Okay, I haven't updated in a while.

So, Happy Thanksgiving! It isn't a holiday in Japan, but I roasted chicken, made stuffing, made mashed potatoes, and cream gravy. I even made a pumpkin pie... but we ate it yesterday. We gave some to the students, too. They actually liked it. Interestingly, Japanese people really seem to like traditional Western food... sometimes more than the pizzas and hamburgers and cakes they know better.

Hehe, seven weeks ago was my last update.

The kid is VERY mobile now, he runs. He's also decidedly right-handed. He points at things, says a few words (like "drinky"... to indicate what he typically wants more than anything else) and in general destroys everything he touches. Yeah.

Anyway, I am very busy today, but I'll update again at some point.

So the whole health care mess in the U.S. ...now, that one's interesting. See, my personal interest vested in it is that my experiences in Japan have made me much less likely to want to return to the U.S. and that mess.

I was born and raised in the U.S. The hubby and I moved to China in 2004. Now, the PRC has NOTHING, unless you happen to have a government job. They're changing that right now, but for the most part, YOU HAVE TO PAY UP FRONT or you get nothing. Really. They'll turn you away. A news article recently quoted a Chinese person as saying, "Don't get cancer [in China], it's too expensive." That is a good sum of it. If you have an expensive condition, you're screwed.

For us, it wasn't bad, because we were effectively rich. At one point we looked into having a kid there. It was too expensive because I wanted to go to the international hospital in Beijing -- which has American prices, but then we'd need (very expensive) international insurance. I was a little too worried about having a kid in a Chinese hospital. Although honestly it wasn't that expensive for _us_, well, Chinese doctors seemed nearly useless to me. They'd prescribe medicine and send you home... sometimes weird medicine... and when Kayn hurt his back there they didn't even have therapy or traction for him.

Then we moved to Japan. Here, we pay a chunk of change out of the hubby's paycheck every month (about an eighth of his monthly pay) and then we have co-pays for everything. What that means is that an _emergency trip to the doctor at the local hospital_ costs about $25 for us and $6 for the kid (kids and elders are heavily subsidized). We can't get stuck for more than 70% of the cost, and the costs are highly regulated by the government, at private and public hospitals. (There are only private hospitals around here; you have to go to Sapporo for public ones, but it doesn't make much difference as far as I can tell, it's just a little cheaper.)

When Kayn had -- get this -- emergency surgery for his sinus infection, at a hospital in a different town, where they had to knock him out (general anesthetic) and he had to spend three days, two nights, in a hospital... the total bill was about $800. We paid it the same week and were done (and the local savings was wiped out, oh well, most of our savings is in the U.S.). This is in contrast to when I had very minor surgery in the U.S. It was my shoulder, I had a lipoma (fatty tissue deposit), and it was IN a doctor's office, not the hospital. $500. And that was like seven years ago.

The Japanese system does have a catch. It figures you have more time than money -- you'll have to wait a while at the clinic or hospital if you don't have an appointment and it's not a critical emergency. But, frankly, since that IS true for most people, I don't see a problem with that. Plus since I live in boondockia, I've never seen really bad waits, nothing any worse than I had in the U.S., and sometimes better.

So basically it's just like an HMO with a copay, except that the "network of allowed doctors" is everything around you. They prefer you go to your local hospital or doctor's offices, but the town hall can give you an extra insurance card just for emergencies and other situations where you have to go somewhere else. (Like Kenny, for the first four months of his life, had to go to the next town, so they covered all the costs... yes, all of it. The local hospital and offices don't deal with kids under four months old.)

There is no possibility that you'll have any truly horrible wrangling with the insurance over treatment, the worst that happens is you have to drop by town hall and get some extra paperwork before you pay the final bill. (We had to do that for Kayn, since he went to Otaru hospital.) There's no waiting weeks or months while the insurance argues with the hospitals and bills hang over your head that you must pay, and then wait and hope for a refund, and on and on. (By the way, that's a bad way of doing it... you should just hold your money and insist they straighten everything out first.) Also, the doctors and hospitals don't have a mountain of inconsistent, confusing, and awful paperwork to deal with.

