For the three people who have not seen the hit movie: This is the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac, a vampire created in the Louisiana of the late 18th century, and his quest for the meaning of life and death. I knew the book to be a classic, but that it was released as far back as 1976 came as a surprise. A worthy read, with or without having seen the movie (which I want to see again now for comparison).

My first impression of the GamePark GP32 handheld video game that I bought in Korea was rather desolate: It would not connect via USB to my iBook, and the game that came with it was the lamest piece of commercial software I have seen in a very long time: Can anyone remember GORILLA.BAS that came with QBasic as part of MS-DOS? Well, the game was like that, but with mobile phones instead of gorillas. I went straight back to the shop and traded it for Dooly Soccer 2002 which is only marginally better.

But after completing the necessary setup with a friend's laptop (USB works for Windows...) and finding out that I can upload files indirectly using my digital camera, I am getting more excited about the possibilities of GP32: The thing is extremely friendly to hackers, and this seems to more than make up for the lack / low quality of commercial games. A lot of classic games are being ported to it and there are emulators for almost all other systems, including MAME and GameBoy Advance.

• same size as GBA
• 3.5 inch screen (bigger than GBA, but also useless in the dark)
• Smart Media (same as my digital camera)
• built-in MP3 player
• USB connector (does not work with Mac OS X 10.2.x)

The first game I downloaded is Doom. The port is still alpha, but the only big missing feature seems to be sound (which unfortunately is a quite essential feature in Doom). It definitely plays the original shareware levels at full speed (good old WAD files from 1993, quite some software longevity).

Although the Enterprise is the most prestigious ship in Starfleet, working there seems not exactly a good career move. The whole crew holds the same positions as 15 years ago, and Captain Picard now has to take orders from Admiral (!) Janeway. The only apparent way to quit is to die and this almost never happens in a long-running franchise like Star Trek. If it does, it is potentially quite moving (as with Tasha Yar) or undone later (as with Spock). From a review I read I knew beforehand that it would happen in this one, but I was not sure to whom, so I was afraid it could be Picard and hoping it would be Riker. But alas, it is Data who takes the audacious leap (and another one five minutes before), which would have been much more tragic without the prior unearthing of another one of his lost brothers and the transfer of Data's complete memory to that brother.

Also featuring appearances by Wesley, Guinan and a Picard clone.

5 points

I went bowling yesterday. I do not do this very often, so I have no idea if my score (128) was good or not, but it was enough to finish first out of nine people.

Frame: XX 3/3 9/X 8/- 6/X 7/2 7/1 5/3 8/X 9/X/9
Score: 16  22  40  48  65  74  82  90 109   128

My lasting memory of that first trip to France in 1952, is of sensuality. Today, one would have to step off an aeroplane on the other side of the world to experience such an impact on the senses. There was a strangely exotic smell which hit me as soon as I set foot on the quay at Calais, later identified as a mixture of strong tobacco, expensive scent and fresh garlic.
As well as producing unbeatable bread, French bakers also service the nation's sweet tooth with a cornucopia of pastries and cakes. One French customs is the visit to the boulangerie-patisserie after Mass on ...missing part... attended the service or not ! - returning home with a baguette in one hand and a pyramid-shaped parcel in the other, continuing a ...missing part... heavy creme patissiere.

This English-language-poem advertising definitely works for me. I just had to buy this cake in Sunkus today. Where did they get this stuff from? Google turned up nothing, so they probably had it tailor-made. Unusually good example...

The cake itself was not especially tasty, and has an unpleasant smell.

I received my first piece of fan mail about PerlPad today. No names to protect the innocent, but I swear I did not make this up:

Hello,
I just wanted to drop you a note about how much PerlPad has helped me in the way I use my mac. I got release 0.1 installed last night, and so far I've already used it while editing my blog, configuring some plists, and taking notes in class. It's been so useful that I wonder how I ever lived without PerlPad before :) And I feel very lucky to have found out about PerlPad -- it's plainly the best service add-on for my mac, ever.
Having PerlPad is like having an embedded Perl interpreter in every application, and I no longer have to go through the tedious process of firing up my editor just for some trivial editing task that cries out for Perl. It makes OS X more UNIXy and cool than even UNIX itself. If even the 0.1 release is already so useful, I can only imagine how good the next release will be.
Kudos to you and everyone else who worked on this project. Projects like yours makes me wish I was a better systems hacker and really happy that I switched to OS X. I wish there's some way for me to say thank you since I'm not a good enough programmer to contribute to the project myself. Do you have a tip jar? I really want to contribute to the beer fund if you guys have one :)

I suppose I should get back to work on the 0.2 release now...

