They say travel is broadening. So here’s a brief list of some of what I learned after three weeks in Japan and Korea. Will add more as I think of it.

1. toilet seats are highly engineered and if you can’t read the Korean or Japanese instructions, just push some random buttons

2. but be prepared for a jolt in a kind of personal area

3. QR codes are everywhere for everything.

4. Some blogger said that anything in Japan that might conceivably require a reservation, does. True! You needed a reservation (and a QR Code) to enter certain stores, for instance.

5. The SUICA card system for paying for travel - and some convenience store items - in Japan via the wallet app on your phone is pretty impressive

6. Until it doesn’t work on your wife’s phone and nobody can figure out why

7. Despite SUICA and QR Codes, be prepared to carry multiple small pieces of paper that represent - separately - your train reservation, your actual train ticket, your seat assignment, and your receipt, and they may be different sizes, and only one of them goes in the machine.

8.) In Canada you wouldn’t dream of taking a bus to the airport and hoping to make a four minute connection to a different bus in a different location. In Japan or Korea - hey, why wouldn’t that work, everything is exactly on time, as it should be.

9. Public transit is so advanced here, in speed, frequency, coverage, even signage, that it makes you wonder what Japanese visiting Canada think of the TTC, GO Transit and Via. (Westjet ads were in heavy rotation on the Narita Express train.)

10. I actually like the TTC and GO Transit and VIA, who do a good job with limited resources, and I just wish we could get a move on in building more frequent and reliable service.

11. Japanese ballpark hot dogs come with a dual ketchup/mustard packet, and you can carefully fold and squeeze it to dispense beautiful parallel lines of red and yellow onto your hot dog. Or in my case, onto my shirt.

12. Japanese baseball is an amazing experience. Congrats to the Yomiuri Giants, who beat the I’m-not-sure-exactly-I-think-it-was-the Dragons 8-1 last night. The organized sections of fans, chanting contiuously, loudly, and assisted by trumpets and drums meant that there was essentially no time (or need) for the sort of loud audio interruptions we’re used to at North American games.

13. Japanese may say “Ohayo” (“good morning”) to you but the correct response is not, unfortunately, “Ontario.”

14. Let’s remember how incredibly fortunate we are in North America that we can visit faraway lands, and still, most signs are subtitled in English, and everyone is eager to help you even if they have to pull up a translation app on their cell phones.

Very interesting article in the Atlantic about the effects the tariffs are having, on one farmer in particular in New York, who was surprised to learn that HE was responsible for paying the tariff, not his Canadian supplier.

I am sorry that people like this farmer are getting caught up in this insanity, but I hope everybody quickly realizes who pays tariffs. It’s not the foreign supplier. It’s the American purchaser.

Excerpt -

Last month , Nicholas Gilbert received a delivery of grain for the 1,400 cows he tends at his dairy farm in Potsdam, New York, 20 miles from the Ontario border. The feed came with a surprise tariff of $2,200 tacked on.

“We have small margins,” he told me. “I had a contracted price on that grain delivered to my barn. It was supposed to be so much per ton. And they added that tariff right on top because it comes from a Canadian feed mill.”

Gilbert cannot increase the price of the milk he sells, which is set by the local co-op. He cannot feed his cows less food. He cannot buy feed from another supplier; there aren’t any nearby, and getting it from farther away would be more expensive.

When he got the delivery, he stared at the tariff for a while. Shouldn’t his Canadian supplier have been responsible for paying it?

“I’m not even sure it’s legal! We contracted for the price on delivery! If your price of fuel goes up or your truck breaks down, that’s not my problem! That’s what the contract’s for.”

But the tariff was legal, and it was Gilbert’s responsibility.

apple.news/AA5h2HxJ7…

We went to the Jays game on the weekend. I was curious to see how the supposed hundreds of millions in upgrades to the Skydome are playing out. One thing I did notice is that the scoreboard has been embiggened significantly.

Take a look at this visual onslaught, viewed from our seats in the 500 level. Suppose this is your first baseball game, or you’re only a casual fan.

I have a question for you.

What’s the score?

