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A very informative website with lots of useful information

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Thanks Andy!

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Sorry to hear you got stung on your speakers. [click here]

This happened to my brother a few years ago. He bought a set for £400 from a van in the street outside his office. Yes, he was stupid. In the end and after much research, we managed to return the speakers to the company's warehouse in Wandsworth for a refund. It seems they're happy to take back speakers from anyone that can find them within a week, but of course most people don't.

Anyway, we got our own back. We registered the domain name www.dynalab.co.uk and pointed it to a message board detailing their crappy speakers and dubious sales practices.

Long live the Dynalab Users' Forum, or DUF for short! ;)

I'm not sure Republic/Dynalab/Omni are still in business. Their websites have gone and there aren't many of the speakers for sale in Loot anymore, where there used to be 15-20 pairs every day.

Let's hope we've seen the back of them.

I really like your site. I'm going to have to read it in more depth. It seems endless!

All the best,

Adrian

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Cheers Adrian! It's good to know that I'm not the only one!

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Im becoming quite a regular here m8 :) i hope ya dont mind me cluttering up ya guestbook with my waffle but jus a note to ask everyone to send joe there support over this coming christmas because he's on his own out there and he needs us in 1 way or another HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS JOE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

24th Dec 2002

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Thank's Jason! - and thanks to all those who have sent messages lately. I'm looking forward to 2003 and the challenges it will bring - including turning 25 (13th Jan) - I'm getting old! That's a quarter century!

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Dear Joseph,

Well, so far as I can gather you have an inbox filled to bursting with emails from people all over the place, but I'll just add another one to the pile anyway! I got to your website from the WWOOF site where I was looking absent mindedly for work on organic farms in Japan (or if not Japan anywhere I could learn a language properly). I've read lots of your site, as it was really relavant to lots of the things I like and think.

I love Japan; I worked there last summer and studied a bit at uni. I think I might just love the language rather than the place though, as I worked in Takarazuka near Kobe and didn't like the monotony - 7-11 at every corner etc.

I was also interested in your writing because I've been reading up on Steiner schools. I've just graduated so I'm not yet in the business of thinking of sending kids there (!) but I really like the whole philosophy. Going to an ordinary, exam-orientated state school might have something to do with the appeal of Steiner education; I really think kids should be able to grow naturally, without pressure to achieve targets. And just the whole 'creative' emphasis - its cool - and totally lacking in my experience of education at least.

Anyway, I hope Japan's fun this time around. I have a similar attitude that I just want to do what I like and not do the rat-race etc so it's nice to know that other people think the same. I'm working at the moment, but I want to get fluent in Japanese so I'm hoping to go back. But just travel anywhere really, its so cool!

Right well, a long email from someone you don't know but just to say I liked your website a lot and I'm glad there are people like you around amid the mountains of young professionals our age!

Have Fun!

from Rachel O'Conne

14th Dec 2002

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Hello Rachel,

Thank you so much for your email. Yes, your email was one of many in my inbox - sadly the rest of them were junk offering me amazing diets etc!

It's really great to hear from people such as yourself, to know that others do share my views. At times, as I'm sure you know, it's only to easy to wonder if you really are doing the "right thing", as society tells us to do.

As for wwoofing, I'd highly recommend it. It's thanks to Wwoof that I managed to teach myself (bad) Japanese, which like yourself I absolutely love. As you probably saw from my homepage, I've also wwoofed in Switzerland and France. It's always been a worthwhile experience, life-changing in one way or another.

I'd highly recommend Steiner Schools too! I actually visited the Tokyo Steiner School for the first time last week. Just like my school back in Herefordshire - except that everyone was speaking Japanese! Yes, I'd be a completely different person if I had not gone to the Hereford Waldorf School. It enabled me to think for myself and challenge conventional ideas, which I feel hold so many people back.

Anyhow, I'm afraid I'll have to leave it there as I'm pretty busy at the moment having only just arrived back in Tokyo. If you get a chance to return it would be great to meet up, if I can help you in any way I'd be only to happy to do so.

