#%$&@ Only Japan has safe drinking water. $@#4%&

Swearing can make you feel better, lessen pain. I call Bull.

N-san: You can drink water from the tap in Japan. It's not like Europe and America.

Exasperated Blogging Imbecile: What? Everybody says that! Where did you hear that? Did you read it in the newspaper? Where?

N-san: I don't know. (The most accurate statement he made all evening.)

Exasperated Blogging Imbecile: Water is treated in the US, just as it is in Tokyo...

N-san: Yea, but I think that the basis level for bacteria is different for the US, Europe, and Japan...

Exasperated Blogging Imbecile: So water in Japan has less bacteria?

N-san: I don't know. I am not a water expert.

(Possible reply, left unsaid: No, you are not. You are, however, beginning to sound like an idiot.)

A few minutes later, a return to quasi-religious, nationalist racialism:

N-san: I'm not talking about whether one country's water is safer than another's. Japanese water is soft and Japanese stomachs cannot tolerate hard water from overseas.

Exasperated Blogging Imbecile: I grew up in a area with soft water. Japan is not the only country on earth with soft water. It varies by region and many other things. Besides, plenty of imported water is sold in Japan. It is mineral water. Japanese seem to drink it with no problem.

N-san: Yes, it's very soft.

Later, somehow forgetting that he had just lied and said that he did not mean that one country's water (Japan's) is safer than other country's water:

N-san: OK, I want to see you go to some developing country like India or China and drink the water.

That was one of the rare occasions that I got openly pissed at a Japanese friend or acquaintance. You know, the usual thing is to go along to get along. Only a fool would challenge another's religious beliefs, and I made that mistake.

Thank goodness I was able to come back to reality and have a decent discussion with my Colleague From Down Under (Actually I have several from there, but this guy is "special.")

After watching to This Week with George Stepon-what's-his-name on ABC (US):

CFDU: I see Obama is in trouble now, his poll numbers and such going down...

Exasperated Blogging Imbecile: Well, that's nothing unusual.

CFDU: Yea, he has to fight with Congress now and all the special interests that they are beholden to. Makes you wonder if communism or socialism isn't better.

Exasperated Blogging Imbecile: ......(No reply. I have known CFDU long enough to know that he hasn't any knowledge of any of these systems in any detail or even much in historical perspective, so there could not possibly be any debate on the merits of one system versus another. And I certainly didn't wanna get the man started on his 9/11 conspiracy theory again.)

$&#@*. $&¥@#. SOB. BS. Effing BS. Feel no different. Still in pain.

I am going to just sit in my little dark room and play computer games, rave about my Mac---I love my Mac--- and never go out again.

Why am I researching this? The average water hardness in Japan is 60. (Basically meaningless as it is the average for the whole country.) In the US, depending on region, it ranges from 0-60 (low) to 250 (high). Don't know about other countries, but I'd guess a variance between some degree of softness and of hardness is not rare.

N-san attended high school in Canada, apparently survived the drinking water there, so most of our conversation was in English. The conversation with my "Special" Colleague From Down Under was also in English, but a special light version we reserve for him.