I am a little surprised that I am not (yet?) a member in any frequent flyer program, even more so as my wallet presently contains

• a video store membership card,
• a prepaid metro pass,
• a Chinese international telephone card,
• several Japanese and Korean telephone cards,
• an electronics store point card,
• a hospital patient identification card,
• a chain drug store point card,
• a public library membership card,
• two Japanese bank's cash cards,
• a credit card,
• a commuter pass,
• stamp-collecting albums from two bakeries, Starbucks Korea, Virgin megastore, Seattle's Best and a hotel
• two Internet cafe membership cards,
• membership cards from a gym and a swimming pool,
• a Youth Hostel membership card,
• and a supermarket point card.

I am also planning to participate in the Astro Boy Stamp Rally.

I find it increasingly difficult to keep all the different languages spoken around me apart and to always pick the right one to use. Here in Seoul I should probably try to address people in English, but somehow find myself throwing Japanese fragments at them, which they possibly do not like very much. I was much relieved to see that others seem to have the same problem: while shopping for shoes today, the Korean shop-keeper started to praise his merchandise in Japanese, although I had given him no indication that this might even be remotely helpful.

Trilingual meetings, Japanese lessons, Russian colleagues demanding to be spoken to in German in order to practice it, the strange music mix heard in the streets ( K-Pop, J-Pop, Eminem and on this Easter weekend religious chants from Christian processions), none of this makes me feel Babel was a good idea.

A lot of people tell me that Japan (with its economy in a slump for ages) has seen its time and that Korea is the place to be now. For the ignorant Westerner life in Korea and Japan seem to be very similar. People smoke just as much and they even have the strange English consumer product poems:

Sansachun: Sansa is a fruit bearing, broad leafed, plant belonging to the rose species. Red and a pleasant scent. Good for treating weak stomachs, backaches, and cut.

Here are some of Seoul's merits over Tokyo

• everything is much cheaper
• mobile phones are a lot smaller than in Japan (yes, I know how weird that sounds)
• Cherry Coke is sold everywhere
• Internet is everywhere
• not as many expats

On the other hand, while I do not especially like Japanese food, Korean food is spicy enough to easily kill me, taxi drivers here do not like me and Tokyo still gets much more attention than Seoul, so I will probably just wait for Shanghai to overtake them both before going anywhere.

I have been accused of not reading books that are part of a series in the proper order. This has been the case recently with Gibson's Idoru (sequel to Virtual Light) , Anne Rice's Merrick (crossover episode of her series on vampires and on witches) and now Count Zero, sequel to Neuromancer. I probably started this habit back in school with The Two Towers (because The Fellowship of the Ring was rented out). But is this a crime? Or is chronological order even important in this Decade of the Prequel?

Count Zero is as Gibson as it gets. It plays in a dark future, where the world is ruled by mega-corporations, unnaturally rich individuals and probably even some autonomous pieces of software. Ordinary people are brainless consumers of endless entertainment programs, not so ordinary people lead a wild and dangerous life in both the real world and cyberspace, which has become equally important. The book describes how a mercenary, a young hacker, an art dealer and basically everyone they meet gets caught up in some large scale plot between mega-corporations, unnaturally rich individuals and probably even some autonomous pieces of software.

I hate Narita airport. Well, not the airport as such, but its utter remoteness. It is just too far away to honestly call itself Tokyo International Airport. I am going to Korea tomorrow and the flight takes just over two hours. It takes more than two hours to go to Narita. Furthermore, since it is a morning flight, we would have trouble to get there in time, so we actually go to Narita today and take a hotel at the airport (which does not save me from having to get up well before 7).

