Nothing Wins the Justice

Alright, everybody! Let's get this show on the road. I've been working on a fine little wrap-up of my latest overseas holiday for you guys, and who knows? Maybe you'll learn something. If not, you'll at least get a heaping helping of my personal brand of entertaining experiences, which many of you seemed to get some enjoyment out of last time, if I am not mistaken.

Note also, by the way, that my Japan Finale has been updated with the final Day 17.

Like all of my recent trips, this one starts with me largely ignoring my travel plans and getting Ashnil to do that part for me, and thanks to his obsessive nature and a particularly helpful member of the uni administrative staff, we can skip right over any preliminaries with the simple assertion that I knew this trip was coming for a long time, but nevertheless never really had a chance to mentally prepare for it in any particular way. In fact, you could say I was kept so busy until the very moment I left, that even when I got on the plane, I barely realised what was going on.

Nevertheless, I managed to have a heck of a time anyways, and everything worked out perfectly well. There's a lesson there for you organised types: sometimes it's more fun just to wing it.

Day 1 - In which Liv grows steadily more delirious

Speaking of winging it, did I mention I wasn't particularly prepared for my trip when I left? All I remember about that evening is saying goodbye to my parents, then getting Ashnil and his manila folder full of printed documents to wave me past every checkpoint. I hadn't even really slept that night, having had a lot of last minute stuff to finish. It was kinda surreal. Did he have my files in that folder, as well? I don't know. Maybe just the sight of that folder made people trust him.

I can, however, offer a brief review of in-flight entertainment. Before I do, however, I should note that I was hardly approaching the situation objectively. This is to say, I was in "quite a tizzy", as your grandmother might put it. You see, there was a backlog of work choking my personal organisation system (zomg what? I have one?) so deep that I could hardly see the bottom of it - and most of it had deadlines within the conference period. Being rather a sharp fellow, I soon realised that a stupidly long plane flight would be the perfect time to do all of that, especially since I really can't sleep in an aeroplane seat.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I spent easily two thirds of the flight time just working flat out. We're not talking the show-up-to-uni hey-it's-lunch-time sort of working, we're talking the not-coming-out-of-my-room-until-this-shit-is-done type of working. As such, simply giving myself a break to watch a movie or something - particularly given the frustrating nature of some of that work, and my own increasing sleep deprivation - made me so giddy, I probably could've watched something from Ashnil's playlist ("Inkheart", "Race to Witch Mountain", "Street Fighter"...) and still somehow thought it was good.

So, then, here's what I did end up watching:

Canadian Independent Short Films - Obviously, I didn't have a great deal of time on my hands, so it was great to have a whole lot of bite-size movie magic available in the 5-16 minute range. I almost didn't even notice this option at first, so amazed was I that in Canadian terms, the "Movies" category includes a sub-category of "Hollywood". Amidst all the world cinema, avant garde, french, classic B&W, etc. selections, I almost missed the short-film option. It all reinforced what would prove to be a rather accurate impression: Canada is a lot like the US, but with that little bit of extra cultural sophistication on top, which makes all the difference.

The short films I watched were "Big Girl", "Skinheads", "The Magic Projector", "Virtual Virtuoso" and "Yellow Sticky Notes". All of these were very clever little films, and all of them - the sticky-notes one especially - were unique and entertaining expressions of clever ideas, which I really enjoyed watching. It's hard to discuss any movie this short without spoiling the plot and thus earning RJorb's ire once more, so suffice it to say that next time Lily invites me to a short film festival, I'll go.

Ip Man - No, this isn't a drama about delivering data packets, but rather the story of Grandmaster Ip Man, the first martial arts master to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun. This film is entirely in Chinese, and I really don't even know if you could find it in Australia; but if you can, you should go watch it!

I cannot recommend it enough: the martial arts scenes are just outstanding, and the plot and pacing of the movie were spot on. It was definitely the best thing I saw all trip. All that Wing Chun action made me want to go ninja some stuff again. I wonder whether I could find a way to integrate some of these moves...

Quiéreme - Having been on a roll with these World films, I tried this ... Belgian? Swiss? Spanish? I dunno, European... film next. Essentially, it's the story of a chef named Pancho whose young-at-heart lifestyle falls apart when he discovers in short order that he is a grandfather, and that his daughter has gone missing. He has to decide what's important to him, juggle a lot of difficult choices, and somehow piece together the life and motives of his vanished daughter while in turn taking care of her daughter.

More than anything, this film reminded me that real people are often more interesting, and their stories more powerful, than Hollywood bullshit. I'm a big fan of Hollywood bullshit, overall, but a simple, slow-paced, powerful story like this occasionally makes me wonder why.

The Pink Panther 2 - Speaking of bullshit, this was bullshit. Go hire the Peter Sellers films instead.

That's all I watched? Well, as I said, there was a lot of work to do. If you're looking for a recommendation, go see The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Anyways, its' time to get into the meat of things. Canada!

In order to really set the tone nicely, I recommend starting up the music player I've put together for you guys above. I must've listened to this album four or five times straight on the plane while I was doing my work, and I liked it enough to go buy it after. I think it makes an excellent accompaniment to the post.

After some Airport action, promising to meet up later with the various co-workers who accompanied us (whom I never saw again...), and standing in a long queue, Ash and I got in a big ol' taxi, and headed on down into Toronto.

The cab driver proved quite chatty, telling us about the CN Tower which stands at the heart of the city (which, after Centerpoint, Tokyo Tower, etc., we were starting to see as a pretty standard big-city feature), and about other fine landmarks such as the Skydome (purchased by the Rogers phone company and renamed to the "Rogers Center" ). Most of what I got out of his chatter was that there really wasn't much to see in Toronto, which was fine by me because I could barely see anyway after an 18 hour flight on 4 hours' sleep.

What I did see, however, reminded me a lot of Melbourne. That is to say, it was a rather modern city (although for whatever reason, it struck me as somewhat... dirtier... than Melbourne), full of trams, full of dudes who think they're pretty fashionable, full of gentrification, corporate glamour and multicultural dining opportunities. That sort of thing. Melbourne on the Great Lakes.

In fact, speaking strictly in terms of décor, the only significant difference I saw to our dear Melbourne was the fact that these people seemed to love the colour bright yellow. Say what you will about Australians, but we'll think twice before painting anything a glaring Pacman-yellow. Not so Canadians: street lamps, fire hydrants, stop lights at intersections, billboards, road markings, street signs, and a million billion bigass school buses, all a garish shade of yellow, all over the place. Perhaps, like bright yellow safety scissors, these simply represent a society that doesn't quite trust itself with the adult versions of, say, stop lights yet.

Regardless, the school buses are a culture unto themselves around here. They are literally everywhere. It seems as though they simply have so many bright yellow school buses, they simply don't have enough space to park them all. It would not be exaggerating to say that any Canadian road beyond a certain length is guaranteed to have a yellow school bus parked somewhere along it, often looking as though it hasn't actually moved in at least a solid century or two. Some of these buses seem to have been press-ganged into other work, presumably 'cause there could not possibly be enough schoolkids in the country to fill them. Not only are there a ton of different companies that seem to respray and convert these school buses for a variety of purposed, but I even saw one building which, aside from being surrounded by parked school buses, even used one for decoration by making a bad school-pun in the store's name and sticking the entire bloody bus up on the roof.

We soon arrived at our hotel, which is to say at the dingy-ass hotel Ashnil picked out for us. Given the luxury our co-workers were staying in, this place didn't exactly thrill anybody: the problem with getting Ash to book anything - even at someone else's expense - is that his low sense of self-worth tends to make him pick the crappiest stuff he can find. Just so our hotel: where the others had marble benchtops, we didn't even have a minibar. Where they had bus-boys and fluffy robes, we had school buses parked out front and couldn't work out how to start the shower.

