sad thing is that this post took over a month to write.  It’s not that it took me a month to type this it’s that I would write a little, stop, write some more, stop still not post it because it wasn’t long enough or whatever and stop.  It’s not that bad considering I wrote about 10,000 words for another post in 2008 and keep forgetting to finish it.  Maybe I should go…

Oooo, nachos..

I bought a duck the other day (frozen, not as a pet).  I hadn’t roasted one in a while so I thought it sounded like a good thing to spend a Saturday doing (apart from playing video games and drinking beer, oh lord do I need to get a girlfriend).  On the package was anthropomorphic family of ducks that looked all happy holding hands.  I know that someone thought this was cute and a good way to catch people’s attention so they would think “Oh, look a happy family and since I want my family to be happy I will get this frozen duck for them and my family will all be happy together”.  All I could think was “I’m about to eat one or your children.  I’m not sure why you are smiling I can only assume it’s that you don’t understand someone killed your son and I’m going to shove garlic, onion and some of my famous spiced  butter  where his heart used to be roast the fuck out of him and eat him”.  It’s not like milk.  You have a smiling cow in sunglasses that says “Look at me I’m an awesome cow, and I make awesome milk, here have some and we can party on the milk train”.  This is more like “I can’t feed my family so I will sell you one of my children to make it through the winter.  Please smile mister so the rest of the kids don’t think something is wrong” kind of thing.    Don’t get me wrong I’m not going to become a vegan.  I’m not a big enough of a stupid pretentious asshat for that shit (if you know anything about evolution it was eating meat that helped our brain develop enough to get us out of the flinging our shit at everyone and drinking our own piss stage of development), I just find the whole happy duck family thing on my food funny since I’m about to eat the fuck out of you and I’m not sure why you are smiling.  Maybe it’s just that this is Japan and if it doesn’t have a cartoon on it and it isn’t beer or condoms you don’t buy it.  Is it an Emo duck?  “Woohoo I’m about to die, thank you Mr. I just couldn’t go through with it on my own you helped so much!!!”  Well I know it’s not a Goth duck, they would have been wearing black and have at least fought back unless I told them I was a vampire first…

For people that want to know my famous* spiced butter is really just a strange concoction I use for baking poultry that involves butter, an assortment of random spices (aka at least a pinch of everything on the spice rack but mostly basil and pepper), worcestershire sauce, teriyaki sauce, garlic, beer and sometimes a bit of water.  I also might add hoisin or duck sauce (if it is duck, but not if it is chicken or turkey).  It’s better with the duck sauce (if you use that you use more duck sauce and less butter) but it’s good either way.  You heat this concoction enough to melt the butter and then slather it on everything and inside everything (aka the poultry).  It does not even in the least look or sound like it is edible but oh lord is it good.

I actually cook almost everything with booze.  I use sake instead of the rice wine they make for cooking (I never use cooking wine, too much salt and while I don’t have a problem with salt I’m going to get that someplace else).  A good pasta sauce is always made with a good red wine (usually Chianti or Merlot).  Chili, burritos, shepherd’s pie, beef stew, hamburgers, beer.  My food might drink more than I do.

Well we are on cooking so let’s go with it.  I learned how to cook when I was very young to the point that by the time I was 8 I would make entire meals for the family.  I have always been pretty good at it and enjoy it.  I don’t think I could every do it as a job though.  There are a lot of reasons for that.  When I was younger I made it a point to make the presentation a part of the meal (as you would expect from a chef) but as I got older I cared a lot less about presentation and a lot more for how it tastes.  I can still try to make it look nice but I live alone and unless I have a girlfriend over (and since I don’t have one at the moment) I really don’t care how it looks.  This has led me to invent some very, very tasty dishes that look absolutely horrendous.  One dish is fried potatoes, onions and pork chops cooked in balsamic vinegar and mint (with some other spices in various amounts).  Everything comes out black, it’s good, excellent even but it’s a bit disconcerting.  Another is a recipe for lamb that turns the lamb green because I basically cook it in a concoction that the best way to describe is a mix between mint tea and mint pesto.  A marinade for steak I have turns the entire steak a grayish brown (not matter how rare it is).  You take 2 Guinness, a little garlic, some pepper, a little basil (I put basil in almost everything), a lot of scallions and about a 4^th of a cup of sugar (the scallions and sugar are important otherwise it will be bitter) and you marinate the steak in it at least overnight (sometimes 2), pull it out throw it on a grill cooking it to your taste (I like rare or sometimes medium rare), and you eat.  It is good but the color of the meat always looks a little off.  Now people might be thinking “yeah so you like it but you are cooking it for your own tastes, does anyone else like any of this?”  Yes, yes they do.  Even my friend who is a professional chef likes it (although being the asshole he is he will always makes comments about what he would of done, but it is more of a trade thing rather than a complaint about the taste).

