Chillin' in Hong Kong International

Sitting here in HK airport making use of their super fast wireless access, and figured I'd brag about it. It's not every day you get to country hop, and it still seems to maintain that feeling of specialty, even though millions of people are doing it every week. The Cathay Pacific flight we just got off of from Sapporo was actually pretty good. I did have fairly high expectations though, cos I'd never heard anything bad about the airline at all, which is almost the same as hearing good things really. The food was the best bit. Meals were served piping hot and the taste was quite good, if only there were seconds.
I'm looking forward to seeing a bit more of HK when we come back through here on the way back from our holiday home to Aus. We've only got a few days, but it seems like ages since I've really been out exploring a new place. While it's great to go home once in a while, it's also great seeing new places.
Can't waste all my battery time on this, however, so I'm off.

Red vs. Blue

If you are a bit of a computer geek like me, and have at some time enjoyed yourself playing a first person shooter or two, then you cannot go past watching and enjoying this animated series. Rooster Teeth productions have put this series of short episodes together, and episodes range in length of just over three minutes to about 10 minutes. Each one packs a number of good hard laughs (there were tears on many occasions), though sadly my wife would have to disagree. While some of the humour is particularly male oriented, I don't see why it wouldn't also be found equally hilarious to females of the more geeky gamer persuasion. I must also add that while the show is based on a game, the laughs are mostly generated by the comical inter personal relationships of the different characters.

The episodes are put together with video taken directly from the popular Xbox and PC game 'Halo', and sound effects and voice are then dubbed over the top. They've really done a top notch job putting it all together, and while obviously being time consuming, it looks like it would be a fantastic project to work on.

It may take you a few episodes to get a hang of the style and appreciate the characters, but I swear that the episodes just get better and better, and some of the one liners will leave you in stitches. There are currently 84 episodes available to be viewed on Google video, taking you just into the fifth season. The first four seasons are also shown on the time wasting site I mentioned in an earlier post.

Give it a good go, and you'll be hooked, and with each episode being only about 5 minutes long, there's always enough time to squeeze in another one before starting that task you've been dreading.

Last thing I have to say is that Sarge is my new hero. Watch it and you'll understand.

Shirley Temple LOOK OUT!

Just received this short video in an email from my brother to show me just how much my young niece is growing up. She is truly adorable, and I can't wait to receive a live performance (if she isn't too scared off by Uncle Dez) when I go back to Aus for a visit next month. I think that the Japanese have the best expression in order to sum up the video, Kawaiiiiiiiii!!

Study for free at Berkeley!

While that does sound pretty damn good and is in the most part true, this doesn't mean that you'll end up with any kind of certification or anything (as far as I know), but it does mean that you will have increased your total amount of knowledge. Assuming of course that Sherlock Holmes wasn't correct when he asserted that that brain space is limited, and that when you learn something new, you are in fact at the same time forgetting something you once knew. But anyway, onto today's discovery. I was checking out the educational video links on Google, when I came across a short list of courses from the University of California Berkeley, which were not even there illegally. Shock! (the Professor in one of the videos I started watching told me so).

I then went to the source of these videos, the University's website itself and found a range of courses with complete lectures that I could listen into for free. The majority are to do with science, but what's wrong with that anyway? So far I have watched the first lecture in the series of Physics 10 - Physics for future Presidents (BTW I'm not saying anything by that at all), and I found it to be quite good. It wasn't too technical, which was surprising, and the pace was good so it was easy to follow. Another course of interest for me at least is "Introduction to Astronomy", not something that I would ever get out there and really pay money to study, but something that I have always been interested in. I can see a number of hours being spent on this website, but I know that I won't have to feel at all guilty about doing it, cos I'll be studying!

FREE email photography and editing course!!

For the last number of months I've been receiving a photography course emails in my inbox, and I've gotta say that there is some quality advice in them. Even though he originally said that my course would only run for three weeks, a guy named David Peterson from Melbourne who runs the website, has been regularly sending out tidbits of his free advice on digital photography over that entire time. His site is quite aptly named www.digital-photo-secrets.com. At the end of the original 3 week course he asked me to buy his book a couple of times and then he pretty much said, bugger it, and kept sending on more and more tips anyway (well it seemed to go like that at the time). Sometimes he also gets hold of a pro photographer or two to give some of their own advice on how they capture their best images, in weddings, candid photography and such. I've had many a good read and listen (to podcasts) and I highly suggest signing up for his course (no I don't get paid, and no, I'm not asking you to put my name in any referral box, I'm being quite serious).
His tips are very straightforward and easy to follow. From the amateur, to the amateur (except he has a shit load of experience). I've also gotta say that I recently received a lot more comments about my photographs after having put some of his ideas into practice.

Recently, he has added a new site to his repertoire and I have only just received the second installment today, and it just happens to be exactly what I was looking for. His latest addition is a new tips site that explains how to use a group of image editing programs, Photoshop CS2, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro and also Google's free image editing program Picasa (sadly not for mac at the moment). His new site goes by the equally ambiguous name of www.image-editing-secrets.com.
I don't know if I'm the only one, but there have been a number of occasions in my life when I have opened Photoshop (well in detail, I clicked on the icon, and then waited the five minutes it seems to take to think about opening), with high hopes of taking advantage of its powerful image editing capabilities (that's what everyone says, you know... everyone), only to search aimlessly around, press a few buttons, and after only a few minutes, run screaming with my tail between my legs, leaving a folder full of unedited photos that I am sure that I will get to polishing up later. The program was definitely designed by a bunch of guys who like to add a bit of daunt to their programs (which probably explains the large number of Adobe haters that I've read about out there, not even mentioning the price).
Anyway, to cut to the chase, after a twenty minute extremely easy to follow tutorial (all of the editing hints are done by video podcast, where all his usage of the program can be followed on screen), I can't wait to get home and try it out on a photo or 20. Today he only covered the use of the levels tool, in order to show its vast superiority over the brightness tool, and he also briefly explained the benefits of making such changes to layers instead of the original image. It was so simple and yet it was amazing. Go check this out!! Do yourself a favour, sign up and learn a trick or two. I just know that it's for my benefit too, the next time you ask me to check through your photos I'll be sure to have a better time because of it. he he he

A few good quality insults

Was reading the news thismorning when I came across a section inviting people to share some of the better insults that they'd heard in their lifetimes. I was surprised to find that a few of the better ones there (the list is still quite limited) were alleged quotes from Winston Churchill and Gough Whitlam, those pollies sure know their trash talk.

Anyway, here's a few of them,

During the 1970’s Labour election campaign.
A heckler cries out “And what will you do about the law on abortion Gough?”
Mr Whitlam replies “In your case we’ll make it retrospective.”

The famous face-off:
Lady Astor: “Winston, if I were your wife I’d put poison in your coffee.”
Winston Churchill: “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”

Paul Keating, “He is just a shiver looking for a spine to crawl up”.

woman to Churchill “you sir, are drunk”
Churchill response “and you madam are ugly and in the morning, I will be sober”

Boy George on Prince - “He looks like a dwarf who’s been dipped in a bucket of pubic hair.”

My definite favourite of the list, however, would have to be this one -

"if i throw a stick, will you go away?”

Priceless!!

Kokusai opens today!!

Sapporo Kokusai is usually the first decent snow mountain to open each year within fairly easy travel distance of Sapporo (about an hour and a half by car), and this year is no different. It's not a bad mountain, and last year I got to ride it a bit more than the previous couple of seasons, so I was able to get out into it a bit more and explore some of the tree lines. I must admit that this was much to the disgust of my right thigh, since my 80kg bulk does not ride too well on a stiff 156cm board through deep powder, and the leaned way back stance that I must maintain to avoid submarining down to my nipples takes its toll. Probably the best thing about the mountain would be the super fast gondolas that never leave you waiting too long to get back into it.

