Christopher Kobayashi: Japan

Search Engine Relationship Chart

Mon, 02 Feb 2004 15:34:46 GMT

via Gen Kanai's blog post. Very nice Flash piece that maps out the U.S. Search Engine space. Here's a chart that maps out the Japanese Search Engine space.

New Half show Kabukicho

Sat, 31 Jan 2004 16:11:28 GMT

I had an interesting Friday evening. Met up with friends from Hawaii that were on a business trip, and some in the group were interested in going to a gay bar in Shinjuku.

It wasn't a bar, but a show performed by good looking New Halfs. No ... it was a burlesque put on by Beautiful Women!?! If the show was put on in public, I could see a crowd that would never suspect of the sexual origins of these gals. The show reminded me of a burlesque I saw in Paris, but I was more impressed by the heart that they put into the show.

Located in the seedy Kabukicho district of Shinjuku, where the sex industry is in your face, we entered the underground joint. When we first entered, the size and layout reminded me of a strip club in Honolulu. We got there as a show just ended, and had about an hour before the next. Drinks were flowing and the New Half ladies came out to mingle with the crowd. I had to ask Aya, tall young and sexy, what a New Half was. She seemed kind of shy or embarassed, and didn't answer the question. I decided to make small talk and asked her where she was from. Found out that it was very close to me, so mentioned Ogikubo. She replied, "that's where I had my balls cut." ... "I feel much lighter now."

The show started and we found out that she has a pair of tits too. I couldn't see any hint of a man in her. Spooky. The other girls that we didn't meet were just as beautiful. It's amazing what a snip, and some silicone can do.

Mobile FeliCa

Wed, 07 Jan 2004 17:49:16 GMT

Got an update from Lars (Wireless Watch Japan) about NTT DoCoMo's "Felica" integration into some handsets. See the Wireless Watch Japan's article w/ links to streaming video clip.
My Previous posts:

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu

Wed, 31 Dec 2003 21:14:55 GMT

I just got back from Meiji Jingu, which is next to Harajuku station. I knew it would be crowded, but I needed to experience it anyway. I wanted to try starting the new year in a Japanese fashion.
It took us around an hour in line to get to the front of the temple where you can make a prayer and toss some coins. Full crowd control made things flow pretty smoothly without any pushing or shoving until the very end, where the area to throw coins from becomes like the closest point to the the front at a concert. Everyone trying to get there, but people who are there and want to get out are stuck.
It was amazing to see so many people at the temple and on the streets of Harajuku at 4am. Harajuku looked like it got a matsuri make-over.
The trains usually stop at around midnight, but runs all night long New Year's Eve. The shedule is not as frequent as normal business hours.

Other common Japanese Oshogatsu traditions that we followed:

Osoji - Haven't finished cleaning the house, but getting close.
Toshi Koshi Soba - Right after midnight we had this dish. We had our noodles with Tsuyu, Negi, Nori, and Wasabi. Plain, but seemed just right for the moment. The noodles made the dish.
Kohaku Uta Gassen - switched between this, the Pride fights, and the K1 w/ Bob Sapp Vs. Akebono. I wasn't too thrilled with watchin the singing ;)

New Years Eve was a nice change to what I'm used to. There's a Japanese community in Hawaii, so these traditions are not totally new to me. Just not on this scale. Seeing so many people into Osoji, or writing Nen-ga-jyo reminded me of the Christmas spirit that I missed. Christmas seemed more like a couples thing, and New Years more with family and good friends.
At least I started 2004 with a clearer head. Usually I'm pretty intoxicated and partying with friends. Make that F*CKED up. This time we got to reflect on 2003, and see where we want to be in 2004.

Emperor's BirthDay, December 23, 2003

Sat, 27 Dec 2003 18:28:46 GMT

Got to visit the grounds of the Emperor's Imperial Palace on Tuesday. It was a national holiday. It's usually off limits except for two days out of the year, when he comes out to wave at us peasants. ;) Never got to enter any buildings, nor catch him waving, but it was nice none the less.

Getting in was like going through airport security, but a bit more strict. Full body search and hand carry bag checks with the usual over staffing that Japan's known for. Felt like the entire Japanese policeforce was there, but I think this was the emp's own posse.

The Imperial Palace is like smack dab in the middle of Tokyo. All the trains and subways go around this plot. It was nice to goto a place in the middle of Tokyo where you can walk, and talk without worrying about bumping into someone.

