Sokokoko.com

Out and about

2009-08-02 01:20:11 GMT

T and I went to Shibuya yesterday with the original purpose of seeing Slumdog Millionaire. When we arrived we found that contrary to what the website for Metropolis claimed, it was no longer being shown at our theatre. After visiting and phoning several other theatres in Tokyo we were forced to conclude we'd have to wait to see it on DVD. Not wanting the day to be a total bust, we settled on doing a little shopping and catching the Wrestler, which turned out to be excellent.

夜の散歩

2009-07-25 20:46:36 GMT

T and I went for a rather nice little walk around our neighborhood the other night, me with my D80 and flash, and she with her Ricoh. She got a number of nice shots, particularly near the main thoroughfare near our apartment. I took a few there as well that I liked, but this was the first one that grabbed my eye that night.

It feels good to be slowly getting back into photography after a rather long hiatus.

Quote of the day

2009-06-13 04:35:25 GMT

I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but who is obviously calm, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to reenter and be riven. An acrobat after spinning through the air in a mockery of flight stands erect on his perch and mockingly takes his bow as if what he is being applauded for was easy for him and cost him nothing, although meanwhile he is covered with sweat and his smile is edged with a relief chilling to think about; he is indulging in a show-business style; he is pretending to be superhuman. I am bored with that and with where it has brought us. I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of the event.

Harold Brodkey

People and the webs they weave

2009-04-19 07:01:03 GMT

I find the interactions between people fascinating. Who speaks to whom, who ignores whom. How the reaction of someone can change completely depending on who they're interacting with. Often it matters very little the content of what's been said, but the biases that people bring with them to the conversation. He was a dick to me when I first met him, so even if he has just said the most profound thing I've heard all day, it's not going to affect me as much as if someone else had said it. This is the sort of thing I think about: how can one adjust what they're saying, the way they're saying it, the style, the syntax, in order to reach their audience. Over concentration on this has perhaps lent my personality a bit of a chameleon quality: it shifts depending on whom I speak to. I'd like to think though that the basic message of what I say doesn't change, however, just the form that I deliver it in.

The king is dead, long live the king

2009-02-27 05:59:07 GMT

Adam Carolla, former co-host of Loveline, was removed from the airwaves last Friday when his morning talk show was replaced. I've never been a fan of morning radio that doesn't consist exclusively of songs I can rock out to, but there was something different about his show. It was addictive, amusing, and sometimes even moving. Adam Carolla brought the same interest in the intricacies of the English language, and his propensity to rant--often with great hilarity--on nearly any subject as he displayed during his time at Loveline, and coupled these attributes with a more grown-up sensibility. Gone were segments like the infamous Lightning Rounds (something I personally couldn't stand). Sadly, I only found the Adam Carolla Show several months before its cancellation, but in those several months it became a major part of my rather meager podcast rotation. Happily, after his cancellation on Friday, he's started his own podcast, which you can find here. It isn't as focused as his radio show was, but that's to be expected: it's only him, his friend, and whatever guests he can talk into coming on the "show." If you were a fan of Loveline, or of the Man Show, or of any of the myriad other productions he was a part of, give it a listen. His brand of humor isn't for everyone, but for those who enjoy what he does, there are very few who are any better.

Back from the dead!

2008-08-23 04:10:00 GMT

...and ready to fight spam-bots! Over the last two weeks or so it appears that my site has been discovered by spammers. I haven't so much as touched my PHP text, but it still was a relatively easy task to institute a bare minimum of anti-spam feature goodness in my comment form. Hopefully, despite its simplicity, it will keep out all but the most determined sellers of viagra and penis-embiggening juice...

Rainy day leisure activities

2008-05-13 19:14:19 GMT

Ever since my dad and his wife headed home after their visit to Japan I haven't had the drive to pick back up any of my studies. The fact that the weather has taken a turn for the worst this last week hasn't helped things any either. Still, there's something a bit magical about curling up with a good book or a movie while the rain plays out a staccato rhythm on your windows. In that spirit I'd like to share three things I've recently become caught up in.

