Shinkansen Vagabond

Trading Successes

2011-12-16T00:29:00.007+09:00

It's amazing how very few people in this capitalist society we live in know anything about trading. I mean, being that free markets and trade is the tenant that capitalism is built upon, you would think that people would pay more attention to it. I have to admit though, I myself was one of the ignorant masses back in my high school and university years. Finance was always a 'dirty' subject and a 'necessary evil' in the beautiful world of absolute truths that I used to like to believe that we live in. It was not a 'pure' science, and thus was not worthy of study. But how little did I know back then. In truth, the study of the markets is the study of human nature, and understanding them is like understanding oneself. There is a value in knowing how people think. Using that to your advantage. Manipulating circumstances to tip the scales of the game in your favour. This is the skill set necessary to be successful in this life, its just that nobody told you that when you were born, nobody gave you an instruction manual. Why? Well because its evolutionary. For there to be winners, there must be losers. So how to separate the winners from the losers? Setup a system by which the winners are the ones who seek out the means to win. Who are perceptive enough to know that a game is being played, and cunning enough to outwit the others who have gotten to this realization.

So it came to pass, in a round-about fateful way that only destiny itself could manufacture, that I came to learn the ropes of trading from a game, a simulated market, but with participants of all kinds that you would find in the real world represented in it. To succeed in such a market, virtual or otherwise, you have to learn to outsmart your opponents. To beat them to the punch, and to persevere in seeking out opportunity where they didn't even think to look.

Here is an some example trades in which I am rather proud about. I know it is tradition for traders never to give out trade ideas, as they guard these as close as magicians guard their secrets, but heck it's just a game and I have many more secrets in the markets that I have up my sleeve that I would not share with the general public. (if you are truely a winner, you will learn them yourself)

This one is a awesome case of a market discrepancy and taking advantage of a market 'feature'. The feature I speak of is the relative knowledge gap between newbies and experienced players. Take a look at the snapshot. The item in question is the Civilian Afterburner. I made over 30million isk in my first month trading on this item. As you can see in the prices, my average buy was 60k, and I sold at average of 280k. That's almost 500% profit! Why? Well, I asked myself that question when I first chanced upon this gem of a trade. And using brains and logic I found the answer. It's quite obvious (as everything in markets usually are if you stop to think about it) to people with a logical and analytical background. The key thing to note here is that the 'Civilian' version of ship modules are normally underpowered, underperforming parts that are given to you when you start the game for free, as part of your starter tutorial missions. I believe in one of those missions, players are asked to sell this part to the market. As a beginning player, most people don't know how the markets operate, so they just dump the part at the best bid price, and move on with their training missions. That explains the low buy prices. Now the high sell prices are interesting. As I mentioned, these civilian parts are given to new players as part as their tutorial missions, and they are not manufacturable in the game by players. They are so horribly underpowered I don't know who would want to use them anyway. BUT apparently, some people (rich established players) sometimes have very tight power constraints on their ship fits, so it becomes impractical to use a normal afterburner on their ship, in which case the civi version is a cheap and low power option to give their ships some boost in speed, even though it may not be as good as a normal afterburner. These buyers have money and they cannot be bothered to shop for a low price, especially if the difference between 60k and 250k means little to someone who has several billions of isk. Thus this market was ripe to exploit, and profit I did.

This next one is my most recent win. On Dec 1st 2011 CCP released new battlecruiser class ships which could mount battleship guns (one larger class than normal battlecruiser guns) That's all fine and dandy, but as any good trader knows, where there is a market for new goods, there is profit to be made. I quickly did a scan of the most popular battleship guns in the market looking at the past historical trading volumes. Of the highest was this gem of an item below. This gun was trading at around 3.5million several days before the release of the new ships. I quickly put down several hundred million in buy orders and managed to score quite a large lot of them at the 3.5 mil mark. 2 days after I did so, the price started jumping up as players started fitting out their brand new ships. As you can see below, the price has almost doubled.

These are just 2 of the many ways in which I have been able to play the markets to profit. The cool thing is that doing this, even in this game setting, has made me much more aware of how real world markets work, and to appreciate what a trader does on a day to day basis on the trading desk of a large firm. It truely is, what capitalism is all about. The funny thing is that I don't even play this game much for the actual 'spaceships' part anymore. I just do my trades, setup my orders for the week and watch my profits come in (or lose my shirt) via my iphone. Its fun to con people and rip them off when you don't have to worry about breaking any laws. The thrill of trading is academic. It's not whether you actually make money or lose money, its the thrill of winning. And winning at the markets is sweeter than any other win which requires a 'fair' game (like chess, or poker). Because winning at markets can be achieved by many different means: skill, perseverance, attention to detail, insight, or just plain dumb luck. But at the end of it, if you can make money and win, the sweetest feeling of all is that you have outsmarted others.

Trading simulators and EVE

2011-12-15T09:05:00.001+09:00

Remember back in the good old days of yore in high school business class where as part of the project for the semester was to partake in a stock market game ? You know the one I'm talking about. The one where you got 1 million dollars o invest in anything and you looked at the financial section of the paper for the first time ever.

If you were like me, you probably just put all you cash into a couple of penny stocks and hoped for the best. New entrants into the market are always clueless. The markets is something of a game for the driven, the bold, the beautiful, and the risky. The tiny numbers in the newspaper was all we had to go on, what determined the winners from the losers. That and Lotus 123.

Remember a little time later on a small company called yahoo came along and gave us the gem which is yahoo finance section which would provide free charting tools so for the first time ever we could visualize our stock picks and their past history? It was a godsend, and back seat investors popped up overnight. Case we all know that past performance is a great indicator for future gains. (disclaimers be damned!)

Well fast forward to the teenies, and we have EVE online. At first glance it's just a space mmo, where the primary goal of players is to get a bigger ship than others, blow them up, amass wealth, and build empires. On close inspection though one finds a hidden gem almost created and sustained as an afterthought to this virtual ultra capitalist economy, which is, a working virtual market. Note that I qualified it with "working" as there are plenty of games out there tooting a virtual economy including WOW and others. But in truth, those are all false economies as they lacked a free market. Additionally the economy of the other games are flawed because the basic building blocks of the economy ( raw materials ) required nothing other than time an effort to obtain, and there lacked a system of private ownership of property and land, thus private means of economic development. Also, not to be overlooked is the fact that you have a bunch of snotty nosed teens just wanting to pwn orcs in the game and lack of a sophisticated expert market participants. In EVE you have for the first time all these proponents and thus a virtual market is born.

You have speculators and hedgers, consumers and producers.

And thus we finally have a game where one can truely test ones mettle at guessing the markets. And playing the stock market game. It's taken 20 years but it's progress over the financial section of the local newspaper.

Test two!!

2011-12-13T08:51:00.001+09:00

Just mucking with the settings.

Test

2011-12-13T08:50:00.000+09:00

Citibank is no longer シーティー

2011-10-29T12:02:00.000+09:00

Today I decided to try and deposit some dividend checks worth about the price of a Starbucks coffee. I was expecting them to charge me 1000 yen for the honour so was fully expecting it not to be economically worth it. Turns out that there are no commissions for cashing cheques for gold member accounts. Unexpected win! Guess the last time that I tried to cash cheques a long time ago, I was just a lowly scrub. Times change. So here is the thought. Most people will think of this as just another case of rich people paying less than the poor. The more money you have at Citibank the less you pay in fees and commissions. Well on the surface it may seem that way, but think if the incentive wasn't there to encourage people to put more money into their accounts and this increasing citibanks depository assets? Then they would be out of business. And the money that we save in waived fees and commissions are more than matched by our loss in opportunity and investment returns losses for not using that money somewhere else. It's all fair in capitalism. While I have nothing against helping out the disparaged and ones down on their luck but otherwise hard workers ( the fundamental backbone of building a society ) but people who just want handouts are counter productive and if society were left to them would erode the fundamental order in which we all live. The greater good would not be served.
Too much greed is bad. But no greed at all is just as counter progressive.

Why America has an obesity problem

2011-10-04T09:12:00.000+09:00

Way too big servings!

Drum set. I want.

2011-10-04T09:11:00.000+09:00

Electronic vending machine

2011-09-24T14:32:00.001+09:00

With LCD display instead of traditional product display.

