Monthly Archives: March 2011

Nuclear update 2011-03-18

By | March 17, 2011

Despite the crazy, panicked reporting about people fleeing Tokyo, the latest information I can find (from the Wall Street Journal, citing the Tokyo Metropolitan Government) states that radiation there has been steadily dropping; now down to 0.05 microsieverts/hr, one 16th of the level reported on Tuesday. Apparently this is within the normal range of radiation… Read More »

Lady Mondegreen

By | March 17, 2011

Been meaning to post this for a while – the December 2008 issue of ‘The Army Lawyer’ containing, on page 66, an article entitled For All “Intensive” Purposes: A Primer on Malapropisms, Eggcorns, and Other Rogue Elements of the English Language, describing a range of common mutations of the lingo. Found one of my favourite… Read More »

Quake Status Update 2011-03-12 10:24JST

By | March 11, 2011

Aftershocks up and down the country over night. Woke up once or twice, but they’re pretty mild up here. What’s interesting is the area over which they’re occurring – no longer confined to around the fault, they’re happening in four clusters; one under land in Nagano, another under the ocean west of Akita in the… Read More »

Mushrooms

By | March 3, 2011

When the earthquake struck last week, it felt slightly disrespectful to write enthusiastically about anything else, let alone the little, joyful things in life, like food. In the face of such tragedy, they seemed so trivial. For a while I wondered: when is it OK to be happy again? To laugh? How soon is too… Read More »