Wednesday, August 12, 2009

One Quake Fatality

This is sad. The Japan Times reports a 43-year-old woman died in the quake, apparently from falling books at her apartment. Nearly 5000 houses were damaged and more than 120 people injured. On the plus side for O-Bon travelers, the road repairs on the Tomei Expressway should be finished by now. Life continues here in a nation where the earth shakes every five minutes, there are 2000 earthquakes you can feel each year and 20% of the world's earthquakes occur.

In one of those strange coincidences life throws at you from time to time, the Judd Apatow comedy Knocked Up aired last night on Star Channel. This heartwarming flick features an earthquake as a plot point-- Katherine Heigl's character gets an inkling her relationship with baby-daddy/lovable stoner Seth Rogen isn't going to work out when, in the aftermath of a strong tremblor, she finds the baby books he promised to read stashed away and forgotten in a paper sack.

I'll take cinematic earthquakes over the real thing any day of the week. Hmm... I seem to be thinking about this a lot lately. I should've become a geologist.

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