This Tokyo Life

Leadsinger MVK II SD card compatibility

2009-12-22T12:48:00.002+09:00

I just tried to use an 8GB SDHC card in this thing. The files appear when you turn it on, but none of the songs will play. Also, if you have no valid files in the root of the card, the mic gets stuck at the boot screen (this does not happen with regular SD cards).

The largest SD (non-SDHC) card available is 4GB. I don't have one, but I tried a 2GB card and it worked.

in reference to: Pinching Your Pennies Forums - Leadsinger II All-In-The-Microphone Karaoke Machine and Video Player $30 (Was $130) (view on Google Sidewiki)

Japan ProTip: How to fill out forms

2009-05-26T14:31:00.000+09:00

If you're American, you probably don't think filling out forms is a big deal. If you misspell something, check the wrong box, or don't fill in a field, it's fine -- they'll figure it out.

This is NOT TRUE in Japan. Case in point: I just returned from a Japanese post office after spending far too long trying to mail in my passport renewal. I had to include an international money order with my application, and the lady at the counter scrutinized every single line to ensure absolute correctness. Address written in English? Nope, needs to be in Japanese. First name first? No, last name first. Business address on the form? Need to see your business card. If you make a mistake, you need to cross it out with two horizontal lines, then put your name stamp (hanko) or fingerprint -- on the original and the two carbon copies. And so on. All told, it took me 45 minutes to mail one letter with a $75 money order.

I had a similar experience trying to do a bank transfer at Shinsei Bank (bank transfers are used instead of checks in Japan), one of the most English-friendly banks in Tokyo (the other being Citibank). Not only did it take forever to get the form "just so" I had to come back again later because I had incorrectly categorized the destination account as Regular (futsuu) instead of whatever the other kind is. And no, they couldn't just check the other box for me; I had to come back to the branch to correct it.

So, to the Japan form-filling ProTips:
- Follow instructions completely literally. If it says, "fill out the name as it appears on your ID card," fill it out exactly in the order and character set it appears in on the card. Form fields in Japan may specify that you use roman characters, kanji, furigana (hiragana/katakana), or just katakana.
- Cross out mistakes with two horizontal lines
- If you're not sure about the right way to fill out a field, don't use common sense -- ask, because there is only one Right Way to fill out the field and it's a pain to make corrections. (see above)
- If you can't write Japanese and a form requires Japanese, you can ask the person at the counter to help you out. But it's less embarrassing if you come with a friend who can do it for you.

Anyone else have tips to share?

melody married. a blogger mourns.

2009-05-10T12:01:00.002+09:00

My favorite Japanese singer is a Japanese-American from Hawaii named "melody." (with a period on the end). She's got an amazingly smooth, pure voice and is quite hot to boot.

The song that really got me hooked on her is "Miss You," a guest appearance with Ryohei Yamamoto on an m-flo track.

(Bonus track: miss you x baby cruising love)

I had the fortune to see her at a free live show at Tokyo Midtown last year, and while her own material is rather sedate, I enjoyed both the audio and "visual" immensely.

Late last year, she unexpectedly announced her retirement from music, saying she wanted to pursue a career in fashion design. I was, of course, devastated. Now it's come to light that she is both married and pregnant. The lucky groom: visual kei artist Miyavi (no, I don't get it either).

They were hoping to keep the marriage under wraps until April, when Miyavi was slated to leave his record label, but word leaked out in late March. Miyavi posted a expletive-laden apology to his fans for keeping them in the dark.

It sounds very much like melody. was pressured to retire due to the marriage. As melody. posted to MySpace:

We got engaged last year in May, before he went on his world tour.
Things were fine until July last year… after hours of talking with my management, i had to chose to retire.
I guess I couldn’t have two good things in life at once.
I chose my happiness as a woman, as a human being. I felt very strongly that this love is something i cant just throw away like i always did in the past.

I know that it's preferable for Asian stars to always appear to be single (gives fans like me hope!) but superstars like Namie Amuro and Utada Hikaru have both been married, had children, and divorced without having to retire. Perhaps that luxury is reserved for the highest echelon of j-pop stars?

In any case, I wish her the best and hope she can someday make music again!

(top image: toy's factory)

Viewing chinese, japanese, and korean web pages in Windows XP

2009-05-05T19:14:00.001+09:00

Say you want to view Chinese, Japanese, or Korean web pages in Windows XP and you don't have your Windows CD handy (which is what you normally need to install the required fonts). Rather than digging through a big box of crap, you can install these fonts from Microsoft:

Japanese
Korean
Chinese Simplified
Chinese Traditional (Complicated?)

Note that this will only let you view these languages -- if you want to input them, you still need your CD.

If you have a different version of Windows (2000, Vista, etc.), follow the directions here:
Japanese
Korean
Chinese

Japan's mobile internet

2009-05-05T19:03:00.002+09:00

Check out my post on my tech blog Spundot about Japan's mobile web -- a very different place from the internet you and I inhabit.

world famous CGM Night v4

2009-05-03T09:55:00.006+09:00

Danny Choo and Andrew Shuttleworth put on the fourth fun edition of this Tokyo nerdfest at Nishi-Azabu's excellent Super Deluxe venue.

Among the highlights:
- Danny reveling in the glory of his new Nikon TV commercial
- Kevin Cooney (tokyocooney) announcing the launch of Jibtv, a website sharing Japanese TV with the world. Although, unfortunately, it's not available within Japan -- complain here).
- Cool demo by the CEO of EyeFi (although people were rude and talking loudly during the demo)
- People going nuts over the availability of new Poken (?)
- Jonny Li showing me how to do light painting with my D60
- Meeting Amano Ai!

