No rain

Spent a pleasantly dry day chopping up branches, cooking hamburgers, inventing a sauce and relearning walking basslines.

Rehearsal tomorrow then off to Chiba for the weekend on Friday.

Will update with photos post trip

Video house tour

Here is a link to a quick video house tour I made this morning

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5432902499611629317&hl=en 

Here they are:

Cherry blossoms at Shirinkoen + mad Canadian junkie(with baseball cap)

Some squid with ears of which I managed to digest one and gave the rest to Pu.

And one of our fantastic neon tetras which don’t have names yet. Any suggestions?

We went to Kamakura yesterday primarily to eat pizza overlooking the sea and ended up at the big Buddah which is still big.

Nova rip off their students! (exclusive from a few days ago)

They’re all the same.

Nova probed over refunds, deception 

My (the emperor’s) birthday

Ok, so I know it was over a week ago but as I’ve been wading through the Kanto tourist trail this week with my parents, this is the first time I’ve had a chance to sit down and do stuff at home (they left this morning). Had a great time though doing all the things I never do cos I’ve either done them or can’t summon the energy to energize Pu into doing them. Anyway a memorable day was had when we went to the Imperial Palace on my birthday (23 Dec) which also happens to be the emperor’s. After following the marching right wingers and crossing over the street with at least fifty yakuza members (who are of course known to have connections to the far-right emperor reverers), we were body searched and took our place outside the palace and waited for the man and his family to appear. They did not disappoint and waved for a couple of minutes – he made a speech in a squeaky voice and then went back inside. An odd experience all in all. Soon returned to normality by shopping in Ginza.

Merry Christmas

On this beautiful sunny day a very merry Christmas to you all. Hope you have a good one!

I am off to church for the first time in years then cooking Christmas dinner for Pu and my parents. See you in 2007

Bu and Pu xx

Christmas tree

Buが日本は街中がクリスマス色になるのが早すぎだと毎年言ってますが、うちでも毎年12/1後の週末にはtreeを飾るのが恒例になってきました。数年前から本物の木（根付き）を飼ってますが、毎年翌年のGWくらいには葉がブラウンになって諦めて捨ててました。が、今年はどういう訳か一年越しまして、同じ木の登場です。トップの部分は枯れて葉がない状態ですが、その他の部分は健康です。ここまで落ち着くと来年もOKでしょう。この手の木は数年で急激に成長するとか聞いたことがあるので、ベランダ栽培ではいつか限度が訪れると思いますが。

Yokohamarama gets projected onto gallery wall

Went with D & H to the NTT gallery at Tokyo Opera City to see the installations there. One was a work where you could type in any word and its appearance in a randomly selected group of websites would be projected on the wall above you in a swirling, psychadelic type way. Of course I duly typed in yokohamarama and there we were in all our glory: my bald head twirling across the wall, Ikea photos flashing, as well as blueduck’s blue duck which, as linked to my site, making a cartwheeling appearance.

The other installations were visually pretty good too; some quirky, some noisy, some confusing. For me though, that’s the problem with conceptual art; I just can’t be bothered to get my head round the concepts.

Here is the link should you wish to investigate further.

Some sad news

Pu’s father passed away last Friday.

Paris Syndrome

As Z suggested, a great band name.

Paris syndrome hits Japanese

Japanese tourists feel so let down by Paris shop assistants that they need treatment for a type of depression known as “Paris Syndrome”.

“There are around 20 cases a year of the syndrome and it has been happening for several years,” Miyupi Kusama, an administrator at the Japanese embassy in Paris, told the Guardian. Already this year it has repatriated at least four visitors suffering from hallucinations.”

Fragile travellers can lose their bearings. When the idea they have of the country meets the reality of what they discover it can provoke a crisis,” Hervé Benhamou, a psychologist, told Le Journal du Dimanche.

Bernard Delage of Jeunes Japon, an association that helps Japanese families settle in France, said: “In Japanese shops, the customer is king, whereas here assistants hardly look at them … People using public transport all look stern, and handbag snatchers increase the ill-feeling.”