GR Digital 2

I've come briefly out of hiding to tell you about the Ricoh GR Digital 2 which was announced the other day. Yes, it looks almost exactly like the GR Digital 1 and has the same basic body and lens, most of the improvements are under the hood. It's been exactly 2 years since the GR Digital 1 came out. Unlike other camera companies (Sony, Canon, Fujifilm), Ricoh doesn't arbitrarily change the design, add a feature and release a new model every 3 months, which is something I can respect. It goes on sale 11/22 in Japan and I've already ordered mine online from biccamera.com. Read more about it here.

Tokyo Intersection #2

Having to climb stairs to cross the street via an overhead bridge is very common in Tokyo although a big pain in the butt if you are lazy. But it's fun to watch people overhead when you're in a car. Can you guess this intersection?

Tokyo Intersection #1

Google Street for Tokyo isn't out yet so I'm starting my own series of street photos called "Guess the Tokyo Intersection!" This is the first installment and it's soooo easy. I mean, c'mon, what gaijin could not guess this one, duh!!!

Blu-ray vs HD DVD

As many of you technology aficionados have probably heard, the big news today was Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Animation dumping Blu-ray and supporting only HD DVD format. Well, this is sad news indeed. While I don't have any reason not to like HD DVD I've been in the Blu-ray camp since buying the PS3 and holding off on collecting too many Blu-ray discs until there is a clear winner. It seemed that Blu-ray was going to succeed until today when this news item came out. Now "Transformers" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" will be only on HD DVD. This sucks.

When you think about it though the move makes a lot of sense for Paramount and Dreamworks regardless of which format eventually wins. The current lineup of HD DVD titles is not as extensive as the Blu-ray lineup so when Christmas comes around and HD players start selling so will their movies since there will fewer "good" titles to choose from. If Blu-ray were to eventually win, they could just reissue those titles on Blu-ray and re-release them for all the Blu-ray people who couldn't get it the first time. Then all the HD DVD people who got shafted would have to go and buy the Blu-ray version again, thus more sales in the long run. Or maybe it was the 150 million bucks they received from Microsoft...

EDIT: Michael Bay posted on his personal forum that he's pissed off at Paramount for dumping Blu-ray and "...No Transformers 2 for me!" I have new found respect for him now.

EDIT2: In an apparent reaction to the Paramount/Dreamworks announcement, Fox announced 29 titles to be released by year's end. Very cool. Looks like both side will be rushing to put more titles out in order to grab as much market share as possible.

imac in my living room

No, I didn't go out and buy one of those new iMacs. Not yet anyways. But I'm absolutely in love with the new look and it is inevitable that I'll be getting one, probably at the end of this year after Leopard comes out. I was thinking about whether I should buy a new iMac since my current 20" G5 iMac has been really just a back up PC. My desk is fairly deep and it was sitting at the back making it hard to reach the keyboard. I used it mostly for listening to music, downloading files, movies etc. If I bought the 24" it would probably just be there in the same spot doing the same thing. So I decided to do an experiment and put the iMac downstairs in my living room to see if I would use it more.

When I moved into this house I said to myself that I would keep my computers in one room. The living room was for living, sitting. No electronics in the bedroom, it was for sleeping and, you know, other things. In Japan, it's a luxury to be able to separate your activities into different rooms. I'm really lucky. Up until now I've lived in one room apartments where my PC was next to my head and I would sleep listening to the fan all night. Terrible. But as time went on, I carried my laptop everywhere in the house, thanks to 802.11n, and I ended up putting a 20" TV and DVD player in the bedroom. I can't seem to break my old ways.

