For most of us, the procedure with which we check if our luggage is over the limit is three-fold:
1) we hop onto a bathroom scale, noting (possibly reluctantly) our weight
2) we pick up our bags and note the combined weight of body+bag
3) subtract (1) from (2) and get the magic number

optional step (4) repack as necessary

Some bright spark has devised a much easier way to do this without all the chicanery.
This little tension spring device weighs your bag without the need for bathroom scales and the hopping on and off it entails. I suppose this is useful if you don't already have a bathroom scale and have the tendency to overpack. Not so useful if you already have a scale and can't really be bothered to pick up a dedicated luggage-weighing thingamabob. Hmm ... maybe you could weigh other things around the house ... like small children ... or like checking if that pound cake you bought really weighs a pound.

I saw this on sale at Tokyu Hands in Ginza and immediately thought of my mum. This set of cutting boards are colour-coded to prevent all (well, except colour-blind people) who worry about cross-contamination. It's a very simple system, really. Red for meat, white for cooked food, blue for fish, and green for fruit and veg.

To be fair, I thought of mum because we had a discussion once about cross-contamination. She's really not a germaphobe who'd rather live in a bubble. Wait ... I just remembered that my parents drink distilled water too ... AND take a whole battery of vitamins ... AND don't eat much carbs ...

I was rudely woken last night by quite a quake. No gentle rousing by a swaying of the room leaving me wondering if I was inebriated at the time. No, this was a jolting-out-of-slumber level quake that lasted a good few minutes and actually sired a small portion of terror.

Just as I was about to say "This is it! The Big One!", the quake died down leaving the Greater Tokyo area like a Bond martini.

Upon checking the relevant websites this morning, it looks like the epicenter was somewhere in Ibaraki at a magnitude of 6.7. Tokyo, or more accurately my part of Tokyo, was at around 3 in comparison and it still shook stuff around enough for Ets to truly worry. It also probably doesn't help that my apartment is on the 7th floor.

No mention on the news sites yet though.

When you come across a company called Creative Home Engineering, you would be forgiven for thinking that they specialize in unique water features for your garden (with perhaps a koi or two), or even some low rent prefabs.

To that, I say "No, Sir! Creative Home Engineering will blow your mindgrapes".

Take a look at these pics:


Secret passages!!! They build secret passages into your house!!! Rotating fireplaces, swivelling bookcases, flip-up staircases ... makes me wish I was a Bond villain.

I guess you'd have to be careful not to overdo the whole thing or people would notice that the house seems a lot larger from the outside.

I didn't even know a company that did this existed. To be fair, I am very unlikely to be needing their services in the foreseeable future, or even my entire life. Which is unfortunate.

Bonus points for their website containing this quote:
A thief cannot burglarize a room he can't find.

Labels: secret passage

In all my years here in Japan, I've experienced quite a few earthquakes. I've been woken up in the middle of the night by a temblor that rattled the doors and made my cell phone dance across the table, and there've been a few which have crept up on me and the only sign that anything was amiss was a little jiggling of the TV. However, today was the first time that there was an earthquake at the precise moment I was busy riding the porcelain bus.

The only thought in my mind was, "Oh God! I don't want to die like this" that is, on the crapper with my pants around my ankles.

Gleaned from the pages of some UK-based self-styled "superboutique" are TC Studio's Knife Hooks. Personally, I love 'em. They lend a touch of the macabre to any residence and makes it look like a circus knife-thrower lives there.

Too bad they're 25 quid a pop. That's just a bit too much money for what is essentially a coat hook that will undoubtedly end up in the hallway. AND ... get this ... there's also an inexplicably exorbitant shipping charge of 20 more of your english pounds. Honestly, it'd actually be cheaper to buy real knives and start flinging them around the apartment.

Hey, TC Studio people, I'd like to show you where I'd like to stick a knife.

Labels: interior decorations