This day has been a long time coming, and because I've been thinking about the new season so much, the internal pressure of when (not whether) to buy a new and slightly longer board has been building to bursting point. For example, last week I had to drive my wife down to the hospital to get her bandage replaced on an injury she obtained battling with a can in the kitchen (she managed to slice most of the pad off of the front of her thumb, blood everywhere), and I knew that we were then pretty close (only 10 minutes) drive away from the Super Sports Xebio Dome (need I say more, its a sports store with the word super in it's name!). So we drove over to take a look at (the second one in three days), or should I say fondle, a number of the boards. There was one I was particularly interested in, but after thorough soul searching, I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. At 40000 yen (AUD$445), it wasn't a super bargain, and it was just a replacement of my current board, only 157.6cm, not the long powder board that I had originally been searching for.

My problem is that even when I really wanna buy something, all these other thoughts keep jumping into my head and getting in the way of the purchase, like, what am I not buying with the money when I buy this? eg. an ipod (still don't have one), or a new hard drive so I can finally have space to do some of the video editing I've been talking about. It's sometimes way too much trouble to be stingy (I prefer the word frugle).

Well anyway, can't get out to the mountain till Sunday, so I expect that I'll be checking out the mountain's website every few hours for the next few days, just to take a look at the mountain camera and current snow depths. The worst thing though, is that Ang can't get on her board yet, because of the risk of doing damage to her freshly healing finger, and it's killing her cos she want's to get out there as much as I do.

I want one of these!!

A few months ago I saw a different internet video on a new style of computer interface similar to this, where folders and files could be manupulated as though they were sitting on your desk in stacks, or randomly scattered around your desk in a way similar to the way mine looks now. While I thought that it was pretty ingenious, and it was touted to be easier for everyone to remember where they put their files, I did wonder why my virtual office all of a sudden had to become as cluttered as my real life one.
This video, however, shows a pretty fantastic device, that if nothing else would be a hell of a lot of fun to play with.
These days people are getting less and less excited about the release of products, that while being significantly faster, and having a few extra functions, are basically a repeat of the same old same old tried and true product line.
From the initial excitement over the upcoming release of the new Nintendo Wii with an all new way of interacting with a machine, the Wiimote, it is quite apparant what people are really looking for, change. Change in the fundamental way in which we communicate and interact with technology.
Anyway, starting to ramble, check out the video.

as if there wasn't enough radiation flying around our heads already!

Another article that caught my eye today was about a project that the busy people at MIT are working on now, that if they can get it to work, promises to eliminate the need for all wires in the house, not merely your Internet and mouse cables like it is now, but all power cables as well. They plan to do this by "exploiting (sic) the resonance of electromagnetic waves". Resonance is the "phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied". So very much in the the way the super mega subwoofer you have hidden behind the TV in your lounge room, softly massages your arse while you're seated on the other side of the room watching a firefight, energy will be pulsing around (through) your skull and between your legs in order to never again need to dock your ipod or macbook ever again.

While I can fully see the benefits of such a system, I must add that there could be quite a few problems with this theory that are not currently apparent. How much more power would be consumed because mobile devices will then always be left on charge? Will power be pulsing out at all times waiting to be received, leading to greater waste? And this leads on to other questions about security of your home power system. Will neighbours or passers by be able to jack into your system and increase your power bill, and perhaps subsidise their expenses involved in keeping their high cost hydroponic growing room? I'm sure that these will all be questions raised before this type of thing is ever released, and I'm sure that many other people will have other concerns, eg. isn't the world's sperm rate low enough already without even needing the switch the microwave to high?

Anyway, read about it here...

UPDATE - I really should have read the whole article before posting about it, since a couple of my concerns were raised in it, though I still don't quite understand how the antenna will be able to reabsorb all of the energy (physics way above my head I suppose). I still stand by my comments about fried testicles. I don't think that our level of science quite understands the effects of radiation yet, there could be a factor to radiation that we don't even have sensors for yet, and this is what's leading to the large amount of empirical evidence linking electromagnetic radiation to cancer (probably should have a quote here, but don't think I need one cos we've all heard about it).

I'll take the HIGH road...

I was surprised to read an article on news.com.au thismorning written by a guy from Aus who had just traveled on the new high altitude train which travels 1142kms from Xi'an (the home of the terracotta warriors) to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. And when I say that it's high altitude I mean it, 5072 metres at it's highest point, with numerous station dotted along at heights of 4000+ metres. The seats come fitted with oxygen masks that don't just drop down in the case of emergency, they are there for personal use throughout the journey if required, which they appear to be in many cases to stave off the onset of altitude sickness. Only one man has died in the train's first two months of operation, and he only died because he was in his 70s and going against his doctors advice when he went on the trip. It's also not as though they didn't try to save him, since he was evacuated by a rescue team.
Anyway, read the article and you might be thinking, as I am, that it sounds like a bit of fun. It's sad though when you think of some of the bad points of having the rail service to Tibet in the first place. I remember reading months/years ago (time kinda melts together in a way that I can't distinguish distance so well. Don't you find that everything was, 'just the other day') about fears Tibetans had about the rail service. They were saying that the rail line was going to bring a portion of the 100's of millions of Chinese itinerant workers that roam the country every year in search of work, and that this influx of opportunistic workers would have the effect of diluting the distinctly Tibetan culture and Chineseafy everything. I'm sure that in China's mind, there couldn't be a better and more bloodless way of getting rid of a sticky problem.
Anyway, read the article here, and dream your next dreams with your head in the clouds...

You have to see this to really believe it!!

When I first read the blurb about this video I truly thought someone was trying to pull everyones leg, and that the video was gonna show an extract from that crappy Ben Affleck movie 'Daredevil'. Sheesh, a blind kid that sees using echolocation, come on!?!

The abilities built in to our bodies that we aren't using are seemingly endless. That other 98% of the brain has got to be of use for something other than beer fodder doesn't it? Everyone should go and see the Shaolin Monks in action to witness some of the other physical abilities that our bodies are capable of with the correct mental focus. We were lucky enough to see them one time during the Adelaide festival, and those buggers are almost bullet proof!!

Touching the Void

You may or may not have noticed that I had the book, "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson, in my currently reading section for a few months. The book didn't take me anywhere near even a month but I am just a bit slack in updating the template for such things. Well anyway, last night I sat down and watched the movie of the same name, which is created in a documentary style, and is narrated by the two hapless adventurers from the actual event back in 1985.
For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it is an amazing true story of survival in a situation so dire that all hope should have been long forgotten. A couple of young mountaineers try to tackle the previously "impossible" and write their names into the climbing world, only to have their adventure turn into disaster.
I never really had any aspirations of ever being a mountain climber before the book and movie, and after reading and watching the images on screen I certainly never will. That's not to say that it isn't a great story, it's just I enjoy my creature comforts too much and I can't see myself getting the kick out of it that these guys do. I just don't need the rush, which in so many cases ends up in the splat (bad humour I know).

and you thought that you were small and insignificant before?

These photos taken by the Hubble space telescope are really breathtaking and extremely thought provoking. A while ago I listened to a lecture series on the theory of life on other planets, which basically theorised that with the vast number of suns out there, with potential solar systems, it would be almost crazy and naive to believe that this is the only planet with life. The photos in this video put some of those words into perspective.

One thought I've come up with before is that, with God being so unfathomable and all, what's to say that he didn't create thousands of Edens with slight variations so that he could watch the whole thing play out. Maybe on one of the other planets, no-one was foolish enough to eat the fruit, or maybe it took 3 or 3000 generations before someone tried, who really knows??

