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04 Oct 09
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Basement Jaxx Scars: Album Review Better than the awful Crazy Itch Radio, still worse than any other Basement Jaxx album. I don't usually go in for slagging off people's hard work when I don't like it, but the real shame is that I think Basement Jaxx still has it in them to make good... |
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07 Sep 09
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The truth about Japanese politics If you've worked in Japanese company, you know that official power and actual power are separate things. The nominal heads get the salaries and outward respect you would expect them to get. But meanwhile, other people usually run the show behind the... |
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07 Sep 09
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Japan's new first lady says she was abducted by aliens Lots of attention being paid to this.People here just don't seem to mind much. When I ask about it they just laugh it off and go "Yes, she's a little strange, isn't she?". When I ask if it would have changed how they voted, they pause and say no. Not in a... |
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30 Aug 09
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The Big Election The LDP, the political party that has run Japan almost undefeated since the 1950's, just lost in a landslide.Background here.More on last night and DPJ policy here.I've covered it before, so I'll just recap. The LDP has had 3 Prime Ministers in 3 years,... |
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02 Aug 09
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Scaling Michelle Malkin: A response to Krugman's challenge Paul Krugman writes on his blog:When I saw that Michelle Malkin will be on the Stephanopoulos panel this week, my first thought was that nobody as far to the left as she is to the right would ever appear on such a panel. But then I started to wonder (a)... |
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01 Aug 09
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The sound of the top 40 in 2009 In front of our big 40" TV in the new place. I've been in Fukuoka for 5 years and I'm seeing the American MTV top 50 for the first time in a long time. It's funny...when you think about the music of 2009, or whatever the current year happens to be, you... |
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19 Jul 09
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I'm so glad my netbook came with Windows Vista! I needed a light, cheap computer to take with me to Canada for work. What I really wanted was the exact same laptop I got 4 years ago for about $750, a cheap HP laptop with a 40GB hard drive, 1.6ghz processor and a 750 megs of ram, but in a smaller... |
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11 Jul 09
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New Place Wow, it's been so long I don't even know where to start. Got into a Phd program. Taking lots of stats classes. Preparing for finals with the classes I teach rather than take, and getting the curriculum set for next semester. Busy in a way I've never... |
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18 May 09
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PhD Where've I been? I'm busy man. Looking to start a PhD soon. The University I have my sights on read one of my papers, and off the strength of that seems to want to squeeze me in to the cohort starting in October (it would be a very late registration).... |
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13 Mar 09
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Bartering in Thailand Went to the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar and got a wood elephant sculpture for Kana. You learn pretty quickly that prices here are higher for foreigners at the markets. You can get it down a lot by speaking Thai, or even just by asking “how much?” in T... |
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12 Mar 09
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Thailand again Back in Chiang Mai. From Fukuoka flights here cost $700-1000, as opposed to $500 for Bangkok. Seemed like a lot for an extra 1000km/1:15 of flight time. I suspected that once I was in Thailand, things would get cheaper as usual. Kevin agreed and told me... |
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10 Mar 09
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Two Train Station Stories On the way back from an Onsen with my girlfriend, then I pack and head to Thailand. Yesterday while I was waiting to meet her at the train station, I saw a man, maybe mid 30s, dressed as a school girl, with one of those short brown plaid skirts. Mannish... |
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01 Mar 09
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So I bought an iphone in Japan People in Japan were as impressed by the touch technology as anyone else, but overall, the iphone hasn't done very well in Japan. In North America, where the only other things to compare it to are Nokia and Blackberries, it's considered "The Jesus Phone".... |
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22 Feb 09
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Are students entitled to a good grade if they work hard? So researchers at the University of California noticed what they described as an "increasing sense of self entitlement" among their students, who increasingly expect a good, or at least decent grade if they show up to all the classes, do all the... |
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22 Feb 09
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Guarana in Japan Japan's localities all have their own special foods. When you go to a given region, you're supposed to get that specialty as a souvenir for everyone back home. So they can go, "Oh wow, [specialty food]! A uniquely [area name] treat! It's not very often... |
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20 Feb 09
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City Gas vs. Propane in Japan Okay, this is pretty long, but if you're ever in this situation yourself, you'll probably find it pretty useful to know. I know I would have...I grew up in Canada during the dark ages of electric stoves (what was that all about, anyway?), so using and... |
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30 Jan 09
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Japan's Economy is Falling off a cliff. We're talking about 400,000 jobs being cut soon, and the biggest shrink in GDP since WWII. This is going to get very, very ugly. |
