rtl42

got it

i forgot to post here, but i'll be working on the system pages, and whichever characters no one else wants to take. edit: system02.jpg is done, just gonna send that over to Bohemian Polka and shtkn. will start on 03. edit2: finished 03, gonna start 04 tomorrow morning.

so aside from NHK, most TV channels have returned to regular programming. it feels a bit... disrespectful, imo. water-bombing didn't go as well as they thought; they brought in a police water cannon truck, but they had to fire from 20-30m away because of the radiation levels, so the water didn't really make it to unit #3; then they brought in these monster water cannon trucks from the Japan SDF, and the water was able to reach the reactor unit. they managed to spray about 50 tonnes of water over the course of an hour, and then had to call it in for today. crossing my fingers for more good news tomorrow.

clarence: AFAIK they're still using seawater. okay so they've been "water-bombing" (?) unit #3 from helicopters. (just in case the word is wrong, think of what they do to put out forest fires in the interior.)

try to have a bit more care and sensitivity to those living through the situation. for example, i have been, for the most part, unaffected, but there are lots of people for whom a consistent supply of electricity is vital (e.g. hospital patients). moreover, people are getting overexcited about the amount of radiation coming to the metropolitan area and have begun hoarding food and supplies, which not only makes life hard for everyone in this area, but also makes it hard for goods to get out of the metropolitan to the disaster-struck regions. and even though it's true that most of Kantou was largely undamaged (only the Pacific side of Chiba, as well as Ibaraki, took tsunami damage), people did still die here, as well. ...so it's not "whatever". btw the volcano is in southwestern Japan, quite far away from the earthquakes/tsunami/nuclear plants. (although sure, it doesn't help that more things just keep blowing up around here.) and yeah, Guilty Pleasures was a bit of an odd choice to post the thread. I think Guilty Room is okay, since it's about Ishiwatari and Mori.

ugh, helicopter water drop failed today. (too much radiation.) they're apparently calling it in tonight, and are gonna try to figure out what the hell to do tomorrow. edit: just watching a report about the disaster area and stuff. they showed one lady, who's 104 years-old, evacuated in a school somewhere. in another place, they (partially) showed a baby being born today in a hospital (Shizukawa area?); the hospital is right in the middle of the disaster area. edit2: oh and the Emperor is giving a recorded address (?) to the public, aimed at the disaster. i'm such an idiot, though -- I'm looking at the TV, and I ask my wife, "You know, that old guy looks familiar... who is he?" and she's like, "It's the Emperor!" Totally facepalmed myself, hard, for that one. edit3: ok so apparently they're gonna use some special vehicle from the Metropolitan Police Dept. and use it to bring in water to cool down the spent fuel rods in unit #4, starting as soon as tonight. (they didn't say what kind of vehicle it is ) edit4: it's a high-pressure water truck, so i suspect they're gonna just put the special "chemical disaster team" in the truck and drive close enough to the units to fire water in.

i'm not panicking about the radiation. i know this is a serious crisis, but we're not within direct harm of the radiation yet, and being irrational about it doesn't help anyone. maybe i'm misreading this, but according to this report from Asahi.com: http://www.asahi.com/special/10005/TKY201103160186.html the level of radiation in Tokyo on the morning of the 16th (today) was 0.089 micro-Sieverts. The usual level is ~0.035 micro-Sieverts, so although it's higher, it's not nearly at the level where you need to start worrying about it. it's funny that you mentioned that, Dace, though, because a friend of mine (from Victoria) who's in Tokyo, as well, just took off last night to Shizuoka because of the radiation. when i was talking with him yesterday afternoon, before he left, i was even thinking it would be ironic if something happened in Shizuoka... and then there was that M6.4 earthquake at 10:30pm last night lol. =========================================================== again, this is mosty directed at Mike and Paul, but in principle, this relates to everyone: After discussing the situation with the wedding planner at the shrine, we have decided to postpone the wedding ceremony and reception. We have tentatively set it to June 18th; however, we are still waiting to hear back from our parents (my parents and my wife's parents) to make sure there is no schedule conflict. If there isn't, then we will go with June 18th, and we'll try to inform all guests of the change in schedule. As such, it's okay to cancel your hotel reservation now (I would recommend it), and if there is no schedule conflict in June, I would recommend trying to exchange (? I'm not sure if this is the right word) your current tickets for tickets in June.

will do. it's 12:30am right now, and my wife can't get off work until at least early afternoon, so it'll be another 12 or so hours before we have any idea of when we can postpone the wedding to. i'm not exactly sure, but if we postpone it to later, then you may be able to postpone your flight by changing to a different flight date (rather than outright cancelling). in any case, just make sure of your options on your end. edit: i was reading some articles about news abroad -- and i heard that people in BC are stocking up on iodine! what a laugh.

wow, two big earthquakes just happened: one off the coast of Miyagi, another in Shizuoka (magnitude 6.0)! the Shizuoka one is closer to my place, and the apartment was shaking enough that my wife and i ducked under tables. we felt it at magnitude ~4 at our place, just btw. edit: magnitude in Shizuoka was revised to 6.4.