The other catch is one that we don't have to deal with, but is there. The government does have a lot of overhead to deal with. It IS like Social Security or Medicare, cranked up a few notches, that gives the government a lot of infrastructure, money, and paperwork to deal with. One of the things Japan really needs to do is clean up some of its outdated, redundant bureaucracy. They've been saddled with some of that since long before the modernization, though, they've had plodding bureaucracy here since at least 1600. The other problem is, of course, paying doctors well enough that you want to be a doctor, which makes things more expensive. (Canada does have problems keeping specialists, they like to move to the U.S. and make more money.)

The reason people in the U.S. are scared is simple. It's change. It's needed, yes, but no one likes changing things. It's already REALLY BAD -- what if it gets WORSE? (Kayn said, "Better the evil you know than the evil you don't?") And since no one there's dealt with another system, and we're taught to fear government interference, people are running around scared coming up with all sorts of scary scenarios.

It's not scary. But it IS scary to us if the U.S. DOESN'T change. It certainly makes us wary. My mom talked about how the local government in her town subsidizes medical care for moms and newborns -- your hospital bill can't be more than $3000. Well, that IS really good for the U.S. ...but we paid $500 after our insurance here, with a private hospital room, for a week, and with Kenny having spent a night in an incubator. A friend of mine paid almost $10,000 for her own kid, after insurance, in the U.S. We're a little terrified of the idea of having kids in the U.S. ...and oh, if Kayn had had the surgery in the U.S., I don't even want to think about how much it would have cost. Three days in a hospital??? Oh God.

The other thing that bothers me about the U.S. system is the gross lack of preventive medicine. When I got pregnant, it was expensive towards the end for the doctor's office trips, but they also gave me tons of free extra stuff, like classes and things for the kid. Now, yes, my Japanese sucks, but a lot of the written info and materials were really helpful. I spent a week in the hospital not just to rest up, but they were constantly teaching me how to take care of a baby. When I went home, I knew how to slap a diaper on that kid and how to bottle feed and nurse him, with few problems (nursing is tough at first). Since then, most of his shots have been free, too, and his checkups are all free. He's gotten medicine cheap, like cream for his skin, and Tylenol syrup. I don't have to fear a late-night rush to the doctor -- it's six bucks (unless it's for a preexisting problem, which is free). Which is good, because Friday night we rushed him to the doctor with a 102 fever. (He's got a bad cold. I do too!)

A free-market system for medical care doesn't work because medical care is inherently not free-market. I didn't volunteer to get a cold (complete with fever, sore throat from hell, and the super-snifflies) this week, that's for sure.

So if you're worried about the system changing -- don't be. Most changes will be improvements. Kayn said, "that's the great thing about rock bottom, it only gets better." The fears about "public medicine" systems are pretty unfounded. Ask some Canadians.

Speaking of things being sick or broke, now we have to go get the hubby a new monitor. His does this cool thing of going white and showing all the circuits in the screen as it does so... Wacky. That also means half the time it doesn't work.

Well, in a little bit I have to go run errands. Money is a little tight -- medical bills will do that, but unlike back in the U.S. where it took forever to get insurance paperwork to process and it was a mystery how much things would cost, it's already done. It just was a hit to the pocketbook. About $800 -- considering Kayn had emergency surgery on a Friday night and spent the weekend in the hospital, I guess that's not too bad. Just blew most of our savings here in Japan. :( We're saving up for a trip home, but it's going to have to get shoved to a way backburner now.

I've got some shopping to do -- food stuff, not exciting. Kayn, being the sweetie he is, bought me an anniversary present, silly boy spent too much on me. I spent all of $14 on him, he spent like $50 on me. (He really didn't realize how tight money is; come to think of it, neither did I until yesterday.) I'll check the bank accounts and then go pick up a few groceries. Fortunately, we have a lot of food in the house.