People stranded due to stopped trains

2011-09-21T18:30:00.000+09:00

Almost all trains closed down thanks to typhoon!!!

2011-09-21T17:44:00.001+09:00

Proper Greek breakfast

2011-08-31T15:30:00.000+09:00

Love the coffee.

The worlds most useless door

2011-08-30T14:44:00.000+09:00

Don't bother locking this one. It's not keeping anyone out.

View from Santorini

2011-08-29T20:40:00.000+09:00

Perfect pour!

2011-08-25T19:27:00.000+09:00

Post violation shot

2011-08-23T13:23:00.000+09:00

I took a little taste before I realized I should take a pic. Decadent lunch. Just another day working at Marunouchi.

Win juice for sore throat and fever

2011-08-16T13:43:00.000+09:00

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

2011-08-05T23:50:00.001+09:00

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- David Jerry

David Jerry Chan
Vice President, FICC Strategies at Goldman Sachs
Tokyo, Japan

Confirm that you know David Jerry

Only in Japan

2011-07-20T18:40:00.000+09:00

Seven eleven has their own beer!

Awesome unagi

2011-04-30T11:14:00.000+09:00

Yep shit juice

2011-04-29T01:12:00.000+09:00

I tried some. And it was goooood. Every coffee lover should have some.

Ever eaten tempura cherry blossoms?

2011-04-10T16:51:00.000+09:00

Spring, a time for rebirth

2011-04-07T12:51:00.000+09:00

Let the ails of the past Lie fallow And to start anew.

The state of the art of karaoke

2011-04-06T22:24:00.000+09:00

Japan is still the state of the art of karaoke machines. No lame books. Searchable in a hand held device.

Apple forever!

2011-04-04T00:07:00.000+09:00

And the iPhone would sit right in front of the iPad docked on the speakers.

Yep, I'm a macphile now

MacBook Surgery

2011-04-03T16:55:00.000+09:00

Going Dvorak and never looking back.
:)

My girlfriend sent thus to me

2011-04-02T17:21:00.000+09:00

Lots of supplies from Korea. :)

No ghost town!

2011-03-31T09:35:00.000+09:00

Shibuya still as crowded as ever, this taken just before the crowd breaks the traffic light barrier

Scene of crowds in Shibuya after the quake.

2011-03-12T00:52:00.000+09:00

Traffic stopped and trains halted. People take to the streets.

Tokyu department store offers shelter for the stranded

2011-03-12T00:51:00.000+09:00

Using the Lobby of the mall as a make shift warm place to stay for the night. They were also handing out heat packs. You have my new found respect Tokyu!

DonQuixote capitalizes on the event

2011-03-12T00:49:00.000+09:00

Crowd outside donkey watching the news

2011-03-12T00:47:00.000+09:00

Donkey is selling blankets and fleece clothing and other supplies for those who are stuck in tokyo after the closure of all outbound trains.

View in Shibuya street after the initial hit

2011-03-11T19:01:00.000+09:00

The new Skyliner

2011-02-01T14:46:00.000+09:00

Beautiful new train, and only 1200yen! But from Nippori

How will Narita express compete? ( 3000yen)

New skyliner station to Narita airport

2011-02-01T14:33:00.000+09:00

Newly built dedicated station at Nippori for Narita skyliner. Much more sexy than than the JR Narita express. Plus they have announcements in English. Sounds like the NYC subway man voice.

European Koku

2011-01-28T22:09:00.000+09:00

Yep, sounds a lot like something I don't want to drink.

Rock on

2011-01-16T18:45:00.000+09:00

> So christmas came a little late but finally all the peripherals are here.
>

Test from iPhone

2011-01-16T18:32:00.000+09:00

From my iPhone

2010-12-26T18:44:00.003+09:00

2010-12-26T18:44:00.001+09:00

2010-12-26T18:43:00.001+09:00

Though they may find this leg a little tiring.
----
I Imagine after 5000km on the ocean, pulling up in Milly park in Darwin would be a sight to see.

2010-12-26T18:40:00.001+09:00

Yokohama to Perth, driving instructions now available courtesy of google maps.

2010-12-26T18:39:00.001+09:00

Test

Awesome villa in Phuket

2010-12-10T16:24:00.000+09:00

Choices.

2010-09-19T00:05:00.001+09:00

We are all required to make them. Sometimes they are easy. Like chosong between getting a college education or taking a part time job, or getting your girlfriend flowers for her birthday. Sometimes they are not so easy. Like choosing between career paths or girlfriends. We'll don't gets wrong, ask me 5 years ago and I would have said that if you have to choose between 2 diametrically opposite girls for a girlfriend I would have said "date both!" but now that I am wiser older and more financially stable and ready to get married, the choice is not so clear. Do you choose between a girl who is a strong independant woman hot and spicy or a funny cute down to earth girl or a 22 year old smoking hot body but naive as hell model? These choices are not easy to make unless you have a firm grounding of who you are and what you are looking for in a wife. Few really think about this if the choices are few and far between, but there is a special kind of agony that one has to go through when presented with multiple candidate each with their own merits and is forced to decide on which one would suit one best for the long term. Considerations: Would she be a good mother? A loving mother, who will be able to rear your children to be outstanding loving and contributing individuals of society? Is she attractive enough to keep the flame burning for a while to keep herself in the apple of you eye and be the centre of your desires? Passion is important I. A relationship. Is she intelligent and have the personality to keep you laughing and smiling and enjoying your time together? Is she pragmatic and practical have skills that you don't like cooking or accounting? Does she possess initiative or have a respectable job that you won't be embarrassed to tell you mom about? These are all major points to consider when evaluating a girlfriend when you are 34 and looking for a wife. The most notable addition is the clause about being a good mother. No matter how hot a gf if she can't be a good mother then what good is she as a wife? Better a mistress she would be. Not that I would have any. Sigh. Why am I writing this? Well,I realize it may be construed as someone in heaven complaining about the lack of lawyers but these are real and constant problems I face everyday. Should I get back with the ex who would make the best mother to my children? The model who would be the most fun to hangout with? The geeky but hot office lady who has a Good career and can expand my horizons? Tough choice. And too much choice, it seems, is it's own kind of hell.

2010-08-08T02:41:00.001+09:00

Orange and cheese.
Yeah you really can't make this stuff up.

Kotooshuu katsunori!

2010-07-26T10:34:00.001+09:00

He was in the security chech line beside me, with his wife. For those of you who don't know sumo, he is the 'prince of sumo' the first European to reach ozeki rank in sumo and he has beaten assashoryu before. He's my hero. If I was younger I would have asked for his autograph.

Roads and transport in Tokyo

2010-07-26T09:02:00.001+09:00

Why is it that it's always on business trips does one fond time to reflect and ponder and also have the motivation to write about it? Anyways, while on the limo bus to narita for a routine biz trip to NYC, I got to thinking as our bus wound it's way through the shuto expressway through the heart of Tokyo, just how amazing the road system is here compared to those in other major cities. Sure it's congested at times but what other city of 12million has this efficient a system that not only provides access to the burbs but also winds through the heart of the city (all 5 of them) including the imperial palace with such harmony? I say harmony because instead of just going in a straight line overpass like most other freeways, it winds bends goes through twisty underground tunnels and over ponds and rivers. At one point it bisects the imperial moat at a mere meter above the water level with couple carousing in their paddleboats on one side and the palace on the other side. At others it hovers over 10 stories above the building below or glides above a local waterway river with boats moving below. Highways are normally boring things in Americas. In Tokyo the are like a fantasy race track through the concrete jungle. No wonder they made them a feature locale in many racing games.