The other day, I went and got a really cheap table, in case I didn't like the set up so wouldn't feel guilty about throwing out the completely good table. I used a cloth to cover the ugly table and positioned the imac on it. And to my surprise it is a very comfortable spot for computering. Just between my living room and my dining room. I feel embarrassed calling it a living room and dining room because my house is so small that it's just one room really. Maybe I should say living/dining "spot" instead. With the iMac downstairs I can listen to podcasts while eating breakfast and if I need to check some info on my way out I don't have to run upstairs. I can watch TV from this spot too which is convenient although I hardly ever turn it on. I still haven't gotten a proper stand for my TV yet either. The downside of this move is that now I cannot escape the Internet. Anywhere I go I'll be tempted to check my mail or waste time reading something online. The more I make my home comfy the less I'm motivated to go out and do real things.

Wonder Festival 2007 Summer

Wonder Festival is the biannual figure show held in Tokyo's Big Site. Anime figures were not a big thing in the days when I had more interest in anime but now it appears to be a growth industry. More than 40,000 people attended the show and it was the first time for me. Since I don't watch alot of anime anymore I don't really have much interest in figures although it was fun to see some of the craftmanship that went into many of the figures. The Getters above have been around for a while and I've seen them on Yahoo Auctions but not in real life. A lot smaller than I imagined.

Out of Shape

I am so out of shape. Been really busy dealing with life things that going to the gym and eating healthy took a back seat for the last 2 months. Adding the new car (and a bunch of other new gadgets) was not helpful either. But a couple of things transpired to help me satisfy my desire to get behind the wheel and working out. First, the gym which I joined recently closed down. This forced/freed me to look for an alternative. Next, a friend from work happened to tell me about the deal our company has with Central Sports where we can get tickets which we can use at a bunch of different fitness clubs including Central, Gold's Gym and Wow'd. In case you haven't heard about Wow'd, it's that fitness club in Ginza under the expressway just north of Printemp. And on any given evening it's full of the hottest Marunouchi office ladies doing their pilates and hot yoga. Seriously, I visited this gym once and was literally drooling all over myself.

Anyway, back to the story. So the other day I went to the Uniqlo on Kanpachi. I'm not interested in buying anything at Uniqlo but I wanted to see this shop because it just opened up and is the largest one in Japan. It also has a big parking lot for 224 cars. Well, I got there at closing time so I didn't get in. But I noticed that there was a new Central Wellness and a Spa in the same building. I took a tour of the gym which was rather nice and has a huge pool, sauna, baths etc. The machine gym had a ton of aerobic machines but slightly lacking in the free weight area. The majority of patrons were senior citizens so obviously they didn't need 60kg dumbbells.

My tickets arrived in the mail and tonight I took a leisurely drive there. Even with the tickets I still have to pay a ¥1000 fee but if I don't go more than 12 times in a month it's still cheaper than a regular membership. This gym is very nice and not smelly like Tipness. I ran on the machine a bit and worked out with weights as usual. A trainer at the gym asked me if I wanted to take a Spinning class. I've never done spinning before. It's like riding a bike, right? Sounds easy enough. I joined the class of about 10 people including myself. All the others were old people. Well, I'm not that young myself but I don't have gray hair or a wrinkly butt. That's what I mean when I say old.

These older people must have turned the resistance on their bikes all the way down because they were pedaling like mad through the entire class. One elderly lady was spinning like there was no tomorrow. I thought for sure she was going to shoot right into the mirror. As for me, well, I didn't bring any water bottle which was a big mistake because after 20 minutes I was almost dying of dehydration. I think I lost 2 kgs of water weight in that hour. About half way through I really felt like I should stop and get a drink from the fountain but I didn't want to look like a wimp. Pride forced me to endure and near the end I almost collapsed. But thank god I didn't. Next week, I will take the class again and this time I will be prepared. Those old guys better watch out!

icat

Was chatting with a kitty on iChat tonight and I guess he was bored cause he fell asleep on me. What do kittens like to talk about?

Wash your hands

This evening I was driving around Shinjuku in the pouring rain and listening to a radio show on J-Wave. The DJ was talking about the latest Love Hotel information from emails sent in by listeners. One person wrote in that at a certain hotel he'd been to they have fiber optic broadband and laptop computers you can use in the rooms. I'm wondering why the hell anyone would go to a Love Hotel to use a PC? I suppose if you finish doing your thing in 20 minutes or so you still have a few hours for the room so why not use the time to draft up those emails for work? Or maybe you can do a live blog entry? Or play World of Warcraft? Anyway, if you ever happen upon a Love Hotel with a PC make sure to wash your hands thoroughly after using it.

