dining-kitchen rotated

upload: tokyogoat.

so we've successfully moved to a new apartment. it is kind of hard to do interior shots and I am not sure if it's the lights or what... Anyways the place is fantastic. all surfaces are clean. we went a bit crazy on choosing the lights but I fear that they don't actually work well in this apartment. all else is great. we haven't spent too much time on the little terrace cause it's winter and all. probably the highlights at present are the kitchen and bathroom. the table and chairs are also cool. good choice.

a-re??!!

if anyone out there is wondering whats going on well my machine and camera are out of commission until after the move to the new apartment is complete. December 2 is moving day. the moving arrangements all appear to be on schedule and predictably the main concern is how we will get rid of all the accumulated rubbish with only a few collection days left. there may be a need to do a midnight gomi run on the last two evenings but will do our best to avoid having to do that.

next report will be from the luxurious confines of the new abode.

mixing it up

upload: tokyogoat.

there's a younger, thinner incarnation of me there in the middle image mixing it up for Stones Throw Records.

Not....

It's Peanut Butter Wolf being as cool as you like.

are you looking for the mother lode?

huh?
no.
no my child, this is not my desire
and then she said....

Are you going to see the Pixies in Tokyo
on Tuesday December 6, 2005.

huh?
yes.
yes, this is my desire

and then she said...that will be 7,000 yen
thanks and then I said.

Will be the best 7,000 yen I've ever spent.

upload: tokyogoat.

gasping.....again.

tokyogoat flopped over the one year mark at the end of august with the same grace as a dying fish thrown on the sand in the midday sun, writhing and twitching sporadically as it gasps for it's final breathes of life.

absolute rubbish

watched an absolute rubbish flim that goes by the name of Dreamcatcher. can't even begin to point out what was wrong with it. every single aspect of the film was piss poor. it's one of the films where you wonder if it was meant to be comedy and you just failed to pick-up on it. from my recollection a friend of mine said this was good and thats why we chose it. any advise, recommendations or anything that comes from that person's mouth in the future will be summarily diregarded. wonder if anyone in america has tried to sue a film production company for wasting their time. blaaahhhhhhh!!

out with coffee

There nothing really new here. I’ve just decided to face up to facts and admit that my constant state of nervousness, stress, anxiety and general lack of well-being is because of caffeine intake, mainly from coffee. In an effort to answer “no” to more of the questions posted here.
I am going to finish up and against advise I will basically go cold turkey. There are numerous withdrawal symptoms documented. On this third morning of no coffee I had pain at the back of my knees and also muscle pain in various areas of my back. I did sneak in a cup of green tea this morning
which does contain caffeine but to a much lesser degree. Interestingly enough those niggling little pains went away which makes me think that caffeine is indeed at play here. It’s weird having to listen to your body. Aussie lads only really learned to listen to the most overt messages sent from our bodies.  
  

MID-WEEK MANTRA

SAY NO TO BEER, SAY NO TO COFFEE!!
SAY NO TO BEER, SAY NO TO COFFEE!!
SAY NO TO BEER, SAY NO TO COFFEE!!

work email

must, must, must find a way to resist checking work related email on the weekends or days off. easiest solution is to get away from internet access and a computer. sounds easy but bit hard for me cause I use the internet alot for my leisure activities as well......ahh...any advise is most welcome.

weapon against wax

upload: tokyogoat.

a follow-up post from the previous entry. just wanted to present a sample of a common item used by the japanese to clean their ears. as an australian who was taught not to put anything in their ear I was horrified that people dug deep into the depths with these long bamboo sticks that are slightly hook shaped at the end. my love for these however has grown to the point that I am considering becoming a serious collector. most sovenir shops throughout japan boast these, usually adorned with their local "famous" item. Aomori is famous for apples.

ear wax for 1,120 yen

have always known that I have a tiny hole in each eardrum of each ear. these little holes, that appeared naturally, serve a positive role by allowing sinus fluids to escape via my ears in the form of ear waxy type substance, releaving ear pressure and the like.

over recent years i have been increasingly aware of not be able to hear perfectly well and of there being a constant ringing in the background. along with this was a knowledge that my ears were very sensitive to loudish noises with irritation and agitation easily following.

