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Yaris 5 Door

By Michelle | July 12, 2008

There are rumors afoot that the 2009 Yaris lineup in the US will include the 5-door hatchback that both Japan and Europe are currently enjoying. That’s probably enough to make any 3-door owner jealous… and now that it looks like Toyota is going to scale back its SUV lineup here in the States, I think making the Yaris more user-friendly for non-entry level US buyers is a smart move on Toyota’s part. With amble experience in the sky-high gas price landscape of Japanland, Toyota appears well-positioned for weathering the slumping US economy… or at least better-positioned than Detroit.

Topics: In the News, Asia-Pacific | No Comments »
Words: 97 | Gunning-Fog: 8.8 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 7; 65.94%

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Japanese PR

By Michelle | July 11, 2008


The 2008 Toyako G8 Summit (hosted by Japan in Hokkaido) came and went without incident, but what else is to be expected of an archaic Cold War institution whose members reflect a late 20th century balance of power and whose non-binding statements don’t even hold the signatories accountable for the agreements reached? The Economist, in its usual glib style summed it up in the words: “A mountain-top gabfest provided a spectacular show and a long guest list but few answers to the woes of the world” (July 10).

At any rate, as the event’s host, the biggest task for Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda’s was to not screw things up, and if the avoidance of failure is held as the bar for success, it does appear as though he made the mark — whatever that means for Japanese politics. Predictions that Fukuda may reshuffle his cabinet after the summit have flown back and forth around Japanese media for months, but cabinet reshuffles in Japan are generally calculated PR moves, and who knows when the Kantei will decide that the time is right to get the most out of the announcement?

As far as Japanese PR in general goes, the next G8 summit in Japan won’t occur until 2016, so the country has more than enough time to ponder their next theme…. How about asking world leaders to do a little Yatta?

Or if they find that too difficult, maybe the MDSF could help them out…

Topics: Randomness, In the News, Asia-Pacific | No Comments »
Words: 241 | Gunning-Fog: 13.3 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 10; 61.83%

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Sony Rolly

By Michelle | June 26, 2008

I stumbled across another one of those pointless but nonetheless fantastic Japanese inventions: the Rolly by Sony. The video above shows the device in action, the video below is mostly an interview with one of its creators. I’d first heard about the Rolly concept about a year ago and though to myself, ‘Why would anyone want a music player that rolls?!’ But I have to admit that after watching the video clips, it is indeed pretty cute…. I just love the way they programmed it to mimic animals!

Topics: Japan, Randomness | No Comments »
Words: 89 | Gunning-Fog: 7.6 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 6; 69.42%

Love at First Sight

By Michelle | June 22, 2008

After years of stubbornly avoiding the DSLR market (though at one point in my life I actually did use a conventional SLR as my primary camera), I’ve finally decided to take the plunge into photography-geekdom. And now that I’ve decided to bite the proverbial bullet, it seems that Canon somehow read my mind. According to word on the grapevine, it looks as though the new Canon Digital Rebel XS / 1000D, entry-level cousin of the Canon XSi, will be hitting the US market this summer.

Lately I’ve become quite a fan of Sony electronics, but when it comes to digital cameras I’m a loyal Canon-user through and through. Serious digital photographers probably roll their eyes when I pull out my trusty second-hand Powershot S60 and take aim, but honestly, the thing takes better macro photography than almost any other point-and-shoot camera I’ve seen out there (scout around Flickr and browse by camera if you want to see for yourself).

So why make the jump for the Rebel XS? One of the main reasons I’ve shied away from DSLR’s until now is the size and the weight — after semi-retiring the S60 last year, I picked up a Powershot TX1 to use as my main digital workhorse. Though it’s received mixed reviews, it has great optical zoom and video capabilities — two worthwhile features that go well hand-in-hand — and I particularly like the flip-out LCD display and the vertical design.

For a camera-camcorder hybrid, it’s a scant 3.5″ x 2.4″ x 1.1″ — just 9.2 cubic-inches (like a chunky cousin to the Canon PowerShot SD750). And although the position of the controls (especially the shutter button) was a little confusing at first, I’ve become so used to the design that it almost feels strange to go back to the S60’s more “standard” setup. Unfortunately, I’ve been frustrated with its performance in low-light and action shooting situations — essentially because it lacks certain manual controls that would allow me to minimize the blur in these two scenarios.

And after that long detour, onto the Rebel XS — one of the most appealing specs for this camera is its 17.7 oz weight, which makes it the lightest ever Canon DSLR. It retains most of the appealing aspects of the Rebel XSi (and after all this I might just get the XSi anyway), and perhaps most importantly in my mind, it is backed by Canon’s reputation and technology.

