Category: Features

Hi everybody, let me start off by saying that it’s good to be back, and even better that I don’t have to try and reconstruct any data.

So on the 6th I got this email from our hosting company

We will be performing a hardware upgrade on all of our nodes in our current Dallas location on Friday November 7, 2008. The upgrade window will take place from 1:00AM-3:00AM EST. During this time your server will be unavailable for up to 45 minutes.

I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed that the server was down when I checked at 9 AM Friday. I sent a support ticket and they told me that upon restart of the server (note that we’re on a VPS on a very, very large RAID array) it required a fsck.
Continue reading “So… the site was down for a few days”

So I went to my first movie in Japan. What was interesting about it was how much was similar and how much was just different enough.

The theater I went to was the Warner Brothers “Mycal” theater in the Aeon shopping center just down the street, a mile or so away. This was a 10 screen theater or so, and had a lot of movies playing. Of course, the big American ones had opened, Mummy 3, Hancock, Dark Knight, with Wanted opening in a couple days. I decided to go and see Sky Crawlers, the new Mamoru Oshii film.
Continue reading “Ichigo in Japan: Going to the movies”

Sorry it’s been a while since I posted details of my travels. I was down on a small island in the Seto Inland Sea (the name of the straight that runs between the islands of Honshu and Shikoku) for a week with no computer. Then after a day trip to Iga it was time for my first week of work, and I immediately proceeded to get sick and spent pretty much any time not at work in bed. I’m better now, and finally feel up to doing some blogging.

First up, I moved out of my place in Tokyo, and here finally is a picture of the room:

Continue reading “The Seto Inland Sea, Iga and the new Apartment”

So earlier this week I decided to treat myself and went out to Hakone where I visited a spa that was recommended to me by Kaitar. It was a complex with areas called Yunnesun and Mori no Yu. Yunnesun consisted of the title area and Yutopia. Yu means hot water, so it’s both accurate and a pun, classic Japanese humor.
Continue reading “The craziest spa ever, and Japan's government”

Last Friday and Saturday I hung out with Rowensage from the forums. We went around Odaiba and Ueno. First, on the way to Odaiba I shot a picture of Hachiko, the ever faithful dog outside of Shibuya station.

Continue reading “Odaiba, Ueno, Nagano and Hell's Valley”

After my last day in Kyoto I caught the Hikari shinkansen to Shin-Osaka (New Osaka) station. There my friend Mori-san picked me up and drove me to his house in Kashiwara-shi, which is a city to the SE of Osaka. It’s about 30 minutes by car, and right on the Yamatoji line that runs between Osaka and Nara. His parents Ryo and Toyoko are very nice people. Ryo knows a decent amount of English, and they both speak clearly enough that I don’t have trouble understanding their Kansai-ben. Continue reading “Osaka and Nara wanderings”

Hi everyone. Sorry it’s been a few days since my last post. I’ve been busy all day and either too tired or no internet at night. I’m posting this from my friend Mori-san’s laptop in Osaka before I head out to Nara this morning.

Ok, where to start. On the 12th I headed out from Asakusa to Kyoto. I caught the Hikari Shinkansen (bullet train) down to Kyoto. It was about a 2:30 trip, and very nice. I actually talked for the whole time to a guy named Hide-san who was originally from Chiba but had lived in the states for 18 years, currently in Chicago. Continue reading “Kyoto wanderings”

Note, some of these are things I already knew, but now have first-hand experience. If this is what I know from four days, imagine what I’ll know after three months. Continue reading “Things I've learned in my first four days in Japan”

Welcome to the AP news team Fazman. He is our first non-host member of the news team and will be posting Japan and Industry related news. Join me in welcoming him.

Full day #2. I decided to spent more time in Akihabara this time. So I headed over there in the morning. I spent a lot of time just browsing the stores, played a bit more of the Gundam game. I have decided that yesterday must have been a fluke, because this time I got my ass handed to me. Instead of being the top out of both teams, I was near the bottom this time. Plus I was against people with much more advanced mechs, either they had played a lot more or had paid a lot more. I found a great CD called CROSSFIRE BARRAGE by CROW’SCLAW which I’m currently listening to on repeat. It’s all instrumental metal. Continue reading “Tokyo Wanderings #2”