Traveling to Tokyo

On September 25, 2009October 2, 2009 By Asian EdIn Life in general, Otaku, Travel2 Comments

It’s now the start of my first full day in Tokyo. The jet lag is a bit hard to deal with (13 hour time difference between here and Charlotte), though I did try to force the adjustment by staying up for most of the 26ish hours it took to fly to Japan, get to the hotel, and have some dinner. Still, after going to be around midnight JST, I managed to get about 5 hours of sleep.

The passing time on the flight from Minneapolis to Narita was much easier since I chose to fly first class. Any seasoned traveler will know that First Class means super comfortable seats, in-seat entertainment systems, decent food, and all the drinks I want. That last item in particular made the flight very enjoyable. 🙂

Yes, I know… I’m a drunk 🙂

The flight in wasn’t actually too bad despite it being long. The flight landed in Narita around 17:20 JST. Following landing, I breezed through the quarantine checkpoint (didn’t appear to be active), passport control, baggage claim, and then customs.

After meeting up with Eric, it was time to convert some money over and take the bus into central Tokyo. The ride itself took over an hour due to large amount of traffic in the city. By the time we hit the hotel, we were pretty tired and hungry. This meant going out and finding something to eat…

Our hotel is right across from a Tokyu Hands department store, which has a huge selection of restaurants. We settled on a tempura restaurant, which had some pretty good food.

IMAG0120 After dinner, I was pretty much ready to pass out. I’d been up for most of the last 26 hours and was in desperate need of sleep. A quick shower was in order and then some channel surfing on the hotel TV. We stumbled upon what appeared to be the Bandai channel, which was showing all sorts of ads and reairing some older anime (including Mai-HiME).

I managed to snap some pictures in the wee hours of the morning after I woke up at 5am JST. This jetlag is going to stay with me for at least another day, I suspect. I’ll need to struggle through the later parts of today and try to get myself on a good schedule. Fortunately, today is all about Tokyo Game Show, so I’ll probably be pretty wired.

More pictures and updates to come later on in the week!

Counting down to Japan

On September 15, 2009October 2, 2009 By Asian EdIn Life in general, Otaku, Travel3 Comments

With a little over a week left until I leave for Japan, everything is falling in place. I got an email a few days ago from my travel companion with the following picture attached:

TGS tickets!

Thanks to his friend in Tokyo, we have our tickets for Tokyo Game Show 2009, which opens to the public on Saturday! I’m a bit sad that I won’t be able to make it there for the industry keynotes, but the public exhibition should still be awesome with all sorts of interesting characters showing up. I wonder if I can sneak myself into the Microsoft booth using my badge… ^.^;;

Our itinerary for the week has pretty much been nailed down as well, with only a few loose ends to work on. Here’s a rough outline:

Thursday – Depart United States, land Friday late afternoon JST. Go to hotel and crash.
Saturday – Tokyo Game Show
Sunday – Harajuku
Monday – Lunch with some Microsoft Japan folks, exploring Tokyo
Tuesday – Akihabara
Wednesday – Saitama for Washinomiya Shrine, Do As Infinity concert (hopefully)
Thursday – Ghibli Museum
Friday – Train to Kyoto in AM, do sightseeing
Saturday – More sightseeing in Kyoto
Sunday – Train to Narita and return to US
Monday – Taking day off from work to recover

It’s going to be a very packed trip, I think, and I’m getting pretty psyched about it. With our hotels booked and itinerary made, all that’s really left for me to do is pack and get on the plane next week!

Buying figures on eBay (with Bing Cashback)

On September 12, 2009September 12, 2009 By Asian EdIn Computers and Internet, Figures2 Comments

Since older items are hard to find in normal retail channels, I’ve had to resort to using eBay for quite a few of my purchases over the past year. Most recently, Naru, Naru, and Mikuru came from eBay, as had Konata and Rin Figma, Lena Sayers, and a whole mess of others. There are a lot of things to be cautious of when buying from an auction site, as it can be difficult to ensure you’re getting a new and authentic product. There are plenty of rules of thumb out there (including the age-old “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is” adage), though once you do find something you want to buy, why not try to save a little extra?

Last year, Microsoft launched a shopping and price comparison site, along the same lines as Froogle. Initially called Live Shopping (and now branded as Bing Shopping), the site offered incentives for purchasing in the form of rebates. The rebate would be a percentage of an item’s purchase price and would be delivered to you 60 days after purchase. Lots of popular retailers joined this program, from Newegg to Barnes and Noble. The amount ranged from as little as 1% all the way up to 50% in rare cases, usually during a promotional period.

One of the retailers offering incentives is eBay. Unlike most other stores in the Cashback program, eBay isn’t accessible through the main landing page. Instead, it was triggered by specific searches in Live. The amount also tended to fluctuate, depending on if there was a promotion going on. It is currently at 8%, however it has also been as high as 35%. Since not too many people in the figure community seem to be aware of the program, here’s a quick guide on how to take advantage and save a little bit in the process!

