The Monday Read

Boosted Edition

I received my voucher for the third (booster) vaccination at the start of this month. I kind of assumed I would need to wait for my employer to organise the vaccinations, but last Wednesday a friend mentioned they had gotten their shot a few days before so I went back and actually read the contents of the envelope the city sent me.

Turns out we have two mass vaccination sites currently operating in Sendai, as well as a bunch of clinics. I went online and found that the site near me had huge availability for the following day, so booked for lunchtime.

I arrived at 12:37, got my shot at 12:42, and was out of there before 13:00. Very impressive. I think there were more volunteer helper types than patients!

I got Moderna again (same as the first two times) but this time it knocked me out. If you look at the list of possible side-effects, way at the bottom you will find ‘some people also experience chills, nausea, and vomiting’, and that’s what I got this time! From hour 12 to hour 33 or so. Pretty unpleasant, but at least after that I felt much better and there were no lingering symptoms other than slight soreness in the arm.

So just be ready. The booster is half the amount, but for me at least was much worse than either of the two initial shots.

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (19,331 posts to date). Here are the latest active threads:

This week’s books

I really enjoyed the new Reacher series on Amazon Prime, so much so that I went back and reread Killing Floor again. Turns out they did make some changes, but nothing major and nothing that really changed the nature of it. I’m now rereading Die Trying. This is definitely going to boost the number of books I read this year 😉

  1. Long but interesting article about TikTok: TikTok and the Sorting Hat
  2. Missed this. Guess all the students who switched to learning Korean when they couldn’t get into Japan got lucky: Korea Has Surpassed Japan in Per Capita GDP
  3. I get the feeling this tweet explains a lot that is wrong with modern society 😉
  4. This is good: My seatbelt rule for judgement
  5. 5x in 5 years… OMG: Buffett’s $152B Apple bet, explained
  6. A new home for RetireJapan? “International Living” Rates Panama The Best Country to Retire in 2022
  7. Makes complete sense to me: Japan’s 11-member Nambu family shows allure of frugality, limits of stimulus
  8. Nice presentation: The 8 biggest investing myths
  9. Not something I want to see: Taiwan can’t wait
  10. I’m a big fan of Craig Mod’s work: Memberships work
  11. This is very attractive to me right now: How to Make the Internet Small Again
  12. I often come back to this wonderful short essay: Structured procrastination
  13. Don’t have much of an image about post-retirement spending: Will you spend less as you age? The case against
  14. Some inspiration: The best FIRE films
  15. This is true, provided you are actually paying for quality and not branding: Buy nice or buy twice
  16. I think Japan is also moving in this direction, albeit more slowly than the US: How to live with Covid
  17. This seems somewhat reassuring: The long long Covid post
  18. Quick fire: Six questions for Derek Thompson
  19. I’m hoping for a strong yen and weak stock prices: Does a weak yen really help Japan?
  20. I found this perspective on the Joe Rogan thing interesting (Russel Brand YouTube): The Truth

What do you think? Anything interesting in there?

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7 Responses

  1. “but this time it knocked me out. If you look at the list of possible side-effects, way at the bottom you will find ‘some people also experience chills, nausea,..From hour 12 to hour 33 or so. Pretty unpleasant ”

    I ended up actually getting Covid over the weekend and had basically the same symptoms for about the same time period… I guess not much difference from getting the Vaccine and getting the actual disease.. Just the in-convenience of getting it

    1. I got the Pfizer booster this past tuesday. No side effects at all–maybe the next day if I rubbed/squeezed my arm where the needle went in I could feel it a little.

      Isn’t the moderna version supposed to have a little better efficacy?

      1. So I read, but also much stronger side effects. My colleagues are now going to try to book Pfizer for their booster!

  2. #2 – If GDP per capita is the measure of a good life, then why is Panama, and not Korea, the best place to retire? Young people can still be in the market for a house in Japan, and for foreigners, once you’re here, your visa is not tied to your job–you can quit and job-hunt for a while (in Korea, your boss ‘owns’ you, via direct control over your visa). And PR is not too difficult here. There are a fair number of foreigners who retire here, who have made their lives here.

    And Panama (#6) — why no mention of the covid situation? I’d want to know how Panama has been doing, or at least Panama City and Boquette, the two cities that are mentioned. Any travel restrictions, are retirement visas being issued?

  3. I’m not the biggest fan of winter here in Japan. I was watching a Covid update from Dr. John Campbell the other day and he had a guest on from Panama. The guest mention how the temperature in Panama is about 32 degrees Celsius all year round. “Sounds like somewhere I’d like to retire” I thought to myself. Now article #6 pops up 🙂

  4. Loved the Warren Buffet article regarding his tech investment in Apple. Thanks for sharing!

  5. I already had an appointment for later in the month for my third vaccination, but luckily my wife was able to book both of us right away once we got the coupons on Feb. 1st., as the sooner the better.
    Glad your friend was able to share the same info with you.