It sure is buried on the screen. here it is - of course it’s 9-5 for Baltimore, not the Jays best start to the season.

There sure is a lot of other information on all these screens that’s larger than the score. I’m glad I know enough about baseball to know to look to the right of the inning-by-inning box score for the “R” column, but … wow, is it ever overwhelmed by everything else.

Here, by contrast, is an Argos scoreboard. A little easier to see the score, you’d probably agree. But maybe baseball statheads need more.

OK, this commercial for the VW Buzz

and this one for DoorDash

are both in such heavy rotation on TV these days that I cannot get these stupid songs out of my head. I like the VW Buzz one and I cannot stand the DoorDash one.

So, naturally, the thing to do is to research what songs they’re using.

Are You Having Any Fun?

VW is using Elaine Stritch’s cover of Are You Having Any Fun?,

which - amazingly - was originally a Tommy Dorsey number. Here’s a sliiiightly different version.

I like this one. It’s from the 1939 edition of the Broadway revue series George White’s Scandals; later that year the great trombonist Tommy Dorsey recorded it.

The Hamburger Song

I cannot STAND the DoorDash commercial above. What the heck is going on in that house? DoorDash tries to explain it’s about the anticipation and joy behind every delivery.

I’m not buying it. What is going on with that family? Why are they apparently destroying their house?

Anyway, the song is The Hamburger Song by Bobby Moore & The Rhythm Aces from 1966. Here’s the original.

This is such an odd song that I can’t actually find the lyrics written down anyhere. Why are they saying Liberace?

I hope that by blogging about this, the songs will LEAVE MY HEAD. Although Are You Having Any Fun can stay, it’s kinda catchy.

scene: Hamilton’s Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair, check-in last night. Students are setting up their displays and then visiting us at the Safety Desk for a followup consult.

The following is actual dialogue. Only the names have been changed but you can probably guess who one of them is.

Student: “Hi, I’m ready for a safety check.”
Safety Check In Desk Guy: “OK! You’ve come to the right place! What is your project number, please?”
Student: B-17

brief pause

Safety Check In Desk Guy: B-17…. 🎶 Please Mister Please … Don’t play B-17…
Additional Old Volunteers Near The Check Desk Join In: 🎶 It was our song, it was his song, but it’s ooooooover….

Student: ????
Safety Check In Desk Guy: “What? That’s a classic. Olivia Newton-John sang Please Mr. Please on her 1975 album Have You Never Been Mellow. Look!

Student: probably thinking ‘no, i have never been mellow, i was not born in 1975 and neither were my parents’: attempts to back away quietly

Safety Check In Desk Guy: “She’s singing about a jukebox. Somebody is about to play song B-17 and she doesn’t want to hear it because it’s triggering bad memories”
Student: accelerates backup manouver

Additional Old Volunteers Near The Check Desk: also begin to back away

Safety Check In Desk Guy: “OK, look, a jukebox was a coin operated machine that played 45s.”
Student: ????

Safety Check In Desk Guy: “OK, 45s were ‘records’, they were made out of vinyl and …. ok never mind, you can go back to your project and an inspector will be right over.”

Safety Check In Desk Guy: “Also are we sure project K-9 isn’t about dogs? It should be. Could somebody check?”
Mrs Safety Check In Desk Who Has Been Doing this for Thirty Years and who is Already Annoyed that Safety Desk Check In Guy Is Referring to Her as His ‘Assistant’: “cut it out.”

Safety Desk Check In Guy notes in conclusion that he and Mrs. Safety Etc were watching ‘Canada’s Got Talent’ the other night and remarking that it seemed like Canada did not in fact have any talent (if all you ever watched was THAT show), and how grateful we both are to be among these amazing young people who will change the world, and they are all not only brilliant but also very polite.

alao can we double check project K-9 because if I was running things that would definitely be a dog project.

I signed up for a paid Wired subscription - because they’re doing some good reporting lately - and to my surprise, they sent me a sheet of laptop stickers.

I cannot personally imagine any circumstance where I’d put one of these stickers on my laptop, but the thought was nice.