ATTN: J.F. Wileman collectors

I have this plate that may or may not interest someone. I would like to know the value (if any) of this piece and how to go about selling it. Any information would be appreciated.

Amusing

I saw Mariah Carey performing "Touch My Body" with the unsuspecting Japanese boy band SMAP when I was over in Japan. I thought it was amazingly funny and was happy when I found it on youtube recently.

Come on, stick-thin Japanese guys singing "I know you like my curves" and "let me wrap my thighs" is pretty funny.

Photography

As of late, I've been experimenting with some photoshop tutorials to make my photos look a little more professional. The one I've loved the most so far is this tutorial which explains how to make your digital shots appear more like lomo photographs. While I don't think the result turned out like lomography on my photographs, I really like the effect and I did manage to make some nice photos.

Lately I'm working on a series revolving around country life since, well...I have no other option at the moment as I am stuck here. But, without further adieu, here are some of my shots. Click them to see them larger, it'll take you to my flickr account where you can select "all sizes" and see them at in larger sizes.









Anyway, you should definitely try this tutorial out for yourself and see what your own results are!

I need to revive this thing!

Not that anyone reads this craptastic blog of mine, but since I do get the occasional visitor for one reason or another, I should do a basic upkeep.

So, I guess I'll just make a few posts rapidfire and call it good for now.

What I've been up to....

Not that anyone actively reads this little blog 'o mine, but I figured I might as well update to say why I didn't continue with my trend of w-inds.m posts. (Even though I wish I could have!)

I arrived in Japan on the 28th of January. I had left from Rochester, New York and transfered in Detroit to a big plane for my 14 hour flight. We went up across Canada, through Alaska, and down over Japan. Every time the flight progress map came up on the screen and showed the little image of the plane moving forward maybe 3 centimeters, I wanted to hang myself with the headphones they gave us to watch the crappy movies they showed during the flight. Did I mention it was my first time flying? The act of flying was pretty cool, I love the rocket-like feeling of take-off and being above the clouds, but I do not enjoy sitting next to oh-so-important business men who have to keep their lights on, keep opening the windows, or STEAL YOUR COMPLIMENTARY PILLOW. He will rue the day. Did I also mention that I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep during this 14 hour flight? It was an adventure, especially when I was going to the bathroom and the plane decided to take a turn. Thank god there is no water in airplane toilets!

But, yeah, once I got to Japan it wasn't so bad. It took me awhile to adjust to the way they do things here, but basically it's okay. My favorite thing, honestly, was sitting on the toilet after that flight when I got to my Seminar House. You have no idea how miraculous heated toilet seats are. No idea.

There are a few things here that I'll probably never be able to get used to, though.

1. The first thing is traffic. Japan has a bunch of narrow-streets with no sidewalks. Walking on these streets routinely leads to a near-death experience or a string of them within a matter of seconds. The Japanese have things to do, so they enjoy flying down any street at 90 miles per hour, not caring about pedestrians or if they are on the right side of the street, or what have you. Your job is to get the heck out of the way, even if you have to hug a telephone pole (yes, I have) to give them enough room. And you think, "well, when they have sidewalks, it'd be no big deal!" WRONG. Sidewalks are a different animal all together. Why? Because the Japanese depend heavily on that oh-so-wonderful invention called the "bicycle". So, even if you're walking on the correct side of the sidewalk, a bunch of agitated bicyclists will come out of nowhere, ring their bells at you in agitation and make you get out of the way. These are the courteous ones, there are others that will just follow you silently and scare the crap out of you when they almost ride up your ass for no apparent reason. And GOD FORBID that there is another bicyclist coming from the opposite direction, now THAT is what you call a situation.
   
2. No drinking in public. You think "Well, yeah, that's the same in the US, if you drink in public, you get in trouble." WRONG. No drinking in public. No drinking ANYTHING in public. If you buy a drink at the vending machine and walk down the street, you are being a rude, uncultured beast. You either have to take your beverage home with you, or if it's in a cup, you have to stand at the vending machine, drink it, and dispose of the cup there. Really, I'm serious.
   
3. No wiping your nose in public. It doesn't matter if you have a river of snot hanging out of your nose, if you wipe your nose in public, it's rude. I guess you're just expected to snort it back up there or something. I really don't understand this one.
   
4. Garbage Sorting. There are various categories of garbage sorting here in Hirakata.
   Cans, Plastic PET bottles, Plastic Garbage, and Burnable garbage (food, paper, clothing, etc). You have to wash your garbage, read the label to follow sorting directions, and dissect your garbage accordingly. The lid might be paper, but the body might be plastic. Certain things require you to take them back to the store where they came from, etc. I understand the purpose of it, but it's so strange to me.
   

But, yeah, those are my only qualms with Japan, really. Everything else is pretty great. A few days after I came to the University here, I went on a tour to Kiyomizu Dera in Kyoto, Japan. It's probably the prettiest place in the world since you can see Japan for miles and miles once you're finally up there. I went with some other international students and two Japanese girls who were really nice.

