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Twitter/Lingr/Realtime messaging

Now that everybody is using, I started twitter thing. It's very simple but integrated very well with IM and SMS. Very nice.

Integrating web app with IM is a fantastic idea and Vox Watcher is one of the example that our David Davis has created. Check it out if you'd like to be notified your friends updates via IM (gTalk).

Speaking of realtime messaging, my friend Kenn launched Comet-based online chat service (it's like IRC 2.0) Lingr and they announced the API for it. I've been hacking the API using Perl and so far I came up with some cool bots and IRC-Lingr proxy etc.

Looks like realtime messaging is the way to go ...

Soccer bar/pubs suggestion

Dear LazyWeb,

Are there any good bars/pubs in San Francisco that play European Football (soccer) instead of American Football or MLB?

Dog photoshooting

ydnar and steve photoshooting Rudy and Maddy.

RATM reunion at Coachella

Rage Against The Machine reunites for Coachella. They will be on stage as a headline of the 3rd day and on the 2nd day there will be Red Hot Chilli Peppers, along with a couple of my fave bands: Jack's Mannequin, Fountains of Wayne and Cornelius.

Hmm, I should definitely go! Tickets go on sale this Saturday 10am at Ticketmaster. $250 for 3-days, and (very limited) $85 for 1-day.

QotD: In-Flight Entertainment

How do you pass the time during a flight?  What do you bring in your carry-on?

Drink beer and white wine. If the flight is ANA, I'll see at least one movie, whichever seems the most interesting, or heart-warming one. If the flight is United, I skip the movie part since it's not on demand. Then I listen to the music and Podcasts, then read some books. Sleep.

There're no much choices for carry-on items these days, if you're flying to US/UK. So all I'm bringing in is books, iPod and the laptop. I rarely use the laptop though. If I have some projects that I can work on, I'll launch the emacs and svk to hack on, but most of the time I don't.

Updated theme: <3 Custom Banners!

Miyako

It's already been almost a week after the Vox release 20, but today I finally tried the new feature Custom Banners on my own. This is super!

The pic is what I took when traveled around Miyako Island, Okinawa in August 2006. This beautiful horizon is apparently one of the most beautiful scenaries that you can see in Japan, and you can find where it is on Google Maps.

OMG DSPhone! Ridiculous!

Yesterday NTT DoCoMo announced their new models for this Spring, and there they have a "DS Phone" by Mitsubishi. The name of the handset is D800iDS and they claim DS stands for "Direct & Smooth", and they're demo'ing some games like "IQ game (a rip-off of brain age) and touch golf game (a rip-off of Mario Golf).

I'm pretty sure that Nintendo has patented their Dual Screen Touch interface and we expect the big lawsuit on this. How ridiculous and shameless DoCoMo and Mitsubishi are.

Well, maybe you can't tell how it sounds ridiculous saying "NTT DoCoMO announced their new models for this Spring". It's equivalent to say "Cingular announced their new models from Nokia, Samsung and Motrolla." In Japan, cellphone providers (carriers) spec the featureset of handset devices, to control the market share of the vendors.

Every 3 or 6 months they announce the new models, but none of them are perfect. Like, this one has bluetooth, while this one has fingerprint authentication, this has PC compatible browser with PDF viewer, this one has MP3/AAC player, blah blah blah. They think if there's one that has all of these features, people will just buy it and other vendors will fail. So it's basically bid-rigging and against fair trading or antitrust law but no one has complained about it. Just weird.

That's why lots of people and I are excited about the iPhone thing. Mr.Song should make iPhone possible in Japan on their softbank (ex. Vodafone) network, even if it eventually kills other models vendor. That's the fair trading.

ToTD: chug, chugging

chug(v): To drink alcohol really fast without breathing.People usually chant this at the person who is drinking. In Japanese, it's "イッキ飲み (Ikki Nomi)". via Lisa.

ぱいかじ南海作戦

ぱいかじ南海作戦

椎名 誠

椎名誠は大好きな作家の1人だけど、著作は主に3種類にわけられる。

1. 「岳物語」に代表される私小説
2. 「われらは怪しい探検隊」に代表されるキャンプ・旅行記
3. 「新宿赤マントシリーズ」に代表される軽薄エッセイ
4. 「アド・バード」に代表されるＳＦ

1. の私小説は、「岳物語」や「銀座のカラス」あたりはいいとしても、最近のものは作者のまわりにあまりいい話がないのか、ちょっと鬱気味なストーリーが多くて、あんまり楽しめない。個人的には 2, 3, 4 がどれも好きで、SF モノでは「アド・バード」、「地下生活者・遠灘鮫腹海岸」や近作の「砲艦銀鼠号」が大好き。

で、この「ぱいかじ南海作戦」は帯いわく「シイナワールド全開のサバイバル小説」ということなんだけどまさにその通りで、2. のキャンプ記と 4. のSF風味がいい具合にまじっていて、椎名誠でないと書けないような感じ。今週こっちにきてから1週間かけてよんだけど、つい面白くて最後まで読み終わるのが惜しい感じだった。

ANA Lounge

Better than SFO,

P506iC0026018298.jpg

NRT

I avoided the CES rush.

P506iC0025887226.jpg

椎名誠の赤マントシリーズ

とんがらしの誘惑

椎名 誠

椎名誠の週刊文春だかで連載してる赤マントシリーズが好きで文庫が出ると必ず買っている。出版されるペースを読むペースが上回っているので、さかのぼって買うわけだけど、ここでひとつ罠が。

タイトルが「とんがらしの誘惑」「ギョーザのような月が出た」と何の印象にも残らないタイトル、立ち読みしても読んだかどうか区別がつかない（大体同じような話ばっかりなので）、というわけでダブり買いしそうな要素が満載。

とはいえいままでなんとか二重購入は避けてきたんだけど、ついにやっちまいました、この「とんがらしの誘惑」。おそらく読んだのは2005年の夏ぐらいだとおもうので、今回2回目で読んでもほとんど初見と同じ感じで楽しめたけど、ところどころに「あ、これ読んだな」というのが散見された。

Vox Hunt: Cover Me

Audio:  Let's hear your favorite cover song.
Submitted by Suzy. 

There're lots of my fave cover songs and I can't say only one of them. So here we go:

• Beat Crusaders - We're all alone (Boz Scaggs)
• New Found Glory - Never Ending Story
• Paul Anka - Jump (Van Halen)
• The Ataris - On with the Show (Motley Crue)
• The Starting Line - Nothing's gonna stop us now (Starship)
• Kiss - Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio (Ramones)
• Motorhead - Whiplash (Metallica)
• Reel Big Fish - Take On Me (a-ha)
• Copeland - Take My Breath Away (Berlin)
• Ken Yokoyama - Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (Boys Town Gang)
• Sugarcult - A Hard Day's Night (The Beatles)