Dave Brown

In which I chase away a bad mood

Today was raining, so I decided to take the train to work instead of riding. Unfortunately the entire population of the greater Tokyo area made exactly the same decision, so the trains were crowded. This, and various other things conspired to ensure that I was in a vile mood.

After I transferred to the Yamanote line, I resolved that I wasn’t going to let the day troll me any further, and resolved that I was going to cheer myself up or die trying.

Then a very pretty girl got onto the train and positioned herself right in front of me. After a few stops (when the train had gotten sufficiently uncrowded that people could move around in it), I got up and offered her my seat. Brightened my day up immediately.

For her part, she gave me a very cute smile, and then took out her phone and started writing a text message to her friend. It started, “This weird foreigner just stood up and gave me his seat….”

I spent the rest of the train ride smirking to myself.

What is it, 1996 again?

The halfwitted webmaster at Simon and Schuster wrote a site that doesn’t account for the browser I’m using (Opera) and told me I need to upgrade it to Safari 2 or better, Firefox 2 or better, or Internet Explorer 7 or better.

I would like to upgrade Simon and Schuster’s webmaster to Brain Switched On Or Better.

Fortunately they also included a link that I could send them email at, so I sent them an email:

To whom it concerns,

I tried to visit your web site, in hopes of maybe buying a book or two. Money, coming from me, and going to you. A normal commercial transaction, you know what I mean?

Instead your webmaster chased me off by telling me that I was using the wrong web browser. I use Opera, which is perfectly compatible with whatever Safari 2 or greater, Firefox 2 or greater, or Internet Explorer 7 or greater can handle.

Perhaps in future you could consider simply offering the web page I requested and hoping that the browser I’m using can deal with it (and making it my problem if it can’t) rather than telling me, a potential customer (with money that could have been yours, but now won’t be) to go away.

"Hi, we're from the Internet. We're here to help"

Some dude was part of a family business. The family business recently fell upon hard times, on account of how everyone has recently fallen upon hard times.

So he braced himself, and asked the Internet for help.

The Internet delivered.

Yeah, I ordered some soap from these folks myself. It’s such beautiful soap (SOAP, fer crying out loud!) and well, lately I’ve had a bit of cash to spare. I can afford to blow some of it on awesome soap.

And I’m taking an inordinate pleasure in being a part of a ridiculous Internet phenomenon that actually helps a guy (and his mom, and sister) out.

Not bad

My Internet access at home:

How well do I stack up?

A video I saw tonight

My local yakitori has a TV on in the corner, and it’s tuned to a cable all-music channel, which generally works very well to provide both ambient music and a fireplace-mode TV set.

This video, caught my attention. See if you can tell why I was impressed at its special effects.

(The song itself is, well, average at best. But hey, cool video.)

I just lost a friend

A good friend of mine died today. She was only 34 years old.

We had our altercations. Once, I made her so mad at me that she demolished part of her house. Oddly enough, this ultimately made us much better friends in the end.

Her husband found her in the bathtub today. She’d died—either of a massive stroke or a heart attack. I hope it was a stroke. Less painful that way. One moment you’re there, the next moment you’re not.

And to her husband? I wish him the strength to carry on. I am doing pretty badly at the loss of my friend, so I can’t imagine how he’s feeling now. I just want to give him a hug, and let him know that I care about him.

In a situation like this, everyone seems to retreat into trite, stupid cliches. I hate it, but I have no choice. My friend has lost his wife, his life partner, the light of his life, the best person he’s ever known.

My friend Amy died.

Okay, that hurts. It hurts a lot. I was shedding tears just over that.

My friend Amy—my friend Bill’s wife—died.

That was where it really hurt. Not only did I lose a friend, but my good friend lost his life partner. I lost a friend and that hurts enough. My friend, who I care about, lost his best friend ever.

I can’t properly put that into words. Maybe it’s not even possible to put that into words.

Clichéd though it is, rest in peace Amy Haskew. I loved you. Many many others did too. Bill Bradford loved you especially. While others loved you as well, the love that Bill had for you was special. So while I weep, I feel especially for my friend Bill.