Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Where did the snow go?




Terrifying from the front, these mysteriously moved to the front of the building yesterday, meaning only one thing: snow. In the end, however, they were unneeded as the predicted snow never came. It's a balmy 0C today and such a small amount melted by afternoon. Recognizing the scarcity of this topic, I'm sure this post will be ranked high on Japanese snowblower searches but I have no information to offer except that knowing Japanese engineering, these robotic-looking self-propelled units are probably only a couple of generations away from self-awareness. Be very afraid.

File under "Inter-cultural Office Humor": every morning we have a formal greeting with the superintendent at the start of work (and at the end of work). Something happened during this rock solid ritual this morning that offers a subtle insight into Japanese culture; the far side of the room was engaged in something, I didn't notice, and ignored the greeting completely, no one seemed to noticed until it was over and our dutiful side turned and asked if everything was okay, then one of their guys responded innocently, oh has work started, and everyone laughed. Maybe you had to be there?

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