A Gaijin in Tokyo

Actually just posted this so I could right click it and "save as" Really crazy song. I don't believe it was released in America, except in "instrumental" form, with the chorus still in tact. Censorship is a shame.

Listen to it here

So I don't think I ever posted about this, but I'll make it short, because I'm going to bed soon, and my blog isn't a review site. About... 3 months ago, I'd say, I got a new camera! I did a lot of research all over the net, and finally narrowed it down to a few. I was looking at cameras in the $200-$300 price range, and the three that I found the most appealing were the PowerShot SD880 IS, the Panasonic Lumix TZ4, and the Panasonic Lumix FX37. In the two reviews of the Panasonics (from the same site) the image quality of the latter was ranked a 7/10 while the TZ4 was ranked 9/10. After much more research, I found that the cameras were nearly identical in terms of the technology and hardware, besides the fact that the TZ4 is capable of 10x optical zoom (almost unheard of in compact cameras) and the FX37 has a bit wider-angle lens, clocking in at 25mm as opposed to the TZ4's 28mm, which are both quite good for a compact camera. The LCD is also naturally bigger on the bigger of the two cameras, and with the TZ4, you are actually able to zoom in and out while taking your (HD) video. I may be mistaken, but I thought that both cameras were 10 megapixels, but these reviews say the TZ4 is only 8. Anyhow, when I went to check all these cameras out, I actually had 5 cameras in mind, but I won't mention those ones, as these three are ultimately the ones I narrowed it down to after testing them out in-store.

I have had a Canon (PowerShot DS400) for the past 4 years, and have absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, on the train ride to Hiroshima, the first of many destinations on my family trip, the LCD broke, almost defeating the purpose of a digital camera. What was nice, was it actually did have a viewfinder, so I was still able to take pictures throughout our vacation, but they all turned out a bit crooked. On top of that, all the menu items are navigated through the LCD, so I couldn't change any settings. I've been EXTREMELY satisfied with it, even as it has been quite outdated for some time now. It's a mere 5 megapixels (which for any sort of normal printing the average Joe is going to do is more than enough).

To make a long story short, I was planning on staying loyal to Canon, but the HD video capturing capability on the Panasonics really enticed me. The Canon's body was also quite chunky and the button layout was different than I was used to. It also had some funny triangular designs on it that reminded me of Fred Flinstone's hideous patterned shirt, especially in the gold color option. Once I had decided that it was going to be between the two Panasonics, I really debated this one. The TZ4 was also quite chunky, but for good reason. How else are you going to fit a 10x OPTICAL zoom into a compact camera? To be honest, it really isn't THAT big, but by today's standards for compact cameras, it is quite noticeably larger. Definitely don't fit into my jeans pockets, unless I happened to have a fairly baggy pair. So i was torn between the doubled zoom of the TZ4 (the FX37 is 5x), and the convenience of being able to pocket my camera wherever I go. I kept thinking "EVERY time I see something far away, I'm going to regret not buying the TZ4...." But in the end, I decided to go for the VERY sexy looking FX37. It's a very simple body design, but it makes it look classy. Straight to the point. After I had put more thought into it, I realized that honestly, how often do point-and-shoot "photographers" really need to zoom in 10x? I would venture a guess to say that 90% of most people's photos are going to be focused on a PERSON being somewhere, and not the somewhere that person is. Keep in mind, the FX37 has a slightly wider angle lens, which means you can fit more people (or any scene) into a picture. That, coupled with the truly pocketable size won me over. Purchased in in black, and it looks great. I have to say, I am quite pleased with the camera, overall, and haven't regretted buying it one bit. I have never once been taking a picture and thought I needed the 10x zoom, and with the camera being 10 megapixels, I can zoom into the pictures once I have uploaded them onto my computer. I still miss my old Canon, but the video capturing capabilities of the FX37 are in every way, superior to that of my ancient, in technological standards, Canon. That, among other features, and the picture quality of the Panasonic DMC-FX37 was really worth it, and I am very satisfied with my purchase. There is a newer model out now, which has a new face recognition feature that actually (how well, I don't know) remembers what name goes with what face. The FX37 has face tracking, just not RECOGNITION, and to be honest... who cares about recognition. You know who you're taking a picture of, and especially with iPhoto '09s face recognition technology, it's pretty much a moot point to have in in your camera AND photo organizing program. So if any of you out there are looking for the most bang for your buck in the $200-$300 price range, I'll save you the research and can highly recommend, as a daily point-and-shooter the Panasonic TZ4, or the FX-37. Keep in mind that both of these have newer models out with only slight "upgrades," so you may be able to find these models cheaper on blowout or something. If neither of these tickle your fancy, check out the Canon SD880 IS. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX37 was a wonderful purchase and a great camera.

Today I got to go on a field trip with my Japanese class to the Ghibli Museum, or 三鷹の森ジブリ美術館 (Mitaka no Mori: Jiburi Bijutsukan) which translates to Mitaka Woods' Ghibli Museum. It's kind of hidden away in a park, and if you didn't know it was there before hand, you'd be really surprised to stumble across it. It's a really interesting building, to say the least. The outside, as well as the inside has some very neat architecture. Unfortunately, photos aren't allowed inside, so I had to find a video to show you guys. Also, you can check out the museum's website here.



