1-hour in the kitchen.

7-hours of full stomach (these were big burgers).

eternal cuteness.

Credit to Instructibles.

It’s customary as a guest at Japanese weddings to give a special envelope of freshly minted bills. So customary is this practice, every convenience store sells the special envelopes. Here’s one I picked up at the Seven-Eleven around the corner:

Like a McDonald’s kids meal plastic puzzle, there a couple pieces that must be combined. Here are the pieces:

The bills you give must be freshly minted, 10,000 yen bills in odd amounts. An even number of bills is a poor omen, as the amount can be split evenly between the newlyweds. An inner envelope holds the cash.

There are two “greeting slips” depending on the occasion, one for general congratulations:

and one specifically for wedding congratulations:

For my occasion, I picked the wedding one:

The inner envelope with the cash gets put inside the outer envelope …

On the back where the outer envelope is closed, the layering of the flaps makes a difference:

The top half folds under the bottom half if the gift is for a glorious occasion (wedding, graduation, etc.); the bottom half folds under the top half if it’s a condolence gift (funeral, etc.). Don’t want to mistake this one!

アマゾンからのパクリ：

アーティストについて

約2000組のアーティストと12000名を超えるリスナー(2008年1月現在)が登録しているコロムビアミュージックエンタテイメントの音楽コミュニティ『音レボ』。その第1回オーディションで12000名のリスナーからの人気投票で第1位に選ばれ今回デビューすることになったのがGOOD CREW(グッドクルー)です。

勿論自分も関わってるプロジェクトですが、正直の意見を言うとこのバンド、面白い！是非聞いてみてください！

Otorevo will soon be releasing the first album under the new Otorevo label and by the winner of Japan’s first all-internet voted music contest! The band is Good Crew, the album is Nippon Ha:ski, and the link for your enjoyment is an exclusive deal with Amazon – pre-order now!

As issues pertaining to Japan’s aging population continue for close to a decade now, here’s an idea to keep them healthy – playgrounds for grandparents!

Since by definition the population of children utilizing current playgrounds is declining, Japan shouldn’t be having a land-shortage for such parks either!

Readers of M@Blog may recall a few entries I posted while working in Sony’s Audio Codec Development Group – the folks responsible for ATRAC.

- Sony get a hint
- ATRAC vs the world

The sad part of all this is that many of the engineers will simply be shuffled around to other groups (and the smart ones will be cherry picked by other companies), when what’s needed is a clean sweep of 20% of the C- and VP-level “managers”.

In fact, who cares?  Sony should keep the old farts and “decision makers”; that leaves more for us startups :)

We will be updating the MiiStation page soon with further details, but in the mean time if you or someone you know may be interested, please have them contact us through our MiiStation contact form.  Just so they know, interested Mii Makers will have to jump through a hoop or two as a filtering process so that we know we’re getting quality work.  We haven’t reached the point of outsourcing to China – yet :)

This morning:  I’m walking along the train platform waiting for the train when a short Japanese woman walking in the opposite direction, wearing a cough mask, and probably in her 60s starts shaking her hands at me, making cross and ‘x’ motions.  I thought she was practicing her conducting skills.  Minutes later she’s walking towards me, this time staring right at me doing the same motions – and this time she’s mumbling something and making curse-like motions.

Two weeks ago some anti-foreigner / Japanese racism news caused a bit of a stir.  I hope – I truly hope – these annoying acts were just coincidences.  But I can’t shake the feeling there’s a connection here, because in my 13+ years of living on this island, I’ve never experienced such racism before.

Update: I’ve been Dugg. Gen has a post. Shin does too.

By the way, artistically challenged and own a Wii?  Check out MiiStation!