I hate waiting, even in front of a movie theatre. This makes me likely to show up just in time for a movie to start, sometimes even too late for the opening credits (although I hate missing those, too). Well, this strategy does not work with the Ebisu Garden Cinema, at least not on a weekend. The Ebisu Garden Cinema seems to be independent of the big chains that run most of the theatres in Tokyo, and they usually show movies that the others do not. And since those are still pretty mainstream (and not totally obscure art flics), it tends to be sold out early. So when we arrived at 3:15 for our 4:10 show, there were no tickets left. This was the second time this happened, and we ended up arriving at 3:15 for our 7:00 show.

New York. Edward Norton is a convicted drug dealer on his last day in freedom before starting a seven-year prison term, which he spends saying good-byes to his buddies, father, girlfriend, and dog. The film has a very credible cast and interesting characters, but it suffers from too much 9/11 symbolism.

7 points

I checked my web mail account (from which I am normally downloading all mails with Apple Mail and hence almost never get to see the site) and there was the spam message that I saw being downloaded and then disappearing. It was still sitting in my inbox there, marked as unread. So I guess it was just repeatedly downloaded every few minutes, causing that error message to appear all over again. After deleting the email through the web interface, the error disappeared (relief!). So what was wrong with that email? It did not display in the web interface either (although it had a few KB listed for its size), so it was probably seriously broken (perhaps intentionally to trick spam filters), which means that I am not losing mail.

At least I am not losing mail because of my mail application. I sometimes think that emails which I write disappear on the way to their recipient, especially when posting to mailing lists. I do not want to think too much about that.

In the train on the way to work this morning (and just about ten years after the game was originally released) I finished the first episode (Knee Deep in the Dead) of Doom. So can someone please port Duke Nukem 3D to GP32 (ideally before Duke Nukem Forever comes out) ?

This must be an Internet addict's worst nightmare.

Recently I noticed Apple Mail fetching some emails and then I could not find them in my inbox (or in any other folder). Instead I have this in the console log:

2004-01-29 20:12:17.167 Mail[923] failed to append message  (_rangeOfBytes: Out of bounds)

In fact, I have a lot of these error messages. The mails I watched disappearing have all been spam (Mail displays the subject line while fetching), but this is not the spam filter at work (it just files spam away, not makes it disappear). I am trying to comfort myself by assuming that those spam messages were somehow malformed and this does not happen to normal mails.

I am worried.

Breakfast

Half of a cake made from apple and sweet potato (the whole cake was 714 yen). Jasmine tea.

Lunch

The second half of the apple cake.

Afternoon

Three Cissy-made waffles with baked-in banana slices.

Dinner

Cissy cooked chicken filets (spiced with some herbs and lemons) and green paprica (combined material cost around 300 yen). A piece of chocolate pie (100 yen). Some sour jelly gums.

Night

During the 9 o'clock movie (The Faculty, viciously cut for time, I hate TV) a pack of potato chips (120g, 180 yen)

When I first came to Japan I had never had a mobile phone and had never wanted one. However, having such a contraption is almost a necessity here, and frankly, quite convenient. So one of the first things I did during my second coming was to get a prepaid phone (since the stay was short I could not get involved with a lengthy contract obligation), and I use that same phone until today, which puts me on the way to become the owner of the oldest handset in Japan. There is no reason to switch from prepaid to contract, because with my usage patterns (basically only to receive calls) prepaid is fantastically cheap (1500 yen/month). So far, I have also stubbornly resisted the pressure to upgrade for any of the nice features that Japanese phones are so famous for. I have none of the following: colour display, dial tone polyphony, Internet access, email, digital camera, music player, GPS (including live map display and route guidance), TV reception, English-language user interface, games, Java, dictionary.

But this week I was tempted to get the latest innovation, mainly because it is just too weird to not want to have it: Sanyo introduced a new handset at the beginning of this year which you do not have to hold to your ear to listen. Instead you can press it against any bone in your head, which will cause vibrations in your skull that allow you to hear voices in your head. I ended up not buying it after all, because

• it would have been quite expensive for me to keep my number,
• it did not work all that well. You have to shut out normal hearing (which is fine if you work on a construction site and wear one of those protective headsets, but otherwise completely negates the usability gain) and even then, the volume was quite low (probably higher volumes would be unhealthy, who knows),
• the look of the handset is not so great,
• and finally, going from Sony to Sanyo does not feel like an upgrade, really (I am becoming kind of a brand person, at least in electronics).

Our strawberry-flavored milk drink is the smooth and tasty way to freshen up your day.

Koiwai Farmed Since 1891

Breakfast

A glass of (you can guess it by now) grapefruit juice. Later a pack of strawberry milk (250ml, 90 yen, see above).