now it's shocking the number of years that these things are allowed to continue until someone does something about it. after some superficial cleaning of the ears yesterday morning the decision was made to get myself off to an ear specialist and have a long overdue deep wax build-up cleansing. so following a quick websearch such a specialist was located within 2 minutes walk of my apartment's front door.

off i went with my national health card with Karin accompanying me to assist in communicating in the ever mysterious tongue and completion of the pre-consultation health questionnaire.

a short wait had me then sitting in an old dentist type chair, a metal funnel type object in my ear and an ever so slightly geeky, goofy-like, Japanese doctor peering, poking, proding, scraping, vacuming. the left ear was reported as "mmm...sukoshi aru'...or there's a little bit there. the right ear as "ARE!! ..takusan arimasu" ...or Gee! there's alot in there. So after a greater degree of peering, poking, proding, scraping and vacuming the doctor announced that the procedure was finished. I then learned the shocking and embarrassing extent of the sitution as I turn my head toward a small boat like paper tray on the doctors side table. An approximate total of about three kidney bean sized, hard, black rocks of ear wax sat there. "Whats that?", I wondered!! "Where did that come from?" I questioned!! "Are they little bits of cotton wool with some black stuff on the outside??" Alas. I reluctantly accepted the truth.

Mumbling a few words along the lines of "Oh, I am surpised",　"that's unbelievable", "that's filthy", "Sorry to trouble you ", and "Excuse me", I shuffled out the door , handed over 1,120 yen and vowed to spend the same, on the same, each year for the rest of my life.

the cicadas sang clearly, beautifully and loudly today.

plans? plans!?

So the Tokyo summer is kicking in and having an escape plan is highly recommended and indeed a good idea, all things considered. But as per usual, my stock standard and actual response to the numerous, idol-chat queries into my travel plans is: "plans?...umm...I don't have any plans. I will be at work."

Now this doesn't sound very interesting at first glance. The reason for this is because it's not.

fire work

do i really want to expose myself to the scorching furnace of the sun for several hours to mark out a spot at one of this years tokyo fireworks festivals. the main, and perhaps only, reason i would go is to attempt some fireworks photos. [despite their general lack of appeal to me]. the list of reasons i wouldn't go is long and varied. have to decide quickly.

blogs in space

after following a few links from a SMH article yesterday I submitted this blog to be transmitted into outerspace. My co-worker, Rob, correctly pointed out that at first this idea, indeed, sounds way cooler than it actually is. people have been transmitting radio signals and the like out there for many, many year. but anyways the obligatory badge was posted and linked down the right hand side there somewhere if you're interested. aliens coming to earth and wanting to contact tokyogoat is about the only hope of fame and fortune I have at the minute. loser.

wretchedness

upload: tokyogoat.

needless to say going back to work after a long weekend is always a bit of a challenge. tomorrow we face that challenge once again. will be relying heavily on this image to get me through the day.

today was a big cleaning day however. i won't go into the details of what was discovered. i'll leave it with the following 2 sentences.

1: tokyo summers are wretched
2: everyone that lives in tokyo must fire off at least 2 cochroach bombs over the coming weeks.

waterfall

upload: tokyogoat.

Just blogging this cause it is probably the best pic I have taken so far. There was some help from photoshop but over all the camera/ND8 filter/tripod/remote shutter release came up with the magic.

We were in the northern part of Japan's main island on a driving/photo tour. I didn't realise how much i enjoy driving. it all came back pretty quick and I soon felt very much myself. the price of all our vacations just went up by the price of renting a car.

this is who I am

upload: tokyogoat.

this really does say it all. one of the indicators that flickr is flying high is that there are loads of developers putting some really cool things together on their own initiative. Thanks to fd for point the way to the badge creator. fd has some other flickr toys as well. Here is an album creator, which is also super cool. the lovers of firefox have also made a bunch of side bar plugins which are great as well. here is one called flickr fox by some dude named phil mccluskey

a shady lane...everybody wants one

Freeze...
Don't move...
You've been chosen
As an extra,
In the movie adaptation,
Of the sequel,
To your life.

