mamachari

I have been perplexed by some people’s assumptive comments that I am an Obama fan or, worse, a Democrat sympathizer. I am not an American citizen and do not support any particular political party or figure in that country. I am aware that the result of the election will inevitably affect me one way or the other, but as far as the national politics of the US of A is concerned, I am as indifferent a spectator as most Americans are of Japanese politics. I can’t even force myself to engage in politics of a country of which I am not a citizen and with which I have little personal connection. Why should I? I am more interested in on which side of his head Steven Harper’s hair is parted. Seriously. And categorizing me as an Obama-Democrat just because I apparently fit some of your criteria? I just don’t get it.

I took this photo at a souvenir shop at Dulles Int’l Airportin October 2007.

Taken with PENTAX MZ-30 and Fuji Superia X-tra 400

A strange cat that followed me around when I was taking photos in the park. Very talkative and follows me around forever. She stares at me like this when I stop and take my camera out.

I am finally starting to like my archaic PENTAX MZ-30 that I bought 10 years ago. The only reason I bought it was to take photos of rock formations!

Just found out that someone copied and pasted my Aso-Chrétien post –both the pics and text– entirely onto their blog with no credit, just linking back to me. Not that I am going to go after this rat, I don’t even know if this is a real blog site, but I have to wonder why the hell anybody ever bothers taking the time to copy & paste someone else’s post and reprint it on their blog? Time well wasted.

Every time I see Taro Aso or listen to him talk, I get reminded of Jean Chrétien. They look and sound alike (sorta) and similar in many other ways– well, so seems to me anyway. The only difference, though, is that Aso is by no means a “petit gars” with a humble family background.

WordCamp Tokyo 2008 — announced on Sept 4, registration closed on Sept 5, only has space for 60 ppl…

Being 29 is weird. One more year and my youth is up? No– that’s not what it is. I’ve seen many of my friends turn 30 and very happy so I know it is not so terrible. It’s just this feeling of approaching something totally unknown.

I almost missed my parents’ 30th wedding anniversary. This afternoon, I realized today is the day. I didn’t plan anything nor did my bro (couldn’t even catch him on the phone or email…) Too late to buy a present and send it or hop on the train to visit them. After scratching my head, drinking a cup of tea and scratching my head some more, I decided to call the tiny little flower shop my old friend’s mum runs in my hometown. A couple of years ago when my mum turned 60, I called the shop from Tokyo and asked them to send her a big bouquet of flowers. I told them that I didn’t know when I would be back in town and be able to pay for the flowers but they did it for me anyway. I ask them to do the same thing this time again.

I am a heavy Internet user and shop online a lot. With my plastic, I buy things, have them shipped right to my door or someone else’s. I just sent my aunt who lives in Hokkaido a box of sweets from Yokohama that she loves using an online shopping site, which she was very happy to receive because she can’t get it where she lives. I might even have sent my folks something through some kind of online service had I thought about it well in advance. But then again this time, all I had to do was to call up people I know for 20 years, tell them my name, no money upfront, the flowers were delivered to my parents’ within two hours. What better service is there than this?

It just made me think what an and-you’re-done kinda person I have become…　反省。

My dad sent this photo of the flowers with his cell phone, which he has recently learnt how.

Near my office. I wonder what it feels like to watch cars running at your house.

With a new URL.
Now I switched to a new server and seems it’s running ok

I have been travelling a lot this summer and of course my biggest concern is my plants. So before I left for Budapest, I went to a hardware store to see what kind of watering devices were available. Found some but they were kinda expensive for what they were. Seemed like most of these products use the principle of capillary action so I figured it should not be too difficult to build something similar myself. I looked around the store and found a soft plastic tube in the aquarium section. I bought 5 metres of it and played around with it. This is the final product↓

I first put the tube directly in the soil but too much water flew into the pot so I stuffed some tissue paper and tried again. It seemed to work better this way.

When I came home after two weeks, all my plants were doing well.

My tomato plants even had big and round tomatoes hanging in their branches.

I actually learned something useful in university…