Another thing about my cooking is I don’t think any of it is very low in calories.  Thank Vishnu I have a high metabolism or I would be 400 pounds.  To give you an example I have a recipe for hot wings where the sauce is mostly butter and Louisiana Hot Sauce.

Maybe I just like my food weird.  The trick to good BBQ pork ribs is to rub the meat with a little garam masala (or at least a little cinnamon) mixed with a few other more normal things like pepper, onion and garlic salt and a bit of chili powder before you throw it on the grill.  That and while you put the BBQ sauce on in the end you want to char the outside a little.  It sounds wrong but trust me.  A little bit of a crunch on the outside and a lot of juicy rib on the inside and you are golden.   Sometimes I think I get invited to cookouts just because they want me to cook.

Still half of my food looks inedible and my recipes don’t really have any standardized measurements.  It’s more of keep adding things until it tastes right.

I really hate it at work when people expect me to deal with their constant fuck ups.  Lucky for me people have started to realize I am going to hold them to at least the minimum standard they are supposed to be at so they don’t ask me to hook them up or fix their shit anymore.  The problem is that rather than get their shit together they find someone else to try to get me to hook them up for them.  Now I have to explain to the other department managers that “no we do not hook them up, they are incompetent buffoons stop listening to them or being nice to their stupid asses or they will never learn”.    Fuck at least if you tried to talk to my boss and get him to force me to do it, it would be less annoying.  I know why you don’t do this.  Because there is a 505 chance my boss will either give you the same answer I did or tell you to fuck off.  Then there is a 49.9% chance my boss would ask me to do it if I can but not try to demand it and let me tell him I won’t do it (unless I feel nice that day and try to help him out of the bullshit because I have time [5% chance]) , and a .01% chance they will force me to do it no matter what I say (these numbers and percentages hold up even with the one boss that hates my guts).

Speaking of work if I tell you something is not possible.  Such as something needs to get done in the next ten minutes (because you waited till the last minute to turn something in) and the systems required to do it are down (server screw-up, secluded maintenance, act of Vishnu, ect), why do you feel the need to get angry at me for it?  Do you think yelling at me and irritating the ever living fuck out of me is going to make things faster, make the systems (I don’t run only use) get up do a little happy dance and start working?  Do you think I’m going to push everyone else’s shit aside to fix your fuck up, especially considering you want to be rude about it?  I’m not going to sit here and say I’ve never hooked someone up or helped them out.  But those people came to me apologized for the late requests and were humble and nice about it and were understanding about technical difficulties when there were.  They offer to get me lunch, a sixer, something (I never accept this offer but it’s nice to know it’s there).   You on the other hand want to be a dick and act like it is my fault.  Fuck you.

Fuck work.  I spend all day there I don’t need to bitch about it on here.  Well that much anyway…

The world needs more bike lanes. Every street should have them.  Now this isn’t some hippie “save the world, we need more people riding bikes” type crap.  No, it’s because they piss me off.  They need to keep bikes off the road and out of traffic and away from my car.  They also need to keep the things off of sidewalks, people are walking there and since we can’t ban their use altogether to keep the fucking things away from normal people I think we should only allow their use is specially designated areas (preferably in the ocean or an active volcano).  Since you don’t walk in the street and you don’t drive on the sidewalk well you should either have to use a bike lane or go fuck yourself.

Nothing good can ever come from large amounts of alcohol and your ex.

Of all the stupid things that get made into TV shows or movies why has the webcomic Something Positive never been done?  Oh, right people don’t actually like sarcasm as much as I do…

Fuckers…

And now a funny video.

“Couldn’t we give them nothing instead and have them hate us for free?”  Oh if only…

Thanks Dr. Bulldog and Ronin

Why does most spam go to the “about” section of this blog?  Really they have some of the best comments that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Such as:

“I have to voice my affection for your kind-heartedness for men and women who require assistance with this one situation. Your special dedication to getting the solution up and down had become exceptionally beneficial and has in every case made regular people much like me to achieve their aims. Your amazing helpful guidelines entails this much to me and even more to my office workers. Thanks a lot; from everyone of us.”

Does that make any sense?

