I came back yesterday from a business trip to Hong-Kong. Not much to say about it... Next one will be Sydney next week...

In the meantime, Li's mother arrived in Tokyo for a few days visit... She should leave on 16th.

As I was in Singapore, Li told me that Earthquakes were a hot subject on Japanese TV.

But the Big One did not came as Yoshio Kushida predicted. But when I called Li the next day (on Saturday 21), she told me they just had a quite a good one (4 on Japan scale).

My immediate thinking was: Is Kushida right? In all case, his prevision impresses me a lot. This could be (we can hope!) the beginning of a fiable method...

Still in Singapore, I watched on BBC World channel a long report on the next Big One in Tokyo. It was not what we call an optimistic one :-(

I just got a new mp3 player... It is the size of a lighter, and it is also a FM radio, and voice recorder... The model is a SonicBlue Rio SU30.
Perfect, isn't it? Of course, my Linux box can manage it (this was my first criteria!).

My only small problem is to understand how to navigate all these japanese menus (I spent half an hour to find the volume switch!).

e had some fun (I had at least!) during these long nights playing Diablo II, one of the best games I ever played.

I just closed our Games web site, and the associated mailing list. I will just keep the pages available for good memories...

But it does not mean the game is totally over: I still hope to play some games with this group members again! Timezone difference will be the only problem, and, as far as I know, this was not really a problem when whe finished very late ;-)

By the way, If anyone wishes to take over the Games page (and all the stuff around), and revive this group, please let me know, I would be happy to give you the whole data (with no copyrights!).

I am sure that she was looking at me when I was leaving our home this morning.
And Li found her inside the closed toilets this evening, when she came back.

What happened?

Apparently, today, Boudicca managed to close the toilets from the inside while she was alone at home. We only hope it was late in the evening, as today was very hot in Tokyo, and this poor little girl was catched in a very dark place with no water :-(

I am going to Paris tomorrow.

The target is mainly be to meet people in office and to start finding an apartment (it looks very difficult apparently). I will stay there two weeks, while Li will join me this week-end, for one week. I will meet my family too, they will come to Paris for a few days next week.

This was eventually officially announced this friday in our company: Eddie and Eiko will marry!
Apparently the secret was well kept, as it was a surprise for many (we were really a few to know about it).

I wish them all the happyness!

I know, I am quite late, as I am living in Japan for some time now, but I just discovered Chitose Hajime this week-end. I usually do not write here about music, but I will make an exception ;-)

She is a singer, coming from a 50 people village in Amami Islands, not far from Okinawa.

So what?, will you ask.

The answer is: She has a once-a-century voice!

The kind of tremolo she can sing is simply unique. The music itself is generally soft-rock, with some reggae rythms.

If you don't live in Japan, you may order her music on www.cdjapan.co.jp web site. You will not regret it!

When I was around 12, and scouting, I went to a summer camp somewhere in France, and we had, the last day, a cooking contest. My patrol won the dessert prize with the (soon famous, as I publish it today) Canouga ©. I strongly recommend you to try this recipe as soon as you can. Why not tonight?

You will only need a pan, a wood spoon, one liter of milk, and one kilogram of sugar.

Now, the difficult part: Pour the milk and sugar (yes, everything!) in the pan, then put on fire. I don't know if the fire should be strong or not, as we used a fire camp at the moment, but it was probably very hot.
As soon as it is on fire, never stop stirring it with the spoon... Ensure that the sugar mixes well with the milk, and that nothing is burning, that's the challenge...
Stop the fire when the whole becomes hard...

That's it! It is time to serve the canouga © to your guests, and to think about buying a new pan, as you will never be able to properly clean the one you used.
Maybe you will need to find new friends too ;-)

What puzzles me is that the canouga © won the contest! I don't want to imagine what the other patrols made ;-)

Yes, I know, I did not update my pictures gallery for nearly one year. I made some updates this week-end (but most of the new pictures don't have comments yet):

• Old Family pictures (scanned)
• Holidays in France, June 02
• Holidays in Phuket, Oct 02
• Company Exco in Phuket, Oct 02
• Sailing in Phuket, March 03
• Sailing in Phuket, June 03
• Boudicca, 2 years old
• Other Japan pictures