Party

The party last night was good, though we ended up staying later (and drinking more) than we'd intended.

I we didn't get any stellar shots, but I do like this one of Brian with hair:



And a pic of me and a friend:

Going to a Party

It's Friday night, and me, being the party animal that I am, would like nothing better than to hunker down with a good book and a bottle of wine.

However, there is a party in town. Luckily within walking distance of home. So, I'll head over in a little while for some chips, beer and conversation. And, hopefully, a few half-decent photos!

Acupuncture: Getting Needled in Susono

I've had achy, tired shoulders and neck for a long (looong) time, and put it down to a combination of mountain biking and spending so much time hunched over the keyboard, both at work and home. I've had some good massages, and the masseuse usually comments on how hard my lats and shoulder muscles are, but never quite works out the kinks.

Tonight, I finally went to a local acupuncture/ sport massage place that I'd heard about a while ago, and for the first time, I got to try the ancient, Chinese practice. My mother had gotten acupuncture many years ago and found it very beneficial, so why not!

My experience was really good; a little bit weird at first, having needles sticking out of you, but I'm only sorry that, since the pain was in my back area, I didn't get to see the needles or anything.

Anyway, following the needles and the wonderful vibration they helped transmit into my muscles, the doctor performed some shiatsu massage, really working hard on the knottiest parts! Now, I'm feeling pretty mellow, but should probably get away from my pc for a while...


(The place I went is called Kaisei (http://kaiseido.main.jp/). Tel: 055-993-4696)

Okuribito at the Academy Awards

When I lived in Montreal, I was always aware of new movies, and usually went at least once or twice the to annual Montreal Film Festival. Since I've been in Japan, you'd think that I would pay more attention especially to Japanese films. However, it wasn't until I was watching the news that I learned about a Japanese movie called "Okuribito" (English name: Departures) that had won an Oscar for the best foreign language film.

This movie is two years old and has won a string of prestigious awards, including ten Japan Academy Awards.

The official Japanese site for the movie is here, and the English version is here.

Well - that movie has now been added to my 'must see list'. I'll review it once I've watched it!

(Side note- Slumdog Millionaire too EIGHT awards, including an Oscar for Best Picture. Awesome.)

Asa Banana Diet

Finally, the lowly banana has come into its own!

Though I've only just heard about it recently from a friend, apparently the 'asa banana diet', or 'morning banana diet' has been all the rage here in Japan for a few months. It started to take hold after a Mixi (a huge social networking site here) user published his success, and then the diet was picked up by mass media.

For this diet, you simply have a banana (or as many bananas as you want) for breakfast, then eat lunch and dinner as usual, but without any dessert.

It's a hugely popular trend, which likely means it's going to falter and give way to yet another new diet trend very soon, if it hasn't already.

I sort of want the fad to end as I noticed that the banana supply at my local supermarket is weak, and the prices have gone up; though I don't plan to try the diet myself, I do love banana sandwiches!

When I Googled 'banana diet', I got 123,000 hits. This article from Time was the top hit:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1850454,00.html

Flowers - Tokina 100mm Macro

In the past few months, I've really not been working with my camera and am losing any of the photography techniques that I'd been learning over the last couple of years. So, as Brian mentioned, I set up a corner of the apartment to try to practise taking some macro photography shots and become re-aquainted with my Nikon D50 and my 100 mm macro lens.

Here are some of the shots that I got:











I also printed up some shots, and I now realize I likely have to calibrate my monitor - so if the colors are off, my apologies!

Mezurashii Nomimono

As Tracy had assembled a corner of the apartment for macro-photography, I though it might be fun to snap some of the soft drinks from our fridge more artfully. (I was using a Sigma 30mm prime, not really a macro lens though, and I relied on the sun instead of lights.)

Here is something probably Japan market only:




























And something that certainly is:





























The Pepsi is in the tradition of other fermented milk-based beverages in Japan, most famously the original Calpis. (Here are their recent TV commercials.)

The カレーラムネ in the yellow bottle is a curry-flavored version of the summertime favorite, lemonade. Surely a real thirst quencher, but we haven't been thirsty enough to find out first hand!

Solo Ride

I love Fridays, and especially so when I happen to have the day off - like today.

Though the clouds were heavy, I took my Clockwork bike out for an increasingly rare morning ride. The chilly weather has kept Brian and me off the bikes more than usual, but I woke up this morning with an absolute, burning need to get on the bike.

Since Brian had to work, I went out for a solo trek on one of my favourite trails - a hard, slow climb up a mountain road, then down, fast and hard, off road.

It's been more than a week since I've ridden at all, and much longer since I've had the luxury of riding alone. Completely alone - since everyone else in Japan is at work today, in less than three minutes of pedalling it felt like I'd entered a whole other world, one in which I was the sole inhabitant.

