2:48 p.m. The U.S. Open Tennis has started yesterday Japan time, with Kei Nishikori as the 4th-seeded player for the first time in Japanese tennis history.

Still, no TV station except for WOW-WOW on cable tv is going to broadcast the tournament live, as far as I know. Don't they ever learn? I understand there are risks, seeing from the TV station's point of view, but don't they ever WANT to broadcast something that we want to watch? Perhaps NHK might do it if Kei keeps winning and makes it to, let's say, the top 8. Though I'm afraid they're going to use the recording just like last year, which is not exactly what we WANT. Well, at least not what I WANT.

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Caterpillar

3:28 p.m. It was a let down that Kei Nishikori has lost in his first match against a lower world ranker, just as much as Ryu Shichinohe had let the world champion slip away from his fingers, only to give the crown to Teddy Riner again.

Personally, I've seen the same problem as the cause for each loss in these two completely different matches. It is the lack of self-control. Japanese athletes have been trained traditionally, to get over difficulties with konjo, a mentality containing emotions close to hunger, guts and gumption, but I think it's time we learned how to control ourselves more practically, with the help of psychological approach.

So in my humble opinion, Kei Nishikori and Ryu Shichinohe, the two young athletes in whom I put my faith, definitely need mental trainers to win and achieve their goals.

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Caterpillar

4:32 p.m. Cow's voice is still ringing in my head.

He has been lecturing someone over the phone to download a proxy template, it seems, though that someone on the other end of the phone probably weren't following him, and his voice got louder and louder. By the time he got to the part to have that person click on the download button, he was literally yelling at the top of his voice.

I wish he'd knew it wasn't the loudness of one's voice that gets the message across.

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Caterpillar

5:02 p.m. Darn, I've forgotten my socks at home.

Have been wearing sports sandals on bare foot for a while except for rare occasions when I had to take off the sandals to go inside a house or something. I had to visit a client today so I'd dutifully washed and dried my socks to get them ready, and I've forgotten them at home! Even worse, I didn't realize that until I was a block away from my office.

Generally in Japan, it is considered not polite to enter someone's house on bare foot, especially when invited. That's why I'd gotten my socks ready and I forget them. Humph.

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Caterpillar

1:34 p.m. There was a downpour early in the afternoon yesterday as the forecast had warned us beforehand.

Tornados, well seemingly tornados, have been spotted even in some parts of Tokyo due to the turbulant weather. Some people have been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a huge rainbow in Roppongi which I missed. And I realized that I hadn't been paying much attention to the sky. I might have been able to see a rainbow too, if I'd kept my eyes and mind open for this wonderful world, but I'd been too selfish and occupied with myself, worrying about socks.

Just reminding myself that I'd better enjoy the moment rather than sit around feeling bitter, because time doesn't stand still.

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Caterpillar

9:19 p.m. Our national women's basketball team has won the FIBA Asia Championship!

By winning this championship which also served as a quqlifier for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics coming up next summer, the team has secured their ticket to the Olympics for the first time since the Athens Olympics in 2004. We all know it wasn't a smooth road with the suspension of the JBA (Japan Basketball Assciation), but the women's national team has overcome the toughest time and earned themselves a big step forward into the future. And that is awesommme!

Now that their next target has been set as the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, what I hope is that they would express their undefeatable spirit of not giving up their hope even in the most difficult times, and make positive efforts steadily, step by step, day by day in that court of Rio. If they can do that, I'm sure results would come to follow. Congratulations, ladies!

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Caterpillar

3:33 p.m. Cow has been into some online game for a while, and he's trying to get himself a pet husky in the game since he can't in his real life.

Unfortunately, huskies seem to be popular in the game and although they appear on the selling list from time to time, usually they are either too expensive for Cow to buy or already slod by the time he sees the list. I take a peek on the monitor when I have some free time and agree that it would be nice to tag a husky or two behind Cow's wagon. So someone please sell him a husky for less than 270G, if you will. Thanks.