Topics: Electronics | No Comments »
Words: 400 | Gunning-Fog: 14.9 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 11; 53.78%

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Desire

By Michelle | June 11, 2008

We all have things we dream of — those little bits and piece of life that never fail to stir somewhere deep inside our hearts and minds the subtle pull of desire. Each to their own vices, I guess you could say. I love onsen. Or rather, it doesn’t even have to be a full-blown, all-the-bells-and-whistles hot spring. I simply love Japanese-style baths.

In Japan, the most simple kind of public bathing facility– you know, your on-the-corner, mom-and-pop bath house — is called a sento (that’s 銭湯). Once fairly common, now increasingly less so, in a society where everyone bathed regularly but most dwellings lacked private bathing facilities, they were an essential part of traditional Japanese urban life. Although the popularity of sento declined in the Meiji, pre-WWII period, sento culture experienced a revival in post-war Japan when many apartment complexes were constructed without baths (to save money, perhaps?).

Today, the future of these bath houses is unclear. Obviously, everyone has indoor plumbing, and some young people today are embarrassed by the idea of communal bathing. Perhaps I’m just a sentimental foreigner, but personally I’d hate to see this integral part of Japanese culture disappear.

And now for some eye candy… check out these facilities at the Kasuga Hotel in Nara. If only someone in Washington DC would simply get with the program and build something like this…

Topics: Japan | No Comments »
Words: 227 | Gunning-Fog: 10.8 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 8; 59.05%

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…And Now For Something Completely Different

By Michelle | June 1, 2008

Two DC-related but otherwise completely different topics for today: The National Cathedral Greenhouse and Spa World.

If you haven’t heard the recent news, the National Cathedral has, to the dismay of many long-time locals, decided to close its greenhouse. Of course, I oppose the decision. Do I ever shop at the greenhouse? …well, no. But it’s an institution, and the Cathedral close just won’t be quite the same without it. The truth of the matter is, though, if the Cathedral wants to shut the greenhouse, can the neighborhood residents really do anything to stop it?

And if the thought of losing a neighborhood institution stresses you out, how about trying a trip to the new Korean sauna Spa World? Of course, the traffic along the drive from DC all the way out to Centerville could perhaps just add to your stress level… but hey, what would you do for a foot-ball field’s worth of Asian sauna experience? The truth is, though, I don’t really like all the glitz and whatnot of this type of of Korean bathhouse. What I’d really love is a nice little Arlington sento — definitely one of my favorite aspects of Japanese culture!

Topics: Washington, DC, Randomness | No Comments »
Words: 230 | Gunning-Fog: 10.6 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 7; 70.25%

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Run, Run, Run

By Michelle | May 22, 2008

Things Younger Than McCain: Well, perhaps the site’s a little tongue-in-cheek (not that that’s a bad thing), but I think the whole thing says at least a few things about this year’s presidential race and American society at large. The most obvious is that our country has changed quite a lot over the past seventy years. The US without zipcodes? Without minimum wage? Without velcro? Without Scrabble? There’s certainly potential about getting silly about this — but the bare truth is that the US seventy years ago was quite a different place.

The next conclusion to draw from this site is that McCain is fairly old. Of course there’s one thing that you couldn’t add to that site: Yasuo Fukuda, who was born a little more than a month before the Senator. Should the fact that the prime minister of the world’s second largest economy is a septuagenarian inspire us across the Pacific to elect one ourselves? I wouldn’t think so… after all, if Fukuda’s abysmal support ratings are anything to go by, it’s unlikely that his administration will be long-lived.

Topics: Randomness, In the News | No Comments »
Words: 181 | Gunning-Fog: 10.3 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 7; 67.98%

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懐かしい

By Michelle | May 12, 2008

These bring back so many memories! Actually, while I was in Tokyo I didn’t really pay that much attention to the train jingles, but listening to them one after another, I think I could even tell you which lines some of them belong to without looking at the video’s descriptions :-). Of course, there are others I’ve never heard before…

Topics: Japan | 1 Comment »
Words: 60 | Gunning-Fog: 8.8 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 6; 76.22%

Text in Motion

By Michelle | May 11, 2008

I discovered on YouTube the other day a fusion of two of my favorite things — V for Vendetta and typography. Huh?, you might ask — what an odd combination. But yes, see it and love it.

So what is this moving text thing anyhow? Called sometimes kinetic typography” and sometimes “motion typography,” it’s the art of taking spoken words and manipulating the transcription to match the rhythm, the meaning, the mood, etc. Think of it as the visual version of spoken word poetry or the text version of well-done stop-action photography.