Regardless, we weren't about to go to sleep anyway. The moment we got there, we met up with our good buddy Ben (a freakishly tall German of ill repute), and decided to have a night (well, day) on the town. Sure, I still hadn't had any sleep, and it had been some 20 hours by this point, but we were in Toronto, dammit: it was time to explore!

The first order of the day was to find a nice place to eat at, since aeroplane food is pretty universally known to be no better than chewing on the insides of your cheeks. In this respect, we found Toronto to be quite accomodating: just by picking a random street and going, we were spoilt for choice in nice places to eat.

Downtown Toronto was even more modern and shiny than anything I remembered from Melbourne, resembling parts of Tokyo in its department-store feel, high-rise buildings and annoying flashing billboards. In particular, the area around our hotel had the dubious distinction of being the single place in Toronto most tightly packed with glaring, luminous video billboards (one of which billed itself as the largest outdoor colour display in the country). As such, it was pretty tough to get lost, since from any sufficiently tall vantage point the harsh glare of neon would shine our way home.

Eventually, the lot of us miscreants stopped in at a very British little joint called the Duke of Somethington (well... it wasn't actually called "Somethington", but does it really matter the exact name?) and had us some fine colonial british cuisine. In retrospect, it's odd that - spoilt for choice as we were - we picked out the food of a country well-known for bad cooking, but our judgement was pretty well impaired at this point as the sleep deprivation mounted. I don't really remember what we ate, save that ketchup and cracked pepper were in abundant supply and ended up slathered all over everything (RJorb would love it here). In fact, most of what I remember about this dinner was that every one of us was talking, but I'll be damned if we were actually talking with each other. It was a lot like each of us was stringing together our own stream of consciousness with everyone else's in bizarre and loosely-coupled ways, leaving us laughing for no apparent reason and wondering what exactly any of us were talking about.

I'm surprised that they even served us alcohol in this state, since the waiter seemed quite bemused by our antics, but I suppose that's just how things go at the Duke... around noon... At any rate, given that I had to win the respect of our German cousins, and wasn't really thinking straight to begin with, I decided to take up Ben's offer of sharing a pitcher of their "finest local ale". This ended us up with a sour and watery local brew known as "Steam Whistle", which aside from having the dubious honour of being the first pitcher of beer I'd ever bought for my own consumption, did indeed taste of having been used to grease locomotives, and perhaps being collected from the whistle runoff.

Luckily, Ben seemed to like it, and after dutifully consuming about a third of the pitcher myself, I left him to it. All the while, of course, Ashnil was looking at both of us in his doe-eyed way, that twinkle in his eye as he sipped at his cola mute testament to the fact that he knew very well this vile swill was turning my stomach, and was enjoying every minute of it.

Not too long afterward, red-eyed, beered-up and still gibbering incomprehensibly, we emerged from the Duke to once again stalk the local streets, eagerly taking photographs of oddly-shaped roofs (which, upon reviewing the pictures... weren't actually unusual in any way, save for being somewhat dirty or having steam vents on them). It was at this point that we came upon a street festival in full swing.

My first thought, of course, was: "Does everybody have these bloody events except us?"

I'll be damned if I've ever just wandered outdoors in Australia, and ended up in the middle of a huge local celebration of some kind (or even just a small group of people dancing and playing accordeons). Whenever I am overseas, though, this kind of thing seems to happen all of the time. It doesn't matter where I'm at, or even what I'm doing: people around me seem to find excuses to have a good time, and do it in large groups. Back in Australia, as Ran knows very well, you can personally host and cater an excellent party in an attractive venue, doing all the work yourself, and you'd still have trouble getting more than five or six people to show up. Bloody Australians.

C'est la vie. Canada, at least, knows how to have a good time: as it happened, it turned out that there would be big ol' concerts and free performances (including several by Cirque de Soleil) happening during every day of our conference - and that we'd just barely missed a free circus performance an hour ago by walking away at the wrong time to go see the Duke.

Chagrined, tired and delirious, we left the street festival alone for the time being and decided to stake our claim on some seats the next day, to see some of those creepy clowns for ourselves.

We never did.

What the... Liv's traipsing Canada and America, and he decides to put up the last two days of his Japan series? What the buggery?

Well, as it happens, I've been wanting to finish this for a long time - since I got back, even. What with the chaos that is my usual life, however, I was always busy with something else. For me, these action-packed overseas trips, oddly, are some of the most relaxing periods of time that I get - and they afford me the rare opportunity to sit down and actually do some of the things I enjoy and want to do, but don't have scheduled in advance. Aside from that, with Ash out having new adventures in Japan (well, probably not, but potentially...), a fellow could get jealous if he didn't redirect his own reminiscing into another entertaining NWTJ post. Besides, I can hardly expect people to stay tuned to my Canadian postings if I earn a reputation for not finishing the job, so I figured the best way to show my commitment to giving you all a thorough accounting of my travels... was to finish the Japan posts first.

Besides, this Japan holiday was really something else. Particularly now that I've seen another two countries (besides my own) within the space of a few short months, it makes me appreciate all the more how incredibly concentrated the Japan experience was. Every day was like a new and different holiday, with a variety of novel sights and sounds all its own. I confess, also, that there a few nuggets I have been saving for this final wrapup post: impressions and stories I never did share, even when discussing my time in Japan, and some stuff even Ashnil hasn't heard. So hold on tight, and listen close, as I take you back on a journey to the recent past...

Day 16 - In which Liv goes up the wrong elevator

We awoke this morning to the hauntingly beautiful opera refrains of Will Smith's "Boom, Shake the Room". I think repeating it several times, my head echoing the words as I heard them slowly start to penetrate my sleep-numbed mind, really made me look at this piece of rhythmic poetry in a new way. If art can truly be judged entirely by its ability to be interpreted in new and thought-provoking ways, then Will Smith's halting attempts at pop-stardom can only be described in the same way as everything he's done since 1994: "Fresh".

It wasn't this fresh sound that truly awoke me, however, so much as Ashnil's primal, angry snuffling at noticing it. By the time he actually awoke, mind you, I was well and truly out of bed and almost finished preparing to go out (I'd had to hike the volume on my iPhone-beatbox way up, too)... but that before-time in which he wasn't quite awake, but just twisting his body into new shapes while snorting like a truffle-hog is one of those bizarre memories of Japan that will stay with me forever.

Incidentally, if "Boom, Shake the Room" can't wake him, I don't know WHAT he uses as an alarm clock back at home. Probably he just hooks the little hammer on an old-school alarm clock straight up to his head.

Our breakfast-journey this day took us back into the depths of Whitey's, where we again followed the strange series of landmarks that would lead us to the station. Down at the big red arcade, first left at the greenish fountain, up the orange tunnel incline, right at the blue flags where the sararymans like to hide and slurp their noodles, up the stairs with the white sign, past the affectionately termed "snot girls" (a series of young ladies cheerfully handing out packets of tissues every morning), down the smaller tunnel with the yellow sign, and then off to the left.

If they painted things consistent colours, I think I would be lost all over again.

Figuring our chances for gorging ourselves on delicious Japanese baked goods were about to come to an end, we took the train deeper into Osaka and immediately sought out the traditional train-bakery. You know the one I mean: the one that's always wafting the scent of fresh deliciousness right down the tunnel you always have to walk through. The squinty yellow bastards have it all planned out!

Since it was my last chance and all, I let them get away with it. In fact, despite gritting my teeth at the thought of the curry-melon-bread earlier, I repeated my scientific method of holding up various breads, examining them closely, and comparing them to half-remembered episodes of Shakugan no Shana, trying to decide whether these, at last, were the famous Melon Bread. By the Ancestors, I was definitely going to have at least one. Eventually, I made my choice. Given that her own melon bread was a scant centimeter across, I decided to spoil Shana-tan and let her have the first crack at it. She was so happy, she hardly knew where to start.

In her opinion, it was certainly a kind of Melon Bread, but nothing to write home about.

Eventually, several baked goods later, we moved on to our real objective. Where were we going, you ask?