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Caterpillar

1:31 p.m. It's been raining on and off for nearly three weeks now and another typhoon seems to be landing in the next 48 hours.

The sound of rainfall can be soft and relaxing, somtimes even coaxing and soothing almost to the point of comfortable, but this has gone too far. I miss the sunshine and the warm weather. Wonder why the weather is going to extremes these days? Japan used to have a mild, moderate climate and I used to love the features of every season. But now, things seem completely different.

Global warming? Ah, yes. Though it musn't be just that, I suspect there are many other things complicatedly tangled up to cause such drastic change in a matter of decades.

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Caterpillar

2:36 p.m. Thanks to some generous player who'd put it on the selling list, Cow has been able to get a husky in the online game he's been playing. It was a bit more high-priced than we'd expected, but Cow got it anyway since he's been waiting for this moment for nearly three weeks.

As for the rain, it's been pouring since last night due to the typhoon cutting across to the Japan Sea side. It seems the typhoon has brought along huge rainy clouds on its wind, that we are bound for at least one more day of hevy rain. Bearing rainy weather has already gone way beyond my capacity, but then, if it's only for another day. Sunshine will be back hopefully, by the end of the week.

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Caterpillar

4:02 p.m. Are broken bones becoming the trend?

One of my clients have broken her right knee bone in the beginning of august, while she had been shopping in a department store. Today, another client has told me that her son has broken his right knee bone last week, hit by a car while riding his bicycle on his day off.

Although I've been suffering minor health problems from time to time thanks to the huge amount of stress provided daily by JoOusama, I have never been met with serious injuries such as broken bones. And I've always wondered how one could break one's bones if one is not taking part in any kind of sports activities. But here are two examples, situations in which I cannot imagine myself breaking any bone.

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Caterpillar

1:46 p.m. It seems Apple has released the new iPhone 6s and 6sPlus, and the "innovative" feature of these devices are supposed to be the 3D touch pannel.

According to some reviews, 3D touch pannels unlike the former displays, perform different tasks by touching and pressing the icons displayed on the screen. There was an example given in one of the reviews, that in cases you receive an e-mail from a friend which included a hyperlink to a certain website, you can take a peek of the website by merely touching the link, then open up a window to view the details when you press down the link.

I can't see how and why that function can be so innovative, as I am satisfied with the action and performance of touching and long-touching icons on the display with my iPad mini. I just can't imagine how much more useful that 3D touch pannel can be. Perhaps I lack creativity.

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Caterpillar

2:02 p.m. I couldn't get much sleep Thursday night so I wanted to go to sleep early last night, though that tiny hope was crusdhed after another struggle with my hard disc recorder.

It was around two in the morning by the time I finally lied down to sleep. And then, the earthquake. Before six, a level 5 earthquake has shook the ground, the house, my room and me awake. In an instant, NHK broadcasting rang out through the house both from the radio and the TV, before I turned mine on to check and see if I had to get up and evacuate. The loud sound rang on even though JoOusama had already got bored of listening to it, and was moving around downstairs in the kitchen.

Sleep-deprived as I was, I fought hard to stay awake during my morning meeting feeling dizzy and barely able to stand and walk straight, while Cow had been sleeping upstairs because he's caught cold and haven't been felling well sincs a couple of days ago. Around noon he comes down and starts to talk about his online game. He's been talking nothing about the game for the past couple of weeks. I snapped at him, he got pissed. As I still had another meeting in the afternoon, I tried to get some rest in my spare time, but that didn't come true because Mama Cow went on talking to herself non-stop in a pretty loud voice, while Cow probabaly intentionally left the door open to pester me in his anger. I couldn't get a minute's sleep and Mama Cow is still talking after an hour. Cow? He's refused his daily shopping, refused everything and resting soundly on his sun-dried futon upstairs.

