SO903i Again

Since my new cell, SO903i, died in the beginning of this January, I used a Panasonic P900iV by just putting my FOMA card
(it's like SIM card in the GSM world) into that.

Actually, P900iV is cool for me. For example, good mechanism for taking pictures, or so. But, as it's a bit outdated one, its response time of Japanese input method was
beyond my patience. So, I bought another one. :o

Here is a museum of my cells history. :o



From left,
NTT DoCoMo
Mova P503i --- Panasonic, worked for me more than 6 years
Foma SO903i -- SONY, drawn after 1.5 month:(
Foma P900iV -- Panasonic, second hands from my wife :o
Foma SO903i -- SONY

2007/02/03

Korean Restaurant

We went to a Korean restaurant tonight.
It's about 10 minutes walk from our room, and
we can enjoy very good Korean homestyle dishes. :)

Here are details of the restaurant.

http://tokyo.gourmet.livedoor.com/restaurant/info/14772.html

The restaurant's name is in Korean '다람방', and in Japanese 'ダラッバン'.
According to the Japanese notation, it's pronunciation would be like 'Darabban.'
But, I'm not sure if the alphabatical notiation is correct or not. :(

BTW, according to an online Korean-Eglish dictionary,
'다람방' means a garret or an attic. Good naming.

Here is the main dish of tonight. :)



In Japanese Kanji notation, it's '部隊鍋', pronunces like 'Bude Chige'.
In English, roughly speaking that means something like 'corps hotpot.'
So far as I know, it comes from how it's invented.
That is, after the Korean War around US Forces bases
some Korean people tried to put instant noodles which they got from the bases
into hotpots, and that tasted good. Thus, people seemed to call it corps hotpot.

Anyway, it's not so spicy and very good. :)

2007/01/20

Mixi

Mixi is the biggest SNS in Japan.
Similar to other SNS systems, Mixi has its original built-in diary system.
We can have notifications when our direct friends added new entries via e-mail daily or weekly.

Of course, we can use other diary / blog systems outside Mixi.
In this case, it's OK just filling in RSS feeds URL to the profile form.
Currently, Mixi supports only RSS format, not Atom, and here was my problem.
Actually, I didn't know Blogger supports RSS 2.0 format feed untill recently.
It finally worked, and I was a bit surprised seeing a lot of friends of mine on the access list there.

BTW, I'm wondering why orkut doesn't have one. Does anyone have any idea?

2007/02/02

Binary Hacks

I know one of the authors and one of the contributors of above.
They are really excellent and the book is too.
The book should be translated as soon as possible!

ISBN 4-87311-288-5

Labels!

Wow!
I didn't know that Blogger supported "Labels."
I've been waiting for that since I wrote this entry. :)

Eustace, Useless

Eustace, Useless.
If you read Chronicles of Narnia, you might know the phrase.

Esutace is a boy who appears in "the Voyage of the Dawn Treader",
the book 5 of Chronicles of Narnia. It's just a phrase that
creatures of Narnia teasing Eustace were shouting.

But, today at work, a co-worker of mine really reminded me of the phrase.
Goddamn! :(

2007/01/30

Tonkatsu Saki-Tei

Today's dinner.

Tonkatsu Saki-Tei, Shinjuku Isetan, Tokyo.
http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/rstdtl/13010717/

Tonkatsu is 'pork cutlets' which is a very popular dish in Japan.
If you have a chance to visit Japan, try it. :)

2007/01/27

LinkedIn

Recently, I got two invitations to LinkedIn within a week.

Google gives me 210,000 Japanese pages about LinkedIn at this moment.
What is interesting is that LinkedIn is a business oriented SNS and there seem to be more than 8.5 million users according to an article which Google gave me. Building business relationships, recruiting, etc. This can be a powerful tool even for us Japanese...

BTW, one of the invitations I got was from Germany and the other was from Lithuania. :o
Obviously, there must be two waves traveling through the earth toward west and east from the United States. For me, the second one was faster than the fisrst one.
I guess this is a bit irregular case.

Oh my SO903i

Oops.

I dropped my cell into the water at the lavatory of my grama's house.
Of course it died... :(
I used the previous cell for more than 6 years, but this time only 1.5months.

In eastern agian coutories, men have unlucky 3 years called "Yaku Doshi"
which seems to be translated "climacteric" according to my dictionary.
Usually, we ask the priests of Shinto shrines to give us sort of exorcism,
in Japanese Yaku-Yoke or Yaku-Barai.
I should have had one at Ooi Jinja Shrine. :(

2007/01/03

Tomb

Today my family had the 13th anniversary of my father's deth.

I asked the priest (in casual Japanese Shizuoka dialect, Ossan) to have
a small funeral ceremony for my daughther together with the anniversary.
She got her posthumous Buddhist name, Shin-So-Sei Musoh-Gai-Shi.
In Japapanese Kanji, it's spelled like the following:

Roughly speaking the posthumous name means 'a baby of a dream
who pasted away very early', and it comes from directly from her name, Yume,
which means a dream in Japanese.

I hope she will have happy time with her granpa.

2006/12/09

Guin Saga 111

The Fiendish Fencer
ISBN 4-15-030872-1

The 111th anniversary(!?) book.

2006/12/07

Jumbo!

Kappa Ebisen Jumbo!

Today we went to Aeon Akishima Shopping Center and found (encountered?)
a strange object. :o

What my wife holds is an extra jumbo size Kappa Ebisen.
Kappa Ebisen is one of very popular snack food in Japan.
I like it very much. :)

BTW, she is 151cm tall. Please guess the size. :o

2006/12/03

Forbidden Colours

I really love this tune.
Lyrics here.

BTW, someone might say, "You just wanted to test an embedded object from YouTube!"
So what? :o

SONY SO903i

Until now, I've used a straight style 2G cell, NTT DoCoMo Panasonic P503i about 6 years.

Although I wanted new one with camera for a long time,
I love the track point of P503i whick is like ThinkPad's one.
But recently I've been attracted by SONY's new cell phone, SO903i,

http://www.sonyericsson.co.jp/product/docomo/so903i/index.html

and finally, I changed my mind.

Today is the sale date of SO903i, and got it! :)

2006/11/25

La Fete Tama

La Fete Tama, Minami Osawa

La Fete Tama is one of shopping malls in western Tokyo.
It's my wife's choice as the first trip via my new Impreza, but
compared to Gotemba Premium Outlets, La Fete Tama was not so interesting for her. :o



2006/11/12

Cars

I bought a new car, SUBARU Impreza again, and
it's delivered today!

Here are pics before and after :)

Gotemba Premium Outlets

Gotemba Premium Outlets is the largest outlet mall in Japan.
It was the last drive via my old Impreza.



There, my wife bought a plenty of expensive things, BALLY, LOEWE, etc. :o

As for me, Lego Store was my best favorite. I was about to buy a Lego Mind Storm box,
but the price was about 40K yen and that brought me back to reality. :o
Actually, the only a thing I bought was a cell phone strap at the Lego store...

2006/11/04

Ashes

Finally, my daughter, Yume, got back home today.
She was only 24 centimeters tall and 281 grams, but we could see
her strong resemblance to me at a glance, especially her eyebrow and
bridge of her nose.
I believe my grandpa up there will also find out the baby is his grandchild
instantly.

Guin Saga 110

The Capital of Corruption
ISBN 4-15-030863-2

The 110 th book.
Found that at Maruno-uchi Maruzen, and finished it within the day.

20 weeks and a great loss

I didn't know my baby was a boy or a girl yet, but the baby past away.
I hope he (or she) meets with his (or her) granpa up there.