One of the Coolest Cartoon Characters EVER!

When I'm not watching hilarious episodes of 'Venture Brothers' these days, I'm enjoying the great work of the animator Genndy Tartakovsky called 'Samurai Jack'. Genndy is best known for his creation of Dexter's Laboratory (not something I've ever seen more than a few minutes of), but also for an animated series of the Star Wars 'Clone Wars'. The animated 'Clone Wars' was created before George Lucas made the movie, and some of the ideas for the movie are reputed to have come from the cartoon, eg. General Grievous. I watched season 1 and 2 -20 episodes of about 3 minutes each- in a day last week. I wouldn't say fantastic, but I would say that it's interesting to see someone else's take on how the 'Clone Wars' story could've been done.
One thing that is fantastic though, is the story of Samurai Jack. Cartoon network details the story like this, "Trapped in the future by an evil shape-shifting wizard named Aku, ancient warrior Samurai Jack fights diligently in his quest to rid the world of Aku's curse while also searching for the time portal that will finally take him home". Not sold yet?? I would be either, but you've gotta believe me, this cartoon is bloody good. The artwork in the scenery and the cinematography is fantastic. Listen to that!! If I have to use the word cinematography in a description of a cartoon, something must be up. The cartoons each have very little dialogue, but it is not at all missed when you are taking in all the visual and aural effects.
I've only seen season 2 so far, so I'm looking forward to getting into some of seasons 1, 3 and 4 shortly. I should get myself as t-shirt or something, cos this Jack guy is damn cool. Do yourself a favour and watch one or three, you'll be impressed.

Top of the Wishlist

While I would really love to get my hands on one the new core duo 2 macbook pros (as if that isn't a mouthful), when I see deals running like this I get a crazy pang of jealousy that I'm not living in the States and unable to get full benefit out of the deals those guys get. That whole economy of scale thing really leaves Australia with the rough end of the stick, and as of yet, Japan is still unfamiliar with the whole idea of discounting something that is a little bit older. Even second hand stores in Japan charge non negotiable prices that are only a small fraction (5-10 percent in many cases) less than the original full market retail.
The current deal at the apple store on refurbished core duo macbook pros (notice the missing 2), with the same warranty as a new model off the shelf, leaves them at about the same price as a regular macbook. I know which one I'd rather have. Don't get me wrong, the macbook that we now have at home is great, but there's just not enough macbook to go around when you live with a computer nut who can quite happily sit in front of both the laptop and desktop at the same time and say, sorry honey, the computers are busy at the moment. I feel a birthday/Christmas present coming on.

Chinese Dining

There's something about the name of this restaurant in Hakodate, but I just can't work out what it is...

Bob the Biker

Miso Katsu Mistake!!

So last weekend was a long weekend, so my wife and I took the opportunity to get out of the city for a bit and went 300kms down the road to another smaller city called Hakodate. We actually stayed about 40kms north of it or so in a nicely maintained free campsite on the side of a beautiful lake called Onuma. Well actually, for the first couple of days we wouldn't have known that the lake existed really for the terrible storms we were having. Hokkaido was just experiencing the tail end of a typhoon, which had just passed the rest of Japan that week. Did a little bit of rain (read about 40 odd hours straight) and a few days of strong wind stop us from going out camping, not if you've ever met my wife when she's got in her head that she wants to do something.
Anyway, it all turned out pretty fun, cos we set up the back of our station wagon car as a big cushy bed and flipped open the laptop to watch movies and a few episodes of Samurai Jack (cartoon that I'm just getting into and really enjoying). You may say that that is no different to what we could've done at home, but that doesn't take into account the uniqueness factor of sleeping under a metal roof with the rain pounding down. I had one of the best sleeps in a long time.
To make a long story short, and get to the good bit, the next night we were strolling around Hakodate under umbrellas when we came upon a 'Hokkaido famous' burger and pizza joint called 'Lucky Pierrot'. It sounded pretty good so we walked in to order. The styling looked like something a little out of the movie Grease, like an old American diner that I've only seen in movies. I glanced quickly at the menu and ordered the miso katsu burger, which was a bit of a strange choice for a burger shop, but if you've ever tried a good piece of tonkatsu (like schnitzel, but juicier and is crumbed differently) you'd understand why. Well I bit into said burger, and was immediately surprised by the slightly odd taste and colour of the meat. The meat colour was a dark grey, but not the usual shade of beef or anything that I'd ever seen. Then my wife mentions that on the menu they also sell pieces of black chicken (whatever that is), so I figure that the store must have some sort of marinade and this changes the colour of the meat and gives it a strange taste, also a chicken katsu is not at all unusual. At my comments about the burger my wife takes a bite, and the puzzled look on her face shows that she remembers the taste and has had some of this meat before. Not too long after that when my burger was all eaten, she looks down at the menu again, looks up at me with a big grin and asks 'so how did you like your first WHALE burger!?!'
Bugger!

Great Site for Some Quality Time Wasting at Work

I would probably be better off time wise if I had never found this site, but it's just too good for those days when I'm stuck at my desk between classes, but simply too buggered to do anything productive.
Basically the site "tvlinks", streams a huge number of TV shows live onto your screen, so that you can watch them without needing to physically download the file onto your machine (as far as anything computerwise is physical). The list of shows available is great, Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, South Park, American Dad (don't ask me), and two Japanese Anime Cartoon series, Naruto and Rurouni Kenshin. Seasons and seasons of shows are available, so have fun...

**UPDATE** site has been moved here. It's also enormous now, so, so many shows, so many wasted hours await...

**UPDATE 2** site has gone again, and can now be found here. Still expanding!

Haircut slideshow up and running!!

With the little bits and pieces of time that I've been able to scrape together I've put together this short slideshow for a bit of a laugh. I think it shows you the fun we had together on a relaxing Saturday afternoon.

Sigma SD 14

There are so many great looking digital SLR cameras hitting the shelves at the moment that if I were to actually be in the market for one (I'm trying to convince myself that I'm not, but I reaallly want one), I would have a hard time choosing. A couple of months ago I would have said that for sure, the new Canon 30D was the one for me, a little pricey but a sure winner, with fantastic features and Canon's record of superb workmanship, not to mention the great lens range available, which is of course of extremely high importance. However, in the last month or so we have witnessed the release of the new Nikon D80 and now Canon's 400D (Digital Rebel XTi). Both cameras feature in the slightly lower price bracket but do not scrimp on features or apparently ability, according to the review on the extremely comprehensive digital camera review site "dpreview". Both cameras are quite a step up from their predecessors in the same price bracket. They have ample megapixelage (10) -only differing in their use of sensors CCD (Nikon) and CMOS (Canon)-, large 2&1/2inch LCD screens for quality checking compositions, and they both take great quality shots. The Nikon looks to have a couple of extra features compared with the Canon, like in camera touch ups, but I would be unlikely to use this, since there have been a number of times that I have been surprised when a photo has come up on the computer well, that I had been sure was a doozy. The Nikon also carries a slightly higher price too.
So there I was wondering in which direction to go and then this week I read on gizmodo about a new camera coming very soon by Sigma of all companies that promises to do amazing new things with a revolutionary step forward in sensor technology. The best thing you can do is watch the video on their promotional website. Basically they've got this new sensor called the Foveon X3 direct image sensor, which is touted to be able to get 3 colours out of every pixel instead of the regular one per pixel of the other sensors out there. A pretty sweet innovation from a company I always thought of as the company that supplied cheaper lenses to people who couldn't afford the best, but still wanted to give photography a good go.
They all look so good and tempting with all those buttons, screens, lenses and potential, so good that in fact that I think I'll just have to do what I usually do in this case... buy nothing. ho hum.