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Caterpillar

9:53 p.m. Have been watching the recordings on my hard disk drive. Have had a lot of catching up to do.

I've also washed a small heap from my piling up laundry. only to discover that it wasn't sunny, but mostly overcast. Despite the weather, I had to do at least a bit of washing since I wouldn't get the chance to, once work started on Monday. A typical Sunday nothing special, but sometimes nothing special means close to happy, as there has been no earthquakes, nor heavy rain.

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Caterpillar

1:33 p.m. Cow is recovering gradually from his cold.

The fever and headache seems to be gone, so he's passed the main stage of hi cold, but it would probably take a while to recover from the aftermath. Anyway, he now seems to be better enough to be playing online game again. Think I'll go to the Bad Heilbrunner shopping page to see if they ship overseas. If they handle international shipping, perhaps I can buy some herb teabags for poor Cow. Depending on the price, I could buy some other medical herb tea to give to my friends. Let's go and take a look.

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Caterpillar

2:11 p.m. I've checked out the web shopping page at the Bad Heilbrunner website, though it transpired that they only handle domestic shipping.

That leaves me with two options: order online and have the products sent to my friend's address in Germany, then have her bring them when she is coming back to Japan, or buy the herb tea packages through a Japanese private import site. Taking into account that my friend is not coming back this year, I'm left with only one choice. Buy them through a Japanese private import site, which are probably both higher-priced and limited in variety.

It just hit me there was one more option! Visit Germany and get them myself. But this doesn't sound so practical...

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Caterpillar

2:21 p.m. I was scolded by Cow the day before yesterday, that the file names of the Japanese and English text for this "Murmur" have been reversed. Usually, the Japanese files contain a "-j" with English files containing "-e" to differentiate each other. I was tied up with other things at the time, so I asked him to fix the file names.

As I was saving my files yesterday, I recognized a file name with a "-f". Er, "-f"? "-j" for Japanese, "-e" for English was our mutual rule but then, what does "-f" stand for, French?

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Caterpillar

2:22 p.m. Cow has been spitting out venomous words for the past couple of days.

Mostly because he hasn't recovered from his cold and been suffering terrible coughs, he's been in a terrible mood. At one time he gets infuriated because I didn't get the phone, at another time he explodes that two old women didn't give way while passing him on the narrow sidewalk.

The most important thing in this case, would be for Cow to recover from his cold as quick as possible. Though I'm not sure how much longer I could bear his venomous spurts.

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Caterpillar

2:14 p.m. Cow seems to have bought some freshwater clams to have them in miso soup for lunch, but as always, he'd been too absorbed in his online game that he'd forgotten the fact that they needed some preparation beforehand.

Clams and freshwater clams, need to be left in water (salted water in clam's case) for a night to have them spit out the sand. Otherwise, you will be met with that nasty feeling of crunching sand in your mouth while enjoying the seafood. As the freshwater clams were meant to be for lunch, Cow couldn't spare much time for preparation. So I pulled up professor Google to search for a quicker way to get the sand out and wala! I found one I could try in just five minutes!

Here's the procedures: put the freshwater clams in a shallow heat-resitant bowl or a tray. Heat water up to 48 to 58 degrees Celcius, pour it over the clams so that it barely covers the clams. Make sure not to pour too much water. Then rub the clam shells together in the water, and you will see sand coming out from them in a couple of minutes. We repeated this procedures three times until we stopped seeing sand, and cooked them in miso soup. It tasted fine without any nasty crunches.

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Caterpillar

1:28 p.m. The prep races for the autumn grade one series are starting, kicking off with today's Rose Stakes and tomorrow's Sentlight Kinen.

Was going to focus on the performance of Shonan Adela for the Rose Stakes, as she had been one of the most promised filly this spring, although she couldn't be in the classic races because of her injury. She has good potentials it seemed, so I wanted to check that with my own eyes, but she couldn't make it to the Rose Stakes and scratched off a couple of days ago. That said, the center of attraction would automatically be Mickey Queen, fresh back from recess after she'd won the Japanese Oaks. If she finishes within 3rd place, she'll surely become the main act in Shuka-sho.

