"QR codes"

This story at JAPUNDIT is really neat.

Tokyo has mounted panels marked with QR codes on 94 trees in the central business district of Marunouchi.

Scanning a QR code with a camera phone takes you to a website that provides historical or sighseeing information about area where the tree is located. The information may tell you about the history or a nearby building or you may get information about dining and shopping in the area around the tree.

Reminds me a lot of that WiFi "beacon" idea I blogged about awhile back. It's only natural that Japan would create a system like this around a cell phone, but I was still surprised and delighted by this story.

I'm looking forward to owning an awesome cell phone whenever I move to Japan :>

The happy couple

End of the Darth Side

In one last, moving post, Darth Vader--Anakin Skywalker--ties together his past, present, and future just before he goes off to his death.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and all the others.

Interestingly, this post also brings forward an interpretation of "balance of the Force" that I hadn't thought of. (I know...that's scary.)

...And yet, there is my son with Shmi in his eyes -- a product of love, before the storm. He is no Jedi, for his passion blows too hot, but perhaps he is not Sith, either. He is an instrument of change. He is the catalyst at the centre, the fulcrum on which pivot fates. To see him is to be blinded by the glory of the Force that orbits him like living netting.

It had never occurred to me before that Luke's version of "Jedi" might be the balance. (I'm not even sure if that was the intent of that line--it could simply be pointing out that Luke's still hotheaded.)

Either way, bravo, CheeseburgerBrown. It's difficult to take someone with a name like "CheeseburgerBrown" seriously, but you make it simple. You demand our respect through your provocative, poignant prose.

I salute you.

Ben and Manda

On May 17, 2005, Ben Aubrey married the love of his life, Amanda ("Manda") Adams.

Awwww! My littlest brother got hitched!! While I can't be there right now to congratulate them, I have sent them a horribly-rendered card I made in Microsoft Word (via Mom's printer).

Mom made that cake. She did good! Actual picture(s) of the bride and groom will follow, as soon as I receive them.

Congratulations, Ben and Manda :) I'm so happy for you!

All the News That's Fit to Print Interesting to Me

Via Global Voices Online, it's Iraqi women bloggers! Think any of them might make it to BlogHer? (I still wanna go, btw.)

Via Slashdot, Ebert's review of that movie I'm seeing tonight. So, you know, I'm not actually going to read the review. I'll come back to it tomorrow ;>

Tian would like everyone to be able to wear customized sneakers. Customized "crazy diarrhea" sneakers. Yes!

Update on the piano man:

Italian police reported that Polish mime artist Dariusz Dydymski had approached them claiming the pianist - found wandering, distraught and soaking wet on the Isle of Sheppey in southeast England on April 7 - is Steven Villa Masson, a pianist with whom he worked in the French resort of Nice.

But if he's a mime, how did he explain everything?!

Parents in Japan are up in arms over violence and immorality in TV shows.

In particular, parents cited "London Boots' Love Aid Variety" and the "Kureyon Shinchan" animated cartoon for their violent and immoral themes and said they did not want their children to watch the programs. Both of these shows are aired by TV Asahi.

I had no idea that Crayon Shin-chan was still airing o_o

The article goes on with the following non-sequitur:

Some 70 percent of the fifth graders and 83 percent of the second-year junior high school children have used the Internet.

I guess TV and the Internet are similar...

Home after my first day of interning

Well, here I am. It turns out that they found someone with far more experience than me, so rather than working Wed-Fri, I'll be working every Thursday, 8-5. This is actually good, because that means I'll be more attractive to people who actually pay money. (Being available "every day but Thursday" is also much easier to explain.)

As my previous post indicated, I spent the day learning Illustrator. I now have a reasonable idea of what I'm doing in there, but there are things I know I didn't learn simply because I don't know about them. In other words, all the stuff graphic artists learned in college about design. Tomorrow will be spent poring over design books and attempting to teach myself how to design graphics.

If there was one thing I was afraid would happen when I came in today, it was that they'd ask me to create a logo. Well, guess what? :> As I taught myself Illustrator, I applied what I was learning and created four logo designs, but they were very primitive. Don't get me wrong, they looked good (very good, compared to a craptacular design I found on the computer that I can only assume was created by another intern). But they were totally dependent on the fonts. That's how I've always designed logos/website title graphics/etc. Obviously, I didn't learn anything new in that area.

But! Once I've gone through some books, and I've messed with Illustrator some more, I think I will actually be able to draw a logo.

Won't that be cool?

