This one is a recipe that I remember from childhood. My mother used to make it for us, and I always liked it. Some years back, I got my mother to pass on the recipe to me, and figured that I might add it to the sparse number of recipes I’ve entered in this blog.

This dish basically makes a kind of salmon “cake,” about 1″ high in a 9″ x 9″ pan (I use a glass pan). It’s a bit bready, a bit cheesy, but with a salmon overtaste with the spices adding to it… It’s a delicious dish, hard to describe; you’ll have to make it and see for yourself.

Here are the ingredients:

1 lb. canned salmon (450 g)
1 egg (large)
3/4 cup milk
1 cup soft bread crumbs
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tablespoons melted butter

(pre-heat oven to 350˚ F, or 180˚ C–but not until about 10-15 minutes before baking)

The hardest part of this recipe is handled first: cleaning the canned salmon and flaking it. I get three 180-gram cans (Akebono Salmon). Now, when you get canned tuna, it’s just the good part (as I recall). But canned salmon includes parts that some may find edible, but I certainly don’t, including bones and skin. So you have to empty the canned salmon into a bowl and then, by hand, pick out the skin and bones, leaving the good, flaky salmon ready to be added to the rest of the recipe.

In the image below, I start with the canned salmon (top), pick out the skin and bones (middle right), and end up with a bowl of nice, flaked salmon (bottom).

Next, you’ll want to measure out and set aside momentarily the soft bread crumbs and cheese. You’ll note that I did not use just cheddar–I used crumbled mozzarella as well. I also use a bit more cheese than the recipe calls for. The extra cheese and the mozzarella add to the spongy, springy taste, to my liking. Actually, I use a few more bread crumbs than the recipe calls for also, but just a bit. You should compress the crumbs when measuring the cupful, by the way.

Now, put the egg and 3/4 cup of milk on a largish mixing bowl:

Add the bread crumbs, and then mix together (you can mix the egg and milk first if you like):

After you have the bread-egg-milk mixture, drop onto it the flaked salmon and cheese. Then add the tablespoon of lemon juice and the spices:

Personally, I use Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix powder instead of garlic salt. I never make dressing from it–I just use it as a spice. It’s mostly garlic and onion in a salt-powder mix anyway, and I like the taste better. I also use more than just a 1/2 teaspoon of it–usually a few teaspoons. It doesn’t overpower–in fact, you can just taste it a bit, not too much, even in large amounts–but you can taste it, and I like the difference.

After you add the salmon, cheese, lemon juice and spices, then you get your hands dirty: reach in there and knead it until it’s all spread around as well as you can get it. After this and the original cleaning, you’ll have fishy-smelling fingernails for a bit–part of the cost of making the dish.

Now you’re ready to prep the pan. I use a 9″-square glass pan myself–I don’t know if the glass part is important or not. Smear some butter, margarine, shortening, or other pan-geasing item to the bottom 1″ of the pan. It’s also at about this time that I start pre-heating the oven, by the way.

Now, put the mix into the pan, flattening it out so that it’s level, but don’t compress it too much.

Next, put two tablespoons of butter or margarine into a frying pan and melt it; add the 1/2 cup of dry bread crumbs, and cook them in the butter, until they become golden brown or darker. You can use more bread crumbs than 1/2 cup if you want.

Then scatter the bread crumbs on top of the mix in the pan, as evenly as you can get it.

If your oven is now at the right temperature or close to it, put the pan into the oven and set your timer for 30 minutes. In Japan, actual ovens are a rarity; however, you can use a microwave/convection oven–it will serve as a nuke wagon, but you can also bake stuff in it. Highly recommended for living and cooking in Japan.

After 30 minutes, take it out and leave it to cool a little. I like to serve it with mashed potatoes, with some negi (green onions) mixed in.

Makes enough for at least three people, four or more if you spread it around more thinly. Serve with salad and whatever else you like. Is good reheated the next day as leftovers as well. Enjoy!

No, that guy is not injured, nor is he a mugging victim. Just another reminder that we’re not living in the suburbs anymore. He’s just another salaryman who had too much to drink, and so took about an hour’s nap on the sidewalk in front of our building. Below you can see a passerby checking up on him.

