I just love to party all the time (ironic humor): Monday recap

First, a larf from adjectivemarcus: Vlad the Impala. Think about it. Read the comments.

Second: yesterday. There was no movie. shadowdaddy and I came home late after long grumpy days at work and said BLAR BLAR BLAR to each other (me: "The Velvet Bludgeon was arguing about what was a blocker, and then I was told to prop the fix myself, which I didn't know how to do!" him: "And the client wanted a change made to a live survey, which is the most difficult technically of all changes, making me have to stay an hour and a half until everyone was off the survey, and I couldn't even charge extra for it because I forgot!"), finally settling on Thai food as the cure for all ills. (There was supposed to be beerage - and ciderage - too, but time was tight.)

Something about a pile of Pad Thai (mmm, carbs!) and panang curry seemed to set the world aright, and after dinner we strolled down Broadway, ostensibly looking for the next book for Science Fiction Bookclub (yet somehow finding Iain Banks' "The Bridge" instead) and running an errand or two. Once home, we battled to the death over beerage (and Pimm's-age) and "Carcasonne BC: Hunters and Gatherers," which was rather decidedly a rout as I won by 40 points. This still left time for reading (him) and writing (me), enabling us to recharge and prepare to Face Another Day. W00t!

Third: photographic proof of interspecies love (between Shadow and Pip, this isn't just any old cute kitty and dog photo), just in case you doubted it could happen. Frankly I think the shot looks like one of those corny primitive art "Peaceable Kingdom" kind of things, although those paintings suffer greatly from not having poodles in them. Given what Pip's auntie was having done to her by the extremely dominant f. miniature poodle when I went by to pick Pip up, I suppose Pip's bispeciality is not unexpected, but I was quite surprised that Shadow was so easily converted to the cause despite his inability to satisfy Pip's rather late in life desire to nurse.

Depression in Japan

There's a very nice article about the growing acceptance of the concept of "depression" in Japan in the New York Times' current Sunday Magazine. Apparently it's being presented as "your soul having a cold," thus a treatable illness, which the writer contrasts with the (so-called Japanese) attitude (supposedly drawn from Buddhism) that life is about being depressed (and it's bad to try to not be depressed). Though I disagree of a lot of what it has to say, the analysis of the difference between Western and Japanese cultures is extremely thought provoking.