*sigh* It's the end of an era...a very short era...but an era nonetheless :) on Saturday night I finally finished my 1/60th scale Perfect Grade Gundam Wing model (for those who don't know it's a huuuuge robot from a Japanese cartoon series about loads of huge robots having huge fights...oh and there's some backround crap about love, war and political intrigue...but mostly it's about the huuuuge robots :)) it's served the purpose it was intended for admirably (ie. giving me something very complicated to focus on instead of other...things) and has given me many hours of toil and frustration over the last two months...and now he's sat on my desk looking like an absolute badass!...well I think so anyway :)

So then, as great as it is to have finally finished it i'm now in need of something else to occupy my (unfortunately still) overactive mind...and the new distraction is? Tai Chi Sword Fighting!...WOO! and quite probably YAY! yes that's right i've bought myself a sword...not THE sword, not a katana, no this one's just to tide me over until I can afford one of them :) it's a Tai Chi Sword...no-one know what one is? well have you all seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? (and if the answer to that is no consider yourself duly chastised...now go and see it *immediately* you really don't know what you're missing) well the swords used in that are Tai Chi Swords...very sharp, slightly flexible and, hopefully, lots of fun :)

As an aid to my new little diversion I've bought another book on the subject, as those of you who've been paying attention will already know i've been reading lots of books about ancient Japan and China recently and, after reading them i'm amazed that *anyone* in either country made it beyond the 1800's at all! As anyone who's even slightly interested in oriental culture will know loyalty and honour play a large part in their society but the lengths they used to go to were ridiculous...i've just finished 'Way Of The Samurai' which was written in the 1600's and the underlying principle throughout the whole book is that, if you're presented with the choice of living or dying always choose death because that way there is less chance of you being shamed!...really! A couple of bits I can remember were; one story of a Samurai passing through a village and needing the toilet, he asked at a house if he could use theirs and the woman who lived there let him in, as he walked through the door the husband came home and he accused them of comitting adultery, and even though they explained the matter the local lord said that because she had let the Samurai in their innocence was irrelevant as they 'could' have comitted adultery! so they were both executed! In another bit one of their lords said that all armour should be bereft of ornamentation *apart* from the helmet...that should be very neat and kept in pristine condition as that'll be the only part of the armour that goes to the enemies camp if they are defeated! crikey! I can recommend reading these books to anyone who's even remotely interested in either Japan or China as they really illustrate *why* they are so different from the rest of the world...ie. bloody lunatics :)