I noticed him when I came home; the guy was still awake, but in the exact same position you see below. He was, in fact, checking his cell phone. Charming. I suppose it’s better than sleeping completely in the gutter–only his feet are over the curb.

How long could someone be like this in any major American city and still have his wallet, cellphone, and watch when he woke up? You can be pretty sure this guy woke up with everything still in his pockets, and then did the chidori-ashi (chicken-walk) all the way home.

Yet another discount barber place. Cut only for ¥1100, cut and shampoo for ¥1700. Choices, choices.

Speaking of choices… this line of more than a dozen vending machines lines the wall of a building on the way from the station to our place. Mostly drink machines, but there are two automated photo booths and one ice cream vending machine in that line-up.

And finally, some Engrish T-shirt finds:

On that second one, on the right, above the “67,” it says, “To remember it and not to repent.” Heathens. Below is the last, and hardest to read at this size:

Click for a larger version, or read this transcript:

Oh, this is too precious: Republican candidates are running scared from the YouTube debate! Yes, that’s right, this is the same party that pilloried the Democratic candidates for being “afraid of journalists” because they did not allow the propaganda arm of the Republican Party to run a debate for them.

It wasn’t enough for them to run scared from black people when all but one of them steered clear of the NAACP debate. Now they apparently are running scared from the actual people of this country, likely because it’s a debate where citizens ask questions without having their Republican credentials assured before they can be allowed in.

But hey, how can you blame them? If you were Rudy Giuliani, would you want to open yourself up to having a NYFD firefighter come on live TV and expose you for being a complete fuckup?

Not that a YouTube debate would really help them that much, even if potentially damaging questions were weeded out beforehand. Giuliani is so easily uncovered as a corrupt fraud that he’d be easily beaten by virtually any of the top Democratic candidates. Mitt Romney isn’t far behind, with massive flip-flopping and dissembling. John McCain’s campaign is pretty much a walking corpse (which is probably why is is signing on, in hopes of reversing his fortunes), and even Fred Thompson, once seen as the savior of the GOP in 2008, is now falling apart (due to fundraising woes, his lobbyist past becoming more public, and other credibility issues).

So can you blame them for running like scaredy-cats from any audience that isn’t pre-filtered for Republican bias? Well, actually, yes you can… but you can’t claim any measure of surprise when doing so.

Here’s how it went with the Republicans when Clinton was in office: at the merest suggestion that there might have been a transgression of a Clinton White House official, a special prosecutor was assigned by Congress, with Democrats agreeing on the basis of avoiding a conflict of interest, and the White House cooperating (though the degree of compliance is debatable, at least they made a show of upholding the law).

Here’s how it is now with the Democrats, with Bush in office: only when it has been positively proven beyond any doubt whatsoever that the Attorney General himself lied under oath and is guilty of overseeing massive corruption, a special prosecutor is now called for, but is opposed by Republicans despite conflicts of interest, and is fought tooth and nail by the White House to the extent of being further guilty of contempt of Congress, and further violating the law by having the aforementioned Attorney General, despite absolute conflict of interest, simply ignore the charges instead of (correctly and legally) recusing himself and having a subordinate take on the task.

Let me ask this: to the extent that the Republicans in office today have become, not just partisan, but so blatantly illegal in their actions, how can you be a Republican and not be totally ashamed of how your party is acting? I mean, Democrats are ashamed of their party for just not doing enough to call Republicans on it; and yet, Republicans seem adamantly stubborn in defending brazen violations of the law and flagrant disassembling of the Constitution of the United States of America.

This has gone beyond partisan politics. This has gone beyond the extent of “my party, right or wrong.” We are now in the territory of, “my party, no matter how corrupt, destructive, or defiantly criminal they have become.” Even the Republicans who try to make election-year hay out of “opposing” the president still can’t go beyond mild criticism, usually consisting of stating the bloody obvious (e.g., “mistakes were made in Iraq”). So, what’s the explanation? Loyalty until death? Hypnotism? Mass hysteria? Embarrassment? Or just plain approval of the corruption and lawbreaking?

