The skies are clear, and the attractions are darn-near empty. What better time is there to see some of the many great sites all around Japan? Reiko and I have been itching to travel around Japan together and, now that her birthday is just around the corner, this week seemed to be the [...]
People often ask me how I come up with so many things to write about, and I find the question strange, as my problem is just the opposite. I have way too much to write about. As it stands, my trusty iPaq PDA contains fragments of 40+ potential blog posts, and another 30+ [...]
What’s the shelf-life of a post on a semi-personal blog? A Month? Six Months? A Year? It’s something that I’ve come to think about as I watch the post counter on my administration screen edges ever closer to the big seven hundred. This blog was created almost two years ago and, in that time, it [...]
It’s that time of year again. Typhoons are fast on their way, and it’s just about time to harvest millions of kilograms of plump rice from seemingly endless fields of green. Students are back in school, and the summer vacations have long since passed, putting the public transportation systems back on their regular [...]
09.17.08 | Living in Japan, Working in Japan | Jason
This past weekend has seen a lot of money change hands, and a lot of people lose their jobs. According to every report that’s coming out of CNN and the Wall Street Journal, this isn’t over, either.
Despite the fact that so many financial institutions across America and Europe are posting record losses or going [...]
09.16.08 | Business, Japan, Living in Japan, Working in Japan | Jason
The body cannot take the stress,
and the distance is too far.
But it doesn’t stop the mind from thinking,
and making routes to the star.
A world was caught by camera today,
its shine a brilliant white.
This exoplanet is bigger than most,
in both mass and gravitational might.
Five hundred light-years away,
it’s not somewhere we’ll go.
Our technology is grand, but nothing [...]
The “Do No Evil” company, Google, is working with some organizations to bring high speed internet access to the three billion humans that live in Africa. The project will cost billions of dollars and they hope that it will be fully operational by 2010. Considering the number of mobile handset users that live [...]
09.14.08 | Business, Internet, Politics, Technology, World | Jason
The story has been all over the web and has finally caught the attention of the American mainstream media. “Natalie Dylan”, a 22 year-young university student in San Diego is auctioning off her virginity in the hopes of raising money to cover the costs of her education and providing some temporary financial freedom. [...]
Whether long range weapon or suicide bomber,
Wicked mind is a weapon of mass destruction.
Whether you’re Soaraway Sun or BBC 1,
Misinformation is a weapon of mass destruct.
You coulda Caucasian or a poor Asian,
Racism is a weapon of mass destruction.
Whether inflation or globalization,
Fear is a weapon of mass destruction.
Whether Halliburton, Enron or anyone,
Greed is a weapon of [...]
Over four months have passed since I first discussed my intentions to create a blogging application for Windows Mobile and, despite the amount of effort I’ve put into the project, it’s nowhere to be found. Several people have asked to test the program, and I’ve promised every one of them with a release. [...]
In this, the third installment of our “Shopping for a Car” series, Reiko and I decided to head to Gifu Mazda to see what kind of offerings we could scrounge up there. Having still been impressed with the Nissan Tiida, and less impressed with the overtly masculine designs of the Honda-series models, we were [...]
09.9.08 | Living in Japan | Jason
A few days ago, while telling me how stupid I was for saying that I wanted a notebook computer to last at least 15 years...
The countdown is almost up on this year's winter Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and thousands of people residing bo...
Do you ever wonder about your neighbours? I wrote a few months ago about how one of my neighbours has the same camouflag...
Believe it or not, I had a terrible habit back in Canada. It wasn't one with drugs, alcohol, women, or even excessive ...
Over the last decade or so I've been battling a bunch of minor problems such as insomnia, headaches, chest pain, and blo...