this is directed principally at mike and paul: due to the various disasters and problems going on in northeastern/eastern japan, my wife and i are reviewing our wedding ceremony+reception date, and we are currently considering postponing it to a later date, perhaps to april or may. we have to get in touch with the wedding planner, and i still have to talk to my parents, but from my wife's side (her family as well as her relatives), it seems that it will be quite difficult to pull this off successfully. i will keep you guys posted, and we will probably make a decision within a day or two.

unit #2 wasn't being cooled with seawater because the pump wasn't working properly until now, so the water level inside the fuel rod container is quite low and it's possible that the fuel rods are completely exposed. Tokyo Electricity said: "We can't deny that the fuel rods haven't melted." (although when they said melted, i'm not sure if they meant completely, or partially, melted.) edit: and this just in -- they've opened the vent and are releasing radioactive (irradiated?) steam in an effort to further/more quickly control the internal pressure. meanwhile, they're still pumping in seawater. incidentally, Mike and Paul, if both/either of you could email/PM/message me, please do ASAP! i actually want to talk to you guys about airplane and hotel stuff, since i have no idea what you guys are planning. and has anyone heard from Vu recently?

so they didn't end up doing the rolling blackouts in the tokyo area, and tonight they're gonna have a press conference about whether they will or won't (in the near future). also no surprise but a few more earthquakes today. a 6.3, followed by a couple of "smaller" ones just 15 minutes ago. trains are half-running in some places, but mostly down. lots of lines at grocery stores and dollar/convenience stores for food and any sort of emergency supplies. nothing panicky, though, but there are a lot more people out and about than usual. at least it's warm this afternoon (light breeze, +20~ish this afternoon). Ray: no damage in my area. the only damage that i heard about in tokyo was a couple of buildings downtown (where 5 people died 2 days ago), and a car slope in a Costco parkade collapsed and killed one woman. outside but close to tokyo, though, there's been some road, bridge and rail damage, but i'm sure you've seen that on the news already.

east japan is now officially short on electricity due to the incident at the Fukushima reactors. my area is going to have a planned power outage in 12 hours (9am), for about 3.5 hours, but they're already asking people to seriously cut down on electricity use as of now, so i won't be online much until we get more electricity.

apparently they upgraded the magnitude to 9.0, although idk if that's only inside Japan? like up until an hour ago, NHK was saying it was 8.8, but then it was changed to 9.0.

well, there were a couple of earthquakes a few hours ago, and there were maybe a few during the day, but it's quiet now, so hopefully I'll get a full night's rest tonight.

just watching the news right now the Japan Meteorological Agency is saying that there's a high probability that there will be aftershocks of magnitude ~6 for the next week, and aftershocks will last in total for up to a month.

i think in CT and CS, the "usual" Hakumen was tenchi, but like I said, the Hakumen player in that set was the announcer, Kakyuu.

i haven't played the game, so i can't really say, but it sounds like the way armour worked in ME2.

yeah the tsunami warnings are still on for pretty much the entire coastline of Japan. gabe: not underwater monsters, but radioactive leaks. finally it's stopped shaking here. well, there was one small quake within the last hour, but "that's it" lol. strangely enough, from my point of view, looking towards Mt. Fuji, there's been a column of black smoke rising off to the side of Mt. Fuji for the past couple of hours. no idea if it's a distress smoke signal or if it's a fire in a city on the other side of the hills from here.

yeah actually shortly after i posted last time, my wife got home. she was on the train when the earthquake hit, and although she was alright, the train was stopped for an hour before the train personnel let the passengers off. she walked back to the station, took a bus partway home, then walked the rest of the way (about an hour and a half in total, when it should normally take 30 minutes). we've been mostly watching the news and emailing friends & family to let them know we're alright. the aftershocks are still coming, though, it's crazy. and i don't even know if they should be called aftershocks: most of them are relatively strong earthquakes, in and of themselves, so it's been a really crazy day. dunno if you guys have seen the images, though, but it's pretty awful: entire towns swept away, factories/refineries on fire, even some towns on fire, as well. i'm not sure how i'm gonna sleep tonight, but i guess i'll have to try lol. i'll keep you guys posted as things develop with me.

yeah that was just the other day. according to NHK, today's earthquake was the largest in recorded history in Japan. there are earthquakes still happening throughout various parts of northeast japan.

now they're showing video of ... pullback?... of the tsunami waves... all these cars and ships and things getting pulled out to sea. edit: wow, another one, 5:35pm. edit2: jeez it's like every 5 minutes, another just hit at 5:40 and i just felt it half a minute ago.

lol jeez, it was another earthquake a couple of minutes ago. this is the USGS picture as of 5:35pm local time: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/10/140_35.php

yeah i was watching NHK (kinda like the CBC of Japan) and they had a cameraman in a helicopter over Sendai, and they caught one of the earlier tsunami waves just sweep away the town near the coast, around the Sendai airport. just crazy, looked like a disaster movie; you could even see people tryin to drive their cars away from the wave but then get hit by the wave. (the scene quickly changed to a different camera.) one of the (other) unnerving things is that cellphone communications seem to be down in the tokyo area, so i have no idea how my wife is doing. and it's just nuts how many earthquakes there've been today, like 5 or 6? my apartment's been shaking for the past like... 5 hours? i mean the past couple of hours it's been "quiet", although there were a couple of smaller earthquakes in... right now it's shakin gmore again... but yeah like, all of east/northeast Japan basically stopped today.

is everyone alright over there?