This is for my sister

She'll know what it means. tee hee hee

I wonder if I could get this to work with my digital camera

Solar Style is selling a small range of portable solar chargers that promise to charge up a large number of your small electronic appliances while out of reach of civilisation, or just for those days sitting out in a park or at the beach when you stay too long for the length of your batteries full charge (for those conscientious pre-chargers out there). Another bonus of these chargers is that they come loaded with an on board battery which can be charged up by AC adapter or car charger before heading out, to cover those moments when the sun disappears behind a thunderous and unforgiving storm cloud or two or three. A guy wrote a report on treehugger saying that he had picked one up on ebay and was finding that it was working really well at keeping all his shit fired up. He also believed that a couple of the $50 models together would be enough to charge up your garden variety laptop, which would really be something for all those sun loving civilisation 3 players thesis writers out there. I think that I'll be adding a couple of these to my wish list anyway, if only to keep the innovation in this area growing.

If there's one thing for certain

The world will end one day. It's sad but it's true, and a bunch of guys from California calling themselves "albino black sheep" have put together a short flash animation video that shows us some of the many ways in which this could happen. This video is seriously funny, and so fast paced that you will probably have to watch it again to catch everything. Not a hardship, I assure you.

Check it out here

New Style

After about ten years of longish to long hair it was time for a change. Feels pretty damn good too, so I might be cruisin around like this for a little while now. Dunno about 10 years though...

Is Ethanol the new Petroleum

This is a well put together and pretty thorough presentation on the benefits of switching over to ethanol. I was very surprised by the fact that it only costs car manufacturers an extra US$30 to make a car dual fuel capable. Much cheaper than the extra production cost (about $3000) involved in the manufacture of hybrid engines, which while better than nothing as far as reducing fuel use is concerned, have not yet proven to be drastically more economical. A warning for those with small download limits, it's just over an hour long, so be warned. Well worth it though.

imovie's pretty fun

Just a quick note to mention that the new imovie HD is really quite a fun and easy to use program. I decided to fire it up last night and I uploaded a small number of my 10-50 sec clips from my digital camera (not a handy cam so low picture quality). Was only mucking around in the program for about an hour or so, and I found it to be straight forward even for an editing beginner. After said hour, I had linked together 5 clips on the timeline, extracted the audio so that I could keep only the sound in each track that I wanted, and I also chopped an audio file up after bringing it over from itunes so that my video could have a sound track. I haven't yet gotten onto the transition of the clips, so that they blend semi-professionally but I thought that for about an hours work, that wasn't too bad, with taking into account first learning some new terminology and what all the commands do (not that hard, cos they've really kept things simple). As soon as I've polished it up a bit more I'll see if I can hook it up for you to have a look and a laugh at. It's all fun though isn't it?

Venture Bros

I've been really getting into a show called Venture Brothers recently. It's a cartoon that features in the adult swim lineup on the Cartoon Network, and its frickin hilarious. The Venture Bros is a take off of Johnny Quest and the Hardy Boys, both of which I've never seen or read, however, there is definitely enough humour and violence in every episode to keep you interested...
The story is centred on the lives of two twin boys Hank and Dean Venture, completely innocent in nature, due to their being raised solely inside the Venture Industries compound. They do, however, seek a life of adventure, and every episode only narrowly escape death or at the very least dismemberment. Their father Dr Thaddeus Venture is basically the failure son of a genius and all around hero super scientist, the founder of Venture Industries. Dr Venture lives off the ideas of his father, and just never seems to be able to match up to him. Dr Venture's bodyguard Brock Samson is the hardest and coolest instigator of death that you will ever know. He is a secret agent with a licence to kill and he takes every opportunity to make sure that he uses it. He cares deeply for the boys, and will rain death on anyone who even thinks of harming them. Brock has utter disdain for firearms and does the majority of his killing with his bare hands or ever present bowie knife.
Can't really say anything more without ruining it, so just get your hands on a few episodes and you'll be hooked.

Caveman fun

It took a whole lotta work for that short bitta fun. A video to make you glad that we've entered the cyberspace age. he he

Great Article in the Australian today

This is a very powerful speech, designed to make people sit up and have a think about what the consequences of sitting around and being a kid for your whole life really are, for not just yourself, but the whole of your society. Well, that sounds a bit dire, and you probably won't want to read it now, but DO...

link

The best part or me was Costello's line about having babies (I've missed out due to living out of the country)- a boy for you, a girl for me, and one for Australia. The author Mark Steyn, says that Costello's call to the nation is more of a security concern than how much is spent on defence. Quite a statement really, if defence spending is really about protecting a way of life, then he's absolutely correct in my book.

Summer Break

It's been ages since I last contributed anything to this budding site. The main problem is that my work schedule is a bit stuffed at the moment while I'm on summer holidays from school. Every day stuck in a small room filled with other bored foreign teachers, tryin' to pass the time till the required time is up. I'll try to get onto it a bit more this week, and stick up a bit of something interesting. At least gotta make it a bit worthwhile to type in this address every now and again.

Hamster wheel fun

This is just what our old hamster 'Kiki' used to look like. We've got plenty of footage of her but we were never so fortunate to catch something like this on camera. These are normally non repeating off camera moments.

New Car Picks

Looks just like this. Should be a lot of fun, and if it's not, we shouldn't have too much trouble selling it (all going well).

Great Ad

I'll have a set of these speakers for my NEW CAR. Yes, that's right, we finally got ourselves a car at the auctions yesterday. The price came in just right, so now we just have to hope that it's not a lemon. We are now the proud owners of a white Subaru Legacy (Liberty in Australia) GT station wagon, with constant AWD and a powerful turbo charged two litre engine. Can't wait to get in it and give it a spin. Just gotta transfer the dosh and pick it up from the auction yard, which should be all done by tomorrow. New car for the weekend, YEAH! Just gotta work out where to go first...

Unreal Pool Player

If you don't let this guy break you might actually get to have have one shot. If he breaks, you're screwed.

ASX Sharemarket Game

Game 2 for 2006 is now open for registrations in the ASX Sharemarket Game. The game is due to start on August 3 and should be a bit of fun, even if it's just a bit of an eye opener. I played in the first game of this this year, which ran from February to June. I performed dismally, however, and need to give it another go. It takes a bit to get used to some of the games finer points, including the diversification restrictions, but there's still a lot to learn about the ebbs and flows in the daily market, even if you never plan on being a day trader.
One of the major reasons for my downfall in the last game was because I was always experimenting, and not sticking to a trading plan. My other problem with the game is that it doesn't truly match the trading style I'm aiming to have in the market, when I eventually just jump in there and start investing that is. I've been doing a lot of reading in the last year or so and I have become quite the fan of Warren Buffett, and also of his mentor, Benjamin Graham, who put into words the concept of value investing. Value investing sounds like the only true form of investing to me. Although it has it's critics, I can't see how researching companies thoroughly until finding a small number of bargain priced, low risk (as much as possible, generally due to the companies inability to be replaced in the market, and often due to a strong well recognised brand or something) companies before making any investment. Warren Buffett's puts accross that if you think a company is worth investing in, you should be willing to stake a large amount of your wealth on it, so you need only hold shares in a small number companies (5-10 Max). Also you should only sell when those companies become overpriced, or if you find another company that is of much better value. Why invest in your fifteenth best company when you could just put more money into your best one. Sounds pretty solid advice to me, especially looking at where it's gotten him. You've got stock market players like George Soros out there, but he is more attuned to the swings of finance than I'll ever be, and there's just too high a chance of losing everything with his kind of futures game.
Anyway, if you wanna give investing in the stock market a risk free trial, get on over to the ASX website and give it a go. Also the ability to start off trading with $50,000 isn't too bad either.