That's a good question.

See, we were looking for a place called Den Den Town. It had been billed by Ashnil and the guidebooks as "Osaka's answer to Akihabara". As such, given the past evening's fruitless online search for properly saucy co-ed hot-springs nearby, I decided this was probably the next best way to spend my day. Judging from his pre-emptive drooling (over electronics but not hot springs?), Ashnil agreed. We both liked Akihabara a lot; so Den Den Town it would be. Apparently, a very popular place called Namba walk was right on our way, as well. Excited, we grabbed a map and rolled out!

This is where the trouble began. You see, not only was it difficult to tell where we were going, but it was raining terribly. Namba walk - billed as a fashion center, and the perfect place for 'people watching' - appeared to be deserted. Well, not entirely deserted: one man, clearly dedicated to being hip beyond all reason, was gamely dancing on in the rain, while watching himself in a big mirror.

Now, random knots of breakdancing youngsters seem to be extremely fashionable in Japan. You see them everywhere, and they have an amazing sense of community about them. Besides, the guys are good. Real good. But this dude wasn't like that, exactly: alone and jivin' to his own beat in the rain, with only a remarkably waterproof beat-box and his own reflection for company, he wasn't even breakdancing. I'm not sure what that was. Anyways, it was so bizarre that I just had to stop and watch for a while, if only on the off chance he would suddenly stop and just tell everyone (in English) exactly what he thinks he's doing over there. Or fall on his face.

Perhaps that's what the guides mean by 'people watching'. It was eerily fascinating, in an Ashnilly sort of way. I mean, we did stop and watch some of the dancing each time we went by. Of course, that mostly just made it 'person' watching for most of the day, notwithstanding that we did later get to see an actual breakdancer - a female one, in fact, in that awkward phase just before her breasts become too large for her to comfortably spin around upside-down while wearing a loose shirt.

In light of the part-breakdance part-bellydance style that she was evolving, let's just say the guidebook's choice of the term 'fascinating' was on the money with that one.

Beyond that, though, wandering Namba Walk, we didn't see a soul about. Even the fashion stores we did see were not terribly exciting. This was Osaka's fashion center? It was mostly just a big ol' highway with seedy-looking food joints on the side. Moreover, the map didn't match up at all. We began to wonder where Namba Walk was exactly, before we realised: it was in the Osaka Underground.

Almost completely by chance, we eventually stumbled over a tunnel entrance going down which happened to be labeled "Namba Walk" in a way we could actually read.

At any rate, the so-called 'people watching' there proved reasonably unsatisfying also. I did see some dudes who made my flesh crawl, and there were a couple of girls wearing tight T-shirts with words they probably didn't understand on them... but given that I didn't have Ashnil's lifetime of stalker-skills, my attempt at people-watching was reasonably fruitless. Ash, by contrast, apparently saw a great many hot young things, and enjoyed the trip greatly. Either those are X-Ray glasses he wears, or he just has a wider spectrum of hotness (or youth?) he likes watching; either way, I eventually dragged him outside to go find Den Den Town.

Of course, by this time, we had pretty much decided that our map was useless to us (not least because of rain damage). Naturally, we picked up another one. What struck us, however, quite immediately was that this map didn't line up with the first. Nor, in fact, did it line up with that of the flustered seven-eleven owner who tried to explain to us that we had walked five blocks in the wrong direction.

Nor did any of these three seem to match with the map we picked up next - notable for actually having Den Den Town on it prominently. This was a good thing because neither the storekeeps, nor the locals, nor even the poor snot girls, had any idea what we meant by "Den Den Town". We figured perhaps it was called something else here... but there it was, large as life, on this next map. Despite the fact that the map didn't look anything like the others, we felt validated. It was a real place. Or dimension. Later, we realised this map depicted the third layer of Osaka, Upper Osaka, practically a whole 'nother city raised high above street level.

We were carrying about five maps, and hopelessly lost, by the time we realised we had walked past the same lingerie store three times. This we mostly realised because every time we did walk past I made the same off-colour crack about buying Jinman some crisp, lacy panties (and Ashnil got the same horrified I'm-picturing-it look on his face).

Therefore, we decided to go in a completely different direction, and try to follow map number four. It turned out that no road existed where the map seemed to be leading us, however, and we ended up stuck in a department store, unable to find an exit until some friendly store girls, mystified by our situation, were kind enough to lead us out directly, and point us toward Den Den Town. We followed their directions exactly, and ended up back at the lingerie store.

In retrospect, perhaps they were hinting at something?

Regardless, it was evening by the time we actually decided we'd found Den Den Town: we had spent the better part of the entire day walking circles around Osaka. A further surprise was to come, however: Den Den Town seemed to sell nothing but cabbage, neon tubes, spinning emergency lights and old vinyl records. Having spent all day trying to get there, let's just say we were underwhelmed.

So, well, I did what I had done back in Akihabara to find all sorts of entertaining out-of-the-way nooks and crannies with hidden treasures, girls dressed as maids, and good prices. I ducked into an alley, and headed up the first elevator I saw.

With Ashnil getting edgy beside me, we visited a number of unmarked landings with locked doors which didn't look very much like shopfronts. I reminded him pointedly that we had used just this method back in Tokyo to find all of the best merchandise, and that he should just trust me. He replied that he would stay in the elevator and let me check the other floors myself if I really wanted. I rolled my eyes, punched the next floor button, waited, stepped out, cast a last dismissive glance at my cowardly companion, then lit up when I saw what looked to be an actual store on this level, and walked in the door.

Ten seconds later I was back in the elevator, furiously punching the 'down' button, and praying to Buddha (or whatever the God of Japan is...) that no-one had seen me enter. With Ashnil getting steadily more worried, I leapt out of the elevator, hooked his arm in my umbrella and dragged him out of the building, glancing back often and refusing to stop moving or answer his questions until we were well away from that entire neighborhood.

What I saw in that room I still haven't shared fully with anyone, although some folk have pieced together from my partial descriptions that I had stumbled into some kind of a tucked-away, hush-hush 'love-hotel supplies' store - or, more precisely, their showroom. You have only to look at what is considered 'mainstream' for love-hotels in Osaka (who proudly advertise that their facilities include schoolrooms with chains on the walls, torture chambers or unicorn-themed orgy halls) to get some idea of what sort of thing these people would consider illicit enough to hide away at the top of an unmarked elevator in a no-name part of town.

I really was terrified that they would follow me, do things to me, for spying on their secret activities... and so I grabbed Ashnil and I ran.

Every cloud has a silver lining, however. Our headlong dash brought us out of the side-streets and off the side of the apparently "not to scale" map we were following... well outside the hellhole we had mistakenly believed to be our destination, and right into the middle of the real Den Den Town.

As disturbing as the circumstances of our arrival may have been, we were elated to be there. Den Den Town glittered around us, every bit the nerd paradise we were expecting, and much much more.

As evidenced by the fact that guidebooks seem to consider it a tourist attraction just to stand and gawk at them, Osaka-siders seem to think differently to most Japanese folks, and Den Den Town was a perfect example of this thinking in action. It was rather as though someone here had heard of Akihabara in Tokyo and decided "we need something like that" without ever bothering to go look at the original. Therefore, just as Akihabara was the center of Electronics and Manga Culture in Tokyo, so too Den Den Town was the center of Elecrtonics and Manga Culture in Osaka; but where in Tokyo, 'electronics' refers to laptops, iPods and fancy watches, in Osaka it means bootleg auto-parts, neoprene and power-drills. Manga Culture in Tokyo means cute little figurines and comics with big-eyed girls. Manga Culture in Osaka means honest-to-goodness art galleries displaying wall-to-wall manga-style art.

Quite simply, they had taken every definition and expanded it, with the result that Tokyo's nerd paradise had here been reborn as a place so eclectic, so colourful, and so incredibly passionate about it all, that it was truly inspirational for us to experience.

