friday fun

Went to iai -- last practice to be taught directly by Niina-gosoke, and it was wonderful as always. Afterwards Gosoke took us out to sushi under the train tracks, and during dinner we convinced him to not cancel the friday class!
Headed back to homebase, hit three gas stations before finding one that was still open (Eneos @ Tengenjibashi Crossing), then went up to Roppongi's Hobgoblin because Jen was in town again and heading back home tomorrow.
After a few minutes we went over to Sputnik in Omotesando for Chiori (and other)'s birthday party. Just got home with a scratchy throat from shouting over the noise, smoke-stinky clothes, and lots of pineapple juice. Neat place, though, and fun folks.

head cold

Slept for 14 hours and feel much better.
Also found a great quote from an article by Max Tegmark in Scientific American:
"But an entire ensemble is often much simpler than one of its members. This
principle can be stated more formally using the notion of algorithmic
information content. The algorithmic information content in a number is, roughly
speaking, the length of the shortest computer program that will produce that
number as output. For example, consider the set of all integers. Which is
simpler, the whole set or just one number? Naively, you might think that a
single number is simpler, but the entire set can be generated by quite a trivial
computer program, whereas a single number can be hugely long. Therefore, the
whole set is actually simpler."

ugh

The weather was beautiful on Sunday, so it of course dropped 10 degrees and was rainy and miserable all day Monday.
Monday evening both Hiroko and I were feeling a bit sick, and by this morning we both had sore throats and headaches. I stayed home and alternated between working on the PC and napping on the couch. Of course I had to teach iai, so I went to class in the rain, ran a couple of the beginners through the basics for two hours, and came home (did I mention it was raining?), got on a conference call, had dinner, hit the bath, and slept.
Nyquil is the nectar of the gods!

chop chop

Cutting practice, and things actually went reasonably well (click on the file called 'jinrai'; 4MB avi.) Amazing what soft rolls will do for the ego!