SOFTWARE, JAPAN, SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND

I went to this great burger joint near the office in Shirokanedai. The place is called Burger Mania - and the quality and selection of burgers justifies the name.
I didn’t have a camera to take any photos of my Ultimate Blue Cheese burger, but someone else on the internet has already done so. Check out […]

I’m heading to Gumma this week! It’s that time of year when families in Japan get together and eat rice cakes, toshi-koshi soba, osechi, and - in some cases - fugu.
On another note, I’ve been using my Nintendo DS like crazy for the last month. This kanji drawing / dictionary program is really playing a […]

Yesterday, I got on the elevator at work and proceeded to press the 6th floor button. To my dismay, the button did not light up nor did the doors close. I pressed it again, and again nothing happened. Three, four, five presses later - and still nothing.
It dawned on me that the elevator doors were […]

Thursday is the emperor’s birthday. He turns 77 this year and, like every year, most everyone gets a day off to celebrate.
So, what will we do to celebrate? We will participate in an event known as “Osouji.” Osouji means “the big cleanup” and is the same as “spring cleaning” except Japanese tend to do this […]

Christmas day is approaching fast and I am vastly unprepared. Not only do I have to do some secret shopping still, but I have to plan something for us to do on Christmas.
I assumed that we’d partake in the Japanese style Christmas dinner, but there might be a problem (so says my friend). If we […]

I have no plans this weekend, and I’m actually quite ecstatic
Perhaps Ayako and I will go watch the new Tron movie. Perhaps we will stay home and watch “Darling ha Gaikokujin” again, instead.
In either case, it’s going to be relaxing!
Since this is Friday, I might as well post a few random photos […]

In English, we might say someone “drinks like a fish” or “eats like a horse.” How would you translate those in Japanese?
Well, today I was doing my daily routine of drawing kanji on my Nintendo DS when I found this lovely entry:
牛飲馬食
gyuinbasyoku
“cow drink horse eat” - a person drinks like a cow and eats like […]

This PDF by employees at Google is an interesting read. It discusses the importance of measuring additional metrics that gauge the user experience:
Measuring the User Experience on a Large Scale
On another note, this week is going to be a nice break from the recent pace. Looking forward to not having any evening plans

I made a quick video highlighting some of my team’s games. My teammates did a great job this year. We got a 2nd place and a 3rd place tournament finish. In 2011, we want to get two 1st place victories and attend a larger regional tournament.

Our next tournament will be in January

A great interview with Hashimoto-san, the CTO of COOKPAD, is now on CNET Japan. As you may have guessed, the interview was recorded and transcribed in Japanese - you can check it out here:
COOKPAD CTO interview Part 1
COOKPAD CTO interview Part 2
My favorite part of the interview is about the software engineer’s skill sets. Hashimoto-san […]