Thursday, March 29, 2007

24 Degrees!





Yup nice and warm today. Was out and about on the bike, and for lunch went to the gardens at the palace. Here are a few photos of today.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

A Few Random Thoughts


So the blossoms are coming out and Tokyo is turning into a nice city! I personally find that Tokyo is a bit drab at the best of times, but that is not the case during the cherry blossom seasons. People head out, sit under the bright pink trees and generally have a good time. Most companies will have some form of Hanami or another, with drinks and food. This is about one of the best times to visit Japan, if the weather co-operates!

Last post I was told was a bit too much of poetry about the bike... well will be sure to fix that! No more poetry from me. Re-reading it was a bit forlorn I thought, but really was in a good mood that day, and was reminiscing about all the good times that I had spent on the old two wheels! I think that I have maybe lived here a little too long and have started to spout Haiku without even knowing it. HAHAHAH.

Vista is going well, no really big issues and finally synced my hand held with it. Not really any fault of vista, hadn't really gotten around to doing it. It does seem to take a lot of memory though. I have two gigs and the thing is using at least half of it even just browsing the web. Like I said before... if you don't have a new PC don't bother, just stick with good old dependable (and vulnerable) windows XP.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Day Off

Today is one of those wierd Japanese holidays that take place in the middle of the week. It was nice to have a little lie in, watch some movies and generall have a little bit of a lazy day. Kiyomi and I went for a small little bike ride togehter for a chunk of the afternoon, just enjoying the neighbourhood. Hope everyone got out today and enjoyed the nice weather.

Here is a picture of my old bike, the one that I started on ... Many kilometers have been covered on it. Kiyomi is using it now, I still think it is a good bike, and on the occasion that I take it out... am surprised by its speed and agility.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The Vista is Not Bad

Actually I would say it is fairly polished, and much better than I expected. But then again I was expecting that pretty much nothing would work properly. While my PC is okay by todays standards it was pretty much kick ass about a year ago. So seems that it exceeds a lot of the requirements that Vista expects.

If you have an older system I would still say.... DON'T upgrade. If you have a slower system... SAME advice. Stick with XP nothing wrong with it. (Heck I have to say I still pretty much like Windows 2000.)

Monday, March 19, 2007

How's the Vista

Well I am jumping in the Vista nightmare in the next couple of days. I have backed up most of my Data, and basically am just planning to swap in a new drive and do a clean install. This basically is the most expensive, but the least risky scenario, as if anything goes wrong (baring hardware failure) I am pretty comfortable with just swapping the cable out and using my existing XP build.

The vista packaging is quite neat actually. I am kind of surprised at this by Microsoft, as it is really a little bit more functional than I thought they would come up with. Nice packaging is the least that they can do, as you don't actually "buy" the software... remember this folks. You only buy a "License" to allow you to use the software, and under very specific conditions. (I'll let you all know how the setup goes for the internet and activation... key components in the setup now).



If I can update this blog from my PC later... will be happy :)

Got this decidedly DOS looking screen the during the install.

Greek, Irish Japanese Relations

For those who are interested... here is a little bit about a guy who did
a lot for Greek-Irish American relations... :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn

Holy Crap it is Cold

Well you can forget what I had said about a warm stretch. The blossoms may have started to come out, but holy crap it has gotten cold over the last two weeks. We have dropped to below ten degrees for most days now. Which I know that it isn't that cold by Canadian standards, but you guys have insulation and central heating. When it is -40 or something else completely crazy outside, at least it is nice and warm and toasty inside your house. In Japan.... not so lucky. When it is 5 degrees outside... it is five degrees inside (actually sometimes colder in my downstairs). At least it has been sunny.

Hope everyone out there had a good little St. Patrick's day. In Japan here they Tokyo tower was illuminated in Green, both for the day and to celebrate fifty years of bi-lateral relations between Ireland and Japan. Paul and I through a little party for some friends, it was good fun. Hopefully we can do a similar thing in the coming years. The place that we used is a fantastic little shop in Musashikoyama near my house. I completely recommend it if you have a small event to do in Tokyo. They are flexible, and hard working. Cannot recommend them enough.

http://dbc.apartment-key.com/

Monday, March 05, 2007

Happy Birthday Arch!

Well a quick word on the blog here for my friend (and former manager) Arch. Most of you who know me these days will know Arch too. We were paired up for a long time here at UBS, and even though he has left to go on to bigger and better things we still will strive to find the time for the occasional beer. (Although with the up coming change of role, I hope I still have time for things like that!).

Well Arch has reached the 40th milestone, and a big congratulations for him. About thirty of us were able to get out to meet up with him for a surprise party on Saturday. The event was very very fun, and Miyuki chose a great place (click the happy birthday title above). If you are in Tokyo and you like a good little bit of the 80s... then this place is good fun, and highly recommended.

Big thanks to Miyuki for coming up with the idea, getting the wheels in motion, selecting the place, working for the list, and just being a very very good party organizer! Great cake too!

All the best, and thanks to all those who attended!