yakihito

I'm Twittering, Baby

Because I don't already have enough websites to update (yakihito, Slash and Burn, Facebook, Myspace), I'm now up and running on Twitter.

Visit, please:

http://twitter.com/yakihito

Yeah!

My Keitai

Everybody knows Japan has the best cell phones. What you're talking on in America is already like 10 years old here. Even little kids have better phones than you. So it is with great shame that I reveal to you my cell phone, or keitai as they say here.

I knew I couldn't afford one of the really cool phones, like the ones with TVs. (You think that antenna looks oddly old-fashioned for a cell phone until you realize it's to pick up TV reception, not phone reception.) But I had no idea that even the cool-looking, feature-bereft phones were still way out of my price range. And given that I'll be leaving after 10 months and will have to break a contract, I had to go with something that wouldn't cause me too many financial headaches come next year.

So this is what I got: a DoCoMo Foma L7041. It was free. It slides open. It has a camera and web access. And it's a bitch and a half to use. Even the girl setting it up for me complained how difficult it was to use. Features are buried in sub-menus and the keys are too small to effectively text.

But hey, free right?

Yeah, but now it's starting to die on me. At least once a week I have to pry open the back and pop out the battery to get it re-started. I see an awkward visit to the DoCoMo store in my near future.

You get what you pay for, I guess.

Oldify Your Pictures

Came across this Japanese site that makes your digital photos look really, really old. It seems to work best with pictures of buildings and things, rather than people, as modern clothing and stuff throws off the illusion of it being old. Compare the picture of me there to the right with the ones below. The ones below are much more convincing. Although I have to say the picture of the girls in kimono works, probably because they're not wearing modern clothing.

The site is only in Japanese but it's still easy to use. Hit the "browse" button to find a picture on your computer, and then the light blue button below the browse box.

All Look Same

I got 6 out of 18 on the All Look Same faces quiz. The average is 7.

How about you?

Beautiful Photos

Found this Flickr page while randomly trawling the Internets: Eric Lafforgue. He's obviously a professional, because these are magazine-quality photos. Lots from Japan plus other places like Burma.

I have to say, I'm a little burnt out on all the Harajuku girls photos. It's getting kinda boring. However, there are lots of non-goth pics too, like that of the lovely sleeping lady to the right.

Meet the yakihito Mascot

As spotted on Mari Diary, here's a mascot-making site. Enter the name of your mascot in the blank space, click the text below it, and it'll generate a creature, and list its likes and dislikes. Here's mine, which I've named (surprisingly enough) yakihito.

Let's see, so it's female, likes meat, dislikes kim chee, and its dream is to have a lot of money.

You know, this looks a lot like Mari's mascot, maridiary, which also likes meat and wants to have a lot of money. (Although in its favor, it dislikes locusts. So that's different.)

OK, let's try one for my other site, Slash and Burn. Here we go: meet Slashy. Likes fish, dislikes alcohol(!), and wants to be rich. I don't know, Slashy, with a face like that you might want to reconsider the alcohol thing.

I'm Watching You Eat

A while back I posted about fun with web-controlled security cams. There are a few I check semi-regularly (like the giraffe one) but the one I really love is this restaurant one.

Watch the people eat. Watch the staff hang around the cashier and gossip. Wonder why the camera controls are in German.

My best guess this is a Chinese restaurant, judging by the round (read: family style) tables. But who knows. It's definietly in Japan though. The original Google link had Japanese characters in it.

Right now there's some mirth going on behind the counter. I hope the boss isn't watching...

Does this look at all familiar to anyone?

Japan-Related Search Engine

The good folks at Nipponster contacted me to let me know about their site, a search engine that keeps results to Japan-related content. Sometimes I wish my brain was like that!

The site also has a blog. Check it out!

I Like To Watch

I recently learned of a "hack" to access and control user webcams via Google. I found a bunch of Japanese cams, including one of a giraffe (キリン) pen. This is good stuff.

Here's how you do it:

1. Go to Google.com.
2. Enter inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode=.
3. Get your voyeur on.

Controls are on the left. Pretty self explanatory. Be aware though that any changes you make to the position of the camera will be permanent. These are security cams after all, so try to get them back in their original positions before you leave. Easier said than done, I know. When visitng that giraffe cam, I accidentally got it spinning. I was hoping that if I left and came back, the camera would have reset itself, but nope, it was still spinning. I finally got it stopped, and it ended up pointing right at a giraffe, who was watching me. I guess the camera was making all sorts of noise while it spun. Crazy!

I have the feeling I'm going to be doing this all day.

I Heart Crunchyroll!

Crunchyroll is a site that I recently came across that hosts tons of videos of Asian media: TV, movies, music videos, and game videos. Videos can be streamed for free. If you pay $6 a month you can stream at high quality, and for $10 a month you can download the videos.

I'm not sure how legal it is, but for a learner of Japanese language like myself this kind of access to Japanese TV is quite the boon.