Internet Comedy Radio

I'm sure many of you know this, but if you have iTunes on your computer, you have a quick and easy access to a variety of Internet radio stations. Since I'm far too much of a fuddy duddy to know what all the young hep cats are listening to on their boom boxes, I tend to avoid stations which deal solely in music and focus instead on those which offer comedy broadcasts. My current favorite is Social Crime Radio which broadcasts a selection of standup from both the recent and venerated greats. Comedians like Robin Williams, Dean Cook (who apparently has built up quite a base of people who hate his guts), Patton Oswalt, and Bill Cosby, among others. The only thing I can fault Social Crime with is the frequency of repeated standup acts. Since they broadcast entire acts, when Bobcat Goldthwait comes on for the umpteenth time, that's basically a 40 or so minute block of time which you'd best spend on some other pursuit. One of the things I really like about listening to Internet comedy radio is that it's exposed me to comedians I never got much of a chance to listen to before. I've gained a new respect for the likes of Chris Rock and George Carlin, and had my faith in Lewis Black reaffirmed.

Scrubs

What a great show! The first season of Scrubs aired just before I left for Japan some six years ago. I think I got to watch about half of the season before it was time to hop a jet plane for this land of dancing, sushi-making robot geishas. A friend of mine just recently turned me on to a site for watching streaming videos of each episodes and I've taken up where I left off six years ago in catching up with the episodes I've missed. Although I know the one absolute certainty regarding American TV is that the creative juice behind the shows starts to dwindle after the first or second season (Deadwood and Babylon 5 being the only exceptions I'm aware of), I'm enjoying the ride so far. There's something very cute and whimsical about this show, and although each episode is required by federally mandated law to have some sort of moral where our hero learns a Valuable Life Lesson, Scrubs is able to avoid the usual vomit-inducing aftereffects by never taking itself too seriously. And by having a heart. The relationship between Turk and JD is, I believe, central to the show, and made all the more real by the fact that these two seem to generally be friends offscreen as well as on. Which is why I wasn't surprised to learn that Zach Braff (the actor who plays JD) and Donald Faison (Turk) are friends in real life as well.

Blade of the Immortal

I read several of the English translations to this comic series when I was in college and always told myself I'd pick it back up again in the future. Although I've been in Japan six years now, I somehow never found the time or the motivation to get back into this series. Until recently that is. More than just the artwork, which is very good, however, it's the depth of the story and the characterization which makes reading Blade of the Immortal such a treat. None of the characters are treated in black and white, and all have their own reasons for what they do. The story centers around a young girl (16, I think she is) named Rin whose parents are murdered by Anotsu Kagehisa and his followers, and details her quest for revenge. Realizing she can't defeat Anotsu, a master swordsman, by herself, she employs a cynical, world-weary and foul-talking bodyguard, Manji who has his own penance to undergo. One of the highlights of this series for me so far has been when Rin realizes the men she and Manji are killing in the name of vengeance have families and friends, people who will miss them when they're gone. And that by avenging the deaths of her parents, she'll be putting others through the same ordeal she herself has undergone. Definitely not your average fare.

Sometimes it feels good to feel good

2008-04-19 19:00:12 GMT

As I'm constantly reminded by some of the people closest to me, I do have a tendency to veer into darkness. Naturally pessimistic wouldn't be far off, but I prefer to think of myself as pessimistic in the particulars, and optimistic in the long term. I'm not a complete sourpuss. Anyway, I stumbled across this video for the Discovery Channel and it immediately put a smile on my face. This is easily the most feel-good thing I've seen in a while. Oh, and I agree. OOm-be-aDA.

