Gainful employment, NFL appointment, Shan Shan disappointment

This will be a shorter one due to the mundane nature of 9-5 type employment.

Nice to be employed, not a massively high pressure position. Possibly rewarding, possibly mundane, take out what you put in etc etc. Nice lunches actually provided: lots of rice, soups, curries, tofu, miso, vegetables and actually quite delicious milk. Best meal this week, teriyaki fish, big bowl of rice and miso soup. Little plate of salad as well. There was also a festival/parade thing on where they walk around the whole town, dressed in the kimonos, straw hats, traditional clogs with clanging drum things. They do the clanging and sort of dance in rhythm with it, quite interesting.

Took a drive down to a city yesterday, about 2 hours of a trip. Lovely relaxed drive down through valleys and tunnels alongside a river the whole way almost until the end. Slow going and lots of traffic because it’s one of the few non tolled routes out of the town. Arrive late afternoon and realise that it’s another industrial hellscape. Find some local shrines by the time it’s dark, eat some food and then basically set off home again. It was a trip really just for the sake of driving, tested out the cervo and it can comfortably get up to 100km/h which is great though it does rattle a bit. Drown out the rattles with some pumpy beats (bbcradio1-Lee burridge) and set off into the night. Follow the google maps and then take a few wrong turns and end up on some real narrow country lanes. Then out of nowhere, the music changes , the road just stops and a sign reading route97 appears in front of a tiny trail that cuts itself into the mountain and on to the top of a ridge. Ascend this foggy trail amid thick pines with some sort of ethereal music in the background. Very very strange turn to take, a completely different environment and atmosphere to the road directly preceding it and following it. Route 97 in gifu, highly recommend driving it if you ever have the chance.

Fantasy segment: This years annual draft was truly global, spanning the three main time zones, NYC, London and Tokyo. 7/11 members were online for the event, notable exceptions of the goon squad and a former league champion. As usual, it snuck up on the author who was highly unprepared and awoken at 345am. The favoured 2 monster RB strategy wasn’t viable, picking second as I was, leaving quite the sour taste in my mouth. Running backs are the most enjoyable players to have, the most versatile and reliable. League wide trends dictate that receptions are worth points, leading to a more analytical approach and less of an emotional appeal when picking players. Meaning running backs have been, sadly, degraded in their importance unless they’re a real top tier “guy”. Makes for a higher scoring, more exciting and maybe more balanced affair. But alas, it really drags the emotional nature out of decisions. There’s a few lads that make up a classic inhalers (losing) team: mixon, mclaurin, pitts, pittman, prescott. Made the point of avoiding all except Pittman. Need some fresh heads in the inhalers locker room. Rehire cousins, goff and hill from some time ago. Gus the bus from yesteryear. Do I feel this is a winning side? Do I like this team? Not at all but the inhalers have been on a real slide since the half-ppr entered into effect and we needed to break some of the emotional bonds tying us to some of the units. So this is the nature of the world: emotional appeal has to give way to the n u m b e r s.

A lot of unexpected and interesting responses regarding what is good or bad. Religious overtones, claims of universal morality, socialisation, “might is right”/greed is good, not your fault, acts of kindness, community, empathy, do unto others and so on all make an appearance. There is no real answer, just a kaleidoscope of opinions.

As it turns out, strong typhoon number 10 Shan Shan was just two hours of rain in this area. I believe there was devastation elsewhere and not to be morbid but I was hoping for a bit more oomph, not in a tragic sense, but a few telephone poles falling down, a clap of thunder or some lightning isn’t too much to ask for surely. This could turn into a large jinx but I think there is not much chance of drama in this area.

Weird thing I saw which was they have tvs inside the cars here. I do not understand how this is safe but hey