People occasionally joke that a city was 'built on rock and roll' or some such drivel... but here in Den Den Town every brick, every tile, everything had been laid down for the same purpose. It was somebody's dream, a lot of people's dream, and it was self-sustaining. A place to escape from reality and shop-'til-you-drop yourself into another world, your every indulgeance feeding the living, breathing monster that had grown into Den Den Town.

The variety was amazing. Back in Tokyo, we had been astounded when small stores full of stuff we enjoyed would turn out to go up some eight storeys. Here in Osaka, those same stores were just as tall... but they had multiple storefronts, each with some eight separate stories of their own. Some of the unique ideas we came across, like the manga art print gallery (selling limited edition prints by famous artists or production houses), were even more interesting, breathing fresh life into the same ideas.

Where Tokyo had had a rack of realistic toy firearms, Osaka had municions stores so chock-full of realistic military hardware, uniforms, kevlar, etc., that they looked like army supply stores. Where Tokyo had a variety of kits of cars and sailing ships to put together, Osaka had entire fleets of battleships from every era, exquisitely handcrafted, and entire hardware stores full of tiny precision instruments, minuscule versions of the auto-parts outside, airbrushes, special paints, schematics, kits, motors, electronics, etc., for you to design, build and paint your own model cars. It was incredible. A million different new potential hobbies, interests and projects poured into my head, the tools of the trade, books, project ideas, magazines and examples laid out in neat rows to capture the imagination.

And, of course, there was all the familiar stuff: figurines, comics, blah, blah, blah, everything to feed your Anime obsession... it's just that all that stuff was overshadowed, almost, by the sheer number of other pursuits on offer. Where Tokyo was more consumeristic, I would say that Osaka focused on more creative pursuits: building figurines rather than buying them, for instance. The art dimension of manga rather than the most popular comics of the moment.

At any rate, we wandered Den Den Town until late at night, encouraged to leave only by the fact that even though we only had to find the closest railway station, we were still going to have a heck of a lot of trouble finding our way home.

We did find the station eventually, although I would be lying if I said we didn't get lost again on the way back. It just didn't particularly matter that we were lost, since any station would do for our purposes, and no amount of confusing maps could keep us from one of those since they were everywhere. The station we did eventually end up in was a fascinating place all on its own: quite unexpectedly, it doubled as an art gallery.

No Manga art this time, but long walls of replica paintings, apparently created through the use of some sort of advanced printing process to transfer original paintings onto thick ceramic tiles. Why ceramic, I have no idea - I wouldn't even have known about the ceramic part if I hadn't read some of the plaques. The originals of these paintings hang in a famous art gallery somewhere in the United States, but thousands of commuters walk past them every day, here, just as part of their commute to work. That is as baffling as it is brilliant, and I think more train stations ought to do it. What harm to throw a bit of education to the masses, eh?

Speaking of which, although we got back late at night, there was one thing left to see - and that was late-night Japanese edutainment. We got back to the hotel pretty worn out - in fact, I was too tired even to make my usual eyebrow-raising suggestions regarding the saucy storefronts that surrounded us. We weren't too tired, however, to flick on the TV, and what we saw would change our conception of learning forever.

In Japan, people need only turn on their television set in the evening, and they can learn anything their little hearts desire, from science through history and foreign languages, by means of the hijinx of a whole lot of cute girls and animated 3D pandas, or from game shows which - rather than reward knowledge of random trivia, or good guessing - reward one's knowledge in a particular subject area. I was amazed. Hilarious as it was to watch English-speakers say completely different words (which would be spelled the same in Japanese) and see the poor Japanese people unable to differentiate the words, it was clear this was a potent educational tool. They even show university-level lectures in the various sciences, as well as presenting scientific papers on TV at certain times! Instead of going in to school or uni every day, wouldn't you rather sit down for some TV in the evening and have a bevvy of attractive young ladies and giant pandas teach you whatever you need to know?

I know I would.

Day 17 - In which Liv loses his umbrella, but saves a girl's life

Today, being the high-flyin' travel-hounds that we were, Ash and I decided to have our breakfast in Himeji. I kid you not: such is the awesomeness of bullet trains, that we could decide on a whim to go eat breakfast in the shadow of Himeji Castle, if we so chose; and it didn't cost us a thing! We were intending to chow down on more delicious crépes, as on our last trip to Himeji, but some closed stores and the alluring pull of baking-scents (those sneaky Japanese!) assured that in time we substituted this idea with a new and better idea of devouring a sizeable quantity of delicious baked-goods.

Thereafter, we hopped back on the train and headed down some local lines to a lovely little place called Tatsuno, in Hyōgo prefecture. This should by no means be confused with the oldcity of Tatsuno, in Hyōgo prefecture, which despite having exactly the same name is (of course) a completely different place.

Tatsuno had the feel of being a quaint little village, despite actually being a remarkably large town with all the amenities. Upon alighting here, we had the acute feeling of being in the middle of nowhere. We certainly knew what we were here for: Tatsuno was celebrating the Sakura Matsuri, which translates to "Cherry Blossom Festival", and we had decided that there could be no better way to cap off our trip to Japan. What eluded us, however, is any idea of where we were going. As it happened, the town had not gone to the trouble of putting up gigantic billboards saying "IGNORANT FOREIGNERS GO THIS WAY"... or if it had, they'd probably spelled it more like "知らない外国人がこの方向に進まなければならない！", which didn't really help us any.

Luckily for us, the Sakura Matsuri attracts a sizeable population of Japanese natives (in fact, we were some of the exceedingly few gaijin to be found there), resulting in a reasonably obvious marching-ants trail of happy Japanese people. Given their infectious good cheer, however, I did want to make sure we were not inadvertently being drawn into a sign-holders' convention, so I spent half a minute in furious concentration, and managed to string together the sentence "Excuse me, madam, but my friend and I are looking for the Cherry Blossom Festival." I lacked the skills to finish the thought, so I followed that up with an exaggerated shrug, and more than a little vapid confusion on my face. The stooped old lady I targeted with this little gem of communicative ability replied by giving me a toothy grin, exclaiming a torrent of curious sounds which may have been a suggestion that we follow her, and waggling her cane excitedly in my direction.

We took this as confirmation of sorts, although we eventually moved on to following the line of people, given that the old lady didn't exactly have much hustle to her, and we didn't have a week of festival to look forward to as she did. Putting on some speed, we struck deep into the heart of Tatsuno, a pair of wandering Samurai eventually serving as suitable proof that we had gone the right direction. After a bit of a photo-op, we continued up the hill towards the temple and its majestic surrounds.

One thing I should mention about Tatsuno was that unlike in the various big cities we had been touring, there was little to see here that wasn't distinctly Japanese in its appearance and flavour. From the houses to the various walled complexes to the school we were able to peer into from high above, everything looked like it had been puzzled together from old Japanese movies and anime backdrops. More-so even than in Kamakura, we had the feeling of having stepped right into the idealized picture of urban Japan we were familiar with from a hundred different stories - except that it wasn't idealised: everything was exactly the way it was portrayed in their imagery, down to the beautiful neighborhoods, the cherry blossoms, and the neat little gardens full of tiny trees. It made the whole place feel warm and familiar, like an old shoe full of merry yellow people.

Well, no, probably not very much like that at all.

The Sakura Matsuri was in full swing by the time we got there, even though we arrived fairly early. Families here went well beyond our Australian "shrimp on the barbie", using portable gas stoves and a variety of cooking implements to throw up great clouds of savoury smoke. Fathers and mothers cooked up a storm of sizzling seafood delectations as their extended families lounged on big blue tarps and watched the cherry blossoms bloom. All around, children and adults in fancy, multi-coloured armour raced this way and that, assembling into units, barking orders, and generally organizing into a massive parade that blanketed the entire shrine area, filling it with smiling children, colourful clan banners and a few remarkably unexcited Japanese horses who, presumably, had seen it all before.

