Whose going to the Rome Burns gig later today? Anyone want to meet for lunch? I’ll be in town around 1pm – mobile number same as before, mail me, or leave a comment here…
Neil Hopcroft
A digital misfit
An infinite number of cats on an infinite number of computer screens
“Edward Castronova, now associate Professor of telecommunications at Indiana University, carried out the original study which measured the economic productivity of each Everquest player.”
…so, edling, you are performing a valuable economic service…
He has his future in a British steel
I’ve not been pay much attention to what is going to be happening in the near future. If anyone has any plans, or parties, or gigs, or other events you think I’d like to know about, let me know…leave a comment here or mail me.
Edit: or should that be a ‘fist of steel’?
While I wouldn’t do this sort of thing myself [0], I rather like the idea of it…”Find an interesting-looking stranger, someone who fits their face if you know what I mean, and ask them to join you for lunch or a coffee or just a bit of a chat.”
[0] I’m far too British
It was my last day at Nokia on Tuesday, and it was Zaras last night in Tokyo, so we met in Shibuya and went to Christon Cafe, a final visit before leaving the city. Then on to meet Charles and retire to the Pink Cow for a quick half before leaving too late to catch the train home…
Then wednesday was mostly spent packing and cleaning, with a bit of final shopping for toys in the evening and a last night out with Tracey, Damien and Peter.
“There are some things you’re gonna miss about Tokyo, right?”
“Like neon”
“And musicians on the streets”
“And punk dogs…kawaii”
Yesterdays flight was unexciting, except for failing to land on the first attempt, the previous plane hadn’t cleared the runway so we aborted approach at 500ft, to circle around again. This seems to be happening more and more at Heathrow these days, which suggests their pile-em-high, sell-em-cheap approach to airtravel is cutting it a little too close to the safe limit of what can be achieved with their current runway resources. Terminal 5 can only help this situation….wouldn’t it be better to build up Luton or Stanstead or Gatwick instead? Especially given the traffic situation on the M25 in the Heathrow area. M25 full of holes again.
Then, as a demonstration that the UK can be crazy too, if it puts its mind to it, we passed a bunch of rods on the way home, the most spectacular being a kustom hearse with cruise lights. Wrong, so wrong. I love it.
I know its been a while since my last proper update – evilmattikinz was visiting so there was some hardcore geeking to be done between showing him the sights of Tokyo.
We started out with an introduction to the sleazy underbelly of Tokyo society on Monday night, with a wander around Kabukicho, visiting a Buddah themed restaurant, avoiding the ladybois in the square, and finally, soaking up the atmosphere down in Goldengai, where we stumbled upon a bunch of Traceys friends.
Tuesday, after lunch, we tried to get Matti some directions for the Meguro parasite museum from the Nokia receptionist, which turned into rather more of an exercise than it really should have been. But she was very helpful and very cute about it so we weren’t complaining. Apparently she thought it was a common destination for dates, I guess this is where European and Japanese cultures differ.
In the evening was my leaving celebration from Nokia – we booked a table (or three) at the Nepalese restaurant. Where we were joined by a number of my colleagues allow with Michael, jamese and Zara. Another week to go, but it seemed like a good time for a celebration.
The next night headed to Ginza where Tracey’s friend, Kevin, was giving a presentation about video editing on Mac….the first time I’ve been to the Apple shop there, a strange place, with very Apple lifts, they had no buttons, you just get in and they stop at all the floors, and clear perspex walls with illuminated Apple logos behind them.
Saturday we headed over to Akihabara, for a final tour, Matti was pursuaded to get the next version of camera-watch from mine, his has a colour photo sensor I think, while I got, for a bargain 500Yen (=2.50 pound) a talking watch that tells the time in Japanese…somehow I find it worrying that the packaging was better made and more durable than the watch itself, but what can you expect for 500Yen?
Then back to Azabu-Juban for to meet Nobue-chan and Tamaru-chan for the street festival there. This was a slightly different festival to the previous ones I’ve been to, since it seemed to be more commercial and less related to a temple or shrine. And it was busy….er, no, that doesn’t do it justice…it was *BUSY*!
We escaped from there to head up to Roppongi Hills for tonkatsu. And iced mocha-mint-achinos, or something. Sometimes you seen things which are so plainly wrong that you need to try them. Chocolate cheese falls into this category, too, which, incidentally, has the texture of cheese with the flavour of chocolate. I think it would be more worrying if it were the other way around.[0]
Sunday morning arrived too early and we missed it, as did the Marshmallow Spike gig in Shinjuku, so we took a look at the freaks in Harajuku instead and met with Tracey and MJ after the show. We found the fried-things-on-sticks shop again, before heading back.
Matti left for Oz on Monday, vowing to return.
[0] dug myself into something of a grammar hole there, didn’t I?
Back in England now, so I’m gonna be missing the debut of this flying robot. Dammit.
More update later.
Busy couple of weeks – no time for detail right now. Flying back to UK today, arrive Heathrow 1715. Beyond that and the Rome Burns gig, saturday, there isn’t much of a plan.