Nice prototype moto guzzi

2010-03-29T14:21:00.001+09:00

Batman's bike

2010-03-29T14:19:00.001+09:00

Probably one of the coolest bikes i've seen

Brembo gixxer

2010-03-29T11:02:00.001+09:00

Just a tease(er)

2010-03-29T10:10:00.001+09:00

2010 Tokyo Motorcycle Show

2010-03-29T09:43:00.001+09:00

Ah the show, the sound of thousands of people bustling about, some young some old, some conservative, some strange, but all of them riders. Or media. Or perverts trying to snatch glimpses of the hot bike babes. Most notable was on guy I saw at the Ducati booth sitting on my bike no less ( Ducati gt1000 ) dressed as a hard gay look alike except with a pink mini skirt. Crotch panties very disconcertingly visible. ( hard gay is otherwise known as razor Ramon ). The bike was the black touring version with the large Harley looking windscreen so it looked rather fitting for the village people image. ( Village of the damned if you ask me ). Notables at the Ducati booth was the new multistrada 1200 that is due out this June. I must say it tickled all my sensibilities and left little if any "nice but..." feelings. Anyone who has ever shopped for a bike knows that choosing a bike is a very personal ordeal. Moreso than a car as cars can and do have much more of a practical aspect to their use. ( kinda like a scooter ) Sure, there are cars that are purely for fun and style, but bikes the connection is stronger as you cannot go unseen riding it. No tinted windows. Plus with few exceptions anyone can drive any car regardless of their physical dimensions and skill. Not so with bikes. A small statured rider just won't be able to manage a Harley tourer while a fat tall man would not be able to fit on some smaller Japanese bikes. ( or just look too silly on one ). So choosing one that fits your personality and style while at the same time meatig all your requirements for use is normally always a comprimise. Get a race bike and sacrifice comfort on the road. Get a street bike and suffer wind blast at illegal speeds. Get a offtoad bike and suffer lack of any storage capacity. Etc. In comes the multistrada. With the 1198 engine it can be a rocket. With ergos and seat position proves to be a comfortable tourer. And with adjustable suspension ride hieght and pirelli scorpions it can be a off roader as well. It proves to be a Jack of all trades master of most. Which I sort of how I think of myself. This may be my next toy which would replace my gt. Though I have no illusions of it replacing my Ktm. Other notables of the show was the new VFR 1100-- meh. And a new concept bike from motoguzzi Whig was damned well, cool. LCD mirrors ( fed by cameras on the outboard engine cylinders ) and lack of any noticeable wiring made it look sleek and modern. Ktm also revealed it's new electric dirtbike trickster. Personally I think any bike that doesn't make noise is a danger to it's rider on the road. Oh and let's not forget HD Ho stole the show, with no new models to showcase and nothing really to sell but their image they had the sexy girls on stage prancing and preening and wearing very little. Kudos to HD. When the business is losing money, resort to the thing that always sells. Sex.

Windows 7 Burger? How sad Microsoft...

2009-11-08T18:44:00.003+09:00

Proving once again that microsoft is desperate beyond desperation, they were promoting windows 7 by selling 7 patty whoopers at bk here in japan.
They were disgusting and a waste of food. Wait, sort of like how windows is a waste of your hardware resources.

2009-11-08T18:40:00.001+09:00

Crazy break dancing 8 year olds in Shibuya.

Tokyopians take Halloween seriously

2009-11-08T14:04:00.001+09:00

Wel at least in the party sense. Not much trick o treating though. No complaints from me.

Shibuya music festival

2009-11-08T14:02:00.001+09:00

So I walk out of my place to find that the street is blocked and they have some strange music festival going on in front of 109. Life in Shibuya is never boring. Having a bout of warm weather nownjn Tokyo. It's a comfortable 18 degrees. So I'm jogging out in yoyogi park yesterday when I start to think about the recent discovery channel program I watched on the great coral reefs. The narrator kept on talking about the corals being the best architects in earth. I couldnt help but to be offended at the obtusivness of that statement. I mean architecting implies intelligent design. Something which I doubt can be attributed to these primitive invertabrae. It no more intelligent than how sunflower seeds arrange themselves in a pattern to obrain maximum density given a surface area. That made me to think about intelligence. If an organism, like a machine will predictably follow a set of preprogrammed behaviours, whether in cellular or silicon based code, is it really intelligent? If not then is the only thing that's sets humans apart is our complexity and potential for random behaviour? Is there truely such a thing as random? Or just consequences resulting in outputs from a complex system we call a brain being fed psuedo random inputs?

Windows 7 burger

2009-11-04T16:24:00.001+09:00

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dave <digitsu@i.softbank.jp>
Date: 2009年11月4日 16:14:28JST
To: Blogger <go@blogger.com>
Subject: Windows 7 burger

Proving once again that microsoft is desperate beyond desperation, they were promoting windows 7 by selling 7 patty whoopers at bk here in japan.
They were disgusting and a waste of food. Wait, sort of like how windows is a waste of your hardware resources.

Hokkaido, Day 3

2009-09-02T23:19:00.002+09:00

Today we started from Ashikawa, and made the 300km run to Abashiri, which is on the north face of Hokkaido. On the way, we passed through the famous National Park, which is the largest in Japan. Breath taking views, and long straight roads that seem to dissappear into the distance. Farms and large open fields on either side. The smell of cow patties. It was amazing how much Hokkaido reminds me of Canada. Especially cities like Rubeshibe and Kitame look exactly like Brampton, and Sapporo could very well be Toronto. The agriculture is the same, with corn, and other types of cold weather crops, cows, large open horizons. On the way up as it was getting dark, I happened to see 2 deer crossing the road in front of me. I braked and made to pull out my camera, but a car behind me sped on, and frightened them into the bushes before I could take a picture. Later on, a pair of foxes were in the middle of the road, which once again forced me to stop suddenly. They aren't joking about the wild life here, you can actually see them on a regular basis. Weather is hot during the day, (dry heat, lots of sun) and cool during the night. Perfect riding weather. Though I would say that 15 degrees is a little too cool to do any speeds in excess of 70kph. Tomorrow to the big lake with a middle island. Can't wait!

2009-08-23T14:07:00.008+09:00

Someone mentioned 9/11 in another thread, and it gots me to thinking, hey, yeah, those were fracked up times man, fracked up.

So post your impressions of the day, if you were there. This is NOT a conspiracy theory hash thread. We all know that Bush was in the kahoots anyway. ;0)

I want to hear your accounts of the day if you were there.

My story.
I was working in the vicinity, and my birthday had been the day before. I was smashed, and hung over. My boss had a habit of calling me if I was so much as 1 minute late, so walking in at 10 past 9 was not going to be fun. I come out of whitehall station, only too see what looks like confetti sprinkling from the sky. "those silly americans, its probably flag day, columbus day, or the yankees won the world series again" I discount the phenomenon and run to the office. I slip under the cover of the cubicles to mine, and pop up my head.

2 seconds later, boss pops his head out of the his window office. 'SHIT', I'm busted, I think. "Hey, did you hear? A plane crashed into the World Trade Center!"

First thought in my mind -- "YESS! he didn't notice that I was late!!" Second thought in my mind -- "another one of those stupid crop dusting farmers who lost control of his plane again?" Third thought in my mind -- "heeeey wait a second, there ain't no farms in lower manhatten! wtf?"

Check Yahoo (google wasn't as dominant back then, and yahoo.com was still the place to go for news.) Web site server no response. WTF the internet is down?!?!?

oooooooooh donkey doodles, this is something serious.

I look out the window. I don't now why, as my view points the other way and I can't even see the towers. then I hear a loud reverberating Booooooooooong! The kind of sound that those garbage trucks make when they drive over those metal plates they cover holes in the road with in manhattan. Oh my, I wonder if that was just a very very heavy truck running over those plates outside. (later on, I deduced that it was the second plane hitting)

Security announcement comes on over the PA. Evacuate the building. News from the floor (they have CNN and all the news channels continuously on) Word is that america is under attack.

WTF! Gets me the heck outta here! I'm thinking.

We leave the building... and stand around outside. Security likes to think that they have everything under control, but lets face it, there is no authority in chaotic times. More confetty falling from the sky outside, drifting down like large chunks of snow. I pick one up. Its obviously a piece of drywall this time, larger than the first ones I saw in the morning. I put it in my pocket.