We gave Kenny Kayn's old GBA-SP. It's very old now, we could only get about $20 for it at a buyback shop, so if he breaks it, it's not the end of the world. Kenny likes watching stuff, like the opening videos for games. His favorite is my Rocket Slime game on the DS. It's a Dragon Quest game, so it has the standard opening music. So the other day we walked into a shop and they were running a commercial for the new Dragon Quest game for DS, and that music starts up, and Kenny's head spun and he stared at that TV! I wonder if he was wondering where the bouncing slimes were?

But he's been sleeping really poorly the last few days. I thought it was the heat, but the heat broke -- I think he's having the same problems as me, an allergic rash. WHY I have one, I'm not entirely sure -- but I think I'm allergic to a local plant. I drank a drink made from it the other day and broke out all over, and the stuff grows all over around here...

I haven't posted enough about this, because frankly I didn't know what a big deal it was until last Friday.

The Husband's Tooth Saga.

Note, this is not Kenny's Tooth Saga. The New Teeth Disaster is ongoing. Mr. "I'm going to wake up at 2 am and howl until I'm allowed to bite Mommy" hasn't let up.

This one's Kayn's.

For the last five weeks Kayn had been visiting the dentist every week -- often multiple times. He had a persistent infection in a tooth. It was the tooth with the oldest crown, which broke and was going to be replaced. It was terribly infected when he showed up. Kayn has two perpetual problems with his teeth: 1) he doesn't get a toothache until it's really bad and 2) there is not enough Novocaine (or anything else) in this world to really knock him out while they do dental work.

Fun combination!

Anyway, they pulled the old crown over a month ago, made a new crown, put it on, but it hurt. Bad. So he went back and they pulled it back off, discovered they hadn't gotten all of the infection, so they cleaned his tooth and sent him home with meds. The next week he went back. The infection was back.

Repeat ad infinitum.

Finally, last week he went to the dentist and said, "This REALLY HURTS." He wasn't kidding. Kayn can ignore a lot of pain (I mean it) but he couldn't ignore this. The dentist decided this had hit the ridiculous point (and felt really bad, too) and sent Kayn to an ear/nose/throat specialist. The specialist took an x-ray and said he had sinusitis on his right side. Okay, no big deal, right? They shoved something up his nose to open his nasal passages (and that REALLY HURT) and sent him home with meds.

Okay, so the next day... it hurts worse. MUCH WORSE. So that night, after work, we take him to the hospital because the pain is so bad. (Emergency room isn't as expensive here, by the way.) They give him really potent pain meds, which don't quite knock out the pain but let him sleep, and in the morning the specialist surprised us by shipping Kayn back to the hospital specialist instead.

This guy takes CT scans and says, "Yeah, you got a bad sinus infection," and decides to give Kayn a local anesthetic and pop a hole in the side of his nose into his sinus cavity. (Yes, you heard me, they were going to tear a hole from his nose into his sinuses to get the fluid out.) Note comment above: there is not enough Novocaine in the world to make Kayn numb.

So of course he could feel everything, which made it pretty difficult to get much done. They did pop a hole, though (OUCH!)... and no fluid came out.

This is when the doctor zapped us. He said Kayn had to go to Otaru (that's about an hour and 15 minutes away) to the hospital there so they could knock him out and do surgery. Yep, you heard me. Surgery. Go pronto, they said. So we scrambled together a few things for Kayn and the rugrat and drove right up. They had to cancel his classes and everything. What fun.

So we get there and the new specialist in Otaru tells us he already talked to the other specialists and they've agreed that Kayn has to be knocked out and poked at. So they have to run an EKG and get a blood workup, etc., before they can knock him silly. In the meantime,I had to run over to the hundred yen shop to pick up a few other things he needs for the hospital; a general anesthetic means at least a 24 stay even if nothing odd happens. I got back just as they rolled him in to surgery, which upset me.

