Today’s deck is the Seasons of the Witch: Winter Tarot.
You might be wondering the same as me: Are there any other seasonal tarots in this line? Apparently the others are oracle decks and the like instead.
The deck is neat, but I’ll admit I cuckled at the cards being like “5 of Winter Wands” “The Winter Fool” and so on.
Today’s winter reading is a wintery pat on the back reassuring me that all my winter effort will winterly pay off.
The streak of days Fer is woken up by SOMETHING is currently at three. Will it get to four? I SURE FUCKIN’ HOPE NOT.
This time it was… one of the banks I applied to (again) the other day. they were double checking my work situation, asked me if I wanted to get the confirmation via phone or snail mail and I told them the latter.
I am SHOCKED I was able to reply and understand as much while effectively half-asleep. Then again, I apparently tried to have a conversation in Japanese when the anaesthesia wore off for a bit when I was getting my hair transplant.
I shouldn’t answering phone or replying to messages half asleep, but it’s all so… automatic which is the whole point and the whole problem.
I wanted to do… something and kill time, so I decided to go and move things from my old office into the new one.
Most of the time was spent picking up some of the trash, though. I realized that aside from a couple of odd ends and things like the phone, I already took most of the important things when I moved out.
Funnest find was a Namazu-shaped piggybank I got ages ago. It’s hilarious because you effectively twist its neck and pop the head out to get the coins.
There were quite a few coins so I took the chance to exchange them (read: dump them in a self-register cashier) while getting some trash bags.
Checking my mailbox after I returned a cool thing awaited on the mailbox: a manga dramatizing the development of the first Dragon Quest game.
Originally I thought part of the coolness was that it was also MADE BY SHOTARO ISHINOMORI, THE SHOTARO ISHINOMORI OF MOST EVERY TOKUSATSU EVER. But actually reading the cover, it was instead SUPERVISED by Ishinomori which… makes it more of a curiosity to me, honestly.
You can see how, right? Like, it has a more secondary role in the production and still gets top billing, what an interesting oddity.
Speaking of DQ, the other day Yuji Horii got the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette . It’s basically an honor given by the Japanese government every year to outstanding people in the country. Horii is the first game developer to get it.
That’s so wild. Most definitely deserved and I’m so happy to see it happen in my lifetime. But also it’s really interesting that Horii was the one to get it rather than any number of people in say… Nintendo, which tends to be more of a face for the industry than a man mostly associated with a turn-based RPG franchise.
Even wilder to me, though, is the fact that Go Nagai also got it.
So for the record (since I can’t remember if I’ve talked about this in the blog) Nagai is basically an author I deeply respect as an author and pioneer, but whose style and actual body of work I despise. And by that I don’t mean I hate Cutey Honey for example, but rather that I CANNOT stand Nagai’s version of Cutey Honey. In fact some of my favorite anime ever are basically other people doing a Go Nagai idea, see: Shin Mazinger and Re: Cutey Honey.
Contrast to say… Ken Ishikawa who I respect as an author AND love his actual work, sometimes more than the adaptations by other people.
Shout outs to his manga where Terry Bogard gets Isekai’d to Ancient Japan With Demons.
Anyway, the fascinating thing for me about Go Nagai getting the prize isn’t some implication that he doesn’t deserve it because honestly in my list of people that deserve that for the field of manga… he’s the only one still alive but still most deserving of it nonetheless. No, the point is rather that he became a cornerstone of culture when he was basically the industry’s bad boy for a while.
The Harenchi Gakuen controversy comes to mind. It was basically the first thing you could call “ecchi manga” in the form we recognize it nowadays, and it was so racy for its time that plenty a PTA (Parent Teacher Association) made sure its distribution got limited and even got the manga cancelled for a while. So when the cancellation approached Nagai ended the manga with the cast being murdered in bloody fashion by the PTA for daring to defend their freedom of expression.
THAT MAN got the award. Time can be a funny thing sometimes.
As opening hours finally hit, however, today’s true adventure began. I mentioned we’re moving offices, and as such I wanted to move the internet contract and the phone number to the new place.
I check the website for NTT, call their support line in english and after… A While, I finally get a response.
I give my information and she cannot find me anywhere, she’s like “are you sure you have NTT Hikari?” and I’m like “yeah, I use Flet’s Hikari” and she goes “Oh that’s the problem, it’s a different company”.
I thank her, hang up and get into looking something up because what the fuck do you mean different company?
Well, you see… turns out NTT Docomo (which I called) and NTT West (the right one) are part of different companies, both under the NTT group banner but legally speaking a contract with NTT West doesn’t mean someone at NTT Docomo can help you with it.
Can I sue a company for confusing branding, I wonder? But like, not because I confused X company with Y company but because the company itself makes no sense.
Regardless, I call NTT West and this were going smoothly. So smoothly in fact they even tried to sell me a different Wifi insisting that if it was for a company that one was safer.
The part that I didn’t say was “then why is the personal one less safe?”.
I get an appointment next week and all, but then they asked me for my contract number and I’m gonna need a drawing to explain this real quick.
So when I get my phone bills (emitted by NTT Finance meaning YET ANOTHER UNRELATED NTT eNTiTy) I get a sheet like this. 2 and 3 are the actual bill, you take it to a conbini, they stamp it, keep 2 and give you 3 as proof of payment. 1 meanwhile is a breakdown of things like the taxes, any extra charges and so on.
Ever since I moved here I throw away 1 since… it’s not really needed. The only time I needed 1 for anything in the past was looking for the phone number of my house since I don’t really use a landline phone (and landline phones, in fact, make me anxious).
Except now because I needed the contract number which was in 1.
They tell me who the operator is and to call when I get it. They also give me the number for OCN, the phone provider.
…oh right, so things are company-agnostic enough that even though I’m doing all of that through NTTT, technically my phone provider (and only the phone, not the internet) is OCN.
Anyway, they give me a number and tell that if I press 8 I should get english guidance.
I call, and not only is the dial menu only in english, but it stopped at like 3-4 when it came to options.
I try pressing 8 anyways.
“Hello?”.
You’ll excuse me for thinking, however briefly, that I was being played around and they got me in some weird ARG.
Sadly that’s where the good ends because they couldn’t find me on record for some reason, IN FACT they asked me for THE NUMBER I CALLED THEM TO GET.
So at this point I’m part confused part miffed. I remembered my shoe locker still had some random papers and maybe there was one there.
There weren’t, but I did find some other stuff I should move to the office.
So I go to the umbrellas locker since there was a pile of opened bills and envelopes there.
God bless lazy Fer back in 2022 I found the damn number.
I called, left them the number and decided to take a quick nap in celebration.
It will just be a nap, I’m sure.