On our way out we saw a line of cars entering the grounds. The line brought in Ambassadors and dignitaries. Looked like a U.N. gathering for his birthday. Must've been one hell of a party.

Merry Christmas Tokyo, 2003

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 16:41:55 GMT

It's a little different than in Hawaii. Cold ... Christmas always had that image, but never really experience it. Nice change. I don't feel that SPIRIT, though. You know that feeling you get when you guzzle down some egg nog, while watching the claymation reruns of Frosty and Rudolph. I also miss the carols so now I hum them.
Top photos were taken at Ginza, the epitome of commercialized Christmas. A little grander scale of Waikiki. Brand city.
Hotel Okura has a nice tree and a killer statue made out of candy. The kewlest Xmas thingy so far ... Roppongi Hills, NEO Xmas Trees. Looks like fiber optic nerves flowing through the trees.

Merry Christmas!!!

Beaujolais Nouveau

Thu, 20 Nov 2003 17:37:02 GMT

Today(Thurs) is the release day of Beaujolais Nouveau 2003. Every third Thursday of November is release date. Since we are in the East, Japan is one of the first countries to taste the new harvest. We've got two bottles sitting in front of me ...
:-)
Rumor has it that 2003 is an exceptional year.

Kichijoji Aki Matsuri

Mon, 29 Sep 2003 18:03:40 GMT

Delayed post. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blog-clog.
Here are some pics and videos of a local Aki Matsuri, Fall festival, in the town of Kichijoji, which is 2 stops away. Photos were taken Sunday, Sept. 14.

These booths are givens at the festivals in Japan.
1) Omen: plastic masks of popular characters for kids. Like the awesome Anpan-man!
2) Yaki-Tomorokoshi: BBQ'd corn w/ shoyu. Burning shoyu smells good, and so Onolicious.
3) Anzu-Ame: Mikan, Pineapples, and Ume on a stick in corn syrup. The outer corn syrup candy will give you cavities for the rest of your life. Surprisingly, I thought the salty/sour Ume balanced it out. You get to Jan-Ken-Pon with the lady to see if you can get one for free. "Saisho wa goo, jan ken pon!" We lost, but she felt sorry so gave us one anyway. Obachan Arigatou!

4) Kingyo-Sukui: hmmmm ... catch goldfish w/ a Monaka (thin wafers) cup before it rips. There was a turtle version too. If you get a turtle and you can turn it in for 1000 yen. A kid (teenager, damn I feel old!) turned in three in a row.
5) Bataa-Imo: Baked potatoe w/ butter. Direct translation. Looked good and best bang for your buck.
6) Okonomiyaki: squares ones. And they don't cost $15 like at Chibo! A beer and a hot Okonomiyaki ... now that's an awesome combo. Note: You can drink alcohol in public. Not that I do, but there are people cruising at the train stations drinking beer, and public parks during Hanami is insane.

Quicktime Movies:

English the official second language of Japan

Sun, 21 Sep 2003 18:50:06 GMT

As for written English I thought it already is. Engrish. ;)
Choose from the following speaking styles: Hawaii's pidgin English, LA , NY, Texas
Since Japanese people love Hawaii wouldn't it be kewl for the official speaking style to be pidgin. I would like to see Japanese people greeting each other by bowing and then w/ a shaka saying "Eh braddah, how u? You like go grind some Yoshinoya?" Nobody else in the world would understand them ... again. But, it would probably increase tourist traffic to Hawaii. hmmmm. Maybe that's what the state of Hawaii should do. Convince Japan to adopt Pidgin English!

Found through Joi's blog re: Gen's post.
Link to Straight-talking Japanese
And what does my post have to do with the article? It's my wierd side thread.

Link Knowledge!

Thu, 04 Sep 2003 18:47:58 GMT

Got a glimpse into the Japanese blogging space tonight at Link Knowledge! This is an area I've wanted to explore, but haven't yet due to my lack of reading and writing. I wanted to get an idea of what Japanese people think about blogging and find out what's going on here.

There were two speakers. Taguchi-san and Daiji-san. Both are Japanese blog book authors. I didn't get a chance to speak w/ Taguchi-san. Daiji-san is someone I got to see in a panel discussion at the 1IMC a couple of months back. He's part of Joi Ito's Neoteny and created the Japanese patch for MovableType. I got a chance to speak w/ him and pick his brain. VERY knowledgeable person regarding what's going on in the blogging space here in Japan and around the world. I can see why he's the Chief Research Manager at Neoteny.