An important component in the promotion for any kind of merchandise in Japan are strange little English-language poems printed on the package. I am not sure if Japanese people notice them at all (and I am fairly certain most do not understand them), but these slogans are almost everywhere. Here is what my consumption today had to say:

A fragrance of lyokan wraps your skin gently and makes yourself feel relaxed. Enjoy milky yellow hot water.

Pocari Sweat is a healthy beverage that smoothly supply the lost water and electrolytes from perspiration. With appropriate density and electrolyte fluid that is close to that of human body fluid, it can be absorbed into the body.

It is a healthy drink containing much vitamin which mixed condensed milk with a fruit puree.

We assist you in sending messages, heart to heart, when you want to express joy, tenderness or graditude, but you can't find the right way to say it.

Today we saw the Lion King musical, which was fun. Of course, I did not understand any of the dialogue or songs (being Japanese and all), but the story and characters were identical to the movie, so that was no problem. I enjoyed the music of Abba's Mammia Mia more, but the costumes (especially the costumes), decoration, lighting and special effects were great.

Still, watching Disney is not quite the same as watching Mozart or Verdi. But maybe it is just all the talking animals.

I stumbled upon a totally usable Mac OS X port of NetHack 3.4.1 today. I hope it will not steal too much of my time, but I can feel I am already becoming addicted again. Although it is difficult to save the game and go home now, I will leave my level 6 ninja alone with his faithful dog Hachi in level 4 of the Gnomish Mines. I am not sure if I really want him to survive tomorrow.

Must... stop... now ....

The T-Files are actually a side-product of my quest for an easy-to-use tool to generate and maintain a fully static website, which I plan to use to redesign my PerlPad project page.

I want to have a static page because I intend to re-use most of the PerlPad site for the online help system (and of course I do not want to unnecessarily tax SourceForge's resources with a CGI script). It seems much easier these days to find content management systems that require some server-side processing using Perl, Java, PHP or something similar than a good tool to produce static content. I can see the advantages of these tools, which basically boil down to user feedback and online editing capabilities. I cannot really claim to have any measurable user community for PerlPad (yet!) so I do not need these features. Even if I did, I would probably prefer to use SourceForge's own forum systems.

Having said this, I did look into Wiki and weblog systems, but both seemed not to quite fit my purpose. I started using blosxom for this site, however, and was excited about its concept of keeping everything simple, which made me rule out all of the very sophisticated XML-transformation tools that would have been candidates for the job. Ideally, the tool I want would not be a general purpose text processor, but rather something specifically geared towards making websites (or even project documentation websites) that would facilitate making common tasks like creating navigational links and sitemaps. I would also appreciate sample templates I could just use since my own interest in web design is limited at best.

I decided to give HTML::WebMake a try. Just for the record, I also spend some time evaluating the following tools, which all seem useful:

• DocBook with website extension
• FreeMarker with FMPP
• Apache Forrest (based on Cocoon)
• Apache Anakia(based on Velocity)
• XWeb
• DML

I saw a poster of Oliver Kahn on the train to work this morning. He was endorsing what I take to be a consumer loan company.

Advertisement with foreign stars in Japan is currently dominated by David Beckham, whose popularity here has by far transcended those of any Hollywood star. He is omnipresent in Tokyo now. Second in line at the moment is Bob Sapp, whoever that may be.

I love movies, and I love to see them in a cinema. Student life was perfect in that regard, averaging three times a week. Now I am down to once a month, partially because it is expensive, mostly because I don't have time anymore.

I am absolutely convinced that movies need to be seen on the big screen, not only because of the sheer size of the picture or the superior quality of the sound system, but also because of the atmosphere created by the audience. But sometimes, I hate my fellow movie-goers. I do not like them to talk all the time (I consider that my part), I do not like them to laugh too much, I do not like them to take phone call, I do not like them to throw food. None of this is a problem in Japan. People are almost too well-behaved here. I also do not like them to arrive by the hundreds, take literally all the seats and force me to sit separate from the folks I came with (in this case Cissy, my fiancee). This last thing happens in Japan.

5 points

We were much surprised yesterday to find a letter from some construction company in our mail, announcing the construction of a new and tall apartment building in our neighbourhood.

