My Current Insanities

A table away from my farewell meat-eating party was another farewell meat-eating party.

This is the HalfCamera app. It does diptychs in the style of a half frame camera.

While I wait for my medical oriented probings, I’m enjoying the country life.

And by “enjoying” I mean, “Christ, I wish I was in Tokyo. Or Seoul. Hell, I’d even settle for Toronto right now.”

For my first two years and final month in Japan I was sleeping on a futon. Once you hit a certain age, the distance from the futon to a standing position gets a bit too far for first thing in the morning and you crave the intermediate sitting position a bed gives you.

And it’s embarrassing to have to crawl over to the wall and haul your creaking bones up like a drunk on a Sunday morning.

Down this street was a shitty little コポ. But it was mine. Name on the lease and everything. Now I got nothing but the bag on my back and the hat on my head.

*plays sad harmonica*

I was struck by how dedicated the would be cruiser was to following the contour of the stall’s lock. Shinjuku is a pretty busy station and I can’t imagine the line up of grimacing and sad-eyed salarymen he was causing while he dedicated himself to the task.

I suspect the stall graffiti will be a lot more aggressive now that I’m back in Canada. I have a lot to do here and a lot of photos and memories to process while I do it.

But let tell you one thing I learned while staying in Shinjuku: Pretty, young, and cool people are generally too wrapped up in being pretty, young, and cool to make for interesting street photography subjects. I think that’s why you typically only see photos of them standing around and showing off their clothing instead.

This was a Hipstamatic shot that got trimmed and straightened in Photoforge2.

At lunch I walked out my front door for the last time. Now I’m in Kagoshima for what may be the last visit ever. This time tomorrow I’ll be in Tokyo where I’ll hopefully be making good use of the time I have left in this country.

“Tumpty tum. Don’t mind me. I’ll be out of your way in an hour or so. Tumpty tum.”

In nine days I shall never walk down this road again. Hopefully there will be new ones in my future.

Hipstamatic on random via Photo Forge 2.

Abandoned homes tend to be left that way here. Capitalist society. No one pays to have the property cleared, property is left to the elements. Earthquakes seem to do the lions share of the cleanup work. The rest vanishes into the kudzu.

This is one of a number of post war homes in my neighborhood. Interestingly, several of them have been recently renovated to see use as cheap housing.

Hipstamatic app set to random.

You’re in Japan and you need a taxi. No one is stopping. The lanes at the malls are empty. No one is in front if the train station.

Find the nearest park. The driver will be in the toilet there. Stalk until he comes out.

He might charge you extra for weirding him out while he pees. But you’ll be driving and that’s all that matters.

Five fabulous Final Fantasy females.

This is another pinned-to-wall-iphone-shot image. Assuming the screen tone stays on long enough for me to get it to a scanner (If you’ve used the stuff you know it won’t.) it should look nice.

While I like the look of screen tone, using it today reminded me of how wonderful Photoshop is.

Originally I was going to go off on certain Internet “communities” and the hypocrisies they spout on the subject of copyright.

Then I realized that was one of those telling an alcoholic they’re too drunk to drive situations and casual snark was a better way to get it off my chest. So instead of a rant here is a Hipstamatic shot of Aoshima in Miyazaki.

Boredom and the desire to try out my new art supplies made me draw this Halifax Explosion comic. The only way I could get it to you was to take an iPhone picture and fiddle about with apps until this.

My kingdom for a horse with a scanner and Photoshop.

One Line Game App Reviews;

FF1- “LOL! Grind thirty more levels and try again.”
FF2- “Hello, Orc. Stand there while we punch each other for half an hour.”
FF3- “Which costume is the cutest for fighting evil in?”
FF4- “What? No! I need Yang!”
Secret of Mana - “I don’t have enough fingers for this shit. ”
Angry Birds (both)- “More levels?! I haven’t finished the old ones yet!”
Spongebob- “Are you questioning the authority of the magic conch?”
Waking Mars- “Dah! Stop jet packing into the killer plants.”
Spider- “Om nom nom nom”
8 Bit Treasures- “I’m almost there! Don’t crash don’t crash don’t… Shit!”
Hundreds- “*tap* Yikes. *tap* Yahg. *taptaptaptap* Gasp!”
Year Walk- “Fuck this puzzle. Fuck it to Hell.”
Hexagon- “Holy. What. How. Who. Impossible.”
Namco Arcade- “I can’t wait to… What? How much? Oh fuck you, Namco.”

I don’t know if it’s the city that’s doing this or if it’s the local power companies, but a lot of the chronically empty spaces (Where failed businesses leave empty lots in their wake) around Miyakonojo have been filled up with solar panels.

Being situated on a very wide, flat, mountain plateau gives the city access to a lot of light. As the area ages out of being a commercial center I think turning into a center for green energy (If that’s the plan) is a wise move.