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| July 30, 2010 |
- My location, back Inside the Beltway for a couple weeks, DC in August. But
in local Silicon Valley news,
the
closing of the legendary Blue Cube. I've never been inside but had co-workers who'd
been, my first three months in NorCal when I was at Lockheed-Martin.They said it was
horrible, a bleak, dingy, windowless warren housing ancient (ie 1970s) technology.
- American media had an on&off focus on the Gulf oil spill for a hundred days, but did
you hear about China? Dalian is a
NE city located at the end of a penninsula, like San Francisco, and I'd like to visit
because it's supposed to be beautiful, with clean air, due to its maritime location.
But last week, they had an oil pipeline explosion and spill which has been nightmarishly
documented at the Big Picture (scroll down if you need their link). Obama said ours was
the worst environmental disaster; I was glad it didn't quite resemble the Lakeview Gusher
which is one of those mentioned in Where
Gulf Spill Might Place on the Roll of Disasters in the NY Times.
- Also in the Times, Doubt
is Cast on Many Reports of Food Allergies -- although 30%
of the population believe they have food allergies...the true incidence of food
allergies is only about 8% for children and less than 5% for adults according to
some doctor. The rest of you just have intolerance.
- Environmental Graffiti documents the
Ten
Most Amazing Stained Glass Ceilings.
|
| July 24, 2010 |
- Among some other time-lapse video reported here last
summer was one by Sam Cockeday, here's two more of his --
a new, more ambient Tokyo called
Floating Point as well as
(Autumn) which has
views of Fuji plus the big torii gate at Miyajima -- was real
close to the latter in '04, next door actually but didn't go as the
excursion supposedly takes up a whole day, which I didn't have.
|
| July 21, 2010 |
- Harvey
Pekar in the Metro, a listing of short columns he
did for that free Silicon Valley paper, mostly it seems between
'96-'97, just before I got here. Note -- what's online doesn't
include the comics sampled in the obit-special print edition.
|
| July 17, 2010 |
- Great 'cruises' on YouTube by egawaueman, with more destinations in
the sidebar: Tokyo
Cruise 2010 ...Osaka
Cruise 2009 ...Kyoto
Cruise 2009. Thanks to Chie, who tells me the latest Studio
Ghibli/Miyazaki film (based on 'The Borrowers') has just opened
in Tokyo. Those cruises are wonderful, somebody walking around with
a steadycam, and great sound recording -- maximize and watch with
headphones. This is why some people think cyber-tourism could
replace actual travel. But what about the smells, and tastes?
- Two more from Dark Roast Blend:
Streamlined
Train Wonders of the Art Deco Era and
Kitchen
Appliances that Bite. I once spotted #10, the Medieval Espresso Machine,
in a Swiss shop window, but it was late at night, closed.
- Since the Jetsons got a mention here, equal time for that Stone Age
Fam-i-ly. An extensive
listing of celebrities dead via tobacco, directly or indirectly, has
many lurid details, like this quote from 'Wilma's son:
Everybody on the Flintstones smoked and all of them
ended up dying of smoking-related diseases...That little cute laugh that
Betty and Wilma did with their mouths closed? They came up with that
because when they laughed normally, because they were smokers, they
coughed.
|
| July 11, 2010 |
Action-packed weekend, sort-of -- said goodby to Rieko and family,
they're unexpectedly returned to Japan, very sad to see them go,
but I'll visit them in Kyoto, possibly as soon as next February.
Later on Friday, after riding my bike all over town all day, blew
it in the final stretch, loaded down with purchases, bumping a
sign and then wiping out just a few blocks from home. Only
real casualty was a bottle of (Zinnfandel) two-buck-Chuck but
spent a few hours at the hospital yesterday anyway due to fear
of internal injury/fracture. A little comedy there; didn't
drive but got a ride from Ichiro and before leaving me, he rustled
up a wheelchair, actually the standard blue Kaiser-issue chair with
only little wheels, which traps the passenger, forcing him to rely
totally on whoever's pushing -- if anyone's there to push. But just
inside, we passed an idle, REAL wheelchair (tasteful black, with a
Radiology Dept stencil) and I insisted on transferring, and was hence
fully mobile in the rooms waiting; for doctor, X-Ray, and then doctor
again. Also seeing how fast I could make the wheelchair go, in the
deserted weekend corridors, thinking of handicapped marathon racers.
