Train In Vain

I've recently found myself traveling by train rather regularly. And what do trains mean, dear reader? That's right, trains mean podcasts. I've been listening to Shift Run Stop, Retrobits, CompuCast and SpyCast.
http://www.shiftrunstop.co.uk
http://www.retrobits.com
http://computersciencepodcast.com/
http://www.spymuseum.org/from-spy/spycast

I'm going to try hard to use a Clash song title for each of my blog posts in 2011.

Tokyo Calling, Take Two

Tokyo Calling, Japan's first podcast, has returned, under the name "Tokyo Calling: Take Two". It's still at the old URL http://www.tokyocalling.org but the tone has changed somewhat.

Japan Podcast

Next week I will be launching the Japan podcast with Terri MacMillan. We will be putting out episodes at the rate of one or two a week, at least until the end of the year.

The podcast is mainly aimed at people outside of Japan who want to know more about Japanese culture or people who are planning to come to Japan. I hope, however, that Japanese people with a high level of English will find the podcast useful as well.

The episodes will be about 15 minutes long although some topics will span several episodes. The episodes will be available from the site as well as iTunes.

http://www.japanpodcast.net
http://twitter.com/japanpodcast

Hot Tub Girl-On-Girl Video

I made another animation. It's called Hot Tub. I think you'll like it.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dv_assets/plot_template_lang3.swf?movie_id=412597

Blogging About Blogs

I've started looking for, and reading, blogs of people who have recently moved to Japan. This is far more interesting than reading blogs of people who have been here for a long time, especially if the bloggers live in Tokyo. Tokyo is a wonderful place, but it does tend to fuck you up, in that it weakens your character and makes you lazy. Reading blogs written by people who have just got here is very refreshing, and has given me a much-needed energy boost.

A couple of great blogs I've found are "Hello Sandwich" and "The Get-Go Tokyo".
http://hellosandwich.blogspot.com/
Hello Sandwich is written by Ebony, who lives in Shimokitazawa. The blog deals mainly with Japanese design, and is packed with great photos of cool things and places.

http://thegetgo-tokyo.blogspot.com/
The Get-Go Tokyo is written by Gaby, a young British woman who is a pre-school teacher in Tokyo. Full of great insights into getting your shit together in Japan.

Welcome To The Cheap Seats

Went to Ikea. Ate silly Swedish food in the cafeteria. A Japanese girl was trying, exceedingly badly, to sing western jazz songs. By some miracle I had left my suicide pills at home, if I had had them with me I would have downed the whole lot. Sometimes Japan does its best to kill me.

While wondering round Ikea, looking at the shit for sale, I was struck by the similarities between Northern Europe and Japan. They are quite similar. That is all. Sorry, Ikea wiped my brain.

I Should Cocoa

My friend Alex Brooke (http://learnjapanesepod.com/) has started an iPhone development group at Tokyo Hackerspace. Despite not having an iPhone, I decided to join. Both my Macs are too old to run the iPhone SDK so I've just been doing Cocoa programming for the Mac, as opposed to Cocoa-Touch programming for the iPhone.

Much as I hate Apple, the iPhone, the iPad and Steve "cunt" Jobs, I must admit Objective-C is a very reasonably language, and Cocoa isn't as lame as it could be.

Linux Is Freedom

I've made a video about Linux. I hope it's everything you've ever wished for.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dv_assets/plot_template_lang3.swf?movie_id=412581

Firefox Rocks

I've made a short video about the Firefox browser.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dv_assets/plot_template_lang3.swf?movie_id=412579

BarCamp Tokyo 2010 Winter-Spring

Somehow, a year has passed since I(and many others) put together Tokyo BarCamp: As We May Think. The BarCamp was epic. I met a whole bunch of good people, a hackerspace was started, and I decided to stay in Japan..

Next week 120 BarCampers will meet up at the Oracle HQ in Aoyama. I've no idea what will happen but I'm quietly confident that it won't suck too much.

There will be BarCamp related stuff to see here:
http://www.2jpn.com/tokyo-barcamp/