Of course, something odd happened. They SAID the surgery would only be thirty minutes. An hour later, the doctor shuffles out. Fortunately, he's smiling. They'd figured it all out -- why Kayn had been in so much pain and the treatment in Iwanai hadn't worked. (Well, aside from no one ever gives Kayn enough local anesthetic, that is. It's not a language barrier thing; we could never get this through to dentists in the U.S., either.)

They thought he had a candida infection (read: like a yeast infection, but in a different spot, yuck) and fluid in there. He didn't. He had a black mold infection and it was packed. Not much fluid at all. They couldn't "drain" it because there was nothing to drain. They had to poke around and carve it all out. YUCK!

So he had to spend the weekend at the hospital so they could make sure his nose wasn't bleeding all over. He was good to go Sunday, although tired, because hospitals fall into the group "places which suck for sleeping".

His horrible headaches are gone, now, too. We're lucky, from what I gathered. If they hadn't caught it now, he might have gone a long time before they figured out what the deal was -- and he might have gotten a much more extensive and dangerous infection.

But I mean, really! Mold in my bathroom, yeah. Mold in my kitchen, even (had that this winter).

But... mold in my husband!

Weird.

So tomorrow he goes back to the local specialist, and then he has to make an appointment for the dentist... TO FINALLY PUT THE CROWN BACK ON!

P.S. Yes, Kenny is still all wound up over Elmo DVDs, but right now he's actually asleep. Peace and quiet. Very rare around here.

I haven't gotten back to this in months.

I've been too busy with Kenny and with my writing at home. Oh, by the way, Kenny turns 1 tomorrow. We're having a picnic party this weekend.

Anyway, the reason I thought of posting was this:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/15/cheney-hopes-panetta-misquoted-claiming-vp-wishes-attack/comments/

Fox News is conservative? Well, not always.

I think Cheney is a nut, myself, always have. I think the elder Bush made a statement about his son that might have also been a veiled comment toward Cheney. He basically said (and I can't remember the exact quote) that his son was handling things properly -- sitting back, not talking about (or lambasting!) the current administration.

Frankly, I think Panetta was speaking his mind as politely as possible and that he is right -- Cheney is a fear monger.

One of the people on the Fox News article commented that indeed, it does seem illogical that Cheney would be running around commenting on how unsafe America is if he's truly interested in its safety. I mean, would YOU get on a TV channel that you know robbers watch and say, "Hey the lock on my house is broken, and I live at 555 Main Street"? No, that would be idiotic and unsafe...

Yet...

I call all of it a publicity stunt. If Obama fails, Cheney will effectively get control of the Republicans.

If I wasn't already done with the pseudo-conservative Republicans I'd be done then, that's for sure. And while I don't agree with everything Obama is doing, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and see what happens. Especially after having experienced other medical systems (in China and Japan), I can see how horribly broken the American insurance system is, so we'll see how this all pans out.

And I feel a little crazy today. Kenny LOVES Elmo. If I don't run an Elmo's World DVD all the time while he's playing, he starts to fuss. The little nut.

So my husband and I tried the Warhammer Online trial, then realized we just don't have the money to buy the box right now. These boxes are expensive! I mean, it's one thing when you plop down $50-$70 for a game you can play forever. It's another thing when you plop down $50+ and then keep ploppin' down $15 a month for as long as you want to play. Ugh. Even if I felt we had the money to spare, plunking down $100+ for two copies and then the $30 a month is a lot. I mean, we pay ~$250/month for insurance (yes, that's right... but we're in Japan... and it's darn good insurance). If we played two MMOs a month, that'd be $60 a month... and we're a third of the way to paying for the insurance. Eeg.

We ARE playing Vanguard, but I found the boxes for $5 apiece online. So that's a month for $5, and I paid out of the $10 I had in PayPal (that had been there for the last three years, unused). After the initial month is up, we'll decide what we want to do from there. One MMO is fairly affordable, especially if we don't eat out except when we must (like when we have to go to Sapporo to get diapers cheap, and even then we often carry a picnic lunch and then eat a light, cheap dinner at CostCo).

But anyway.... Warhammer Online.

