Is This Safe?

Inspired slightly by fellow blogger Sixmats recent picture posts of Japan’s abundance of wires, I decided to do one too. I actually took this picture back in February when the wife and I took a weekend trip to Tokyo (which I haven’t even done any posts about. Yes, I’m lazy I know).

It seems to be all too common in Japan to have a multitude of wires crisscrossing the sky. My personal believe is this is due to earthquakes, and being unable to bury the lines due to the high chance of breaking (This is only my theory and could be completely wrong). This pic was taken in Nakano by the way. Our reason for being there was the super quirky Nakano Broadway shopping mall.

It an old mall that has been completely taken over by nerds. Imagine the strangeness of maid cafes and anime shops times a million put into a quiet Tokyo neighbourhood. You literally can see the strangest stuff here. I recommend it for anyone visiting Tokyo. Think of it not as a bunch of weird shops, but as a museum of Japanese nerd culture. There’s so much stuff it almost seems never-ending! Unfortunately there are no photos permitted inside, so this shot of the front will have to do.

Didn’t Anyone Check

Apparently in Japan,  having someone check out the English on various ads, promotional items, T-shirts, etc. must be prohibitively expensive, since no one seems to do it. Even large multi-national corporations can’t be bothered. I prove my point here.

It looks like an everyday coffee vending machine, but on closer inspections…..

It’s amazing the difference that one letter can make! I know Japanese people have a hard time telling the difference between “r” and “l”, but you might want to have somebody check this before making thousands on vending machines. You know, maybe email it to Nescafe in America or something……

TeriTama

The latest thing at McDonald’s over here is called the “TeriTama”. Which is short for Teriyaki Tamago. Tamago means egg. So basically they just slapped an egg on the normal Teriyaki burger.

C’mon guys, after the “Big America” series I expect a little bit more effort! Oh, the bun is also different, but I didn’t even notice that until I saw the above picture (and I’ve eaten it already). Well it’s uncreative and kind of boring, but it still tastes good.

Telescope

Here’s the promised photos of my telescope setup. It a Vixen A70LF. Vixen is a Japanese brand famous for their high quality mounts (tripods).

For taking pictures I have a special adjustable bracket.

It can fit many cameras, and can also swing to the side if you want to look in the eyepiece.

I also have a moon filter to cut down on the brightness of the moon. Sometimes it can be blinding to look at it.

I’m using my extremely old Canon Powershot S30. Unfortunately my G10 lens is a bit big for the eyepieces I have now. This does make it extremely difficult to focus my pictures properly due to the tiny 1.5 inch screen. It’s also only 3 megapixels, which is a tiny photo size by today’s standards. I want to get a new cheap camera to use with my telescope. Something with a bigger screen at the back. Anyways here’s some photos I took of the full moon the other night.

Time Spent

This is the reason I haven’t done a post in a little over a week…

Yes, I have been caught by Pokemon. Already spending a copious amount of time on it already.

Eighteen hours in one week! Even I think that’s a lot. Oh well, gotta catch ’em all!

Up Close

Check out these sweet pictures I took of the moon using my telescope. It was my first time trying it, but I think they turned out OK. I had to use my very old digital camera though, because the lens on my G10 is too big. It’s kind of surprising how quickly the moon moves when you’re looking at it through a telescope. It makes framing the picture nicely quite difficult. Not bad though for pictures of something that is 384,403 km away. As always, click on the picture to get a larger view.

California Dreaming

Here’s the last in the “Big America” series from McDonald’s. It’s called the”California” burger.The flavor is quite interesting. It’s supposed to have a fresh feeling, much like California cuisine. I have to say it does have that feeling. They put the bacon next to the hamburger patty forming a barrier for the cheese and topping which stay cool. The effect is quite good. I think it’s my second favorite in the series. Here’s my ranking now that I’ve tried them all.

1. Texas burger
2. California burger
3. Hawaiian Burger
4. New York Burger

I did enjoy all of them though. I can’t wait for the return of the Texas burger later this month.

XIII

I got my copy of Final Fantasy XIII in the mail today from PlayAsia. So far I’ve played about three hours and I really like it. In fact if it holds up like this through the whole game it might end up being my favorite Final Fantasy. It’s so streamlined. Quick battles and lots of save points make it an ease to play, especially since it sometimes hard to find time to play for a couple hours. Oh, and did I mention that it’s super beautiful looking too!

Huh!?!

I couldn’t resist posting these commercial.

What the hell does this have to do with chips!?

Vancouver 2010

Well the Vancouver Olympics finished a few days ago. I have to say it was a pretty good Olympics this time. Of course I’m biased being Canadian myself. I was really happy to see how well Canada did this time, a total of 26 medals. With 14 gold medals! That’s actually the highest ever in the Winter Olympics. The last record was 13 set by the Russians back in the 1970’s. So well done Canada. We rock!!

My only complaint was the coverage by NHK was kind of poor. They didn’t show many events, and mostly only showed the Japanese athletes (How many times do I need to see a feature on a mogul skier that only came in fourth place! Apparently around 10 times).  At least it was better than the last summer Olympics where they edited the events to only the Japanese athletes competing.