We wait for around 15 min. Security then calls us to return to the building. (likely they realized that inside at least we would be safe from falling debris)

A couple buddies and I say, to heck with that! We want to see the damage! I mean, this is NEWS. We head over to the Battery tunnel, we see the two large black smoldering holes in the towers, a sight now emblazoned in the worlds consciousness. We stare for a while, and just wonder how many dead. And how the heck where those firefighters going to put out a fire that high. Do sprinklers even work if a plane were to crash through the water pipes? I pondered these questions as we just stood in awe. (I'm an engineer after all) At this point, we were still sure that somehow things would get sorted out. I mean, this is AAAmerica! Fuck Yeah! They will think of something. Right? So with that mental reassurance, we decided to get a camera and video cam from my friends apartment, who lived in battery park, whose building had its power out. Against all of the security guards protests, we proceed up 30 flights of stairs, in the dark (rather fun actually in retrospect) got the camera stuff, and went back down to the vantage point from batter park, and started filming. I started commentating on the video CNN style. We were walking closer and closer to the buildings. NYPD were trying to marshall people back, but they didn't have enough officers to keep an eye on everyone, it was easy to get around them. So here we are, walking up Rector street towards the towers, when well, you know,

So in the next 2 seconds the following happened: First thought in my mind -- "holy shit! Wow! My god, this is really happening!!" Second thought in my mind -- "Oh SHIT! its going to flatten us!" Third thought in my mind -- "ooooh phew, it looks like its just falling straight down... no worries" Forth thought in my mind -- "Wait.... but what about the... Oh donkey doodles! the debris cloud! the debris cloud! Run!"

The girl with us faints, the weight of the situation is too much for her, and she is unable to run, me and my buddy we haul her up on our shoulders and hussle back as fast as we could, every couple seconds or so, I turn around and snap a picture with my disposable camera.

First thought in my mind after we start running: -- where they heck can we go? Jump in the river? hmm...But drying out my socks and shoes... and we could drown. Bad idea.

Thankfully the cloud dissapates a bit after we turn the corner, and head for one of the office buildings beside the South Ferry subway, we duck into the lobby. the dust cloud covers us like white funeral ashes in some buddist ceremony.

The rest is history. I never saw the second building fall, we were taking refuge in the lobby of the building, and the final picture I took that day was of me and my self fashioned face mask filter, made out of panty hose that I bought at the newstand smoke shop in the basement of the lobby.

I still have that little piece of drywall today.

Pics
http://homepage.mac.com/digitsu/pics_misc/PhotoAlbum6.html

Wow

2009-07-11T16:13:00.000+09:00

Sometimes you really appreiciate how much of an open society japan is.

This was among one of the funnier displays at condomania in harajuku.

The projects

2009-07-05T15:40:00.001+09:00

These are the projects in Yokohama. Goverment housing. Not too shabby,
there were very friendly Vietnamese and Japanese shops in the area.

Portable "rentogen" machine

2009-07-05T15:08:00.000+09:00

Otherwise known as x-Ray
One of these was used as part of the free medical checkup that we were
helping out with as part of charity work

the kindness of strangers

2009-06-30T01:12:00.002+09:00

it was pouring rain today, and as I was just returning from climbing in nishi nippori, I had no umbrella. As I exited the station at the 109 exit, the rain was insane. Fortunately there was a girl who was kind enough to offer to share her umbrella with me. She turns out to be a reggae dancer and performs at the clubs in shibuya. Quite fit, but I must say her fashion was very kitch. (as to be expected I guess) Wearing a gold sequined beanie and some fashionable black tank top, she was quite fetching. Should have gotten her number. Bah, shes was way to young for me anyway.

The number 60 says I WIN

2009-06-18T09:01:00.000+09:00

There were exactly 60 of the ETC model that we wanted and I got the
last one!!!!
(the separate antennae model)
The people behind us had to settle for the handlebar card reader.

Now it's just waiting in line for the signing up paper work. I was number 72 in line and my buddy was 71. If he got the last one I would have mugged him for it.
WIN

Japan midnight vigil for ETCs

2009-06-18T06:48:00.000+09:00

It's 630am and we are number 70 out of the current 150 people lining
up and out of the parking garage of the saitama naps in hopes to get
one of these coveted ETC devices which allow you to pay tolls auto
magically on highways. The government has an insane campaign which
allows you to spend just 1000 yen to rise as far as you like, and in
response, what was once the benign etc device sold out and went on
backorder immediately across the country. The manufacturer can't keep
up with orders so stores across the country must ration their sparse
inventories. To make things worse, naps is offering an additional
discount for the in device from the regular 45000 and 28000 for the 2
types to 22000 and 11000 for this June campaign. Sounds great right?
Well unfortunately the catch is that they have a total of around 1200
devices to spread over the 11 stores in japan. Each store gets around
100 devices and in the span over 4 campaign days you have people
lining up all night. We got here at 2am to find 60+ people camped
already. What is amazing is that despite the sign that says that there
are already 100 people past a certain point there is a line that
continued outside for another hundred. What are those people waiting
for? Hoping against all hope that some of us will leave? Only in japan.

12800yen charger

2009-06-08T09:03:00.001+09:00

So I forgot my iPhone cable at work on Friday, and this was left with a very hoer battery life device and a lot of high use requirements. Mid Saturday the phone was running on red. So I pick up over at yamada denki a 500yen USB to iPod adaptor, which should theoretically allow my phone to charge. Plug it into the mac, and at first things seem to be working, but shortly after it seems the charging stops. After spending a phoneless sat and half of Sunday switching cables, powered hubs and sources it seemed like nothing was going to revive my dead phone. So over to apple I go thinking I'd give in and get another charge cable. After adding up the code of the plug, the cable, and a dock it turn out to be just 4000 more to get a full stereo radio alarm dock. Apple wins.

The mechanized magic of japan

2009-05-20T19:31:00.000+09:00

Gundam launch tube? Or parking garage?

Angels and Demons

2009-05-18T11:51:00.001+09:00

Sometimes I just get flashes of filbert like comic strips flash through my head. This is the most recent one that I just came up with. Two computer geeks are talking at the office. "you up for watching the new movie?" "is that the new mathematical thriller? The sequel to the Pythagoras Code? "no, that was Angles and Demons" "ah, nah, I don't like movies where the sine's are all tangential and incongruent" Drum roll

On the coast of shigoku

2009-05-06T19:33:00.002+09:00

One of those rare times during this trip where it wasn't raining. I just got back after 4 days of riding and 1500km.

I went through the longest tunnel, and crossed the worlds longest bridge span, spent a grand total of 16000yen for 3 nights stay at inns, and ate Italian food in Kyoto, and Brazilian in Nagoya. Paid over 15000 in tolls and went a top speed of 165kph.

No reservations whatsoever.

Please do not ride the toilet

2009-05-06T19:24:00.001+09:00

Quite possibly the funniest public sign in japan. I crapped myself
laughing. Thankfully I was on said toilet.

Total spontaneity

2009-05-02T21:08:00.001+09:00

I made a snap decision and jumped onto a boat heading for Shikoku. For those who don't know that's the smallest of the Japanese main islands, with the others being kanto, kyushuu and Hokkaido in the north. Given the prospect of 5 days holiday thanks to golden week, and everyone else being away on their own trips spending 5 days on my bike sounded like a great idea. So like all other things, there is a ferry that will take you straight there on a overnight trip, and even bring your bike or car if you want. The ship is moored at the end of the island beside daiba, and it has a big ramp so that bikes and cars can just drive up. Very organized. There are free area rooms which basically have communal areas with a pillow and blanket. Breakout areas with many vending machines sell everything from instant noodles to beer. They even have a microwave so you can cook your food. They even have an ofuro. Basically it's a cruise without the nice room or a restaurant or a swimming pool. We continue on into the pacific ocean now, with full cell phone coverage heading for the tropical island of Shikoku. My ducati awaits me the deck below.

Thank you India

2009-04-29T09:01:00.001+09:00

Delhi belly. The ever feared special form of extreme diarhea that only Indian bacteria can give struck me hard yesterday. I seriously though I was going to die. My stomach was twisting with cramped and pain while any attempt at going to the bathroom was resulting in just liquid

Wholly shut

2009-04-24T20:27:00.001+09:00

So I'm reminded of how you have to watch out in developing countries when the currency exchange guy at the airport tries to rip me off 400 rules by substituting 100 bill instead of 500 bill. I went back and pointed out this fact after I has already bought a prepaid taxi ticket for 215 rupees and that would not be possible unless he gave me 1 more 100 bill than he was supposed to because the amount that I took out was 9200 rupees. He was partially acting confused and not knowing what is going on but eventually gave me back the remaining 400 that he owed me. This isn't japan anymore that is for sure.

