I am now a quarter of a century old

If I were a public company, and I lived one financial year...

***************************************************

[Reuters] Earlier this week, Kallun Inc. celebrated ending the first quarter (1Q) of its corporate existence with share prices at an all-time high. Co-founding parent companies, Ma Inc. and Pa Inc., both major shareholders in the joint venture, were delighted with the progress of the corporation to date, and were positive about its future prospects. In reporting on the activites of Kallun Inc. for the 1Q, Mr. Willock (CEO) reflected on the high points and the low points since being made a public company. Recalling the early periods, when it was simply a small private company expanding under the auspices of Ma Inc., Mr. Willock stated that the increasing growth of Kallun Inc. necessitated its introduction into the public arena - having since doubled the size of its parent company.

As with any new venture, the first developmental stages of Kallun Inc. were troublesome. Its share value wasn't properly appreciated by the market place, though economists suggest that this was in fact due to its disgraceful toxic waste disposal methods. As time went on, it focused on and improved its communication with shareholders and stakeholders, and was effectively able to express its mission statement and both its short- and long- term goals to the marketplace. Although a noticable jump in share prices is clearly evident at this point, it was stymied by the lack of revenue. Although Ma Inc. and Pa Inc. provided the initial startup capital and paid all the expenses of Kallun Inc., the corporation was not particularly productive, instead focusing on Research and Development (R&D). The share price rose slowly but steadily, and dividend returns to shareholders were minimal and sporadic.

Marketplace observers note that the 1Q was primarily characterised by constant relocation. Indeed, the HQ of Kallun Inc. moved several times (20, in fact) in the 1Q, and although many observers originally suggested that this would have a negative impact on share prices, given regulatory disparities between states and countries, all now agree that this has prepared the corporation to be flexible, and it can easily adjust to new economic developments. The ultimate benefit to Kallun Inc. is that it is now competitive in the global arena.

Mr. Willock has tentatively announced the short-term plans of the corporation for the upcoming 2Q. With a view of exponentially increasing the revenue stream and vastly increasing the number of assets, the CEO argued that it is necessary to continue with a conservative approach for the immediate future - focusing on R&D, and improved and increased trading with potential partner corporations. Though, holistically, the global marketplace has become increasingly volatile with rival corporations attempting hostile takeovers, the CEO seems optimistic about the recent relocation of the HQ to Japan. "A new consumer base for Kallun Inc.'s service should improve the corporation's reputation globally", Mr. Willock said. He stressed that given the larger market in Japan, as opposed to Australia, it is necessary to focus on catering to a large consumer base. He stated that volume of trading is more important than the quality of the service at this stage of the corporations development cycle.

Despite this positive forecast, insiders suggest that the corporation will become insolvent during the second quarter (2Q), and will eventually turn to liquidation in the 3Q. Mr. Willock denied these rumours, claiming them to be "unsubstantiated rubbish". Shareholders seem to be confident that the corporation will see it to the end of the fiscal year with most, if not all, assets in tact. Economists suggest that investor confidence is based on reports that the corporation plans on establishing its own joint ventures in the 2Q, after a merger with a yet - to - be - announced partner corporation. These joint ventures would then act as guarantors for the fiscal stability of Kallun Inc., and provide a secure source of revenue should the share prices of the corporation drop below acceptable levels.

The final word goes to Mr. Willock. After having consumed much alcohol at the celebration dinner, and although he appeared to be hopelessly inebriated, he managed to collect himself and grip onto sobriety long enough to remind everyone at the party of his corporate motto...

If you're not having fun, you're wasting your bloody time...

***************************************************

Cruising the red light district with my folks

My parents arrived last friday, and we ended up staying at a hotel near the airport, seeing as civilisation is a good hour away by train, and they were tired. I spent a few minutes watching the inhouse porn channels in my hotel room, but they turn themselves off after 5 minutes on each of the two channels. There were messages telling me to press the "Pay" button, so I could continue watching the program and see exactly how it was that the girl was going to pay the pizza boy for the pizza she seemed to not have enough money for... I was tempted, but I could just imagine the conversation with my parents the next morning when they went to pay the bill -

"I'm sorry Kallun, we had planned on spending the entire week here with you, but we blew our entire budget paying for your porn..."