Take care, and have a fantastic Christmas and New Year. I'm fortunate in that this year I get to have a traditional English Christmas (in southern Japan) with friends from my Steiner School days, and then my girlfriend will be coming home after studying in Italy for 7 months, and we'll go back to her parents house not far from Nagoya for a traditional Japanese New Year.

Tanoshimi! Bye bye (as Japanese school girls say!)

Joseph

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U know joe u should sign ur own guestbook so we get a personal response to our messages or make an online message board so we can post our views and thoughts and get a response from the grand master :D

4th Dec 2002

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Jason, your wish is my command! Although I respond privately I never really thought about doing it publicly, but why not! I have recently been looking into starting a comments system for the Daily Mumble, but it's very complicated, and I just haven't got the time at the moment! Perhaps when I'm rich and famous with all the time in the world to play around online...

Dear Joseph

I just have to write to you ,and let you know how much I enjoyed your description of your time working in the Kleine Scheidegg Hotels. I too have worked in the Bellevue and also in the Bahnhof Buffet. It was in 1951/ 52, one winter and one summer season as a very young Swiss waitress. Frau von Almen was the Boss, always catching me when I was doing something wrong, usually dropping a tray of glasses or nicking a cold chip off the silver plate on returning to that little room where the lift went down to the kitchen.

I liked the summer up there, as my skiing was not very good and I don't like the snow very much. But walking among those lovely summer flowers was something special.

The concierge and headwaiter lived on their own planet - God help you if you upset them.

I left in the end of the summer of 1952 and came to England to learn the language as it is essential in the Hotel trade, but liked it so much better here that I stayed. But one day I will go back up to the Scheidegg just for a few hours and remember the good and the not-so-good times!

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Dear Lydia,

I’m very glad that you enjoyed reading about Kleine Scheidegg, and I enjoyed your story too!

Frau von Almen was quite a terror wasn’t she?!!!

Did you see my photos? I have four photo albums from Kleine Scheidegg:

Take care

joseph

Dear Joseph,

thank you so much for your email and for telling me about the photo albums of Kleine Scheidegg. I could not take my eyes off them, they are wonderful, and oh how the memories came flooding back! You even snapped the "little room" where Frau von Almen was always lurking about and catching me out on all my "wrong doings."!! I think that I will find a special place on my PC for that photo. By the way did you have to wash up all the glasses by hand in there after each service or have they invested in a dishwasher yet?

Did you also scrub the dining room carpet on your hands and knees after the end of the season when the hotel closed down for a couple of month like we had to?? I am so glad you took all those photos as I did not take any at all, so now I have something to look back on and show my family where I was when I was young.

Good luck on your travel, which I shall follow with great interest, you have a fantastic website!

Best regards

Lydia

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Dear Lydia,

I am happy to say that we did not have to scrub that carpet at the end of the season! But, we did have to paint every single one of those chairs with polish, wash all of those big windows inside and out, clean all of the old wooden walls with a cloth… They have now invested in a dishwasher! Did I tell you that Frau von Almen used to take the hot tap off the sink because she said that “hot water is too expensive!”.? Frau von Almen is now living in Interlaken with her old dogs.

Take care,

joseph

Dec 2002

Very nice site. I will like to one of them

Dec 2002

Yes, thankyou, er, likewise

Nice website. its different. great!

Dec 2002

Thankyou.

I stumbled across your web site by accident. I was suppose to be researching credit card debt among college students for an English paper, but for some reason ended up here. There was an article about Wells Fargo Bank and how they were a bad bank to do business with on greggman.com.

Then I got off track reading about Japanese travels that interest me. Next I was linked to your web site by your sento article titled "Tame's Tale : Japanese Sentos". I never heard of a sento before until now. I've never been to Japan either. I finally reached your web site which is fascinating, well organized, and easy to view. Your article titled "The Rat Race" caught my attention. It made me realize there is more to life than work and money. You brought up a good point on how optional it is to be apart of the rat race. I liked how you stressed the importance of friends and family and how the simple things in life tend to be the most valuable. And you made me laugh when you claim to look around the corner for happiness and it slapped you in the face that there was no rat in sight.

