A 5 Point Post

The good: As much as some of you (eve) out there hate it, I have to say that I am a total convert and a fan of the world of Facebook. I recently sat down for a pitcher with my friend Megan from uni who I unfortunately lost touch with about 6 or 7 years ago. I first met her in our first year. She lived down the hall from my another one of my exes. She had this poster which completely distracted me. Now that's not hard to do on a normal day, but this became an obsession. It got to the point where she'd leave for class and be fine with me sitting in her room staring at the damn poster trying to find the matching pair. After 2'nd year, I lost her phone number and didn't have her e-mail address so I was rather mad at myself for that. I'd thought about how she was over the years and just caught up via facebook. Was really great in that we picked it right up after the years as though it was last week.

The bad: People that say damaging things to others when they know exactly how hurtful their words will be. It's something we're taught as kids that is bad: Don't say damning and painful things to people. Perhaps we shouldn't teach that lesson anymore so kids don't learn to do it knowing how bad it can be. In a moment of instant gratification of sadistic evil, a person can totally ruin someone else's day and affect their very being. I myself have not been subjected to this of late, but I have seen it and I disturbed enough about it to give it 1 of the 5 pts. Boooooooo on mean people, they suck.

The funny: Yet another family tale... It had been some time since Ali, Jeff, mom and I were able to sit down to have a meal together. It's truely a comical affair on an average night in our house and we have left many an un-warned visitor horribly scarred from the experience. The other night, as were were putting the wraps on a great din din, my mom stopped the meal suddenly to ask if we knew that grandma had fallen. Most NORMAL families would have dropped everything and asked with a high degree of concern what had happened. Mine... well, it didn't exactly go like that.

mom, "Did you guys hear...?"

Ali, "No we didn't."

me, "Why, what happened, did Kung Kung (grandpa) push her over?"

Jeff... uncontrollable laughter while trying not to launch his dinner forth.

mom, "Well, not exactly"

all of us, "ha ha ha ha ha ha"

Mom proceeded to then tell the actual story. We're all going to hell.

The sad: In the very near future an expedition will be made to Mt. Everest or as this segment will go on to tell Mt. Ever Rest. 9 years ago, Francys Arsentiev became the first woman to ever climb the mountain without the aid of supplemental oxygen. A mere 800 meters into her decent, something happened which caused her to either collapse or fall. As her expedition reached her, they found her to have no mobility. 28,000 feet from the base and after exhausting all options, the others had no choice but to leave her behind. By the time another team went back the next morning, Francys had succumbed to her injuries and the cold. An effort to retrieve her body at the time would have been too treacherous to attempt and none has been made since, so her body wrapped in her purple coat has remained, well within sight of any visitor to Everest. One of the climbers who was with her 9 years ago, Ian Woodall is returning now to bury the friend he had to leave behind. This is the last expedition he will undertake and he hopes to be able to bury 2 other climbers who have lost their lives on the mountain. Godspeed.

The down right odd: Japan's growing income gap means the working poor are not only flipping burgers to make a living, they're also buying them so they've got somewhere to live, turning them into "McRefugees". Part-time workers and day laborers have found cheap alternatives to renting apartments in the form of Internet cafes, or saunas where they could spend the night for just a few thousand yen. An increasing number of working poor are turning to the growing number of fast food restaurants operating 24 hours so they've got somewhere to stay overnight. These people are being called "McRefugees" after McDonald's, the fast food chain providing many of them with their homes. With a burger costing as little as 80 yen and a coffee costing 100 yen, an overnight stay can cost less than 200 yen. Internet cafes are another option, but with time costing money, only a small percentage of the McRegugees can afford the rent.

As explained by a local economist, "They're people who probably have a tad more money than those living on the streets, but not enough money to allow them to change their lives. It costs about 400,000 yen to 500,000 yen to rent out an apartment, so people who can't afford to do that become Net Cafe Refugees, Sauna Refugees and, now McRefugees. The vast majority of them are not full time staff and are probably only making about 1 million yen a year at most. For these people, 500,000 yen is an enormous sum of money."