Lost and Found in Tokyo

I love to regale my friends with stories of my visit to Zushi, Japan, including my brother's description on the low crime rate and general honesty of the Japanese populace. As we were walking to the train, he pointed to a low stone wall separating the houses and the train tracks. "You could forget your purse right there," he suggested, "and it would still be there three days later. Untouched."

It might be hard to consider, but the New York Times article, "Never Lost but Found Daily," seems to agree with my bra. In Tokyo, easily 8 million residents strong, items like cell phones, umbrellas and wads of cash find their way to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Lost and Found Center, a four-story warehouse where hundreds of thousands of lost objects are meticulously catalogued by date and location of discovery.

According to the article, the system has been in place since the 18th century, where finders were given an assurance of a percentage of a reward for found property. Finders who did not hand in objects were severely punished (including a historical account from 1733 regarding two officials who kept a parcel of clothing and were led around town and executed). Today, children are taught from early on to hand in lost objects to the police in their neighborhoods and most of the 200 to 300 adults who come to the center every day take the system for granted.

In 2002, people found and brought $23 million in cash to the center, 72 percent of which was returned to the owners and about 19 percent went to
the finders after no one claimed the money for half a year. That's
right, if the original owner is not found after half a year, the finder can claim the object or money. But most finders don't bother making any claims, and the objects and proceeds usually end up going to the Tokyo government.

Healthy Competition

I seem to remember my current (now ex) general practitioner screaming at me that I didn't need any other thyroid test than the one he gave me during my annual exam and that if I saw an endocrinologist I would be "throwing my money away". Did I mention the screaming? This is the same guy who said of my frequent chest pains that "the less I thought about them the less severe they would seem" (not what the cardiologist said, by the way).

Why is it so much easier to comparison shop, for say, a new stereo than for a good doctor? Check out the CNN article, "Can the web create shoppers' market for health care?" about a Twin Cities company called "Carol" which is attempting to transform the U.S. health care system by offering a site that lets you compare quality and price for medical services and helps you make appointments. Users click on the part of the body they are interested in having checked out, which leads to various exams and services for that subsection. A results page shows options which range in price for each service. If the user has insurance, they can also type in plan information to estimate out of pocket cost with each particular health provider.

The site generates revenue from the service providers that have signed on to be "tenants" of Carol, so the biggest challenge for them will be getting enough doctors and health plans to participate. And right now they only carry providers in the Twin Cities area, though they are looking to serve a second U. S. market alter this year.

The site has taken criticism from doctors who think that health care is too critical to be left to the usual marketplace. All I have to say to that, is that health care is already left to an unusual marketplace, better likened to a Russian Roulette table. You can search the site without registering (to increase consumer privacy) so why not take a gander? And like me, keep dreaming that they'll come to your area comparing Dental and Vision Care.

Bread Blues

A couple of Christmases ago, I thought my sister had gone off the deep end. You see, when her family started to get low on bread, she told her lovely son that she would make more that day. No problem. Been there, done that. But then she sweetly pulled out a ginormous grinder from her cupboard in order to GRIND HER OWN GRAIN. Well, I thought, she'd be amply prepared in case Utah ever turned into a scenario from "Red Dawn". Then I read Boston.com's article about "High Wheat Prices". The price of wheat has more than tripled during the last three months and experts expect that 80 percent of groceries will follow with their own spike. Apparently, Wheat, is the plankton of our little land mammal food chain, and it used to feed cattle, poultry and dairy cows and therefore is associated with everything those guys produce from eggs to milk. Not to mention that skyrocketing gas prices is making wheat even costlier to get to market.

You may think the only option is to buy less. But you might want to turn the other cheek and bake more. Store bought white bread cost an average of $0.85 per pound in 1998 and $1.03 in February 2006. The price last month? $1.32 per pound. While that makes store-bought bread run between $3 and $5, a home-baked loaf will cost about 60 cents (less, I supposed if you are grinding your own wheat to boot). As for me, I'll be looking to take some wheat grinding lessons from my sister.

5 Horrifying Food Additives You've Probably Eaten Today

You didn't think I'd bring my own funny did you? Cracked.com's article "5 Horrifying Food Additives You've Probably Eaten Today" makes you look at shiny new apples in a new way.