My husband has noticed a Bad Trend (note the capital letters) in MMOs. Games are hyped, big time. People will swarm a game when it launches, requiring that it have lots of servers or everyone lags out and says, "Screw it, I'll play something else." And then, less than six months later, regardless of the game quality, people will have left it to move on to the "next big thing". This means the companies have to invest a lot of initial money into servers that they aren't going to be able to use in six months to a year, making it a long-term waste. But if they don't invest that money they're going to lose their player base right away. Oog! All that will remain are core fans who will stick with the game through thick and thin, which is good, but isn't generally enough to sustain a large launch.

Yes, people are fickle. Here are some of my ideas as to what all this could mean:

1) Only big companies will be able to afford to launch a BIG game. This may mean a lot of innovation goes out the window. Yes, for all of you afraid of "World of Warcraft clones" -- be afraid, be very afraid. Big companies will, for all the logical reasons, go with the most cookie-cutter likely-to-succeed models. Of course, if it's too "WoW clone", no one will play it... why not just play WoW?

2) "Big" MMOs will vanish. Small studios will put out smaller games that will be more innovative, but much smaller and with little to no hype. The only "WoW killer" will be "WoW 2", which might also crash out from this same phenomenon, or might crash out because it can't compete with its predecessor. (Note EQ2.)

3) The current hype pattern may vanish. Game studios won't tell you what's going on until the game is about to launch. While this will irritate potential core fans, this would cut down advertising costs and concerns about overhyping that will cause too big of a rush on a game.


This trend is WEIRD. I mean, if Dark Age of Camelot had launched yesterday it'd be dead in six months. Several years ago, it was a wildly successful MMO -- I played it for a few years. It was buggy as heck at launch (something not as well tolerated these days) and it wasn't terribly hyped. The population grew steadily over the first few years and then slowly tapered off. It's still going. Now MMO populations boom and crash, except for WoW, which has most of the market captured. Yeah, I'm worried that in the long run, the MMO market is not really as sustainable as people would like... at least as projects that cost a lot of initial money. I think a new marketing and design model is in order.

Anyone got any ideas as to what that model could be?

P.S. My Goblin Squig Herder on the trial is (was, it's expired) Snotmaster Grotnob, my Night Goblin Exploding Snotling Army general. It really is a well-designed game. It's a shame we don't have a spare $100 to plop down for it! o_O A hundred bucks! I could buy my son a new playpen for that kind of chunk of change.

Looking for Freelance Work

That is, I'm thinking we will move back to the U.S. in a year or so, and I would like to get some freelance editing and writing work before we go back. I want to make sure I'm marketable, as it were, after being out of the loop for several years. I am pretty busy at home, but one or two days a week I am home now and can work when Kenny is asleep or playing in his playpen.

I freelanced for many years and have continued to do a few things here and there, mostly correcting awkward translations since moving to Asia. I can do limited translation from Chinese to Japanese; with time, I can do a pretty good job with Chinese. (That is, I speak Mandarin Chinese, but in writing almost all forms of modern Chinese are the same, with a few quirks here and there.)

I figured I would post up here since people do read my journal from time to time. If you know someone looking for an editor or a writer, I may be the person for the job.

As far as writing goes, I prefer fantasy or science fiction, but I can write in most genres. I am also more than happy to write about my rather odd experiences in Asia... I've got a lot of stories there.

Also, Kenny got Tooth #4 in last Sunday. It's still irritating him some. He has all four front teeth now, though, it's very cute! It's also dangerous, he bites HARD!

My mood is "hungry" because I had a really light dinner tonight.

Er, three teeth. ;)

Kenny has three now, we're expecting #4 within a week. It's one of the top two teeth.

He's on my lap right now fighting my typing every which way, kicking my hands, grabbing the keyboard, etc., so I'll have to sign off for now.

I like Obama's administration.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/clinton.asia/index.html

I'm still skittish about Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. But I understand WHY Obama did that. She's a powerful figure, and more importantly, the Clintons are VERY popular overseas. (We know this from hearing lots of people in Asia clamor about them.) Obama is tapping into that popularity.

