dannychoo.com - Your portal to Japan

7pm in Tokyo - Heading for dinner

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:02:37 -0500

7pm in Tokyo - heading out to dindins. Still bright at 7 but dark by 8. Long evenings back in the UK when it was still bright at 10pm was nice from time to time.

The current busy schedule means that we eat out often but do try to eat as much veggies and fish as possible. Here is just one of the dishes that we had tonight - eggplant (Nasu) with some prawn.

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MacBook Pro 17"

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:27:10 -0500

Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing - Optimus Prime.
The MacBook Pro 15" decided to die today - the graphics board *and* hard drive kicked the bucket. Decided it was time to upgrade - this time to a 17" unibody MacBook Pro. Cost was 265,524 yen.
But before I went to Shibuya to pick up this gorgeous machine, I asked why on earth we Mac users still insist on Macs despite the hardware problems - probably because Apple successfully brain washed us ^^;

Currently waiting for the Timemachine to finish restoring to the 17" - another 10 hours wait! Our lame NAS does not support direct USB and has to restore over the lan. The last Timemachine backup was this morning at 6AM so hopefully everything should be back to normal.

Developers who are restoring from a Timemachine, beknowist that you need to create the temp folders for Apache before it works.

Is your computing life plagued with hardware problems? And when I talk about hardware - am not talking about any hardware attached to your body.

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Opticians in Japan

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:06:09 -0500

Folks on hols in Japan or who have just relocated may be wondering about 2 things:-
1.What is the purpose of the table with the water tub placed outside opticians.
2.Why does everybody who works at an optician wear glasses.

Have a gander at the photo. You can some sort of water container placed to the left of the table with a box of tissues. This is not so that you can whip out your dolphin (which likes occasional dips in water) and engage in health care - wiping off with the box of tissues.
The tub of water is for folks to wash their glasses and does so with ultrasound (source). You don't have to pay or feel obliged to buy anything.
Just stop by and dip your glasses in the tub for a few seconds and wipe off with the tissue - wipe your glasses I mean.
Unlike some shop assistants that I've seen in Malaysia who leech on to you, you will rarely be bothered by shop assistants when you use the ultrasound tub.

As for the second mystery about shop assistants at an optician wearing glasses - an interview with the optician store Megane Drug tells how they get all employees to wear glasses - regardless of whether they have 20/20 vision. They do it so that they can relate to the customer feelings of wearing glasses.

Bae Yong Joon is regularly appears for a brand called Megane Shijo - CM below.

Japanese Beetles

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:15:14 -0500

Taken a few days ago while shopping at Daiei - Kabuto pet beetles on the toys floor. Doesnt the sleeping one look sweet?

And if Kabuto beetles is not your thing, how about fluffy dogs? Both videos taken and uploaded from the iPhone 3GS.

Anime Festival Asia

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:46:01 -0500

Today at the office - folks from the Anime Festival Asia over from Singapore. Looks like I may be hosting some of the events at the AFA 09 when I come over to Singapore this November 21st and 22nd. Look forward to meeting you! Will bring the Mirai Figma with me.

Gordon, Can I borrow your armor for 2 days? ^^; (seriously)

Bits from last year below.

Mirai Figma Progress 3

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:25:59 -0500

Did you notice something from Mikatan's latest post? something on the desk? ^^;

Yes - its the Figma Mirai which we are getting ready to be displayed at the Tokyo Figure Show. The show is due to be held from the 4th to the 9th of August in Tokyo.
There are a load of stakeholders in the show and am waiting for the "go" from PR before I can announce the location and details officially. Although folks who follow my Twitter will probably already know where its being held ^^;

I will be at the show for the whole week and look forward to seeing you if you can make it. The first one will be called "Danny Choo Presents The Tokyo Figure Show" - wasn't me who decided to add the "Danny Choo Presents" on it though ^^;

And here are the photos which you may have seen before. Cant wait!
And for those who just got here - this is the figmatization of my mascot character Mirai Suenaga.

And previously from Ionized below.

Dollfie Peach Pai

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:55:30 -0500

Somebody decided they would send me a sample of Peach Pai [ぴ〜ち☆パイ] and I reluctantly accepted the gift ^^;
Looks like it normally would cost 13,000 yen from Rajikaru.
The Peach Pai is incredibly soft!

Its also incredibly big too and I don't have anything that fits properly - this top is open at the back.

Cute! You can see more Peach Pai in action with Saber at Georges.