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August loot

On August 31, 2009August 31, 2009 By Asian EdIn Figures9 Comments

Even though I’m going to be going to Japan next month, I couldn’t help myself and picked up a few gems from eBay. Last year, I’d discovered the wonders that was Live Cashback (now Bing Cashback) and found it an economical way of buying figures. If you’re not aware of how Cashback works, here’s a quick tutorial:

Microsoft has teamed up with various internet merchants to offer rebates on products purchased via the Bing landing page. There are a few ways of discovering what stores are available, and a mostly complete listing is available at http://cashback.bing.com.
As an alternative to the Cashback page, searching on bing.com will also net links. eBay, for example, works in this manner. By doing searches on strings like xbox, a link will often appear telling you what percentage you can get.
Cashback on eBay is only valid on Buy it Now items and must be paid for using PayPal. Shipping charges don’t qualify for Cashback.
Most eBay purchases now give you the rebate immediately after purchase in the form of PayPal credit. Most retailers require a 60 day waiting period before it is deposited.

At present, Bing Cashback for eBay is at 8%. Last week, it was at 10% and was at 16% a few weeks prior. Last year, it was as high as 35% (guess how much stuff I bought at that time…. >.<)

Enough plugging, on to the goods!

I went a bit crazy this week and picked up a few beauties. I’d been eyeing the Mikuru bunny for some time now, and finally decided to jump on getting one. I’d also been searching for the Max Factory Naru after seeing several reviews raving about her beauty. Unfortunately, the same search that found me that Naru also got me to an auction for the EPOCH Naru statue. For the price, I just couldn’t pass her up and put in a bid.

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A few computer upgrades

On August 30, 2009August 30, 2009 By Asian EdIn Computers and Internet, Figures, Hardware, Windows 71 Comment

It’s been a big week for figure acquisitions and computer parts! To take stock, here are just a few things that arrived…

1/4 scale Mikuru Bunny by FREEing

1/8 scale Narusegawa Naru by EPOCH

1.5TB Seagate Barracuda Hard drive

300GB Western Digital VelociRaptor

I’m still waiting on a few things, including some wireless networking equipment (finally taking the plunge and upgrading things to N) as well as this little gem. Most of the latter half of the week involved rebuilding my computer and setting up the new equipment. Photos of figures will be forthcoming, once I get in that last item.

My first order of business was to install the 1.5TB drive into my home server. It replaced one of the existing 750GB drives, bringing total storage spaces to 4.78TB:

WHS

The slight upgrade leaves me with a bit more space to store DVDs, and also frees up a drive for use in my main machine. At some point, I’ll be replacing the last 750GB drive, though I’ll likely wait for prices to drop on the 2TB drives prior to making that move. It may also let me wait until the next version of WHS is released as replacing that drive will require a server rebuild.

With the spare 750GB drive in hand, I set on my next series of upgrades. Up until now, Chikane was the last machine I had that wasn’t running the Windows 7 RTM bits. While the post-RC build was mostly fine (build 7201), it was time for me to move forward. In anticipation of the upgrade, I’d also replaced the video card with something that is still supported by ATi. Now sporting a Radeon HD4830, Chikane was ready to rock and roll.

To complete the upgrades, I went ahead and installed both the 750GB Samsung drive and the VelociRaptor. Since I already had an equivalent 750GB drive in the system already, I placed the two in a RAID0 array for a bit extra performance. The OS and programs, however, would be handled by the VelociRaptor.

Performance rating

Sadly, even though the VelociRaptor is a 10kRPM drive, it’s still the bottleneck in my system. I just can’t win! Finally, however, I come to the capstone of my upgrades for the week. Thanks to my friends at Costco, I now have a pair of Samsung SyncMaster 2343BWX LCD monitors!

It turns out that my local store was clearing these screens out. I grabbed the last new display and the display model for $175 each. I’ll have to say though, when I first got them hooked up, it took some getting used to. I was actually feeling a bit motion sick from having to move my head around to see everything. Now that I’ve resituated my sitting position and had some time to adjust, it’s actually pretty natural. I’m just wondering how I can go back to such little real estate at work tomorrow…

Desktop wallpaper was found here. I’d also modified it to have a mirror image on the other screen, giving a nice symmetric effect.

Planning a trip to Japan – Part 2

On August 25, 2009October 2, 2009 By Asian EdIn Life in general, Otaku, Travel1 Comment

Just as a quick update to my last entry about Japan, I now have confirmed dates and have booked my plane tickets! I’ll be leaving Charlotte on September 24 (arriving on the 25) and leaving October 4. Now that my airfare has been booked, it’s really going to happen! All that is left is to find a hotel, plan an itinerary, and pack.

…now, which camera equipment should I take, and should I bring a Figma along…

Planning a trip to Japan

On August 22, 2009October 2, 2009 By Asian EdIn Life in general, Otaku, TravelLeave a comment

Guide books!

