Today is a bad day.

Kurt Vonnegut died today. He is still my favorite author. The articles he wrote about the world and his country were sharp right till the end.

Closer to home I think this was Brave’s last day on this earth as well. Early this-morning he came to the deck and hudled against our bedroom door. His intense shivering caught my attention while I was editing the most recent batch of pictures.

He was all wet from the ocean and scared and very sick. I held him and scratched him while he shook. He had diarea and wanted to go back to the ocean but could barely walk without falling over. I helped him to the water but he couldn’t stand upright and I made sure his head was above water. I tried to sooth him and make him comfortable.

He started to choke up white foam and decided he didn’t want to be in the water anymore. He crawled up into some bushes he and his siblings used to play in. I tried to keep with him and keep him from being afraid but I don’t think he wanted to be around me, or his mum, or his sister. He unsteadily lurched back to the house and to the bushes beside the house.

I went inside to find out how Sarah was doing looking up the illness and trying to contact the vet. When I came back with a bowl of water and some aspirine hidden in a clump of rice he was gone.

I searched for him up and down the road and the beach but I couldn’t find him.

The symptoms suggest he was poisoned. Something that happens to homeless beach dogs here.

We liked Brave so much. He was one of the greatest dogs I ever knew. We were sad having to say goodbye to him after 6 months of playing with him and watching him grow up but this is infinitely worse.

I wish he could have been born in Canada. I wish he could have been our dog. But now I have to be satisfied that he lived a happy, energetic life surrounded by siblings and friends, cut much too short.

We miss you Brave.

6 months of Singha and watery lagers

I asked my parents to bring me “something dark and sticky” from home.

Just had my first glass of Tree Brewery’s Spy Porter which they brought over (on recomendation from Alan).

In Canada I considered this porter over carbonated and with too low an alchohol percentage to really get at the back of your throat.

It is the first BC beer I have had in 6 months. I want to sum up the experience immediately after the first glass (drank in a single long pull). That summation reads: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Vive la saveur!

Presumably the Traquair Ale is going to blow the taste-buds right out of my mouth.

We are officially all set for Japan.

We have tickets to Tokyo arriving on April 15th. You can stay in the country for 3 months without a visa but you need tickets out and pre-arranged accomodation. So we also have our tickets home 3 months from now.

We’re renting a place in a shared house (gaijin house) in Tokyo for one month for 84,000 yen. Which is 840$ pretty easy currency conversion eh?

We’re going with Pierre to Kyoto for Golden Week in the last week of april. I am really looking foreward to this. Especially because Pierre is doing all the setup (thanks Pierre!).

After the month in Tokyo we might stay in Tokyo longer if we really like it, or, more probably, we’ll travel either way up north or way down south.

We’ve both wanted to see Hokkaido with its BC like climate and its ethnically and culturally distinct population. But hopping the string of little islands in the south would be fun and tropically warm. Which we have become fond of over the last several months.

Life without 28 degree weather and a beach? Uncivilized!

Colin seys:

I tried to convince Sarah to write the book merchants an email explaining why they are losing business: if it is easier to steal your goods than it is to give you money for them you are doing something wrong!

Don’t count on people’s inflated sense of morals to make them go through tedious and unnecesary steps to get what is ultimately a crippled version of what they want.

You know why theft is easier than purchasing? Because theives care more about user experience than companies do. Companies, who have money, could work to make your experience a pleasent one but don’t. Instead the theives do it for free. Bit torrent is just an open-source solution to a problem the retailers refuse to solve.

In the end mabey this is just such a mess because amazon owns a patent on ‘one click’ purchases.

The Fucking world is broken and only the pirates are trying to fix it. Everyone else is trying to make it worse.

As you can see from the last post, I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to download games. Still working on Beebleworld, but slower now. Looking to get it up online when we get back in BC, so I’ve still got another three months. In addition to playing games, we’ve been spending a lot of time online just drinking up the infoes. Lots of wikipedia, boingboing and friends’ blogs (yes I’m reading them!). I can’t believe how much time I have now to just read and think here. ^__^

Due to shortages, they’ve started cutting off the water except for a few hours in the morning and evening. We keep the bathtub full so we can wash and flush the toilet and so on. The wind is finally dying down for the year, but Colin got a few more “bonus” days of kiteboarding this week. He’s lighter than the average guy down there, which means he can get out in less wind, while they sit on the beach and drink beer and glower in jealousy. They’re a good bunch of guys though; and we’ve got invitations to visit them in their corners of the world someday.

We’ve discovered the most amazing coffee shop just up the beach: Starbugs. They have vegan food, western-style baked goods and – omg – a loose leaf tea menu! The lady who runs it is so nice and gives us sample treats and fusses about steeping times and picking the right tea for the time of day. She keeps a beautiful garden (technically her backyard) with covered sitting areas, where we sip our tea and espresso and nibble on muffins and listen to the rain all afternoon. It’s been stormy again after two months of blue skies, which we both agree is refreshing and reminds us of BC.

The local stray dog Momma (aka “Exuberance”) went into heat last week. Male dogs have gravitated to the area and fight over her day and night. One morning she came down to the ocean and brought a pack of seven dogs with her. Such drama! Brave (aka “Maurice”) and Ivy are all upset about it, but a tummy rub usually fixes everything. They’re growing into healthy, happy young dogs here on the beach, so I guess things are working out for them after all.

Colin’s folks are coming to visit us in just a few days (yay!!!), then in two weeks we’re off to Japan. Neither of us wants to leave Koh Phangan and all its tranquility, but at least the timing is right what with running out of water, wind and tide. Now we just have to figure out how to live on a beach like this for the rest of our lives.