For all my complaints about my Xperia…I must admit…I use it pretty heavily despite the minor drawbacks. Since I received the new device I have not had problems with the clock….now the realy clincher will be the timing…need music keyboards and drums that actually respond to the rhythm of the beat.
A small request. When will it be heard?
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Ozawa smiles behind the scenes
When your political party is down and out, on the ropes, and little chance of surviving the next election…what do you do?
If you are in Japan, and your name is Ozawa, all you have to do is pull the reigns a little tighter to turn your ship around.
Translation:The previous Prime Minister of Japan recently stepped down…shortly after holding a meeting with his #2, the Chief Cabinet Secretary Ozawa. If you follow Japanese politics, you know that Ozawa is the king of politics with about 150 representatives who are directly beholden to his sway. He got them elected. He is also beyond the reach of the law…his aides have been indicted for illegal handling of funds…but the holder of the funds walked away scott free–no once, but twice. The Prime Minister himself was blasted for his monthly subsidies from his mom (a cool $1.5M per month that he claims he didn’t know he was receiving…recall that his mom is comes from the Bridgestone Family with coffers full of money). Politics and money, the second oldest profession.
It was business as usual except that the Prime Minister and his cabinet were suffering abysmal support ratings that plummeted to around 17~19%. Many say it was for overall bumbling of everything, but mostly for bumbling the US-Japan relationship by insisting on doing things that were not possible…like moving Futenma operations out of Okinawa instead of the promised dissecting and relocation out of populated areas. In the end, the PM relented and said it was inevitable to keep the Futenma mission on Okinawa, but it would be moved as previously agreed.
So far so good. Support rate drops and the PM will either tough it out, call a snap election, or step down, right? What would you do? Well PM Hatoyama chose to step down. But why now? Anything special about the timing? Sure, plenty special. This is on the eve of another election. With support rates in the dumps, the DPJ would be expected to lose lots of votes and seats. But by taking the top, resigning, and taking the tainted Ozawa with him, the party looks fresh and energetic again. But look closely….this is all window dressing. Both Hatoyama and Ozawa keep their diet seats. They just relinquish the roles of standing in front of the cameras. Let someone else handle the heat. And so they passed the torch to Kan in a nearly pre-ordained election. Kan was just figuring out his new post as Finance Minister when he got tapped for the top seat. In a smart move, Kan kept most of the previous Cabinet members in his new Cabinet. Nearly are almost all the same as the previous cabinet members, but now the support rate rockets up to near 70%.
Can you see Ozawa smiling. If he didn’t orchestrate this turn of events, I’m sure he at least thought about orchestrating it. Because now, his party stands a chance again of sweeping the election. The fickle public. Give them what they want when they are looking, take what you want when they are not.
But then again, I could be wrong. Only time will tell. Look ma, I’ve got an election coming up! Let’s see what comes of this.
It’s all about Change. Or at least the appearance of change. I guess now Japan can say “YES WE KAN”. Good Luck Prime Minister Kan. If anyone kan do it, you kan.
-Dylan
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This year is Kawaihae’s tenth anniversary. I first met Kawaihae through Jeff, the lead singer with an awesome voice. Jeff was working in Kumagaya Japan while I was down in Nagoya. But that’s not where I heard him sing.
A MASTER PERFORMER
and a masterful artist. Jeff adds his talents on the ukulele to his talented voice among other entertaining skills in his repretoire as he livens up any party. Jeff brought his ukulele and his voice to Australia where he entertained us with humor, magic, and music.
And this week’s performance did not disappoint. The five members of the band were in great form, energetic, and fired up the mid-week crowd.
During the set there were such happenings as seeing (or rather hearing) Jeff’s instrument lose its tuning. Without batting an eye and without breaking a sweat, and while continuing to sing, he put the strings into place, tuned up, and sang on. Ladies and gentlemen…it was a sight to see. Vance K. kept the crowd in fine spirits with his smooth bilingual emcee talents while breaking out the shaka strum on his uke. Scott kept the bass beat locked down with his cool unflappable style. An-san, pummeled out perfect rhythms for straight sets while Jimbo cheerfully kept everything tied together on lead guitar.
HULA?
But it wouldn’t be Hawaiian style without solid support from the crowd. And talk about support? Under Vance K.’s skillful encouragement, hula dancers were brought up on stage in an impromptu call. They showed they still had the moves. Even Jimbo put down the guitar to show off his moves.
HANA HOU!
At the end of the night, the crowd was on their feet and begging for more. And more we got. The whole place was packed and dancing , moving and shaking. From little kids to adults, Kawaihae brought Aloha to Akasaka.
THE MUSIC
Hear more of them, buy their DVDs.
Mahalo.
Dylan
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PRELUDE
This post was intended to be a long dissertation on all the flaws in my new “smart phone” and the android platform on which it was developed. You might even be interested in that knowledge from me. But let me switch gears from discussions of geeky stuff like platforms and code to reality.
The reality is that the world we knew 15 or even 10 or perhaps even 2 years ago is nothing more than mere nostalgic wanderings and musings.
GEEK
As I sit in Tokyo sipping a latte at Excelsior Cafe, labouriously typing out a blog on my 4-inch cell phone touchpanel screen, I can’t help but wonder what new idea or thought pattern will take root and modify our lives forever.
Shouldn’t I just enjoy, sit back and relax?
BOOKS?
For one thing, I wonder how much longer we will expect our books and news stories to remain fixed linear devices for transmitting a single story. Archaic.
When books can be instantly accessed via content providers like Kindle, you should also be ale to read different versions on the fly. For example, why not have a menu item to select the audence level? Adult, Preteen, &Youth are just three of the levels I would have liked when I read Postsingular. A great scifi book for my kids to read with some interesting ideas bout offline memory storage for humans BUT I wish I could just “turn off” a few explicit portions about cross-dressing sexual SM behavior that really adds nothing.
RANDOM ROUTING
Why must a book always follow the same pattern?
TOUCHSCREENS
Why is it so hard to type with one finger? Two thumbs is a little faster but no less frustrating. Time to get Bluetooth wireless keyboard…
MOVING ON
And so today’s great idea or thought is tomorrow’s reality and next week’s old news. Hard to keep up. Don’t blink.
Lunch is over time to move on. Back to email jail.
Dylan
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