X - Marks the spot!

Tuesday was my last day at work before I take an extended break and take back some time owed me.
Hitomi phoned shortly after 12:30 and said she was close by and asked what I was doing for lunch and I told her to come in to the office and we'd go out when I was free. I was hoping to get all my tasks done and miss out on my lunch and go home early.
Once she arrived at reception I went down, signed her in and brought her up to the office and while I was finishing up she was sat over with Mizuki, chatting away and then they slowly wandered off together.
Ten minutes later they both jumped on me dressed up as the "X-Men!"
I laughed so much.
Often we do get some weird and wonderful items in our samples bins and Mizuki had seen these costumes and then together they had dressed up and surprised me like that (laughs).
Of course I simply had to try one on too. Hitomi & I slipped on our coats and went across the road to the purikura shop and we had a few snaps done. I have uploaded a couple here to make you laugh.
She's Storm and I'm Rogue!

We are in Kobe for the week-end with both of us having a little business there and of course we'll top that off with a little pleasure. I adore some of the restaurants and shops over there. I don't know why it is but when you shop and eat away from home, even though Tokyo has all anyone could ever need, it feels like an adventure and like you are buying things not accessible to friends back home.

When we came back to the office, the advertising manager was hanging around and overtly flirting with us. I think this guy has a wife and a few girlfriends but you know what men are like, especially when they get a little older. I think it's been said that the broad mind and the narrow waist exchange places and while that may be obvious to us onlookers, it may not be at once obvious to the eyes that slowly grew accustomed to the change. His buttons strain and standing straight he no longer sees his feet and we wonder if he ever saw any principles.

On the bus home I picked up a discarded copy of "Jitsuwa Knuckles", a very low class magazine here, what some may call a 'scandal rag'! I read a couple of articles and giggled a little at the audacity of the articles because if I'd have thought for one moment that they were true, I may well have been quite shocked.
The Gods must love crazy people because so many have been made and the worse ones seem to find their way into tabloid journalism. This was a long way from the reasonable discussion of public affairs. Instead it is probably a typical example of the trend and tendency to fill their pages with a much more profitable spread of secrets and scandals, of conflicts, splits and quarrels and sex and TV gossip and add a little sport for a worldly balance.
Feed this diet to the masses until it's accepted as the 'norm' and suddenly respectable reporting in debate fashion becomes seen as signs of a split as the different points of views are explored. Suddenly a debate seems like a weakness and so it becomes at once obvious that if we cannot debate about such important issues as the current political house debates re legalizing certain drugs, prostitution, gay marriage and pornography then we are doomed to forever suffer from the problems that they cause.
These tabloids are not concerned at all with public interest but more like what they believe interests the public. Forget the 'good of society' and think more of the monthly sales graph and balance sheet and interested advertisers looking at your circulation. If the readers of this magazine will believe about wives being auctioned off to pay the family debts then they're sure to believe in the value and accurate time keeping of such pretty little fashion watches!

Tabloid reader debaters and we've seen their like many times, do not care what is right but only try to get others to agree with them. Knowledge can be shared this way and so unfortunately can ignorance.
True debaters share the desire to arrive at the truth or a good judgment or the best possible conclusions. They seek to increase overall understanding. When these people debate and criticize and argue, it is the opposing argument that they address not the arguer.

Tabloid readers seem to inhabit the chat-rooms too!
I saw this just the other day...
Person one: "I don't agree with you, sorry!"
Person Two: "That's because you are stupid and gay!"
While person two may well elicit sycophantic laughter from his supporters at what obviously passes for such sophisticated wit, it does not bode well for the hope of intelligent discourse.
Perhaps reading the Tabloid press is better than the chat-rooms after all. At least with the paper I can clean the mud from my shoes and not endure the 'mud-slinging' that passes for debate amongst these tabloid readers.

NOTE: Thanks to Quiet-man again, who alerted me that my previous header distorted the page if anyone viewed it using Internet-Explorer or any other IE based browser. Firefox, Chrome, Opera and safari all saw it in the correct proportions. To make allowances for IE users then, I have reduced the size of the header and removed my header links. I have checked it using the IE browser (which I dislike) and it's fine now.
Thanks once again to my friend QM, who has an editorial-like talent to spot my errors so that I may correct them.
Hence header number two!