In other news, I found out today that the gym I just joined is closing down tomorrow!! I had to go there and pick up my stuff from the locker. Now I don't belong to ANY gym. This is the first time for me to not have a membership at a fitness club in almost 12 years. It feels very strange.

Maisen

Deep fried pork cutlets, aka "tonkatsu" とんかつ, is one of those western style foods that's become a mainstay for many Japanese. I don't think I've ever encountered tonkatsu is any Japanese restaurant in Canada although it's been ages since I've been back to Canada so I guess you can find anything there now. Tonkatsu is easy to eat because it's full of delicious fat deep fried in more fat covered in sauce which tastes good. I like tonkatsu but try to stay away from it as much as possible. Eat a pig, become a pig. There are many tonkatsu chains but one of the most famous and traditional ones is Maisen まい泉. You may have seen their sandwiches being sold in department stores. Maisen has their main restaurant in the backstreets of Omotesando. It's a classic shop with '60s style retro decor similar to the Hotel Okura. Believe it or not, this was actually my first time to visit the place in all the years I've been in Japan.

Maisen tonkatsu is different from other tonkatsu because the meat is extremely soft. It's advertised that you can cut the meat with your chopsticks. The meat is very tender and looks like it's been pulverized and beaten a thousand times. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of it but it looks kind of like spam rather than a pork cutlet. Maisen was pretty good, but I still think this one in Asakusa was the best tonkatsu I've ever eaten. Kimukatsu is also pretty good.

Combini Soba

You can get bento style soba (buckwheat noodles) at any convenience store in Japan. Sometimes, it comes with a tiny egg. There's not much more I can add to this topic except that I ate the soba and it was pretty awful. Around the block from where I live there's a fairly decent soba shop built into a house and sometimes there's a long line of people waiting to get it. I've eaten there several times already and while the noodles are very good they are also kind of expensive. Tempura soba will cost you about ¥1950.

In other news, the RSS and book purge have failed. I've already added 25 new feeds into Google Reader and in less than a week I've accumulated 10 new books!!! But these were really good books!! I could not resist! Well, to be honest there were only 4 physical books, the other 6 were downloadable audio books so it does count as clutter, right?

Big Softbank shop in Omotesando

The building in Omotesando that used be J-Crew has turned into the biggest keitai shop I've ever seen. And of course it's a Softbank shop. Personally, I think they should save their money to improve their service rather than waste it on trying to look flashy. That's what Vodafone did and they didn't last 2 years in Japan.

To make things worse they have this huge poster of Cameron Diaz staring at you. It kind of freaks me out. I heard they paid her a million dollars to be in one of the TV commercials. Vodafone spent a lot of money paying foreign celebrities like David Beckham to be in their ads and look what happened. I think Softbank should learn from that lesson and stick with the local talent. I predict the shop will be gone in less than a year. I guess you can tell that I'm not a big fan of J-Phone > Vodafone > Softbank. It's still the same mediocre service with a different name.

Ochugen

Gift giving is a vital part of Japanese culture. It's the lubricant that keeps relationships in good standing and society functioning harmoniously. While many Japanese people do give gifts out of goodness of their hearts, there are 2 times during the year when gift giving is an obligation. At the end of the year, called Oseibo お歳暮 and during the summer in which case it's called Ochugen お中元. Generally, these gifts are given to people who you are obligated to rather than family or friends. People such as your landlord, your clients, someone to whom you owe lots of money, etc. The types of gifts are limited to expensive meat or fruits, dry food or kitchen items in bulk or basically anything that can be eaten or serves a practical purpose in any household. You don't give decorative items or souvenirs. The reason is that if you get an ochugen that you don't like or won't use you can give it to someone else. This is the art of circulating gifts that most Japanese housewives are very good at. Some seasoned gift givers do not even buy gifts, they just give out the gifts they've received carefully making sure that they don't give the same gift to the person they got it from. For example, if they received a gift from person A, they would give that gift to person B, and give the gift from B to C, C to D, D to A and so on.

