Beagle

They're all on Christmas break at the moment, we British tend to be far lazier over the Christmas period than you colonials, with many offices closing from Christmas Eve until the 1st Monday after New Year.

They did the right thing. I was hoping to get to grips with the parcel during my two week Christmas break, but it looks like it will probably arrive on the day I go back to work. Oh well

No shipping for me yet. It's frustrating because they're only a couple of hours away. My third Kickstarter in a row where I'm right at the end of the queue - maybe I need to try being more charming For those people that have received their miniatures, were there any standout pieces?

There's a documentary on Dave Prowse available on Netflix, it focuses on how he was snubbed by Lucas and Fox after he was suspected of leaking the Empire Strikes Back Script to the British press (a claim he always denied). He seemed like a lovely man

Just finished my final deployment with the British Army reserves after being at Her Majesty's service for 20 years. It's going to take me until after Christmas to dry out. It's also one of those strange moments in life where a previously open door, closes behind you forever. The upside being that my weekends going forward are now much more open, which means I'll finally be able to pick up my brushes and start going through those unopened Kickstarters from years back

I know all of them. Avoid the lemon one, he's such a diva, and don't lend the caramel one any money, you'll never get it back

They did, there's something particularly unnerving about that film. On the one hand it feel a bit like a Horror comedy and on the other it's extremely sinister

Yes, sadly true, I still love it though. That's a shame. Strange they should block it there but not here. I've just watched 'The Conjuring' with Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Really well done I thought. Also, yesterday I saw a low budget movie called 'The Shrine' - fairly run of the mill initially but then it really ramps up and the twist is excellent https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1341710/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I have a regular Halloween watchlist Sleepy Hollow The Witches of Eastwick Trick r Treat Warlock (difficult to find, but the full film is available on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrRlBqfLvU0&list=PLiv6O--EHnFf52NCgyPI-vGDZsekFl17N)

We watched two horror movies over the weekend, both were on the Shudder channel through Amazon video. I'm very picky about my horror films and these two offered something new and umm 'fun' The first was a genius Japanese movie called 'One cut of the Dead'. The first 20 minutes are so-so but the remainder of the movie is fantastic entertainment. The second was an American movie called 'The Rite', it follows a fairly formulaic story for the first half of the movie but then you get a fantastic twist. I loved it

A link to a really haunting Youtube video where modern locations have been cut with film footage from 1916. I found it captivating https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuz0BA3-_P0

Beagle

I worked in Japan for 4 years and have spent another couple of years there when you sum up various trips. My wife is Japanese, 20 years married this year. I don't have much time and I can tend to waffle so I'm going to bullet point some thoughts I moved to Japan after living in various other Asian countries for a short while (I was working in the oil industry) and I was blown away by the place, it was easily the coolest place to be. The lustre wore off after about 6 months. A friend of mine who still lives there mentioned that it must feel the same if you move to Disney Land, sooner or later it becomes all too obvious that the things which seem magical at first are far more banal when you figure out how or why they operate. That's not to say it's not nice, just that the initial glow will dim. A wet Tuesday afternoon in Japan is like a wet Tuesday afternoon anywhere else. Being a foreigner can be tough depending on where you live and how thick skinned you are. If you live in Toyko or Osaka you won't get a second look, if you live in a rural town you'll get lots of looks. I only encountered kindness but I know foreigners who have had a tough time in smaller cities/towns. In some cases you can absolutely embrace this and some flamboyant foreigners have done really well in Japan....despite seeming to be almost completely talent less to non-Japanese people As a foreigner in the workplace you will be given more slack than a Japanese person, but you'll also be excluded from stuff and the Japanese way of doing business can drive you crazy. The hours are long, the salaries are usually excellent. If you live in Tokyo, you'll be living small, living space is a premium. Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto are nicer places to live than Tokyo and will offer a better standard of living while still providing lots to see and do You know about the food already, but I'll point out that wherever you go in Japan you'll get great food and service. I'm not sure the EFL route is as easy as it used to be. There are a lot more homegrown English teachers now, plus things like the JET scheme dropped lots of unprepared young Westerners into the rigid Japanese education system and the reputation of EFL teachers took a big hit. The fact that you're older will certainly help in that regard. I knew someone who recently went to Vietnam as an EFL with the intention of getting experience there before applying to a school in Japan. It turns out he wants to stay in Vietnam now, but that was his strategy. Good luck. You'll only really know if you try it, and IMO it's better to try than regret not going years later.

Parrots. They can talk, and they're asshats

We could do that, or we could fight back against the madness, that's my plan.