Just got a flier in the mailbox for a pizza place (the one starting with “D”). Just wanted to make an observation.

First they had “extra cheese” on pizzas. Then they escalated to injecting cheese into the edge of the crust. Then they enlarged the crust so they could shove even more cheese into it, essentially creating a cheese-filled danish at the end of each piece. Now, it seems that they are getting even closer to dropping the pretense of there being pizza involved as opposed to finding new “delivery systems” for melted cheese. Hence, the “Quatro Cheese Melt”:

I mean, seriously. Why not just hand people a bucket of melted cheese and be done with it? Who’s being fooled into thinking that this is a food dish rather than just the equivalent to putting a bowl of cheese into the microwave and then eating it by scooping it out with your hand? Anyone?

But they do pay attention to the non-cheese portion:

Interesting flavors. They include “meat,” “ethnic” (which I assume is some form of salsa), “spicy,” and “white sauce.” I presume that the “white sauce” is a clever way of saying “even more cheese.”

But hey. Fake Japanese Elvis Guy gives it the thumbs-up, so what can I say? Better hurry and order now, though–you’ll only be able to gorge on these things for another five weeks.

This new apartment has a lot of new-fangled gadgetry in it, being a modern, all-electric dwelling. Even the toilet seat is electronic, with controls for a heated seat as well as bidet and washlet (though that feature is actually common in Japan). The living room floor is heated from below; the bath room has advanced ventilation to allow for drying clothes 24/7; there’s a color intercom with the building entrance, audio-only with the front door, and emergency call buttons in the bath and toilet rooms. The intercom also alerts you when a parcel has been delivered for you and is waiting in a locker downstairs. There’s even a garbage disposal in the sink, something I never heard of in Japan before. That along with fiber-optic to the wall, ethernet ports connecting the various rooms, and a 60-amp breaker to allow for all of that–though we did actually manage to trip a breaker circuit in the kitchen during the housewarming party (we ran two microwaves in the kitchen at once).

The finishing touch is the induction-heating (IH) stove. I had never even heard of that before, but I guess it must be catching on in Japan, as I am seeing a lot of pots and pans made for IH in stores now. Though, of course, that’s likely because (a) I’m looking for it now, and know what “IH” means, and (b) it might be a bigger seller in central areas like we’re in. All I know is that, despite initial worries as to how well it would work, I like it, a lot.

Until now, I had just used “gas konro,” or gas-fueled stoves, with grill burners–a very common item in Japan. The disadvantages are clear, however–mostly in that such stoves collect grease and gunk like there’s no tomorrow. Forget about keeping them all that clean. They also take up a chunk of counter space, which is at a huge premium in Japan–most kitchens have maybe a few square feet of countertop on which you can prepare meals.

The IH stove is a joy in comparison. First, it’s flat and glass-smooth; if you spill something, just wipe it off. Cleaning is a breeze. And when not in use, it serves just fine as extra counter space–you just have to overcome your natural aversion to putting any items you feel like on a stovetop. Once you do, you find that you have tons of counter space–a luxury in this country.

Operation is simple, though we had trouble figuring it out. You switch on the power, pop out the control panel, and push a button for the right “burner” you want to activate. The button pops out and acts as a dial to control the temperature of the stove. We haven’t figured out those other buttons yet.

In order for the stove to work, there needs to be a pot or pan made of an IH stove–in effect, conductive-metal bottom, made flat enough to trip the sensor. Without that, nothing happens–no heat.

My worry was that such a stove probably would offer only feeble heat–but I was dead wrong on that count. It actually heats a pot or pan a lot faster than a simple flame burner does. Lights on the stovetop show the temperature setting:

The readings are in Celsius; it goes from 140˚ up. I love the scale: 180, 190, 200… Tempura!

Another light shows which burners are hot–and they do get physically hot, and take time to cool off afterwards–another lamp indicates that cooling-off is still in progress, so don’t touch.

The down side: we had to toss a half dozen otherwise-good pots and pans… and I still haven’t found a good pot for cooking popcorn. I found a nice steel pot, but it’s the silver-in-and-out type which gets nasty black stains if you try cooking popcorn in it. I need an IH pot with a nice, teflon-coated interior.