But I'm all for Obama trying to make more inroads with China rather than painting China as an enemy. I think Dubya's image of China stimmed from his time there in the late 70s, and China has changed a LOT -- they changed a LOT in the three years we were there, and that's only three years. The Chinese government is progressive (yet cautious) because they have to be. They have a massive population to keep happy. And trust me, Chinese people aren't "controlled by their government" or particularly afraid of it. There is some lingering discomfort about past events (like the Tiananmen square incident, but that's ancient history to a lot of people now)... but they're certainly perfectly willing to talk to foreigners and tell them they do or don't like China, or Chinese leaders, etc. (They sure told ME!)

I think most Chinese are more daring than most Americans. I don't think you'd see an American put his car in park in the middle of a traffic jam, get out, walk over to the traffic cop, and yell at the traffic cop. But I saw that more than once in China. Chinese are very independent-minded people, more so than many Americans. If you're their friend or family, they'll bend over backwards for you (we had some wonderful friends who really helped us out!) but otherwise you could be a rock for all they care.

Accordingly, the U.S. could really do a lot of good working with the Chinese -- government and people -- to cultivate a friendlier image. The Chinese are really interested in America. Some are VERY interested because they have family in the U.S.

(When I was a kid, my family went to this one Chinese restaurant every weekend. I was about 14 when it suddenly closed. The owner was able to go back to China after many, many years because China had changed, and things had gotten friendlier. He went back, helped his family start their own restaurant in China, and then returned to the U.S. He'd become American, but he hadn't forgotten about his family, and wanted to help them out.)

By the way, Chinese food rocks. Wish it wasn't so expensive in Japan. (Yes, ironically, Chinese food is far more plentiful, cheaper, and AUTHENTIC in the U.S. than in Japan. Weird. I miss inexpensive Beijing duck. I'd almost visit China just for that.)

If I posted a link to my Twitter account, which I currently do virtually nothing with, would anyone be interested?

"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war" -- John Adams

Dubya thinks history will vindicate him. Well, it did vindicate Abraham Lincoln (he was WILDLY unpopular in his own time!), but we shall see. Dubya has embroiled us in a mess that might very well, over many years, be the downfall of the United States, or at least the end of its height.

Okay, now Kenny has TWO teeth. The bottom left incisor broke the gums one week after the bottom right one came through. He's got a toothy little grin. We're expecting the top two in about a month. Kenny is REALLY unhappy about it. He howls when they cut the gums.

Oh, and here's another happy Kenny picture.



This one does not feature teeth. He had one tooth here, but it wasn't visible for his lip. He sprouted the second tooth less than 24 hours after this picture was taken.



The first tooth is actually visible in this picture if you zoom in.

Going back to bed. But for your amusement:



Super happy baby attack! (This picture's actually a few months old, but I just uploaded it.)

He's teething. And keeping us awake at 3 am.

If you know anyone who speaks Mandarin, send them my way. I'm looking to study before I forget everything. My reading abilities aren't deteriorating -- I see Chinese characters every day in Japan, and it helps reinforce meanings, even if pronunciation isn't the same -- but my speaking abilities certainly are.

If you happen to know anyone in northern Japan who speaks Mandarin, EVEN BETTER. Send 'em my way.

Thanks,
Kim

P.S. Had a small Christmas at home with the baby. Very cute! I'll upload pictures at some point.

Well, I think I'll get my page up as soon as I figure out cascading style sheets so my page doesn't look UGLY.

Anyway, today I thought I'd bring up Christmas in Japan. Last night I went with Kayn to class so I could borrow the car and go shopping while he's teaching. (I often do that. Only one car.) Normally on Mondays right now his schedule is too crazy, but yesterday was a holiday so the schedule was light.

Anyway, so I went to Posful (here:http://www.aeon-hokkaido.jp/st_yoichi.html), which is a grocery store/department store (think Target). The place has gone completely into "Christmas mode" and it's pretty interesting.