Of course, there are numerous theories about kinetic typology “best practices” and methods. The example above focuses mostly on the cadence of V’s speech — the extended pauses, the crescendos, the rise and fall of his tone — there’s little (if anything) in the presentation of the text itself that is tied to the meaning of the words themselves. Some methods include how the lines of text gradually start to overlap and grow in size as V concocts string upon string of ever-increasingly obscure v-words together, dashing headlong to the apex where he slashes at the poster on the wall. Then a pause. And when he begins to speak again, it’s softer, more viscous, almost sticky like honey — and the words across the screen stick to each other like dribbles of maple syrup…

But what about other examples? I don’t speak Spanish, but this one, based on the song “Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo,” is particularly advanced artistically (I wonder if it’s fan-made or whether it’s actually that song’s music video). Or there’s this one (the rules of Fight Club). If you can get past the “shaking camera” — ie the background behind the text wobbles as though it’s being filmed with a hand-held camera — it’s not bad. And actually, although I can see why the creator may have decided to try to mimic this “grunge” / “amateur” film style, it’s just a little distracting.

I actually haven’t seen Wedding Crashers, but this clip is another good example of some nice typography. This one takes a slightly different approach — instead of displaying each word spoken in text, it uses snippets of a monologue in Oceans Eleven to try to visually (using text) illustrate the plan for the casino break-in. And I’m not sure where the audio of this one comes from, but it’s not half-bad.

Topics: Randomness | No Comments »
Words: 37 | Gunning-Fog: 9.1 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 5; 76.26%

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Suburbian Blues

By Michelle | May 5, 2008

Some people don’t seems to understand when I express my dislike for suburbs — the traffic, the strip malls, the sub-divisions, the never-ending traffic light systems — it’s frankly all a mess. And you don’t have to look far to find stories about the traffic congestion. I think that’s my biggest gripe about the suburbs. According to the Washington Post, the Virginia Department of Transportation recently announced a 51 percent cut in the region’s road-building program. The article continues, “without improvements, Beltway-type backups will soon reach suburban back yards as roads fail to keep up with the region’s growth. Cars will continue to wait through four or five traffic signals to make a simple turn. Buses will fall further behind schedule. Even non-commuters will be affected: When feeder roads become crammed, drivers with an eye on the clock start taking shortcuts through neighborhoods, turning quiet streets into major commuter arteries.”

So all the suckers who move out to the suburbs to get away from urban traffic (yes, I know it’s a pain when cars back up through Georgetown trying to get across Key Bridge, and all you want to do is park your car, but no one will give you the space to do so) are now realizing that this very traffic is following them out to Fairfax and even more distant exurbs. Of course, with traffic like that (oh yeah, and gas prices too), it’s not surprising that Meto’s ridership has increased in the past three months despite a record price hike this December. Now if only the region were finally able to build that long-awaited Dulles rail line…

But despite these ongoing traffic woes, it appears that real estate is beginning to rebound in areas such as Prince William, Manassas and Manassas Park. One report says, “Metropolitan Regional Information Systems data show that the number of housing sales for Manassas is up 33 percent in March 2008 from March 2007. Although 673 active listings remained on the market at the end of March, 52 units sold, compared with 39 that sold in March 2007. Eighty-six sales are pending.” Of course, my first question would be — who in the world wants to like in Manassas? But since the numbers are saying that people are indeed purchasing homes out there, I guess that’s rather beyond the point. And although data shows that sales in Fairfax and Loudoun counties and in the city of Alexandria are down significantly from last year, it’s just my luck that Arlington’s market is still as strong as ever (more proof that I’m not off my rocker when I say I’d rather pay higher prices for prime location).

Topics: Washington, DC | No Comments »
Words: 435 | Gunning-Fog: 12.8 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 10; 62.43%

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On the Road

By Michelle | May 4, 2008

According to a recent Washington Post article, SUV and truck sales across the US have plummeted year-on-year. With average gas prices at $3.603 nationwide and as high as $3.892 (CA) or $3.747 (NY) in some states, this is hardly a surprise. The same article notes that Toyota Motors’ car sales rose 12% this past year, largely on the strength of the subcompact Yaris (also known as the Vitz), whose sales rose 46%, and the hybrid Prius, whose sales were up 54% — Note that Toyota’s truck and SUV sales dropped 8%.

