Ocean11

Originally Posted By: snowbender Going back to the Chocolate Beer. Trying to imagine what that would be like. Wouldn't mind trying. My missus bought some of this on offer a short while back. The 'sweet' variety was perhaps the most horrible beer I've ever drunk. It was so sweet it was bitter, in an awful metallic way. Nothing to redeem it at all. The bitter version however is sweet in a mildly pleasant way, with a good chocolate aroma and rich flavour. It doesn't go well with food, but it makes a great preprandial snifter. It's a shame it only seems to be around for Ballantines Day.

Originally Posted By: soubriquet The probability is very low, but we don't know it, and it can't be calculated. Life isn't without risk. Well the probability of what actually happened wasn't taken into account in the design of Fukushima, but nevertheless it happened. And indeed, the probability of further major earthquakes happening is quite high, if the historical record is anything to go by. This Arnie chap isn't to be trusted as an authority at all, but inasmuch as his message is "it ain't over yet", you must concede, he does have point. The outcome of the Fukushima thing se

Is there any way of knowing that it's not going to be "worse than Chernobyl"? This isn't the only nuclear scientist with concerns. What happens if another series of quakes and tsunamis affects both Fukushima and another NPP at the same time?

I've got a little musical problem I'd like to consult y'all on. I used to have a tune on my PC which I think I got from a bad girl in town who I no longer associate with. It was a trip-hop, down-tempo kind of song. It actually featured in a TV ad for a Yanmar fishing boat about seven years ago. The ad was a cool, minimal cartoony thing and the track went with it really well. It nearly made me go out and get me a couple of fishing boats. Anyway, I forget what the track was called, and who it was by, and what album it was on. If anybody saw the Yanmar ad and knows the track, do please

Hi pie-eater, I thought I'd at least try to rescue this thread from the prehistoric swamp it fell into around page 98. There's something to be said for listening to something that was produced in this century.

Hello. Indeed I am. The secret heart of Japan's snowboarding culture.

Okkervil River from Texas. Quite keen on music from Texas. The Dining Rooms from Italy. "Ink" has a few great tracks on it. Agatsuma from Japan. "Beams" is a honking good album. Amadou & Mariam from Mali. Amadou's guitar work is nice.

Quote: Ikeda, to his credit, created these poop burgers in an effort to be resourceful and recycle human waste. That is actually not really creditworthy - misusing a resource that could be used at less cost in some other way that doesn't cause normal people to retch.

I'm trying to get in contact with 'snobee' who used to post here about 8 years ago or more. At the time he used to post, he lived in Takamatsu, Kagawa in Shikoku or thereabouts. I exchanged emails with him about the joys (or lack thereof) of snow in Shikoku. snobee was involved in hospitality and tourism. I'd like to get in touch with him about a business opportunity in Shikoku in this field. snobee, if you're there, do give me a ping on rod at walters dot net. If anybody has any contact details for snobee however old, or knows his full name, please let me know. Thanks!

Originally Posted By: soubriquet Something a little more contemporary That's good sh!t. I saw Jools Holland and His Mighty Organ live once, and I danced so hard I couldn't find my way home afterwards. His piano playing is good, but his organ was mightier.

It's apparently the goal of the Japanese government to replace the current housing stock with houses built to last 100 years. Some of the housing companies are incorporating that sort of thing in their advertising now. Most of the imported housing should last a long time, as long the foundations were built properly. We ran into builders of quality Northern European style houses who claimed that their houses were consistently maintaining their value. The benefit of designing your own house is that you can have a chin-up bar with a custom slot in the ceiling for your head. But to my mind th

You normally have a 'jiban kensa' where a guy comes with a boring machine and bores holes in the ground. You get the results back a while later. I seem to remember it costs around 100,000 yen. Generally people get it done after they buy the land, which is putting the cart before the horse really. However, your 'developer' may already have done that and may be able to show you the data. Definitely ask for it, and try to make having the data in advance a condition of purchase. Incidentally, rice paddy isn't soggy all the way down. I've seen rice field topsoil being scraped off and carted aw

I'm not sure why people don't paint their walls, but I think it has something to do with cracking when the walls inevitably move, and not being bothered to think about it very carefully. We have a very nice product from www.pavistamp.com. It's a kind of putty plaster with little stones in it. It's natural-looking, easy on the eyes, and free of all nasty smells and emissions. 2x4 is a bit behind the times. For many builders, 2x6 is now standard, and the more expensive builders are even going up to 2x10. You can pack in a lot of insulation with 2x10. Another thing to remember when bui

Hi ger, I strongly recommend that you don't bother looking at Aifull and stuff like that. A friend of ours was building a Tama home at the same time that we were getting a Canadian home built, and as our builder was very carefully stuffing great wads of insulation in absolutely everywhere, our friend's builder was gaily stapling what looked like sanitary pads in a most eccentric pattern here ... and ... there. Gosh, I hope it doesn't ever cold where they live. Or hot. We got a Selco Home http://selcohome.jp/ from Canadia, and if you want to know how their houses hold up in our

Terra Preta de Indio , the charcoal rich, carbon sinking, man-made soil of the Amazon and other areas looks like a potential solution too. I reckon the really practical, harmless solutions will be ones that anybody can contribute too. I'm going to be trying to produce a small area of Terra Preta in my neighbourhood.

> I'm still trying to work out how to change my impact on things. There aren't that many choices, so it shouldn't be a tough decision if it really bothers you.

Quote: Originally posted by Davo: Incentives and infrastructure set up to discourage people from going there in private vehicles. In short, madness. It'll never happen unfortunately. This is a world where even people who're concerned about their carbon footprints fly way for ski/snowboard weekends. Not because they feel good about doing so, but just because we're conditioned into thinking of this as normal. It'll never happen with an attitude like that, that's for sure. 'It's somebody else's fault. There's nothing I can do it about it alone. So I'll just go on doing what I do.' How a

I'm not convinced that alternative medicine like chiropractic or acupuncture works, so I wouldn't be any more comfortable about having my spine manipulated than I would about taking a powerful drug of unknown efficacy. I don't actually believe in chi and other 'life forces', but I do know that having pins stuck in my muscles is effective in drawing my attention to them so I can concentrate on relaxing them. I would tend to believe that the less chiropractic your man does and the more of whatever else he does, the better he would be.

I'd feel safer with a massage to the lower back than dodgy spine twisting by a chiropractor.

The Kirin Braumeister is satisfyingly bitter. But I still feel the need to lament that Japanese beer is only improving by very small increments, and as yet there's nothing that really sings to me from its can.

The first post had all the look of a plug, but so what? Some of us like to discuss commercial products.

Kent and that area may not be any good, but whenever I go back to Bristol, Gloucester, and London where my family are, I drool at the wheelboarding opportunities the whole landscape presents. Japan is unfortunately either perilously steep, or deathly flat, with none of those rolling slopes that put a twinkle in the wheelboarder's eye. noSno look like serious boards - no bailing, and very hot feet.

Heheh, good stuff. The Stik from the same company is a really nice ride. Remember to sit by the fire on Christmas Eve with your gaff in hand, because those Carveboards are big and Santa may get stuck. I've been invited to review a Flexboard but I'm torn between my loyalties at the moment.

Have you got a good ghost story daver? Do tell. I've never been to a ghost house at an amusement park, but I've seen some very creditable efforts at high school and university culture festivals. The more Japanesque they are, the better. There might be more to ghost houses than meets the eye .