Christmas has been popular in Japan for some time now. It started out a romantic holiday and they have some strange ideas, primarily due to interesting marketing. For instance, most Japanese get a Christmas cake and KFC for Christmas Eve or day, as a big dinner with the family, and Christmas night is like the ultimate "ask the girl to marry you" date night.

However, Christmas has been around for more than a generation now, and it's changing. It's looking, well, more like home. People who met on Christmas and got married around Christmas time now have gaggles of kids. And they want their kids to have a fun Christmas, because they associate it with having a happy family.

So in Posful, lo and behold, there are pre-stuffed stockings. They're themed, based on the most popular kid's characters (Hello Kitty, for example), and filled with junk food and/or little toys... very much like home. They have gift bags for kids, little suitcases and bags themed similarly, year-round, but now they've broken out the stockings, all Christmas-a-rific.

In addition, they have a variety of trees, lights, and ornaments, very much like you'd expect back in the U.S., and heaping displays of kids' toys. Clearly, Christmas has gone American-style, it's certainly not just a romantic holiday HERE any more.

I expect people will start catching on to the idea of Christmas dinner as more than KFC any day now. Pumpkin, for instance, is quite popular here.

However, I have to hand it to them on some brilliant marketing. Everyone here thinks fried chicken is a good traditional Christmas dinner in the U.S.! Last year I fixed an oven-roasted chicken with stuffing just so people would know what the heck I'm talking about. Of course, with my tiny oven I can't fix a turkey. But this year it'll be roast chicken with stuffing, gravy, etc., and if I can manage it apple or pumpkin pie.

Really, the traditional "family holiday" here is New Year's, so in general, I'm sure it'll still look somewhat "reversed" from the U.S. -- Christmas as a party holiday, New Year's as a family holiday -- but still, it's interesting to see Christmas mainstream as a secular holiday throughout the world. Even though I observe the religious meaning, I think all the gift-gifting and niceness themes are good regardless of faith.

And, added bonus, all this means I can have a stocking on Christmas morning for Kenny -- even though, at six months old, he'll only want to chew on it. ;) We'll get him formula-flavored rice crackers for it. (Yes, they're melt-away rice crackers that are safe for babies. He eats them now. Very messily.)

Oh, yes, Christmas is VERY popular in China. I saw more "Merry Christmas" signs there than I had seen in the U.S. in recent years. NO ONE is offended in the slightest. I got to hear lots of "Shengdanjie Kuaile" (that's Chinese for "Merry Christmas"). They're taking a lot of their ideas from Japan -- including eating KFC -- but it's VERY popular.

And yes, I am sick. I have a cold. Voice is shot. That's why it says "Mood: Sick" on this. Hopefully Kenny won't get sick -- he's only gotten a very little tummy bug so far in his WHOLE LIFE! -- but I'm not holding out hopes this time. It's Mommy's Bad Winter Cold time.

Sorry, haven't posted in a while.

Kenny started getting more active, and now he consumes a great deal of my time. I had to get up early today to take out the trash (recycle trash has to go out between 7 and 8 am) so I haven't gone back to bed yet (remember, Kayn works afternoons and evenings).

I am thinking about starting a web site where I upload short stories of mine for anyone to read. It would be free, of course, just ask for donations to Paypal to maintain the site, and if I can, make a little money to save back for whenever we move back to the U.S. (and for Kenny to get stuff). If it works well, I would add a newsletter where I would mail out the latest story... maybe make that a pay newsletter, like This is True. Not sure yet.

What do you think? Do you think anyone would be interested? I have a (very) loose idea for a common theme amidst the stories, wide enough of a net to hit multiple genres.

Kim

So in spite of money being tight, we were considering buying Spore.

I read some stuff and for the time being, I have to change my mind.

I understand WHY companies want to use DRM, but I don't like it. Namely, in this case, is the potential issue of having to contact EA if I use up my allowed installations and have problems.

