The first rule of Nuts and Gum is....

I am just starting out with this blog and I am a bit uncertain about what I am going to do with this. While I doubt I will come up with a Fight Club list of rules, I suspect that things will boil down along these lines:

I am not going to write about personal things in a specific sense. The world already has far too many blogs that go '“I did this, I did that, I am God's special snowflake , Oh, the drama of my life (well, that'’s a bit unfair, as her site is pretty good, but she cranks up the drama too much at times). While blogs, by their nature are personal and usually selfish, since 99.9999% of the people who do the blogs are not doing it for financial gain but for their own reasons. In my case, this effort is a reason for me to write things down and to chew over some ideas. So I will mention some things that going on in my life, but I suspect most of that will be things I will mention to explain context ('“When I was in _______, I saw this'” or '“I was talking to one of my friends and the topic of ____ came up'”).

I will frequently bring up marketing, advertising and new products, since I find these topics interesting…although I know most people don'’t. So it might seem that I really like candy bars and soft drinks, but it is more that, at this moment, I keep running into new ones that seem odd.

I will frequently refer to Japan and Japanese things because that is another topic I find interesting and it seems that a good number of my friends are curious about it to some degree or at least curious about why I'’m interested in it.

These two orientations will also likely intersect on the topic of video games, which I used to play frequently, although I now play them as much less frequently than I did in the past. However, they are likely to be a large component of Project Arcturus, so they will come up in passing.

I am using this blog to try to improve my writing skills. While I don’t think my style is horrible, I wouldn'’t go as far to say it is good, and some fresh posts may be a bit rough (run-on sentences and dropped articles are common flaws). Don'’t be surprised if I retroactively edit most of my posts.

I better add script writer to my resume as well

Apparently the latest James Bond effort (with the hard hitting working title of "Bond 21") is sidelined while they are working to develop a script. Well, Eon productions, about 5 minutes of web browsing has come up with your next blockbuster script......

Take this snippet of news
"Strong demand has left Sony (NYSE: SNE) , the manufacturers of the PS2, short, and supplies for Europe have been held up after the container vessel from China was caught up in heavy canal traffic.

Sony is airlifting emergency supplies in a last-ditch attempt to bolster stocks in time for Christmas. A company spokesperson said: "A super-tanker full of PlayStation2s from our factory in China got stuck in the Suez Canal. We are having to make arrangements to fly them over in Russian cargo planes."

Toss in some of Sony's super creepy PSP femme/homme bots (see below) and an evil Chinese electronics tycoon trying to take over the world via video game hardware...You can have the climax on a supertanker in the Suez...instead of videogame hardware, it contains a some sort of super weapon (total rip of Metal Gear Solid:Sons of Liberty)... Add a Japanese love interest and have the antagonist's HQ in Roppongi Hills to milk the 'Japan cool' factor and the rest writes itself....Have your people call my people and we’ll hash out the treatment over a smoothie at the pool at Beverly Hills Hotel.

http://psp.ign.com/articles/567/567340p1.html?fromint=1

Added 12/22/04
And here's some more real world news to work into the script.
Sony, the Japanese electronics company, has made an important breakthrough in its efforts to combat large-scale piracy of its PlayStation games console in China after a long investigati on that uncovered parts being assembled in a prison.

The probe, conducted over five years, has unearthed a web of at least 10 sub- contractors with a production capacity of 50,000 units a day for PlayStation consoles and controllers, as well as "modifying" chips.

Ladies Happy Xmas partywear

There are a massive numbers of things in Japan that one can question the wisdom/fairness/the point of, but then you see something like this and those thoughs go out the window and you just sigh and wish you were there. Mega Kawaii!.

Tokyu Hands is a store with Household DIY (think of a cross between REI and IKEA) with some hobby store elements along with things like stationary, luggage, and party goods. You can see some shots of their Halloween costumes in the Halloween photo album on the left.

And just like gashapons, they come with "variations" as well. I believe I actually saw something like this one the left in an UFO (crane grabbing arcade machine) machine in Shinjuku in October, but I haven't been able to find the photo as of yet.

Here are the men's outfits
When I arrived in Tokyo on my last trip, the first thing I saw on when I turned the TV on was some power ranger varient show, in which the college aged power rangers (who by day work as group on a coffee shop on wheels) helped to free Santa (actually, several dozen Santas) from some evil trap....and the main bad guy was a really petulent 12 year old boy in short pants.

