Archives for September, 2003
2003.09.30 (Tue)
The Autumn Switch
16:58 | Comments (5)
About 2 weeks ago someone somewhere in Japan found a big switch marked “Autumn” and turned it on.
2003.09.29 (Mon)
Adobe’s Creative Suite
16:58 | Comments (5)
MacCentral has an article on Adobe’s soon to be released Creative Suite.
Shutterbugged
16:58 | Comments (6)
On Saturday the Japan Photographers mailing list organised a field trip to Komazawa Park. For some reason the day did not come together for me at all and I did not take a single photograph I’d be prepared to show anyone. Not a single one! All absolute crap.
2003.09.28 (Sun)
Earth Architecture
16:58 | Comments (3)
Earth Architecture: It is estimated that currently one third to one half of the world’s population, almost 3 billion people on six continents, lives or works in buildings constructed of earth.
Sundown on the Union
16:58 | Comments (3)
Levi’s is closing its US plants and moving all production off-shore.
2003.09.26 (Fri)
Somewhat Infinite
16:58 | Comments (6)
On Dell and its crappy Apple rip-offs.
2003.09.24 (Wed)
Shopping is Scary
16:58 | Comments (10)
This is an old shot. I post it to remind me of why shopping is scary.
The Joke and Its Relation to the BBC
16:58 | Comments (4)
The BBC, a Bangladeshi policeman, the moon, and Sigmund Freud. I guess you had to be there. Here’s a screen-shot in case you weren’t.
2003.09.23 (Tue)
Antipicture Rocks On
16:58 | Comments (1)
I posted a gallery of rock carving photographs to Antipicture.
2003.09.21 (Sun)
A Yeti By Any Other Name
16:58 | Comments (6)
Mountaineer Makoto Nebuka has taken an interesting linguistic approach to solving the question of the Yeti’s existence.
2003.09.20 (Sat)
The Word for Word
16:58 | Comments (4)
The kanji for “word” — gen — carved into rock above Jinata onsen.
International Talk Like a Cistercian Day
16:58 | Comments (14)
International Years We’d Like to See
16:58 | Comments (8)
2003 is the International Year of Fresh Water. I like the idea of dedicating years to particular issues, but feel that we may be overlooking some of the more colourful opportunities that could help get a greater number of people involved.
To that end, a decade of suggestions…
2003.09.17 (Wed)
The Gods Don’t Live Here Anymore
16:58 | Comments (3)
I wonder what the process is for relocating gods?
Style Sheets Are the Faces of the Web
16:58 | Comments (10)
Steven Frank puts his finger on something that’s been going through my mind lately: RSS feeds and click-throughs.
2003.09.16 (Tue)
A Long Run Off A Short Pier
16:58 | Comments (7)
Four boys enjoy one of the oldest summer past-times there is: leaping from a high place into water.
2003.09.15 (Mon)
Shibuya O-mikoshi
16:58 | Comments (0)
It seems you’re never far away from a festival in Japan. Walking through Shibuya on my way back from a meeting today I had to stop to let a mikoshi — portable shrine — pass. Gods first, I thought. After you!
Mobile Phones = Premature Senility?
16:58 | Comments (4)
Can’t remember who you wanted to call? Mobile phones may be making a generation of teenagers senile before their time.
The Trouble With Sex
16:58 | Comments (4)
Sam Leith on the difficulties of writing about sex in literary fiction.
2003.09.14 (Sun)
Shanghai Sinking
16:58 | Comments (1)
According to a report from the BBC, Shanghai is sinking at the rate of 1.5cm a year. The city is to “slash construction” of skyscrapers, responsible for the unbearable weight.
View of Niijima and Hanjima
16:58 | Comments (5)
I wrote previously about using new film — in this case 400ASA Fuji NeoPan — and not knowing how things were going to turn out. After seeing the results, I’m happy to report that I’m now a Fuji guy.
2003.09.13 (Sat)
The Gentle Art of Japanese Bathing
16:58 | Comments (12)
How to take a bath in Japan. (Illustrated.)