Your realization to be free is happiness! You are a very talented and gifted writer, easy to read and understand. I like how you are very descriptive and make it easy to visually see what you are talking about. Not only do you have an interesting life but, a great sense of humor. I hope you continue to write articles to inform and inspire people by your realistic views.

Thank you for sharing your magnificent work of art. I can't wait to read more.

Nov 2002

Dear Chris,

Wow! Thankyou! Thankyou so much for your very kind email. I really appreciate your words. It is not often that people take the time to provide feedback as you have done, and I really take to heart what you say.

Recently, as you may have noticed if you’ve seen my Daily Mumble (online diary), I’ve been struggling with the very ideas that I set out in my articles such as “The Rat Race”. I have a deep-rooted belief in what I have written about, but sometimes it is only too easy to have your view clouded by stress and surprises in life. I have to regularly remind myself what the important things in life are. My arguments in “The Rat Race” continues to play a key role in my basic set of values.

Last night I arrived back in Tokyo, having spent the past three months in Europe. I must say that I am overjoyed to be back here. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I feel very at home here. My self-taught Japanese language ability has a long way to go, but I can’t begin to describe the feeling of satisfaction that I get when I’m able to have a conversation with a complete stranger in their native tongue.

It’s 6am here at the moment, and due to jetlag I’ve been awake since about 3am. I have a lot to do today, including finding somewhere to live! I’m very excited…

Well, good luck with your paper on Credit Card debt. I know all about that – in the past 12 weeks I’ve built up over $11,000 (eleven thousand dollars) of debt on credit cards, all in the cause of love (and the Tame Wildness in me)! Being unemployed I have absolutely no means of paying it back, but I must say I really don’t care, because money really does not matter in the end. Well, you know how I feel about that anyhow!

Right, I really must get on, I have so much to do today.

I thoroughly recommend that you come to Japan if ever you have the chance. I would be more than happy to help you in any way that I can.

Take care Chris, many thanks for your valued support.

Joseph

Just signing the guestbook and visiting the Switzerland pages.. Missing everybody I met in Wengernalp!

See u! take care!

Nov 2002

Wow Anne it's been so long! Good to hear from you! Thankyou for being a great friend up there, and for being the subject of this great photo!

Still scratching around in the same old hole in England "sure that was from a song" im sure i only go to college to read your daily mumbles now :P update em more often i love to read about your adventures and seeing ya cool pictures gonna try and download a movie tonight *fingers crossed or ** at AOL*

stay mad Joe

(do i need to tell you that :o)

04-11-2002

Ah yes, my great movies: the toilet, the flying dalmatian... What I can't understand is why Steven Spielburg hasn't been in touch!

Good guestbook and good site!

29-10-2002

Thanks Bill. I aim to please.

You have a great website.

See mine at: http://www.geocities.com/vaduz1998/MyHomePage

24-10-2002

Thanks Mark. Subtle plug but I'll let you get away with it this time!

what a nice site

17-10-2002

Thankyou. I don't suppose you were at Camp Jened in 1997 were you? I shared a room with a Shaba there...

Hello! Mike here...

I am signing this guestbook in the hope that you will read it... hope that we will meet soon again, good luck!

02-09-2002

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Cheers Mike! Will definately see you soon, probably in Disneysea... And thanks for the luck, I'l l need it!

been on epilim for 29 years decided to come off it under no supervision from the medics as once you are controlled they no longer want to see you anyway. have you heard women of child bearing age are no longer supposed to take it, when i was pregnant and taking a significant dosage they never even mentioned it , bit too late to be cautious now!

GOOD LUCK if you decide to come off the medication.

19-08-2002

Thankyou Susan. I plan to come off Epilim altogether in 2003. For more info on epilepsy click here.