Here, Ash and I essentially parted ways. It wasn't something we discussed, but mostly a function of differing priorities. I, for one, wanted to try out every ice cream flavour and eat a squid on a stick. Whenever I saw Ashnil wandering about, it was with his massive camera hanging at crotch-height, the telephoto lens extending suggestively to just about double its length whenever he caught sight of a pretty young girl. I wisely stayed away.

I wasn't really sure when the actual parade would start, and the ways were soon clogged with parade-marchers to such an extent that I figured it had to be happening soon, so I took advantage of the lull to pick myself out a good vantage point. My initial thought was to head up to the temple and watch the parade from above, but this did not work out so well given the temple being off-limits due to parade preparations. It did result in some fine photo-op chances, however, as I got to watch the Mysterious Shiny Temple Thing™ get hauled out for our parade-viewing pleasure. While I'm not exactly sure what the deal is with that, I did know from a weird Japanese cheerleading game for the DS that it was quite the honour to hold the big shiny thing, and that everyone in the procession behind it has earned that honour in some way. Behind it marched a variety of temple types with what looked like foxes on sticks, and a bunch of high school students in uniform, who presumably were some sort of honour students, prefects or SRC.

Behind them, around them, above them, and just about everywhere the ground was firm enough marched Liviu, getting some quality parade photoes from a variety of angles; then eventually realising that they were just getting into position, and the parade hadn't actually started yet.

Not for the first time this trip, I cursed my lack of wide-angle lens. There were so many people in so many colours and costumes absolutely filling this temple complex to the brim, that it was unfortunate I couldn't get a picture that truly captured the vastness of this celebratory parade.

I did, however, do what I could to get a whole lot of quality pictures of the event - which I'm happy to share with anyone who's interested. Many of these, I got by climbing up precarious slopes, hanging on by the hook of my umbrella, and taking panoramic or zoom shots of parts of the crowd. I'm sure many of the Japanese families around me figured I was either crazy or a journalist, or both, but it did net me some nice photos. It also allowed me to evade the crush of native Japanese photographers, who numbered in the hundreds and surrounded every photo-worthy target thickly, their gigantic cameras and massive extendable lenses more over-the-top even than Ashnil's. I felt somewhat overmatched by the thousands of dollars of camera equipment every one of them seemed to be carrying, but I doubt if many of them got half as many good photoes as I did just by perching as high-up as I could go.

It wasn't too much longer until the parade was in full swing, and the people began to move out. Having gotten quite enough overhead shots, I decided to maneuver my way into the path of the parade and get some shots of them marching past. Unfortunately, I quite failed to understand just how many Japanese folk were attending this parade: despite the fact that the path they would follow wended its way through just about this whole section of Tatsuno, nevertheless every single nook and cranny was jam-packed with camera-wielding Japanese folk, each of them fiercely territorial and with giant-er camera equipment than mine.

Thus, I didn't really end up able to take a great many quality photoes of the parade going by, but I did get to watch in amazement at just how many people made it up: the parade proceeded by age-groups, with each age-range of children grouped into a different clan group, with a different flag and differently coloured uniforms. The kids were led by fancily-attired Samurai who were leading them in a repeated shout of what sounded like "IT IS OOON!" or maybe "GET IT ON!". I still don't know what they were actually saying, but they sounded very excited about it. The marching adults, by contrast, were not terribly cheerful. With an air about them of having done this a million times and gotten terribly sick of it all, they shouted their catchcry with visibly reduced enthusiasm, which may explain why they ushered all the children out ahead of them. Behind those fancy soldiers came the procession of Shiny Temple Thing™ bearers, their accompanying green-clad temple types with the fox-tails on sticks, then the school children in uniform, a variety of drums and things, and finally the Samurai on horseback.

This procession marched its way through town in a winding path, ending their mighty parade at the foot of the castle-like town wall which led to a raised traditional garden which was chock-a-block with picnickers and cherry blossom trees. Here the Japanese photographer types clustered most thickly, gathered to snap Miss Tatsuno (the winner of today's beauty competition) and the entirety of the parade, as they gathered beneath the city wall.

Here, not even my trick of clambering up to high places could secure me a good vantage point free of crazy Japanese photographers, because even the high places were being camped by old men with super-expensive cameras - nor, I realised, did I still have my umbrella to hang off things with. At some point, I must have left it hanging on an awning or a tree somewhere back at the temple. And so, I was left vying with the masses to stake my claim to a perch somewhere with good vantage. This took a bit of work and a lot of clambering, but luckily my much smaller camera and much lighter build allowed me to eventually wedge myself up on a high perch right in front of the gates, squashed up against a couple of old men, a woman who looked like she would've liked to get down if she could find a way out, and a number of children who - like me - occupied the very edge of the crumbling masonry, and jostled each other alarmingly.

Shortly thereafter, the parade began to pour into the square in a seemingly well-rehearsed arrangement. I also got a glimpse of both Miss Tatsunos, the competition having apparently yielded two winning beauties considered equally worthy, and got to see the Samurai blowing their conch shells, and a variety of other little rituals I didn't really understand. Below, annoying photographers in ugly-ass shirts competed to get in the way of my framing good pictures, but my high vantage point was sufficient to cut out most of them, and get a great view of all the pageantry as it happened.

Behind me, the small children - apparently bored - had seemingly decided that this precarious position was the perfect place to bring out their respective hoards of Yu-Gi-Oh cards and get some serious trading on. As such, numerous small boys were laying out their card collection in some sort of order, haggling like fishmongers and stepping backwards to lay down more cards without apparent regard for the crumbling wall-top on which they were standing. A tiny little girl who was maybe four years of age, meanwhile, leaned out over the edge to watch the other children frolick below. Her limbs were positively minuscule, and she was wearing what looked like tiny flowery pajamas; I remember thinking that my mother had a porcelain doll which wasn't much smaller than her, and being amazed that a real, functioning human being could be so very little.

Now, if you know me (or have ever tried to teach me defensive driving), you know that my brain is always measuring the most unlikely possibilities about any given situation, and treating them as if they were not just possible but likely. This isn't terribly useful when I overlook the most obvious things because I'm focusing on what might happen in some obscure circumstance (thanks for your patience, Dad... ), but in this case it did mean that rather than watching the parade more closely or wondering how I might get down (or why the flagstone under me felt so unsteady...), I happened to be thinking at that precise point in time: "If that little girl goes plummeting off the wall... would I be able to catch her?"

Not only was I thinking this, but I had actually freed up one of my hands, presumably to measure the distance between us or something (who knows how my mind works? Not I...). Whatever my subconscious thought process may have been, however, this occurred about half a second before one of the little boys - the one I thought of as her brother - took a small step backward, absorbed in his trading-card marketeering, and inadvertently gave his sister a light shove. Given her feather-weight and dangerous position, this was more than enough to push her forward in a way that would almost certainly have made her plummet to her death on the flagstones below.

Except I caught her arm.

It was a simple thing. One moment she was stumbling forward, the next she was back on her feet, watching eagerly as the people went by down below. She didn't look at me, nor even smile. She just kept looking down. I don't think she even realised she had been in any danger. Certainly the little boy never noticed, nor any of the old guys with their eyes to Canon or Nikon lenses as thick as your arm.

I wanted to say something. Something like "please be careful", or "you could have killed your sister, you little bastard"... but I didn't know the words. So I just tucked away my camera after brushing it off and checking it over a little (since it had taken a bit of a smack against the stonework when I let go of it to grab her). Then I sat down on the edge of the wall with my legs out over the side, and edged a little closer to the little girl and her brother. I kept my hands free, just in case.