So I ended the night by watching BBC and CNN coverage of the impending arrival of Hurricane Rita. What I don't understand is why its absolutely necessary for the networks to send out dozens of reporters into the battering wind and horizontal rain to tell us that there is battering wind and horizontal rain. It's a category 3/4 Hurricane... I could've told them that.

On the day of my birthday, I invited a bunch of mates out to have dinner with my parents and eat at an "Australian" steakhouse. I actually think it's owned by an American company, because I didn't recognise a lot of the dishes on the menu, much less them being distinctively Australian meals... for example, the 'Bloomin' Onion' - a deep fried onion. We don't really deep fry anything in Australia, so that was a dead giveaway. Somehow or other, the conversation turned to Love Hotels, and my mates were telling my parents that there was a large love hotel district not far from where we were eating. It was on the way home, so my parents decided that they wanted to go and see it for themselves. There is nothing more disconcerting in this world than walking through a seedy red light district where people go to get their funk on, when you're with 3 of your mates, and your giggling parents in tow... Oh wait, there is something worse. Imagine making it to the other side of the district, and turning around to find that your parents aren't there anymore. I started to walk back only to find them turning the corner laughing about how they were busy working out which of the hotels they wanted to try out.

It didn't get any better today when we went shopping and stumbled across a condom store. You'd think they were 13 year old school kids from the way they were giggling at all the sex toys, etc. I can't take them anywhere. The following photo is one of the products that was the source of the giggling.

--When you have to take matters into your own hand--

----------------------------------------

The parentals

The parentals have decided that they're going to come and visit me in Japan for the next week. This'll be their third time to Japan, and I'll be damned if I know what I'm going to do with them - they've seen more of Japan than most Japanese. The only thing I can think to do is to put them on a train on the Yamanote Line - which a simply a loop, that goes around and around and around - and tell them to get off at the last stop... That should keep them occupied for a couple of hours. It'll work because they don't speak or read Japanese, so they won't know that they've visited the same train station for the umpteenth time... he he he.

Filial piety was never my strong suit...

We're mad as hell,
and we're not going to take it anymore?

It's really unusual to see demonstrations in Japan, and so when I stumbled across this one in Kyoto last week, I had to take photos. Sadly, there was no bra-burning, but it was really entertaining nevertheless. It was like watching hippies strutting around in Abercrombie & Fitch, but without the drugs, the rock'n'roll or the infectious enthusiasm to wreak havoc on the status quo.

------------Assembling before the main event------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------

But what are they protesting, you ask? Great question... everything and anything.

----This girl is demanding the abolition of the Emperor System-----

-----------------------------------------------------------------

--------The Free Palestine Movement had representation---

------------------------------------------------

My favourite is the guest appearance of Darth Vadar. I can only guess that he's here to show the Jedi's that he's pissed off, and he ain't gonna take it anymore. The Light-Saber tells us that he's serious. The fact that he isn't wearing a top or cape, tells us that he is a few startroopers short of a platoon.

Go Darth, Go!!!

It's getting hot, hot, hot

I love winter. I love the cold, the wind, the rain, and the overcast days. A girl I once dated told me that that was strange, so I usually don't confess this to anyone, but I find that over my past week in Kyoto, I can't help but think how much I wish it was winter right now. I was told that Kyoto is one of the three hottest places in Japan, which is no doubt due to the fact that it is located in the middle of a basin - adding to the absurd humidity level. That being the case, it makes my 40 minute bike ride to the law school I'm attending during the summer all the more joyful... which is a good segue into what I've been doing for the past week.

