Yesterday was Saint Patrick’s day, and I am sure there were many parades in many cities around the world. But in Tokyo the parade was today, because we were all too busy yesterday.

I heard about the parade on Friday when I met Bob, another Northern Irishman in my office. He said he would be in the parade, so I decided to join him. I had never been in a Saint Patrick’s day parade before, and may never be again.

When I arrived it was just like any other Saint Patrick’s parade in a large city: a massive crowd of green-clad people who had never been to Ireland. I did not have any suitable green atire, so I was wearing my blue Irish Free Software Organisation T-shirt. I didn’t really fit with the theme, unless you could see the logo on the T-shirt. But I went in anyway.

Inside the assembly ground the official parade looked much stranger than I did. Guinness, Baileys, and a couple of Irish pubs provided the alcohol connection; a couple of leprechauns and some ladies with large shamrocks tied to their heads provided the bizarre green connection. But nobody else seemed to fit. There were marching bands, but not the kind we have in Belfast: no sashes and bowler hats; I’ll check back in July.

Just as I was thinking that it was nothing like Ireland, a gang of men in paramilitary outfits walked in. That was more like it! They turned out to be a band from some part of the US military, so they still had the “freedom fighter or terrorist” ambiguity.

I found Bob and we joined the parade as part of a group representing an Irish pub. I don’t go to pubs often, but this one was near my house so I had some connection. We walked up and down the road while lots of onlookers waved and cheered. It was a bit surreal.

The Dyson vacuum cleaner is better than other vacuum cleaners because it uses little cyclones (like a tornado) to create the lower air pressure while also ensuring that the dirt is thrown to the side of the container and out of the air flow. Other vacuum cleaners use a fan to extract the air from the container, but the dirt gathers towards the fan and blocks the air path, so the suction is reduced.

So cyclones are better.

I had a look at some vacuum cleaners today and saw that most of them claimed to have some kind of “Cyclone”. I wasn’t convinced, so I dismantled a few of them, and was annoyed at my discovery: almost all had fake cyclones! They produced suction using a big fan, just like non-cyclone cleaners; but they had additional bits of curved piping to make the dirt spin around in little powerless cyclones. The dirt still gathers in the path of the air flow, so they still lose suction. But the casual observer would see the spinning dirt, just like they see in a Dyson. Most people would probably not notice that it was spinning much slower than the Dyson dirt. And at half the price of a real cyclone cleaner, most people would probably fall for the trick.

I didn’t buy a vacuum cleaner: I bought a floor brush.

I went to meet Ciarán this evening.  He was staying at the Annex Katsutaro Ryokan, where I stayed a few times before.  We had some noodles and then headed for Akihabara to meet Niibe Yutaka, RMS, and other Free Software hackers.

On the train Ciarán held up his ticket and asked “What happens if you lose this?”, and the ticket vanished.  There wasn’t a flash of light or a puff of smoke, but that was the last we ever saw of the ticket.  When we arrived at Akihabara Ciarán searched his bag and all his pockets, but no ticket was found.  We then discovered what does happen if you lose your ticket: you go to the guy at the ticket gate and tell him you don’t have a ticket.  He asks where you came from then sells you a new ticket.  Not a big surprise.

Then Ciarán tried to phone Niibe.  Niibe’s phone number was on a card that Ciarán was carrying.  Ciarán dialed the number, but nothing happened: the phone seemed to be broken.  Then the card vanished, just like the ticket!

So, if you meet Ciarán, don’t ever give him anything important :)

I’m starting a new job on Monday that is a bit further away than normal: Tokyo.  That’s one reason why you need a Japanese font to read the title and some other parts of this post.

Karen and I have just arrived at our temporary apartment in 六本木ヒルス where we’ll be staying until we find our own place.  This apartment is very close to my new office, but I don’t think I want to live in this area for the long term.  I don’t really know where we want to live yet.  The last time I lived in Japan I stayed in a company dormitory, so I’ve never had to find an apartment.  Sometime over the next few days we will start looking around.

For the rest of today, though, I think we’ll do nothing.