A Small Victory

I feel like we have just had small victory in the battle to take our dream back.

When we moved out of Tokyo, the dream was to have zero cars or trucks - maybe just a little scooter. Instead, we would use the spare time that we have from not working to pay for the vehicle, to peddle our little wagon to and from our field. Having so many guests, however, means having at least a small van, so the dream was crushed. Having the van means that we become lazy, and instead of riding the bike to the field, we throw our tools in the back and drive up. Instead of pulling a log down from the mountain, we throw them in the back and drive them.

After a while, we noticed how dirty the inside of the van was getting, and don't like the impression it gives customers so started thinking about getting a little "k" pickup truck - considered an indispensable farm tool.

We asked our friendly neighborhood car-dealer if he could find one within our budget and he came back a week later with a sturdy little truck for a reasonable price. In the end, however, we passed. While we can afford it, and it would be very convenient to have, we started thinking about having yet another cost to think about - imagined how much more we would have to work to pay for it, and, considering that we have already basically missed spring, decided that even working one more day a month was unacceptible.

The plan now is to get more use out of the wagon (photo above) I hobbled together with stuff from the dump, try to figure out a better to way keep the van clean, and save the money the truck would have cost, to buy a bottle of sake for whatever neighbor lends us his truck if we ever really need it.

It feels good to be a bit freer.

And, finally, I couldn't resist sharing these great remixes of old cartoons: (via Drawn!)

It's a Pup Dog from Word Worms on Vimeo.

This clip explores the joy of owning a puppy. It stars a group of animal rights activist gnomes that live in the wallpaper.

Many more cartoon remixes here.

Alex Gorosh has created a project called WordWorms in which he takes old public-domain cartoons and remixes them, adding his own beats and lyrics to create fun rap cartoons geared towards kids.

This one is great too.

Panchito the Gaseous Donkey from Word Worms on Vimeo.