I understand the DRM on Spore gives you three installs, which reset every ten days. That seems fairly reasonable, except for the following problems:

1) I've had numerous hardware and software debaucles that have required me to reinstall something several times, many more than three times, within a ten day period. This is fairly minor, but it's enough to make me feel that I am being punished for being a paying customer.

2) The install installs this DRM software, without clearly and blatantly saying EXACTLY what it is installing. It's installing SecuROM, a borderline-malware software that can screw up your computer royally. Without you ever realizing why, unless you are really good with computers. Fortunately, I know enough to shred this software out of my system... but WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO?

You probably have heard of SecuROM. It's by Sony. One of the older versions is why they got into massive legal trouble. They had to redo the software to close a massive back door they left into the Windows OS that could potentially let anyone remotely monkey with your system. The software still does stuff under the hood, and I got enough processes I barely like running on my system... why would I want one more?

In any case, our major reason for not buying Spore now is protest: I want to protest the treatment "guilty until proven innocent" that software companies have reverted to. They are encouraging those pirates, making them feel like they have a legit cause, instead of dissuading them, by punishing real customers. I don't want pay money to encourage this kind of behavior on the part of EA.

And, again, I applaud SJ's decision to skip DRM on e23. He's right. This technology is not mature enough to do what the companies want without being a potential detriment to the customer.

I added pictures to our baby photo album on Photobucket. Enjoy!

http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w222/kaerondaes/Baby%20Stuff/

Yes, little baby Kenny is showing signs of true sentience. He responds to things around him, he notices things, and he's discovered his hands and feet. Namely, though, his hands -- right now he thinks they're the coolest things since sliced bread (if he knew what sliced bread was). He stares at them a lot, plays with his wrist rattles, and hits his toys. He also mimics us, he'll open and close his hands if we do, and he sometimes waves! I'm told he's well ahead of the curve, seeing as he's doing all of this and is eleven weeks old, so I'm hopeful he's a very smart baby.

On OTHER notes...

I'm craving Pakistani food. Badly. In China, we used to live near a Pakistani restaurant -- they advertised "Indian food" because most people don't know the difference, but the owner was from Pakistan and talked to us. I've had Indian food here in Japan, but I know the difference now, and I REALLY miss Pakistani food, especially haleem and samosas.

This popped into my head again because I saw pictures from Ramadan in Pakistan. Samosas! They're little triangle pastries stuffed with goodness. *cry* And haleem is like someone took Cream of Wheat and made it the most flavorful, meat-packed stuff ever... You just have to try it to really understand it, but believe me, it's TASTY.

I REALLY miss that restaurant, and I really miss Pakistani food. I mean, it's almost enough to make me want to move to Pakistan -- except they have a lot of problems, and probably are tired of nosy Americans. (I'd just be nosy for recipes, though. ;)

So if anyone knows anyone who knows Pakistani recipes or places in Hokkaido where I can get the food, I'd be grateful. I REALLY miss it.

I'm sure it'd be cool to be there for the Olympics, but it'd also be a mess. We used to live right across the street from the Tianjin Olympic Soccer Stadium. Here's an official pictures link:

http://english.gov.cn/2007-08/20/content_722331.htm

I need to upload the pictures we took during the construction. It was interesting to watch!

What I really miss isn't the stadium, though, it's the shopping center they built on the other side of it, which had a great supermarket, and some terrific restaurants.

However, the restaurant I miss the most was right across the street from Kayn's school. Beijing duck! *cry* It's too expensive here! We used to pay 40 kuai to get a whole duck and all the fixings... that's like $9. *sigh*

Baby is doing okay... had a rough week, that's why I haven't posted anything for a while. He sometimes really pitches a fit, and he hasn't wanted to sleep at night lately... he wakes up at 3 am, wants to be fed, and then wants to PLAY! Mom's too tired at 3 am... I sack back out, and he's laying there next to me swatting me with his little hands... He can't talk yet, but it's clear he's saying "Mommy! Mommy! Play! Do stuff! Hold me!" And I'm thinking, "Good night!"