And if you want to see the Peach Pai uncovered then get along to my post on figure.fm for part two of the review.

Figure Community

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:46:54 -0500

A few updates on Figure.fm while we take a look at the most cutesome Taiga Aisaka Puchi Nendoroid Sukumizu version.

Later this week, all registered users on figure.fm will be able to post photos - these are folks who have registered for more than 3 weeks ago on DC. I will also open registrations at figure.fm and there will be a lower hurdle of 20 comments and a week before one can post.
There are a few lurking admins who should be able to nuke the trolls without them causing too much damage.

Also, folks wonder when and why to post on figure.fm. Well if you post a series of figure photos on DC then you will get complaints - not from me but from the community in general. At Figure.fm, you can post as much as you want.
If you are posting some photos of figma Mikuru for example, use the multi-image upload feature to put all her photos in one post. If you are posting many different figure photos however, I suggest using a separate post for each figure.

Another reason why you may want to post on figure.fm is that I will be choosing your goodsmile/max factory related posts and posting them on the official Good Smile English Blog - I posted one this morning from member katana's blog here. I will only be choosing stuff that you post on figure.fm ^o^

Another reason why you may like to post on figure.fm is because all the figure related giveaways from now will take place on figure.fm - The first giveaway will be 1070 USD and take place *this week*

I forgot to mention the other reason why you may want to post at figure.fm. One of my goals with figure.fm is to involve you with the figure makers that I work with - namely Good Smile and Kotobukiya for now. I want them to work directly with you too and by profiling your figure shoots on figure.fm, they will take notice which may lead to interesting opportunities.

Also, DC has a wide variety of users with different interests. Many folks who enjoy the photo walks and Japan news for example are not into figures. I will be posting more figure and Dollfie related stuff on figure.fm instead. Will still do figure stuff on DC but will keep a balance.

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Vanguard Princess

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:47:45 -0500

I find Vanguard Princess much more fun to play than Street Fighter and I think its because of all the cute moesome characters in it - but not only that, its very playable and entertaining too!

Is available for download from Vector - click the blue button. And its free!
I ran it on Parallels and it worked completely fine - I just need to dig out my PS3 controller to USB attachment. You can still play using the keyboard though.
Check out the sample game play videos below. I only watched for a few seconds before I downloaded ^^;

You can see the control methods here and introductions of each character at Seizon kakunin.

Via Kansaitei.

Original text from achraf1989 below.

so took a look around and i'm pretty sure nobody posted this yet so i'm happy to share with you Vanguard Princess a great moe 2D fighter game and you know what makes it even more great it's free

get it here http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/dl/win95/game/se477052.html

source http://kotaku.com/5306881/cute-fighting-and-totally-free

Shopping in Tokyo

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:26:40 -0500

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Collection of photos - some from a few months ago and some from yesterday. Taking a look at daily shopping in Tokyo.
First up is Shinjuku. Particularly strong with department stores and electronic outlets. Lots of food and apparel too. If you are looking for figures then check out the Sakuraya Hobby Kan near CitiBank East Exit. They also have Kinokuniya with a foreign books section although I do recommend Amazon Japan for really cheap English language books.

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Some character toothbrushes at a chemist. Included are Kamen Rider and Puricure.

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Pokemon Soy sauce instant noodles - folks here are taught to eat it from an early age ^^;

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Folks who care about their health can find lots of material in many book stores. Hmmmm. Cream...

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At the Nike store looking for some trainers.

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I'll never forget the visit to this store. The sofa we sat on was bouncy. When I sat down, My Canon SLR that was on the other side of the sofa bounced in the air and landed lens first on the floor! Luckily the sigma had a lens cap. Was a bit dented but no permanent damage.

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The girls in the corner started to giggle when I went over to take pics of their apple pies.

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And after walking around shopping, its time to treat the stomach to some traditional Japanese food.

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At the shopping complex Lazona. Customers are greeted with the do-not rules.

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At the electronics store Bic Camera.

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Huge TV screens. These are going for over 1,000,000 yen but you can negotiate on the price - especially if you have a print out of an online store that has a cheaper price.

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Ryan has a tough time deciding exactly how much of the store he wants to take back to the US ^^;
Know exactly how he felt though. As a visitor to Japan many moons ago, it pained me that I could only take back a certain amount and was envious of folks who lived here who could get the stuff anytime.

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Figma galore.