I just watched Inception.  A lot of people have questions about it but the only real question I have is did Mr. Saito get out?  Also am I the only person that gives a shit?  I might need a life…

Best Super Bowl Commercial:

Speaking of Doritos there was an ad that has the Salsa Verde Doritos.  Are they back?  If they are that is fucking awesome I loved those but then I guess they stopped making them or only selling them in select markets and they were gone.   Woohoo!  Oh, right I live in Japan and they don’t have them out here…  Foiled again, foiled again…  But at least I can get seaweed flavored potato chips…  Seriously do not eat seaweed flavored potato chips.  You will though, you won’t try to but you will see a bag of chips at the store and it will look like sour cream and onion chips (but they’re not) and you aren’t really paying attention because it’s 2am and you are a little drunk and just grabbing shit off the shelves. All you wanted was some sour cream and onion chips (and a hot dog, Pocari Sweat, a tuna sandwich, 5 cans of Yebisu, shrimp flavored chips, chicken on a stick, and well anything your drunken mind decides is food…) and oh god nooooooooooo!

Yeah speaking of the Super Bowl I really want to be angry but it was a good game and the Steelers fucked up.  Lord is it hard to find a place in Japan to watch the thing live.  You can watch it like 7 hours later on some stations but lord is it hard to watch it live.  OK the Steelers lost  but it’s OK they still have more rings.  Although if they did get a seventh I could make a Lord of the Rings joke.  Granted I would have to hope there is enough crossover between Nerds and football fans that anyone would get it but I would still do it anyway.  Of course I could still make a joke since the Packers can now say they’re the Elf Kings but I wanted the Dwarf Lords joke, and I should just stop right now…

In news you may already know they cancelled “Caprica”.  Fuck you guys, seriously fuck you.  Yeah I’m late but I watch things after I can get it or rent it on DVD or Blue-Ray.  If was a good show but the ending was rushed.   Mostly because you fucks cancelled it!

I have recently found out that Bruce Lee was part German.  Apparently his mom was half German.  Is this important?  Not really, but interesting.

Speaking of Bruce Lee I like this quote from him:

“Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it”

The greatest thing Metallica ever did was throw Dave Mustaine out of the band.  If they hadn’t we wouldn’t have Megadeth.  It was also the dumbest thing they ever did because really Metallica sucks and hasn’t even pretended to write a good album in 20 years.   Megadeth on the other hand is still one of the greatest bands ever.

So the other day someone broke into a house and then when the owner returned while they were there they get scared and lock themselves in the bathroom and call the police.  Seriously the guy way afraid the owner of the house had a gun and might hurt them so they called the police for help.  The fucked up thing is that the homeowner called the police at the same time so you had one 911 operator talking to the perp and one talking to the victim.  The criminal didn’t even know if the homeowner had a gun he was just afraid they might.  So afraid he called the police (the people going to take him to jail) to save him.   If that isn’t a case for gun ownership I don’t know what is.  I also wish I had been that 911 operator that took the call.  I would have seriously told the guy I hope the homeowner does have a gun and blows his fucking head off right before I hung up.

And now time for something completely different:

The Middle East is burning, I’m trying to care.  Really I hope something good comes out of all the revolutions and protests but it’s been so, so very long that anything good came out of the Middle East that I’m really just not that hopeful over the whole thing.

Radiation levels in Tokyo have recently risen to the level of “Still Not Anywhere Close To What You Got From That X-ray At The Dentist Last Week” (that is the official scientific term for the current levels).  Please continue to freak the fuck out.  I’ll say it like this.  If you spend the entire day outside you will be exposed to the same amount of radiation you get in a 6 hour flight.  You don’t spend 24 hours a day outside and you don’t hear about airline pilots mutating into monsters or dying or radiation poisoning every 5 seconds so please continue to freak the fuck out.

Click to enlarge.

Thank you xkcd

Seriously, nothing good can ever come from large amounts of alcohol and your ex.

I hate it here…

* The use of the word “famous” may or may not be an outright lie.

Further Updates On The Japanese Earthquake And Tsunami And Links To Charity Organizations So You Can Help Out.

I posted the other day on my experience during and immediately after the recent quake and tsunami so I think I will give some further updates.

