these boots are made for walkin'


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Originally uploaded by renfield.

Did some shopping in Shibuya and had lunch at Seibu. Ton loves riding the escalator and attempting to walk the stairs.

Algorithm March - Sony robot

What to do with the coolest, most advanced small robot in the world: put it on a kid's show doing the Alogrithm March dance.

old and new friends


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Originally uploaded by renfield.

The Man from LA came for a visit; haven't seen him in forever! Got some burgers at Midtown and then goofed of with Tonchan.

mirii's

Went to Mirii's house to play and have some good food. Also massively enjoyed the massage chair!

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resolutions

And now it's time for the traditional new year's resolutions. In no particular order, and with little hope of making it to March let alone all year:
  1. Clean up my god damn English. Use more creative turns-o'-phrase and exercise the thesaurus to reduce swearing.
    Hedge: reduce swearing, in the finance industry?
  2. <70 kilos. Eat right, eat less, exercise more. Walk 10,000 steps a day (walk home from work, take the stairs if it's less than 4 floors away), get my lazy butt back into the dojo 3 times a week.
    Hedge: latest health check said my ideal weight is 65 k. Yeah, if I was some skinny little Japanese dude. Alternatively, I could cut off a leg.
  3. Sit every day.
    Hedge: Nishijima-roshi says to sit twice a day. Does sitting and watching TV count?

happy new year!


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Originally uploaded by renfield.

Slept in like the lazy bum I am, ate the traditional left overs breakfast (spaghetti and brussels sprouts this year), and headed out to Hikawa Jinja for the traditional first-shrine-visit of the year.


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Then wandered up to Roppongi Hills, lost a glove, went back and found it, checked out some mediocre taiko drumming, and came home to play with my newly arrived digital camera.

end-of-year house cleaning

I took all the stuff I don't need/use and sold it at Sofmap in Akiba. Wasn't too crowded but still it took a couple of hours so I did some wandering and hit the Tully's to do some reading and drink a soy cocoa. When all was said and done I got nearly 50,000 points, so I headed off to the main Sofmap to pick out a new digital camera.
Both Daboo and Royborg rave about the Ricoh GR 2, and it has the one dorky feature I want: manually adjustable f-stop so I can do cool depth-of-field photos.
Of course Sofmap was all sold out of the GR 2 so I'll have to order it online.
Oh yeah, now would be a good time to actually learn what the hell f-stop means...

security theater

Patrick Smith does a perfect job summarizing the utter futility and stupidity of the TSA. I for one am ready and willing to join the revolution. In fact, I already have, with my wallet: given the choice I simply do not fly anywhere near the USA, though sadly the TSA's influence on security policy is nearly universal, and I still end up flying to the states on business anyway.
*sigh* Some day the world's leaders will be rational, reasonable people who make intelligent choices based on facts, wisdom, and keen insight. Until then, be a good citizen; stay scared and shut up.