The Monday Read

Third time’s a charm edition

Once again the Monday Read is going out on a Wednesday. Perhaps it is time we changed the name?

Both my wife and I got emails today saying we’d won the right to buy Sharp masks -either we are very lucky or no one wants them any more πŸ˜‰

Life is looking up, mainly because I went back to jiu-jitsu class. Amazing how much difference a workout and some human contact make to your mood and mental clarity.

Having said that, stay safe out there everyone.

This week’s links

  1. Every foreign resident’s nightmare: Traveling 5,000 Miles to Say Goodbye From Six Feet Away
  2. Response is worse than slow and the paperwork is onerous: Aging administrative pipeline holds back Japan’s Β₯230 trillion virus-response aid
  3. Food for thought, especially at the moment: You Must Live an Interesting Life
  4. RetireJapan post from approximately 30 years ago (January 2020): Levels of Wealth
  5. That looks like a fun flight (not!): ε…₯ε›½εˆΆι™η·©ε’Œγ§εˆζ„εΎŒεˆγ‚γ¦ γƒ™γƒˆγƒŠγƒ θ‘Œγθ‡¨ζ™‚δΎΏγŒε‡Ίη™Ί
  6. I miss Bourdain: Anthony Bourdain’s Moveable Feast
  7. This is pretty intesting. Would be fun to do a Japan version: Best Robo Advisors: The $25,000 Comparison Case Study
  8. This seems like a fun thing to do with the ‘gambling fraction’ of your portfolio: Human IPO wants you to buy shares in regular people
  9. This video is a wonderful breakdown of how to sell things to people: How Joe Ades Sells Potato Peelers
  10. I love how this woman went from busking to over a billion views on YouTube in a matter of months. Wonder if the talent is only obvious in hindsight?
  11. I truly wonder if cheap mass travel is coming back: The virus that shut down the world

What do you think? Anything good in there? I really enjoyed the videos in #9 and #10 this week.

This week’s books

7 Responses

  1. #6 – maybe a Brazilian JJ connection there…? πŸ˜‰
    And while there’s some other stuff I could comment on in that article, since this is -retire- japan, I think this one applies:
    (replace “I have” with “Retirement is”.)

    β€œI have the best job in the world,” he said. β€œIf I’m unhappy, it’s a failure of imagination.”

    1. Oh, indeed. He was one of the best celebrity publicists for BJJ: his ex-wife is a high level competitor and she got him into it.

      Some day, on the retirement thing. Some day.

  2. #2 Just another, apparently different experience. I was worried about and expecting such delays and scoured the news trying to come up with the best way to apply and quickly receive the government virus-response aid for my family. I went online to the MyNumber page just after the news came that the procedures were finalized but my wife suggested we wait a few days. Two days later the paperwork came in the mail for both the national and city aid. We filled it out and the money was deposited to our account within 6 days.
    As in most other things, I think it probably depends on where you live and the efficiency of the local government (we live in a small town to the far north of the rather rural Fukui prefecture, if anyone’s curious). As a show of my thankfulness, I’ve been trying to change habits on my usual jokes about government inefficiency and bureaucracy but, well, old habits die hard.

    1. Definitely based on the city/locality πŸ™‚

      We live in Sendai, which is big and not great administratively. Just a few hundred meters away is Tagajo, a much smaller city with a more responsive and helpful administration. They got their individual payments weeks earlier.

      However, my main complaint has been the really terrible government response to businesses: they still haven’t announced rent support??? My wife paid her part-timers while her business was shut and is still hoping the government will reinburse her as promised. There is too much uncertainty, the paperwork is too fiddly, and it is taking too long.

      A lot of people will be bankrupt before their government aid arrives.

  3. This is just to let you know that your subscribers’ ‘Read More’ link in the email doesnt work this week, and didn’t work last week. I got here by Ecosiaing it.

    1. Thanks Angela! It seems to be working for me, is anyone else having trouble?