USA Today, also reporting on Americans’ shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles, said sales of subcompact cars were up nearly 27% from last year — in particular, the Toyota Yaris (up 70%), the Honda Fit (up 61%), and the Kia Spectra (up 41%). About the Yaris, caranddriver.com described the vehicle as: “bubbly styling, frugal on gas, usable cargo area, easy to park, Toyota reliability.” The review continued, “in our testing, the Yaris returned 36 mpg, the best of any car here, while making an entirely commendable 8.9-second run to 60 mph using all of its 106 horsepower.” Edmunds.com writes the that the manual Yaris has “decent midrange pull and has no problem getting up to and cruising at 75-80 mph on the highway” and that all Yarii “absorb freeway expansion joints without drama, adding to the relaxed demeanor at cruising speeds.” Of course, that doesn’t mean that someone used to cursing down the road in a luxury sedan will be pleased with downsizing to a subcompact Yaris. It’s quite small, has a good deal of plastic in its interior, and is definitely more noisy on the highway than say, a Honda Civic. But with 34 city/40 highway mpg, it’s definitely not a bad car if you can’t afford a Prius but want to save on gas.

But perhaps Toyota’s popularity is taking a toll on production. Last year, the automaker slipped to fifth in reliability rankings — behind Honda, Acura, Scion and Subaru. Of course, remember that Scion is in fact part of the larger Toyota family, a spin-off aiming to appeal to Generation Y consumers. And in the “sub-compact” car market, the Yaris undoubtedly has a fair amount of competition. One of its most similar adversaries, the Honda Fit, generally scores better with consumers due to its more upscale interior and four-door layout, but in my opinion, it’s rather lacking in design. The view from the rear isn’t half bad, but the front and the side angles look almost like a boxy soccer-mom car (nothing against soccer moms, of course) — particularly “un-hip” is that awkward-looking double front bumper. But I suppose the Fit’s “box-iness” is nothing compared to the “That’s” (thank you, Honda, for perhaps the worst car name of the century).

Besides the high gasoline price, there are other financial advantages to buying a small, fuel-efficient car. For example, cars that emit less than 120 grams of CO2 per kilometer will be exempt from a new Congestion Charge that will go into effect this October in London.

Oh, and as a side note, Engadget reports that 37% of Gen Y-ers admit to texting on their cellphones while driving. Why can’t people just concentrate on driving?!

Topics: Washington, DC, In the News | No Comments »
Words: 523 | Gunning-Fog: 12.4 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 10; 59.12%

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Economics

By Michelle | April 25, 2008

As this year’s Democrats’ Primary Race drags on and on, I have to admit that just be osmosis, I’ve become more familiar than I ever hoped to be about the candidates’ positions. And what annoys me the most is their fiscal/trade policies. Why can’t we have a pro-free-trade candidate who is believably committed to balancing our budget?!

Bill Clinton wrote in Between Hope and History, “We don’t need to build walls, we need to build bridges. We don’t need protection, we need opportunity. But in a world of stiff competition we also need more than free trade. We need fair trade with fair rules. That’s why I fought for NAFTA, which effectively opened Mexico’s and Canada’s markets to American products, and for GATT, which is helping to level the playing field for American companies abroad. In all, since 1992 we have negotiated more than 200 trade agreements-21 with Japan alone.” [1]

But now, a decade later, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both threatened to withdraw from The North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA, they say, has cost high-wage jobs in the United States. How is it that it’s the Republicans these days who are the ones trumpeting free trade? Oh, I know, it’s an effort to appeal to the “ordinary American” lower-income worker… the kind of person whose job may be outsourced to China. Wait a minute–to China. And what’s the connection between NAFTA and China?

In October 2007, Bill Clinton said NAFTA had become a “symbol” of US jobs outsourced overseas and the hollowing out of US industries, but America has worse trade deficits with countries such as China and Japan than it does with Mexico.

Obama, in August 07 told the AFL-CIO, “people don’t want a cheaper T-shirt if they’re losing a job in the process. They would rather have the job and pay a little bit more for a T-shirt. And I think that’s something that all Americans could agree to.” But what if people could have cheaper T-shirts and training to learn how to do another job? But in truth, Obama’s comparison leaves something to be desired. The US has been outsourcing its textiles for decades.

After all, the Multi Fibre agreement went into effect in 1974 (expired in 2004). The MFA was enacted to (1) enable developed countries to protect their garment industries even though developing countries have a comparative advantage in the textile industry and (2) to allow developed countries to pick and choose which developing countries to import textiles from through mechanisms like quotas and tariffs. What I’m saying here is not that I’m pro- or against the MFA, but rather that the globalization of garment industry is, in fact, an old problem.