The first room we went to was a movie theater type room, which showed a short film by Miyazaki That was titled "やどさがし" (yadosagashi) which means "house hunting," and is screened only in the museum! It was really fun - the premise was about an girl who apparently is going house hunting, but I think the real theme is that she "gets back" to nature. In the opening scene, she is packing for what seems to be a backpacking trip of some sort, making sure to pack plenty of apples for her apparently rigorous journey she's about to embark on. Humming cheerfully to herself, as soon as she takes a step outside her door she is bombarded by the noise of the busy city and rushing traffic which nearly mutes any cheerful sound that was previously coming from her. She walks along the crowded highway for a bit until she comes across a sign off to the side of the main street that reads "ふるみち” (furumichi) which translates to "Old Road." Of course she takes this, and it leads her into the wilderness where she and nature are able to live in harmony with each other. I'm not sure of the order of events, but she runs into a some interesting characters and thanks them, for just being there, for being nature. She does this by kindly giving them one of the many apples she brought along with her in her oversized backpack. Among these "characters" are a humongous fish of some sort, a graveyard, a forest, insects infesting a mountain shack, and a mountain creature of some sort or other. Even the inanimate characters are personified in the short film, in an attempt to, from what I believe, show the connection between nature and people is a very real thing, and even though everything in nature isn't animate, we still live along side it. In the end, she starts her journey back home, and is thanked in return by all the characters she was so kind to, and thanked for being there. They gave her a big basket of everything they had to offer, which was food of sorts, and said "もってっけ" (mottekke) or something like that, which was one of the very few comprehendible words in the film, which means "Take it with you." She replied with a hearty "ありがとう！” (arigatou) which means "thank you" and went on her way, closing the film. An interesting note is that, as I mentioned, there were very few lines in film that you could actually make out. All the noises were made vocally, focusing on the Japanese's extensive lexicon of onomatopoeias. English is a very bland language when it comes to onomatopoeias if compared to Japanese, so it was quite fun to see how so many of them were used. It was a very abstract way to make the audio for the film, and they even drew in the sounds, if that makes sense. Like in the old Batman episodes, where they would write "Kablooey!" and "ZAAMM!!" and other things when the villains got punched in the face, this film wrote out the sounds that the environment made. It was a really fun film, and I'll try to look for it online to share with you guys. After the film, I started to explore the museum, crawling through miniature door frames, and climbing up very cramped spiral staircases.

Out of all the rooms, my personal favorite was the permanent exhibition room. In the pamphlet, it kindly warns you that, "those who are sensitive to light should be aware that in the Permanent Exhibition Room there is an exhibit that flashes bright bursts of strobostoscopic light." It was a really beautiful room with plenty of exhibits that were in constant motion and really played tricks on your eyes. The largest of the exhibits in the room was a merry-go-round type machine, that had figurines placed on the surface that were lined up around the circle, but were in slightly different positions. It's difficult to explain, but just picture it as a flip book, you know, the ones that you flip through and you see a scene of some cartoon frame by frame; except this was in 3D! Anyway, at a full stop, it just looked like a pretty cool display of a large collection of Ghibli figurines, but then it starts to spin quite fast, and at this point, it's probably less spectacular than when it was at a full stop because you simply couldn't make out anything. Then, a strobe light comes on (the one they warned you about in the pamphlet.) When the this happens, the speed of the machine spinning combined with the light/dark intervals makes the figurines come to life. Totoro starts jumping up and down, and Mei and Satsuki (the two main characters in Totoro) start playing jump rope, and many other moving characters wander about. It's really cool and my description definitely doesn't do it justice. Though impressive, it wasn't my favorite exhibit in the room. There was another moving exhibit that I can't even start to explain. I'm sure there's a very simple explanation to how it works, but I really couldn't tell you. It's a tall cylindrical enclosure with who I believe is a Robot Soldier from the film Castle in the Sky. Anyway, he slowly spins around, and the walls around him also spin, but in a different direction. The "walls" are sort of slotted, or like bars where you can see through every other 2 inches or so, and when it spins around you can see through the walls, as well as what's on the walls. When it starts to spin, it creates the illusion of birds flying all around him. It was a really pretty piece of artwork and I would kill to have it. As I said, unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures, so you all will have to use your imagination.

I didn't buy any souvenirs from the gift shop (sorry Danielle!), but they gave me a really neat ticket to get into the movie theater, which had three film frames from some Ghibli movie. It was completely random, so there is a possibility to get a scene of something completely useless, like a wall or something, or you could get a really cool few frames of a specific character. I got a staircase... I didn't even recognize what movie it was from, but I traded with my teacher because she had Kiki and her cat! One of my classmates didn't want his, and that one was a scene from Spirited Away, and then I found another one that I also can't recognize which movie it's from. Anyone know? It's the last one in the line up of pictures... The first picture is what the ticket looks like, and then the next three are the best I could do to try and get a decent picture of the frames. Just too cool... Oh - a little side thought.. I really hope Ghibli doesn't do anything funny like Disney does with sexual scenes in some of their older movies, because that would be really embarrassing to issue a ticket with a film strip where there's potentially something that could scar some little kid for life... hmm...




































































Well, I've blabbed on enough. Hope you guys get a chance to visit this museum if you're ever in Japan!

Here you go, Evie!



I knew I liked her when she started choking me out while I was giving her a piggy back ride, then proceeded to punch me with my own hands after I had to put her down.

I know a few of you who read my blog use a mac, so I thought I'd share this with you. I know you can find a whole ton of these everywhere else on the internet, and my blog isn't really about tech stuff, but oh well. If you're on a site with videos or audio (youtube, blip.fm, etc.) and want to download whatever you're watching or hearing, just push these keys at the same time. Command, Option, A. a little window will open up with a whole list of all the files that are on the page you are looking at, and 99% of the time, the file you want is the biggest file in the list, so you can just double click it and it should automatically download. A note though, if you are downloading a file and it is in .flv format (like the videos from youtube) you'll need a media player than can handle these. I recommend VLC. As for other mac tricks, look here.