Once the parade had dispersed, I was free to observe the remainder of the festival. Back at the temple, a new procession had formed, this time consisting of the older women of the town. Where the young ones played soldier, and the older ones competed for the title of Miss Tatsuno, the older ladies of town had their own contribution to make to the festival. Gussied up in a Geisha-like style, they too walked in a number of groups, each of which had their own colour. They carried odd little clapper instruments, and were walking in a slow, elegant dance, clicking their clapper thingies at intervals and occasionally producing other small instruments. All around them, speakers played "Hana Matsuri" (Flower Festival) songs, or played back the music of a small number of traditional musicians who were performing in a raised wooden box up by the temple.

They moved very slowly, and I had plenty of time to clamber up into the woods above the path they took, to try to get some pictures from above. Unfortunately, this didn't work so terribly well this time around, and all I got was a splinter in the hand for my trouble. The cherry blossoms and such weren't really in the right positions to use them to frame the line of dancing Geishas in a nice vignette photograph, and the mountainside was so steep that it actually took me some time to get back down.

The Geisha parade ended in a different spot: namely, in the midst of the traditional festival stalls. This wasn't a huge festival (apparently... it seemed pretty big to me), so the selection of stalls was reasonably limited. I did see all the staples, however... excepting only the goldfish-catching stalls these festivals are supposed to have. Unfortunately, the fishing was limited to catching bouncing balls in a cup, which seemed a lot less challenging to me.

In exploring this section, I was able to enjoy a variety of interesting festival foods. In particular, Japan appears to have four key flavours of ice-cream to our three. Every ice cream brand or place worth anything at all in Australia will at the very least offer Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla. In Japan, however, this must-have list includes one other flavour: Melon.

If you've never had Melon ice cream, I can only say that I have no idea why it doesn't seem to be mainstream anywhere else. The moment you eat Melon ice cream, you can't help but think "Of COURSE. This flavour was MADE for ice cream". It was basically like a cross between rock-melon and cantaloupe, except even more cool and refreshing.

I also got to indulge another culinary-wish-list article. You see, beyond the McHottuDogu and Takoyaki I had already had, there was one other must-have item I simply had to try. I would go so far as to say that it was part of my reason for trying so hard to find a festival we could attend (because, according to Ash's comprehensive guidebooks, there actually were no festivals within the period of our visit). This, of course, was the Squid on a Stick.

This must-have culinary item is pretty much what it says. It's a squid. It's on a stick. Basically, they baste it in all kinds of fabulous spices, cook it on a hot-plate for a while, then shove a stick through it and marinate the heck out of it. Without meaning to brag, I am quite the squid connoisseur. The moment I put it in my mouth, I knew I was dealing with quality.

That was before I tried to chew it. Chewing, you will find, is a whole 'nother matter. It's not easy to chew a squid, on or off the stick. Gnawing at it kept me busy for a while.

As to the rest of the festivities, there was plenty to see. Mostly, of course, the festival is rather a sedate one outside of the parading: people sit about on big blue mats and eat a whole lot of seafood (with or without putting it on sticks first). There were a variety of interesting cultural antics in evidence, however. In particular, there was one large knot of young men who - as I was wandering by trying to bite through my squid - began engaging in some manner of masculine ritual which consisted of tearing off their shirts, grabbing what looked like a bunch of large wooden clubs, and proceeding to laugh uproariously as they beat the hell out of each other, then picked each other up and crowdsurfed to the booze, where each of them would down a heck of a lot of alcohol, and the beatings would begin again.

I can't say for certain whether this was some kind of tradition, or just everyday college-male idiocy.

Outside of my cultural observations, I largely just wandered the stalls looking at trinkets, and explored around the town itself. Tatsuno was home to a variety of intriguing tourist hot spots, such as Tatsuno Castle, and the (apparently famous) Tatsuno Light-Coloured Soy Sauce Museum. There just wasn't enough time in the day to see them all, but what I did wander of the town was very interesting. Not long after, however, it was time to find Ashnil-san and head on home. By the time I had muscled my way through that squid on a stick, the time had come to leave here, and prepare for our flight home.

It was with trepidation that we returned to the confusing walkways and sleazy surrounds of Osaka, looking with an almost motherly fondness at all of the weird sex stores and tucked away shrine thingies that surrounded our Hotel. Now that we were leaving, every stone, every street-sign, every brightly-coloured catgirl hooker, hit us with a profound sense of loss and nostalgia.

It was that kind of night.

Our packing was over quickly, and dinner was plain but delicious. Soon, we began to feel the reality of the situation: our sojourn in this distant, bizarre country had come to an end. Tomorrow, we went home, flying back to Australia.

Accustomed as I was to sampling every drink on offer in Japan's wacky vending machines, I pulled out some of my last few Japanese Yen, and bought myself yet another completely incomprehensible drink-bottle. Tonight, it was an "Alligator", which was some kind of melony energy drink with an aftertaste like spring onion, which came in a green, scaly glass bottle. It was to be my last bizarre Japanese drink. Just one more, for the road.

It was disgusting, of course. Completely disgusting; but that didn't worry me. In that place, at that moment, for that brief piece of time: it tasted like liquid gold.

The new Magic core set is being released, exactly one week before the Australian National Championships.. this means I need new cards, and the cards don't go on sale in stores until the day I'm supposed to start playing at nationals..

With this in mind, I'm inviting you all to come play at the prerelease event in the CBD, where you will all have fun and beat up people in children's card games, and I will score lots of cards (hopefully).

DETAILS:

• Date: 11 July 2009
• Time: 09:30 - 15:00 (- 20:00 for 2nd flight)
• Location: Sydney CBD: Grace Hotel (York St)

As far as I can afford, I will be paying for you guys to play. It's $35 each, you get 6 boosters to build your sealed deck with. 1 booster prize for turning up (first timers) and 4 boosters for competing in the tournament (casual flight prizes are good! :D ) This totals 11 boosters worth of cards for $35, which is a good deal for me to buy off you, or you can pay for yourself and keep them (and hopefully lend me any cards I need ^^)

It'll be a good day out, there are 2 times to choose from (or both, if you like it that much!) and the new set promises to be entertaining and fun, and a little easier to play than original magic (they simplifying some rules).

Regarding The RANLAN below, I hope some of you would like to come play cards anyway, then head to the LAN after.. the 9:30am tournament finishes around 3:30-4pm, so it's still goodly amounts of time to head up to the LAN afterwards.

As I have already discussed with most of you, it is coming up to the next RanLAN.

Now the NWTJ attendance at RanLAN 2009 II was very disappointing, but I am hoping for better attendence this time.

The details are as follows:

When: July 11th and 12th 2009
Where: My house
Why: Because gamrong is much better when there are people about.
What to bring: Computers, network cables, mouse pads and money for food.

Plans for particular games are welcome. There is of course a book of faces event for this too.

Hey Guys,

This is just a quick open invitation to all and sundry to get a general idea of who would be interested in making a trip to the snow (Thredbo in particular) in July.

The tentative plans are the moment are:
When: 17th-19th July
What:
    Friday: Leaving Sydney at 6pm from Central Bus Terminal, getting into Jindabyne quite late
    Saturday/Sunday: Skiing/Boarding/Whatever you want
    Sunday: Travel home, getting into Central quite late
Who: Anyone who is interested
How Much: At this stage if we go with Oz Snow Adventures it will be $468, which covers:

• Transport there and back
• Transport to the snow
• National Park fees
• Accomodation for 2 nights
• Breakfast each morning
• Dinner on Saturday night
• Lift passes for 2 days
• Ski, pole and boot rental for 2 days

{Note: This post reads from bottom to top, all of the preceding turns maps can be found here}

Turn 10

The battle began with the two armies facing off against one another across the entirety of the battlefield, Dwarven artillery being primed even as the Lizardman host marched forward as one.



Cannonballs, bolts, bullets and shrapnel flew forward from the entrenched Dwarves, but while many Lizardmen were unfortunate enough to be caught in the blasts, these casualties did little to deter their march on the Dwarves. A small contingent of Terradons stole past the Dwarven gunline and descended into the northern woods, ready to dive upon the Dwarven war machines. Xa'Bupi, the Skink general of the forces, took to the skies and joined one of the Saurus units, not fancying the thought of being stuck with his disposable brothers.