Tocoo for cheapish car rental

Just to again reminding people in Japan that if you need a cheap car for one weekend, you shouldn't go past checking this site out. There is an English and a Japanese version of the site, all the way through to the booking pages, so it's pretty damn easy to use. We're gonna be using them again soon to rent another car, cos we're gonna be moving this month. Mazda seems to be cheaper than Nissan by the way, and you can rent a commercial 750kg capacity van from them for 6000 yen a day or 7000 yen for a 1 tonne van. Should make moving the fridge, tv and sofa a hell of a lot easier. Still doesn't make me wanna move though.

Pure Deliciousness

This weekend was also the perfect time to crack open a bottle of Piper Heidsieck Champagne that we've had lying in the house waiting for such an occasion. We'd tried it once before when we won a bottle in a free raffle, absolutely loved it, and just had to get some more. It's definitely not your everyday bottle of plonk, and comes in at a higher price of just over 3000 yen a bottle, but this stuff well and truly makes up for that outlay. There's just something about it that you have to try out for yourself. When you take a sip, it simply dissovles on your tongue, and within what seems like thirty seconds you're grinning from ear to ear. I can't say anything much better for it, other than that it's delightful. Just gotta think think of a good excuse to buy another bottle now...

Anniversary

Just came back from a very relaxing weekend away in the ever increasingly popular area of Niseko, in Hokkaido, Japan. We'd previously only ever been there when it'd been completely blanketed in thick powdery snow (the reason for its popularity), but this time everywhere we looked was lush and green, and the sky even came through for us with varying shades of blue, blue, and blue.
Ange and I went away to celebrate the first completed year of our marriage, sounds like hard work when you put it that way, but it really hasn't been at all.
We rented a car from a site called tocoo cos we found that they had a great weekend rental deal, which gave us a zippy little Mazda 4 door hatch from Friday 5pm til Monday 11am, all inclusive for 11500 yen. Sounds like a bit of a sales pitch, I know, but it's just that I'm so happy with how the whole thing went, especially when a whole weekend of driving it around only came to 3000 yen of fuel as well. If we don't end up getting this car, insert grumble grumble grumble, then we'll definitely be taking advantage of this deal again. Another thing we'll be doing is renting one of their cheap vans for about 6000 yen for a day and using it to move house by ourselves in the next couple of weeks, rather than paying the exorbitant rates for a moving company.
Niseko ended up being a pretty pleasant place in the summer too. Not anywhere near as busy a place as it is when the snow is around 4 metres thick, but we still had a great restaurant or two to try out (the only two not closed during the spring/summer). One restaurant we ended up liking was the well touted place above the NAC (Niseko Adventure Centre) building called Jo Jo's. As far as I know NAC is one of the original companies in Niseko that was started to get people into a few adventure sport activities in the summer as well as the winter. They are most famous for their white water rafting, but also take people climbing, canyoning, mountain biking, snowing shoeing, backcountry riding etc.
The only thing I really know about them however is that the food served in their restaurant is pretty tasty. Great hamburgers and the pizzas are pretty tasty too. Definitely worth a try if you're in the neighbourhood.
We stayed in a fantastic little apartment, which was part of the Hokkaido Tracks group. The place was completely decked out with Australian style furniture and even Aussie whitegoods. Including an oven (Shock!), and a full size dishwasher. I want one of these places!! We had a fantastic view, a loft bedroom, and a feeling of space that's not available in our own cramped quarters.
All in all it was a great weekend, and I'd love to repeat a bit of the same every weekend in the future. Either that or get a job in Niseko myself, but that's for another post.

Today's topics of interest so far

News.com.au has an interesting article about how an international group of boffins want to start getting down some regulations on how to deal with the rapid progress of computer and robotic technology. The are soon to publish a code of ethics, dealing with numerous topics, but the number one of interest to the article was the concept of "computer love". What happens if robots get just too damn sexy?! Another major goal of the code is to try and ensure that Terminator movies don't become reality, by preventing scientists from making robots that will not always remain subservient to humans.

Also of interest in the news (for Australians anyway) is the possibility of Harry Kewell being suspended and unable to play in Australia's next match against Croatia, all just for calling the referee of Sunday night's game a few names. What's the big deal really, the ref deserved them and he should know it. They should also cut Kewell a bit of slack seeming as he was obviously going to be upset after he did STUFF IT completely in front of goal during the game, which must have been one of the worst blunders in his entire career. Open goal, no goalie, 3-5 metres away, completely misses. Bugger!

Lastly, as always, gizmodo has a handfull of articles to keep everyone amused. Including the development of camera blocking technology, the can detect the presence of the image producing sensors and then send out a beam of white light to render any image being captured useless. There is talk of using them in movie theatres to stop the pirates. I never did like those in cinema recordings anyway, sound and image quality were always crap, though it was funny sometimes when someone in front got up for a pee and all of a sudden the movie had a new character. There's a batman begins case mod that's pretty cool, and speaking of cool, take a look at the usb powered airconditioned shirt for all the working sweaty backs out there.

I'm sure there's more out there to find but I can't sit at my desk and time waste all day now can I?!

Yeah, Bloody Yeah

I think that my exact words last night during the World Cup battle between Australia and my current host nation Japan were, "Eat that Japan!!" as the second goal slammed back into the net. After 80 minutes of tension and building bitterness, fueled by having to witness a fairly obvious foul turn into a Japanese goal, it was great to finally get that release. Somehow I also felt that opening the window and yelling "GOAL!" out into the night air was also appropriate. Justice had finally been served.
I also just read an article on news.com.au, which quoted the Australian goalkeeper, Shwarzer, as saying that in his conversation with the Egyptian referee after the game, the ref had admitted and apologised for the mistake in awarding Japan the goal in the first place. The referee had said he was glad that Australia had won, because it basically meant that God's will had been done in nullifying his error.
Well, at least I know that my will had been done, if nothing else, cos for some reason I really wanted to win. I didn't fancy coming into the office today to all the smirking faces of the Japanese teachers and students. I knew that they wouldn't have rubbed it in too much, but that probably would have made it worse, because all the taunting would have been going on in their heads anyway.
Instead, being the victor rocks!

Macbook arriving tonight!

Should be a bit of excitement around the apartment tonight. Gonna be unboxing the newest edition to our computer family, a 13" Macbook. I know, I know, it's not the Pro, so what's the point right. Well, it's so far been well touted on the net as a good machine for the bucks, and even with the integrated video memory, it doesn't slow down too much unless you're a pro yourself, and you're giving the giving the processor a real high speed hammering: this is unlikely to happen to me for quite a while cos I'm still a relative newbie to such graphic intensive programs, even photoshop still gives me the begeebies when I look at all of the functions, and then the layering starts up, aaarrghhh, I'll get there though.
When I finally become able to touch the machine, after my wife has thoroughly violated it, her love of macs has been getting excessive of late, I should be able to use it as a good training machine to help me on the way of becoming "Dez, video and graphics superpower", or simply "Dez, more full of crap than ever before", he he. But anyway, at least the machine looks good.

More Water Power

It's great that this information is finally seeing the light of day on mainstream media, but why oh why does it have to be shown on Fox news. From the comments of almost anyone out of the US, the credibility of everything is in question if it is shown on Fox news.

If it is true then someone up there (the administration, not heaven. There's a thought, maybe I should be using the words down there), must have gotten their hands on enough of the pie to make this release profitable enough to run with. Or maybe its just cos now that citizens of the US are finally paying petrol prices on par with what the rest of the world has been paying for years, there's finally enough incentive to run with it, and that it would be almost impossible to keep quiet with the public eye focused so keenly on alternative energy sources.