 

Right now there are a lot of power problems because right now the area I live in lost about 30% of their electrical producing capacity.  Right now they have scheduled blackouts so they can push more power up north where they need it so we lose power for about 3 hours a day.  That and everyone are being encouraged to use as little power as possible when they do have it.  It’s a minor inconvenience I’m not about to bitch about though.  I am living off of canned and dry goods simply because I am trying to limit the amount of food I have to refrigerate since every day it’s going to shut off for a couple hours.  Some train lines have shut down for the most part and some are only running on 60% of their normal schedules to also help conserve energy and some companies have shut down production or limited production on things that are not immediately necessary for the same reason.   Really it’s not that bad.

 

And now the melt down scare.  This is not Chernobyl and we are not all going to die.  Yes some radiation has been released.  It’s not that bad.  Right next to the plant it’s not good but it’s not the end of the world.  The media has no idea what they are talking about and are just going nuts on sensationalism to make money.  Yes radiation has been detected Tokyo and Yokohama.  Now let me explain something to you.  Tokyo and Yokohama are not close to the plants that are problems.  We are hundreds of miles away.  And yes we have been hit with radiation from them but not a lot.  The amount of extra radiation (extra because everything and I mean everything has at least some radiation in it) is no more than what you get while on a plane ride from New York to California (about 1000 times less than the amount that gives you radiation poisoning).  X-rays give you a bigger dose.  Yes they told us to try to limit our time outside just to be on the safe side but unfortunately it’s not enough to let me join the X-Men next week.

 

Now I know why the media doesn’t tell you this.  It’s because they want to sell papers and ad space.  It’s the same reason Three Mile Island was a giant catastrophe even though it didn’t harm anyone.  Chernobyl was bad but we are talking about shitty Soviet workmanship and a bunch of scientists that ignored safety procedures so they could do some experiments while they were bored.  99% of the time what people call a “Melt Down” really just fucks up the plant and costs millions of dollars to fix.  Yes some radiation might leak but considering you got an x-ray last time you went to the dentist you really don’t need to worry that much.

 

Now the best media sensationalist bullshit is the morons screaming about the radiation being blown on the winds towards California.  With everything I know about California that is the least of you problems.  Even if there was a full the reactor people are worried about blows up into a mushroom cloud and nukes the surrounding areas buy the time the radiation was blown on the winds to Hawaii it would be so dispersed you would barely be able to register it and when it got to California it would still be healthier than the normal air quality of Los Angeles.  So calm the fuck down!

 

I’m not saying everything is hugs and puppies out here but pull your heads out of your asses and get the facts.  I’m not say something couldn’t happen and it could get really bad but it hasn’t yet and the chances that it does are small.

 

Anyway even though I may have insulted several people’s intelligence I am still going to ask for everyone’s help.   Please yes there are a lot of problems and there are a lot of people without homes and we need to help so please do.  I am going to give some websites you can go to so you can donate so do it because it you don’t when I finally join the X-Men you don’t want to be on our shit list.

 

I have some links to the Red Cross and some forums with information about different organizations so you can pick one:

 

This forum has a lot of different links to chose from.

http://www.japanforum.com/forum/japan-news-events/36559-how-you-can-help-japanese-people-affected-earthquakes-destruction.html

 

This one is a Facebook page but there might be information that helps:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Supporting-Japanese-Earthquake-Victims/168509213197807

 

American Red Cross.

https://american.redcross.org/site/SPageServer?s_subsrc=RCO_FrontPagePanel&pagename=ntld_main&s_src=RSG000000000

 

There also might be organizations you know and trust that you can go with.  My point is don’t just do nothing.  Even a small donation will help.  If every person in America gave one dollar that is 300 million dollars right there.  Add that to people around the world giving what they can and we can make a difference.  Yes I know most people won’t do shit but don’t be that person.  Well I have to go to help conserve electricity (something, believe me, I never thought I would ever say) but I will leave you with this.  Remember while this might not affect you, you know you would hope someone is there to help when you need it.

My Experience With The March 11th, 2011 Earthquake And Tsunami In Japan.

