My first Blurb book
My brother got his copy in the mail today so I can do the big reveal: I printed my first photobook! It depicts my recent vacation to Taiwan and Tokyo. I used the services of Blurb, which provides the software to design books of all types and also has great printers.
The book cost me about $60 including shipping for a 170 page 10″ X 8″ hardcover with dust jacket. Prices will vary depending on the number of pages and the dimensions of the book.
Let the Games begin!
Happy 8/8/08! If you aren’t familiar with Chinese culture, 8 is a very lucky number since it sounds a lot like the Chinese word for prosperity. Check out vanity license plates belonging to Chinese drivers and they’re very likely to have a few 8’s in there. My parents and I have multiple 8’s in our cell phone numbers by design.
Unsurprisingly, the 2008 Olympics in Beijing are starting 8/8/08 at 8:08:08 PM Beijing time (8 AM Eastern time in the U.S.). Of course, NBC won’t allow live coverage of it and they’ll be airing a recording tonight. I’m very excited about the opening ceremonies, particularly the fireworks display, which I have high expectations for considering that China invented fireworks and will want to put on a good show. Actually, I’m watching a live online stream of the opening ceremony right now provided by some South American website. Isn’t the Internet amazing? The show is spectacular so far, definitely try to catch it tonight if you can.
Most of the events seem interesting to me and I’ll try to watch as many finals as I can. I particularly like the events that nobody cares about except at the Olympics, like archery and table tennis. The track & field events aren’t as appealing though; with all the doping scandals surrounding them, it’s hard to trust whether the athletes are clean. Yeah, it’s cool to see records broken, but I think everybody is suspicious now and wondering whether that gold medal’s going to be revoked in a few years.
Here’s to a couple weeks of good sport!
UPDATE: I’m at the research lab waiting for my partner to show up so I ended up watching most of the show. Wow, what a spectacular display. There’s no way London’s topping this for the 2012 Olympics.
Right now it’s the Parade of Nations. They have a giant ring of cheerleaders waving and dancing in place while all the countries enter the stadium. Those poor girls, they’ll have to dance for two hours!!
UPDATE 2: Wow at the fireworks, particularly the one in the shape of dove wings. Incredible imagery. And what a staggering lighting of the torch. China has delivered. I can’t wait to watch this again tonight with better quality and American commentary.
UPDATE 3: I’ve been reading online comments about the ceremony and people outside the U.S. are astonished that we have to wait until tonight to watch it. Meanwhile, an estimated 2 billion people around the world watched it live. Thank you NBC!!
Google Street View Japan
The long-awaited Google Street View has finally come to Japan! I could have used this a couple months ago when I was planning my trip to Tokyo. I always do a ton of research to prepare for my trips abroad, but being able to virtually travel along my routes and find all the stores and landmarks in advance is so helpful.
It’s fun to check out familiar places.
Being a Bathing Ape aficionado, I thought it was hilarious that the Bape store in Aoyama had a crowd lining up waiting for the store to open. Something must have dropped that day.
The service is available in Tokyo/Yokohama, Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto, Sendai, Hakodate, Otaru, and Sapporo. Now I’m waiting for Street View in Taiwan!
New desktop
I cleaned up my computer a bit and deleted a bunch of stuff to free up my hard drive. Also went with a new desktop design while I was at it.
Very clean and minimal, just the way I like it. It looks a lot sleeker with the WinXP taskbar switched off, but not having the bar at the bottom is inconvenient at times so I’m still debating whether to turn it back on.
Dock: ObjectDock v1.9
Dock icons: vision opal
Winamp skin: Ebonite
Wallpaper: Personal photo from the Tokyo Met. Government Building in Shinjuku.
This is not the project I was hinting at in my previous post by the way. That project’s finished and I took a bunch of photos yesterday. I’m very happy with how it turned out and will be blogging about it in a few days as soon as my brother gets one in the mail. Don’t want to ruin the surprise, now do we?
Costco love
Everybody knows that the Internet is a crazy place and there are websites about anything and everything. Still, I was surprised and entertained to find a Costco blog that details the stuff a married couple purchases on their weekly Costco trips. It sounds mundane, but being a Costco shopper myself, I recognize a lot of the items they talk about but have never purchased myself. Somehow it never occurred to me to look up what people thought about the rows of food products I just walk past, so it’s been a lot of fun browsing through this blog.
I actually found this site because a few people from the Something Awful “Goons with Spoons” sub-forum had recommended Jack’s Special Salsa from Costco and I was googling it to see other opinions. I bought it yesterday along with a bag of tortillas, and indeed it was a tasty snack. It’s going to be a regular purchase from now on.
I haven’t updated for a while (still have my Tokyo photos in my to do list), and that’s because I’ve been working on a mini project. No, it’s not a blog redesign that I sorely need or anything that you’ll benefit from, but I think it’s pretty neat and I’ll have some pictures to show in a week or two.
Asia Trip 08 – Taiwan
Three years ago, my family went on a trip that my dad said was “once in a lifetime”: a drive around the entire island of Taiwan. He called it that not because the feat is difficult (obviously, Taiwan is a small country), but we all knew that this was a two week journey we would never repeat. We visited all the major attractions of this beautiful island and essentially was finished with Taiwan as a tourist destination.
Even so, I’ve been to Taiwan twice since then, mostly to visit family, but also to relish in the amazing food and shopping. Following the break is a photo dump of some of the places I visited.
Typical street in Tainan, Taiwan
Samba!
Samba de Amigo is one of my favorite games and, like I’ve written countless times, is one of many examples of the creativity that blossomed during Sega Dreamcast’s brief run. It is an unusual music rhythm game featuring weighted maracas that you shake in time with festive music. A re-make of the game will be coming out for the Nintendo Wii, which at first made me groan because the game is nothing without maracas. However, it has been confirmed that maraca attachments will indeed be released.
Having actual maracas is crucial to the Samba de Amigo experience, and these two videos will show you why.
First, check out this enthusiastic kid showing the right way to play the game (this is the arcade version). This video alone never fails to make me laugh.
Second, watch videogame journalists at a Nintendo media event last year play the upcoming Wii version. See what a big difference the maracas make? (On a side note, the contrast between the two videos is simply hilarious. If you don’t laugh at both videos, then I’m sorry, we don’t have similar taste. These two videos should be my litmus test to judge compatibility.)
I am now feeling bullish on Samba de Amigo Wii. The wireless controllers will certainly eliminate the one problem I had with Samba de Amigo Dreamcast edition: cumbersome wires that detracted ever so slightly from the experience.