Brighten Up the Corners
Pavement

wacky antics from those crazy kid co-workers

the funny part here is that this IS actually funny.

spidey

hey you

"Why don't you keep your ill-informed, ill-conceived, self-serving, unasked-for, unwanted suggestions to yourself?" Yeah, that's what should've been said. But instead, knowing that it wouldn't be understood either way, this peace offering dribbled out, wrapped with a red faced and tied with a wrinkled bow of frustration, "yeah well...err...we can discuss it later for everyone's understanding."

breath

upload: tokyogoat.

it's important to remember to breath in this modern sedentary world. many struggle through using only 10% of their lung capacity and wonder why life seems like a constant state of anxiety, stress, heart palpitations and heartburn. as simple as it seems the recommendation is to stop, breath some air, perhaps even do some exercise to bring on necessary deep breathing. failing that one could turn to breathing exercise a la yoga or visit the place in this picture.

Well-worn rocker

upload: lil.

blogging a photo from my flickr buddy Lil

Didn't really have much to say about it other than with the turn of the sesaon, the warmer weather having arrived and the relentless stinking heat on it's way these dancin' fools will have a few solid months of scratching around like chickens at the entrance to Yoyogi park on a Sunday. Good luck to them I guess.
Good pic though. Nice one Lil. Check out some more.

cool

upload: tokyogoat.

a couple of weekends ago we went to the Thai festival in Harajuku. Everyone insists on saying it is in Yoyogi but I maintain that in fact it is not but is in the NHK grounds. Anyways, as can be seen at most outings in Tokyo it was packed. The plague. So to make the hours slip by we had a couple of beers. This shot was of a new-ish beer to Tokyo "Phuket". Tasted like beer it did. Lucky for that eh. Was glad to have a chance to meet with some friends who'd had a kid a year ago. Ended up at karaoke.

another holiday

upload: tokyogoat.

so here we are on a Friday night having returned to work today after 3 days off and we are faced with the weekend....ahh it's a hard life. Calls for some beer.

japanese-water-drain

upload: tokyogoat.

another place we visited over golden week was the yanaka area, near nishi-nippori. there are numerous temples and old shopping alleys. we were on shopping bicycles, a big plus in one way but stopped us from strolling through all the back alleys that i love so dearly. as per usual i can't really report too much on the historical aspects of the area but i did take a few nice photos. much more instant gratification there. ahh...cheers.

backstreet-bucket

upload: tokyogoat.

so we have perfect weather for the public holidays. skys are clear, sun is bright, temperature coolish-mild. So what I decided to do to make best use of this rare gift of fine weather is sit inside at home and stare relentlessly at my screen for a few days insanely clicking through the same few webpages which include flickr, Sydney Morning Herald, ABC News, my blog, a few friends blogs, webmail, dpreviews, the NRL webpage....and thats about it, day after day. [didn't feel like linking all those pages]. I did do some work on my own photos when not re-checking "comments on yours" in flickr. It's modern day madness, it is... anyways

So this is quite obviously cranked in photoshop. Is the shot better because of it?. well yeah, kinda. There wasn't really much going on before bringing up the colors. the fake-ness factor does bother me, and I know this issue has been visited by many, on many occassions but hey...give it a shot for cheap, public holiday fun. I can call it art!! Look at me everyone, I am an artist and a photographer...OH!!, and a musician...cause I have stuff...and I know stuff about everything. Just ask me. If you want a second opinion, well, ask me again. Next thing is to start posting self portraits...artistic ones.

golden week

upload: tokyogoat.

to be honest i am not sure which days are counted as golden week this year and which aren't. anyways today whilst in golden week mode and feeling the usual pressure to do something product with everyone else, we went to zoshigaya graveyard to view some famous peoples graves. natsume soseki was there as was hideki tojo. i generally resisted taking direct pictures of people graves to put to rest karin's belief that my camera will allow a spirit to escape the grave and possess my computer.[the way my machine plays up sometimes i already wonder].

i did however try to be scary and a bit tricky by taking pics of people down the far end of lanes to come off a bit ghosty. anyways this pic managed to scare me cause i can't remember if the figure down the end was a person or the shape just looks like a person or....

anyways the bark on that tree was reason enough to post this.

movement

Managed to tear myself away from the computer and flickr long enough to achieve a few positive things today.

- Had a haircut today.
- Bought some new work shirts.
- Vacumed the apartment.
- Did the laundry.
- Took some photos.
- And...drum roll...went for a run!!