Keep From Getting Bored Out of Your Skull at Work

The article, "30 Things to Do to Keep From Getting Bored Out of Your Skull at Work" from zenhabits has made me realize why government workers (city or federal) are so ineffective and inefficient at work. It's because they can't keep themselves busy when they don't have enough to do. I'm not suggesting to start finding new work on top of your lazy office mate's desk. I mean work that stimulate's some gray matter, like finishing that novel, posting to your blog, figuring out who Maria Theresa of Austria is (Marie Antoinette's mom) or playing a brief game of solitaire. Stuff that betters yourself and uses your brain.

Some of the things on this list are better done with an office door closed (sadly, goodbye, crunches). But most of the ideas are intelligent and instructive (hello, hunt for a new job).

Yes, I'm complaining about bureaucracy and government again, because, basically in the microcosm of the government world, it's impossible to get anything done with half the websites on the internet blocked. Including my own. And probably yours. And all the tech experts at Microsoft's. I'll make up for my bitchiness with the hilarity of my next post. Promise.

Obama's Race Speech

Sometimes Freshsnaps and I talk about the same things. Tough Buns. Everybody should read this.

"Obama's Race Speech" from the Huffington Post.

How Google Got Its Colorful Logo

Random? Yes. Insightful? Indubitably so.Ever get sick of reworking that draft of novel, poem, cake recipe, or website?Seeing how Google's infamous logo could have gone so horrible wrong in Wired's "How Google Got Its Colorful Logo" will instantly make you feel better.

The Necessities of PBS

Now that Jane Austen week is over on PBS there is a void in my evenings that is not filled by my daily dosage of Science Fiction shows. Little did I know that the void could become permanent.

The New York Times ran a thoughtful article a couple of weeks ago, “Is PBS Still Necessary”, about the decline of Public Television both in funds and in programming. At least Public Radio still has an edge.

FireFly is the Underbelly of our Future

Dare I say, millions of viewers will never forget the artistic and intellectual crime perpetrated by Fox executives when they canceled Joss Whedan's FireFly series. I for one, thought it was a good approximation of our far future, as long as one took into account that the "Alliance" of planets was a synonym for the "Federation" from Star Trek the Next Generation.

So did I brake out in a cold sweat when I read this article from the News Tribune which ran in last month's Washington Express about "Cultural Translation"? More than a little. Get your Chinese on by checking out the children's program. And face the facts that in 500 years, English will be the new Spanish.

By the way, if you are not sure you should get into FireFly, just watch the Fruity Oaty Bar commercial from the movie "Serenity". That should clinch it.

Incredibly Detailed, Useful (and free) Dingbat Fonts

You know how when you're designing the perfect office document, the one you want to illustrate beautifully, except every piece of clip art you come upon looks cartoony and amateurish? Or maybe you want to make your own t-shirt for your kick-ball team, fantasy football club, bachelorette party or whatever and you couldn't find any of those elusive silhouettes that make such projects possible. You don't need to get Photoshop, you need better dingbats!

Bitbox's "Dingbat Roundup" sets you free at last. From little bunnies to mujeres of all shapes and sizes, from skulls to maps of Florida, these dingbats are really detailed, useful and (best of all) free.

Leave It On Your License Plates

I know everyone has probably noticed that the U.S. Government's strangle hold on my right to an uncensored internet extends to every URL with the word "blog" in it and has therefore drastically effected my ability to post on a daily basis. I promise to figure out every way possible to post more often. Starting with this laugh out loud column from Marc Fisher, "Mint to D.C.: Leave It On Your License Plates".

It details the lightening fast response of the U.S. Mint to the District of Columbia's coin design submission that included the slogan "Taxation without Representation". You can read excerpts of the actual response in the column, (However, one poster succinctly described the official response as "Get bent."). Make sure you don't end your reading at the words of Mr. Fisher. The real gems of this column lie in the comments at the end. From submission ideas that the coin should portray "the Redskins emblem & the words 'Dallas Sucks'" or depict "...a car with several parking tickets and a boot on it. Something that captures that DC "je ne sais quoi". To one eloquent poster (can you hear my sarcasm?) who decried:

So I suppose the "no taxation without representation" folks also support allowing children who pay sales tax (or even just teenagers who pay income tax) to vote? (Or alternately exempting everyone under the age of
18 from all taxes?)

I guess even intelligent adults in the greater metropolitan area equate the tax paying residents of the District Columbia with children, and therefore have every right to be treated as such. Nice.

Nothing gets a poster back in the game like a good civil rights issue.
Go forth and conquer.