After a couple years of saying that I was going to go to Japan, it looks like I’m finally going to do it this year! I’m still working on finalizing dates and details, but it looks like I’ll finally be able to go next month. I’m very excited about this and picked up a couple of guide books to help plan my itinerary…

At this point, there are a few things that I’m looking forward to seeing. For now, the trip coincides with the dates for Tokyo Game Show, so I’m going to be hitting up the show floor at least one of the two days. Also on the agenda is a trip into Harajuku on Sunday, a possible side trip into Kyoto for sightseeing, and Saitama to visit the Washinomiya Shrine. Of course, no trip for any otaku would be complete without at least one trip to Akihabara!

Lastly, I found out this week that Do As Infinity will be releasing their first new album in three years while I’m there. After a little searching, I found out that the NHK is hosting an outdoor live event to help promote the new album, so I’m going to try to get tickets to the show!

I’m extremely excited about this trip, though I’m probably going to wind up completely broke when the dust settles…

Home media setup

On August 11, 2009 By Asian EdIn Computers and Internet, Hardware8 Comments

Every so often, I’m asked about how I have my home entertainment center set up. Usually, I grab the nearest whiteboard and marker and then diagram it out, because it can be somewhat difficult to explain just by speaking… I think, however, I should be able to jot it down in text with the aid of some pictures!

First of all, meet Kagami, the hub of my home network…

Some of you may be wondering “What? That’s it? That doesn’t look like anything special…” and on appearance alone, you would be correct. Kagami is the only off-the-shelf desktop computer I own (and in fact the first one I’ve owned in many many years) and is a Dell PowerEdge SC440. The base machine cost me about $250 to purchase from Dell without an OS and I’ve pretty much left her stock. There are, however, a few major additions, namely in the area of storage. At present, Kagami carries 4 hard drives: 2 750GB Samsung Spinpoint F1s and 2 1.5TB Seagate Barracudas. Judging by the manufacturers’ capacity figures, she carries 4.25TB worth of storage space (the “real” number is actually around 4.1TB, using computer interpretation of the number of bytes in a kilobyte).

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A week in Seattle – Part 2

On August 4, 2009October 2, 2009 By Asian EdIn Life in general, Travel1 Comment

In yesterday’s post, I went into some of the daytime adventures from my trip to Seattle, so today I figured I’d focus on some of the ancillary events and things I didn’t have time to cover yesterday. Since this was a Microsoft event, most of our evenings were booked with networking opportunities with fellow employees. To facilitate conversation, copious amounts of food and alcohol were provided. More on that later, though since we did have two free nights to fend for ourselves, we decided to take advantage of a few great restaurants in downtown Seattle.

Outside the Brooklyn Seafood-Steak House

Being on Puget Sound, Seattle is host to a lot of excellent seafood. In years past, we’d always had dinner one night at the Brooklyn Seafood-Steak House on the corner of 2nd and University. Even though we were thinking of doing something different this year, we eventually found our way back on Monday evening. If you happen to be in Seattle and have a little money to spend on dinner (about $50 with wine and dessert), I would highly recommend checking out this little place. This year, I decided to have the Wild Alaskan Salmon and a cup of Clam Chowder. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to take a picture of dinner since it looked so delicious and dug right in… I did manage to restrain myself on dessert and grabbed a quick shot before it all disappeared.

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A week in Seattle – Part 1

On August 3, 2009October 2, 2009 By Asian EdIn Life in general, Travel5 Comments

Last week, I had the privilege of attending TechReady, a bi-yearly, Microsoft-only, technical training conference. In all, thousands upon thousands of content was prepared and delivered, from recently finished products like Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, to future products like Office 2010 and Windows Mobile 6.5, to ********* (sorry, can’t talk about that one!) 😉

In addition to the technical components, it was also a great chance to network with some fellow employees. Most of this was done, of course, over some good food and drink. Most of the technical details are pretty boring, so here’s a quick summary:

Windows 7 has been stripped down to perform better and be even more secure than Vista was; most of the tweaks under the hood served to improve abilities for a broad range of users
Windows Server 2008 R2 features a host of improvements focusing on helping customers get the best out of their investment
- Branch Caching and DirectAccess will prove to be invaluable for enabling the mobile workforce to be more productive, while at the same time allowing administrators to manage and monitor those machines
- Hyper-v R2 adds a plethora of features to go head to head with VMWare, including Live Migration (complete with migrating across different generations of CPUs), increased scalability (up to 64 logical processors), and improved virtual network performance
Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 are being built to enable better live collaboration across the PC and web platforms while Office gets some significant UI tweaks to improve on the ribbon
Bing.com will continue to be improved and implemented, be sure to look for continues releases over the coming year. Some changes will be significant, but unfortunately I’m not able to talk about them. 😦 Nonetheless, I saw some preproduction demos and they’re really cool!

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