Reading Cory Doctorow

I haven't read any Cory Doctorow novels or stories for two years. I was sitting outside a library reading Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town on my Clie when buckets of rain started falling on my head. I was so engrossed that I hadn't noticed the darkening skies.

I ran for the nearest shelter and did a quick check of my stuff. My Clie was not there. Had I put it in my bag? In my pocket? Had I just left it on the seat? No idea.

The rain calmed down and I went back to look. There was my Clie TH-55 face down in a puddle. Not Cory's fault. No, by no means, but I didn't read another word of Someone.

He has a new collection: Overclocked. Time to catch up.

No Battlestar Galactica for You!

I wanted to watch the Battlestar Galactica webisodes available online at SciFi.com. They fill in some of the story between Seasons Two and Three.

Sadly, I can't. They are not available in my geographic region.

I can understand when this happens at Audible.com (most of the books I want to listen to are not available because I'm in Japan) because of the intricate workings of book rights. But this is web only content. They happily show me the ads but not the episodes. Thanks.

Taketori Park

Just got back from an amazing park in Nara Prefecture called Taketori Park. They had short slides, curly slides and one really long slide. Perfect.

Fathers' Day

Fathers' Day in Japan. I got this cool t-shirt. Picture by Yuuri. Writing by Yuuri. Silk screening by Chiaki.

New Mac PDIC Viewer: DiDi Dictionary

Found a new Japanese dictionary program today. It's called DiDi Dictionary. It's a universal binary, understands the PDIC format that Eijiro comes in and was really easy to set up. I spent a few hours cobbling together a cocktail of Quicksilver and GUI scripting to give me a near-universal lookup function with just a tap of a function key. I can't believe how long it took for me to work out how to tell my script what the current application was.

DiDi Dictionary is currently free and is still in beta. The program and the site is all in Japanese but if you're looking for an Eijiro capable dictionary you probably have enough Japanese to work it out.

The good thing about having a stomach virus is that it really makes you appreciate how nice it is not to have one. Looking forward to that.

Do not buy an Apple TV

Last week I sensibly pushed "Buy an Apple TV" onto my Someday Maybe list. I didn't want to think about it until it had a significantly bigger hard drive and had been driven around the block for a bit longer by someone other than myself. I thought I had at least two or three months.

But no! It has a bigger hard drive now! 160gb! Even so, this will have to sit in Someday until my finances level out a bit.