As for the Senlight Kinen, I wouldn't put full trust on Satono Rasen. I believe there's a chance for horses like Tanta Alegria or Smoke Free that might perform better in Sentlight Kinen as the race bears special features, different from any race these horses have experienced in the spring classics. I might have pushed Kitasan Black if he'd drawn an inner barrier. Provided that his condition is back, he has the strenght to perform well. His virtue is that he goes up front with a good speed.

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Caterpillar

9:32 p.m. Must make ammends as the Rose Stakes which I'd thought would be run yesterday, was actually run today while the Sentlight Kinen is going to be run tomorrow.

As I'd expected, Mickey Queen came within top 3. Today's result would probably push her up to the most favored in Shuka-sho, but that can't be helped. I was slightly worried about her next performance because the commentator had raised his voice in surprise saying that the lap of the fifth furlong was 58.4 seconds. On an avergely flat turf condition, 58.4 seconds for 1,000m is a bit too fast. However, the first 3 furlongs' lap time turned out to be 35.1 seconds, while the last 3 furlongs were 34.9 seconds. This indicates that the lap wasn't really so high, rather the opposite. It was just that the turf condition was fast.

Considering all this informtation, I'm pretty sure Mickey Queen would perform well in Shuka-sho.

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Caterpillar

9:54 p.m. So, the Sentlight Kinen today.

Tanta Alegria finished in 6th place and Smoke Free in 11th, but that couldn't be helped because the lap was slow. They might have had a better shot if it had been faster. Satono Rasen has sunk in 7th place as I'd feared, but this was not because of the lap. The main reason for his loss, I believe, is that he got stuck in the middle and had to hit the brake when he needed to be speeding up most. Deep Impact descendants tend to give up the race, once their accelration gets disturbed. This means that if he'd been on the outside, perhaps he'd caught Kitasan Black or, at least slipped into 3rd place.

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Caterpillar

10:48 p.m. Have been finsihing off some leftover work and am exhausted... why do I have to get so worn out on holidays? Why?

Despite my diligent and dutiful devotion, work has not been finished yet completely. But I've decided to call it a day and not going to work tomorrow. After all it's a holiday. Let's make better use of it.

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Caterpillar

7:05 p.m. Tonight! From 10:15 P.M. Japan time. On channel 4. Rugby World Cup Scotland vs. Japan!

Am too excited to put down in words! Whatever the results, I don't mind. Just want to see a good game with high spirit. Good luck, boys!

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Caterpillar

4:44 p.m. The game was a complete loss. Our team couldn't take the advantes of the penalties while Scotland succeeded in linking 4 penalties out of five into scores.

Still, there were scenes that made my eyes well up with tears. How Michael Leitch put up an undefeatable fight struggling forward and forward, how Thompson never gave up the fight, how Goromaru flew to tackle and kill a critical try and, how Amanaki Lelei Mafi fought to the last ounce of his strength.

I hope Mafi is alright. He'd gone through serious injuries and just made it to the World Cup and now he's hurt again. But you've shown us the spirit, a braveheart that blooms like cherry blossoms in spring. We can't just give it all up here and now. We've got to fight back.

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Caterpillar

1:51 p.m. New clients coming in just when the autumn G1 season is starting... well, can't be complaining, as this automatically means a bit more income :-)

Speaking of the autumn G1 series, Kobe Shinbun-hai, the prep race for Kikka-sho is going to be run on Sunday, September 27th. Real Steel is going to make his come back in this race so might as well check outhis condition.

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Caterpillar

1:07 p.m. So two prep races will be run tomorrow, Kobe Shinbun-hai, the Kikka-sho trial and All Comer, the Tenno-sho trial.