Any regular reader of this blog (all 6 of you) knows I live in Japan in the Tokyo/Yokohama area (about 230 mile away from the quakes epicenter) so I thought I would give my perspective on what happened yesterday.  I’m not going to get into everything you can just read in the news I’m just going to talk about my experience with the whole thing.  Earthquakes are quite common here and I rarely pay any attention to them.  If I am asleep I don’t usually wake up and if I do I go right back to sleep.  They are small or far enough away it doesn’t do much other than rattle a couple things and that is it.  This was a bit different.  I was at work at the time trying to finish up some last minute stuff so I could ditch out early.   It started off small and didn’t seem any worse than the last couple we’ve had here.  Only it kept going for longer than they usually do and kept getting worse and worse.  I work on the 3^rd floor of a building (we only have 3 floors) and the building felt like it was swaying.  We have an outside staircase in the back next to my office so I walked outside on the balcony and it really felt like it swaying, almost like as if I was on a small boat out at sea.  At this point a bunch of the people who worked on the third floor started running out of the building and down the steps.  At the time I really didn’t know how bad everything really was so I was laughing at everyone but decided it best to follow along.  Running down the steps was an interesting experience considering the world was moving, I’m really not sure how no one fell over barreling down the steps but no one did.  Once outside in the parking lot I noticed all the cars were shaking and the outdoor pool across the street looked like a wave pool with the water splashing out of it a good 6 feet high.  I really don’t know how long it lasted but it felt like it was about 10 minutes from start to finish but I can’t really say.  Outside the world still felt like we were on a boat and several people spoke about how they were getting dizzy.  Most of the people were kind of laughing at each other and when it was over we all filed back into our offices to go back to work.  My work has a generator so we didn’t lose power or anything so at the time we didn’t know most of the area was blacked out (or when the blackout started).  I think it was about 20 minutes latter (I could be wrong my sense of time is terrible) we got hit with the aftershock.  Unlike the first one this was didn’t start out small but came roaring in strong (not as bad as the initial quake at its peak though).  At this point I said fuck it and shot out of the building strait off telling one of the bosses “Fuck this I’m getting a smoke”, to which he made a joke about how if I was going to die I had the right idea by picking my way out of this world.  Mind you, at this point most people we were in higher spirits than we might have otherwise been in if had we really known what was happening.  This one was kind of short though and after that we filed back into the building and the bosses told everyone to close up and go home considering it was almost the end of the day anyway and many of us had families we should be looking too and we all needed to get home to check our houses.  When I was leaving work was when I noticed the blackout since none of the traffic lights were working.  The drive home was fine other than the traffic lights being out and not enough cops for traffic control.  Surprisingly most people were driving with a lot of caution so it wasn’t that bad.   Traffic wasn’t bad going in my direction but it was miserable going in the other since the trains had all stopped running (something I didn’t know yet) and everyone was trying to pick up their families who would usually use the train to commute.

When I got home I realize that the power was out, I found a flashlight (I didn’t really need it yet but would latter) and checked my house.  I was lucky that nothing fell over other than a small stack of books that may have fallen over a month ago for all I was paying attention.  Other than the power everything was fine at my house so I ran to the small grocery store next to my house to grab some supplies like candles and maybe so food and water.  The water was sold out but the water worked at my house anyway (and I had a stockpile of beer to tide me over) so I bought some instant noodles, canned pasta sauce and some juice.  Although thinking about it now I wish I did get water because I didn’t think about the fact the water lines might be busted and the water might not be drinkable as I later found out many places in the north this had happened.  The store didn’t have candles and I had cracked open a beer during my house investigation (since I might as well drink it while it was still cold) so I could drive anywhere to get any (and the store might be closed anyway).  Just so you know the laws about driving drunk in Japan are so strict that half a beer will put you over the limit for a DUI (something I applaud).   Lucky for me I had a flashlight that I had bought on a whim a couple weeks ago when I was wandering around a hardware store looking for an AC adaptor and enough spare batteries.  Thank you Impulse Buying, I’d be screwed without you.   I tried to call people but my cell wasn’t working I didn’t manage some text messages but it was sporadic and some of them took 3 hours to get to their destination.  I don’t have a landline and I haven’t for years so I don’t know if they were cut in my area but I don’t think they were.

I still didn’t know how bad everything was so I was planning on going out for a few beers since I had nothing to really do at my house after it got dark.  So around 6:30 I walked to the train station hoping it was still running.  On my way I ended up bumping into a group of little old ladies who had ended up lost while looking for the train station.  Now my neighborhood is nothing but very small dark alleyways to begin with but with all the street lights out in was pitch black and I have no idea how many walls they walked into before I found them .  I had a flashlight so I took them to the station although it wasn’t working.  The guy working there said they might have the power on by 7 but it was iffy.  I parted ways since I was going back home and they were going to walk up this main street that we well lit only because of the traffic that was backed up for miles along it with people still trying to pick up their stranded families.  To say the least the lights did not come back on in my neighborhood at 7, although some people a little farther out from me said they got their power back on before the sun went down but most of the areas around Tokyo and Yokohama didn’t have power until much later.