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25 Jan 09
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Japan beginning to encourage immigration Good article here.Japan has long used foreign immigrants, of which they have very few, as a scapegoat for their social ills. As Fukuda, the last of a long uninterrupted string of conservative prime ministers said, "There are people who say that if we... |
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10 Jan 09
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Keeping an entertainment franchise alive I've been watching the Tina Fey sitcom 30 Rock, and been disappointed by how stale its seemed this year. In the first season, it was about a single female 30-something producer struggling to keep together an NBC comedy show, and who has sexual tension... |
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05 Jan 09
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Japan sees biggest population fall yet Here at the Guardian.Actually, Japan saw its lowest birth rate about 18 years ago, and its up this year by 0.02% or so. The difference now is that the large pre-war generation is aging and beginning to die off at a faster rate than babies are being born.... |
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04 Jan 09
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The (hypothetical) great JR train scam So Kayne is on homestay in Osaka, and working his way up to Hokkaido to see his girlfriend over the break. He tried hitch-hiking, but it just isn't as fun in the winter as it is in the summer. Standing in the heat with no ride for a few hours can be a... |
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01 Jan 09
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Timbaland is actually ahead of Indie at this point Check out this song Courtship Dating by the Toronto band, Crystal Castles, which has been getting critics excited this year. They use sounds from old 8-bit nintendo games, and give it an electro bounce and really spooky, grating vocals. It's really... |
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26 Dec 08
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Live forever- Aubrey De Grey |
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17 Nov 08
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The Japanese economy is now officially in recession It's official.My Japanese teacher applied to teach English at my university. We thought she had a shot, but the college was inundated with resumes, over 100. Even the lousiest part time jobs in town get far more applicants than they can possibly... |
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16 Nov 08
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How to make a home theater in Japan on a budget So you're in Japan teaching English, and making do with hand-me-down furniture and appliances from the last teacher. You really wish you could get a big screen TV, but they cost a fortune, and besides, you may not even be in the country for more than a... |
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08 Nov 08
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Taking the train Public transport is big in Japan. The cities are packed too deep for cars to be of much use. But the population is very centralized and subways and trains are extremely efficient and run like clockwork. Everyone uses them.Every Monday I take the rush hour... |
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05 Nov 08
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It's over. After almost 2 years, the 2008 presidential election has finally ended. Last I checked Montana, Missouri and Indiana were still being counted, but by the end, the map looked more or less like this. As you can see, Obama crushed McCain, taking the crucial... |
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04 Nov 08
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So I designed my own Sneaker today I always buy Nike here because they're the only shoe company that consistently makes size 12 's. Usually I get stuck with whatever color and style I can get. All the really cool shoes are Japan only and therefore only go up to size 11. Things are getting... |
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03 Nov 08
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Busiest week ever Last week I...Taught 10 classesFinished writing a paper and submitted it for publicationCrunched out numbers for experimentsWrote and submitted a ten page proposal for a $30,000 research grant from the Japanese ministry of educationPrepared a... |
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03 Nov 08
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Yogurt flavored Pepsi: Pepsi White! On the heels of Cucumber Pepsi, Pineapple Pepsi and spicy Pepsi Red comes yet another limited-edition Pepsi in Japan, Pepsi White. This one is yogurt flavored, giving the Cucumber variety a run for its money in the "wow that's weird" category.Actually,... |
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27 Oct 08
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Japanese iphone to get emoji icons! One thing holding the iphone back in Japan is the lack of emojis, the ubiquitious emoticons used in all Japanese emails. Its not just a neat little gimmick here, they're necessary, and people can assume you're angry if you send a text message without... |
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27 Oct 08
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Japan becomes a country of working poor So much has been made of Japan as a society that takes care of its own with fantastic benefits. For a long time it enjoyed a reputation as a middle-class society, without extremes of very rich or very poor, where everyone was equal.That all changed this... |
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25 Oct 08
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Interactive map of McCain campaign's robocalls and direct mailers across the US Gotta hand it to the Obama campaign, they're fast and 21st-century about how they do things. Through their network of volunteers they've compiled every last detail of the McCain offensive. Even if you're a McCain supporter it's interesting, because its... |
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16 Oct 08
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Review and Reflections of the third and last presidential debate with Obama and McCain, plus the full video, plus the Joe the Plumber video It's all here! The debate-McCain gave his best debate performance yet, but its far too little, too late. voters handed the debate to Obama 58-31, and swing voters favored Obama even more, 58 to 23.All this when the meta-pollsters doing 10,000 election... |