Interesting people I bugged (not spy stuff) and other notes:

Nob Seki of the same company as Daiji-san. Note to myself ... he mentioned that he'll help w/ setting up TrackBack for my MoBlog. ;)
Nakamura-san of Honda: Had a conversation regarding English and European languages have an advantage over asian languages due to the way the language is structured. Especially Japanese having so many "fuzzy" words. "Bi myou". Also, got into a discussion on blogs in the Enterprise w/ Daiji-san. Something to the effect of blogs could help the "real" minds get credit where credit is due. Make it difficult for free riders taking advantage of your ideas.
Suda-san of Steelcase: lived in New Orleans for awhile, now part of an innovative company that sells modern office furniture. The event was held at this awesome office.
Self intro'd myself to Kohici Aoki of Sony. I think I found his blog through Gen Kanai's. He has photos on his site of this event. The blog system he uses is called Plone and runs on a Python based CMS called Zope. We swapped some ideas on MoBlogging. He showed me a kewl gadget, but I didn't get a chance to ask him. Also saw another person with it ... Linux Zaurus. Looks like a GameBoy Advance SP w/ a little more keys ;)
Link to Daiji's post post. Lot's of trackbacks, let's see if my trackback goes through.
He mentioned that another way of explaining trackbacks is reverse linking. People usually leave trackbacks, because they want the original poster to know that I've got an interest on your post and I wrote or added some thoughts about it on my site. Personal WebService Platform -> Microcontent (by category, date(s), etc) + MetaData(RSS) + Webservices(APIs). Reason RSS took off was because blogs took off. Didn't think about building a massive all encompassing system. Just a simple and easy to use CMS w/ built in WebServices and RSS. Where's the Semantic Web? Any apps out there. US' got Social Networks (social software like friendster or tribes), which Japan is 5 years behind. Japan's got Mobile Networks, which US is 5 years behind. Merging both ways. Open invite to all developers to jump into this space now. Lot's of opportunities and easy to jump into. Standards are still simple.
A question that popped up a couple of times was How different is US and Japanese blogs.
Couple of RSS News Reader app developers were present.
When you think of WebServices you think of Enterprise-class. Blogs include WebServices made for Peronal-class.
Japanese blog aggregation site: rss-jp.net
Similar to Technorati?: MyBlog Japan

AsoBitCity Revisit

Sun, 31 Aug 2003 14:25:45 GMT

Took a quick trip to Akihabara this evening. Had to get my fix of G33K toys. Had to visit Aso Bit City. It's probably a good thing that I got there about one hour before it closed or else I would've ended up spending my whole day there.

There was one console game on the first floor that caught my attention. Drag On Dragoon from Square Enix. From the CM video on the overhead TVs Drag-On Dragoon looks like an awesome combo of Dynasty Warrior(movie) for ground combat, and a wicked jet fighter combat sim merged on top of a souped-up Dragon Rage. Add the Square CG touch and we have a WINNER. Links to movies on the official Drag-On Dragoon site: first video, second video, third video (the second vid roqs!).

The photo on the top right is of a Robot PC case. The "do-it-yourself" kit goes for around $450. I couldn't convince Shirley to let me get one for our living room. ;)

The photo on the left is of the 1st floor entrance area. This is where you can test out the newest games.

On this visit we spent alot of time on the 5th floor. Model guns, soft air guns, and models. Checkout the gung-ho grrl testing out the fully automatic soft air gun. There's tons of "H" and KAWAII anime characters. An Otaku paradise. Next to the train area there was a display of a model train station. It reminded us of Sim City.

** Full disclosure: I did end up purchasing Star Wars Galaxies **
I had to. To please the Aso Bit City gods!

Street Spammers

Sat, 30 Aug 2003 16:03:39 GMT

Yesterday on the way home bumped into a "Street Spammer". These guys run around at night going door to door (or mailbox to mailbox) and stuffing advertisements. F*CKIN SAD JOB.
When I first moved to Ogikubo I didn't check my mailbox for days. The junk mail filled the mailbox. Almost threw away some legit bills.
I put these guys in the same category as email spammers. Online or offline it's a waste of our time. I probably spend about 5-10 minutes a day deleting email spam.
-- JUST BI*CHIN --

Onsen at Kinugawa

Thu, 07 Aug 2003 17:33:25 GMT

The food served at some of the Ryokans attached to the Onsens are a league of their own. As you can see the attention to detail is just amazing. You eat with your eyes. There isn't that much volume compared to the states, but I managed to gain 3 kilos. It's the *VICIOUS* cycle of lounging around, eating, relaxing in the hot springs. I'm now a believer of quality (looks, taste) over quantity. To accompany the beautiful and delicious meals ... you must have excellent Sake. I've always been a believer of good food must be accompanied by excellent drinks.
The farther north you go, the better the Sake gets. Good water + good rice = AWESOME SAKE.