Name Game

As a writer (and especially a fantasy writer) I find the business of naming things to be of singular importance and that knack and believability of names in word culture can make or break not only a character setting but a marketing campaign. In the fourth grade, I often "doodled" by making up culture, mythologies, and languages for the stories in my head. It was no Tolkien feat, being as I was nine, I just fooled around with letters until I thought they sounded masculine, or feminine, like war or like food. I even made a list of letters that I thought should only be used to describe, say metal things, and other should only be used for female farm animals. During one sunlit, boring afternoon I realized something that I would be taught in a college linguistics class twelve years later. Sounds have no intrinsic meaning. Right then, I decided to write down how I felt about every letter of the alphabet with the intent that such knowledge would make naming characters and made up places that much easier. Who knew that twenty years later big companies would be doing the same thing.

Read about drug names and big business in, "Drug Makers Make Name Games Big Business" from Forbes. This informative article talks about how "X" seems scientific and "Z" convey speed. It also describes how naming things is big, big business. It recalled an article I once read in the career section of the Washington Express about a private, professional namer with such a good reputation, she paid the bills by selling cleverly crafted words. Naming for profit is such a modern concept! I mean, talk about wordsmith, the very idea was so Stephensonian (oooo, I just made that word up) to believe that people really can make money by selling intel to the highest bidder.

Thrifty Threads

I don't know if it's my adoration of steam punk or a love of the environment but toss last year's scrap lace onto this year's tweed discards and I'll toss it into my shopping bag. You can't deny that deconstructed and reconstructed threads are a hot, hot trend. Sustainable, fashionable, and often home grown, they may survive to be the hallmark of our age the way pencil skirts recall the 40's, a mod shift signals the 70's, and wedges brings the 70's back to life.

It used to be that I scoured the internet to find independent designers and seamstresses who were hawking their reconstructed duds online. But this article from USA Today which ran in last Tuesday's Washington Express about Thrifty Threads, proves you don't have to. Check out the article to see how big names like American Apparel and Rag & Bone are making moves to locally grown organic fibers and carbon free processes. The hot, new bolts of fabric for next year's fashion shows just may be thrift's store cast-offs.

11 Don’t Tell the Wife Secrets, All Men Keep

We all have them. Our dirty little secrets. However, it was Bono in "the Fly" who suggested, "A secret is something you tell another person." I always imagined secrets were rather like doves, soft and fuzzy while you hold them, but made to be released beautifully for dramatic effect. Were there people in the world who keep their fuzzy, little doves close to their chests forever?

The answer is, yes. And one of those people is most likely your spouse. Now, I'm not advocating that there is anything wrong with a secret kept here and there. Nor that the other way (secrets kept all the time) does anyone any good. But I can acknowledge that some people like to drive on the highway of life with their windows down. Some people like tinted windows. Some like to ride with the top down. And some (not naming any names, but her initials are CB) like to ride with their head out the window, sitting on the door, driving with their toes.

The toe drivers sometimes have trouble understanding the tinted window crew, which is why, "11 Don’t Tell the Wife Secrets, All Men Keep," is a little funny, a little reassuring and a little refreshing. Perhaps, reading this cute article about hidden truths (which I think happens to be accurate for both sides of the marital divide) will help us compulse a little less over every little secret our significant other keeps.

Welcome to America...Your Under Arrest

Sometimes I suffer from, what I call, the "Attack of the Embarrassing Moments". You know what I mean. Everyone has had an Attack of the Embarrassing Moments. Its when some minor image or smell brings you back to the day you marched right instead of left during the half time show at Homecoming in marching band in High School and now every memory of every horrifically embarrassing moment of your life comes to attack you at the same time. Now, your palms are sweating over your palpitating heart and your pretty sure the other rider on the bus to work can smell your panic.

Well, similar to the "Attack of the Embarrassing Moments", is the "Attack of the Insignificant Injustices", which, while not as prevalent, is just as ridiculously palpable. The overwhelming emotion derived from this attack is generally anger instead of self-disgust. My friend Jessica once described this attack to me and she finished with "So I was stabbing the mirror with my finger and pretending I was talking to her, and I got all worked up for a fight and there was no fight."

When recovering from these attacks, I generally try to think of how they are common to other people. Ands some people have it quite worse than me. Enter the subject of today's post "Welcome to America...Your Under Arrest: Tales of a Pakistani immigrant dealing with racial profiling, the Patriot Act and the INS as he tries to make a life in New York City". After reading this, sometimes sad, sometimes shocking and many times humorous post will leave everyone thinking that the Insignificant Injustices are universal to everyone and being able to laugh at them help them to lower their ugly heads.