That was a really fun trip. A week or so later, a group of us went to Osaka-jo Castle with a friend of mine. It was great, the castle is really beautiful. We were able to go inside of it and look at the museum of sorts they have up there. We were also able to see the view of Osaka City through the top of it.

One of my favorite things about Japan is the food, since I'm a fatty. I don't know why, but Japanese food is just ridiculously good. My favorite is donburi, which is basically a pound of rice topped with whatever you could imagine.

This is okonomiyaki, which I believe is a regional specialty. It's prettymuch a strange egg pancake with whatever ingredient you could want in it, topped with mayonnaise and some kind of weird sauce. I don't know, I can't it too much of it, it's not really my favorite, but it's a good standby.

This is takoyaki, fried octopus. It's actually really good despite what one might think. Kind of soft and...saucy. I don't know, try it sometime.

I wish I had more pictures of food, but unfortunately I don't! Eat everything!

Something else that's funny is that you get treated special here because you're a foreigner here. This can either be a good thing or a bad thing. One thing is that you get stared at a pretty good amount. Trains especially are interesting experiences. Buses as well, especially when bitter old Japanese men complain to their friends about there being too many foreigners on the bus, despite your being able to understand him. However, being gaijin (foreigner) does get you free stuff and some crazy experiences. Especially when you, uh, accidentally go into the senior citizens karaoke place. Heyyy, at least we got free drinks and free Karaoke out of it.

But, that's where I've been, more or less. I have managed to catch w-inds.m on TV, which is great because apparently they cut some stuff out online that they have on TV, like commenting on random music videos and stuff that play between their talks, and Keita calling some guy "sexy....I mean, the melody is sexy...."

Very interesting. I did manage to score almost all of w-inds.'s discography for $15, so w00t!

And now it's time to end this.

Third Installment of w-inds.m proves to be the most entertaining thus far.

w-inds. "leader" Ryohei Chiba starts the discussion on R&B star Chris Brown with a dead-pan yet quirky introduction.






It was spotlight time for the usually quiet leader of w-inds. during the broadcast of this week's w-inds.m. Ryohei Chiba was met with the bullying of his two bandmates as he conducted the discussion of Chris Brown with excited nervousness. Being ridiculed about anything from wearing his glasses to read the cue cards to whatever little thing his bandmates decided to tease him about, Ryohei pulled the talk off with the awkward coolness of a teenage student presenting to the class while meeting with various technical difficulties, demanding pause for laughter.

"Chris Brown was dancing when he was two. When I was two, I was picking my nose." -Ryohei Chiba¹

Next week, Keita Tachibana tackles America.

---

¹ Thanks to Melissa Leubner for providing this quote.

New iTunes Movie Rental Service

Last night I rented Pirates of the Caribbean 3 from the iTunes Store. $3.99 and about 30 minutes later, I was watching a good movie I hadn't seen before, probably wouldn't be able to sit through again, and was done with it. It worked.

The positives of the movie rental service is that it it's relatively cheap, pretty fast, and you can watch it whenever you want as long as you get to it within 30 days of the download. When I subscribed to netflix, I was amazingly happy with the home delivery service. However, since the instant download feature was not compatible with the Mac OS, I was unable to take advantage of downloading a movie quickly to my computer.

The negatives are that, yes, you have those thirty days to decide when you want to watch the movie, but once you hit that play button, you have to watch it within 24 hours before it becomes disabled. And forget watching the movie with people. At least in my case, I find it a bit uncomfortable to try and squeeze people around my 13-inch Macbook. Also, there aren't many movies to choose from yet, and many of the ones are available aren't available for purchase. What happens if you like a movie and want to purchase the movie for keeps? Hopefully as the service grows, there will be a bigger selection and the purchase availability will be better as well.

So, all in all, it's a good service if you want to watch a movie NOWNOWNOW and alone. And just one time.

w-inds.m

MTVJapan has launched a project featuring the Japanese boy-band w-inds. called "w-inds.m". The members (Keita Tachibana, Ryohei Chiba, and Ryuichi Ogata) will each take a turn on the short weekly show to discuss their favorite musical artists.

The first show aired on January 9th, 2008 (Japan Time) featuring Keita Tachibana's pick of Ne-Yo. This week's show aired on the 16th and was a discussion of The Strokes lead by Ryuichi Ogata. Next week's show will revolve around Ryohei Chiba's choice of R&B star Chris Brown.

The theme of the show will apparently change each month, possible topics being among "fashion", "dance", and "subculture".

"w-inds.m" provides insight into the likes of the three members and is surely to be enjoyed not only by Japanese fans, but by fans worldwide.

And even if your Japanese sucks just as much as mine, one can always find some sort of enjoyment in a guy pronouncing "The Strokes" as "dust locks".

MacStyles

Today I got my MacStyles in the mail and I have to say I'm pretty pleased. Aside from some inevitable bubbling, the application process went relatively smoothly. Here are some pictures of my baby with its new clothes.








If you're interested, you can order your own at the MacStyles website.

I'll report back in a few days to see if the bubbles have gone away.

Edit: Awhile later, some of the bubbles have yet to go away. It's most likely my error in application. I still like the macstyles anyway :)