They sent a surprisingly detailed description of their plans, apparently to all the tenants of the quarter. It contained various very professionally-looking charts and maps to inform us about the advantages of the new building and also about the collateral damages it is expected to inflict upon the vicinity. I suppose the construction company is forced by law to issue such a brochure.

I am uncertain what to do with all this information. There does not seem to be anything that can be done about it anyhow. The charts are interesting though: There is one that shows how the shadow of this 12-storied building wanders around during the day, covering a lot of space in the morning and becoming flatter later on. This map looks much like a sun-dial. Another map shows how the reception of TV, radio and satellite signals will be degraded.

A co-worker told me that he believes they will probably have to provide and pay for alternative access to TV and radio. Is this going to get us free cable? Or can we at least show the maps to NHK and stop paying for them (being the only household known to me that does so anyway)? Only time will tell. Construction is set to begin in July and last for a meagre 15 months.

Spending every day an hour on the train gives me enough time to read books (well, not quite enough to pick up The Wheel of Time again, of which I recently acquired the latest volume anyway). My selection will mainly be determined by the offerings of the Shibuya public library, whose foreign language section is rather nice.

IDORU (I recently saw an interview in which Gibson explains why his book titles are all-caps, but somehow did not read it) is my first encounter with William Gibson, not counting the Johnny Mnemonic movie and the Neuromancer game for the C-64. It tells the story of a teenage girl who travels to Tokyo to find out if her favorite singer really has the crazy plan to marry a software agent (the idoru) and of a data detective who gets hired by that singer's security people to find out why he has that idea.

What is most entertaining for me about this book is its description of the future Tokyo, and the constant amazement its daily-life items cause in the two protagonists. In fact, it is a very near future, we already have everything Gibson mentions, and every foreigner makes the same observations. It is fun because it is so authentic:

• high-tech toilets
• strange foreign language T-shirts, and their totally innocent owners who seem to have (hopefully) no clue what the shirt says.
• Shinjuku, lights everywhere, blowing under any door you might try to close.
• Roppongi, where the Natashas are everywhere, sent over by the Kombinat (while I do not go to Roppongi, Natasha tells me it is true).
• and more, about one curiosity on every page

Finally, I got hold of a can of Vanilla Coke. Being a non-alcoholic, my choice of drinks is rather limited, so I am always on the hunt for new kinds of beverages. One of my all-time favorites is Cherry Coke, which is not available everywhere but not all that difficult to come by, either. Another top choice was Fanta Mango. I am deeply disappointed that Coca Cola recently offers so many new Fanta flavors (most of them are just horrible), but failed to revive Fanta Mango.

When shopping for Cherry Coke in my usual outlet (American Pharmacy in Ueno station) I saw that they started selling Vanilla Coke as well. I always wanted to have it, ever since I heard it being ordered in some movie (I think it was Travolta in Pulp Fiction, when Uma Thurman had her Five-Dollar-Shake). Now I only have to find a good opportunity to drink it (same problem as with the 380 yen apple juice last month).

Next on the list is Crystal Coke.

I dont need a special reason to drink the Cherry Coke I also bought. It will go nicely with today's bento. Cheers!

Pictures! See them here.

One of the main reason for having this site is to upload images. Ever since I won this camera in Changi airport I am faced with an increasing number of digital photos. Since everyone knows about the existence of that camera there is no real way to them secret anymore.

Anyway, the engagement party we had in Ueno park was great. A lot of people stopped by, most of them brought plenty of food (a significant part of which ended up at our mansion(*) (**) and will keep me alive for weeks to come), and the weather was plain perfect.

(*) that is a fine example of Japanese English. I promise more of that in the future.

(**) does anyone know how to do footnotes in HTML?

After years without one, I finally have a website, just like everyone else these days. Never kept a diary so not sure if this will have any legible content.

Of course, I spent a great deal of time searching for the best (free) blogging tool and as you can see, I ended up with blosxom. Very low-end, but actually does everything it needs to do. Wonderful what can be done with a 5Kb Perl script. It also features a MacOS X installer package, which is not much bigger to get anyone started in no time.

My main feature request was the ability to run it from my iBook, rendering static HTML with no server-side requirements whatsoever. I suppose I will write another blog about my findings on static HTML rendering tools....