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Category: Miscellaneous

My Dot Com Lifestyle in Japan

May 1st, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

I was reading John Chow’s article, with accompanying video, The Dot Com Lifestyle, and it prompted me to write a little about my own work-at-home life.
My work commitments
I was an English teacher for ten years, working six days a week, and thinking I was lucky because I only worked for five or six hours in [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 15 Comments »

Ramsay Ramblings 4/30/2008

April 29th, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

I’ve been feeling pretty grotty this last week. First Rikuto “got the byouki”, then Mami “got the byouki”, and now I’ve “got the byouki”. Although I’d love to sing a song about “getting the byouki” (getting sick), I’ll spare you this week, and share some more Ramsay Ramblings instead.
Magnitude 7 Earthquake Virtually Hits Gifu

Since my [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »

Ramsay Ramblings 4/21/2008

April 21st, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

Is the weekend over already? Time seems to be flying these days. We are well into spring and the suzumushi (bell crickets) are piercing my brain with their high pitched singing. It must be time for some more Ramsay Ramblings!
5 yen a bag, or take a box for free!
Today, my mother-in-law came by for a [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 16 Comments »

Do You Read Self-Help Books?

March 31st, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

I don’t read many books. I usually prefer to strain my eyes and induce headaches by reading content on the web. Right now, however, I am half way through How to Win Friends and Influence People, a book written by Dale Carnegie in 1936!
Disclaimer: The above link is an Amazon affiliate link and yes, I [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 13 Comments »

Cell Phones Double the Risk of Cancer

March 30th, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

I take anything the “news” tells me with a pinch of salt these days. Very little of it is actually useful or even important. If a murderer took his own life after that of his victim’s, then why report the crime on TV? Since the criminal is no longer a threat, reporting the story is [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »

Notice: Moving LongCountdown.com

March 10th, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

I’ve started to move this blog across to my new web host. It can take up to 72 hours to “propagate” around the internet, so for the time being I’ve closed the comment form. In the meantime, I’ll let you admire my new ultra-skinny blog template!

Posted in Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »

Maru Batsu Survey #1

February 26th, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

There’s a popular Japanese website called Kotonoha OX Social, a simple Yes/No survey site, where O (maru) means Yes and X (batsu) means No. The concept is simple and fun, so I thought I’d tie it in with my usual ramblings and ask you to give OX answers to the following topics which have been [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 8 Comments »

Apologies for “Unscheduled Maintenance”

February 12th, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

Let me take a moment to apologize for the 6+ hours of downtime my websites experienced today. When I woke up and switched on my computer at 8:00 am, it was already impossible to connect to any of my sites (of which I have a dozen, serving around 8,000 visitors on a typical Tuesday). The [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 9 Comments »

Ramsay Ramblings 1/30/2008

January 30th, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

Today’s ramblings cover Japan’s desire for foreign workers, a Japanese alternative to Adsense, the latest on JapanSoc, and an unexpected present.
Japanese businesses gearing up for foreign workers
I’ve just been watching my wife’s favorite TV show - no, not Aura no Izumi! - actually, she turns on the telly every night to watch World Business Satellite [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »

The Life and Times of Michael McKinlay

January 18th, 2008 by Nick Ramsay

Mike McKinlay is a name my longterm readers will know very well. For a full year, Mike was this blog’s top commentator and most avid reader. For a little while there, he lost his blogging mojo when Google robbed him of his PageRank, and thus the income he was earning from paid reviews dried up.
His [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »

A New Look for the New Year

December 27th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

With the new year getting closer, I thought it was time to give LongCountdown.com a new look. Most people like to use the freely available themes you can get for the Wordpress blogging platform. I, on the other hand, prefer to get my hands dirty and hack into the code.
Before I explain the changes, here’s a picture of what [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 9 Comments »

Ramsay Ramblings 12/21/2007

December 21st, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

My last Ramsay Ramblings proved to be quite controversial when I touched on the topic of half-Japanese children. Today’s ramblings are far more tame.
I am not your maid!
This line is my wife’s favorite English expression, which she learned from my mum when we went to the UK on our honeymoon. Mami is very good to [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »

Ramsay Ramblings 12/6/2007

December 6th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

There are a few things I’d like to ramble about this morning (2:30am!).
The word “Half” - to allow it or not
Mami and I were talking about what to tell Rikuto about the word, “half”. If you missed my post, Half-Japanese or Half-Blood?, this English word is used by Japanese people to describe someone who is only part Japanese. Foreigners [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 12 Comments »

Sleep Better with a Nose Band Aid

November 15th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

In my previous post about sleeping, I said that I get about 8 hours sleep a night, usually from 3am to 11am. What I didn’t tell you was my secret for getting a good night’s sleep.
A big nose doesn’t help you breathe more easily
I blogged about my big nose before, and while it may make [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 3 Comments »

Is Christianity Based on a Myth?

October 30th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

I recently watched the highly controversial movie, Zeitgeist, and was fascinated by some of the claims it made. The film is divided into three parts covering Christianity, 9/11, and secret societies of international bankers. The glue that holds these three seemingly unrelated topics together is the suggestion that people are manipulated by an elite few.
I was particularly interested in Part [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »

Looking for Home Office Furniture?

October 25th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

We moved into our new house last December and never really went shopping for furniture. We had a few things which we brought from our old apartment, but unlike most newlyweds, we didn’t have the luxury of filling our new home with furniture, particularly not Traditional Office Furniture.
If we could do it all again, and [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Dancing Shoes and Shadow Puppetry

October 24th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

If you saw the video of me ballroom dancing with our 3-month old baby, Rikuto, then you’ll know that once he’s able to stand I’ll be splashing out on these awesome parent and child dance shoes from Sala Shop. 
I originally came across the shoes picture on Molly McGinn’s I am Kindermusik blog. Molly has a lot of [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 2 Comments »

The Great Storm of 1987

October 16th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

I can’t believe it has been exactly 20 years since the Great Storm hit the south-east of England in the early hours of October 16th, 1987. I’ve been through plenty of typhoons in Japan, but none of them come close to the ”hurricane” that knocked out our electricity and water, blew over the trees in our garden and completely [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 2 Comments »

Blogging to Save the World

October 10th, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

For six months of this year, I was blogging on another site of mine, Nice4Rice, but eventually gave it up for various reasons. Before I closed the site, I had promised my readers that I would write a post for Blog Action Day, but since I wrapped that blog up, it’s only appropriate that I make that post here [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

Crazy for Ballroom Dancing

October 3rd, 2007 by Nick Ramsay

I promise one of these days I’ll post a video of me dancing the Rumba or the Waltz. Yes, if you haven’t read about my ballroom dancing antics before on this blog, let me tell you that every Friday night I take dancing lessons. I started learning with Mami, but since she became pregnant, I’ve [...]

Posted in Miscellaneous | 1 Comment »

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