One of the reasons why developing countries can make clothes more cheaply than we can is that it’s generally a low-technology industry that thrives on cheap labor but doesn’t require huge amounts of R&D, capital, or innovation. As an American who cares about the future of my country, I’m more worried about the outsourcing of our high-tech jobs (things like software engineering) and the declining math/science scores of our children. These are the kinds of factors that will determine America’s competitiveness tomorrow — why over-protect our markets today at the cost of our childrens’ future tomorrow?

And about the federal budget, when Senator McCain was asked in April how he plans to balance the budget, he said that he hoped to do so by stimulating economic growth: “I don’t believe in a static economy,’’ Mr. McCain said. “I believe that when there’s stimulus for growth, when there’s opportunity, when people keep more of their money — and the government is the least efficient way to spend your money — that economies improve.’’ But what happens when the US economy as a whole takes a turn south? To me, his commitment to a balanced budget sounds like an empty promise.

Topics: In the News | No Comments »
Words: 652 | Gunning-Fog: 13.1 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 10; 58.29%

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Happy Tax Day

By Michelle | April 15, 2008

Smart people avoid waiting until the 11th hour to file their taxes (or perhaps they simply ask the IRS for an extension and procrastinate until October), but I witnessed a decent number of people today still working on their hard-copy forms. And as though we can’t get enough of a good thing, there was no shortage of tax-related media on the airwaves and in the press:

YouTube would definitely not be the first place I’d look to find IRS-relate news… but I guess that’s the beauty of web2.0.

Oh, and in case you were looking for a hour or so of relaxation (breathe that sigh of relief now that you’ve done this year’s civic duty), this week is DC Spa Week. If you’re looking for a location, check out the Washingtonian’s spa reviews.

Topics: In the News | No Comments »
Words: 172 | Gunning-Fog: 10.2 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 7; 73.41%

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Hip-Hop Meets Enka

By Michelle | April 14, 2008

Japan can be a tough nut for foreigners to crack — foreigners who want to go beyond the “tourist” level and actually integrate into Japanese traditional society, that is. In particular, there seems to be this overall feeling that it’s impossible for non-Japanese natives to truly understand traditional Japanese culture. That’s what makes this example of cross cultural expression all the more interesting:

Jerome Charles White Jr. (aka “ジェロ“) was more or less an average mixed-race kid who was born in 1981 and grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. He majored in information science at University of Pittsburgh, moved to Japan after graduation, and is essentially the first renowned black enka singer in Japan. His first single, 海雪 (umiyuki), has remained on the Oricon charts since its release on February 20, 2008.

Interesting, Jero has attempted to blend black American hip-hop culture (which is surprisingly popular in urban Japan) with the stereotypically dated genre of enka… to create something rather unique. You can see it here on YouTube or see a Reuters video report here. There’s just something strange about watching him stand on-stage and sound so Japanese while dressed in his baggy pants and baseball cap (here’s a good reference if you’d like to see what normally passes for enka attire).

Topics: Japanese, Asia-Pacific | No Comments »
Words: 206 | Gunning-Fog: 14.8 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 11; 47.73%

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Betting on Networking

By Michelle | April 13, 2008

The internet is a vast, mostly unexplored jungle that’s expanding rapidly with each passing day. Users all around the world go online to send email, chat, meet other people, watch multimedia, play games, catch up on the latest news, etc. But although the internet itself is global and its content (baring censorship) is available worldwide, it’s sometimes more accurate to talk of the various “internets” that people in different geographic locations use daily.

Take social networking, for example. This article on the blog “ReadWriteWeb” discusses Facebook’s inability to gain majority market shares in Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean markets. Likewise, this graphic from the French paper Le Monde illustrates the different penetration ratios of various blogging and social networking sites across the world.

There are schools of blogging techies that aren’t satisfied any of these “browser-based” networking sites and are instead holding out for the emergence of an exemplary mobile-device-based service before placing their bets. The “holy grail” for these networks, in the words of one writer is “physical presence detection and information exchange with other users.” In simple English, this means that when your mobile device “see’s” another person’s mobile device, then the two machines exchange information.

This authors continues: “Technical barriers aren’t an issue - cell phone tower triangulation and bluetooth solve a lot of the problems of locating users and transmitting information between phones. What’s harder is just plain getting a critical mass of users.” So who will win the networking war? I’ve no idea, but frankly, I’d rather just turn my cellphone off.

And on another note: Adobe, which recently launched Creative Suite 3, has created a promotion site called “Adobe Cards” as publicity. Although I’ve no intention of purchasing this software, the animation sequence is pretty neat.

Topics: Internet, Randomness | No Comments »
Words: 293 | Gunning-Fog: 14.6 years | Flesch-Kincaid: Grade 12; 45.53%

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