Hours later, on the way out, after summoning dear friend Chie
(Ichiro's wife) for pickup, a familiar, scolding voice at my ear
said "Teacher, you can't take our wheelchair!" and it was Mabel from
Hong Kong, an older woman who attended my Conversation class twice
and there told us now, she was a Christian but never seemed too happy
about that. I remembered then she'd said she volunteered at Kaiser and
once I was comfortably situated on the park bench outside, she rolled
away their (one good?) wheelchair. Later, my student Kumiko read on
Facebook about my tribulations and insisted on bringing over a shopping
bag full of groceries this morning -- some delicious homemade food, and
fruit and chocolate from Trader Joes. At that time I wasn't sure if
I could drive, my left leg's so tender I'll be needing a cane to get
around for at least a few days, and walkin's real slow; but I'm OK, had
no trouble with the clutch pedal.
- Because of Spain's World Cup win I'll be discussing things
Hispanic in my class tomorrow, utilyzing my copy of Latino
USA - a Cartoon History by Ilan Stevens, illustrated
by Lalo Alcaraz who I used to read in the LA Weekly,
his single-frame comic,
La
Cucaracha. How about the
updated
Jetsons Señor Lalo did for Smithsonian magazine,
based on current demographic trends? Not bad though reducing Astro
to a chihuahua is an outrage never to be forgotten.
- All kinds of interesting data in a recent lengthy AskMe which
the mods allowed to continue even as it violated chat-filter guidelines:
What
in life did it take you a surprisingly long time to realize you've
been doing wrong all along?
- Now and Then -- 49
pairs of photos: How rock stars have changed. Roger Daltrey
should've been been included, to make it 50 -- "Hope I die
before I get old." The sequence begins with Mick Jagger and
I remember an article from a long-ago Rolling Stone
interviewing various musical personalities on the occasion of
their 30th birthday and he said "We've got to learn to age
gracefully," wise advice I've found personally useful.
|
| July 7, 2010 |
- In der Spiegel,
How
the East Was Lost -- assessing reunification, twenty years on.
- Update in Slate on
those enigmatic short-wave 'numbers' stations. Seems the recently busted
Russian spies were using them. And during the short-lived hard-liners'
attempted coup at the very end of the USSR, instead of the usual strings
of digits some were just broadcasting "5... 5... 5... 5... 5..."
- Dentistry breakthrough? A
new gel could soon eliminate painful fillings and root canals. Ah, but not
so fast: The technology doesn't prevent cavities; it heals
teeth by regenerating them... That said, regenerating a tooth from within
would only be useful in a relatively small number of cases.
- Vanity Fair had a panel of 52 experts list
the 21 most important works of architecture created since
1980. I've only visited three of these Modern Marvels of Architecture.
|
| July Fourth 2010 |
- Long NY Times
story about Norman Rockwell and how big directors Spielberg and Lucas
collect his work. Their holdings are on loan to the Smithsonian for a
show
at the American Art Museum, a building which has seemingly become
unavoidable whenever I go downtown now, so there's a chance I'll see
it during my two weeks in DC in August.
- At the ever-reliable Dark Roast Blend, amazing photos,
three
ruined urban areas -- in Japan, Gunkanjima (Battleship
Island); Kowloon Walled City; and San Zhi, a future-ruin on Taiwan somewhere.
- A pair of YouTubes:
American
Food in the ethnic section of ein Deutschen Supermarkt, and
Pyongyang
Traffic Girls From The Sky. Surely the sub-titles in the latter
don't match the Korean being spoken.
- Wooden
USB keyboard / mouse, the less-than-$18 price has me
dubious. More skepticism about the 'easy conversion' required for the
USB Typewriter.
- As Deutschland nears World Cup victory, local columnist
Gary
Singh reminisces about watching "Soccer: Made in Germany" on PBS,
back in the 1980s before the US team even qualified.
- At the World's Best Ever (newly added to my blog-roll),
No
Big Deal. Just go.
|
| June 29, 2010 |
More new products!
- Did you ever see The
Man Who Fell to Earth? A key point is a bit of advanced technology the
alien character Thomas Newton (played by David Bowie) introduces, thereby
becoming wealthy. It's a camera and/or film which makes instant prints -- in
the scene where it's demonstrated, a couple takes pictures of each other while
fooling around, then open the camera and pull the already-developed
35mm film off the spool. Digital cameras have leap-frogged all that, in a way,
and yet the film's mid-70s futuristic vision has arrived -- the Fujifilm
PIVI
MP-300 Portable Printer which doesn't use ink, but special paper. The unit
also contains a camera, and it extrudes a business-card-sized photo in about 40
seconds. Only available in Japan but a guy selling 'em on eBay's posted a
FAQ.
- Airstream-style
Pet Camper, for the pampered pooch.
- Toothbrush
designed like a Tumble-Doll Stands Upright.
