Showing posts with label Tsutomu Yamaguchi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tsutomu Yamaguchi. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Hanging on the telephone

A lot can change in the space of a couple of days, and since my last post I've decided to return home for our Easter break, meaning I'll get to see Melanie for the first time since January. She flew out from the UK earlier today, and for the first time since January we are now in both the same time zone and the same continent. January was also the last time I was able to visit either a Tim Horton's or a barber, and trips to both establishments are now high on my to do list. As luck would have it (or was it a cunning Baldrick plan?), there is a Tim's right next to where I get my hair cut, so one stone is going to account for two birds as soon as I get back.

Another thing to look forward to upon my return is access to a speedy internet service once again, and to that end I have had to arrange for all our cable services to be reconnected ahead of Melanie's arrival today. I phoned Cogeco, our cable provider, on Monday to arrange said reconnection, only to be told that I may as well do this on Wednesday when Melanie was actually going to be at the apartment as otherwise we'd be paying unnecessarily for two extra days.

Pleased with the fact that the cable company was trying to help me save money I duly called back today, but I was immediately suspicious of the agent's tone of voice and was eventually put on hold for what became an interminably lengthy period of time. At this point in proceedings a succession of upbeat chart hits is normally fed down the line so as to keep you, the valued customer, in a suitably cheerful frame of mind as the time ticks by, but today I was subjected to a journey through the back catalogue of Alanis Morissette, hardly the dictionary definition of 'feel good pop.' At this point I should have realised what was coming next. The agent finally returned to tell me that our services could not actually be reconnected until Thursday, and when I asked if he knew what time this might be, he had no idea other than the usual 'some time between eight and four.'



I'm fully aware that my post about Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the man who survived not one, but two nuclear detonations, has now been sandwiched by rants about sewage trucks and cable companies, but it's my blog and I'll rant if I want to, and I'd wager that you would rant too if it happened to you. I feel all the better for venting my frustrations, and I thank you, dear reader, for allowing me to do so.

'Til next time then.......will sometime between eight and four be good for you?

Monday, March 30, 2009

The unluckiest man in the world

Having spent a fair amount of time of late bemoaning my lack of sewage collection, I recently read a story about a man whose level of misfortune far outstrips anything that lady luck has ever thrown at me (or anyone else, for that matter).



Tsutomu Yamaguchi is a 93 year old Japanese citizen. On August 6th 1945, he was on a business trip to Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb. Despite suffering from horrific burns to the top half of his body, he braved the devastation looking for a way out of the city, and the next day he managed to get on a train that took him back to his home...

...in Nagasaki.

Read Mr Yamaguchi's full story here.

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