And we should start using that toaster underneath–we’ve neglected it, using the toaster function in the microwaves instead. I bet it’ll work right nicely.

Surprise! Apple sold more iPhones than it seemed from the AT&T report yesterday. Almost twice as many, in fact. Not a million in ten days, as many thought, but they fully expect a million sales by September. But what really surprised the market was the earning report overall: record sales. A 33% increase in computer sales over the same quarter last year, and 150,000 more computer sales than any quarter in the company’s history. Considering that the OS is two years old and many people are doubtlessly waiting to buy a Mac for when Leopard is released in October, that’s pretty damned impressive.

Clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks so: while Apple stock rose $2.23 (1.65%) during the day’s trading, it has shot up an amazing additional $11.38 (8.3%) at this time in after-hours trading, to stand at $148.50 per share–and is still rising. Yesterday would have been an incredibly good time to buy Apple stock….

An addendum, however: an element of the stock’s fall and rise is tied to the NASDAQ exchange, which fell 2% yesterday, and rose again today, along with other indexes. This undoubtedly helped Apple’s movement in both directions.

The stock market can be skittish, especially with a successful stock that people think may be overvalued. Confidence dropped in Apple yesterday due to news from AT&T that “only” 146,000 iPhone activations were made in the Q2 of 2007; people had expected half a million. Doesn’t matter that the reaction is nonsensical, almost farcical; what matters is that people panicked. So the stock fell by $8.81, or 6.13% on the news.

Why “nonsensical”? Because people apparently did not realize that the 146,000 number represented only a short time, cut shorter by certain factors many did not take into account. There was the belief that at least 200,000 iPhones were sold in the first two days, maybe as many as 400,000, or some dared to think even half a million. So 146,000 is disappointing, right?

Well, not quite. There are three mitigating factors:

• First of all, it was not two days of sales–it was slightly over one day, specifically 30 hours. Sales began at 6 pm on June 29th, and ended before midnight on the 30th. That represents a much shorter time in which to sell product, in terms of percentage.
• Second, AT&T did not report on iPhone sales, they reported iPhone activations. That cuts the potential time frame shorter–not everyone activated their phones within minutes of purchase, and a delay of hours put many out of the time frame. Some iPhones were bought for resale, as gifts, etc.
• And finally, AT&T famously had issues with activation in that first 30 hours, which meant that many couldn’t activate until after the end of Q2.

However, the market did what it did: it reacted, having nothing else to go on. Some misunderstood and sold short, some panicked and dropped out, and others took advantage of the situation, and it snowballed. You can bet that there was some pressure to drive the market down so that people could buy lower and take profit later. It certainly didn’t help that a telecom analyst chose that moment to release an undetailed report that inventory was “decent” and demand had seen a “significant decline”–something which should be a no-brainer when you have massive lines at a release; such lines never sustain themselves. As for inventory, they sold out virtually nationwide before they could restock–but then they restocked enough to satisfy the post-release demand. That analyst firm had no actual knowledge or numbers to work on; in effect, they were guessing.

The real tell will be when Apple makes its report, and we find out the actual sales numbers. Jobs may even quote sales beyond that initial 30 hours in order to calm those who can’t see beyond the “two days” number. Who knows, it could be bad news there, too. The point is, there is no real way to tell yet. Of course, people with itchy fingers try to anyway, and that’s how you get reactions like today’s. Personally, I’m not worried; I’m in it for the long haul, and even if there’s another $8 drop or two, I’m still way ahead, and those numbers will go up again, of that I am confident.

Update: A few more notes on the CIBC analysts’ announcement. First off, they measured demand apparently by having some of their people hang out at Apple Stores, looking at the number of iPhone boxes on display, and noting how many people at those stores seemed to be looking at or buying iPhones. A less-scientific measure of sales could not be imagined. They do not state how many stores they looked at, at which hours, for how long, or even if AT&T stores were also watched. They have zero knowledge of how many units were ordered online. And worst of all, CIBC includes a disclaimer that it “does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports”–in other words, they could have a huge conflict of interest and bias in this. The fact that they waited until just after AT&T released activation figures to release this report raises serious questions–it could not have been better-timed to knock Apple shares tumbling down. They may or not be right, just as anyone guessing may or may not be right, but their credibility here is incredibly questionable.

