Hawaii in Shibuya!

Well it was an interesting day out today in Shibuya! We finally had a great day weather wise, not too hot and not too humid. Made for a wonderful day to go out and spend some time (and some money) in Shibuya. Kiyomi and I managed to get quite a few deals on some things from the home... including a leather carpet (sounds strange but it looks really good).

Wandering around Shibuya we stumbled across a promotion for Lemon Water... featured some nice little Hawaiian dancers. Was a treat to be sure.

Shake Up in the Tech Market

Hey well being a geek lots to write about today in the tech market. Two big things that really affect AMD. The first boring one is that AMD will have a big price cut on all its CPUs. Not always a great thing to compete on price... people will always view your brand as cheap. Right Hyundai?

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/23/amd_slashes_desktop_processor_prices/

The second thing is that AMD has also bought out ATI. Not a great buy in my mind as AMD has better synergy (love the marketing speak) with Nvidia. Oh well being Canadian I hope this works out for all my fellow Canadian Techies and then more have jobs and better lifestyles due to this. Not the other way around.

If it isn't enough that all we get is rain this summer. I think we have had about two weeks strait of rain and pretty much no sun (ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Vancouver). Which kind of kills my cycling, and pretty much everyone else's summer! Oh well it will get better soon. It has too. Well maybe not, we are heading into Typhoon season! Only gets better here folks.

Anyhow as it was hot, humid and rainy the wife and I stopped in at our little local Kaiten Sushi ya. (Conveyor Belt Sushi place). The place is okay, and really cheap so a nice healthy and dinner would hit the spot. Well going around the conveyor when we sat down were two different kinds of Whale Sushi. No... I didn't have any. I have already eaten the protected creatures! Don't recommend it. Tastes really rubbery and really oily. Definately a meal to be skipped.

Feeling a little down? Maybe what you need is some Deepresso! What a great name. Actually it comes form some kind of deep pressure thing that they use for this coffee. Nevertheless it really does not sound like much of a pick me up. I think I will stick with my really crappy café lattes that I get from the machine at work. They are free and at least they don't come in a can.

Proving A Point

A little while ago I wrote an article on backing up. Today a friend contacted me and her harddrive had failed. (BTW it was a Maxtor hard drive - if you can completely avoid this junk). She drove the PC over to my house, and we checked it out... unfortunately the HDDwas making a "clicking" sound and would not boot. I did try putting it in an external firewire container I have, and also hooking it up as a second drive in my PC but no luck. She and her husband have just lost all there data. I feel terrible for them as I can imaging how this is. Photos, addresses, Resumes, everything...

So let me say again. BUY EXTERNAL STORAGE AND BACK YOUR IMPORTANT STUFF UP. (CD-roms and DVD-Roms are acceptable too). Have some form of backup solution please. You will save yourself a lot of pain.

Me and My Toys

I got a great deal on a new dell 24" monitor. They had a great sale going on recently and it was reduced by more than 50%. It is a great monitor an I am really happy with it so far. Absolutely huge, which makes watching DVD's and multimedia stuff on it great. I really recommend it for anyone that is looking of a large size LCD. Especially if the price points keep getting pushed down.

Oh the other toy is my new light up keyboard from Logitech ... nice piece of kit too.

Click the me and my toys title to get to the dell site for more information.

Its Undergound!!!

A good friend of mine once said ... "I have come to terms that they will not burry the line within my life time". Well buddy... you were wrong!!! Two Sundays ago Tokyo started operating the underground lines that they started to install in the 16th century. They were commissioned to do so by the Tokugawa shogunate. Well we call all ride our quick and nice new subway now.

The station doesn't feel the same. Mostly because it is underground and there is no view, but also as it is sweltering hot. Maybe they should have built some kind of ventilation.

Changes in Musashikoyama

In my area they have knocked dowm pretty much an entire city block. Gone are all the little shops and houses that were in this area and soon a 21 story monolith will be erected in their place. I anticiptate that this will really change the feel and atmosphere of my little are of Tokyo.

Although I do have to say that it will be a great location and near the station...

Get External Storage

If you use your computer a lot, and store a lot of digital photos etc... get an external hard drive. External storage is a great way to easily and quickly back up data and even some important settings. If you do not do it... you will regret it.

Visit Germany

I am sure that my friend Fraser will agree with this... This is the new German tourist ad that is up and around my office.

It is nice to see that Claudia Schiffer is still around, I had not heard of her in a bit. I thought she may have been been destroyed by news of my marriage. But good to see that she is doing well and working again. For some reason my wife laughed when I said this.