Perl Oasis takes place in Orlando this weekend. I had hoped to attend but I decided in November that I probably wasn’t well enough to attempt the journey. I have been once before and I really enjoyed the workshop. Actually, I’ve enjoyed all of the Perl workshops that I have attended. They tend to be smaller than the YAPC conferences and while I am happy that more people are attending YAPCs I’m not fond of crowds.
At the minute it looks like the first conference I’ll attend this year with be YAPC::NA in Madison. Looking at my travel schedule I should have been able to make the German Perl Workshop in March but I only noticed the dates of that workshop yesterday. It’s too late for me to change my plans but it’s a bit annoying that I will arrive in Europe on the day the workshop ends. I am flying to Ireland but I could easily have stopped over in Germany.
I read so many things about Perl every week but I haven’t found a good way to know when Perl events are taking place. The other summer conference I’m hoping to attend is YAPC::EU but there are no dates for this conference yet. I hope they are available soon as my other commitments are beginning to need attention and may eat up my summer.
. . .I called into the bank yesterday to get my cash card replaced as it was damaged by a magnet somewhere on my travels. As I was leaving the bank I was given a good luck charm. I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with it. I know that sometimes charms are burned at the end of the year, but since this one contains a coin, I don’t think that will work overly well.
Prosperity Charm
I have been asked a few times in the past couple of months about money and my role in The Perl Foundation (TPF). I’m not fond of discussing money so I’ll make this brief. I am not an employee of TPF, I am a volunteer. I don’t receive any money for my work with TPF nor does TPF pay my expenses for travelling or attending conferences. This is true for all TPF volunteers. The only people who do receive money are grant recipients and those who are paid for professional services like accountants and lawyers.
I am very fortunate that I am able to volunteer and get to work with a great community filled with volunteers.
. . .I was once asked what we do in the West to ensure that all our Christmas cards arrive on time. I wasn’t quite sure what I was being asked. Arriving on time usually means arriving before Christmas Day and that’s not that difficult to do. But the person who asked the question was Japanese and they were referring to the fact that in Japan New Year’s cards are meant to arrive on New Year’s Day. To facilitate this the post office will have a special box for the cards and an army of postal staff who work on New Year’s Day. But we don’t expect Christmas cards to arrive on Christmas Day and we wouldn’t wish the task of rushing around to deliver them on anyone other than Santa.
I don’t even think that the cards need to arrive before Christmas. I received another card in the post today and it’s lovely having the part of the holiday that involves hearing from friends and family extended.
Christmas Cards
Last year we decided it would be fun to have a traditional Japanese KFC Christmas dinner. This year McDonald’s has started to offer a Christmas box set, though we weren’t tempted to try this.
iCon Box Sets
Last year I hunted for parsnips to roast for Christmas dinner, but I couldn’t find them. This year I’ve found them at Nissin World Delicatessen but I’m not going to buy them. I do love roasted parsnip but they were 280 円 (€2.70 EUR, £2.20 GBP, $3.58 USD) per 100 grams! If I was making dinner just for myself I may consider a special parsnippy treat, but would my guests really like it that much? I’m just back from Europe and I find myself converting currencies when I look at prices. You can imagine how horrified I was when the one parsnip I picked up was 691 円 (€6.80 EUR, £5.60 GBP, $8.81 USD). Who would expect the vegetables to cost more than the turkey?
Expensive Parsnips
I’m waiting to board a flight, which is a dull way to spend an afternoon. Given how often I do this you’d think I’d be good at it, but I keep watching the clock wishing time would move faster. I have another couple of hours to wait in the airport before boarding a plane to wait about 11 hours for it to land in Tokyo.
. . .I know it can be expensive to buy drinks in a restaurant in Japan but I can still get surprised. On Saturday I went out for pizza in Akihabara. I decided to order some cola as I was tired and thought that maybe the caffeine would perk me up. The drink I got was in a small glass, probably around 200 mls, and it cost 400 円 ($5 USD, £3.20 GBP). It was ridiculous. I knew how much the drink would cost before I bought it but I wasn’t expecting it to be so small. My friend ordered a glass of white wine. He got about the same amount of wine and it was cheaper than my soft drink. Next time I’ll stick to drinking tap water.
. . .Somehow I forgot to blog in November. It was a busy month and I don’t write as much when I’m travelling. I also haven’t been overly well, which is probably the fault of my out of control thyroid hormones. I was at the hospital this week and had the worst set of results in three years. The doctor wasn’t exactly sure what has gone wrong, but one explanation was a consequence of the March earthquake.
When I went to the hospital in June I was given a different brand of medication. It was supposed to be exactly the same thing only made by a German company and not a Japanese one. I couldn’t completely understand what had happened with the old medication but there was some issue with the hospital being able to get their supply after the earthquake and the German supplier stepped in to help.
My doctor told me that some patients had problems with the German brand and that it’s possible that my medication hasn’t been absorbing properly for six months. It would certainly be odd to blame the earthquake on my insomnia or to say, “really it’s not my diet, the earthquake made me fat”. It is just one explanation though. The other ones involve the disease progressing faster than expected, winter badly affecting my hormones, having some sort of viral infection, or my immune system weakening. Horribly, whatever is happening is probably caused by a whole combination of factors. I just wish that when things go wrong they could be corrected faster, but it will be four months before the next set of tests, and it could easily take a year to get back to where I was in June. This could be a long winter.
. . .It’s the time of the year when Tokyo Disneyland becomes more like Harajuku, when the streets are full of people in costumes, and the crowds are taught how to dance along to the Disney Hallowe’en songs.
Posing Guests
Marty loves the Hallowe’en parades as he gets so amused watching the audience try to dance along. The song started with a chant of the letters O-B-A-K-E and cast members then spent about 10 minutes teaching the audience the actions. This year, Marty attempted to learn the hand movements, but they were a bit complicated. And although it was possible to follow along when we were being taught, the song played during the actual parade was a lot faster.
Dancing Skeletons at the Halloween Parade
We don’t own Disney costumes and I’ve no idea where the adults got their costumes as I’ve only really seen Disney outfits for children. We should investigate this for next year as I quite fancy spending the day dressed as a Disney villain. I saw some great villains during the day but I thought it would be rude to try taking pictures of strangers who weren’t standing around posing. One of my favourites was a mother dressed as Cruella de Vil with her children dressed as Dalmatians.
Marty at Disney
The Haunted Mansion has also be refurbished and turned into the Nightmare Before Christmas. The queues throughout the whole park were long and I didn’t really want to wait for 90 minutes to see the Haunted Mansion so we waited until the Electric Parade had started and then tried to make our way to the Mansion. We finally found a gap in the crowds and only had to wait 20 minutes for the ride.
Nightmare Before Christmas