Feeling strangely blue

2008-04-05 08:27:43 GMT

Today I attended a farewell BBQ for my good friend of six years. He's going back to Britain, and will be doffing his English-teaching cap and picking back up his camera. Although we didn't always see eye to eye on everything, and there were times when he drove me absolutely batty (as I'm sure I did him), he's been one of my longest friends in Japan, and I'll be sad to see him go. There are only so many of us old-timers left from that first year on JET, and we're all the poorer for every one of us who leaves. I'll miss you, Al. Take care of yourself.

Beach photos

2008-04-04 06:03:29 GMT

I headed to Makuhari the other weekend with a couple of friends who share a similar interest in photography. We spent a very relaxing and pleasant day strolling hither and yon, and pausing to snap photos. Summer is just around the corner; I can feel it.

Blog Relaunch

2008-03-30 01:05:35 GMT

At long last I've finally learned enough PHP to put together a new blog for myself. I went ahead and deleted all the initial WordPress scripts, recreated the database and transferred all of the posts and comments over from my old blog. What you're seeing now is running entirely on code I wrote myself -- it's 100% WordPress free -- which is rather a neat feeling. There's still several changes to the styling I'd like to make, and I need to create an About section, but those can keep for the time being. ETA: I've just realized that this page doesn't display correctly in Internet Explorer. Those of you using Safari or Firefox should be seeing it correctly, however. I'll try to see what's wrong with Internet Explorer once I get some more free time. ETA again: This page should now be displaying correctly in Internet Explorer. That was surprisingly easy.

The Greatest Name in the Universe

2007-11-07 09:22:04 GMT

While at work yesterday I was asked to translate some of the daily sales reports from our subsidiary in Singapore. Pretty standard work, though the catch this time was that they wanted me to translate from English into Japanese. This invariably results in lots of poorly constructed run-on sentences, but as long as they're happy to correct what I give them, it's almost like I'm getting paid to study. Now, I'm sure everyone is familiar with the fact that lots of people in Chinese dominated countries take Western style names, especially while in the business world. This is perhaps because many Westerners (myself included) wouldn't have the slightest idea of how to correctly pronounce most Chinese names. Occasionally, the names people select are eyebrow-raising, but this time I came across The Best Name in the Universe: Ms. Guerrilla Wang. Yes. Honestly, I can't think of a way to make this name any more awesome. Maybe stick a "fuck" in the middle? Nah, really it's just unnecessary. This name couldn't get any cooler. I'm even giving serious consideration to forcing my friends into calling me this. Minus the Ms., natch.

Learning da PHP

2007-10-27 19:19:23 GMT

I picked up studying PHP again what with all the copious amounts of free time I have. My goal right now is to get to a level where I can make my own simple CMS to build a blog around. WordPress, I'm sure, is the fucking shiznit, but for noobs who want to learn more about the inter-workings its learning curve is a bit steep. Anyway, I'm (re)learning arrays right now, which are really pretty nifty. With them, I've been able to write some very simple statements summing up my life: $years = range(1979, 2007); foreach ($years as $key => $value) { echo "$key: Stuff happened.
"; } Yep, that's my life summed up.

More power to the...! Er, RAM.

2007-10-24 10:34:44 GMT

The 17th was me and Tomoko's 5th year anniversary. As per our usual agreement, we each selected items for the other totaling not more than x amount of yen. (Number removed to respect the rights of the po'--me!) For my present, I opted to jack up the RAM for my MacBook. When I purchased my computer, I had them install more than the initial configuration of RAM. I'm now at the maximum for a MacBook: 2 GB. I didn't really expect too much of a change, but just scrolling through images in Adobe's Bridge is light years different. The images, well, scroll now, instead of doing their chunky two-step, truffle-shuffle. It's brilliant. I've still got to do some more testing Photoshop to see if this speed boost carries over into other areas, but for right now, I'm one happy camper.

Oh, and by the way...

2007-09-20 11:35:39 GMT

I went ahead and bought the D80.