Japanese department stores and supermarkets have made gift giving very easy. During the peak seasons they have lots of displays like the ones in these photos. You choose the item you want and the department store will have it delivered to any address in Japan. In this store, the boxes only have a photo of the contents but in the fancy department stores in Ginza they will have samples of the real stuff. The items are often fresh foods like crab from Hokkaido or beef from Kobe which get sent from those locations. You can also order things online through the department stores websites but it's not as much fun as going to the shops and checking out the gifts in person.

Which would you be happier receiving, a box of really expensive steaks or a case of vegetable oil? Why the steaks of course! Who the hell wants a huge box of vegetable oil?

If you're too lazy to pick something out you can just get one of these gift cheque books. They range in price from ¥3000 to over ¥100,000! You give one of the books to someone and they can pick some item from the book. Sometimes these books are given out at weddings (to the people who attend not as gifts for the marrying couple). Inside the ¥105,630 book, there were gift certificates to some pretty expensive restaurants, presidential suites at some luxury hotels and other things that I would generally not blow a thousand bucks on. Personally, I would rather just have the cash.

Have you gotten any ochugen yet?

Hiatus

Was chatting with Sean over Skype this afternoon about how reading blogs was getting boring and the content on most of them repetitive. It's such a daily habit with me that reading blogs and RSS feeds has become somewhat like flipping channels on cable TV trying to find something interesting in all that noise. At least with TV there are times when there is nothing to watch. But with the web it just never ends. There's always something leading to something else. It's a bottomless pit. It's gotten to the point where it's actually affecting my health. I suppose I have a mild addiction to the Internet (don't we all?) 8 hours at work and another 6 hours at home per day is a bit much, isn't it?

This feeling is part of the reason that I have not been very enthusiastic about updating this blog for the past few weeks. Not that I don't enjoy doing it but I try not to post about something unless I feel excited and genuinely passionate about it. Otherwise it's just a chore, you know. There have been quite a lot of interesting things lately for which I have many unpublished posts, but just haven't been able to motivate myself to finish. Another reason is simply that there are other things going on in my life that have become more of a priority than getting a blog post published. Nothing bad, in case you were wondering, just some different interests I'm pursuing.

Many good blogs I read often die out after a year or two and I've always wondered what happened to those people. Not a word about why their blog disappeared or anything. Did they die? Or did they have a nervous breakdown? Like Justin Hall did online in Jan 2005. In case you don't know who he is, he's like the Internet's first true blogger. Probably most people just lose interest or move on with their lives or whatever. Well, I'm not planning to shut this site down completely, but I will be taking a self imposed hiatus of a couple months to focus on other things and just recharge.

I'll be back so don't unsubscribe my blog feed from your RSS reader just yet.

Peace.

Gap Posters with Japanese Stars

The Gap is using Puffy and Ken Watanabe in their posters. This is the first time I know of that they're using Japanese celebs in their ads. Since they are 2 (or 3) of the few Japanese faces that are well-known in North America I'm guessing that either 1) the marketing department is located overseas or 2) run by foreigners who don't know any other locally famous Japanese celebrities or 3) It's an International Ad campaign. Probably it's 3. Which might explain why most of the other foreigner celebs that appear in these ads are practically unknown to the average Japanese shopping for jeans. E.G. Selma Blair, Forest Whitaker, Sarah Silverman etc. Photos are by Annie Leibovitz

Koenji Awaodori 2007

Another Koenji Awaodori come and gone. This year Hector and Harold joined me to enjoy the event. They were Awaodori newbies so I took them around the course and showed them all the different aspects. This year it seemed like there were not as many people, probably because it started a little earlier at 6pm. I took about 350 photos mostly using my 50mm F1.4 lens. It's a beautiful lens but hard to use on moving subjects because of the shallow depth of field. Although with a fast lens like this one it's amazing what you can get with just available light and no flash. Above is a shot of the Microsoft-ren at the end of the festival. More photos after the jump.