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Konami's Busou Shinki series which I never got into. Nice designs but don't really like the shiny plastic.

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A load of Macross Frontier Itasha model cars.

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Some Tutukki Bako by Bandai - a clock with a hole in the side - stick your finger in the hole and have hours of fun poking things.
Eemma gives us a review below. If you are interested then Japan Trend Shop has them on sale and ships internationally from Japan at 51 USD.

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Some Japanese traditional mascots - the Daruma and Maneki Neko. They bob from side to side forever until our Sun burns out.

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How about starting your day by shooting at something? No I'm not talking about health care but about this product called Gun O'clock that will wake you up at your desired time - you have to shoot at the target to turn it off! Great PV Video below. Also available from Japan Trend Shop for 66 USD. Berry SUKIRI!

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Tamagocchi lives! I remember owning one of these back in the UK. Paid something like 20 pounds for it - and this was like 16 years ago.

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Some kids playing with the toys out on display.

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Walking around Lazona.

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Not particularly keen on the choice of casual shoes over here and end up buying a few when I'm overseas in the UK or US - love the shoes at Aldo which we don't have here ToT.

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Kaldi is having a sale this week - everything 10% off with many items at 50% off.

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I take advantage of the sale and pick up more than the usual - walnuts, Jalapeno and Chai Tea.

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A quick bite to eat before continuing shopping.

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These days, I hardly spend any moolah on my hobbies as samples just turn up - whether I like the items or not ^^;

For most of the shopping that I do do however, I get online - mainly from Amazon. Picked up two more Slick Cases for my daughters - 2,496 yen each.

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One of the most interesting products I've seen - a small tank where a Kabuto Prawn will grow just by adding water.

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Here are the instructions on the back and here is a photo of what it looks like after a month! The egg thats included in the set hatches after 1 to 3 days. Anybody interested in owning one?

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The Dyson hoovers have gotten really small - saw the commercials for these and thought "I want one." I do a lot of hoovering and a smaller Dyson would have been nice as the big one is getting annoying now. The commercials show some chap holding the Dyson in his hand like this photo - but the one on display does not have a motor in it.

I looked on the floor where there was a working one and despite being smaller than the standard Dyson, it was just as heavy!

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Lately, there have been many washing machines being produced that are western style with the drum spinning on the horizontal axis - door on the side of the machine...

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...But traditionally have mainly been like the three on the left of the photo with the drum spinning on the vertical axis. The western style ones make more sense for machines that also dry the clothes too as garnments can tumble around.

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Example of a Hitachi fridge.

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The fridges these days come with features such as instant freezing - you can stick a hot dish in the freezer compartment and it will instantly freeze it for you. Not sure how "instant" it is though.
Speaking of fridge - how about the one below? I think shes comes with the fridge.

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Picking up some drinks. Love Milo - drunk it a lot as a kid when visiting Malaysia.

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Frankfurter galore.

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Here is a tip to get cheap food in Japan. Find out what time your local supermarket closes and go 20 mins before closing time. You will see stickers like these stuck onto mainly fressh food stuff that need to be sold on that day.
These ones are 20% off but some are discounted for more and if you wait for longer then sometimes they discount the food even more - but you risk not being able to get it because there are others lurking around waiting to nab the best deals.

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In the UK and US we had huge trolleys to push around groceries. While you can find large trolleys at places like Costco, most supermarkets will have mini trolleys to push around the narrow lanes.

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In order to gain the trust in consumers, many food stuffs like vegetables have photos of the farmer (with family in some cases) next to the produce.

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Yukijirushi is a dairy brand in Japan. Many years ago, they got into a bit of bother with a few of their tanks containing rotten milk or something that they sold to consumers. As you can imagine, this hit their business really hard. In an attempt to clean up their image, they launched a brand called MegMilk which had a young cool image and tasted rather nice. While it did have the Yukijirushi logo printed in a small corner, many people didn't know it was made by Yukijirushi.

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Ham galore. Back in London, they sold packs which had something like 30 slices at Sainsburys and Tescos for a couple of pounds. The best they can manage here is a pack of about 15 slices for twice the price.

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Our shopping for the evening.

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While some places bag everything for you, most just place the groceries back in the baskets and one moves over to the packing tables where one can find rubber bands, string, tape and cloth to pack up.

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Time to dash this lot into the fridge.

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Our loot for the evening cost 5,385 yen. Still do the bulk of our shopping at Costco though.