The view from the room was a sight to remember. Especially since I'm surrounded by more concrete and people than I'm used to. It was nice to relax my eyes and have space around me. Away from my laptop. I must admit I had 'net access from my keitai.

For me .. relaxing in the hot springs from the volcanoes is one of the most rejuvenating experiences. Had to recharge myself.
The Onsen vases (forgot the name) and Rotenburo (outside baths) can't be beat. Especially at night when it gets cooler.

Net Toys

Wed, 30 Jul 2003 15:41:06 GMT

Makes you wanna be a kid again. A Remote Control car that you can play with using your browser. The live video and chat functions are using Flash Communication Server. The FlashCom must be interfacing some other technology to send the control signals to the RC cars.
Goto Remote Driver to play with the cars. The cars are in Japan so you probably need to login during Japan Time.

** Thanks KE-TA for the info **

How about a RC Realtime Strategy Game - use the RC mini-tanks that shoot InfraRed. These little tanks detect if they got shot, but not sure how they'll send damage signal back. They do blink, but might be hard to see. Control the tanks using a Remote Driver type app. Need to get wireless mini-cameras for a tank's point of view.
How about Lego Mindstorm net enabled toys ... hmmm.

** UPDATE: checkout this post from Anita **

Wireless Japan 2003 - AU by KDDI

Mon, 28 Jul 2003 06:33:18 GMT

OK ... last campaign grrrl. Thanks to the overwhelming support (2 comments .. thank u gentlemen), I had to post the final pic.

AU's phones seem to have a *KEWL* factor. It's the influence I got from the designer phones they had showcased. After touching and feeling the units from so many manufacturers .. u get numb. But the designer ones look sooooo SEXY. The feeling I get when I play around with the new iPods. Designer is Marc Newson. Here are more shots .. site in Japanese.

AU's really pushing GPS. I forgot to pickup their pamphlet's, but the word GPS was plastered everywhere. GPS in the workplace. Find your friends. For moblogging w/ GPS AU's the carrier. Tokyo Tidbits' using AU.

Wireless Japan 2003 - NTT DoCoMo

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:30:47 GMT

The DoCoMo campaign girl .. I know, I know, stop u stalker. Couldn't help it! And I did it for the guys. Help me out here fellas.
DoCoMo's booth was half 505 series demos. The other side was FOMA (3G service), and business solutions.

Telematics doesn't excite me. It was neat playing with the system making the headlights come out, but SO WHAT. It's probably cause I don't drive in Tokyo. Avoiding traffic, and trying to find parking doesn't even enter my mind. I can imagine if I drove I would love to have a way to get information fed to me audibly. Being able to navigate by voice would be the safest. What kind of standards would this follow? What kind of usability?

One of the 'killer apps' for the 3G FOMA phones is videoconferencing. The problem with this is that both ends need a FOMA phone. Here's a shot of a service that will make the 3G phones mainstream. See your AIBO's point of view from your FOMA phone. Uh ... yeah. These toys of the near future are definitely KEWL, but how much can you spare for them?
Some 505 series models come w/ QR Code readers built into the keitai camera. Checkout this gadget blog for a brief on QR Code and DoCoMo's strategy. The KoKoRo blog is by a P2P guru in Japan and helps runs Jnutella.

Wireless Japan 2003 - Vodafone

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 01:31:40 GMT

Wireless Japan was an 'eye opener'. Especially the campaign girls. Geeks looking for the newest mobile gadgets, and beautiful women in costume play outfits. What a combo!
No sign of the JPhone brand. Vodafone all the way. Ton of money to rebrand themselves. RED RED RED. Booth blocking the entrace to the conference. They out did DoCoMo.

The above mobile device is NEC's V-N701 (More info). It's a sexy gadget that's got 'TV Call' function, which is basically videoconferencing. This phone is part of Vodafone's Global Standard Line-Up. 'Global Roaming'. Doesn't work in the US and you can't videoconference with someone without TV Call. Back to the drawing board. More photos here ... site in Japanese.