Learn English from Gundam

Learning English is big business in Japan. I can understand learning English from your favorite movies and tv shows when the source material is English but I find it really funny that they would publish an English textbook based on Japanese material translated into English. But then again, it's Gundam so someone is bound to buy these books. I suppose there are some people who wonder how they would say some of the famous scenes in English. Well, I scanned the book and found some of the translations amusing, but most of it was pretty non-native and just plain useless like "Let's test the reaction time of your brand-new mobile suits." I supposed this makes as much sense as me trying to learn Japanese from a Japanese translation of South Park.

atsuiyo

It's the middle of August and very hot. In fact, I think this has got to be the hottest summer I've ever experienced in Tokyo. This afternoon while walking down the street I thought I would die. I felt like Sanada Hiroyuki in Sunshine as he gets blasted with a big fat fireball from the sun. This evening when I got home I checked the clock in my den and it said 41 degrees celsius. I quickly turned on the aircon which cooled the room before I could get a photo of the temperature. Surprisingly, even though I was covered in sweat the humidity was not too bad at around 50%. I bought a couple of these clocks a while back and they have been quite useful. Last month, the temperatures were quite cool but very humid because of the rainy season. One day it got up to 70%. It's a toss up as to which is worse, the heat or the humidity. While the heat is unbearable, the humidity does damage to things which is probably worse in the long run. Anyway, what do you think of this clock? The time is always accurate because it syncs via radio waves to some master clock somewhere. Ugly but does the job.

Get your very own Tokyo Tower

Spotted in Toys R Us. For ¥11,999 you can have a 1/500 scale Tokyo Tower in your home. It lights up and everything! Just like the REAL Tokyo Tower. As you can see, this is the 2007 model. There may be a 2008 model if this sells well. This is got to be the best souvenir of Tokyo ever. It's made by Sega Toys. Check out the cool photos on their website here. You can even download the catalogue. 2008 will be the 50th Anniversary of Tokyo Tower. I bet there will be some very exciting celebrations! I guess you can tell that I'm a fan of TT.

Kokuyo

Yesterday, I had a chance to visit the Kokuyo live office in Kasumigaseki. Kokuyo is one of the largest stationary manufacturers in Japan. They also produce office furniture and more recently began consulting for how to improve office environment and productivity. Their head office doubles as a show room displaying some of their "open office" concepts in a real working setting. It was an very eye opening tour and afterwards they gave me some nice stationary items.

1. First is a Campus Notebook paracuruno that is beveled two ways at the edges to make it easier to flip through 2. Mekurin rings are a more fashionable alternative to those ugly rubber thimble things OLs use when they need to count cash or flip through thousands of pages 3. Punyo Punyo Pins are pins that have a rubber ring around the pin part which prevents you from pricking your finger when you pick up a bunch 4. Tamahocchi is an egg shape stapler with a rubber grip bottom that keeps it stable on your desk 5. Kadokeshipuchi is a small eraser that will always have a shape edge somewhere in case you need to do some precision erasing 6. A pen designed as part of the WILL (nothing really special about this)

Japan has lots of cool stationary stuff that make fun and practical souvenir alternatives. I think when I first came to Tokyo I spent a good part of my time looking at all the neat pens and stationary supplies they have. Make sure to check out the art/stationary supply shop Sekaido or the stationary floor at Tokyu Hands the next time you visit.

Typhoon Usagi

I can't help snickering everytime I hear someone on TV say the name of the next typhoon approaching Japan. Tropical storm number 5 is called "Usagi" or "bunny rabbit". Is it a new trend to name typhoons after cute furry animals? It's only a matter of time before we see "typhoon hamster" or "typhoon kitty." If typhoon usagi turns into a level 4 typhoon as they are predicting, I don't think people will think the name is cute when it hits Shikoku.