Wow… this article is a pretty startling example of distortion–so much so, that I’m pretty sure its author works for the GOP… or Microsoft… or both. Here’s the first paraagrph:

Windows Vista’s share of online users has increased every month this year, while rival Mac OS X — to which Vista has often been compared — has shown little, if any, growth, a metrics company reports.

This is one of those grand lies that uses the truth distorted in several ways to give a completely false impression. Pretty spectacular, if you know what it’s really talking about and how it uses massively different cases and compares them side-to-side as if they were on equal standing. Either this writer is so idiotic and clueless about computers that Computerworld should fire him, or he is dishonest to an astonishing degree… and Computerworld should fire him.

It’s hard to figure out where to start. First off, he’s comparing Windows Vista–Microsoft’s new Windows OS–with all Mac OS versions out there. We all know that Windows has something like 90%+ of the OS market share (exact stats are in dispute, but that’s the general area), while Apple has most of the rest. So any version of Windows will have the potential to gain far more market share than all versions of the Mac OS for that reason alone. It would be like selling accessories for the iPod vs. the Zune: you sell more because the customer base is many times bigger, not because your product is better.

What’s more, Vista use more or less has to grow, since most new PC sales have Vista pre-installed. Vista growth is virtually guaranteed, even despite its massive flaws. Here, I’ll make a startling prediction: in five years, most PC users will be running Vista! What a breathtakingly daring prediction! Of course, this is a no-brainer: in five years, most Windows users will have bought a new Windows computer, and unless they go way out of their way to get XP installed (or switch to a Mac, which more and more are doing), they will be using Vista–but by Hobson’s Choice, not necessarily their own.

In short, the writer compares (1) a new product filling a vast, pre-existing reservoir with (2) an existing product (which not only hasn’t been updated in a few years, but is now waiting for an upgrade in three months, no less–something which dampens sales, if anything) with a much smaller existing user base gaining market share by fighting tooth and nail to convert people from one system to another.

However, there is one reason you can see the writer doing this: it’s the only way to make Vista sales seem strong. Which makes me wonder about how big a kickback this guy is getting from Redmond. There has been ample evidence that Vista adoption has been slow; in fact, so many people asked Dell to sell computers with XP installed that the computer maker started offering it as a regular product. Think about that: scores of new customers demanded that a 6-year-old piece of software be installed on their computers so that they could avoid having a brand-new OS included in their computer, even though the price would be identical.

What’s more, the Computerworld writer uses very specific Mac OS usage stats (as reported by a Windows-centric organization) to make it seem like Mac usage is falling:

Mac OS X, meanwhile, accounted for 6.22 percent in January and hit its high point of 6.46 percent in May, but it slipped back to 6 percent in June.

To see how he played fast and loose with the numbers, look at the chart below, with the figures he quoted circled in red:

Note that the January number was at the high end of a very fast climb for OS X users. Had he quoted stats year-over-year, that is, July 2006 to July 2007, he would have had to admit that Mac OS X use has increased from 4.29% to 6.00%–and that the “slip” he mentioned is a month-to-month variation–a hiccup, not a trend. The year-over-year increase is supported by the fact that Apple continues to outperform the market: sales of Mac computers shot up 26.2% year over year, while the PC market overall only rose 7.2%.

But the numbers that the Vista-friendly writer gave are deceptive in other ways as well. For example, if you just trouble yourself to get the Net Applications numbers for the Mac OS for the previous year as well, you’ll notice a pattern: Mac OS share rises in the second half of the year, then stays steady in the first half of the next year. The numbers for the Mac have shot up starting in August for the past two years–which means that Mac OS share, as reported by this source, should start to jump again in the next few months:

Note that the rise in 2006 was greater and was sustained for longer than the one in 2005. So if the past is any indication, the Mac OS share should make an even bigger jump upwards this coming Autumn. All of this shows exactly the opposite of what the Computerworld writer states, as he used cherry-picked numbers to give a completely false impression.

