Open The Pod Bay Doors, HAL

Watched "2001 Seconds", which is the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" with the boring bits removed and a new soundtrack added. It's very, very good. You too can watch it, just download it from 2001 seconds - the Swith Edit

Sexy Beijing

Found a professional video podcast from China called "Sexy Beijing" while aimlessly wondering around Youtube. It's rather light, but still worth watching. Just search Youtube or check out the website: www.sexybeijing.tv

I'm still crazy about China and Chinese culture. Once my Japanese is better I'll start learning Mandarin properly. If I can get the cash together I will spend a month in Beijing studying Mandarin at a language school.

Ups And Downs

Walked up and down Takao-san twice today as part of my training for climbing Fuji-san later this year. Takao-san is a very small mountain, just 600 metres tall. Fuji-san is about 3700 metres tall, so I must do a lot of training. Going up the second time I spotted this tiny shrine.

Keepin' It Real In Da Tokyo Hood

Went for a walk in my 'hood. Found my local telephone exchange. W00t. Spotted some other cool things including this roadside shrine. I also found a very tempting storm drain...

Just Walk Away

During one of my classes today a student was very disrespectful. Although she was actually expressing the opinion of another student, it still pissed me off. I will probably quit the class or at least make them feel bad. I feel very lucky to know that I can essentially just walk away from any class I don't like and still be able to just find some more students and get enough money to live on.

Full On Sunday

Got up at 7am to help old people clear up the cherry blossom in the streets around my town. Networking is very important here as most things are based on personal relationships. That is what I was telling myself as I sleepily wondered around my neighborhood with a witch's broom and a rubbish bag full of blossom.

At 10am I queued up to get free trees. Every year since 1975 free trees are given out by the Tokyu train company to people living on Tokyu train lines. The idea is that this will make the areas along the train lines nicer, so more people will live along the lines and use the trains. I got a peach tree and a grape vine! Sometime Japan is just too damn cool.

In the afternoon I went to a "Tea Salon" event. It was organized by an international association in a nearby city. It was embarrassing, silly, childish and fun, just like many events in Japan. I met a couple of cool people, and the event was free, so I guess it was worthwhile.

On the way home I bought a couple of dumbbells to use for Crossfit training. I plan to do dumbbell thrusters, which are very evil, but also very effective for improving your fitness. I will blog my results...

Wink Or Swim

Swimming in Japan is very strange. In most public Japanese public swimming pools, half of the people walk up and down the pool instead of swimming. At the end of each hour, everyone has to get out for a rest.

I went swimming at a school swimming pool near my house. The staff seemed really pleased to have a non-Japanese customer. One of the lifeguards rushed up to me as I entered the pool, and asked where I was from. When I told him I was English, he got very excited and started talking about Mr David Beckham, a British footballer. I tried to explain that football was the opium of the people etc, but I'm not sure I was able to fully get my point across.

Fallen Cherry Blossom, Strange Party And Film Editing

At 8 am I met up with some old people to sweep up the fallen cherry blossom. After an hour, we had some tea and I was formally introduced to the others. In Japan it is common for old people to be fit and active until they die. I don't think it has anything to do with genetics, it's just that Japanese people have a very healthy diet and lifestyle.

At 11 am some of my students came over for a party. It was rather strange. We ate cold squid and spoke in a mixture of Japanese and English.

At 2 pm my good friend Ando-san arrived. Ando-san is going to edit my film. She has had 10 years experience working in TV. Although TV sucks, needless to say, Ando-san rocks. In the evening we went for ramen.

Murder On The Orient Express

It rained all day today. I stayed inside reading "Mastery Of Hand Strength" and watching "Murder On The Orient Express". Both are very good, like life.

2001: A Lunch Odyssey

Arthur C. Clarke has died.

In the afternoon I had lunch with Scott Lockman. We intended to go to are usual restaurant, an Egyptian place that does an excellent buffet lunch. Sadly they restaurant in no longer doing lunch, so we ended up in an Indian restaurant. The food was good, and it was reasonably priced. After lunch we went to a expensive coffee shop here we ate expensive cakes and talked about Second Life.

The Expedient Distribution Of Soup

Scott of Tokyo Calling, and Christopher of Finding Japan came to the Tokyo 2600 meeting. Christopher brought his girlfriend along. Her name escapes me, but I do remember her being American. The four of us discussed many topics, including, but not limited to, assassination, steam tunnel exploration, nanotechnology, risk management, voting machine insecurity, side channel attacks, clock skew and TCP timestamps,
quantum cryptography and soup distribution.

Although it was the most successful meeting by far of Tokyo 2600, there was something lacking.

Pad Thai

Ate at a nearby Thai restaurant called Pad Thai. I ordered Pad Thai. It was ok.

On Learning Japanese

For about the 50th time, I've started to put more time and effort into learning Japanese, with a view to improving my comprehension and also passing the level 2 Japanese Language Proficiency Exam in December.

It would seem that all over Japan free(or very cheap) Japanese lessons are provided for non-Japanese. When I lived in Japan previously, I attended lessons run by the local government. The lessons were very bad, but at least I didn't have to pay.

Anyone learning beginner's Japanese should watch the anime series "Ocha Ken". Each episode if 3.5 mins long, and 26 were made. Ocha Ken means "tea dog". All episodes can be downloaded here: www.teapuppies.com/episodes/download/

The Dead And The Dying

I gave in to the 'flu this morning. Basically I took some medicine, sat in a chair and waited for time to pass. Although I was doing almost nothing, the time passed quite quickly. After a few hours I got bored of watching my life go by so I watched a talk given by Kathy Wang on the HoneyClient project. Later I watched a talk on hardware reversing given by Bunnie Huang.

Documentaries

Watched a bunch of hacker documentaries:
Hippies From Hell
New York City Hackers
Unauthorised Access

Some videos can be found at www.phreakvids.com others can be found at video.google.com

Circuit Training Is Amazing

Did a little bit of circuit training this morning. Felt great all day. I've been greatly inspired by Crossfit and Parkour and shall be working towards regular training in both disciplines. My current aim is to be able to run a marathon in the summer. I have a LONG way to go, but I know Crossfit is the only way I'll get there.

Going To Ginza

Attended the Apple User's Group meeting in Ginza. There was a talk on podcasting again. It was pretty good although the guy got carried away a bit. There was also a great talk on basic network hacking which I enjoyed greatly.

After the Apple meeting I hung out with Scott Lockman, which is always time well spent.

The Quake Is Coming

Friends came over for a meal. It was my first chance to do some real cooking. The food turned out well, and the conversation was fantastic. You know the company is good when the topic of conversation moves effortlessly from high protein diets to marathon running to earthquakes to offshore bank accounts to gold.

It's strange to think that one day Tokyo will be completely destroyed by an earthquake, which will cause the collapse of capitalism. It's not a case of if, but when. The big quake is 30 years late already...

Tokyo 2600

This evening I attended the first meeting of the new Tokyo 2600 group. In attendance were myself and one other person. We talked for several hours on topics ranging from hacking to cracking. Not a great start, but not a complete failure.

Trout Mask Replica

A large desk arrived for the reception area of the language school. The delivery guys were clueless. They gave the impression that they had never dealt with large furniture before.

I received a copy of "Trout Mask Replica" by Captain Beefheart for Christmas. I'm sure that when I get used to it I'll love it. Until that time, it's a rather challenging album to listen to.

Watched the Woody Allen film "Bananas". Definitely one of his best.