(Photo: Steve Nagata)

Lotte Fit's gum and dancing in my underwear

2009-04-12T23:44:00.010+09:00

By now you've probably all seen the way-too-catchy TV ad (or "CM" as they say here) for Lotte Fit's gum, which is a soft gum in Orbitz-style packaging. (Most gum here comes in gross hard pellets.)

The ad starts a cute idol named Nozomi, but the really cool part is the dance contest where you can make your own video to the dance. Dance moves illustrated here:

I entered my video, but it'll take a while for them to post it, so in the meantime I'll let you enjoy the one I posted myself (EDIT: They posted it, so I've updated the embed. Whoever has the most views by May 11 wins $10k and a year of gum, so please watch as many times as you can stand and tell your friends!):

Please share with your friends (http://tinyurl.com/fitsfu) and post comments on the video page.

I made this all by lonesome with a Canon iVIS (Vixia) HF10, iMovie, and a SLIK U6600 tripod. Additional helpful software: Final Cut Express (for conversion from AVC-HD) and the truly amazing freeware app MPEG Streamclip for deinterlacing and conversion. Props to Macworld for the handy tips on conversion.

Monogamy...now more than ever.

2008-11-21T22:07:00.000+09:00

Seen in Taipei.

farewell mother's cookies

2008-10-14T16:07:00.006+09:00

let's hope they survive to make yummy yogurt-covered animal cookies another day.

back on topps

2008-10-08T14:07:00.001+09:00

how cool is this: a funny web show about the guys who run the topps baseball card company.

journalists on journalism

2008-10-08T14:00:00.001+09:00

I've been around journalists my entire life, since I was a little kid, and I haven't met more than five in three-plus decades who wouldn't literally shit from shame before daring to say that their job had anything to do with truth or informing the public. Everyone in the commercial media, and that includes Hitchens, knows what his real job is: feeding the monkey. We are professional space-fillers, frivolously tossing content-pebbles in an ever-widening canyon of demand, cranking out one silly pack-mule after another for toothpaste and sneaker ads to ride on straight into the brains of the stupefied public.

Matt Taibbi

This was written in the aftermath of the journalism world's regret that it had been duped by the Bush Administration's positioning of the invasion of Iraq. Even now, it's an acrid take on the tenuous nature of objectivity in professional journalism. Yay for *unprofessional* journalism.

AP smacks down Palin

2008-10-08T13:51:00.001+09:00

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Less than a week after balking at the Alaska
Legislature's investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah
Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run
by people she can fire.

AP, via Gawker

mccain no longer a maverick, now just another politician

2008-10-08T13:50:00.001+09:00

McCain's persistence in pushing dubious claims is all the more
notable because many political insiders consider him one of the
greatest living victims of underhanded campaigning. Locked in a tight
race with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination in
2000, McCain was rocked in South Carolina by a whisper campaign
claiming he had fathered an illegitimate black child and was mentally
unstable.
Shaken by the experience, McCain denounced
less-than-truthful campaigning. Vowing to live up to his "straight
talk" motto, he apologized for his reluctance to criticize the flying
of the Confederate flag at South Carolina's state Capitol in a bid for
votes. When the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacked the
military record of Democrat and fellow Navy officer John Kerry in 2004,
McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable."
Now, top aides to McCain include Steve Schmidt, who has close ties to Karl Rove, Bush's premier political adviser in 2000.
AP

mccain was wrong on iraq

2008-10-01T14:43:00.000+09:00

give ohio voters the truth about sarah palin!

2008-09-26T02:59:00.000+09:00

i pledged $50. how much is it worth to you for sarah palin to not be the president of the United States?

ddr stars in music video

2008-09-21T05:29:00.000+09:00

from the folks that brought you "bitches love me"

ballmer is one scary dude

2008-09-21T05:17:00.000+09:00

video of steve ballmer being scary

egg jolk

2008-09-12T01:21:00.001+09:00

what did the egg yolk say to the egg whites?

"why do i always see you al-bumin' around?"

colonel sanders, we salute you

2008-09-10T02:21:00.001+09:00

kfc temporarily relocates secret recipe.

bloggable

2008-09-10T02:00:00.000+09:00

Eric Silverberg overheard: "someone should tell Palin that Jesus was a community organizer and pontius pilot was a governor.".1:45am

Palindrones

2008-09-10T00:45:00.001+09:00

palindrone: (n.) one who blindly supports Sarah Palin based solely on her gender

what the hell

2008-09-09T23:24:00.000+09:00

apparently my country has a top secret killing program.

mccain selects sarah connor as running mate. skynet ponders next move.

2008-08-30T15:55:00.001+09:00

UpTake

2008-08-26T23:34:00.001+09:00

My cousin Elliott works for the startup UpTake, which was formerly known as Kango. Basically, they scrape the web for travel ideas and wrap them up in a nice way. Anyhow, the name (and domain) change has fooled ol' Goog, and now their traffic has taken a big fall. So I'm linking to their new site in the hopes of helping them out.

Check out UpTake

This Tokyo Life wiki is live

2008-08-12T11:07:00.003+09:00

kind of. it's live, but it's not a wiki (it's a google site -- close enough) and it's empty right now. but hopefully it will become useful as a reference for n00bs to Tokyo.

unfortunately, google sites doesn't let you just open editing to anyone, so if i know you and you want to add something to the wiki, email me and i'll hook u up.

check it out, yo.