A couple of things of late has made me notice just how behind the times Japanese can be. It's not like I didn't already know, but sometimes, even Japan can shock one desensitized to shock.

The first event was at a restaurant the other day. Not long after sitting down at the counter, a smartly-dressed 20-something woman came in, sat near me, and (of course, this is Japan) lit up a cigarette. I'm used to inconsiderate smokers in any country, and so it wasn't shocking that she ignored the fact that I was a mere five feet to one side, [...]

Yesterday we went to some very old, semi-famous mochi shops in north-west Kyoto, near the Imamiya Shrine. We took the opportunity to walk around the shrine a bit, and in doing so, found a plum (I think) tree just starting to blossom. This was especially surprising because this part of the city is known to be generally colder than the main areas, by a non-trivial amount, so I would have expected it to be later than our area.

In any case, my first blossom-related post is quite a bit earlier this year than last year (April 8th) or the year [...]

I've been crushed with work as of late, which is why I haven't been posting much. I've recently started doing some consulting on a high-pressure project, and have continued working with new builds of Adobe Lightroom as it rolls toward its public release in a couple of weeks. Despite being a just 1.x release, it nevertheless offers some interesting ways to customize it, and I've been working on some tools that will help with that, and I want to have them ready for release along with Lightroom.

Still, I feel bad not posting something worthwhile, so I went into my [...]

Politicians the world around often put on the most brazen displays of stupidity in what they say, and those in Japan are no exception.

Today's example from Japanese politics, long a juicy source for mind-numbingly stupid political speech, is from a talk given the other day by the Japanese Minister of Health, Hakuo Yanagisawa, about Japan's long-declining birthrate:

It's bad enough that a person would even consider referring to women as devices like this, but it might not be unexpected from a 71-year-old pig like this man apparently is, but it's so shocking that someone that's risen to the [...]

It's a bit late in the year, but I made a calendar for my friend Shimada-san, using some of the photos he's taken recently that I happen to have copies of. One of my posts a year ago featuring some of Shimada-san's photos is consistently one of the most popular on my blog, so I thought I'd share the images I chose for the calendar.

He had many good shots to choose from, and I tried to get a good mix, but still, there's so much left on the cutting room floor, so to speak.....

Here are the [...]