Most Depressing Book Cover
16:58 | Comments (6)
Holy George-Bush-in-a-flight-suit! The Literary Saloon has found what may well be the most depressing book cover of the year. And depressing it is, as well as unintentionally hilarious.
2003.09.12 (Fri)
Farewell to the Man in Black
16:58 | Comments (6)
The BBC is reporting that Johnny Cash is dead, aged 71.
Written in Stone
16:58 | Comments (4)
Film from the recent trip to Shikine is starting to come back. Most of it was used photographing the carvings around Jinata onsen (hot spring), with which I seem to have become quite obsessed.
2003.09.10 (Wed)
Temple Lettering
16:58 | Comments (6)
There’s a folder on my desktop called “Queued Imgs” which started off as a holding bin for photographs that were going to get posted here. It’s got shots in it dating back to May of last year, so dedicated folders don’t seem to help me much organisationally. Definitely more of a chuck-it-in-a-pile (usually on the floor) kind of guy.
Infidel Barbie
16:58 | Comments (6)
Maybe Mattel should come out with Sharia Barbie.
2003.09.09 (Tue)
The Moon and Mars
16:58 | Comments (5)
Just noticed that the moon and Mars are taking a spectacular journey together across the sky.
Tamagawa Blimp
16:58 | Comments (4)
An advertising blimp hawks its wares beyond the Tama River on a summer afternoon many years ago.
BBEdit Version Control
16:58 | Comments (2)
John Gruber has written a neat introduction to version control with BBEdit and CVS for MacWorld.
Radioactive Mikan
16:58 | Comments (1)
A mikan tree grows outside a lab containing radioactive material at the Agricultural University.
2003.09.08 (Mon)
Emotional Infrasounds
16:58 | Comments (1)
Fascinating and too-brief article on an experiment involving concert-goers reactions to infrasound (below about 20Hz). From The Guardian.
2003.09.07 (Sun)
Ten Thousand Dune Buggies
16:58 | Comments (6)
My favourite Neil Young album, On the Beach, is finally being released on CD. I have a vinyl copy in Australia but no recording of it here (no turntable!).
2003.09.06 (Sat)
28mm.org Needs Help
16:58 | Comments (1)
28mm.org, the wonderful online photography magazine, needs money to pay for increased bandwidth costs (one of those little ironies of success). If you can spare a few bucks, they’d be going to a good cause.
2003.09.05 (Fri)
Sanitized for Our Protection
16:58 | Comments (3)
Charles Taylor in Salon on how the new Bertolucci movie will be sanitised for American audiences.
2003.09.04 (Thu)
Toy Museum #6 - Packaged Schoolgirls
16:58 | Comments (3)
Rika-chan is the Japanese equivalent of Barbie and has been around almost as long, I believe (although my copy of M. G. Lord’s “Forever Barbie” is stacked too deeply under other books to retrieve for confirmation). Here are miniature versions of her in various schoolgirl outfits, packaged for your retail pleasure.
Every spring a huge drum is wheeled around the neighbourhood in what must be some sort of blessing procession. To this day I still don’t know what it’s all about.
2003.09.02 (Tue)
Psychoanalysing Junior
16:58 | Comments (12)
Bush doesn’t seem like someone I’d want to sit next to on a Greyhound cross-country bus trip, and yet we’re all doing just that and the trip is taking 4 years.
The Way of the Dinosaurs
16:58 | Comments (5)
This would certainly be an interesting way to go, killed by some sort of asteroid-related catastrophe like a huge tidal wave or the blocking out of the sun or the White House collapsing on you (wait, that was hostile aliens).
2003.09.01 (Mon)
Another Shimokita House
16:58 | Comments (0)
Here’s an old place on the west side of Shimokita. You pass this if you walk down to the XAX sports club by the Odakyu Line.
Big Old House
16:58 | Comments (2)
I posted a shot of an old house in Shimokitazawa a while back and Jospeh from pen & think mentioned wanting a larger version. Jospeh, this is for you (and anyone else who wants it.
Toy Museum #5 - The Wedding Party
16:58 | Comments (1)
The members of the wedding, available as convenient keyring adornments.
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