journal features
movie reviews
photo of the day

basketball hoop felled by an earthquake

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Kokubunji, 2024.08.10

Last night there was a 5.3 magnitude in Tokyo. I was panicked about the upstairs aquarium, which rests high on a bookshelf, and didn't think to do a walk around the property. 5.3 is enough to get absolutely everything moving and it turns out that The Boy's basketball goal had toppled over. We didn't find it until six in the morning when Mari had to take The Boy to a basketball thing. She called me out to help, and we quickly found two problems: first the shaking had put a crack in the base, which let the water bleed out. Second, the thing fell on the hoop, bending it all out of shape.

felled by an earthquake
basketball hoop felled by an earthquake

So I spent an hour from 06:30 waking the neighbors with dismantling it.

rand()m quote

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

—Sigmund Freud