Spicy India

2009-04-22T11:52:00.001+09:00

The first thing that struck me as interesting while lining up to board the plane was that the call for general boarding came way to soon after first class and business class passengers. The reason I discovered was that there as no first class and business class travelers ok this flight. A rare occurance I noted. Even on the emptiest of international flights there has always been some business class travellers. Well I guess not on air India flights to Delhi I suppose. The next thing I noticed was when I stepped on board, I was immediately hit with a smell of spice and curry. Not all that unpleasant, but interesting. Also interestig was the seats in the center row which was 5 seats across where coloured red and orange like curry. My taste buds could sense the culinary onslaught which will be the next couple of days. I just hope that India itself will be as forgiving on my digestive tract as this plane, mild spicy, but not unpleasant.

I'm Ducatista now

2009-04-18T15:19:00.003+09:00

So, after 4 years of hemming and hawing I finally closed the deal on a Ducati. The GT1000, a sensible yet powerful bike, with understated beauty and a classic look. I'm come to realize that we pick motorcycles much like we pick our women. I don't like flashy girls, and thus a sleek sports bike isn't for me. My old KTM was a little too uncomfortable, and although she gave me lots of exciting rides, I've come to miss the comfortable, casual cruise of a standard bike with sensible ergonomics. Similarly, I don't like the large presence of Harley's. So draw your own conclusions there. My GT1000 has a strong and feisty heart, simple and air-cooled, has a beautiful purr, and has plenty of excitement when I want it. Just like my ideal girl. Bucking beauty. Shortly after I got here though, I discovered the joy of the 'Ducati Neutral'. For those of you who know, bear with me while I explain to the non-bikers (heck non-Ducatista out there), the ducati neutral is when the light indicates that the bike is in neutral gear, but it really isn't. Apparently this is common in Ducati's. So I parked outside a cafe on a nice and sunny day, had my coffee and relaxed and enjoyed the bohemian lifestyle of Tokyo, geared up, and made the mistake (which I'll never again) of starting the bike while standing beside it, without pulling the clutch. To my horror she jumps and lurches forward, and I catch her in time before she topples herself onto her side. Thanks to the servo-starter on Ducati's, the starter motor continued to turn and turn, trying to jump the engine into starting while I was holding onto her for dear life with my left hand on the left handlebar, and my leg holding her up and keeping her from falling down. As my left hand was busy holding her back I couldn't let go to pull the clutch in, thankfully in the 2 seconds that it all happened, I remained calm, and cool, and managed to hit the kill switch on the right side, before she managed to break free from my grip or burn out her starter motor. After 5 seconds, of calming my nerves, and a breath of relief after I checked her for any obvious damage, I slowly rode away, hoping that this was as close to an accident that I would ever come with her... given that she would be very costly to repair thanks to her Italian heritage. The only casualty was that I managed to loosen the left mirror stalk, and a little bit of pride. (and perhaps did the starter motor no favours as well) Ducati really really needs to fix this electronic hiccup. But after that, I am always sure to start the bike while sitting on her, and with the clutch pulled. Polishing her pipes for 3 hours. Somehow I managed to get some melted goop on her chrome pipes. I was certain that somebody had delibertely slobbered some gum or plastic goop on her while I left her parked in shibuya, but I can't be sure. Anyway, turns out that melted plastic is the WORSE nightmare for chrome pipes. In the past with the KTM, I would have scraped away with my fine grit sanding sponge, but now that the pipes are shiny and chrome, adding swirly scratches struck me as not doing my beauty justice. So I researched and researched on the internet. Apparently (I haven't tried) easy-off oven cleaner works, but to my chagrin, no easy-off is to be found in japan. So thankfully my co-worker who owns a Harley had some good advice. Some goopy solution used for cleaning pans was my salvation. Unfortunately salvation never comes easy. Even with soaking the stain in the solution painted onto the pipes for 1hour, it took a sum total of 3 hours of labour intensive scrubbing with alumninum foil for the stain to finally come off. At the end of the ordeal, I was quite totally shacked and exhausted. The only upside of the whole thing was that I was able to use the term 'I was downstairs cleaning her pipes for 3 hours' in a legitimate fashion. My advice is never ever ever get anything plastic touching your pipes when hot.

Starting to get some air!

2009-03-21T19:53:00.001+09:00

Came back from motocross today, today was my fifth time. No spills. I'm getting the hang of the course. Since they remade the course this jan, it has been faster and easier as there are less straight up and down jumps, just a run of tabletops and mogul like straights. Today was the second time I brought my KTM 450 onto the track and I'm starting to get used to it's handling characteristics now. Riding bikes is like learning a new sport, you have to get to the point where you are comfortable enough not to be afraid but you only get that way by falling a couple of times. Sort of like iceskating or snowboarding. I started getting the hang of the sliding turn now, which is imperative to offroad biking. For those who ride in the street. Losing the rear end ( losing either end for that matter) can be scary and usually ends in a lot of hurt. On dirt though, losing the rear us the best way to navigate a turn at speed. The other key skill is keeping you weight on the pegs and not on the seat whenever you are running straight over bumps or going over jumps. Sitting is bad as it puts your weight rearward and if going up a jump, will probably result in you fliping backwards and losing the bike. I was surprised how much like jumping a snowboard it was. You have to use your legs to absorb the initial uphill climb and then stand up when you lift off. It's a great feeling. And easie to do than on a snowboard, because on snow, fear during the approach usually makes you check off too much speed. Anyway ridingbback on the highest was no gun on my KTM. The wind was gusty and I felt like I was going to be blown over. After riding the tall enduro all day, getting back on the smr was weird. I noticed that it has a tendancy to oversteer quite a bit and I felt a lot less control than than on the dirt bike. Not to mention the smr has a very weak low rpm torque and has the tendancy to stall unless I give it plenty of initial gas off the clutch. Completely the opposite with the grunty dirt bike. Time to nap now way too tired Djc out

With 60,000円, I'd be happy too

2009-03-09T12:27:00.002+09:00

This is a $600 stamp. Yep. Why would you need a $600 stamp you ask? Well, in Japan, administrative fees for the government are paid via stamps. Aptly named stamp fees. Any of you who have had to deal with the DMV in japan will be familiar with the system. Basically, in order to make things efficient, in government offices, you go from counter to counter, each counter fulfilling a part of the bureaucratic process, very much like a assembly line. Inevitably, part of the process will be a visit to the cashier window, where you buy the stamps that will cover the fees for the bureaucratic service for which you are applying to. This particular process, is a apartment purchase. (not mine, but a friends) for that particular process, taking ownership of property requires a ¥60000 stamp. Would really really suck if you lost this stamp.

Ducati Monster 696 Test Ride

2009-02-26T09:09:00.002+09:00

So after reading copious amounts of web reviews on the Ducati GT1000 i decide to see if I could get some riding time on it. So on a sunny Sunday I give the Ducati dealer at Nerima a call and ask him if I could test ride the GT1000 in my bad japanese. He probably didn't understand 'テストライド’ so he just answered to the affirmative. 40min later I arrive only to find out that the GT1000 they have there was not available for test riding, only for gazing. What I could test ride was the 1098, the monster or the hypermotard. After expressing my dismay at the fact that they expect people to buy a bike without even being able to ride it, I settled on taking the 696 for a spin, just so that I wouldn't feel like I left empty handed. At first glance, the new monster doesn't do it for me. The looks are compact, and remind me of a bike with too much tank and not enough dash. The short stunted rear end made any promise of a comfy ride for a pillion impossible. The plasticky feel of the fuel tank made the who affair feel cheap. As I am a camera guy, the best analogy I could give is the bike was like a nikon D40 compared to the sturdy heavier and more solid D3, which would be the GT1000. Static impressions aside, once underway, the first funny thing was that when I kicked it into gear and was trying to pull out into the road, the engine just rev'ed without moving as I let the clutch out. I thought that I had mistakenly left the bike in neutral or something. I kick the shifter again to make sure that I was actually in gear and try again... nothing, just engine revs. What the hell? Turns out that engagement point of the clutch is insanely far out, close to the top end of the clutch handle extension. What's worse, the dealer said that the handle was not adjustable on the 696. Lame. I suppose it is something you can get used to, but coming from a KTM690 where the clutch is a DREAM with progressive engagement through almost the entire play of the clutch handle (supermotos need this apparently to have fine clutch control rear wheel sliding turns). Bad clutch aside, the bike was surprisingly fun to ride, when compared to others in this range and seat ergos, for instance, the CBR600, which had more of a gaspy feel in the low end rpms. The monster pulled smooth with that ducati thumpy feel with lots of torque in the low gears, and the posture was actually a lot more comfortable once underway when compared to sitting still. Being more low to the ground and forward pitched, it encourages bad behaviour and a little bit of speeding, and probably wouldn't be too great to hop around town when compared to a more sit up bike. That being said, the engine was quite addictive and its a bike where revving the engine while stopped at the lights is just hypnotic. Strangly enough, more so than the harley davidsons that I've tried (thanks to japanese regulations). I only got a chance to open up a little (80kph) on a longer stretch of the road, (sadly middle of tokyo streets is not a good place for testriding bikes) but when you do ask for power the 696 lump does deliver it with urgency, not the crazy urgency of my KTM, but more controlled and full. I think it has a lot to do with the forward posture that makes you feel a lot more in control in high acceleration, plus the fact that the KTM given its dirtbike ancestry has a very light flywheel and primary drivetrain, so much so that it has problems at low rpms keeping itself from stalling without proper clutch control. Conclusions: Great bike for speeding around town and weekend blasts. I'm not a fan of the build quality, nor the clutch though, but the engine is a fun lump, so if you are considering a 600ish cc bike that is light with excellent handling but a strong pull and acceleration when you want it. The Monster 696 is a good choice.