That's right ... control your TV, VCR, and DVD player from your phone. Why!?! Any case it's an awesome phone. Ladies and gentlemen , let me present the J-N51 by NEC (info in Japanese). Japanese only user interface (NOT bilingual .. too bad :(), Java apps (MEANS DOWNLOADABLE GAMES!!!), QR Code reader (advanced form of bar codes), and even a light for the 310,000 pixel built-in camera. Should we call this a mobile phone, digital camera, bar code scanner, PDA, or remote control? That's the equipment manufacturer's next dilema. Stuff it all in one or specialized gadgets.
QR Code (Quick Response Code) - it'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the m-commerce space. Will Mail order catalogue companies use this technology? How about the consumers? Is it easy enough to use? hmmmm. Vodafone's got two phones with this technology built-in. Docomo also has some phones lined up, will AU be next?
The photo is of a mobile phone's screen with a coupon and QR Code. A QR Code scanner can scan the phone's screen. Basically, a person sees an ad in the train or magazine. This ad has a message like for more info email moreinfo@ thiscompany.com. When the person does this from their keitai, the system auto replies w/ more info and a link to the coupon. The person clicks the link and is sent to the coupon page perhaps with the QR Code, which they can take to a store. A service provided by Maido Coupon (site in Japanese).
** UPDATE: The QR Code could be scanned by the phone, which translate it into a URL or email address. The reason I think there is a scanner at the store is the demo shows the QR Code w/ the coupon as shown in the photo above.**

Moblog of a Moblog of a Moblog

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 03:38:16 GMT

Tokyo Bloggers Party(was Meetup). It was nice to see the regulars at The Pink Cow and to connect with new dots. Had some pretty interesting talks w/ Mike of Hunkabutta and the gentleman of (Ack ... forgot your name!?!) Antipixel. Something along the lines of the migration of Japanese people and heart that goes into wedding ceremonies.

Paul and Mie had their creative engines going thinking of new and crazy ideas for MoBlogging. It was kinda neat to see Paul use our keitais to Moblog of a Moblog of a Moblog. Reminded me of that effect you get when you put two opposing mirrors. They're starting some *TOP SECRET* MoBlog project ... gotta get my spy gear out ;)

Would you lick my balls

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:12:10 GMT

Classic line. OK .. We're here in Tokyo watching DVDs of Sex and the City. What's with women and this show. Hmmmmn. Shirley-chan bought three seasons of this 'STUFF'. It's funny and gives a new perspective that I'm clueless on. The episodes just entered the Japanese market on cable. I wonder how this'll affect Japanese women.

Now there's this episode of 'The Rabit and The Hare' ... Rotating, pink, vibrating objects are fashionable in NY. I gotta see what this city is like!

T3 Virgin

Mon, 14 Jul 2003 17:12:42 GMT

Movies are expensive here in Tokyo, but reserving seats over the net or your keitai is worth it. Wine or beer. No waiting in lines. Just deal w/ the touchscreen kiosk when you get there to pick up your tickets. There's even a mobile version of the site. Am I too bot dependant?
Left screenshot is a listing of movies for a certain date and the movie's seating availability. Middle screenshot is the seating areas you can choose from for a specific movie, which in this case is T3. Right screenshot is the actual seats numbers that we got. All seats at Roppongi Hills Virgin Cinema are RESERVED. Even the front row.
Oh yeah, so how was Arnold ... I'm bigger. I give the movie a 3 out of 5 .. 5=top

Chemical Addiction

Sun, 13 Jul 2003 16:25:32 GMT

Just picked up some junk food from AM/PM. Midori no Tanuki instant Rahmen. Out of the millions of instant noodles this is ONE of my favorites so far. The other one that's up there is the Cup Noodle w/ Curry. HMMMMM. :)
There's got to be some kind of chemical ingrediant that makes me crave it. Same kind of stuff that's in McDonald's French Fries and Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza.

The Matrix Pingpong

Fri, 11 Jul 2003 04:04:08 GMT

Funniest video. This is better than both Matrix's put together, and they didn't even use CG. Check this out:
The Matrix Pingpong

It's from a Japanese TV show called Kinchan and Katori Shingo no Zen Nihon Kasou Taisho. ;)
** Thanks Brendan **

First International Moblogging Conference

Sun, 06 Jul 2003 08:55:20 GMT

Yesterday was the First International Moblogging Conference. It was AWESOME! I hadn't slept for over 30hrs, but when I got there I was re-Energized.
Left photo is the stamp - like getting branded .. we're just cows.
Right shot - an underground club was the perfect setting for this event. Most of the audience were casually dressed. Initially seemed like a very relaxed atmosphere, but when the 1st coffee break hit ** SO MUCH ENERGY ** So much brain waves flying through the air. To bad my brain's dead !?!