Really have to keep the exercise thing up cause I can definitely notice a fast down-hill slide from office / computer work.

he's going the distance, he's going for speed..

upload: tokyogoat.

the intensive, whirl-wind tour ended today. things were capped off nicely last night with a fine dinner. after chasing him all round tokyo the pain and the weariness finally found spiceblog on the last evening in this little izakaya tucked away in Kita Ikebukuro. How did they know we were there?

upload: tokyogoat.

took the day-off and charged around tokyo with spiceblog/manthatcooks. all sorts of eating, drinking, shopping, wandering was done. the highlight of the day thus far was the ramen performance at Tokyo Tonkotsu. undeniably the greatest ramen shop, on all levels, in tokyo. true masters and true professionals.

chicken on a stick

upload: tokyogoat.

every festival, izakaya and what-have-you carries the same. YAKITORI...Japanese can't get enough. I suspect the Aussies can't get enough as well.

I remember a time many years ago when an extremely drunken friend of mine walked over to one of these yakitori stalls, at a New Year Festival in Asakusa, and without attempting to process the desire any further just starting picking up sticks of chicken and eating them. That didn't go over too well...Nice one James.

skillz

upload: tokyogoat.

this is what a new camera and fancy lens can do. low-light, handheld but still sharp. The entrance to a restaurant as the subject matter is not so intersting or unusual but good to look at [for me] in this pic. Noise doesn't seem to be a problem either.

and for you sir....

upload: tokyogoat.

some sake and a wide choice of fine foods, outside in the spring air with the blossom trees looking over your shoulder. grab your work mates, offer up some idle chat and lip service to your boss. all of a sudden the office ladies are so much more interesting and ones Japanese language takes steps up to new found levels...ahh...ohanami.

first few shots

upload: tokyogoat.

So after careful consideration and perusal of numerous forums, discussions, spec sheets, review sites, sample pics, comparison charts, and owners opinions, and after considering my own likes, dislikes, needs, wants, biases, hopes and dreams I bought a new camera. Here is one of the first few shots I fired off this morning. First impressions are good. I quite like the tones in this pic. Rest assured that as usual there were loads of pretty ordinary pics in there as well.

HOWZAT!!

Woke in the grey-zone of the night to hock-up a large, juicy, nasal oyster, a direct effect of my newly aquired hay fever. we all know the time around 3:00 am when the ghosts and ghouls galavant. After quickly forgetting about the supernatural I lay awake stewing and brooding over general work irritation and anger. Then, as you do in the grey-zone, I wondered what the state of indoor cricket is in Australia. Seems to be surviving. Check it out!!

safe and secure

upload: tokyogoat.

April 1st 2005 sees Japan introduce a new set of laws relating to the protection of personal information. Companies are required to implement new standards, policies and procedures for the daily operational handling and storage of personal information to meet the new requirements. Like most things, it works both ways: The implementation of these new laws and resulting internal policies and procedure will serve to better protect an individuals personal information and will also provide companies with defensive arguments in the event information security is breached and ammunitions against individual employees who fail to adhere to the newly adopted rules.

5000 yen

5000 yen is all it takes in Japan to have a precious belonging magically returned to you. followed a weathered and worn map to a flat piece of land covered with concrete in the dodgey back streets of Ikebukuro. stumbled through some arkward and pointy japanese phrases at an old man. walked over to a row of metal and rubber marked 2005/03/11. I was instructed to prove my identity and ownership by producing "the key". I fumbled around in my pocket and then "KA-CHING". was further instructed to go and talk to a man over by the small hut. provided said man with some written details at which point I was asked to pay 5000 yen and was handed a green piece of paper. I was alllowed then to ride away from the impound on my beloved red shopping bicycle.

upload: tokyogoat.

before the cherry blossoms billow above us the plum blossoms come out as a kind of gentle warning to start preparations for the "ohanami" activities for the year.

Ohamami= sharing food and drink under the cherry blossom trees.

thievin'

Someone has flogged the aka-chari...
Was it a thievin' bastard, friday night, pisshead...
Was it a thievin' bastard, Local Counsil, revenue raiser...
Either way it's gone. Took it in my stride, now that I have to walk...

blindness, the worst affliction??

