fjef

Although the fuel situation is looking bleak and could easily get much worse, I feel a bit better after getting just over 1,000km on my last tank of gas in the Prius...

if you are having trouble transferring lareg files, try Skype - file transfers work well through firewalls and speed is kwik. To watch wmv files on a Mac, downloading the newest Windows Media Player for OS X is probably the easiest way. There are also lots of good OS X players out there that will open just about anything. To convert video to be edited in iMovie, you need to convert it into a format that iMove reads, usually with Quick Time Pro - but there are lots of old formats and new formats so it helps to know what version of your OS, Quicktime and iMovie are. There are also lot

Now that we've recovered from the quake, we better get ready for the typoon that is on its way to Tokyo...Wednesday will be a really wet day...life is so exciting in Japan...

Bummer - I was in the waves when it hit here in Chiba - I missed the whole thing. It really scared my wife (she was at home) and she's usually pretty calm during quakes... Actually under a desk (the space is usually too small) or dooway is not a good place to be. Its better to lie down beside a desk, or large object that will not compact if hit with something really heavy. Boxes of paper compress less than furniture. There will be space beside large objects that compress. Most survivors have been found beside large objects, not under them...I read a detailed article on the net somewhere a

No - got married in the incredibly romantic ward office and had a small party - never really had a wedding...

My father is a judge in Canada - he has married most of my friends. He can't charge money but he has a few rules - the couple must write their own original script and the marriage must be creative. He has performed the ceremonies on skiis, on sailboats, on golf courses (my sister) in a canoe (my brother) and the success rate of the marriages he has performed are much higher than the church wedding averages...

Quote: Originally posted by British Potato Council: fjef - I was talking around the Ibaragi/Chiba boarder. We would travel at moderately bad times, perhaps it wasn't three hours... can't clearly remember. The guy certainly knew the roads though. Either way, 1hr10m is good travel time for some waves from a city like Tokyo. Thats's a bit north of here - I'm in the Ichinomiya area and with a Typhoon way out there, the waves should be good this weekend..

Quote: Originally posted by British Potato Council: Sure, the Tokyo accessible surf was not good at all, but at least 3 hours drive from Tokyo you could get fully exposed Pacific ocean surf. The set ups (long flat beaches) were not so good and the tetra pod structures almost caused me to cry every time I saw them.... but at least it was good Pacific swell in warm water. 3 hours from Tokyo? The area you describe sounds like where I live - if you know the roads and when to travel, the surf is only about an hour and 10 from downtown Tokyo...

My son and I did a TV New Year special drama bit - I played a Sea Captain and my son played a bully, picking on siamese twins. It was supposed to be a scene in Thailand and it was cold enough that it was snowing a bit but they didn't seem to care. We had no idea what the story was when they were taping it. Stayed up really late with kid to watch (he was about 9 then) and found out the show was about weird human beings - the story before ours was about women with huge breasts. Our story was equally as weird...never do that again!

Thanks, 69 Now that you mentioned them, I just got an urge to dig out the old The The tunes...they rock.

I had a rather tastey Taco today at Bob's Tacos on the Ichinomiya Beach road in Chiba - 450 yen +100 extra with jalapenos. Except that it is not really a Taco, they are the best lunch around but if you ask for extra jalapenos, you'll need to order a beer too...then it starts to get expensive.

seen Ali G?

Bit Torrent sites are starting to load up with audio and video clips - the whole thing will be online by tomorrow I bet... Pink Floyd sounded great after all these years - can't wait to see it.

Those guys have bong breath for sure...

Does your sig mean bong breath is ok?

I got the Cortina vid down to a 33MB mp4 file - but you need XP or 2000 and Quicktime 7 to view it - quality is excellent... I can probably make it smaller but I've had a beer already...

hmmm - I used to live in Kitzbuhel, another 'low' resort in Austria - great when there is snow but if you are taking a vacation and spending big bucks, best to pick somewhere higher to make sure you have a good chance at having lots of snow. We used to go to Kaprun which was a little more than an hour away from Kitzbuhel when there was no or little snow in the low resorts. The glacier itself always has snow but its not a destination I would choose in winter season. Nearby Zell am See is a pretty place in Austria - but the surrounding area does not offer the most challenging/exciti

The squash court is at Nakadaki - a kinda gaijin escape hang out where I used to have a weekend cabin before I moved to this area permanently - if you are into Squash, the courts are available any time. There are a few players around here who are always up for a game. Nakadaki is near Ichinomiya at the south end of Kujukiri Beach.

I skiied there often in the summers from 1976 to 1980. Go early in the morning before it gets too hot. A lot of national teams train there in summer...

Spent 2 hours on the beach last night before the kids got bored. The place I thought would be dark and quiet may have been too busy because of the weekend. There were some distant fireworks being shot off and a few beach parties and although there was lots of dark space, I bet the turtles had second thoughts about going out (of the water) on a Saturday night...

We will be heading out from the south end of Kujukiri beach tonight at about 11 for our first turtle expedition...will let you know what we find when we get back...

Great vids - I wanna go next! I'll leave mine open until the downloads stop...

I already have a Prius and my other vehicle is a diesel Delica. I tried Intake Magic on the Delica but it doesn't seem to make a noticable difference. I guess I'll have to try some bio diesel next. I wonder how many Big Macs I'll have to order to get the local McD's to hand over their fuel...

I don't push my kids at all - and they are doing just fine - they get pushed enough at school and in other activities here so they don't need any pushing from me at home...

We have access to a cheap place for group accommodation/BBQing (tennis & squash too) near here - if anyone is interssted in a turtle expedition and some surf and sun, let me know - if there is a group of 10 or more, it can be very cheap.