I've been attending a summer law seminar on various areas of Japanese Law. I've taken a similar class twice before, so I didn't have high hopes of intellectual stimulation leading into the event, but it turned out to be unexpectedly interesting. Having said that, the class wasn't limited to law students, and so we had a whole bunch of people from other disciplines - journalism, politics, nursing even. The rationale behind this, as in most law schools, is that universities try to promote a degree of diversity to the law students life, lest we become too egotistical. It's a failed experiment, in my opinion, because you need to have a fairly healthy ego to begin with if you want to study law. But I can deal with this. What I can't handle is the ever persistent (non-law) student who sits at the front of the class, asking the exact same unintelligible law-related question over and over again (3 times, to be precise). She was, essentially, America-bashing, which always annoys me in international relations/politics/law classes because on the whole, they're usually unacademic, illogical arguments that get reguritated every year by some 1st year politics student. But I digress.

Probably the best part of the whole week, though, was the people I met. One of the girls I've been flirting with for the past couple of days already has a gaggle of boyfriends, each nicknamed according to the car they drive - Mr. Nissan, Mr. Mitsubishi, etc. I was wondering what I would have been nicknamed had we dated... Mr. "I-borrowed -my-friends -bicycle-to-ride-to-uni" or Mr. "Bus-Route-205". Funnily enough, she went to the Toyota Factory on a uni excursion the other day - who knows what kind of hijinx she got up to while she was there. I was invited to go on the excursion, but I went there before on a business trip with the last company I worked with while I was here, and neither promise of heaven nor threat of hell could get me to go back to that den of tedium...

I'll be back in Tokyo soon, and I have photos...

Online Prayer

Dear God,

Just in case You're reading my blog, please answer my prayer and decimate the Kyoto public transport system. I just can't take it anymore.

Amen.

I'm outta here

Well... I'm outta here. I'm off to Kyoto for a week for a summer law school thing. Technically, I'm in the middle of summer holidays, but I'm a glutton for punishment, I guess. I'm in no state to be doing summer school though - my brain has turned to mush in the last week, and all I want to do is sleep and go out drinking with friends. I'll write again in a week or so.

Insanity is setting in...

I'm so bored right now. I'm typing this post on my mobile phone because I'm stuck on a train in the middle of nowhere, and its not moving because apparently the line ahead is flooded.

I've now been here for 56 minutes, and I've gone through 56 levels of insanity. There are a bunch of Rapper-wannabes in the next carriage who have started a really bad rap session. They just wave their hands around aimlessly, and say "yeah!" when they can't think of anything to say. The foreigner who was sitting just across from me has started arguing with the train conducter. People have started to stare at me, thinking that because we're both foreigners, we therefore must know each other. I'm trying to look preoccupied with my phone, hoping that this damn foreigner would just shut up and stop drawing attention to the both of us.

I'm contemplating ripping up the sleepers, and using the wood to build an Ark. I'll take two of each type of woman - two cute women, two hot women, two sexy women, two naughty women, two women who are underwear models...

Damn! The train just started moving again...

Me v the Cosmos - Round 72

Some might be aware that I'm locked in a constant war with the cosmos. And now I've just gone another round with it. Now... just now... maybe 20 mins ago, actually, the electricity in my room went out.

Sidenote - In the dormitory I live in, we have to pay-as-we-go for electricity and water. There are charge machines in the lobby, where you can credit your account with yen, and there is a little panel on the wall near the entrance of the room that tells you how much money you have left in your account for electricity. Simple rule No money=no electricty or water

So here I was, typing an email and - bam - pitch black. Fine. No drama, I think to myself, I can deal with this - all I need to do is get my wallet and put some more money in the machine... now where is that wallet? I reach over to turn the desklamp on... I press the button once... twice... I now recall that I have no electricity ... bloody stupid bloody electricity dammit hell bloody bastard.

Not to worry - I know the wallet is somewhere on the desk so I reach out, feel something hard against my knuckles and oops - I knock a glass of the table. I know its a glass because it makes a nice ringing sound as it hits the ground and shatters into, ooh - I dunno, 149 pieces. My room has now become a commando obstacle course.