The left photo is of Justin Hall - bumped into him and Jane of Game Girl Advance on the way to the event. All of us were pretty lost, but found the spot just in time. Both are gamers and writers.
Middle shot is of Kevin Cameron of MFOP fame .. and now MFOP2.
Right photo is a shot of "Why MoBlog" session. Interesting story - the reason I took it is I found a moblog event called 24, through a post by Gen Kanai on the Japan Bloggers mailing list. I wanted to participate and emailed the guy in charge, Raphael Grignani, but was too late. I mentioned the 1IMC to Raphael and he said he's not gonna make it but look out for Jan .. the first person listed on the 24 site. Jan so happened to be sitting next to me and asked me to take a shot of the panel. He said see the 1st guy on the site .. that's me. It was trippy! ... sorry if that was long, but I had to get it out there.

Centralized vs Decentralized :: Daiji's and Kevin's MoBlog systems allow you to hold the photos and posts on your own blog (mainly Movable Type) a decentralized model, while Phlog and HipTop Nation uses a centralized model. Seems like people who are technically savy like the decentralized way (again Movable Type types) and people who don't have time or don't care about the why/how like the centralized approach. Pretty obvious I guess. I've been thinking about a hybrid mode, where you can use an easy centralized host, but customize the output by calling it via WebServices .. kinda similar to the BlogRolling approach.

Here are other posts about 1IMC:
Tokyo Tidbits - 1, 2, 3
Joi Ito - blog post, another, wiki
SyncWorld - 1
Pete's Eats - good notes here
moblog.oreno.org - finally got me a simple moblog up.

Here are some notes of the event in OPML format (1imc.xml). Made using OmniOutliner on OS X 10.2. The extension's set as .xml so that the browsers don't crap out when they try to read it, but you can change this to opml if your outliner needs it in that format.

Left is a shot of the Early Adopters panel - Justin moderated it, Mie from Tokyo Tidbits, Carsten of Based on a true story, and Stuart of stuartwoodward.com. Go Tokyo MoBloggers!
Right is Adam Greenfield of v-2 and the organizer/host of this great conference. Awesome job Adam!

Macromedia Flash Conference Tokyo 2003

Sun, 06 Jul 2003 07:19:53 GMT

Got to checkout the Tokyo Macromedia Flash Conference on June 20, 2003. It was the first time I visited any Flash conference. Different type of crowd than what I'm used to. The small Microsoft seminars in Hawaii drew the average everyday geeks .. Micro$erf geeks .. and sys admin types. The WWW2002 was all educational, research, scientific, standards worshippers, and programmers .. bleading edge-types .. not entrepreneurial in the sense of this'll sell, but very future minded people. The Flash people are visual creatives ... designers everywhere. Animators, UI, and experience designers. Made me feel like going out and designing stuff. That's the beauty of events .. the ENERGY .. New mantra for myself 'You're a designer' 'ohmmmmmmm' 'ohmmmmmm'

Left photo is of the Docomo campaign girl .. ooh la la
Right photo is a dude w/ a Segway. There was a Jan-Ken game to ride one and got to the last 10 people, but lost. 2Bad. Here's a Quicktime Movie of him making 8s.

I didn't know how much of a Flash god Yugo Nakamura (www.yugop.com) was until this event. Got to see his worshippers.

Other Notes:
A kewl tool coming out is Flash for programmers. Royale. Info from Corfield's blog. No, not 'Royale with cheese' from Kahuna burgers.
Flash Lite on the Docomo iMode 505 series of phones. An interesting question from a developer went something like "As a developer I feel that Flash Lite doesn't work well, are you folks at Macromedia happy with the new Flash Lite?". Flash Lite is scriptable using ActionScript from Flash 4.
Other sessions that I didn't get to attend were on Rich Internet Applications, and working Flash on TV.

God Bless Japanese Nipples

Sun, 15 Jun 2003 15:01:25 GMT

Watching reruns .. one of the funnier moments at this years MTV VMAJ 2003 (in Japanese) has got to be this line. It's a quote from the Red Hot Chili Pepper's thank you speech for winning the best rock video. The message went something like 'God Bless all the beautiful Japanese people in Japan, and Gold Bless Japanese Nipples'. He he he ;)