At a local event today, just enjoying some craft beer from my friend’s brewery and faced with an encouraging choice of vegan food (3 stalls!), when a lady walks up to me and introduces herself.

She knows who I am and seemingly all about me. It turns out this lady is the head of the prefectural government department in charge of bolstering tourism related businesses in the area. Not only that but she is very excited with regards to our plans.. this is a very good sign.

We received some advice on how we might best position ourselves for some prefectural funding..

Good craft beer, vegan food and funding advice are all rare in these parts on their own.. in combination must be unheard of.

Sometimes the non-availability of ingredients that I took for granted in Scotland, in this corner of rural Japan is a shade frustrating.. 3 supermarkets on a hunt for sun-dried tomatoes and this far empty handed.. I didn’t even try the supermarket in our village as it is only stocked with Japanese staples.

Both of my girls are currently into Lego.. as was/am I.. but neither are ready for a star wars introduction.. I hope this phase doesn’t pass by the time they are.. there is no way I can justify these prices just for me..

Sampled 4 beers tonight, 3 shared with my wife.. 2 non-IPA Japanese craft beers from recommended breweries, a Guinness and a low alcohol (<0.5%) IPA from somewhere in America..

.. the low alcohol beer was by some margin my favourite of the 4.. we have 2 other low alc beers from the same brewery and 6 more (4 varieties) from a Scottish brewer (though they appear to have been brewed in Belgium)..

Legitimate research and off to a better start than expected.

I am really loving Baldur’s Gate 3. I mean I am taking a very long time to progress because I am creating a whole abundance of character builds and having a blast. Only near the start of Act 2 with my main campaign so still lots of adventuring to do.

The last time I played a similar game was probably Icewind Dale which I remember playing with my old flat mate @lesault@infosec.exchange over LAN but I don’t recall how far into that game we got.

If I was in Scotland I would definitely be trying to get my gaming friends into a regular multiplayer game but not something that I could see working from Japan. I do know a few gamers here though so will try to see if there is any interest.

I have set myself a new mini-project (though I suspect it will develop into a fairly major project), to unravel the mystery of whether gluten-free brewing is viable in Japan.

The lack of maltsters and suppliers of gf grains, exogenous enzymes and yeast nutrients makes it sound like an impossible dream but I’ll pull some threads and see what I can do.

Have been considering learning to play the bagpipes, recently.

Any pipers here with some advice for an absolute beginner?

Been pricing chanters and they seem reasonable.

New phone received, was so excited to see the repairability of the Nokia G22 that I forgot to check the dimensions. It’s a behemoth!

Currently, de-googling as much as I can without a custom ROM.

What a bizarre evening.. one which would be a lot more convenient to explain with a keyboard featuring a more functional T key.. sigh

It all started when my fairphone 2 died, completely unexpectedly this evening when working completely fine earlier in the afternoon. No dropping or anything that might make it break.. have returned home and taken it apart cleaned, reseated everything and re-assembled.. still fucked. The last phone I was ever going to buy seems to have outlived that dream.. I am seeing some tech articles in Japanese about the fairphone 4.. wonder if it is supported here..

If I had any idea what the issue was with the phone, I could order spare parts, but would have to order for delivery to my parents in Scotland and then have them send here as there is no support in Japan.

Anyway, not the weirdest part of tonight.. when walking the dog at around 9pm, we met a snake.. only about 25-30cm.. not the bizarre part but wanted to mention it..

So.. I normally keep my eyes primarily on the ground when walking my dog in the dark due to the large wildlife population and me not wanting to step on frogs.. but tonight I looked up and witnessed something which I currently have no explanation for.. so, technically a UFO.. or UFOs as I will attempt to describe.

As I looked up, I saw a line of maybe 9-10 star-like lights, that is to say they looked like stars, they didn´t have perceptible spheres/cones of illumination that you might expect for a light source closer to land.. there is of course a lot of space between the elevation where that sphere/cone of illumination would be perceptible and actually being some sort of gas orb in space.

Strangely, they were moving.. in a line.. too slow, horizontal and linear to be explained away as fireworks (its firework season).. only white light, unchanging, unblinking.. and then after 10-15 seconds, one by one from start to finish the lights went out..

1. I am a very pragmatic, cynical, and logical person.
2. I was drinking some alcohol, but not a lot and on my return from my walk home I disassembled and re-assembled a mobile phone.. so not drunk in any shape or form.
3. I am certain there is some simple explanation for what I witnessed and am not suggesting that i witnessed anything extra-terrestial.

When I told my wife about this on my return from walking the dog, she mentioned that around this time last year her younger brother had a similar experience, albeit with less lights than I saw.

I m curious as to what it could be, I know a guy in the village who is a drone programmer and I would text him to find out if he was doing anything with a large number of drones.. but my phone is fucked.. so I guess I will just have to let my imagination run wild.

Some of the keys fell off the refurbished x1 carbon laptop that I bought and seem damaged so aren’t going back on. Were they less frequently used keys I would live with it but F5 and T are keys that I cannot live without.

Wasn’t able to find reasonably priced individual replacement keys but found a replacement keyboard..

.. I probably should have had a look at the replacement procedure before buying.. this is not going to be fun!

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+X1+Carbon+6th+Gen+Keyboard+Replacement/154084

72 screws holding the keyboard in place.. and a whole disassembly adventure before getting to that stage. I am suddenly cognisant of why I stuck to desktop assemblies in the past.