the tall blond guy goes to japan

Hey tall blond guy, where do you work?

Daily Yomiuri

That's something I'm asked very frequently via email, so I thought I'd do a bit of thing on that. If you don't care, just skip to the next one which has a good picture of a creep in it.

Let's start with food. In a culture obsessed with food, it's rather appropriate.

Free food!

Since my department works really really long hours (11am-1am), we have food brought in for us. This food takes the form of these dodads called "Bento". I don't know what the literal translation of that word means, but Bento seems to cover anything related to food that comes in a box, hot or cold. Kind of like the Japanese version of TV dinners- everything in one box, and none of it exceptional. The ones we have at work (like the one pictured here) are cold, but hot ones also happen. The boxes are frequently very well made - even ornate - and like most of the rest of the stuff in this city, completely disposable.

What do I do? I sit in front of a computer all day, moving boxes around and anticipating stories as they come in over the wires or from our own reporters in Nagano. It looks like this:

A page, waiting for a story.

The headline was changed before this page went to press, although it remains one of my favourite headlines that never quite made it. Much of what I do involves waiting until seconds before the deadline, then throwing everything possible into the page at once. Some evil timelord must have syncronized the Olympic events, the wire services, and our printing presses, so that they all spring into action at once. My page is empty up until 5 minutes before the deadline (well, a slight exageration...). Suddenly all the wire services spring into life, giving me stories, scores and pictures. I throw them all in, pray that the AP stuff I added wasn't total junk and that Reuters hasn't subbed any weird British words for regular ones.

My posh working environment (not me on computer)

I work in an office that erognomics forgot. The fluroescent lights are harsh and glaring, the desks are not designed to be sat at by human beings, and the chairs are meant for people half my hight.

Now you know why I don't talk about work much. [grin]