Lunch

Spaghetti with potatoes from Hokkaido, sausages and basil. Two (small) glasses of Coke. Salad. A piece of layer cheese cake and a cup of orange pekoe tea (all together 814 yen). A Japanese sweet bean bun (anman).

Afternoon

Kaiten (rotation) sushi: three plates of tuna, two plates of egg, with green tea (together 525 yen)

Dinner

Jasmine tea. Half a sweet potato cake (the whole cake was 1050 yen). A strawberry yoghurt (Danone, 85g, 207 yen for a pack of four).

Viking is another good example of Japanese English. It does not denote a pirate from among the Northmen, who plundered the coasts of Europe in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. The term is used for an all-you-can eat buffet (which you can hence plunder at will, so a Viking would probably enjoy it, too)

Breakfast

Three mandarin oranges and a glass of grapefruit juice. A sandwich (just cheese, ham was out, my fault).

Lunch

A lot of food and fruits and juice at the Oslo (1150 yen, 31st floor, great view). The Oslo being a Scandinavian restaurant makes viking a good choice of words, actually.

Afternoon

Two Xylitol, one Werther's Original and a similar Meiji Chocolate candy.

Dinner

Two xiao long bao and eight shaomai (both are kinds of Chinese dumplings, filled with meat, together 840 yen). Two glasses of grapefruit juice.

Dirk Gently, hired by someone he never meets, to do a job that is never specified, starts following people at random. His investigations lead him to Los Angeles, through the nasal membranes of a rhinoceros, to a distant future dominated by estate agents and heavily armed kangaroos. Jokes, lightly poached fish, and the emergent properties of complex systems form the background to Dirk Gently's most baffling and incomprehensible case.

This is what Douglas Adams described the unfinished Salmon of Doubt to his agent at one time. Later, he said he lost touch with the character and is more likely to turn the story into a new Hitchhiker novel. Unfortunately, his untimely death prevented him from doing either.

This book contains material about life, the universe, and everything that was culled posthumously from his fleet of beloved Macintosh computers (the guy had PowerBooks long before they became affordable to ordinary mortals): The unfinished Salmon only makes up less than one third. There are two (previously published) short stories (Young Zaphod Plays It Safe and The Private Life of Genghis Khan), and dozens of articles, interviews, letters, speeches, notes and quotations about science-fiction magazines, Paul McCartney's birthday, school trousers, the alphabet, word games, his nose, The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins, dogs, driving in foreign countries, Procul Harum, New Year's Resolutions, drinks, writing new introductions for old books, The Sound of Music, his dream team, inspiration, travelling, scuba diving with manta rays, favourite authors, tea, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in a rhino costume, phonetically close nouns, the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, plug-and-play, web sites, technology, atheism, e-mail, predictions, office chairs, palm top computers, power adaptors, Internet publishing, insurance contracts, science, statistics, an artificial god, and trying to make a movie.

So remember to bring your towel when you go out and buy this book or at least follow these links.

Today was rather irregular, since I worked overnight yesterday (Oracle server hardware upgrade) and slept through most of today.

Breakfast

Half a pack of boiled pork wieners. Cooked them myself (yeah!), no side dishes.

Afternoon

The second half of the wieners (the whole pack had 291g and cost 298 yen). Four mandarin oranges.

Shakey's Pizza quickly be came known as the world's greatest pizza. But we wanted to grow beyond a beer and pizza joint. We were determined to become what we are today. A fun family restaurant with a varied menu. but we still prepare our own dough fresh every day and use only the finest of ingredients. Shakey's does serve the world's greatest pizza.

Breakfast

Two mandarin oranges and a glass of grapefruit juice.

Lunch

A sandwich and some mint chocolates.

Afternoon

Mint chocolate from England, several Kit Kats, a pork sausage on a stick (am-pm, 105 yen), a milk drink called Nissin Pirkle(500ml, 105 yen)

Dinner

Half a pizza (ham and pineapple) and a glass of Coke at Shakey's (1218 yen)

I am feeling Heisenberg effects here. I am kind of tempted to eat unusual and interesting things for the sake of this report. On the other hand, I am also tempted to eat as normal as possible, which would also cause some distortion. I will try to ignore this.

Breakfast

A glass of grapefruit juice. A sandwich.

Lunch

A chicken filet with some vegetables and fried potatoes (cold and few), miso soup, a bowl of rice and a cup of oolong tea (all from the office cafeteria for 400 yen). A can of Tropicana mixed fruit juice (peach, orange, grapes, strawberry, 280g, 100 yen).

Afternoon

One litre of milk (207 yen). Some Bahlsen cookies and Katjes fruit gum pilfered from co-worker's desks (interesting that Japanese shop German for sweets). One Giant Pocky.

