January 2012
2 posts
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IKEA Japan Storage Problems campaign: Dance to the...
In 2009, IKEA Japan ran a marketing campaign called Shunoumondai (Storage Problems). “Storage Solution Experts” from IKEA would go to the homes of people with major storage problems, install a bunch of IKEA stuff, and solve it. The theme of the campaign was this catchy song with calypso beat, and the accompanying dance. (Katazuke means ‘to put [stuff] away’).
Catchy,...
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December 2011
6 posts
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Jazz piano Silent Night →
Jazz Piano Small Pieces is the musical podcast (RSS link) of a Japanese guy (changee) who is a ‘fan of Bill Evans’. His latest upload is Silent Night. I like his style - he is very good, but not totally polished like a seasoned pro, so you get the feeling you’re sitting near a piano while it’s being played by a good friend on a quiet evening. Enjoy.
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A bit of Christmas cheer every day.
What with the operation and my father dying and all, I know I’ve been depressed and making people around me depressed too these days. So, to compensate a bit I’m going to be bringing a bit of Christmas cheer every day until the big day. Sort of like an advent calendar.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
November 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Things you can do with a paper book that you can't...
Lend or borrow it easily to/from someone else (Damn DRM)
Read it in the tub
Quickly riffle through it to find something you want (for me at least, looking for something in an ebook takes much longer, unless I know the exact word/phrase to search for)
Turn back/forward to/from specific pages easily
Use it to prop up your wonky table leg
Put flower petals within its pages, to surprise you...
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It's not even perpetual.
This is a solid gold 2012 calendar made to commemorate Walt Disney’s 110th birthday. It was unveiled by a jewelry maker in Ginza, Tokyo called Ginza Tanaka.
The calendar measures 41.66 cm x 66.6 cm (about 16.3” x 26.2”) and comes in a frame. The total weight of the gold is 6 kg (about 13.2 lbs). The description doesn’t specify, but since 18K is the...
October 2011
13 posts
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A Blizzard of Tiny Kisses: A review of Judith... →
I recently discovered that Random House has released the the entire oeuvre of Judith Krantz in Kindle format - 10 in all, (I somehow thought there were more, but there you go.) In a fit of nostalgia, I downloaded them all, and have been having a fun time reading through them.
In case you’re too young to remember, until the early to mid 1990s or so, Judith Krantz was the queen of...
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Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while... →
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The pure joy of the iPhone 4S.
I got my iPhone 4S today. (No hassle at all, no lining up at our nearest Orange store. Mr. Guy was the 2nd person there for the 4S.) And I’ve already been having such fun with it! The much improved camera (the photo above is an unadjusted pic taken with it), Siri (love Siri, quirks and all), the lovely crisp screen. My favorite apps look so much nicer. And it’s such a gorgeous...
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What are some great stories about Steve Jobs? →
Some great personal anecdotes on Quora.
(OK I’ll stop posting Steve Jobs stuff now.)
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WatchStephen Colbert pays tribute to Steve Jobs.
The last 10 seconds did me in.
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Does Siri really mean butt in Japanese?
There has been a thing going about since the Apple announcement of the IPhone 4S, iOS 5 and its new voice-activated assistant thingie Siri, that the word ‘siri’ means ‘butt’ in Japanese. It’s been mentioned on several “mainstream” sites such as CNET and MSNBC, and many English speakers have been retweeting this ‘fact’.
Well is it true? Not...
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Thank you, Steve. →
Just a personal tribute to Steve Jobs, over on my personal blog.
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September 2011
9 posts
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The Cool Japan logo (or is it Japan Next)
Cool Japan* is a Japanese government project to spread the cultural and intellectual influence of er, cool stuff from Japan internationally. It is spearheaded by METI, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. While it was initiated in 2010, it is being pushed more energetically in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake. (Incidentally, you may know METI better by their daily/weekly radiation...
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The White House School →
This is the school I attended from ages 6 to 10 or so, in Wokingham, Berkshire in England.
Of all the schools I’ve been to, it was by far my favorite. It was there I learned how to love reading, and history, and art, and learning in general.
I’m sure all the teachers I learned from are long gone now (or else retired), but I remember them all with great fondness.
(FWIW, I went to...
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Karelog, the boyfriend tracking app
A new Android app has been causing quite a bit of controversy in the Japanese media recently. The app is Karelog (カレログ); “kare” literally means “he” or “him” but in this context it means “boyfriend” - so Karelog is the Boyfriend Log app.
The cute and frilly (complete with shiny kittens) Karelog home page proclaims that installing the app on...
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Hello Kitty + Liberty of London
The mythology of Hello Kitty says that she was born in the “suburbs” of London (hmm…could HK possibly be an Essex girl?), so perhaps it’s fitting that Liberty, the famed department store, fabric (and other design goods) manufacturer, and general arbiter of taste, should produce a line of Hello Kitty themed prints called Hello Kitty Liberty Art Fabrics. The newest collection...
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Broccoli terrorism!
In light of recent events, not to mention over-hyped dolorous commemorations of past events et. al., I just loved this story about ‘terrorism’ in Japan (in Japanese). To whit:
A bunch of pranksters at Tokyo University (the most prestigious university in Japan) organized a ‘terrorist’ attack via Twitter, targeting the numerous unsecured bicycles that dot the campus. They...
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Podcasts in a hospital bed
When you are lying down in a hospital bed, or a bit later when you are feeling well enough to sit up in one of their dingy pale yellow or pink (why always those colors) plastic coated chairs, the standard way to pass the time is to just stare at the TV screen. But when the hospital in question is a mid sized town in France, you sort of don’t want to go that way, because standard-channel...
January 2010
1 post
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A Place For My Stuff
Speaking of stuff….this rather longer version of classic routine by the late great George Carlin, my favorite comedien. (I couldn’t find the original on YouTube. The audio is available on on CD/MP3 etc. The original, final list of stuff to bring to the beach house on the other side of Maui is “Money keys combs wallet lighter hanky pen smokes rubber and change”....
October 2008
1 post
just stuff i like
Hey, I get more space than on Twitter.
And I already had the domain name registered.