Harley's Euro Racer - Sportster XR1200 Test ride

2009-02-25T09:47:00.003+09:00

So in my last article I posted about the nightster, which was quite a fun bike to ride. On this post I will address the other bike that u test rode on that day, which was the new harley euro inspired racer, the XR1200. On the surface it looks a little funny the front end is clearly harley but the back side looks like a clumsy tail of a giant duck or a yamaha from the 80's. The engne is sort of cool with its sand blasted finish, but the cool ends there. This bike suffers from serious identity crisis. As made apparant by it's dual analog tach with tiny digital speedo tacked on to the side of it. It can't decide whether of not it wants to be cool cruiser or racer and achieves neither in a horrible tangle of sheet metal lookng steel and plastic. The posture is more forward than most harleys, even the other sportsters in the line, made pronounced by the very far back placed pegs and controls. Like other harleys though the controls are hard to find if you are used to the ergonomically sound german or Italian or Japanese racers. The engine is not mistakenly harley as it pulls with crazy acceleration, but the handling while more nimble than a sportster due to posture, still feels luke you are driving a tractor. The controls are clunky and the clutch heavy and with the weight of the bike, the engine has to work hard, and the feeling is that it is generally inferior to any given standard bike, save maybe for the sound of the lump. (the cool vibes are gone as well ) In conclusion, this bike tried to achieve 2 different things, and manages to achieve neither.

Harley Nightster XL1200N reviewed

2009-02-23T16:49:00.005+09:00

I never would have guessed it three years ago when I started riding bikes that I would have thought of harley davidson bikes as anything more than an armchair on wheels for fat Americans. Most of them are. But on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I decided to ride out to machida where there was a large harley shop and give them a spin. As I walked into the vast store, I felt as out of place as a deer in a walmart. The large and ugly touring models glared at me like large elephants sizing me up and deciding whether or not to squash me. I gravitated around the cooler models like the blacked out nightrod and the new 'racer' xr1200. A salesman finally came over and asked if I had amy questions. I breifly thought to ask why harleys looked so damn ugly, but held my tongue and asked to tryout a the sportster instead. Out of the HD lineup the sportster nightster is the coolest of the bunch. Blacked out metal and none of the goddam chrome bits that make the bikes look dated. Also the sportster is actually a pretty bike, if you discount all the wires that hang off the engine. Since I didn't know the roads around there the guy offered to ride along with me which turned to be a good idea as I could free my mind to just the bike and not looking fir the directions every intersection. So the first thing that I notice is how the mid mount pegs seems to get in the way of my feet when you want to move around while stopped. Very irritatingly so. And in true HD style the pegs don't pivot in any sort of sane way, so if you are backing up, good chance you can hurt your shins as the peg plows 250kgs worth of bike into snapping your ankle in two. The next thing that I noticed is how difficult it is to move a 250kg bike around at low speed. It is akin to riding a reluctant donkey, you sort of have to coax it into turning, without dumping you off. Once you start running at speed though, things change, and the free spinning engine and smooth throttle is really a pleasant change from the abrupt and jerky on/off performance of my KTM supermoto. It feels like you are riding a Cadillac, smooth acceleration, and terrible braking. In fact the brake performance (or lack thereof) is what keeps you riding at legal and safe speeds, for fear of not being able to stop the freight train if perchance a small child were to dart onto the road. So what is the upside? Well, riding at such muted speeds, you really start to relax, and begin to enjoy the environment around you. The world seems to open up and your take in sights and sounds as you sit there in the comfortable seat, listening and feeling that lump of an engine jiggling below you like a caged animal in its rubber and steel prison. Its quite addictive. In fact, I started to really enjoy revving the engine just to get the noise while stopped at a railroad crossing. On my regular bike, I would have been exceedingly annoyed at the wait. Instead, once you really 'get it' then riding takes on a whole different experience. The low seat height also adds to the laid back feeling. On the negative side, due to Japanese regulations, the Nightsters side mounted nameplate is replaced with a traditional one, and the pipes are not the cool slash cut ones that Mr Davidson insisted on, and instead is the muffled regular shaped ones that other Sportsters in the range share. They are also baffled to meet the max decibel level of 97db that bikes must adhere to here in Japan, which means that the idle speed 'potato' is replaced with a soft purr. That was the biggest disappointment of them all, though not the fault of HD. All in all, after my ride, I think I finally understand what HD is all about, and I ceased to see these bikes as twisted tangles of wires and ungainly lumps of hard steel welded together badly, and instead a chill bike with attitude in a class of its own. As with all other things American, the difference between 'junk' and 'character' is a story, an attitude and some first hand experience.

2 degrees

2009-02-17T09:08:00.001+09:00

Spoke too soon. It's fricken freezing today. Global warming has really fuched ip the weather.

22 degrees

2009-02-14T15:28:00.001+09:00

Either it's an Indian spring or global warming cause it's downright warm today in Tokyo. Winter is over in mid february! So the weather reports predicted 16 degrees, but by some freak chance we got 22 instead. It feels like we skipped spring and went straight to summer. Time to dust off my motorbike which incidentally was only stowed away for less than a month since January 17th !

High class Japanese food

2009-02-14T12:43:00.001+09:00

Rotabata dinner. The chef sits behind the counter in a little cooking space and never leaves. All the food is in front of you, and is cooked as you choose them

Warm valentines day

2009-02-14T00:18:00.001+09:00

It's twelve am here on valentines day and it's 17 degrees. Insanely warm. gotta love Tokyoま。

Today I refilled my karma bank

2009-02-10T09:58:00.001+09:00

( please forgive the back picture apparantly the iPhones camera sucks donkey rocks for subjects closer than 2 feet ) So yesterday I got on the morning bus only to find that I had no money except for 10000 bills which the bus driver apologetically told me that he couldn't change. So I had a total of 60 yen in my suica card 140 short of the required 200yen fare. The driver half out of kindness and the other half out of the desire to stop me from holding up the line just told me that it was fine and to just pay back the rest next time. I managed to stammer a 'thank you' in Japanese and offered what small change I had. I sat down on the bus confounded at the level of trust and kindness that he showed, indeed he probably broke procedure in doing so. Upon deeper introspection I suspect that the rule of being on time with his bus schedule was more important to him than a mere 160 yen he would pay out of his own pocket. Anyway today while walking to the bus stop I decided to pay the driver back ( who knows if it was the same driver) to be honest a good part of me was thinking to just rack up the gain as good fortune and profit. But thankfully, some part of me still felt the urge to return the kindness. Now that I have, I realize that I have not been completely dessecated of humanity of the moral and ethical optimism and goodness that I once, nay, that we all once possessed before working at a über capitalist corporate bank drained most of it out of us. Turned us into dried out husks of zombie like money and greed driven vampires willing to sacrifice so much for gain. Of course, I generalize unfairly. It is mostly those of us at the bottom half of the ladder that burn those midnight hours and turn away friends and other healthy Human interactions for the firm. Those of us who like Dr Frankenstein, working away obsessed with our creation that we end up losing what we are trying to achieve. Maybe it's just me. But today, I am human again.