Dinner

Three mandarin oranges and a waffle.

If I was told I had to choose the cuisine of one country and eat only that for the rest of my life, I'd choose Japanese.

Douglas Adams, in an interview with The Observer, March 1995

While I feel that I cannot concur with Mr. Adams here, it turned out that I could also not adequately answer the many questions tossed at me during our recent return to Germany, as to what I eat every day, what I like most, if it is expensive, if it is enough. To be better prepared in the future, I will record all that goes down for one week.

Breakfast

A glass of grapefruit juice and two Cissy-made waffles.

Lunch

Two Cissy-made sandwiches (ham, cheese). A bowl of beef strips on rice with raw egg (gyudon), a cup of miso soup, a potato salad (all from Yoshinoya for together 500 yen). Two Xylitol mints.

Afternoon

A pack of strawberry milk (250ml, 90 yen). A Kit-Kat (99 yen)

Dinner

A small bottle of mandarin orange juice (350ml, 150 yen). An apple and two more waffles.

In order to make more use of my new server, the domain I bought last year and to experiment with wiki technology, I am about to launch Weblog Japan. If it works, it could become a good source of information for people travelling to or living in Japan. For that, it needs to have some initial content (it is empty now). I intend to toss it at the Kanto Trainee list, but before they can play with the site it needs to be a little more polished (especially concerning explanatory pages), and maybe some more features (such as search). But the basic features are already working. See it at http://www.weblog-japan.com/.

It is also a social experiment. I want to see how long such a site can exist without any kind of access control.

Clint Eastwood directs Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon (and he also composed and arranged the music) in this tragic story about three boys whose life gets derailed after one of them is abducted by perverts, and how they meet again 25 years later on different sides in a murder case.

7 points

Christian and Michaela's wedding started with a small religious ceremony at the visitor's centre of the Baha'i European House of Worship (it was unfortunately not held directly in the impressive dome itself). There was not much ceremony, just a few wise words from the priest and two reciters with perfect voices that led up to the pair taking their oaths (to always obey the wishes of the Lord). Afterwards, everyone relocated to a rather expensive (and over-crowded) restaurant on a mountain top (since no one really knew the way there, this was a fun trip). There was plenty of fine food and juices (totally non-alcoholic, nice touch). It was great to meet some old friends and a good opportunity to wear my green Chinese wedding suit again (which did not especially stand out, since the bride wore oriental gold, there was one more China dress and some other rather strange apparel around).

My parents took Jutta, Cissy and me to see Holiday on Ice in Frankfurt. The show was called Diamonds and consisted of a dozen of unrelated scenes with completely different themes (such as the 1920s, a medieval tournament, and an oil painting). But the skating and especially the costumes and light effects have been terrific (for example in the underwater scene which also involved kites and some acrobatics with a trapeze hanging from the roof.

We took Austrian Airlines to Frankfurt and since the flight was via Vienna, we decided to stop by for three days and take a look. We saw the Schönbrunn Palace (sans Labyrinth and Imperial Garden, both closed in winter), the Coach Collection, Mozart's Magic Flute performed by puppets, the Imperial Apartments and Silver Collection, Secular and Ecclesiastical Treasuries, the Butterfly House, the State Hall in the National Library, the Esperanto museum, the House of Music, the Hundertwasser Village, and loads of snow.

Now I want the DVD boxed set. The problem will be finding the right one, there are bound to be many different editions.

7 points

Because of their experience in slaughtering Indians, a team of US army officers is hired by the Japanese government in 1876 to train Japanese troops in putting down regional rebellions, in this case samurai who oppose the Westernisation of Japan. The samurai capture Tom Cruise in their first encounter, but impressed with his bravado they keep him alive and take him to their village in the mountains, where by the end of winter he has come to appreciate the Way of the Samurai and turns against his employers to join the samurai in their final battle. All of this makes me want to watch Shogun again.

8 points

Probably the biggest of the numerous festivals of the Japanese year is New Year, and an integral part is sending out postcards with New Year messages. The post office prints over 4 billion special postcards, whose postage includes a three-yen donation to charities and a national-lottery ticket (all cards are individually numbered and winning numbers are announced in mid-January). The cards are themed according to the Chinese calendar (although the Chinese year does not start on January, 1st), which assigns one of twelve animals to each year. 2003 was the Year of the Sheep, 2004 is the Year of the Monkey. Statistics show that each household sends an average of 100 cards. Businesses easily surpass that.

We wrote about sixty cards this year. Unfortunately, we could not send all of them so far, because we are having some special stamps printed, and those are taking longer than expected and have not arrived as of today. Since we are leaving for Europe tomorrow and cannot send them until we come back, about a third of the cards will be awfully delayed. Well, they should still be in time for the Chinese New Year....