As I was beginning the down-hill part of the ride, fat, heavy raindrops began to fall, making this the perfect ride.

Descending through the eerie woods, I stopped long enough to try to get a photo of my gorgeous Clockwork 29er single speed:

On Lacking Inspiration: aka The Blahs

So, I woke up one day and realised that my passion was gone. I might have panicked. I might have called 911 (or, 110 in Japan). But then I remembered that it was the dead of winter, and, though it was not so brutally cold, and nor was there eighteen feet of snow on the ground, still, this was the season for me to cease. to. be.

I am, of course, seeking a project or novelty that can hold my (albeit, very short) attention span and give me something new to take away. I'm sort of sorry that setting up my dual monitors and my Japanese input system in my Linux Ubuntu system was way too easy....

Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex - up and running!

As you may remember, I (with Brian's help!) rebuilt and upgraded my pc (new mobo, processor, graphics card, etc), getting rid of my two 120GB hard drives in favour of my as-then-unused 1TB hard drive, I also got rid of my XP operating system and installed only Vista on my new machine. And I'd also given up my Ubuntu OS.

I loved my Ubuntu, though it had caused me great grievance as it did not get along well with my NVidea Geforce 5200 (very old, very low end) graphics card. And so, even as I've been getting to know Vista, I've been mourning the loss of Ubuntu. I got around last week to burning a bootable Ubuntu disk, and had thought installation would be a breeze...

However...I met with a few hiccups. At first, when I ran the bootable CD, after the initial Ubuntu screen I got nothing. Nada. Turns out, I had to hit F4 and run the disc in safe graphics mode. Good. Hurdle one accomplished.

Then came the install - I had to select manual install from the options, since I did not want to over-write my Vista OS, nor did I want to lose any data on my other partitions (I'd partitioned my terabyte already into several slices for my documents and photos, and data was already stored there!).

It took some troubleshooting and help from the Ubuntu forums (http://www.ubuntuforums.org), but I got there! In Vista, I'd partitioned another 40 gb just for Ubuntu (still leaving about 350gb un-allocated); in Ubuntu, when installing, I chose manual, then had to partition the still-unallocated space to make a swap file (I went for 3bg, but that's a bit big); then I went to the 40gb partition and chose to format it in ext3 (Ubuntu's default), selecting '/' as the mount point.

Everything worked out great, none of my other partitions was affected, and I even found it very easy to configure my much-newer nVidea Geforce 9600! I'm running dual 19" wide-screen monitors the way I want them, and even have my Japanese input working perfectly!

Welcome back, Ubuntu!

Screen shot of Ubuntu 8.10 - Intrepid Ibex: the left is my 'extra' monitor, and right is my main screen.



My main screen, with my Fire Fox start screen!



PS:　Oh, I did buy a new (cheap) case for all the old parts of my pc, and managed to rebuild a pretty good machine - 3.0 gigahertz, 240 gb hard drives, 4 gigs of ram, Geforce 5200 graphics card, a DVD/CD reader/writer, multi-card read... All with left-overs! And I also just sold that machine to a friend - most excellent!

Off to Nagoya

We're off to a meeting in a city, not in Nagoya, but very near Nagoya, today. Luckily it's not such an early start, and the Shinkansen (bullet train)will make the journey a delight rather than a drag.

Following the meeting we'll have a working dinner, which will be fun.

We'll likely stay at a cheap business hotel and make our way back early in the morning. Usually I'd like to stick around and do some shopping for import food, etc..., but the area we'll be in really doesn't have much to offer in the way of luxury shops, and, frankly, I can get everything I need or want at the click of a mouse, these days.

So other than today's event, I think our weekend will be uneventful, but will hopefully involve a bike ride or two.

Our Cute Blog Award...

Awarded by
Denis Bernicky
to Japan Rider

Setsubun

Today is Setsubun, a festival marking the beginning of spring on the Japanese Lunar Calendar. There have been reminders of Setsubun in all the supermarkets recently, as ‘devil masks’ and soybeans have appeared on the sales racks.

Why devil masks and soybeans? It’s part of the ritual of casting out the devil and welcoming only happiness for the lunar New Year (Spring). Kids (or parents) wear demon masks while throwing the beans around their house (or at a temple or shrine), chanting, “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!”, which means “Devils get out! Happiness come in!”.

Maybe tonight I’ll have to pick up some soybeans and a mask!

Hibernation

Though our days are not as long, dark or dreary as they could be, winter does still take its toll on the soul. At least, on my soul, as, for every winter that I can remember, I go into varying degrees of hibernation – a period of time when the mere idea of socializing is anathema, when the things I most enjoy are sitting at home, quietly and alone.

This year’s hibernation has begun, and I hasten to say, however, that this is not really a bad thing – shaking off external obligations and spending more time with oneself is something of a relief, providing a degree of simplicity in which to just be – uncomplicated, unhindered and unharried.