Wesley: Feng Shui. Gunn: Right. What's that mean again? Wesley: That people will believe anything. Actually, in this place, Feng Shui will probably have enormous significance. I'll align my furniture the wrong way and suddenly catch fire or turn into a pudding.

'Conviction (1)'


Natter 78: I might need to watch some Buffy for inspiration

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, butt kicking, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


-t - Jan 23, 2025 4:23:58 pm PST #4821 of 5862
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

That all sounds so good and is cheering me up immensely


JenP - Jan 23, 2025 4:35:54 pm PST #4822 of 5862

Fabulous! The teamLab spaces look amazing. Enjoy!


Sheryl - Jan 23, 2025 5:01:10 pm PST #4823 of 5862
Fandom means never having to say "But where would I wear that?"

Timelies all!

I work at NIH and the template email showed up in my inbox. Ugh.

We are flying to visit my folks in Florida tomorrow. No snow where they are, but it'll be warmer than here. We get back Sunday night.


msbelle - Jan 23, 2025 5:29:27 pm PST #4824 of 5862
I remember the crazy days. 500 posts an hour. Nubmer! Natgbsb

For the first time in 2 years I have successfully linked my external hard drive (holds all my music and backups of pics) to iTunes/music AND I’m getting to update the music on my phone and offload pics!

It’s very exciting.

And because I’m slightly OCD and my anxiety likes a project, I am getting album artwork off the interwebs for anything Apple music is not producing (odd what they “do not have”)


Emily - Jan 23, 2025 6:02:20 pm PST #4825 of 5862
"In the equation E = mc⬧, c⬧ is a pretty big honking number." - Scola

News doesn't make it to me most of the day, and I've been trying to avoid it. But on the way home I saw the thing about Trump declassifying info about JFK/RFK/MLK Jr assassinations and felt sort of disoriented by not being appalled by something he did. I mean, the next story more than made up for it, but it was a weird minute there.

On the upside, my ex-boyfriend just posted that anyone who's "okay with what's happening" should "go fuck yourself you rancid piece of shit," which raised my spirits. I dated the best people.

Hec, thank you for injecting some outside goodness. That is one nice hotel, and goes against every stereotype I've ever had about Tokyo.


Steph L. - Jan 23, 2025 6:10:05 pm PST #4826 of 5862
I look more rad than Lutheranism

Trump declassifying info about JFK/RFK/MLK Jr assassinations and felt sort of disoriented by not being appalled by something he did.

My first reaction is that he did it to distract from something HUGE he's about to pull.


Consuela - Jan 23, 2025 7:02:49 pm PST #4827 of 5862
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

As in, everything.

EPA staff cannot hold meetings with outside parties. DHS disbanded all "affinity groups". The names of all probationary employees are to be reported.

I'm feeling slightly less panicky now, because my staff are probably reasonably well protected: they were hired into remote positions, and that does come with some protections: we cannot unilaterally change the terms of their employment without notice. I may end up back in the office 4-5 days/week, which I just will have to live with.

But nobody is able to focus on their work and everyone is twitchy.


DavidS - Jan 23, 2025 9:51:33 pm PST #4828 of 5862
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

That sounds a little better, Suela.

Obviously the whole point of the back to work orders is to get people to quit without payoffs and and layoffs.

Something went awry with Matilda’s ESim On her phone and it is making her so anxious trying to navigate a big city without her phone.

So we took special excursion via Metro to try to rectify it. But now we’re in a Starbucks near a visitor center just for the Wi-Fi (since our sim plans aren’t working ) and to take a pee.

Things conquered: getting money at 7-11, riding subway and making connection to get to Asakusa, seeing Karnarion gate and major outdoor shopping arcade filled with middle school kids roaming around after school in their uniforms and many women wearing beautiful kimonos (you can rent them here).

Things that conquered us: Suica cards, ESim set up, bouts of frustration and bickering.

But Matilda just bought a new plan and allegedly we can pick up the activation code at the visitor center two blocks away.

eta: We were indeed able to get a new precious one-time only login code for an ESim account. And we're back at the hotel with a robust WiFi connection. So we're taking a pit stop then we're going to get ramen, just an 8 minute walk from the hotel.


lisah - Jan 24, 2025 7:28:14 am PST #4829 of 5862
Punishingly Intricate

Loving your travel report, Hec! Keep it coming!!


JenP - Jan 24, 2025 7:34:38 am PST #4830 of 5862

I think I would be anxious trying to navigate a new city without a phone, too! Because in this day and age, I would not have prepped myself with transit maps and best routes to get places and restaurants and, and, and like we had to do in the olden days.

Loving the vicarious travel! I hope you get tickets to the immersion installations you were talking about -- I watched the video. So cool.

I shipped out the box of (largely useless) files, etc. from the client that was giving me such agita last month, so a psychic weight is lifted. Ahhhhh.

It's 26 whole-ass degrees here today. Practically balmy!