On the western flank, the Saurus Cavalry were in position to begin their charge into the side of the Dwarves, while on the Eastern flank the Terradons struck, disabling the Dwarves' Organ Gun, though at no small cost. In the center of the battlefield, the Saurus and their Skink comrades marched ever onward, and with the Dwarves in range of their blowpipes, the Skinks let loose a hail of poisoned darts upon the Dwarven warriors, inflicting only a handful of casualties. Swarms of lizards and snakes interposed themselves before the Ironbreakers, hissing threateningly and blocking their path to any of their larger brethren. The Dwarven artillery continued to rain down, killing the Kroxigors with one of the Skink regiments, but causing insufficient damage to give the Lizardmen pause.



The flank forces charged in, slaughtering the Dwarven ranged troops and engaging the Dwarven Warriors. The Saurus in the center backed off slightly, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. Meanwhile, the few surviving skinks from the Eastern screen took shelter in the nearby barrio, while the last surviving Terradon dropped several boulders upon the crew of the remaining Bolt Thrower, to little effect, and was soon shot down. The Ironbreakers charged forth, trampling through the jungle swarms in their way and crashing into the barrio, causing the skinks sheltering their to quickly regret their decision.



The Ironbreakers made short work of the Skinks in the barrio, but left themselves open to a rear charge by the Skinks. Between the surprise and the two Kroxigor in the Skink ranks, the Ironbreakers held their ground but could not mount an effective resistance. Meanwhile, the Saurus Cavalry pushed into the Warriors who had turned to face them, and broke through into the Longbeards. Against the combined ferocity of the Saurus Warriors and Cavalry, the Longbeards fought bravely but ultimately did not last long. Xa'Bupi directed his unit of Saurus Warriors to move towards the flank of the Ironbreakers so as to clear the last of the Dwarven forces.



The Saurus Cavalry overran a great distance and were able to take the Ironbreakers in the flank alongside the Saurus Warriors led by Xa'Bupi, while the Skink Regiment in the north engaged the bolt thrower crew. Faced with overwhelming odds, the remaining Dwarves found themselves surrounded and kept on swinging to the last.



The lizardman armies pressed on grimly, leaving the hills carpeted with beards.

It seems to me like someone needs to drop Elo's 4chan bullshit off the front page, and so it has fallen to me.

And what better way for me to do that than to tell you all about the dark times that are coming for humanity, and to give you the reassurances you need to not lose hope?

Now, we all know the world is ending three years from now, but that apocalypse is still too far away for humanity's most hateful arch-nemesis: the deadly, burninating hordes of Blue Laser. Luckily for us, there have always been brave heroes who may be fighting for freedom (and are each sold separately). Probably battling evil, for years they have kept us safe from the blue laser menace... but no longer!

You read correctly, my fellow NWTJites: no longer content with subliminal messages, Blue Laser has created their next cunning weapon of destruction, which is close to becoming reality! Thanks to lavish bribes to the foolish so-called scientists at our unwitting campuses of higher learning, research is in progress to fashion blue laser light into a powerful hypno-ray to turn you and yours into the mindless pawns of the Establishment.

Coupled with evolving scientific research into the creation and domestication of undead zombies, it's clear to see that there is a silent coup in the works, and we can trust no-one. The future may very well consist of tightly packed cities of the Living Dead, controlled from a central location by blue laser light. Ask yourself, do you trust the government with such power? When the forces of supervillainy raise their ugly heads to subjugate Earth, who shall stand? Who CAN stand against such terrible power?

Even if the government is on our side, they simply haven't got the resources to fight against this menace: with the world's most militarily advanced nation already busy fighting a War on Drugs, a War on Terror, a War on Porn, and a variety of other wars to boot, it's ridiculous to expect them to be able to help you against such a truly diabolical enemy... or to expect their secretly corrupt, untrustworthy mass-media to tell you the horrible truth!

Don't be afraid, however - there's no need to get worked up. The answer should be obvious from any number of Saturday morning cartoons: the world is crying out for superheroes. The time for make-believe is over: it's time to take matters into your own hands. Forget competent armed forces, democratic government, gun control laws, proper training, due process and personal hygene - the time has come to don spandex, dip yourself in a vat of whatever volatile substance is handy, join the World Superhero Registry, get your butt out of the house, jump in your superhero-mobile and start fighting crime!

If you're not of prime crime-fighting potency, don't have a latter-day superpower, and are unwilling to experiment with radioactivity, there is still hope, however. Escape into another world may be possible, provided that you can sufficiently deaden your brainwaves to resist the mind-control beams and convincingly masquerade as one of the living dead when they come for you. Some of us have more practice at this than others, but I trust that all of NWTJ will band together when the end comes.

Beyond that, of course, there is the spiritual option: as we know from TV, no amount of dread mind-control power can compete with the mental and psychic strength of a true believer, and those anointed by God need not fear the undead. There has never been a better time to let Jesus into your life, and there has never been a more effective medium for achieving such enlightenment than Lego. Go and learn from the Gospel, my children, and ye shall be saved!

Understandably, not all of us consider escape into MMORPGs a preferable alternative to life as a laser-zombie, however, and not everyone can unthinkingly buy in to the kind of crazy ass bullshit associated with Christianity. Oh ye of little faith! Fear not, for you can still be saved: all you need is exposure to a simpler, more internally consistent religion and you too can be repelling mind-control beams and pronouncing grim judgement upon the undead with the most Holy.

One such religion of power and convenience is Factology, also known as "Nuwaubu". It may be a little difficult to get in initially, but it's well worth the time you save overall. It's not blasphemy to want to save a bit of time when the fate of the world is at stake, is it? Of course not! It's a fact that when you're having trouble with blind acceptance, it is best to limit the amount of obscure tenets that you have to recall and convince yourself of. So here's the good news: Nuwaubianism is so easy, anyone can play! If you can make yourself believe that black people used to be green and that our planet is hollow and inhabited on the inside by "underground people", you're as good as a Nuwaubian priest. Faithfully accept that a meteor crashing into the Earth changed the human race into what it is today, that everyone has 7 clones, and that humans are the product of Martian cloning experiments, and you might as well be an apostle. Now grab a shotgun, bless some water, and get ready for the hard part.

Survival!

I don't think anything more needs to be said

[Spoiler] [/spoiler]

A qüîck üpdaŧe for ŧhose wonderîng how mÿ Chaos hordes were doîng down here în Mehîco.

I had hoped ŧo fînd a coüpŀe of oŧher peopŀe ŧo pŀaÿ WH wîŧh în mÿ home ŧown, sînce ŧhere was a reasonabŀe sîżed cŀüb în Wagga Wagga (whîch has a sîmîŀar popüŀaŧîon). Unforŧünaŧeŀÿ I've onŀÿ managed ŧo fînd 1! oŧher person who pŀaÿs WH and ŀîves near me. Thîs îs probabŀÿ düe ŧo ŧhe proxîmîŧÿ of ŀarger ŧowns nearbÿ, îe Baŀŀaraŧ and Meŀboürne, and aŀso becaüse of socîo-economîc facŧors (wesŧern sübürbs ÿo!). I've been aŀong ŧo a coüpŀe of gamîng cŀübs în boŧh of ŧhe aforemenŧîoned cîŧîes büŧ have had a specŧacüŀar ŀack of süccess în pŀaÿîng anÿ WFB games. (I've onŀÿ managed ŧo pŀaÿ one, whîch I ŀosŧ, freakîn' dancîng Wood Eŀves!)

