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The “soft unchi” character
The “soft unchi” character seemed to be a big hit at the Game Show yesterday. The demo of Graffiti Kingdom was playing on a huge video screen in the exhibition hall. As dozens of onlookers gawked, what looked like a blob of dark brown soft-serve ice cream appeared. Except dark brown soft-serve is the anime…
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Today I’m off to
Today I’m off to cover the Tokyo Game Show Autumn 2001. 53 vendors will exhibit hundreds of new video games and related products. Doors open at 9 am for the press. The hardcore gaming magazines are already on site, writing articles out of their press kits. The Gamespot website has articles online that were updated…
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It’s bath weather. Now
It’s bath weather. Now that the temperature is dropping and nights are chilly, the bath calls to me. Nothing is more relaxing than sitting in a tub full of hot, hot water scented with hinoki (Japanese cedar) or yuzu (a citrus fruit). Our bath employs sophisticated technology. The press of a button fills it to…
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I broke my thermometer.
I broke my thermometer. I was shaking it down and cracked it against my foot (don’t think too hard about how the thermometer and my foot managed to collide, ok?). Glass everywhere, and little balls of mercury, too. Its replacement has a feature that ensures I can’t repeat that disaster. The thermometer case is a…
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Should anyone be fooled
Should anyone be fooled into thinking that I am an IT expert (as described in a recent article about DigitalEve Japan in the Daily Yomiuri, Bringing Women into IT), think again. I can’t program my way out of a paper bag. Even simple tasks confound me. I just tried to change a font in a…
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Today is Health Sports
Today is Health Sports Day, a national holiday to commemorate the opening of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. Those Olympic games put Japan back on the world stage after WWII and the government made a big splash to show off. A huge amount of city planning and construction took place beforehand: the city highway system,…
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I never thought I’d
I never thought I’d see the day when all of the computers in my house were in active use. But yesterday, a team of four volunteer translators (Reiko, Kaori, Shino, & Nagusa) came over to work on the DigitalEve Japan website and every computer that could be used was. I pressed two of my old…
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Yesterday, my art was
Yesterday, my art was not neglected. Erin, who designed the graphics and layout for DigitalEve Japan’s new website, came over to visit after an extended holiday in Greece. She and I fell into our designing habits and played together for six hours reworking the front page of the DEJ site so that it better matches…
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“If you neglect your
“If you neglect your art for one day, it will neglect you for two” is a Chinese proverb that’s been dogging me. A shopping trip with a friend turned into an exploration of galleries in Yanaka an old-fashioned neighborhood in Taito-ku. By accident and good fortune we met Jim Hathaway who paints sumi-e, traditional Japanese…
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Whump. pause. Whump. pause.
Whump. pause. Whump. pause. Whump. Godzilla is romping through our neighborhood this morning. When I was making coffee at 8:10 this morning, a woman outside the house signaled an unseen companion “5-5-5-5” with a flash of her hands. The thumping began 20 minutes later. Emergency vehicle sirens started screaming down the main thoroughfare about 15…
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