So into the iPhone void I go

2009-01-25T17:20:00.001+09:00

For those of you who know me, you will know that I'm rarely an early adopted to anything. My previous experience withbthe windows mobile operating system and the ipaq before that, and the palm pilot before that had all but taught me that PDAs were not practical to all but the most disciplined or geeky. That's one of the reasons why I held off getting an iPhone for so long. I'm a pretty big apple fan ever since the 3rd generation iPod,so it was very surprising for those around me when it took me a fill year before getting an iPhone. Now that the jump has been made it will stand to see of after a month of use will I still feel as positive about my little new toy. Pros Among things that work a he'll of a lot better than you might think, is the typing on the keyboard. Once you get over the fact that there is no tactile response to your keupresses you soon realize that the error correcting algorithm is pretty darned good. I'm fact I'm typing now ok it and I am getting close to blackberry speeds. But better than the blackberry the iPhone seems to correct 90% of my words without fail. I'm sure I'll have more to say about the iPhone as days go on. For now I'd have to say that my experience is an 8/10.

Shibuya Menagerie

2008-07-13T00:29:00.002+09:00

Down, the busy steps. The turnstile opens with a touch of the suica. Pass the racks of travel brouchures for people who wish they where anywhere else but here. Out side in the hot humid air of a mid July night, a street performer plucks a traditional shamisen as curious onlookers gather around while they wait for the light to change. The sound of the plucked strings mixes with the hot air, and adds an exotic oriental spice to it. The light changes, past returning salarymen, some revealing low cut haltertops, and a treehugger trying to garner donations for some humanitarian charity. As I pass under the brightly lit underbelly of Mark City, I get lost in my thoughts. I had just returned from a glamourous wedding reception. 5 course meal, yacht cruise, fireworks, it had it all. Would I want something that that? Definitely not. Not my style. I'm a loner, a drifter. Low key is my flavour. I'd make sure not to invite anyone to my wedding who would possibly get offended by my straight talk and refusal to submit to the societal norms of etiquette when it comes to speaking my mind. It would probably be a very small wedding. But that would suit me just fine. Down ramen alley, a photographer and his assistent are setting up to shoot a picture of this non-decript looking man in a suit, alongside this very young looking girl dressed in casual wear. They are probably shooting an ad, or a hentai film. The sweet smell of gyu-don wafts over me as I pass be the open back door of a yoshinoya. Stopped at the lights again. The background noise from the giant LCD tv displays drown out the sound of the pachinko parlour behind me. I look up. "Play Hard, Land Soft" a Nike ad instructs me. I stride on. Dodging the thick pedestrian traffic that is the norm in this neighborhood. I get cut off by a fellow holding a video camera. Obviously on his way to finish off some independant film project on the steps of 109. Where better indeed. Straight forward, a thin attractive woman walks locks gazes with me. "massaji?" I was too tired to respond, even to tired to give my usual think lipped smile and shake of the head while avoiding their succubus eyes. Next in line, a man in a wrinkled white suit, starts offering me something, I don't need to hear his words to know what he is selling. I push on, refusing to acknoledge his presense. Different people from different walks of life walk past. A couple hand in hand, a group of loud foreigners discussing the next bar destination, 3 gaudily dressed jailbaits with tall heels, more salary men. Out side of donquixote a crowd lingers. English, chinese, korean mix with japanese to fill the murmur of background noise. Passing a quiet corner in front of the closed department store, a group of punk teens sit on the floor, as if having a picnic. Their disregard for common cleanliness demonstrated by their willingness to sit on the ground matched only by their bad taste in hairstyles, with their anime inspired dues, torn jeans, and big loopy earrings. I look up, to be greeted by a 20 tall 2 Dogs billboard above my favourite french patisserie. Immediately following, 2 long legged dykes in short summer dresses walk past, cuddling arms entwined. On the right, the Luxor sign beckons, but I resist the urge to pop in for a smoke, not today. Today, I'm just going straight home.

in japan they use brains to workout

2008-04-05T16:36:00.001+09:00

fresh from japan

2008-01-20T18:39:00.001+09:00

Build your own coin sorting automation
the more elaborate the cooler

Urg PS3 not immune to crashing

2008-01-08T01:56:00.000+09:00

Just went to online account management, change my residential address, entered password.... and it was taking a long time to respond, so I X'd and cancelled. FROZEN. Hmm... guess Sony has been taking some cue's from MS operating systems... On the bright side, the buttons are futuristic, and the unit runs quieter than my powerbook laptop. Its virtually silent. I don't even think it has a fan!

I broke, and finally got a next gen console.