Initial D Arcade Stage 4 Limited

I just found a good reason to visit Joypolis in Odaiba this summer. Now you can enjoy the Initial D arcade game sitting in the real cars!! Nice! The game is only there for the summer so if you are a hard core D fanboy better make sure you don't miss it.

I wonder if they actually have simulated engines rumble so it will feel like the car is running rather than just sitting there on tilt machine. It would be even better if they had another 90 inch screen behind the car so if you looked in the rear view mirror you could see your opponent behind you. That would be awesome. If you're not into Initial D you might want to check out the 24 CTU Mission attraction where you have a fixed length of time (24 minutes?) and you get to pretend to be Jack Bauer to catch the terrorists and maybe get to torture them too.

Photos from Response.jp

Web Trends Map 2007

Information Architects Japan put out a new Web Trends map for 2007 last month which I found a lot more interesting than last years. I studied it for a good hour and had some snickers at the in jokes here and there. Basically, they mapped the 200 most popular websites on the Internet onto the Tokyo Subway Map based on their popularity or genre. If you know places in Tokyo you can have a good laugh at some of their choices although some left me thinking WTF? I imagine they put Apple/iTunes in that Tameike-Sanno/Akasaka-Mitsuke/Nagata-cho cluster because it intersects all those subways lines (used to represent different trends) rather than any similarities with the area. They put all those Bittorrent and P to P sites along the Asakusa line. The Asakusa line has quite a bit of traffic but it's one of those train lines that people forget exist because it passes near some major stations, but not through them. Also, I don't see MY blog on this map!!! But then again I wouldn't map my site on a subway station anyway.

Chu-hi

I've known lots of foreigners in Japan that don't speak any Japanese, but I don't think I've ever met a foreigner who lived in Japan and didn't know how to order beer or alcohol. 大ジョッキ "daijokki" which means the "largest glass of draft beer" is one of the first words people remember after "ohayo" and "arigato." Most foreigners who come to Japan are drunks. At least the ones I used to know ;-)

Another word is チューハイ chū-hi, which is usually the cheapest non-beer alcoholic drink in most izakayas. Chū-hi is short for "shōchū highball" and is a mix of shōchū and lemony soda water. 焼酎 Shōchū is a kind of distilled alchohol like whisky except a bit weaker. It's used as a mixer in many drinks. As far as I know there's no equivalent to chū-hi in western bars but I guess a vodka/gin and tonic would be closest. You can find many varieties of chū-hi like ume-hi, grapefruit-hi, orange-hi, apple-hi, peach-hi etc where basically they mix your favorite fruit/soft drink with shōchū. Generally, people who don't like beer will order one of these types of drinks, although the alcoholic content varies dramatically from place to place.

When I worked in an izakaya I used to make chū-his all night. The shōchū came in these big huge industrial sized plastic kegs that weighed a ton. I was instructed to put only a little bit of shōchū into each drink, and less if the patrons were women. I was generous though and would fill the shōchū up to half the glass. The owner eventually caught on as customers were getting drunk faster than normal so they stopped letting me make them. Because the shops can control the amount of alcohol put into the drinks, chū-hi have the largest profit margin over any other item. At cheap izakayas, which cater to university students (more like family restaurants really), they use the lowest quality shōchū and put only a few drops into each drink. You have to drink about 10 of them before you can get even slightly drunk. At a proper izakaya, chū-hi will have a respectable amount of higher quality shōchū. You can distinguish the cheap izakayas from the good ones because the cheap places usually have pictures on plastic menus. Easy to clean in case you spill a drink or vomit on them.

If you want to enjoy a chū-hi it's best to just get it from a can. The alcoholic content is usually higher and consistent. They have many different varieties that you can find in most convenient stores, the latest of which is called AWA's from Suntory. It's foamy like beer. Awa 泡 means bubbles or foam.