For more on Christmas in Japan, and the answer to "Do all Japanese people eat at KFC for Christmas dinner?", read more at

http://www.bigempire.com/sake/christmas.html

Optimus Prime is my President

From my various readings of other blogs, it seems that it some sort of rule that blogs have some political aspect, even if just in passing. Since I am just starting out with this, I thought I would just get this out of the way and state up front that Optimus Prime is My President.

As I was checking google to make sure that I was correctly spelling “Optimus” (duh, I guess I could have just looked at the photo) when I ran across this. It is a bit old, but it makes me miss the level of hard hitting TV news coverage in Cleveland (where dogs wandering out on the ice of Lake Erie was once a lead off story on the local news).

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_fullstory.asp?id=3828

POSTED: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 4:02:13 AM
National guardsman changed his name to a toy
CUYAHOGA FALLS -- A member of Ohio's 5694th National Guard Unit in Mansfield legally changed his name to a Transformers toy.

Optimus Prime is heading out to the Middle East with his guard unit on Wednesday to provide fire protection for airfields under combat.

"On Sunday, we were announced as the best firefighting unit in the Army National Guard in the entire country," said Prime. "That was a big moment for us."

Prime took his name from the leader of the Autobots Transformers, which were popular toys and a children's cartoon in the 1980s.

He legally changed his name on his 30th birthday and now it's on everything from his driver's license, to his military ID, to his uniform.

"They razzed me for three months to no end," said Prime. "They really dug into me about it."

A few months later he was released from active duty due to a family tragedy when his house burned down.
He’s now back in Iraq working for KBR.
Here’s his current site
http://optimusprime.iwarp.com/

So, how was Japan?

I’ll be getting onto various Japanese topics/stories from my trip further down the line in this blog, but to answer the general question of “how was the trip?” The trip was fine. It didn’t go quite the way I had expected (more about this later) but it went OK. Yeah, three typhoons was annoying but the real crappy thing was the numerous but relatively small (in Tokyo at least) earthquakes. However, after this one,

and then a couple days of large aftershocks from this earthquake, I packed it in and called the trip short by a few weeks. By this stage, I wasn’t having any fun (amazing how constant earth movement in an area due for a massive earthquake and thinking you are going to die constantly can suck all the joie de vivre out of you) nor was I getting much done. I made my mind up and I was out of the country 28 hours later. But I did manage to avoid this one.

These images are from the Japan Weather Association website and use the Japanese earthquake scale, which is different than the Richter scale. This scale is based on how it feels to people vs. the Richter that estimates the intensity at the point of the earthquake. So using the Japanese scale, earthquakes can be referred to as a 6+ in one place and 4 somewhere else. Here is a summary of the scale.

7: In most buildings, wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged and fall. In some cases, reinforced concrete-block walls collapse.

6+: In many buildings, wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged and fall. Most unreinforced concrete-block walls collapse

6-: In some buildings, wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged and fall.

5+: In many cases, unreinforced concrete-block walls collapse and tombstones overturn. Many automobiles stop due to difficulty in driving. Occasionally, poorly installed vending machines fall.

5-: Most people try to escape from danger, some finding it difficult to move.

4: Many people are frightened. Some people try to escape from danger. Most sleeping people awake.

3: Felt by most people in the building. Some people are frightened.

2: Felt by many people in the building. Some sleeping people awake.

1: Felt by only some people in the building.

0: Imperceptible to people.


The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s website has an 88 page PDF files for English speakers that goes over various earthquake issues. It is an interesting read, if only for the yes/no flowcharts(fire/no fire, house intact/house destroyed) and the ominous sounding “disaster message exchange”-a government telephone switchboard that allows people to leave messages for one another during a disaster. And it talks a lot about not listening to rumors but only getting information from the government source. That’s not too surprising considering that J folks rioted after the last big one in 1923 and massacred thousands of Koreans living in the Tokyo area. During my stay into Tokyo, I mentally programmed myself to be continuously aware of my current location in relationship to the US embassy, so assuming I wasn't immediately crushed to death or killed in a post earthquake firestorm, I would know which direction to go in order to put some US marines between me and the seriously pissed off Tokyo populace. But the best thing in this guide is the happy carp mascot they have on the “emergency road closure” signs. Just because a disaster happened and tens of thousands of people are dead doesn’t mean you have to dump kawaii mascots.

http://www.seikatubunka.metro.tokyo.jp/index3files/survivalmanual.pdf

Latest Earthquake reports from Japan Weather Association. Using the menu box, you can see the time, location and intensity of the last 99 seismic events in Japan.

http://www.tenki.jp/qua/index.html