another of life’s little warnings against complacency — things have been going more or less swimmingly… yesterday’s system demonstration was well received so the project remains on schedule… & Sumie arrives tomorrow morning, about which i’m obviously very happy…

this calls for a hard disk failure — good (in the ironic sense) old (in the literal sense) speedpig went down in a (metaphoric) ball of flames last night… the drive appears to have one or more unrecoverable errors… again? hurrah. checks date of most recent backup… aw, crap. i’d been meaning to do something about that for a couple of months now… like, about eight… runs through mental checklist of things i really don’t wanna lose if it can be avoided:

1. about eight months worth of writing… (unfortunately, it’s not like i have hard copies neither — my printer’s been living in the cupboard since i’ve been in coogee on account of lack of desk space… & my ratio of writing on computer to writing on paper is about 60-40… & i generally tend to bin manuscript as soon as it’s been typed up…)
2. about eight months worth of photos & assorted images… (losing the images wouldn’t be such a wrench, but i’d prefer not to lose the photos…)

could be worse — could, obviously, be a lot better… you’d think, after the last time this happened, that i would’ve learnt… back those systems up, people.

gosh — that went well…

not so hot — much more pleasant in sydney today, although it’s clouding up, so i’m not superconfident i’m gonna make it home without a drenching…

work continues apace — so here i am in the middle of the first week approaching sanity after two weeks of major granting scheme deadline hell, & as usual (oh my, i actually started typing yousual… what the…?) there’s about two weeks worth of catch up to get through… plus the usual ongoing project stuff… of course, it’s all exacerbated by the fact that there’s just over five weeks to go before i finish (& during those five weeks i’m taking next week off & the easter break’s in there somewhere…) so really, there’s less than one working month remaining… cool…

beyond cool — Sumie arrives from tokyo on saturday morning for a brief visit, so magicdog vs sydney is likely to be off the air next week… (in the sense of not being updated, as opposed to the usual…)

きょうはにせんよんねんさんがつここのかかようびです.

すみません — slight error in my japanese at the first attempt… march would be sangatsu (third-month), as opposed to nengatsu (which would be something like year-month, & as such not even a word), but it’s fixed now…

hot — wow, it’s been insanely hot today… i just got home from japanese & it’s about 10.30 & still totally boiling…

sometimes bad teeth happen to good people — el davebot has announced fiona’s gotta date with a general anaesthetic in april to have some wisdom teeth removed… this is one of those things that just sucks, but you know, hopefully the suck factor will be as low as possible, & the glories of post-extraction life will provide ample recompense… in a show of solidarity, & in order to provide as much assistance as i can, i will go to tokyo! what? i am too helping.

uh, so anyway, curious & all that — i went for a brief surf to find out more about wisdom teeth, since the whole subject was basically shrouded in mystery to me… why, for instance, are they called wisdom teeth & not incredibly painful useless teeth that will require surgery? apparently, they’re called wisdom teeth because they “usually will try to grow in at around age 18 to 20 years. Since that is considered to be the age when people become wiser, third molars gained the nickname, ‘wisdom teeth.’” hmmm. i can’t specifically recall becoming much wiser between eighteen & twenty (nor perhaps in any of the years hence), but i’m prepared to let that go…

obviously written by a dental surgeon — i also discovered (& fiona may or may not like to skip to the next paragraph, although i’m sure she’s already across all of this) that “extraction involves accessing the tooth through the soft and hard tissue, gently detaching the connective tissue between the tooth and the bone and removing the tooth.” all of which, with the possible exception of “accessing… through the soft & hard tissue” kinda renders the whole deal in waiting room pastels & might almost lead you to suspect the procedure is (if you’ll excuse the expression in this context) a bit of a yawn…

</flippancy> — well, that’s clearly more than enough trivialising of fiona’s pain for one day… [searches for an encouraging cliché… considers & discards as inappropriate keep your chin up closely followed by variations on grin & bear it… also considers & discards as inexplicable good news everyone, i’ve taught the toaster how to love. abandons search for encouraging cliché… resorts to beginner’s japanese: ganbatte kudasai, fiona-san!]

björk stjörker — rob reports that christopher has breezed through tokyo & was last sighted on his way to further ports european…

welcome, laura! born 12.22pm, 4.17kilograms. mother & daughter both happy & well.

slaps forehead — slaps forehead slaps forehead slaps forehead slaps forehead slaps forehead slaps forehead slaps forehead slaps forehead slaps forehead slaps forehead…

day. from. heller. (alternative title: day. from. hell. 2. starring: Microsoft Excel as The Beast that Ate Their Data, the Telephone as The Thing that Wouldn’t Stop Ringing, & featuring a supporting cast of several thousand funding applications…)

didn’t know what time it was / the lights were low-oh-oh…

Quite how you have found the time to read this forecast, I do not know. The planets speak of pressures, tensions and traumas. They imply the need to lead life at a fairly frenetic pace, dealing with many urgent issues while fighting a series of crucial battles. You will be happy to hear that they also speak of an indisputably strong ability to succeed. You won’t be able to avoid expending a lot of energy, so you are bound to feel anxious and edgy. These, though, are just natural signposts that prove you are on the right road.

my natural signposts — changed conditions ahead…

きょうはかようびです.

きょうはさんがつふつかです.

awoooogah! awoooogah! yeah, everybody panic, that’ll help…

it’s official — today’s day. from. hell. status has been confirmed…

ground control to major tom — commencing countdown, engines on…

• www.careercross.co.jp
• www.daijob.com
• job.japantimes.com
• www.tokyoconnections.com

impressive collection of linkage — jim breen’s japanese page is a very useful resource…

こんにちはすみえ.

きょうはげつようびです.

きょうはさんがつついたちです.

hey, cool — i picked a good day to look at my horoscope…

The big question you’ve been trying so hard to find an answer to is all but resolved, in your mind at least. You know, pretty much, what you want right now. But the only thing you’re not so sure about is how you’re going to make it happen. You need access to resources that seem to be somewhat in short supply. You’re beginning to get genuinely concerned about how you will get round this, but you really don’t need to worry. In many respects, you actually are much better off than you realise.

you wouldn’t believe how much better that made me feel this morning… i mean, i was already feeling fine, but you know, just occasionally i feel a little out of my depth with the whole shifting to another country project…

does state rail charge for excess luggage? linda came to sydney for a flying visit & was last seen carrying approximately two thirds of kinokuniya’s stock of manga onto a train at central station… (not to mention a significant proportion of astrohobby’s stock of anime DVDs…)