First day

I've been learning Adobe Illustrator by reading the user manual and following the instructions. It's not the most exciting thing ever, but I am learning stuff. Also, I have a project.

More later.

Lindsay Lohan makes me so sad

I mean, she used to be so beautiful. Look at this picture.

But now she looks like this, and thinks she's overweight. She's unattractive, to be sure, but it's certainly not due to too much fat.

It's sad that this has happened to her, because she's a role model for so many young women.

Kelly's adventure rasselin' a gator...

...can be found here. I can't wait to see the picture.

Rain

It's raining.

I love the rain.

I've opened the deck door, and wrenched open the office window, so I can be surrounded by the sound of raindrops.

Our ducks haven't been taken away yet (though they will be soon, by court order, as the birds have been causing traffic problems out on Walton Way Extension), so the little guys are running around in the grass, nipping at each other, flapping around. I think they like the rain, too.

Newsish stuffs0rz

A change in weather icons at the BBC has many upset.

Many said the new format was confusing and some complained that by trying the show the curve of the earth's surface, the BBC had made it difficult to see what was going on in Scotland and northern England.

Others complained that the BBC had turned England's green and pleasant land a muddy shade of brown.

Some, however, like it:

"Brilliant! I love them. Well done the BBC," wrote Mark Riley from London.

"Who cares about Scotland?," he added. "It is always raining there anyway."

The popularity of a video spoof made by British soldiers in Iraq caused defense ministry computers in London to crash last Friday due to overwhelming demand for the download.

The soldiers' four-minute video take of the 1971 hit "Is This The Way To Amarillo" had officers laughing out loud back at London headquarters as they e-mailed copies to each other.

"The video is really good," a military spokesman said on Tuesday.

Ewwwwww. I've seen these carp:

A total of 162 carp have died due to carp herpes in moats located on the outside of the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo, the Environment Ministry announced Monday.

So, Kakiuchi will resign! Maybe!

Speaking at a Diet committee, Kakiuchi said he will announce his resignation at an appropriate time, but said he cannot tell when at this point.

Seriously, I imagine the guy has been under a lot of pressure...also, the first commenter's opinion concerning PR tactics seems sound.

A flower delivery van plowed into a souvenir shop in Kyoto, killing the owner of the shop and severely injuring two Norwegian tourists, a father and son.

"I have a chronic disease and took medicine this morning," the driver told police. "I have no recollection around the time of the accident."

That's some strong medicine. I'm just wondering if this is the same shopping street Sean and I visited on our honeymoon. The name doesn't sound familiar, but we were just kind of wandering around, so you never know.

Ampontan at JAPUNDIT has posted a translation of an article concerning Takeshima, a disputed island in the Sea of Japan, written by Dr. Masao Shimojo of the Takushoku University Institute for International Development. Here's Ampontan's introduction, and here's the translated article. (Coincidentally, JAPUNDIT is looking for contributors. I've been thinking about whether or not I would qualify to write for them. I don't live in Japan, and I don't speak Japanese, so those are two huge strikes against me. Still, I think and read about Japan every day. I suppose if I ever find a topic I want to write about in-depth, I'll consider submitting it to them.)

George Lucas said a few things at Cannes that have people riled up, including my brother AJ. The article claims that Lucas was very careful not to state anything directly, but sheesh.

Lucas said he patterned his story after historical transformations from freedom to fascism, never figuring when he started his prequel trilogy in the late 1990s that current events might parallel his space fantasy.

"As you go through history, I didn't think it was going to get quite this close. So it's just one of those recurring things," Lucas said at a Cannes news conference. "I hope this doesn't come true in our country.

"Maybe the film will waken people to the situation," Lucas joked.

Isn't it kind of simplistic (not to mention Mulder-esque) to assume that all democracies fail, cyclically, due to one guy pulling strings? I mean, I'm not the most well-informed individual, but even I see how silly that is. The fact of the matter is, there are way too many factors to consider to be able to pin down "blame" on any one person, or even any one group of individuals. Imagining that one person or group is behind everything sure is a neat and tidy way to "deal" with the problems we face in the world today, because from there all we have to do to fix everything is to root out the "evil".

Too bad about reality, eh?

Rather than searching for scapegoats, we could be constructively working together to solve our problems as best we can. I have no problem with criticizing people or groups for their actions (e.g. Newsweek's little fuck up), but focusing on that, and on constructing elaborate conspiracy theories, just distracts from the real matters at hand.

That's it for now.