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Fridge need tidying ^^; This fridge has hinges on either side which means you can open it from both sides.

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Mum back in the UK wipes everything that she bought but we've just been sticking stuff straight into the fridge. Does your household wipe stuff before it gets refrigerated?

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Its not usually this messy ^^;

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After dindins its time for some Mango pudding.

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Japan Body Inflation

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:59:52 -0500

This is the first time I've seen something like this - body inflation where some sort of liquid is injected in the skin to inflate it into different shapes. Apparently popular in Tokyo and Osaka. Read and see more at Bizzare. Probably not as bizzare as getting tattoos on yer eye balls?

Via Japan Probe.

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iPhone Usage in Japan

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:43:39 -0500

In a meeting at Ebisu earlier on this week - everybody has an iPhone ^^;
And a closer look at that meeting. Good Smile? Floor Plans? Hmmmm.

TFS?

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Transparent Umbrellas

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:07:00 -0500

Tis the rainy season in Japan right now meaning that many house and shop entrances across Japan start to fill up with transparent umbrellas.
And why transparent umbrellas? Mainly because most of them cost 100 yen and can usually be picked up from a convenience store. Folks caught out in the rain would go and pick one up for temporary use and leave it for others to use later. They are quite durable and can last a long time as long as you don't stick it up your bottom.

Anime Shower Curtain

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:52:15 -0500

The Mirai Suenaga Merchandise project has changed gears and is back on the project timeline. I've been told that they can make shower curtains too. Had no idea about character shower curtains and after a google came across this lovely one of Miyako from ef.
Check out detailed non-mirai marked photos at Green Chips and UDK.

Not sure how popular these would be but if the price is right, would you be interested in these? And unlike dakimakura and bed sheets, the shower curtains are *water* proof...
They told me that the shower curtain will be 515 x 728 mm. I guess I should ask them to make some samples first.

Also, for the dakimakura, I can make half a batch with one side that is birthday suited but not sure how popular that would be?

And for those who have forgotten about the Mirai Merchandise - snaps below.

kotobukiya x dannychoo

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:26:44 -0500

Kotobukiya liked the photos of the rooms that you submitted so much that they want to publish a book filled with your photos called Otacool!

-Book is due out in October-ish in Japan and Kotobukiya are looking at distribution channels to get it to folks overseas.
-Will feature rooms of dannychoo.com readers.
-Kotobukiya will need your consent to use your photos.
-We need high res photos. If you do not want your room in the book then don't submit the photo when I open submissions at figure.fm - will be sometime next week. We already have your current photos but they are not high res which mean you need to resubmit them if you want to be in the book. Mirai Gaia keeps the original sized image.
-Only folks who have a figure.fm account can participate. The figure.fm member database is a snapshot taken from the dannychoo.com database a month ago.
-Kotobukiya cant pay money for use of your photo and for the record I'm not getting money from sales of the book either. Kotobukiya and I do have a separate consulting contract where I help them with web strategies.
-The book will have a few pages dedicated to my room and looks like they are trying to get hold of Shokotan or Hirano Aya to do something with me - not confirmed yet.
-Will also have a load of Mirai and Haruka chan dotted about the book ^^;
-When I open submissions, folks who would like a photo of their room published in Otacool should submit a high res photo at figure.fm and tag it "otacool".
Kotobukiya will choose the best rooms and publish the photo in the book.
-There will be a few questions like "how long have you been collecting X" and "How much is your X collection" etc
-Unfortunately Kotobukiya cant give out copies to folks who have pics of their room published - was not my decision - sorry!
-However, the book will be on sale across Japan and you can expect your room to be profiled to folks across Japan and highlight your website. How often is is that you have a photo of your room and your profile/website published in a book by an established company?
-When you post stuff at figure.fm from now on, you may want to post in Japanese too - use the language switches on the post edit page to add Japanese.

Photo below shows you a mock up of the pages - data is only a mock and will not actually be used without permission.

For now, I'm calling out to the 10 folks who won the 20090326 Giveaway as Kotobukiya want to use photos of your room in promotion materials at conferences in the US and at the Wonder Festival. And your room will be on the cover.

If you are one of the 10 winners and don't mind photos of your room being used in huge posters profiled to hundreds of thousands, then please get along to Figure.fm and upload high res images of your room. Use the multi image upload feature to upload different angles of your room.
Tag your upload "otacool." Kotobukiya will take whats available on Monday JST - if your photo is not there then you wont make the cut.