As I'd expected, Real Steel is the most favored in Kobe Shinbun-hai. Whether he can win after his injury I don't know as it depends on a myriad factors, however, I believe he has the mentality to perform well after recess if the crew has put him in good shape, so I wouldn't go against him if you ask me. Besides, there don't seem to be any other horse that can be competitive enough to become his rival. If I were to name a couple of dark horses, well, I'd say Red Solomon, Red Artista and Kilohana.

For All Comer, I'm quite suspicious about Nuovo Record. Perhaps the three-months' break might do her good, though I've been once bitten and I can't put full trust on her. Shonan Pandra looks more approving if it's the comparison between Nuovo Record, on the premise that Ikezoe pushes her up front. Longshots will be powerful horses that go oup front like Sekisho or Meisho Kadomatsu, Logo Type would probably need the help of soft track condition. If the lap drops to a slow, perhapss there's a chance for Maria Light.

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Caterpillar

10:02 p.m. It's harvest moon tonight, but unfortunately, the moon has gone behind the thick clouds in Tokyo. Still, the bright moonbeams suggest that there's a huge gorgeous one behind the clouds. Wish I could've seen it directly.

Koube Shinbun-hai finished with Lia Fail hitting wire to wire and Real Steel lagging two lengths behind. Real Steel couldn't catch the winning horse beacuase his position was too far behind around the middle. He should have taken the position 4th or 5th from the top, though he's missed the chance at the first corner. In such slow lap and fast track condition, there's no wonder Lia Fail got away. Well, at least now I know that Real Steel can run. Hopefully, he would improve his performance by Kikka-sho.

As for All Comer, Sekisho didn't perform well but that can't be helped as he missed the start. Apart from that, I wasn't so far off the mark, I think.

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Caterpillar

2:51 p.m. Just when the first G1 of the autumn series is going to be run, new clients pop in, old ones start rescheduling. Welcome to a tough week, huh? I've got a rugby match to watch, you know? Can't they show me some mercy?

And while I'm tied up at the phone, my desktop computer is taken over by Cow. Grrrrr.... Can't anyone show me some mercy?

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Caterpillar

1:50 p.m. Since my hdd recorder has been misbehaving for a while, I started searching for a new one in case I have to buy another to replace the one I'm using now.

And it turns out that hard disk drive recorders have already become a dying breed. The search results only showed a few web shops that still sell them, each with a warning of "the last one!"

Sadly, my TV does not have recording functions which means I cannot simply plug in an external hard disk drive, but need a device with a recording function. That leaves me 3 options. One, get a hdd recorder somehow, two, buy a Blu-ray recorder with hdd, or three, buy a DVD recorder with hdd. However, it is not my intention and I feel extremely reluctant to buy Blu-ray or DVD recorders, when I am sure that I will never watch Blu-ray or DVDs on the device.

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Caterpillar

1:33 p.m. It was late yesterday afternoon when Cow blew his nose and let out a cry of horror. As I peered into the tissue paper he was holding in his hands, I saw a sack-figured skin semingly mucous, nothing else.

We wondered for a moment, half suspecting that Cow might have suddenly turned into some kind of reptile and that he'd just cast off part of his old skin. But I soon figured, this must be the burnout of one of his nose polyps. Nose polyps are supposed to grow in the form of clumps, like a bunch of bananas growing inside your nose. Judging from the strange and unique form, it would be most plausible if I thought it that way. Cow's later comment that he feels like his breathing has become smoother, also backs up this theory.

Good news to those who suffer nose polyps. The polyps can come off and improve your breathing condition, if and when the inflamation dies down completely so you wouldn't have to go under surgery! Those who are suffering now, stay on that allergy nose spray, look over your eating habit to take in whatever that subsides inflamation, eat well, sleep well, improve your blood circulation with a bit of exercise, and look forward to the day you meet your polyps!

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Caterpillar