{"id":1214,"date":"2009-05-22T20:22:45","date_gmt":"2009-05-22T11:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-05-22\/1214"},"modified":"2009-05-22T20:22:45","modified_gmt":"2009-05-22T11:22:45","slug":"a-wii-bit-of-trouble-as-the-swine-flu-engulfs-kyoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-05-22\/1214","title":{"rendered":"A Wii Bit of Trouble as the Swine Flu Engulfs Kyoto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The swine-flu hysteria that's gripped the world of late came to Japan a\nweek<\/span> or so ago. A few days<\/span> ago, thousands of schools in Kobe (two hours\naway), Osaka (an hour away), and Shiga (just over the mountains) were\nclosed, and last night at 10:30, we got a message<\/span> from Anthony's school\nthat they, too, would close today. It seems<\/span> a 10<\/span>-year-old at another school\nin Kyoto got the flu.<\/p>\n\n

This morning, we got word that Anthony's school would be closed for the\nnext week, as are all schools in Kyoto.<\/p>\n\n

I can understand not wanting to spread the flu, but I don't<\/span> understand\nwhy this strain is accompanied by such hysteria. Consider this story about the first three cases in Japan<\/a>, which\ntalked about the devastating effects of the swine flu:<\/p>\n\n
“<\/td>\n\nThe teacher had a fever<\/span> as high as 38.6 degrees<\/i> [100.5F<\/b>]<\/span>\n and the students had temperatures of 36.6<\/i> [97.9F<\/b>]<\/span> and 37.1<\/i> [98.8F<\/b>].<\/span>\n<\/td>”<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n

A temperature of 100.5F?! Oh my! (rolls eyes). They're being held in quarantine for 10 days.<\/p>\n\n

100.5F is at the edge of what I'd consider a fever,<\/span> but the other two\nare perfectly normal temperatures. Americans learn “body temperature is\n98.6F” (37.0C), but Japanese tend to think a bit<\/span> lower is normal. Maybe\nit's that in Japan, it's much more common to take one's temperature with\nthe thermometer under the arm-pit, and that gives a lower<\/span> reading? In any case<\/span>, 97.9F and 98.8F are certainly not fevers... unless you're in the\nmidst of hysteria.<\/p>\n\n

When other schools closed in those other cities earlier in the week, the\nkids just went to their local parks and such to play, sort of defeating the\nintended “keep isolated” purpose of having closed the schools in the first\nplace, so the Kyoto school closures came with the admonishment not to do\nthat.<\/p>\n\n

So, with the prospect of Anthony being cooped up for the next week,\nFumie had the idea to get a Nintendo<\/span> Wii, something she'd thought about for\na while.<\/span> Antiseptic wipes in hand, I donned<\/span> a face<\/span> mask and went out and\ngot one. (Thanks so much to those who sent a gift<\/span>\nfor my Lightroom plugin development<\/a> this month, for helping to finance\nthis \ud83d\ude42 )<\/p>\n\n

I also got two games for it, Wii Music<\/a>\n(where you can pretend to be a music<\/span> conductor), and, because I\nmis<\/span>-remembered Fumie's request for a different<\/span> game, Pikmin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

I got it home, and, well, it was a disaster.<\/span> Perhaps this is why I'd\nnever before bought a game<\/span> console, but trying Wii Music felt like pulling\nteeth. Maybe I misread<\/span> the Japanese and accidentally put it into “asinine\nmode” or something, but I found<\/span> it ludicrously stupid and tedious. It was very<\/span> frustrating.<\/p>\n\n

I'm tempted to equate the hype that's surrounded the Wii along side that\nwhich surrounds the swine flu, but it's not fair to pass judgement so\nquickly, so I'll get the English manuals for the Wii games and give them\nanother try. But my, how depressing. When video games first came out, you\nplugged them into the TV, turned them on, and played. When did they start\nto require hours of moronic setup, and cease to be fun? Sigh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The swine-flu hysteria that's gripped the world of late came to Japan a week or so ago. A few days ago, thousands of schools in Kobe (two hours away), Osaka (an hour away), and Shiga (just over the mountains) were closed, and last night at 10:30, we got a message from Anthony's school that they, too, would close today. It seems a 10-year-old at another school in Kyoto got the flu.<\/p>

This morning, we got word that Anthony's school would be closed for the next week, as are all schools in Kyoto.<\/p>

I can understand not wanting to spread the [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}