2008-01-07T23:57:00.000+09:00

And its a PS3. Sorry xbot fans, the PS3 won out. Why? Well, we can go into the nitty gritty details, but I'll leave that for the tokyopia forums. Basically, with all things equal, both of the consoles were pretty tied for my attention lately, which is to say, I wanted neither of them. None of the games excited me enough to care. But x360 has red ring of death problems. And you have to pay to get online. And their games are region locked, leaving me to only play US games if I had a US xbox, and god knows the pain and suffering I heard from others who imported a US box to japan, if that isn't just inviting M$ to shit into your mouth, I dunno what is. Also, I heard that as a media player, the ps3's OS is much superior, plus I can install linux if I wanted to, plus it has a bluRay player. Sorted. So when a game finally came around that interested me, (Rock Band baby!) and it was offered on both platforms, the choice was simple. So I got the cheapest one, since I couldn't care less for more USB ports or bigger HDs or the ability to play ps2 games or SuperCDs whatever the heck those are. I got the white coloured one, because its cool, and because it reminds me of my mac. and it would match my mac peripherals. plus black is so yesterday. So here are my first impressions: PS3 Pros: Interface is SLICK, I mean, ipod like slick. The setup was a breeze, the first thing it asked me was to plug in my controller via the usb cable. Without using any language. Very thoughtful. Then it asked me to select ( with my now charging wireless controller ) what language I wanted to use. Nice. Next date/time, and then thats it. Changing the display res and audio setup was simple too, with thoughtful pictures of the cable connections. I wish I had this in the ps2 days when I had no idea what a D component connector was (only used in Japan). The controllers are smart. No batteries! This is awesome. I can't tell you how much this impresses me. I've always been one to HATE batteries, as they are expendible, wasteful, and just a pain in the arse. ps3 controllers are wireless, and have their own internal Li-ion rechargeable batteries, and if you unplug them from the usb connector, they will use their batteries. Running low on juice? Plug them into a standard usb cable to your ps3 or even your computer, and they charge. And best of all, you can use them while they are charging via cable! Unlike the x360 controllers which use clunky AA battery compartments or chargers that require the controller to be connected to a dock. Even the Wii controllers, as cool as they are, do not have such an elegant charging solution. (correct me if Im wrong, but I remember a big ugly bulge on the x360 controllers for the 2 AAs they reqiure... ick. Also great about the controllers is the ease of connecting/disconnecting them. Want to switch who is player 1/2? Hit the PS button, disconnect #1 and #2, and press them again in the new order. I don't know how this is done on 360, but on Wii, you need to go through a point and click menu to disconnect controllers, not a big deal, but unnecessary menus for something that requires none. Built in Azureus as a media server! Very cool. Also built in browser, but I wonder how useful that would be** General interface elegance. None of the silly tabs filled with flyer like ads and confusing columned text that reads like a tabloid as seen on the x360. This black background with waterflow interface looks the part of sophistication, not colourful, kitchy or tacky. Wireless LAN! Sweet. Asked me to hook up to LAN. Chose wireless. It found my network. Entered the WEP Password. Done. No hassle. I was online just like that. bluetooth! paired up with my mac's wireless keyboard without hitch. sweet. Could not pair up with my mac's mouse though, not so sweet. (everytime it got to the part where I had to enter a number code, it would fail. I don't know how it expects my mouse to be able to enter a number code anyhow. ) Cons: Can't pair with my mouse, as mentioned, else would be a rockin replacement for my couch side surfing. While trying to post this blog using the browser, it got as far as this posting page, and came up all blank on the ps3 browser. blogspot must not be compatible. Booo. Now, since Rock Band was all sold out, and I am waiting for it to get back in stock, I had to get SOME game to try out on the ps3, and what better than GT5 Prologue. Keep in mind, I haven't played Forza2, but have seen many screen shots, and thought that Forza looked better than GT5 in terms of graphics. GT5 Prologue: Pros: I have changed my mind after seeing GT5 in the flesh. You ever look at some pictures of a motorcycle, and think it was ugly until you see it in person, and it completely changes your mind? Same thing happened here. While on comparison posts on tokyopia, I was agreeing that Forza looked better. The GT5 shots looked heavily contrasty, and blown out in terms of exposure, while the forza shots had bright colours everywhere. Well, folks, without seeing forza in the flesh, I can't say for certain yet, but I think that forza has the kind of graphics that will impress when viewed as a still frame picture. The kind that looks fake in real life, because in real life... our eyes really CAN'T see such a dynamic range. The gritty, contrasty GT5 looks much more real to life, as when you are driving in the sunlight, colours get dulled by sunglare, and the shadowed areas look completely black, but once you drive into the dark areas, and give your eyes some time to adjust (not your real eyes of course, as it is simulated by the game) the dark areas brighten up a bit, just as it would in real life. The shadows and white balance really look great, and I think the folks at Polyphony really did a good job modeling the different colours of light. IE, on cloudy days, everything looks bluish, on sunny days, things look more yellowy. It really fools your eyes into thinking that you are looking at real pictures and not a game. I'll be interested in seeing Forza in action.... for if my suspicions are correct, and their in game shots are all like the bright sharp and ever colourful screenshots posted on the net... Another great thing, ( thanks Sony ) is the bringing back of RUMBLE! Otherwise known as DualShock. I've ALWAYS been a proponent of dualshock over the lamo vibration of the xbox system and current x360 controllers. Even the Wii controllers just have a basic vibration. Those of you who have used dualshock and played games like metal gear or GT series know the difference. The use of 2 very different weighted vibrators on opposite ends of the controller make for a realistic, lobsided rumble effect, which makes the little sextoy-like buzz of x360 or wii controllers pale in comparison. Okay, so its not force feedback, but I appreciate when I can tell the difference between running over gravel or the ridged edges of the track.. Where on xbox, ( playing Project Gotham ) it always felt undifferentiable with the lamo cell phone buzz. Awesome real life shots/vid clips introducing each track! Really gets you into the racing mood. Especially cool were the shots driving through Tokyo Shuuto and rainbow bridge. For folks like me who ride around on my motorbike a lot, it was very nostalgic to see the familiar junctions while going around shibakoen! Also there was a shot taken in crowded shibuya... I recognised the lamppost flags advertising the Mooooovie International film festival, which places that video clip to around summer last year (I think?) Online game manual. Very cool. Cons: The details! Perhaps because everything else in the game look so realistic, somethings that break the illusion irked me. Such as the flags waving in the wind in the London track. They all waved the same way, with the same direction. Even though flags were on opposite sides of the road. I think they should just leave them hanging, until the cars blow past to disturb them. That would be aweseome. No car damage. Oh well. Would have been nice, but I'm used to this being a long time GT series player. Its about the race, not about how wrecked you can get your car. Jaggies! even in high res, doesn't look like the folks at Poly used any antialiasing routines. though very sharp and excellently modelled, the cars in the showroom still have aliasing around straight lines. boo. General Con: Found out that my Sharp Aquos doesn't support 1080p! Only 1080i ! waaaah. well, more reason for me to get a bigger better TV for next time. With my PS3 acting as the new media hub, and the mac mini dedicated to an azureus media server its a setup that is bound to rock. Overall: If you are looking for a excellent media hub, that supports all the major codecs (even divX!) and has a great OS, sports a bluray player to handle your movies, then look no further. If you are more interested in a larger selection of games at present, then go for xbox, if you want to get the girls excited to come over to your house, get a wii. djc out.

Honda, my trusty companion

2008-01-04T18:31:00.000+09:00

Got back from half a month of vacation today, and was met with a surprise when I tried starting up the bikes after sitting in the garage for all this time. The trusty honda started on the second try with choke on... while the KTM required about 10 goes, with and without choke. When it finally started, I was surprised to find out that the front brake was dead, the fluid must have leaked our and evaporated. :-( KTM may have all the performance, but nothing beats honda in terms of reliability.

Dunhill? Nope, look closer

2007-12-18T23:16:00.001+09:00

I'm in zhaoqing a city west of guangdong. A city where all the motorcycles are made by the same company, and a helmet he one is worn at all is a plastic construction workers cap. it's weird to see people speaking canton outside of hkg. guangdong is the construction materials center me china, and this particular city specialises in ceramics. The city is covered in a perpetual cloud of dust and silt.

me and miss universe japan ｀06

2007-12-12T21:21:00.001+09:00

another year another thankless year

；＞
life is soo tough

HMM...

2007-12-12T12:30:00.001+09:00

二人一緒に使えますか？
ヽ＾▽＾〆

Party time

2007-12-12T00:36:00.001+09:00

10,000yen worth of adult amusement. Either I'm preparing for the biggest party my apartment has ever seen, or its Christmas time, and somebody has been naughty. Very naughty. And I'm very nice. Nice enough to endure the embarrassment of going through the cashier with over 100 dollars worth of sex toys and items. From vibrators that look like ipod peripherals to double holed shampoo bottle looking female simulators, to over 50 dollars worth of asian specific (read as 'sized') condoms, I got em all. And for what you ask pretell? Well, turns out that Japan is no longer known as the place where you can get the newest in electronic gadgetry, robot anime or delicate origami goods anymore. Its the Naughties (00's) and thanks to the wonders of capitalism and market forces, Japan is now the land of sex. And in this mystical land where sex is the second largest industry right after cars (yes, think about that for a second), you are bound to find the most elaborate things in the adult section of your friendly neighborhood discount store. And it just so happens that some of my friends in other less liberalized parts of asia, have caught onto this, so instead of asking for the usual bottle of sake, a cute umbrella, or custard eggtarts as souvenirs, they demanded fleshbottles, latex umbrellas, and eggs that run on batteries. Yep, its definitely the season to be merry. Very very merry. Off again. On another whirl wind tour of Asia, well, more of a sequence of connected trips. First off, to hkg, where I will deliver most of my happy toys to the good girls and boys, then off to china, Zhaoqing, but 3 days of golf. For the price of just 1 round in japan, I'll be golfing 3 rounds with hotel and caddies paid for. Gotta love china. Then its off to sunny and sweltering singapore, where I will celebrate the marriage of one of my best friends in singapore, Jo da man himself. We'll stay a night in good old Eusoff Hall, (oh the memories) and eat prata late into the night while we share stories of Jo and his disgusting habits in university. I'll be sure to take many pictures this time. After that, I'll be returning to japan on Christmas day (I'll spend Christmas in the air from singapore to tokyo, perhaps even see santa! hoho) where I will spend the day at the airport lamenting in my own self pity while I wait for my flight back to Toronto where I will finally be able to unwind and endure my parents continual nagging about my love life and why I'm not married yet. My answer, as anyone (male) who has lived in tokyo can attest to, is that there are too many women that I love to have to choose only one of them. Well, that is the cover story anyhow. For now, I will leave you with the best wishes for a Happy Holidays, and remember to play safe.

Golf in Chiba

2007-10-29T13:34:00.000+09:00

Contrary to what most westerners thing, there are bungloads of golf courses in japan. Also there are plenty of affordable ones too, but you have to go on weekdays as the sheer amount of golfing population dictates that prices on weekends jack up a lot.

Crazy Spiders in Chiba

2007-10-16T13:57:00.001+09:00

Crazy Spiders in Chiba
Originally uploaded by DJChan

You really don't want to mess with these guys...

Hypocrisy

2007-10-16T13:55:00.001+09:00

Hypocrisy
Originally uploaded by DJChan

Is there a hidden message here? In a land ruled by strict rules, I think this display is enough to freeze the typical japanese person into a confused blur of inaction.

VFR800, SV400, ZRX400, CB400

2007-10-16T13:53:00.001+09:00

VFR800, SV400, ZRX400, CB400
Originally uploaded by DJChan

Next time, we are going to have to get some female to ride the blue yammy XJR400 to complete the set. We rode around the entire penninsula of Chiba and Izu, and put around 1000km on our bikes for the weekend. It was awesome.