Expect more collaborations with the figure makes which involve dannychoo.com members!

And (and?) There will be another giveaway at the beginning of next week - I initially thought it was going to be only 1000 USD but its more - 1070 USD worth! And only for *current* figure.fm members. Remember that the figure.fm database is a snapshot of the dannychoo.com member database taken a while ago. Try logging in with your DC account.

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Shabu Shabu

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:07:00 -0500

Shabu Shabu is a dish where thin slices of beef and other meats n veggies are dipped in hot pots that contain soup or sauces.
When all the meat n veggies have been eaten, the soup that remains in the hot pots can be poured on rice to finish off the meal.

An example of Shabu Shabu below.

Have seen similar dished in China and Malaysia. Anything similar in your neck of the woods?

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Future of dannychoo.com

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:56:24 -0500

Since the year 2000, there have been many changes to dannychoo.com. If you have a look at the article History of dannychoo.com that I wrote back in the beginning of 2008, you will see from the screenshots just how much progress there has been.

DC started off as a place for me to learn and experiment with web technologies. It then evolved into a blog and then a community and somewhere in between unexpectedly became not only a modest sauce of income, but a sauce of media attention with features on CNN, BBC, G4TV.

Another thing I've been proud of is the community we have here. Many of us have made many comrades through the community and the crime rate is relatively low. Precrime has been a factor in stemming trollage and keeping the community relatively clean of toraburu - although dorama, rantingu and trollage continue outside of DC.

The DNS on Figure.fm has been switched and will be launching a competition to celebrate very soon. If you have not gotten used to the features of figure.fm, jump in now as you will need to know how to get about when the competition is launched to win a load of monies.

While Mirai Gaia has a few bugs here n there, its stable enough to launch more communities. The first thing is to relaunch Otaku.fm on Mirai Gaia and migrate dannychoo.com which is a huge task - getting rid of 9 years of code!

Have a look at the crummy diagram. You can see that otaku.fm has the usual partner feeds on the right. It will also have your stuff - the stuff that you have been uploading here up until now. I'm planning of moving all your stuff over to otaku.fm which I plan to make into a rich community of all things otaku provided in the feeds and your direct uploads.
Your posts will still appear on the top of dannychoo.com to drive traffic to your posts on otaku.fm.

In the diagram, you can also see figure.fm - those posts will also appear on the top page of dannychoo.com.

I'm also planning on deprecating Puchi Blurbs which will be replaced by Twitter. Having your blurbs on Twitter means that you will be able to share what you are doing with folks outside DC including on your FaceBook too.

These are the plans so far but posted this because I wanted your feedback on what you wanted. Many have said that they prefer dannychoo.com to feature only stuff that I post. Because I want to share your stuff with others, I want to continue to feature your stuff on DC but in a different form - being that your items are read into DC via a feed.

There is one thing to bear in mind - your figure.fm, otaku.fm and dc accounts will not be linked. This is for a few reasons. One reason is cost and another reason is that folks who dont particularly like or read DC can share and mingle in our satellite communities. I noticed for example that there were a load of figure.fm users who didn't read DC at all.

Lemme know what your take on all this is and how you would organize everything.
Change is inevitable and it is evolution. Changes for the better should be constantly happening in order to improve the quality of life.

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Ganguro

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:01:32 -0500

Ganguro is where folks either get a suntan or wear make up to give their skin a darker appearance.
Gan = Face
Kuro = Black

When some Japanese words are mixed together, the "K" becomes a "G"

Some Ganguro folks wear a particular style of make up that turns them into Yamamba (also written as Yamanba) and often called just Mamba.

Snippet taken from Wikipedia below.

Yamanba (ヤマンバ) and manba (マンバ) are terms often used to describe extreme practitioners of ganguro fashion. Old school Yamanba and Manba; (particularly known as 2004 Manba); featured dark tans and white lipstick, pastel eye make-up, tiny metallic or glittery adhesives below the eyes, brightly-coloured contact lenses, plastic dayglo-coloured clothing, and incongruous accessories, such as Hawaiian Leis (often the Alba Rosa brand). Stickers on the face died out shortly after 2004, and for a while, Manba died. Yamanba is now more extreme, and hair is often multicoloured, and usually synthetic. 2008's Manba has seen a darker tan, and no facial decoration (stickers).

