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May 22, 2008

Relaxing

at the mountain cafe. camera battery died.

May 18, 2008

It’s been just a week and I really, really am enjoying my time in Japan. When I was back in February for another conference, I didn’t feel as good as like this, probably because of the shortness of my stay, the cold weather and my horrible pollen allergy at that time. This time the weather is good (not great) and I meet with great people again in Japan, as well as hackers coming to YAPC. The conference was supported by tireless contributions by really random people out there and I’m really grateful to that. This week I’m getting back to work a little bit and will head to the north (Hakodate) to get a bit relaxed and have another great seafood there. Oh, and the few things I miss while I’m in Japan: The heat (I really like hot weather) and Love Psychedelico at SF Apple Store.

May 07, 2008

Life Hack with stopover

As a frequent flyer I always have been wondering how useful this “stopover” thing is and how you can abuse it. Originally I was thinking that it’s just to stay over 24 hours on the airports en route, so it’s like stopping by Chicago for a day if you fly to Paris. Actually it is, but you can do more by abusing it.The first thing that come to my mind is that when I fly from San Francisco to Japan and then to Taiwan to attend to a conference or hacking in Taipei city. If you book separately SFO-NRT and NRT-TPE like I always do, it’s like $1400 + $500 in this season. However, if you book SFO-TPE on ANA and ask for a stopover in NRT (because the flight stops via NRT anyway), it’s just $1400 + $100 (ANA charges $100 per stopover). You can stop by Tokyo as long as you want, up to 3 months. Another advanced technique is to use stopover is to combine that with your mileage awards and purchase the air ticket issued in Taipei/Seoul. For instance, I can get the round-trip NRT-TPE economy award, valid for 1 year with 15,000 miles (ticket A). You can then book a flight TPE-HNL (via NRT) 1 year open, with stopover at NRT, for $850 (ticket B). Now you can do things like this (dates are made up randomly): June 15: NRT -> TPE (A)- (tourism in Taipei city)- June 18: TPE -> HNL via NRT (B)- (relaxed in Honolulu for 4 days)- June 22: HNL -> NRT (B)- (4 months stop over at Narita. Maybe back and forth to San Francisco for business trip)- Oct 10: NRT -> TPE (B)- (another tourism in Taipei)- Oct 13: TPE -> NRT (A)So you get two Taipei trips and one Hawaii trip for $850 and 15,000 miles (obviously not including fees for hotels). The point is that 1) Use your mileage award because it gives you 1 year valid ticket which is very expensive usually and 2) Buy tickets from Taiwan or Seoul because it’s extra cheap with 1 year open dates.And yes, I can do this while I go to Japan with my business/private trip (paid by the company, Yay). Maybe I’ll try next time… This time the schedule is a bit tight so I’m thinking of going to somewhere in Japan. And actually flying to anywhere in Japan is $110 if you fly from USA, which is still a good deal as well.

April 20, 2008

Light Song

April 17, 2008

Flickr does video, so does Vox

MVI_0592Most boring test video evar.

April 16, 2008

Mariah and Perfume

GAME(DVD付) 【初回限定盤】PerfumeE=MC2Mariah CareyIt might not be just a coincidence they’re released on the same day. They’re both great and I guess they make the best pop album for this year in JP and US. 6Aers can enjoy Perfume’s one on my iTunes share if you’re on the wireless network :)

April 12, 2008

Perfume - Secret Secret

April 11, 2008

Going to Paris

SFO - CDG via ORDThinking of going to Paris the weekend after the next (April 24-28). And here’s the first candidate flight from Kayak.com. It’s freaking cheap $670 deal so I’d love to take it, but it’s 37 minute layover in ORD, switching aircrafts. Is that really possible? There are other flights connecting in Dulles and they have 1.5-2 hours layover, and will arrive at 7am in Paris (ugh).

April 09, 2008

Teaser: new video conduit for Vox

PreviewComing soon!

April 07, 2008

Casio EX-F1 300fps movie

April 07, 2008

Blu-ray pricing in Japan

First Code Geass Series to be Sold on Blu-ray in Japan - Anime News Networkhttp://www.animen…Code Geass is one of my favoite Anime series currently on the air. This Sunday the 2nd season started and I was impressed by the astonishing HD video quality of it (though the anti-piracy message embedded in the opening was quite annoying and spoiled the episode). There was also an announcement of making the series available in Blu-ray. Since Blu-ray region code is shared in USA/JPN it’s a good movement, but the pricing is, as always, problematic. The Blu-ray version costs $70 per 3 episodes, so it’s eventually $700 for a whole season. That’s just simply ridiculous. Most of us can’t afford that price. It’s a mistake. Bandai, I’d love you to make H264 720p DRM-free movie files available for downloads, and I’ll pay $3/episodes or $70 for the season. You can do that with almost no cost, because P2P can solve the bandwidth problem, and you don’t need to care about DRM because we can always pirate DRM-free version, and uploading copyrighted materials is illegal per Japanese law anyway, regardless of the files are DRMed or not.

April 05, 2008

66666

Inbox

April 04, 2008

The Starting Line at Slim's

IMG_0510.JPGWent to The Starting Line show last night at Slim’s. I really love their songs “Up and Go”, “Leaving”, “Greg’s Last Day” and “Best of Me” and they played them all! The club was really crowded and full of youngsters. Last.fm tells me that I was probably the oldest there :)

April 01, 2008

Fukudome, your three hits superb debut "was an accident"

Google Translate tricked Cubs fans thoughtlessly | Asiajinhttp://asiajin.com/blog/2008/04/01/go…偶然だぞCubs fans with signs saying “偶然だぞ” = “It was an accident.” They wanted to say “It’s gonna happen” to welcome their rookie player Fukudome, but Google Translate didn’t help. LOL.

March 28, 2008

Tatsuhiko Miyagawa's Blog

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