Water Power

How can there not be enough good people in the world to have gotten this thing going? This guy should have moved out of the US long ago and started production. Problem was that he was also just as greedy as the people with businesses he was trying to replace. I wonder how many years it is gonna be before the market even gets a whiff of this new technology. How much more of the world are we gonna need to burn through first? Many of the problems in Iraq and with the current power talks in Iran would be greatly affected by the production and use of such devices.

Note- for those in poor internet starved Australia, this clip is over 16 mins long so it will probably take a bit of your monthly download limit to get, but you've gotta see it. It's a clip taken from a show originally aired in 1995, but I hadn't seen it so there must be others out there like me. I remember hearing of such a device in 1996, and heard that the plans had been bought out by Shell, but there may be another explanation.

These guys watch way too much Anime

I've only ever seen snippets of the anime called "Naruto" over here in Japan, when it happened to come on the TV while I was lazily channel skipping away half an hour or so on an afternoon away from work. However, this production is still good even if you have never seen an anime in your life. Not a drop down and roll on the floor holding your guts while trying not to pee kind of funny, more of a little more than mildly amusing kind of funny. I just like the way that the whole thing has been put together. Quality work.

New apartment already named, 'Brainfry'

Before dinner last Wednesday, my wife and I took a short bike ride around the block looking in the windows of the apartment shops, as we have been for the last number of months. Ang's 3 year non-renewable job contract is about to expire this July, and along with it, our lease on the apartment which also belongs to the school. We've steadily been noticing a continuing drop in the number of 'nice' apartments in the last number of months. First of all, April is the end of the financial year and also moving season for almost all Japanese people. Another reason for the drop has been attributed to the Japanese love for June brides, so there are a number of young couples out there just like us snapping up all the best apartments.
Anyway, Wednesday night I decided we'd done enough waiting, so when the agent stepped out of the door to usher us into the store I put up very little resistance and followed him right in. By Friday we were being ushered around a small number of apartments to see how we liked them. We quickly realised that the price we were after was going to be impossible if we were to actually enjoy the next year at all in any semblance of comfort. Sadly our price bracket had to jump up another $150 a month. By Friday night we had registered our interest in one little place a little bit further away from the station than we are now, quite nice but it didn't have the separate kitchen we were hunting for. It was also quickly named Brainfry due to the fact that if you look up out of the living room window you get a beautiful view of an enormous neighbouring mobile phone tower. The only bonus of this is that the tower sits atop the local telephone switching station, our ADSL connection would be getting a mighty boost, fantastic. The fact that we will begin to glow in the dark in a few weeks time was put to the back of our minds.
On Saturday we continued our search at the next apartment shop in the line, and quickly found out that each store actually shares the same listings. This shop still managed to show us around a number of different apartments, one of which we were particularly interested in, due to the fact that it was only about 50 metres from our current apartment, and had everything we were after. The price was a little higher than we had wanted, but we were willing to absorb it for convenience's sake. We were later to find out that this property was owned by a branch of the local government, in charge of Japanese Agriculture of all things, and they happen to have a 'No Foreigners' policy written down in their books that there was no way around. It didn't matter who our employer was or our references, it didn't get around the fact that we were dirty foreigners. One of the worst things about that is that any Japanese person I tell about it, says that it is "too bad", but their facial expressions give away the fact that they aren't really too surprised about it. Damn government sponsored racism, 'please come to our country nice foreigner, but don't even think about staying here'.
Anyway, Sunday was also spent checking out properties, and we even visited a third and fourth shop. The third shop had a cool young agent that we really would have wanted to get a property through, and he also seemed so disappointed when we had already seen almost every property he could have shown us. Hopefully we can take a couple of friends to him shortly to cheer him up.
By Monday we were down to two properties. One that was the perfect design inside, next to a train line but not near the station (13 minutes walk) or any shops, and also on the 1st floor, which equals colder in winter. And one that was slightly closer to the stations (9 minutes walk), 2nd floor, potential for super fast internet, super close to good shops, restaurants and a big park, but had no separate kitchen, and would fry our brains. We had no choice but to go for the fried brains. We're hoping not to regret our decision in the next number of months, but hey, that's life. Mmmmmmmm Braiiiinnnnssssss...

May have to step down a notch

This week my wife and I continued our search for a new vehicle. We were taken down to the largest auction house in Sapporo, to cruise the enormous car lots in search of the specific vehicle that we were after. And would you believe it, they had one, two if you count the one that's 'colour wasn't right'. So we're thinking, sweet! Our guy had told us that we could get the exact car we were after for about 1,200,000 yen, later that day however, the story started to change, and the average sale price of the vehicle at auction climbed up to 1,600,000 - 1,800,000 yen (between AUD$18,500 and AUD$21,200), and this was not including the on road costs, registration, road tax, and sales tax (5%). This car was starting to look not so cheap and more, especially since when we get the vehicle back to Australia we're gonna have to pay at least 20% more on taxes, then pay for inspections and minor car adjustments to bring it up to Aussie standard.
The real problem was that the cars we were looking at just didn't have the kms on them that is needed to make them unattractive to a Japanese buyer. The cars available that day only had 25000kms on their clocks, quite within levels of acceptance. The cheaper vehicles that we'd been looking at in Tokyo had about 55000kms on them, which in three years is a fair amount of driving in a relatively small country like this.
So, to cut to the chase, we're either gonna have to, 1. wait, 2. go for the non GT version of the latest model which comes in cheaper, but sells in Aus cheaper too, 3. adjust our tastes to go for the previous model (pictured above) which consistently comes with cars with the level of kms to make them unattractive to Japanese buyers (80000kms+, which is nothing really), or 4. go to Tokyo. Sadly, number 4 is sounding good at the moment, but that is probably just cos I'm bored of work at the moment, and any excuse to get on a plane sounds great.

I wanna learn to edit videos!!

Again with my same complaint. Here's a couple of friends looking to have shit loads of fun, while also putting together a short clip with some great editing. Hair flips to the beat, and general bouncing around fun. Looks like I'm just gonna have to suck in my bottom lip and do the obvious, and put the time into that damn machine if I'm ever gonna produce anything. With all the DV tapes I've got lying around I must be able to put something together.

BTW- Great song too. "Hey" by the Pixies. I don't know if I'd heard it before this or not.

Strangely reminds me of my brother

Must be the hair. I gotta start working on some videos, not like this of course, but the editing just inspires me to get onto that Mac and get into it.

The embedding option has been disbled on this video, so if you wanna check out this guys strange abilities you will have to click on the link.

Evolution of Dance 60's - 00's

This comedian dancer is really very good. Balding and all, he's a cool guy. Check out how many of these dances you remember having to struggle through, or even secretly enjoyed getting down to.

Xbox 360, PS3, or Nintendo Wii??

That is the question? We haven't even got one of each of these consoles to choose from yet, but for a while now it has been one of the burning questions on many a geek's mind.

A while ago now, when I first heard of the concepts of the new machines, I instinctively thought that the PS3 would be for me. The latest in technology with a supposedly uber fast new chip in it, the PS3 was gonna blast away the competition. As it got closer to the release date of the XBox 360, I started to hear comments bouncing around the net that some game developers were starting to complain about the process of making games for the PS3. The comments said that the platform was too different from the other machines out there that it would be very difficult for them to be able to design games that could be adjusted to work on other machines. Knowing Sony's history of only wanting 'Sony' stuff to work with 'Sony' products, this news did not come as much of a surprise, but already started to worry me that some of the best game makers might prefer not to be so constrained and would be looking elsewhere.