"change the approach, my son"
"Instead of WHAT you see change to HOW you see it"
"can you see, Grasshopper...?"
"Do you see, Grasshopper...?"

back to work tomorrow

upload: tokyogoat.

holidays are done. have the ojisan's back, knees and ankle to remind me of the great time I had.

what's changed?

upload: tokyogoat.

things that haven't changed:
- love of vests
- love of green
- love of rigid, uncomfortable poses
- cheesy grins

things that have changed
- that tree isn't there any more
- no more side-parts

Chinese Bento

In keeping with my foolish gaijin existence I often find myself flailing my arms in the air in an over exaggerated manner as I greet the natives of Japan. (This could be that because I remain so inept at the Japanese language I often choose to get my power back by acting in a clownish manner in public spaces making others feel just as uncomfortable as I usually do). Anyway, today at lunch time, as I walked up to an intersection near the office I spotted a member of the temp staff agency that helps in our office. I decided I would greet my co-worker, who is always quite friendly, with a bit of a wave. Standing on the corner I awkwardly executed a comedy, combo wave sequence starting from a regular army salute moving to a straight-elbow, full arm, arching, wave and finishing off with a limp Hitler salute, elbow half bent. Ah yes, a classic.

To my surprise, as this was happening, a car accident almost occurred at the green light of the intersection in front of me. A silver car that was behind another vehicle seemed to inexplicably speed right, around the outside, of the front car which at the same time verred left, coming to a halt before my eyes. "Fools!!" I thought. The driver of the car now parked there was leaning over in the front seat looking at me. Ha??. A taxi?? I don't need a friggin' taxi??

Who hailed a taxi?? Piss Off, Scabby!!

Continued on my way to collect my greasy Chinese bento.

Alleyways

Since joining flickr I have accepted numerous invitations to join various groups operating within flickr. I was overly open to accepting and had a long list of groups that I had never posted to or commented in. So last week I ploughed through, removing myself from many of them.

Along with that, I purged a few contacts. The main reason was either they weren't posting or alternatively were uploading bulk images at once, often very similar, and along with not being overly interesting were also domininating the flickr zeitgeist thingy I have over there. So "Be gone with them" No disrespect intended.

Today I took steps toward being an active member of a new group, Alleyways. Have to get myself out there in the Worlds Best City for Alleys and pump out the pics. Was also kindly given admin status from a trusting stranger.

Went on a self-propelled "recruiting drive" with the following sales pitch "can't really describe exactly what it is that is so appealing about alleyways but nonetheless they have a strong hold on my interest. Could be the simple fact that they provide for a way more intimate space than, say, a big open road. And often lead into people's private worlds...or it could be that I am speaking utter rubbish. Either way am always happy to see some alley shots." Anyone reading this blog has most likely already seen that before.

looks good eh

upload: tokyogoat.

wanted to blog this cause it really does look rather disgusting. yes we know it's something from the sea that lives in a shell, but your imagination could see it being pulled out of someone's ear after it was formed in their nose. no-one ate this. even the filthy natto eaters amongst us. thats saying something amongst the Japanese who seem to devour anything and everything.

10 million angry people

why??....you ask why??...cause we all got woken up at 4:45 this morning by an inconsiderate earthquake. selfish act. rattling and shaking for no reason. now i expect the day to be full of irritable interactions with edgy people.

niseko

so the plan is for karin and myself to get ourselves to niseko higashiyama new prince hotel for march 2, 3, 4 and 5. arrive at lunch time on the first day after having caught the second, not the first, flight of the day from haneda and then a 2.5 hour bus ride from chitose. on the first day we'll prolly go for an 8 hour ticket all mountain ticket and go straight over to hirafu. second day we may start at annupuri, cause we've never been there, and them once again over to hirafu. after that we'll see. could have the added bonus of a good work friend also being there so will have to arrange to meet with him and his partner even if only for a short time. on the last day the bus leaves at 1600. the main things we need to do are snowboard, onsen, sleep, snowboard, maybe a beer, onsen, sleep, snowboard, onsen, sleep, snowboard, leave. if we have time i may pop over to every crazy foreigners favourite cool kid semi-tralier turned bar: fatty's. might even get the t-shirt. slightly disappointed that we are going later in the year cause i really want to once again experience the renowned pow pow. sure it will be fine. now, is 158cm long enough for a fat bastard like myself?

giri choco

upload: tokyogoat.