I find my mobile phone, and use the light from it to find my wallet... now for the obstacle course. With the light of the phone (which needs to have a button pressed every so often in order to keep the light going), I step onto my bed, and then carefully onto a pile of library books that I have on the floor and then jump onto a towel that is lying on the floor and then out the door... HA HA - SCREW YOU, COSMOS! Turns out there is some benefit to having a messy room. Who'd've thunk it?

And this wasn't the first time. No. Not 4 days ago, on the morning of the first day of my exams, I had managed to get all of 3 hours of sleep, I had a dozen things to do, and 10 mins to do them all in before I had to leave for Uni in order to make it to my exam on time. One of the things I had to do was to have a shower to try and wake up. So I jump in, water on, soap, shampoo... and then... no more water... no more light... and a lot of shampoo running in my eyes. I just stood there in my tiny shower - all sudded up and nowhere to go. Never one to give up, I jump out of the shower, and get a bottle of cold water out of the fridge and rinse myself off.

You would've thought that I'd have learnt my lesson then, and that this most recent incident could've been avoided. You'd think so, wouldn't you. But no.

Again, the cosmos has made me its bitch. Sigh.

And now I can breathe

Well it's done - 40 days of being a social recluse in order to prepare for an exam it turns out I was hopelessly underprepared for. Of course, the exam would have to be on the only two subjects in the ENTIRE field of sociology of law (and its a big field) I neglected to study. It's like the eternal cosmic joke - it's as though the Cosmos says to itself in its ethereal voice - "How shall I piss off Kallun today?" But no matter. I'm over it. It's all in the past. And in that past 40 days and 40 nights, I...

• Accumulated 42 bottles of coke, 32 paper cups of coffee, 16 newspapers, 12 bags of rubbish, 2 piles of clothes (whites and colours) yet to be washed and somehow or other, a moth, that I can never manage to catch - and I've nicknamed him "Speedy".
• Read 4 law-related books - 2 x English, 2 x Japanese - on, as it turns out, exactly the WRONG areas of law for the exam... but at least I can cross them off my reading list.
  
• Managed to sleep a total of 9 hours over a period of 4 days... and not at night. Insomnia is a bitch.
• Ended up taking 14 sleeping pills (not at once, obviously) to cure said insomnia.
  
• Spent a good 3 hours helping a fellow law student majoring in Private International Law understand the finer points of the doctrine of renvoi - after which I realised that I knew more about International Law than I did about the subject for which I was about to sit an exam.
• Took a bunch of photos of campaign posters for a former lecturer of mine back in Australia for his politics class... this weekend, I'm going 'campaign hopping' with a mate of mine. This involves us going to watch the politicians stand on top of vans infront of train stations, holding half a dozen microphones in each hand (with white gloves), and taking photos of them.
• And speaking of photos - interesting thing happened to me the other day. Got an email from a lady who is publishing a coffeetable book on Koalas, and she wanted to use one of the photos I took when I was a Koala Handler.
  

And that would be about it.

Things that disturb me

One of the most disturbing memories from my childhood is when I was watching Seasame Street, and Kermit the Frog put a pair of false teeth in his mouth, trying to bite people. Scared the bejesus out of me. Seasame Street just wasn't the same for me after that.

I was reminded of this the other day, when I saw a poster of Bert and Ernie with bare legs...

Again, I found this disturbing. After years and years of only seeing their torsos, it seems blasphemous to see their kneeless legs.

In addition to this, I have come across two other photos that I find disturbing. For one, this picture of the new Pope scares the hell out of me. I have nothing against him personally, but his face isn't, in my opinion, the best advertisement for the Catholic faith. His eyes make him look truly evil, and his PR consultant should be excommunicated for letting this photo get published.


And finally, this creature has been awarded the World's Ugliest Dog award three years in a row... understandably.