When the 360 then came out into the market, unavailable but still out there somewhere, the words from Sony started to be a little more subdued. I remember reading about a comment from a Sony exec, which said that the PS3 would be 'as good as' the 360, a little different from the 'far surpassing it' that I was originally expecting. It's getting even closer to the delayed release date of the PS3, so sale prices have recently been fed to the public to gauge their reaction. Now US$600 is a fair bit to slap down for a games machine, so it looks like Sony is going to have to do a lot of marketing to tout whatever else is in it that warrants that price. It would appear that the inclusion of a new technology Blue Ray drive is one of the costliest parts as well as the relatively expensive multi-core Cell processor. A report shown on Gizmodo last week, however, showed that if you take inflation into account, the Atari 2600 was actually a more expensive machine in its day than the PS3 will be now. I've only mentioned the US$600 machine cos lets face it, who is gonna want the shitty version?

Just before E3 in California and at the E3 itself, it was the less talked about Nintendo Wii (the machine formerly know as Revolution) that had been stealing all the attention and comment time. And now I must admit that I have been suckered down a path that I never thought I would travel down, the 'not being able to wait to get my hands on one of these!' path. The thing about the Nintendo that sets it apart from the other two machines is that it is sticking it's neck out yet again and using totally new ideas, basically on the premise that anyone and everyone enjoy should be able to have fun using their product, not just the console fanboys, but also not excluding them either. The new motion sensitive controller (I know the other machines are getting them too) looks like a shit load of fun. Given a large screen, a spacious room, a few mates, and a few of the games that were shown at E3, this machine looks like its gonna be an instant hit. Tennis without having to hit any buttons, should level out the playing field, so that even the kid with the lightning fast fingers will be able to play more evenly side by side with his slower Dad or even Grandpa (if you believe what Nintendo is saying). I've always enjoyed playing the Nintendo style adventure games in the past, even if they do look a little kiddy (who am I trying to fool, damn kiddy), so this new edition in the Zelda series already had me excited. But now, when I read that we can use the new controller system to wave around a sword and even a shield in a separate hand, I just gotta have one. Being able to drive a car by gripping the controller at either end and turning it like a steering wheel, will definitely make the new Mario cart version a riot. At less than US$250 I'm already sold on this product along with, by the sounds of it, a lot of others. Just gotta wait to see when it's coming out. Looks like I know what I'm getting for my Birthday this year.

Net Neutrality

Something scary that I've read a little bit about in the last week or so is the new topic of net neutrality. Supposedly American congress is discussing whether or not to give internet service providers free reign to choose which internet content you will be able to see and which you can't. Giving them the ability to charge companies and individuals to have their sites made accessible to the public; thereby destroying all that is good about the internet. The level playing field is once again tipping in favour of the large corporation. It sounds as if somebody out there wants the internet to turn into some kind of giant yellow pages service. The number of ways in which this could be bad for consumers and companies is innumerable, and yet I find it very hard to think of one way in which anyone other than service providers could actually benefit from such a system. The best explanation that I have found on the topic of net neutrality was found on the ask a ninja site, his funny yet descriptive video can be viewed here.

"Hanami" Time

The title for this post could more aptly be name, "drinking beer in the park under trees that just happen to have cherry blossoms on them", but I thought that it was too long winded. Last weekend was cherry blossom time in Sapporo. One of the most looked forward to times of the year, especially in this part of the country, because it signals the true end of winter. The whole town gets out on the best weekend for viewing the flowers, and they all try to cram into the same parks to sit under said trees, fire up coal barbecues and get thoroughly sloshed. In Japanese this whole process is described with one simple world, 'Hanami'. Sounds a little like Hanabi, which means fireworks, or tsunami, which I think we are all sadly familiar with. And this event comes and goes with a similar type of intensity to both of these similar words.
I have heard it said in Japan that the shortness, beauty, and fragility of the life of the cherry blossom can teach people of the importance and beauty of our own lives, as well as the need to cherish it because it could be snuffed out at any time. Not very poetic, but I think you get the gist of what I'm trying to say. I've heard a similar thing said in the west that could also be said to apply rather well here, 'Life's short, play hard!'.
In Sapporo, Maruyama Park is the place to be at this time of year. Never have I seen so many people BBQing together in such a small place. It sure gave a buzz to the whole thing, though I'm still a fan of having at least a little bit of space to kick a footy, or swing a cat, or whatever else takes your fancy on a nice spring day.

Lunch was gooooood!

Just had to brag about the lunch I just ate. Went out to lunch with a couple of the school caretakers, to a great little restaurant nearby called 'Fujiya'. Their signature meal is called 'Butadon'; slices of juicy marinated barbecued pork placed on rice with a sweet salty sauce poured on top. It even tastes as good as it sounds. The set meal came with a side of udon noodles, a salad and of course tea. I'm feeling good and I just had to share it.

Personal Luxury Subs

Now I reckon that you could have a fair bit of fun with one of these things, and also likely, scare the hell out of yourself on numerous occasions. An unusual entry on the gizmodo site today was an article about a range of personal submarines available for purchase and order from a company called U.S. Submarines. The largest available is known as the phoenix, it is 64 metres long, and looks something like a cruise ship but with more viewing windows up front. One of the cool features is the ability to have an attached mini sub capable of carrying up to 8 people if you so desired. The mini sub can get to a depth of 600 metres which would be well and truly deep enough for me. Even the slightly smaller one known as the Seattle comes in at 36 metres, it is capable of trans Atlantic voyages and also of being submerged for up to 20 days. Well, since I used to get scared just jumping in to the 2 metre deep end of the swimming pool, I don't know how I would fare regularly traveling in one of these things, but they would be cool to use for a while wouldn't they. A major benefit would be the ability to simply slip down and away from all of the rough weather and seas to the tranquility below. As long as you don't order one that looks a little like a sperm whale or something, you should be pretty alright. Though that has just brought me to think about weapons for the sucker. I reckon a few high voltage shocks should be enough for those giant squid and octopuses people keep making movies about.

E3 musings

I am a geek. I freely admit it. I share numerous tastes and traits with people who are known around the world to be geeks, so I must be one. Some of the things I enjoy include science fiction shows, fantasy novels, spending hours in front of computer games, and when I was younger in early high school I even tried my hand out at desktop roleplaying games. So where am I going with all this... One day I would really love to go to E3 in California. All that geeky gadgety goodness all in one place... Fantastic! I've just been reading about the latest and greatest things as they come out on the Gizmodo site, as those lucky bastards get to cruise around 'working', and experience first hand all the soon to be cool gear. I take my hat off to a group of guys and a gal who have turned their passion into a successful enterprise. I reckon it wouldn't be quite so hard to get up in the morning for work if that were the case for me. Can't say that I ever really thought that English teaching was gonna do it for me really, but hey, I'm still young, right...RIGHT!? Just gotta get out and get started. On what, is the only question.

Japanese Auction Fun

Went in to an auction yard yesterday, cos we're cruising to buy us a car to take back to Australia. Didn't find anything though. Many of the cars are fine to take back into Australia because the specs are pretty much identical in both places, and an added bonus is that we drive on the same side of the street. The car that we've had our eyes on for a while now is the Subaru Legacy GT. A car with plenty of grunt and still enough space inside to actually work with. The all wheel drive aspect is appealing but at the same time it's a problem due to fuel issues. We've been looking at the latest model mainly because it feels great to be in one and also because it would give us the greatest boost in resale value when we take it back to Aus, that is if we can bring ourselves to sell it. I'm not gonna list any of it's specs here, because most people wouldn't be interested, and for those that are they can be found on many a website.
Of course, with the potential purchase being a car, I've got absolutely no idea whether it's a good idea or not. The main issues that I have with the car is that it uses a little too much fuel for my liking (only about 9.5 kms to the litre for city driving) and that it's also known for rust in the front brake area. I am supposing that every car is going to have it's issues and these are just a couple that I am going to have to deal with for the time being. As I said, I've always got the option of selling it.

