Ippoippo

Dictionary Definition:
人身事故 【じんしんじこ】 (n) traffic accident resulting in personal injury or death

Gavin Definition:
Some git decided he would end his life. Chosen method was to jump in front of a train on the JR Joban line during rush hour. Causes a whole load of incovenience for other people in the process.

Now, we all know Japan suffers a lot from suicides, but recently its been getting really bad.
BBC Link.

Blimey, these people were lucky to get away with it…

Meanwhile, you have to laugh at how religions work. It seems ‘Chef’ is leaving SouthPark because they made fun of his religion.

As it said in the BBC link, “In 10 years and over 150 episodes of South Park, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show.”

Finally, completely pointless fact of the Day (via Bogue over at Arakawa Riverview)

“The most interesting fact and figure for me was that the most crowded bit of line is the Tozai line between Kiba and (I think) Monzen-nakacho, heading into Tokyo, around 830am of a weekday. This was interesting to me as this exactly the time that I pass this stretch of line – thank goodness that I’m going out of Tokyo and can wave at all the suckers squashed sardine fashion on trains going the other way. Ho ho. Amazingly this bit of line runs every morning at 197% capacity”

Holy crap!!! How to fit 197% Capacity worth of people onto a train! That’s just crazy.

My company is lining up a big project at the moment in Australia, and if we get it, then I could be off to Melbourne for 13 weeks!

It all depends on a number of things, like 1) Will we get the deal, 2) Will there be a deal in Japan, which means I would stay here as that takes priority for me etc etc.

Of course, the big thing, what happens to Yuko. We talked about it a bit last night, and the thinking is that she would quit her job and come down to Melbourne with me. I’m starting to look at info now, because if things get given the green light, it will all move very quickly.
One idea we have is that she could come down on a Working Holiday Visa? That way, she could do some part time work to keep herself busy.

It’s kinda strange… part of us don’t want to do it. It’s very inconvient leaving the house, etc etc. There’s a fair bit of logistics to sort out for finance etc etc (paying bills, and the like).
Yet, must admit, would be quite funky to visit Australia. It will probably be our last chance too.

Anyway, if it went ahead, the estimate is that it would be from May to July time.

Woooaaaaa! Check out this graph, from the BBC. (You can read the rest of the story there as well).

That’s one hell of a rise in Gas Prices in the UK.

So why?
There’s a few reasons.
1). UK Gas supply has peaked, hence more reliance on imports.
2). Norwegion supply has had some ‘unspecified difficulties’ resulting in a 10% drop in production (some of which is sold to UK).
3). French Gas works on strike
4). Cold weather in UK.
5). UK’s primary storage facility is out of action until May 1st.

Bloomberg has a report on the situation as well.
MP John Hemming (Chairman of the Independent Energy Scrutiny Panel) has written about it on his blog.
Finally, there’s some more discussion over here.

While I’m having a rant about this… may as well stick up this link about how some people in the US Army now are becoming aware about the issue of Peak Oil (&Gas).