very late pictures...

i promised these pictures would be up a while ago and then promptly proceeded to prove myself wrong. my how i do love a little alliteration. (bad joke - sorry)

these pictures are from Elf and Hubert`s Magical Mystery Tour of JapanLand. they are two very cool cats from Canada (currently residing in Van-city and T-dot respectively) and have recently been nominated for the International Coolest Names Ever Award. let`s all wish them luck in that endeavor...

MEET THE BOYS...

Well it`s about freakin time, eh?



the real problem arises from the fact that i only have two records at the moment here in Japan: KID 606 (weird ambient something-or-other) and Aphrodite (jump up jungle). i should have a few new records by next week. and by "new" i mean new to me.... meh.

the mighty tofu-doughnut of Kyoto:

LONG LIVE THE MIGHTY DOUGHNUT!!!!


and now i must be off to another day of work...

"All things considered. there are only two kinds of men in the world - those who stay at home and those who do not. The second are more interesting."

-Rudyard Kipling (as quoted in The Honourable Visitors)


I found that quotation in the front of Will Ferguson`s book Hitching Rides With Buddha, which is next on my reading list.

"A wealth of information
creates a poverty of attention."

Herbert Simon
nobel prize winning economist


On that note: my To Do List was ripe at 14 items this morning when i woke up at 8:30am. It is now 2:30pm and i have accomplished exactly four of those items, one of which was "do laundry." WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?!?!?!

Return To Monkey Park

Well i went back to Monkey Park in Arashiyama (Western Kyoto) yet again this past week. I love taking new people there (i think that after Koyasan it is my second favorite place in Japan!) and Ulala and i were playing tour guide to two wonderful people from Canada, Elfreda and Hubert (more on them in the next post). And since i had been to Monkey Park four times before, and have taken literally hundreds of pictures of monkeys, i decided to try some black and white photos this time.
Here is a very small selection of the results:

ON GOSSIP

I got this in an e-mail forward and it gave me a good laugh. enjoy!


Next time someone starts to spread gossip, think of this:

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.

One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said,"Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say.

The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed.

This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem. And it's also the reason why Socrates never found out that Plato was banging his wife.