Hair is usually neon/bright colours, with pink being a favourite. Wool("dreadlocks"), extensions and clips are worn to make hair appear longer. Clothing remains the same, although Leis are worn less frequently now. Manba and Yamanba are not to be confused. Yamanba has white make-up only above the eye, while Manba has makeup below the eye also. Stuffed animals, bracelets, bells and hibiscuses are worn. The male equivalent is called a "center guy" (センター街, Sentāgai?, Center Street), a pun on the name of a pedestrian shopping street near Shibuya Station in Tokyo where yamanba and center guys are often seen.

Japan Probe has the nitty gritty on some folks back in the UK appliying themselves to the Yamamba fashion and you can see the videos at the BBC.

And just a reminder that we aim to keep the community here clean of comments discriminating against others based on their appearance or interests ^^

RoboGeisha

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:50:26 -0500

The Sci-fi film of the century that you have been waiting for - Robo Geisha. From the makers of The Machine Girl.
Geisha Missile!
Geisha Chainsaw!
Geisha Transform!
Fried Shrimp!
Tengu Milk!

Hijacked from Vincent.

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A Week in Tokyo 40

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:34:43 -0500

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These past few weeks turned out to be one of the most busiest periods since the start of Mirai Inc. Interviews, TV filming, events, networking, beta launches, iPhone apps and preparations for the Tokyo Figure Show. Wont be anywhere near the scale of the Wonfes but then again we are catering for a different audience.

So its been a whole month since the last A Week in Tokyo. Had to make a decision to blog a bit less so that I could get more of the bigger significant changes out to Mirai Gaia which you can see under beta at figure.mirai.fm.

Starting off with a photo session for a future publication.

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I think this is the first time that we see Patrick out of his cosplay gear - the author of the Otaku Encyclopedia.

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Haven't seen a manual camera for ages. The film for this particular camera costs a bomb apparently.

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Back from a round of shopping at Costco.

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Hiyashi Chuka - cold sour noodles with a few ice cubes.

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Flicking through some mags just before grabbing some milk. Some convenience stores tie up the mags and some don't.

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In the evening watching one of my fave TV programs - Gaia no Yoake. A business trends show. Today they talk about how tidying up can save money in these economic times. For example, one of the companies featured had employees who spent a few hours each day looking for stuff.
Those few hours were added up in cost and they worked out that the salary of 2 employees were going to waste.

While both of my parents are notorious for keeping a load of crap around the house, I tend to get rid of as much as possible to save time. For example, while the figure and gadget samples are free - there is a cost of keeping them - my time.

I could stock them in the retire cabinet but when its full I then need to make time to find/make space to put more "free" stuff. If I spend an hour sorting out boxes of stuff that I don't really want then I've wasted X yen. And the more stuff I have, the more difficult it is to find stuff - thus even more time is wasted.
Get rid of the things you don't want so that you can find the stuff that you do want.

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Filming with BBC World - being sent a DVD copy and will upload as soon as I get it.

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After over 10 years, SPEED is back - used to listen to their tunes when I came to Japan as a visitor.

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At Lalaport having some Laksa.

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At many shopping malls, the more you shop, the more free stuff they give you. In some cases they give you goodies...

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...and in some cases they give you monies.

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Looking through the glass into a smoking chamber.

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At night when shops close up at Lalaport, some shops are left like this - with just a rope at the front. I' sure all of this would be gone if this was Hackney in London.

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Ramen and Chahan set.

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Out n about by day in Gakugei Daigaku - another bustling area which we discovered recently. About a 20 min walk from where we are.

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Gegege no Kitaro goodies at Mc Dees.

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Gakugei Daigaku station.

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A newly discovered lake that comes complete with row boats and huge carp fish.

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Got hold of more Clear Racks for the figures - available at Amazon Japan for 2,480 yen each.

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Some freshly make Omusubi for dindins. Also called "Onigiri" - rice with a filling wrapped in dried seaweed.

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Spent an evening actually learning aperture and other SLR settings. Do an image search with the word "diagram" on the end like aperture diagram - the diagrams may help you absorb the knowledge quicker than just a block of text - helped me a lot.

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Looks like its that time of year where politicians grab their megaphone and shout out loud on the streets.

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Some health food is good once in a while.

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The lads playing around with the iPhone Mirai Clock app.

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Just before visiting the 1/1 scale Gundam in Odaiba. Having some Indonesian food with the lads while browsing on the Leopardized Dell Mini 9.