was all but finished the most interesting blog entry I have ever made. Was to do with Japanese custom, office obligations...but alas I was blocked. yes thats right blocked. trying to do something productive and I was blocked. not by "the man" this time but an outage. a huge Internet outage across North America. Will be interested to hear was crazy high jinx has transpired on this day. Valentine's day, 2005. That's February 14th, 2005.I am scared to open that little blue box right there. Who know's what other surprises are installed. Could be anything.

more red

upload: tokyogoat.

liked this VW that was parked down the road. went out walking, spotted it, photographed it, laughed at the cat and thats about it folks.

email

had a sick day today. days like this I always wonder if I shoud check my work email from home. there were no big surprises today so didn't really matter. but the obvious point is that you don't get a chance to switch off at all. (not wanting to pretend that I am switched on at any particular time).

One episode that has to be looked at tomorrow is how, as a service provider, should we deal with customers that are outright abusive where no wrong-doing comes from our side. are service providers barrels boys 100% of the time? would the potential bad press be worth taking up the issue. my guess is that fools like this don't have any friends or backing anyways. should we simply continue to humbly accept his piss-ant coupl'a hundred yen a month. we'll see.

eomeote #3

upload: tokyogoat.

a late entry for the End of Month Egg On Toast Extravaganza. This times round there were a few new participants which is always a good thing. btw my entry was prepared for 2 people, in case you were wondering. #3 was hosted by the one and only Cook Sister

tokyo ferrari

upload: tokyogoat.

went shopping for a new mean street machine today and made a rash impulse buy. there are no regrets however. this tried and trusted high performance model handle corners with ease and grace. it powers along the straights with outstanding acceleration. the lines of this design are both classic and the way of the future. 2 added features are: a wider, more expansive carrying capacity and beefed up security. the paint work was chosen as a thief deterent.(the last 2 machine were stock standard silver and were both promptly removed from the eki pitstop...i suspect to assist the Johnny one cup fund.) Ready to be to dazzled?? For your viewing pleasure here's a wide-angle shot. Jealous??

ohiru

upload: tokyogoat.

I spend a fair bit of time hanging around foodblogs. It's not so much the case that I am overly interested in food, or it's preparation. I recall a time in my younger years when I was mildly repulsed by food and our (humans) reliance on it. I can see now that my distaste for food was just part of the process of trying to get my head around my own humanity (the process is not complete by any means). But anyways...
foodblogs...well it just turns out that some of my friends happen to have highly entertaining blogs and they happen to be about food. Where is this going you ask. Well my comment today is: Around my office there is f#$%$#k all to eat at lunch time. The picture shown is of a little hole in the wall bento shop. 500yen. "What a deal" you might say. However I am sure that the total cost of the contents of a lunch box served there is about 30yen, including the packaging.

There is a story of the worlds worst bento that was purchased from a local road side vendor. I held romantic thoughts of this little bento vendor serving the best lunchboxes in Tokyo. Each day they would pull-up with there bento cart packed up with the days offerings. 500yen!! "Also a bargain", you might say. I tried it one day and I was convinced they had just served my some cadaver meat procured from the local Universities. Not wanting to be one that makes a final judgement from one experience I stepped up to the mark the very next day, even if I was well suspicious and decidedly less personable. All was going well until I dragged out a 20 cm stranded of thick wavy grey hair that was providing inner reinforcement for the packed rice. Came quite close to vomitting at my office desk that day. I had all sorts of theories on how that vendor ran it's daily operation after that.

Anyway the choices around Kundanshita are few obliging me, us, to spend much more money than one should just to get something vaguely palatable. Today is the day before payday so I may be have to force down some cup noodles. Ahh the joys. Imagine if I was motivated enough to prepare my own lunch. Can you imagine that? Can you??

doing the 2 step

from spiceblog and on to john quiggin, we find a man ready to make a donation to the Australian Red Cross tsunami appeal of AU$1 for every comment posted on his site between given times (honoured up to 1000 comments). I say, "get in there" as well. As spiceblog points ou, it's the perfect chance to make a comment without necessarily having anything in particular to add. perfect for me.

attention turns to beer

upload: tokyogoat.

Outside, flood lights guided the adventurous down yet another run, with J-POP crackling through the loudspeakers. Inside, beer soothed the weiry and wounded, as a shuffle of iPods rattled out through headphones.