Hakone

It's still the rainy season in Japan and going anywhere near Mt. Fuji is pointless because it will be forever hidden in the clouds. Hakone is one of those places that's a thousand times better if you can see Mt. Fuji. In case you're not familiar with Hakone, it's the hotspring resort town at the end of the Odakyu line. You can get there in less than 2 hours via the Romance car from Shinjuku. There's some very nice hotsprings and restaurants in the area which is perfect for a weekend date. Hakone is also one of the best places to drive fast and tight winding roads through the mountains. I wanted to get away this weekend and decided late friday night to head out there just to drive some of those curves. Luckily it only rained at night and during the day the roads were mostly dry and I could put the top down.

(1) This is one of the pirate ships you can ride across Lake Ashinoko. Usually you can see a magnificent view of Mt. Fuji across the lake to the left. There were busloads of bored European tourists waiting to get on the next boat. I felt sorry for them because they came all the way from the other side of the earth to see Mt. Fuji, but all they could experience was this plain looking lake and a tacky boat. Oh well, it is a lot better when Mt. Fuji is visible, really! (2) Stuck in traffic on the road leading up to Hakone Shrine. Certain parts of Hakone are gridlock on the weekend. Even if you don't drive you'll still get stuck in the jams riding the bus. Better to be in your own car listening to your tunes.

Book Purge

The information diet continues. After deleting most of the feeds from my RSS reader, I started to look around the house to see if there wasn't anything material I could purge. The logical target was my book shelf. After 17 years of living in Japan, I've accumulated a lot of books. I have Amazon to blame for that. Readers of this blog have probably come to the conclusion that I buy lots of computers and keitais and cars etc. Well, the truth is I spend more money on books than anything else. I buy books like there's no tomorrow. I read all my books but I never finish any of them. Most of the books I read are non-fiction and after years of reading so many non-fiction books I've come to the conclusion that only about 10% of any book is worth reading, the rest is just filler. I usually only read the information that I need and then the book gets shelved. Over the years I've been more careful about my book purchases but that hasn't really kept me from accumulating a fairly large library.

When I moved house a couple years ago I got rid of half my books, about 200 or so, by just dumping them in the trash. I put out 5 boxes of books one night and in the morning the boxes were torn open and half my books had been liberated. It was a bit surprising since all of them were English books on boring subjects like javascript and English teaching methodology. This time I decided to try and sell them at one of the used English book stores in Tokyo. Shari has a good post about trading your unwanted books which is what motivated me to get off my butt and sell my books. I could have (should have) done this year's ago but I'm lazy and have too much space in my house.

Anyways, since the last time I junked my book collection I managed to accumulate 3 times as many books in only a few years. To prevent this from happening again I decided that I would limit my book collection to 100 books and for every new book I purchased I had to get rid of an old one. The criteria for which books to keep were based mostly on subjects which I am currently interested in and or refer to on a regular basis. These include finance, trading, health, business, marketing, some science and sociology and a couple new age books (don't laugh). I used to read lots of fiction and literature in the past but since I hardly ever read a novel these days I decided to get rid of all of them. I did kept 2 of my favorite literary novels though, Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. I reread these every other year. I also kept all books related to Japanese language study. If I got rid of these books I'd be subsconsciously saying to myself that I've given up on studying Japanese and I can't be doing that. I'm still in denial.

After a few hours of sorting out my books, I discovered that 100 proved an impossible limit for me, so I extended it to 150 books. Of the remaining 400+ books, about a third were computer related and were already out of date. These went into the trash along with some books in poor condition. The rest I threw into 3 big boxes, loaded them into my roadster, and took them to Blue Parrot Books in Takadanobaba. I've never been to this book shop but it's a lot smaller than Good Day Books. The owner was very nice though and we chatted about a bunch of stuff as she went through my books. In the end, they didn't want half of my books and offered me ¥15,000 in credit or ¥6,400 cash. Not much considering the amount I must have spent to buy all those books in the first place. Since the whole point of the exercise was to reduce books I took the cash instead of the credit. I told them they could have the rest of the books to do whatever they wanted with. I was happy just to be free of the baggage.

Next I'll be targeting my closet and dresser!