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"Oshibori" are the wet rolled up towels that many restaurants hand out to customers. They always remind me of a restaurant that I previously worked in where one employee used them to wipe his armpits and shoes! Those oshibori would then go in the wash and then be served up to customers again - so if you see a crinkly hair in your oshibori then you know where its been ^^;

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Katsu and my fave Japanese soup Tonjiru made from swine stock.

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At the launch party for the Otaku Encyclopedia.

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Frankie and his moesome Nice T-Shirt.

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Picking up some Mr Donuts.

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A Ramen place filled with manga for the customers to read.

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Shio Ramen. "Shio" = "Salt."

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Picking up my armor from dry cleaning.

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Tis the jolly mosquito season meaning that the Mosquito Defense Systems need to be activated. The bottle of liquid goes into the dark purple dome thing which heats up the liquid. When mosquitoes come into the immediate area, the hole at the top shoots out a 200.5volt bolt of electricity at the mosquito - a burning smell remains in the air until the liquid perfume absorbs it.

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Minced up cow with nasu.

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The coffee shops over here like to make their logo look as similar as possible to Starbucks.

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BLT Sand served up my Mikuru. "Sando" (sometimes written as "Sand") is short for sandwich.

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Slice of eel on rice - some love it and some hate it.

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Katsu to take out from Saboten.

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Some places at lunch time do crazy deals. This place sells a bowl of seafood on rice for 100 yen (1 USD-ish) but usually costs 1,200 yen (12 USD-ish). Available to the first 10 people only.

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Getting rid of that PC that I've had for many years. Nice case that alone does not warrant keeping it. Chris carried it home with him on the train!

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This van patrols the area watching out for folks who steal recyclable materials or dump rubbish without permission.
Throughout Japan, we can only throw certain rubbish out on certain days. For example, in our area, we can only throw out combustible (burnable) rubbish on Wednesday and Saturday. We would be in toraburu if we threw out stuff on another day or try to hide combustible rubbish with non-combustible for example.

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Occasionally see TV crews out n about getting opinions from the public about things like what they thought about some famous person having an affair with the nextdoor neighbor etc.

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Chahan for dindins.

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Been spending a lot of time on Mirai Gaia over at figure.mirai.fm. We need to upgrade the Good Smile website, dannychoo.com and otaku.fm too.

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My old Fujitsu laptop which I've been trying to get rid of. The thing about getting rid of computers is that you cant give it to a novice user because they will ask you stuff about it all the time - the point of getting rid of it is to save time and space. But all the experienced users who I asked to take it away (for free) didn't want it!

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When I was a PC user, I couldn't understand why Macs didn't have floppy drives.

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Choosing which games to get rid of. Have not finished any of these!

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And this is where I take my second hand games - Book Off. The prices displayed here is what they pay for these games.

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Back in England, I used to drill holes all over the house to put up shelves. So when we bought our house in Tokyo, I got hold of a wireless drill - used it a total of once! Houses in Japan are generally not made of brick but of wood meaning that you can easily drill holes with a manual drill - or just push and twist a screwdriver through the wall.

Also bought myself an electric saw at the time which I used only once too - need to get rid of both.

The step down transformer is an interesting story. When we moved to Seattle from Tokyo (which you can read about in the Working at Amazon and Microsoft photo article), we bought 2 (count em) heavy duty step down transformers which were powerful enough to power a fridge or washing machine. Amazon shipped all our stuff to Seattle but little did we know that apartments in America came with dishwashers fridges and washing machines! Most apartments in Japan are pretty much empty when you move in.

For the 5 months that we stayed in Seattle, our fridge and washing machine stayed outside on our balcony. Before coming back to Tokyo, we gave the fridge to a comrade and brought back the washing machine which we still use today. Have no idea why these step down transformers came back to Tokyo with us! Need to get rid of everything in the photo.

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Haruhi snaps some pics of tempura and zaru udon lunch.

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Some places display plastic representations of food and some just use real food wrapped up.

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Walnuts are supposed to be good for the brains and some folks say that its because they look like brains. They also taste like brains too.

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Olympus E-P1 - The Lumix LX3 killer? Currently costs about 90,000 yen.

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When buying electronics in Japan, look for the cheapest price online of what you want and make a print out and then take it to Bic Camera. More often than not, they will match the price.

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Playing around with the Gundam Fix Figurations that I dug out which reminded me how cool they are. Did they stop making these since their Robot Tamashii line?

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