I think there were a couple very small shakes during the night but nothing to write about.  One of the bad things about living in a Japanese house especially an old one is they don’t have insulation and the heat is electric.  It wasn’t that cold at first so I just bundled up and was fine.  I ended up playing acoustic guitar in the dark and drinking beer feeling like a goth redneck until I got tired of that feeling and decided to go for a walk.  I ended up walking about a mile or two down the main road I spoke of earlier and one of my friends in Okinawa called me.  I still could make calls but or get any from people in the area but he was able to get through.  He lives up north near where the earthquake hit and was away on business but his wife was home.  It turned out his place got trashed but nothing of value got broken and with wife was fine and some of the people he works with went and picked her up to take her and the dog to a shelter for the night so she was alright.  However very close to where they live was flooded from the tsunami.  I don’t pay attention to tsunami warnings although sometimes I should since I live about a mile from the ocean because I live in a cove that is protected by two large peninsulas and for the most part wouldn’t have to worry about them.  They did tell us to move to higher ground on the emergency PA systems they have set up everywhere but since none of my neighbors paid any attention to it.  When talking to my friends he told me I didn’t have to worry about the tsunami since by the time he had called it would have gone past my place anyway.  Before I got off the phone I had mentioned to him I was going to end up having to cook instant noodle in the stove since I have a gas stove so I could at least cook dinner by flashlight.  He reminded me of something I didn’t think about and that before I try to cook I better check the gas lines to make sure they were fine.  I told him they should be fine I hadn’t blown up the house when I lit a smoke earlier and we both laughed out asses off.  I was still going to check when I got home though.

Thinking about what he had said while walking home it started to bother me about what really happened and how bad it might have been had it been closer and how bad it might be up north.   Before that I hadn’t really know what was going on so I was in more or less high spirits (if not a little bored) but it was starting to sink in how lucky I was.  I still didn’t really know how bad it was yet but I had a bit of an idea it wasn’t good.

When I got home I checked the stove and was about to boil water for my instant noodle feast when I made an interesting discovery.   I couldn’t fine my tea kettle, I think I might have gotten rid of it at forgot to buy a new one.   So I ended up boiling water in a saucepan by flashlight.  I really wish I had candles.  Anyway dinner cooked I tried to read my flashlight until I got annoyed and went to sleep.  At this point it was starting to get cold and it was not a pleasant night wrapped in every blanket I own.  I think the power came on by two in the morning but I am not really sure since I sort of woke up for it and went right back to sleep without even bothering to turn them off.

Since I had gone to sleep at around 9 I ended up waking up at 5 in the morning and since the power was on I decided to try to get online to see how bad it really was.  I got online and was able to reply to the emails and Facebook posts asking if I was fine and post a message on my Facebook wall I was OK so my friends and family would stop freaking out.  At some point after 5:30-5:40 we had another aftershock and since by that point I had skimmed enough news reports to know it was bad it freaked me out a little and the internets cut off, but the power stayed on and it was only a small tremor.  The internets didn’t start working again for about 3 hours.

So that is about it.   I’m not going to sit around and worry too much, although considering all the time I spend drawing up plans on what to do in the event of a zombie attack I might want to spend a minute or two thinking about natural disasters past the “get beer and wait it out” plan.   Or maybe next time there is a quake I might not roll right over and go back to sleep.  I did buy some candles at the store today though so that is a step in the right direction.  I didn’t bother to find normal candles so they are all the fancy scented kind but who says I can’t ride out a disaster with aromatherapy?

I know I’m making light of everything a bit but it’s easier to do than sit here and get more freaked out than you need to be or let it get you down, and at least I didn’t make any Johnny cash jokes (or does saying that hint at the joke enough to count as a joke?).  It’s one thing to think about these things and tell yourself to get a little bit of a survival kit just in case something were to happen, and everyone should do that.  It’s another thing to dwell on it like it’s going to happen to you tomorrow.  Don’t get me wrong it could and being a little prepared is a good thing but thinking “It could have been me” and getting depressed after every disaster isn’t going to help your mental state.  Telling yourself “these things can happen so I better live life while I have it” however and really going out and doing it is the best thing you can do.  That and when these things do happen volunteer to help out, donate money, food or clothing.  Right now blankets or sleeping bags would probably be good because the power is still out in many places up north and it is cold up there.  If you aren’t in Japan it might be easier to find a charity or relief organization and send money since much of the supplies people need can be bought locally and will get there faster.   If you are religious give a little prayer for the people out there.

 

UPDATE:   I have posted some links to charity and relief organizations on another post.  Please click here and scroll to the bottom of the post to check them out.