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12 Oct 08
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Japanese Nikkei Stock Market Plummets Like Stone through Still Water, loses 25% of value The Nikkei lost 25% of its value over the past week. This is the worst crash here in 59 years, which is creepy, when you consider that 59 years takes you far past the crash that led to the bubble burst that ended Japan's golden age in the 80's, and all... |
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05 Oct 08
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New Japanese Tourism Minister: "Japanese don't like or desire foreigners. We are ethnically homogenous" This from the cabinet of the new Japanese Prime Minister, Aso. Aside from the racism and backward thinking in an age when Japan has a plummeting birth-rate and desperately needs immigrants to replete it's work force, it's also astonishing in its sheer... |
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04 Oct 08
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Does Obama's race hurt him or help him? For sensible people, it won't matter either way. But beyond a few southern states where racial tensions run deep (and where they would have gone red anyway), there's a chance it may actually help him at least as much as it hurts him. Let me explain.There... |
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02 Oct 08
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The No-touch Smart Play Condom I got this as part of a free promotion in Tenjin. Guys- don't you hate getting these damn things on? Half the time its hard to tell which way to put it on, and then there's the agony of unrolling it from itself. With this condom, the edges have pull-tabs... |
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29 Sep 08
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More Political Stuff: Obama up by 8% after the first debate Have to apologize if you're getting tired of the political posts. I studied American History in college and have followed American politics pretty closely since. And if you're into this kind of thing, the past year and a half has just been incredible... |
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27 Sep 08
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Debate Afterthought Again, both did well, but looking at the debate again now, Obama came out ahead on this one, subtly, but in the end surely. Not with the "knockout punch" that every partisan wanted to see for their man, not with glitz or a great little zinger soundbite... |
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27 Sep 08
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Obama-McCain Debate, Friday 9/26: Reviews, Reactions and Polls I'm pretty cynical about these debates. Kerry and Gore told off Bush on the facts, but all the public heard were a bunch of sighing, pushy know-it-alls, while Bush came off like a regular guy who had the force of his convictions, even if he wasn't a big... |
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25 Sep 08
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Worst Sarah Palin Interview Ever. I've never posted -and hardly ever even watched- Katie Couric interviews up until now. Now, I'm posting two in one day, one with John McCain, and one with Palin. They must have figured Couric would go easy on them. I'm as surprised as they must have been,... |
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25 Sep 08
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Video: McCain Suspends Campaign, Does interview with Katier Couric on CBS He's calling to suspend the debate, which most people see as being a chance for Obama to do well. I just don't know...check this out.Watch CBS Videos Online2 things strike out to me-1. He talks about how now is not the time for campaigning, but here he is... |
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24 Sep 08
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On that "take advantage of travel opportunities" bit... Thinking about going to Shanghai en route to Thailand this spring. Someone I know from highschool is working at an advertising agency there, and it seems like a pretty cool setup, so I want to go check it.I want to go back to Canada for the summer, but... |
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23 Sep 08
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Good Restaurants in Fukuoka, Part 2: The Minami-ku Edition Indian: Parkash (Takamiya Station, Takamiya)For the most part, "Curry" in Japan just means a simple brown powdery sauce poured over rice. But there are a surprising number of really good Indian restaurants run by Indian immigrants in Fukuoka, at least 5 I... |
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21 Sep 08
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Music Review: Van She "V" Everything old becomes new again. It seems like we constantly mock the styles and fashions of the decade past, but honor those of the decade before as even cooler than we realized at the time. When I was a kid in the late 80's the 60's were cool, and the... |
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21 Sep 08
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Goals The other day a (western) professor came down from the Economics department to talk to me about a class we're both working with. He was chatting with me and another lecturer and I idly asked him how his summer had been. As it turns out, he had:Gone to... |
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18 Sep 08
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Random, probably ignorant observation This is just in my own experience. Someone will probably jump in the comments and point out gaping exceptions. But anyway...I know several half-Japanese, Half-western people, and a few half-Chinese, Half-western people.The bulk of the half-chinese people... |
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13 Sep 08
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Kid's Energy There was a get-together at work with family invited the other day. 2 kids worked out a game- one would chase the other around the restaurant, around and around and around in circles, shrieking the whole time (we reserved the whole place). It wasn't even... |
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11 Sep 08
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Obama vs. O'Reilly: The Complete Interview For the past year, Progressives have been intent on trying to undermine Fox News Channel's credibility as an objective, unbiased news source by pressuring Democratic politicians to not dignify it by appearing on it. After the channel parroted unfounded... |
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