Ah, but you know the rule -- New Is Worse. Therefore, a useful listing:
21
Things You Should Never Buy New.
|
| June 6th - D-Day |
The Monday/Wednesday evenings class; tomorrow our last session. This my
first time teaching at Fremont High, the school I lived across the street
from last year -- a physically appealing campus as the buildings are
Spanish-Colonial style, like the older structures at nearby Moffett
Field -- red tile roofs; arched, paired windows, corbeling, etc.
|
| May 27, 2010 |
The morning class, my Advanced group, lots of turnover and a real
challenge at times (but now, because of, good experience answering
difficult grammar questions.) It seems that a subset of these women
will be attending my summer school class.
|
| May 21, 2010 |
Recently picked up the rudiments of a style of modular origami which has
been baffling hitherto. On the left, a cube a student named Yuko gave
me just before returning home a year ago, one of many examples (and
she tried to 'splain the technique then); on the right, the second cube
I've made after mastering the trick. Both utilize the same base form, or
menko, and I've since replicated Yuko's original design as well
as others because a couple weeks ago a very nice package arrived from
Shiga prefecture (near Kyoto) which included several photocopies of key
pages from a how-to book. She also sent more paper & etc and now I'm
pondering the most appropriate gift to send in return.
|
| May 13, 2010 |
The school year is winding down; here, the evening Cupertino
class I've had since September. Lots of turnover but over 2/3
have been coming since the first day.
Pink is for girls and blue is for boys -- but
in Japan, where green was once thought to be merely a shade of
blue, pink and red are for girls, whereas blue and green are
for boys. Or so they tell me -- a baby shower is coming.
|
| APRIL 25 - ANZAC DAY |
Been evaluating some of the new re-mastered Beatle CDs and really
like this studio photo, labeled February 25th, 1964, from the "Hard
Day's Night" booklet. (Click for hi-res file, 200K.) Note the little
table with Cokes, lower right --
later, John had one. And yes,
the sound is incredible. The title track's never
been stereo, before.
- For a forgotten reason, J-Walk slid off my blog-roll years
ago. Here
he wonders, What do you call a small neighborhood
store that sells stuff like candy, beer, lottery tickets, and an
assortment of groceries? The Japanese term is konbini
and also unmentioned is the C-STORE nomenclature I've found perplexing
out on the interstate in like Missouri and Indiana.
- Doing
a Total Background Check on Yourself -- the Consumerist provides
the linkage. I hardly ever do this, 'cause there's never anything
there.
- Random Internet Quote of the Day, from the end of
an
AskMetaFilter thread, the OP coming back later, and telling what
happened, after requesting info before a first trip there:
All
in the all the beautiful things in Japan were much more
beautiful than I expected and the "differentness" of Tokyo
(and Japan in general) was much much more so.
I felt I could go back there again and again, not like a
"vacation." However, according to the New
York Times, not everybody's happy in Nihon --
Japan
Tries to Face Up to Growing Poverty Problem.
- One more random quote from cyberspace -- according to user
lianamaeby.
Pennies are only useful as a tool for avoiding
other pennies.
|
| April 24, 2010 |
|
...and one more product, which at clase range allegedly confuses most
canines such that they stop barking -- the ultrasonic Dog Dazer 2, only
$24
at Amazon.
|
| April 18, 2010 |
|
It's been too long since the new products were reviewed here. Three
for personal transportation, just a video, may not be real, the electric
YikeBike, way more stylish than
Segway; lightweight and collapsable. Michael Jenkins' big
Wheel Skates
are compared to chariots, very intriguing but too expensive; and as for the
Martin Jet-Pack,
everybody wants one, but nobody gets one. More like that --
Ridiculously
Expensive Every Day Items. The $1,000 pizza sounds tasty, but for
that price it better pass The Test (of crispyness). Another collection,
Tiny
Gadgets that make your day -- at the end, I don't believe the
Colored Flame Tea Lights (else they'd be everywhere), but want more
info about Tengu. The
Body
Groomer is for shaving anywhere; the
Wi-Fi
Detector T-shirt utilyzes a stick-on display; and if you'd like to replace
your plastic items with more traditional merchandise you might find at
Life Without Plastic.com.
|
| April 16, 2010 |
- The Boston Globe's Big Picture continues to amaze; should
check it daily. Above sample, a sea of candles in #32 from
Poland
in Mourning. (Regarding that 1940 Katyn Massacre -- hard to believe
it was all the work of
a single
NKVD executioner, using a pistol.) Different topic completely, many
great Big Picture photos of the
current
ISS mission.
- In the New York Times,
Unshaven
Women: Free Spirits or Unkempt? At a screening of Fellini's "La
Dolce Vita" right at the beginning, some women wave at the
statue of Jesus flying overhead, hanging from a helicopter. When they
raised their arms (exposing their European armpit hair) a gasp went
through the audience. Anyway, it's said the Times will soon
be locking up everything behind the subscription firewall again, so get
it while you can.