Golden Week

Japanese Golden Week has now come and gone, and it's time to get back to work. For those of you who don't know, Golden week is a series of public holidays lined up in a row, in which every Japanese person in the country gets out and about to have a bit of, you know, fun: ie, not work. It's similar in a way to the Easter break in Aus, where most people want to get out and do some camping or travel. This urge to travel is especially strong in Hokkaido due to the length of winter prior to Golden Week.

Ange and I are lucky enough to have a friend who was willing to go on a bit of a road trip to the distant eastern side of the island to a gorgeous area called Akan. The Akan area is famous for it's lakes and especially for a strange algae that grows in one of them called 'Marimo', which forms into strange round ball shapes and continues to grow in that same shape. The marimo start small but can become quite large over a number of years.


On one day of our trip, it decided to rain, and this severely limited our option of what to do, so we all decided it was a good time to hop back into the car and head a little further out to an area called Shiretoko, recently put on the world heritage list, much to the delight and pride of all Japanese who hear its name. Shiretoko is also famous for it's population of Japanese Grizzly bears, locally known as 'higuma'.

The story of our almost running into one is better told with vocal intonation changes and hand gestures to show size, but I'll see how well I can do. Anyway, one of the more famous areas in Shiretoko is an area with five lakes all within close vicinity. It is a popular area with both tourists and bears alike. There are three short walks available for tourist there, a 20 minute walk to see one of the lakes, a 40 minute walk to see two of the lakes and a 90 minute walk to see all five of the lakes, which was currently closed. The previous few days had been a series of disappointments as far as plans went, as much of the hiking some of the group had been looking forward to was all 'dekinai' (can't do or no go, in Japanese). This led to some feeling a little pissed off and was probably what led to us going under the roped off danger sign and out onto the 90 minute walk anyway. It only took about 10 minutes or so for us to spot the first bear track. Now, we had one in the group from Vermont and she reckoned that she knew bears, and that it couldn't be a bear because it was just too big (will post a picture of the print when it comes to hand), however, the rest of us didn't believe a word she was saying cos we had seen a stuffed version of the famed animal in a souvenir store two days earlier.

Hearts started to pound a little but why not just push on, it couldn't really be that further till we got back now could it. The path was a little worse for wear and covered in snow and fallen trees in parts, but did that stop us? No. We pushed on and had to retrace our steps one time to find the right path again, only to bump into some much clearer bear tracks straight across our path. This time there was no disputing that this was a bear. The funny thing was that we knew that there was absolutely nothing that we could do if we actually spotted a bear, we were done for. It was almost sunset, we were in their territory and without shelter. Everyone was starting to work out their plans for who they would trip up before making a dash for it when the time arose. This led to a whole lot of giggly laughter by the group. The pace picked up and there was no more stopping for happy snaps. But to make a long story short, we all got back safely, so our atrocious singing and horrible guffawing must have worked in keeping the bears far from interested in getting closer to us. The whole event made everyone a little less certain about dropping under the 'danger' ropes in Japan from now on, but I predict that this little lesson will be forgotten in the space of a few weeks if not days, cos that's just the way these things are.

Good 'gomi'

Every now and again there is something really good on the pile of rubbish outside our apartment. While in Australia, this may sound pretty low and a bit disgusting, over here in Japan it just makes good sense to take a look when you have a few extra seconds on a Friday morning. Friday is non-burnable rubbish day, so people put out all their plastics, as well as a range of things that they just don't have room for in the house anymore. Today makes three as the number of stereos I've picked up off the trash, and this one so far looks to be not that bad. It's a small Onkyo system, but with only a minute before I had to leave for work I didn't have time to check out all its specs. The two speakers were place in separate plastic bags from the main unit and even the remote control was included. I'm looking forward to getting home to try it out.
The last system I picked up has been great. It's a Panasonic system, a little larger than today's booty, and we've had it hooked up to our TV and PS2 in the lounge room for quite a while now. The sound quality is great, and we always receive comments from our guests about the kick ass bass it puts out. Those poor, poor downstairs neighbours.

School Gym

On the advice of another assistant teacher working in a local high school, I made it known to one of the more friendly of the school's P.E. teachers yesterday that I was interested in checking out the schools weights room. He took me for a bit of a tour in the the schools gymnasium dungeon, and showed me a fairly spacious musty room with a small number of machines that looked like they had never been maintained. I was told then that I am free to use the room whenever I like and even to use the shower afterwards in the P.E. teachers' office.
So today I brought along a pair of trackies and a t-shirt and gave it a go. First step today, back, triceps and abs. I'm feeling good and can't wait to turn this into a thrice weekly thing, on the days when I have a couple of lessons free in a row. In a few months I should be looking like the guy in the picture above. Well.....

Neverwinter Nights is takin' up waaay too much time

Neverwinter Nights is a game I first laid eyes on while I was living in Malaysia for a short while. When I say laid eyes on, I don't mean played, cos the machine I had at the time (and still have now sadly enough) was a laptop, with insufficient video processing power to take on the task of running it. It wasn't until I went back to Aus that I managed to give it a try, using the always up to date computers at my parents house. I don't mind saying that it sucked me in. A fair whack of time was spent playing the game, much to the disgust of my then girlfriend (now wife). The first time I played the game I entered it as a cleric, which seemed to be a pretty good choice as things were going well, however, the length of the game eventually came to its downfall and I was forced to give it up for other pursuits. While it is fun to play I must admit that it is not a game that is made for people who have anything to really do in their lives, story lines are long and side quests often involve very tedious and time consuming quests, so the game seems neverending.
Now that I am in Japan and have purchased a Mac with the capabilities to once again give it a go, I have foolishly loaded it up to try and finish the sucker. When I figured that I had a little bit of time every now and then to finish it off, I must have forgotten to calculate the immense number of hours required to actually complete the task. This time I even selected a Paladin as my character, hoping that the extra hitting power might make the game take a little less time than before. The frustration levels in my wife have been hovering at boiling point for a little while now, but I am not ready to pull the plug just yet. I have almost reached the same point that I was up to in the last game so I have just got to push on, although I am already questioning myself in the same way as my wife when I say, "what good does beating the game do me anyway?".
Games, fun additions to our lives, or wasteful distractions, I'm thinking a little of both but a little too much of the latter when it comes to NWN.

Yahoo BB TV is the way to go

It's been a while since my last post, and it's been mostly due to the fact that I haven't found anything to be all that terribly interesting to share that you couldn't just read by going to gizmodo yourself. I've also been spending my spare time at work getting up to date on the OOTS (Order of the Stick) webcomic, so I now have to wait for the thrice weekly updates like all the other fans.
Some of the weekend was taken up by a bit of work from home, and by watching a handful of stargate SG1 episodes from season six in order to catch up to the current season 8 episodes that are showing on Yahoo BB TV. Yahoo BB TV has been great, and I don't know why it's not available all over the world yet. It involves getting a TV set top box that plugs directly into the ADSL modem, and whammo, 40 channels of sometimes quality viewing. And when compared to the utter crappiness that is Japanese free to air TV, that's 2000 yen a month very well spent. Just to have BBC news available was worth it for us, but we also get a number of the better channels that I am aware of from other pay TV providers. Anyway enough raving, if you're in Japan and in need of some relatively cheap TV, and you have to have a broadband internet connection anyway, then get yourself hooked up, you won't regret it.