Sînce everÿone eŀse seems ŧo be pŀaÿîng 40K aŧ ŧhe momenŧ I fîgüre ŧhaŧ I had beŧŧer sŧop beîng so precîoüs aboüŧ WFB and dîg oüŧ mÿ Tÿranîds agaîn. Raŧher ŧhan aŧŧempŧîng ŧo vaînŀÿ müddŀe mÿ waÿ ŧhroügh wîŧhoüŧ knowîng ŧhe rüŀes of ŧhe new edîŧîon (5ŧh) I organîsed mÿseŀf a copÿ of ŧhe rüŀe book earŀîer ŧhîs week. Havîng waded ŧhroügh a ŀoŧ of ŧhe rüŀes and skîmmed ŧhe resŧ I ŧhoüghŧ I'd share mÿ ŧhoüghŧs wîŧh anÿ ŊWTJîŧe who mîghŧ be înŧeresŧed:

• Ŧhe big häŗdcőveŗ ŗulebőők is veŗy well pŗeseñted tő äppeäl tő ñew pläyeŗs, it lőőks like the kiñd őf thiñg thät sőmeőñe ñew tő the hőbby cőuld ŗeäd by themselves äñd pŗetty much get the gist őf the hőbby. It häs ŗeälly bäsic iñtŗőductőŗy bits expläiñiñg stäts, bättle ŗepőŗts äñd ső őñ. PŠ. I bőught the big ŗulebőők ŗätheŗ thäñ the pőcket-sized őñe cős I like the fluff äñd pŗetty pictuŗes, őf which theŗe äŗe quite ä few iñcludiñg äwesőme dőuble päge spŗeäds őf Cőmőŗŗägh äñd Cŗäftwőŗld Iyäñdeñ.
• Overaŀŀ ŧhe rüŀes seem ŧo have been sŧreamŀîned somewhaŧ, and Tÿranîds seem ŧo faîr preŧŧÿ weŀŀ.
• Targét priority is goné, so no moré distraçting Ŀd10 Néçrons from thé onçoming Généstéalérs with a çaréfully plaçéd Sporé Miné. Howévér intérvéning modéls (énémy or friéndly) givé a 4+ çovér savé, whiçh is gréat, éspéçially for Ŀiçtors hiding béhind othér Tyranids, 2+ çovér savé FTW!
• Eveŗyőñe cäñ ŗuñ D6" iñsteäd őf shőőtiñg, but őñly fleet uñits cäñ ässäult äfteŗ this mőve. Miñimäl impäct főŗ Ŧyŗäñids, but it helps ässäult Cäŗñifexes (like miñe) tő get tő the täŗget äñd mäy ällőw Lictőŗs tő ŗedeplőy ä bit iñ the tuŗñ they äŗŗive.
• Bŀasŧ weapons no ŀonger roŀŀ ŧo hîŧ as üsüaŀ, însŧead ÿoü pŀace ŧhe bŀasŧ marker and scaŧŧer 2D6-BS". Thîs îs brîŀŀîanŧ for me as I goŧ qüîŧe sîck of shooŧîng güns wîŧh BS3 ŧhaŧ onŀÿ ever pŀaced ŧheîr ŧempŀaŧe of 2+ deaŧh 50% of ŧhe ŧîme, aŧ ŀeasŧ ŧhîs waÿ I've aŀwaÿs goŧ a chance of hîŧŧîng someŧhîng. Parŧîaŀ hîŧs from bŀasŧs have aŀso been removed, heŀpîng Spore Mînes aŀong ŧoo.
• Assaults havé béén stréamilinéd a bit and madé moré déadly, assaultéd units pilé in béforé thé fighting starts for gréatér çarnagé and çasualty rémoval is similar to WFB, ié you béat up on thé guys in front of you but çasualtiés çan bé takén from thé baçk. Thankfully this rémovés thé possibility of gétting an awésomé CC unit (liké Généstéalérs) into çlosé çombat, kiling évéryoné within réaçh and thén going "WTF? Am I still in çombat?" as happénéd to mé in thé last édition. Đisappointingly çombat rés is baséd éntirély on wounds çauséd, so outnumbéring péoplé by 4:1 doésn't do squit any moré.
• Reñdiñg gőt ñeŗfed siñce it gőt häñded őut tő mőŗe äñd mőŗe Cődexes iñ the läst editiőñ (ñőtäble cäses beiñg the Špäce Mäŗiñe Assäult Cäññőñ [îe Lîcŧor Gün] and Slaanésh Đaémonéttés). It now instagibs on a 6 to wound, rathér than to hit and only adds Đ3 éxtra véhiçlé pénétration. I'll prédiçt now that Féél No Pain will bé thé Ůnivérsal Spéçial Rulé to bé nérféd in 6th éd. It givés an éxtra 4+ savé against wounds that arén't çauséd by powér wéapons or Instant Đéath and sééms to bé in évéry néw Codéx that çomés out (uséd to only bé on Khorné Bézérkérs, now Ørk Nobs on Bikés çan gét it, as çan Impérial Guard Command Squads with médiçs).
• Killiñg vehicles häs chäñged sőmewhät, theŗe is őñly 1 dämäge täble ñőw, with ä -2 mődifieŗ főŗ gläñciñg hits. Rämmiñg häs beeñ ŗeiñtŗőduced(?) which wőuld be fuñ, but I dőñ't häve äñy vehicles. Ŧhäñkfully killiñg vehicles häs gőtteñ eäsieŗ iñ ässäults äs yőu älwäys hit the ŗeäŗ äŗmőuŗ (usuälly AV10)!
• Scenarîos have been revamped, însŧead of 5 sŧandard scenarîos ŧhere are 3 depŀoÿmenŧ maps and 3 mîssîons, gîvîng a cŀever 9 combînaŧîons. Onŀÿ Troops can hoŀd objecŧîves whîch ŀeads ŧo haŧe shown for ŀîsŧs wîŧh Troop-spam?! Unforŧünaŧeŀÿ one of ŧhe mîssîons, Annîhîŀaŧîon, îs ŧoo sîmpŀîfîed ŧo be faîr. To save spoŧŧÿ ŧeenage boÿs ŧhe ŧroübŀe of addîng üp Vîcŧorÿ Poînŧs, însŧead each ünîŧ/vehîcŀe/characŧer îs worŧh 1 Kîŀŀ Poînŧ, mosŧ Kîŀŀ Poînŧs scored îs ŧhe wînner. There's a bîŧ of a probŀem here as ÿoü pŀaÿ games accordîng ŧo a seŧ vaŀües of poînŧs (and hence VPs) raŧher ŧhan eqüaŀ Kîŀŀ Poînŧs. Consîderîng ŧhaŧ boŧh a sîngŀe Spore Mîne, worŧh <10pts that blows up intentionally when you touch it, and a Necron Monolith, which is >200pts of living-métal, sélf-répairing, çovéréd-in-guns, Néçron-téléporting, you-çan't-kill-mé goodnéss, aré both worth éxaçtly 1 Kill Point I think you'll agréé that théy might'vé simplifiéd this oné a tad too muçh.
• Mőŗe äs they cőme tő me...

This month is May Mission Month at my Church. The church decides on a number of worthy humanitarian causes around the world to support.

One of these causes is helping poor people in Cambodia who have been illegally displaced from their homes in Phnom Penh. Basically wealthy private interests want to develop on land in the city so they get their corrupt mates in government to bulldoze the homes of poor people. These people are then dumped outside the city to fend for themselves. This is a gross injustice!

As you can imagine its very hard for these people to adapt to their new situation, living in a slum far on the outskirts of the city. The Smiles in the Slum project that my church is supporting this month is raising money to care for the children that have been evicted. They will be supervised, fed and educated during the day while their parents go to and from the city for work.

I am supporting this project through the "[Bike] Ride against Poverty" with other men from Gymea Baptist Church this Sunday. If you would like to sponsor me in this endeavour then you can either drop round to my place with your donation no later than Saturday, make a transfer to my bank account (details via email for those interested), or I'll take an IOU. Alternatively you could give directly to the project through the link below.

You can get more information about the Smiles in the slum project from the Gymea Baps website.

This YouTube video may also be of interest if you want more information about the need for this project.