Characters of the Tragic Skywalker Soap Opera*--revealed!

MSN has a really cool "Star Map" that shows each major character in the sextology (AHAHAHAHA sextology*, so THAT'S why there are six movies!! okay I'm done) and their relationship to the films. So, for example, Jabba's lifeline starts at the beginning of Episode I, and ends shortly into Episode VI. (Note that the lifelines for characters who probably die in Episode III just sort of fade away--guess they're avoiding spoilers, for now. I'm personally hoping Jar-Jar's line will end in a nice fat dead dot, when it's all said and done.)

Anyway, it's a neat map, but (as usual) someone forgot to copy-edit. Example:

Gunray was never prosecuted for his crimes and when the Amidala was captured by the Empire her execution was scheduled to take place in front of him.

Um, I don't think "the Amidala" was captured by the Empire, but thanks for playing.

That's the most blatant example, but there are all kinds of goofs, like the fact that C-3PO's entry includes far too many uses of the phrase "wound up". There's also this:

On Endor, Leia met Wicket W. Warrick, who helped enlist the Ewoks in their struggle. The Rebel Alliance defeated the Empire and Leia learned that Luke was her brother. She and Han Solo were married.

Nice little conclusion there! But it's too quick--it seems either that they were married immediately on Endor (I don't remember that from the movie!), or their wedding was a foregone conclusion, nothing to worry too much about. (Given the horrible, horrible, out of character pain they had to go through in order to get married [click that link, but don't buy...please], I resent any implication that their wedding was quick and easy.)

Lastly, check this out.

A notorious smuggler, Han won his ship, The Millennium Falcon, from Lando Calrissian in a sabacc game. He modified the ship, along with his Wookiee first mate and co-pilot Chewbacca, to be one of the fastest in the galaxy.

As I said to Hai, "So wait, he modified Chewie to be one of the fastest in the galaxy?" Hai rejoined, "It gets lonely out there."

1. The term "tragic Skywalker soap opera" was coined by David Germain of the AP. I still can't get over it.
2. "Sextology" is not a real word. But it's far raunchier than "sextet", so it gets a thumbs up from me. Two thumbs. Up the ass. Okay, I'm really done now.

Test Your "What the Fuck Does IQ Mean?" IQ

I am sooooooo tired of MSN's "Test Your ____ IQ" quizzes. IQ stands for intelligence quotient, morons, not "knowledge of trivia".

Wh00t! It's ginormous!

The editors of Merriam-Webster dictionaries got more than 3,000 entries when, in a lighthearted moment, they asked visitors to their Web site to submit their favorite words that aren't in the dictionary.

[...]

Some of the proposed words even gained multiple submissions so the editors came up with an admittedly unscientific Top 10 list.

In first place was "ginormous" - bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous - followed by "confuzzled" for confused and puzzled simultaneously, and "whoot," an exclamation of joy. A "lingweenie" - a person incapable of making up new words - was tenth.

I kinda like that "lingweenie" bit, though I've never seen it before. I've seen "ginormous", "confuzzled", and, of course, "whoot"/"wh00t", in use on the web.

Check out the full article at Yahoo!

From the amusing conversations I had with the high school guy

[Noting my shirt] "You like Star Wars, huh?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Cool! You'd get along with me and my dad!"

[...]

"You're married? How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

"Wow, like, I didn't guess, 'cuz you look real young, an' yer not wearin' rings--"

"I take them off sometimes, because...arthritis." (I don't know if it's arthritis or not, but my fingers do get sore when I'm typing while wearing my rings.)

"My mom used to say that. Now they're gettin' divorced!"

[...]

[As we walked into the apartment] "Whoa, you decorated? You really are married."

[...]

"So, when's dinner?"

[...]

"You like wood a lot."

"Huh?"

"You've got lots of wood furniture."

"Er. Yeah."

[...]

"Got any kids yet?"

"No, not yet."

"You seem like you'd be a really good mom."

"I'd like to be."

"Hey, I'm available! I could move in, and just sleep here on the couch..."

[...]

"Are your computers hooked up to each other? If they're connected, you can play games together."

"Yeah, they are."

"I could move in, and just stay in here and play video games all night!"

"That's what my husband does."

///

Needless to say, he was an outgoing person :>

Some of you out there might be thinking I got taken for a ride. The thought had crossed my mind. But, you know, the magazine isn't for me. It's a weekly children's magazine for Connor, filled with games and activities :) So I don't really feel bad about getting talked up by a high school guy for however long that was.