- Shortcuts and info about
Google
Translate and Google Dictionary. Babbelfish may no longer be the
optimum choice for translation.
|
| April 12, 2010 |
A view of the sacred, ancient tree at the Hachiman
Shrine in Kamakura which I snapped in 2004. A couple weeks back,
it blew down in a storm, so now they're trying to clone it, from
cuttings -- but there's complications, when
a sacred ginkgo tree falls in Japan. First saw this article in
The Economist print edition, but its source seems to be
the Winnepeg Free Press.
Malcolm McLaren also died, last week. Not that I really
care about a hustler like MMcL but the first paragraphs in
Steve
Sailor's obit are excellent, tracking rap 'music' back to
the square-dance caller.
|
| April 9, 2010 |
- Four women are up in orbit now, more'n ever before, including
(finally) the Teacher in Space, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger. They're all profiled in
Four
women in space at the same time. Photogenic launch, too --
in
a photo provided by Disney, space shuttle Discovery is seen lifting
off behind the Castle, in Orlando. More manned
flight -- NASA
STS Mission Posters which resemble Hollywood blockbusters'.
- At Neatorama, Things
that are almost impossible to do with your body. #6, Gleeking, happens
with me but so very rarely, only when yawning under perfect conditions,
and I never knew what this was called, or that others could do it.
- Another link into Slate,
concerning
the news this week of updated Scrabble rules allowing proper nouns -- it's
not domestic; only for Britain. Mattel, which owns
the rights to Scrabble outside of North America, is introducing a game
this summer called Scrabble Trickster. The game will include cards that
allow players to spell words backward, use proper nouns, and steal
letters from opponents, among other nontraditional moves. The game will
not be available in North America, where rival company Hasbro owns
Scrabble.
|
| April 1, 2010 |
Noticed among the detritus of an overflowing Dumpster yesterday, a box
of old correspondance from Bulgaria -- two examples, for the postage,
novel air mail design and address (yes, backwards). Also, a 1992 diary,
inside, a well-worn set of
these
banknotes -- 1, 2, 5, 10, and on up to 20, 100, 200 and a
newer 1000 leva note (which could've been exchanged
for a single Deutschmark in the late 1990s).
- Animation video on youTube: First, a
Disney
mashup demonstrates their recycling;
and Second, an old favorite from the festivals, "The
Man Who Planted Trees" (part
one of three).
- Some say bacon improves any dish, and should therefore be added
to any food item. Hence, at the garish This Is Why You're Fat,
Angel
Food, Bacon and Chocolate On A Stick from a mid-western
State Fair where the
selection
of "on a stick" foods is remarkable.
- Niagara Falls,
illuminated. In 1966 I made a couple blurry hand-held exposures there,
experiments with my first roll of color slide film. At Yosemite in 2003,
at the great lodge where the falls are so splendidly viewed through great
windows, they were aghast when, as night fell, I suggested they be flood-lit
too... just so contrary to night-time in the Sierra Nevada.
|
| March 28, 2010 |
- Leveling the playing field -- Shoes
that make everyone the same height. Reminds me of that Vonnegut story
everyone used to know 'cause it was on a PBS show (Between Time and Timbuktu),
but the name's difficult to remember -- easy if it was "Handicaps" but
instead, the protagonist's name,
Harrison
Bergeron.
- Fascinating: in the New York Review of Books,
A
Mushroom Cloud, Recollected -- witnessing two Nevada tests in 1957.
Related, an English Russia post on the October 30 1961
Tsar
Bomb detonation, the biggest ever.
- Video and text report of a recent
expedition out to the enormous rubbish-gyre in the Pacific Ocean.
- Texas, California, New York and Hawaiian -- these are the states
of McDonalds Japan's
Big
America Burgers.
|
| March 12, 2010 |
The 'Ten-Eleven' was how our big boss referred to the next school
year in the meeting today where she formerly announced certain
teachers in all likelihood wouldn't be working then, or at least
not the for-me financially adequate 20 hrs/week I've been doing
since mid-Six-Seven. With the economy and my lack of senority, the
inevitable letting-go; liberating actually, time to do something
new, getting a little burned out. Thinking back on all my classes,
four year's worth; such a rich experience.
Meanwhile in these pages you've occasionally noted science-fiction book
and magazine cover art links... For a long time, decades, I've
wanted an ID - the source of many of those 1950s paperbacks I
love, the artist who made abstract-expressionistic blobs look
futuristic -- and now we know!
Richard
Powers -- his
cover
archive is an internet treasure.
|
| March 4-5, 2010 |
Cherry Tree with sakura blossoms in a Cupertino parking lot.
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