Photo: The pigeon which is a frequent visitor to my bird feeders

A big SORRY …to all of those of you who are subscribed to my rss feed …feeds2.feedburner.com/dailymumble and just got spammed by a duck pond. I don’t know what’s happened there, but I’m working on fixing it. You might want to try resubscribing to http://feeds.feedburner.com/dailymumble which I can guarantee is free of duck ponds, in Tokyo or otherwise.

It seems that Feedburner has mysteriously changed my feed address slightly, and I’ve made some kind of mistake with Yahoo Pipes and AudioBoo, resulting in some infinite loop fun. For the time being then I’m going back to keeping the AudioBoo stuff seperate from the Daily Mumble feed.

My AudioBoo podcast feed is here http://feeds.feedburner.com/dailymumblepodcast.

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Today I uploaded my section for last week’s Metpod podcast (see my sidebar on The Daily Mumble) in which I talked about my experience in an Akihabara sex shop. I tell you, I was pretty surprised by some of those devices. It had never even occurred to me that such things might exist. Really elaborate instruments for men to play with themselves. I tried to keep it light-hearted and humorous.

I was shocked though by some of the DVDs. Seriously sick stuff. I can’t believe they make those kinds of videos. Way beyond anything I’ve ever seen before (not that I generally go looking for sites like that!).

Gradually gearing up for the Mt Fuji climb. As you may have seen from my twitter feed, I’ve been getting advice from others who’ve done it before, and generally, it sounds pretty horrendous. 5 hours of what is essentially non-stop step climbing, and then another few hours of skidding down loose rocks. Hurray! There had better bloomin be a pretty good view from up there!

I’ve paid for the bus tickets now, we’ll be dropped off at the fifth stage at about 10pm.

Had our new 1 gigabyte-per-second internet installed today. But as the chap said when he was installing it, “I doubt you’ll notice much difference from your 100mbps connection” – and he’s right. The only reason we got it though was because it was cheaper than keeping the old slower connection, so we’re not fussed. It’s not as if we’re trying to send pet dinosaurs down the line.

It’s really hotting up now, and today’s the first day I feel I need two showers, just dripping with sweat. The humidity is on the up, and the cockroaches are moving in – yay Japanese summers!

In good finger news, on the recommendation of my dad I’ve started applying tea-tree oil to my finger (mixed with Wheatgerm oil). It does seem to be doing something, so fingers crossed (!) I won’t need any more steroids. Thanks to Melinda our neighbour for the Tea Tree all – direct from Oz!

I’ve decided this week to stick to all my good habits, for one week. That includes

• Learning 5 new Japanese words everyday
• Exercising every day (running once every two days, stretching ever day)
• Eating healthily
• Bed early up early

One week might not seem like much, but it’s a realistic goal for me, and that’s what’s important. No more coffee late at night either – what an idiot!

My week off is gradually becoming booked up with appointments (for podcasting stuff) – very much looking forward to it.

Oh, and we heard that the reason the patch of land next to our house was stripped of its greenery was NOT because they are going to start to build, it’s because two local people who have nothing to do with the plot “thought it looked messy”. Crazy!

Anyway, I’m off out now to Tokyo 2.0, the biggest monthly geekup in town!

TTFN!