But as long as we have nice charts made up, let’s take a realistic look at market share. Windows, after all, has 90%+ market share, and Vista is trying to fill in that market. So let’s give Vista a secondary axis on the chart, so it will represent how Vista is filling that reservoir of potential buyers, the Windows customer base:

Not nearly as impressive, is it? Which is why that writer had to completely fudge the numbers to make Vista look like it was doing great, when actually it’s doing pretty lousy, given the built-in advantages it enjoys.

Think Progress had this on their site, noting that it was an ad that ran atop The Drudge Report. The thing that caught my eye was the “standing in line” part. Maybe I am mistaken, but is there somehow the belief that Americans don’t “stand in line” to see doctors in the U.S.? As I recall, that’s pretty much the biggest part of seeing a doctor–anywhere, including the good ol’, non-government-run health care system of the U.S. of A. Maybe for elective surgery, with an appointment in advance, you might get to see the doctor without waiting, maybe. Or if you just have gobs of cash.

The whole “standing in line” bugaboo has been used to frighten Americans away from nationalized health care for quite some time, but it simply isn’t a valid criticism. Not because people in other countries don’t wait for medical care, but because people in America do. In fact, wait times in the U.S. are just as long as they are in countries with nationalized health care, and are sometimes longer. This BusinessWeek article lays out some of the basics, and they’re not exactly as left-wing bastion.

As a side note, you gotta love the claims made by these organizations. “Health Care America” claims, on its front page, to be a “nonpartisan advocacy organization,” despite the fact that they advertise on Drudge, and one of their main links on their Resources page is Michelle Malkin. Yeah, that’s really nonpartisan!

They also make a deal out of how people-oriented they are, how they want to stick up for the little guy–when really this is little more than a front for HMOs and Big Pharma so they can stick it to the little guy. But the site eventually has to (by law, I believe) admit to who is funding it:

Health Care America is supported by a broad spectrum of consumer choice advocates, including employers, individuals, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers, health care professionals and others.

Of course, I’m sure that most of the money comes from the “individuals” and from serious, professional doctors with stethoscopes and everything.

While Sachi was out shopping, I took an hour and twenty minutes to do a bit of a bike ride around the area. I went up through and around Otsuka, down to Koishikawa Park and then back. I took a lot of side streets and got a lot of exercising with the grades and sometimes hills along the way; a good workout in lieu of the exercise machines on our balcony.

Just as I started, I stopped by a local shop called Suzumura to photograph it. The yakitori place that Sachi and I used before, and tried to go to again last week, had been closed. But this being Ikebukuro, we had only to look around to see a few more restaurants worth trying. We were about to cross the street to try an Indian place, when Sachi spotted this one. It’s one of those tucked-away, hole-in-the-wall kind of places run by a mama-san and papa-san, one that’s been there for decades, only has a few seats, and usually some old people around the neighborhood, or oyaji, tend to frequent. We tried it out, and they had great yakitori there as well.

From there, I turned around and headed east. less than a kilometer out, I turned left and hooked around Otsuka Station. I just wanted to check out the area to see what I could see, but there wasn’t much there, at least at first glance. I had seen a barber shop around there that had haircuts for about ¥1400 (didn’t spot it today, though), and I do need a haircut soon. Any place with prices that low tends to be a men’s barber shop–we don’t want to be fussed over for two hundred bucks, we want a cheap haircut, in and out, lowest price possible. There’s a ¥2200 shop around the corner from where we live, and I saw a ¥1000 place on Meiji Blvd. (though that’s low enough to make even me wonder).

Near that area, I spotted a bento shop:

I was about to go on by, when I looked closer at the sign, and it brought back a memory.

In Japan, the “Italian” gesture the woman is almost making here has no meaning, and an almost identical gesture is used to indicate strength, apparently for women at least as much as for men. When I was working in a movie theater back in the S.F. Bay Area just after starting college, we had a projectionist named Kazuko, from Japan. Kazuko was a petite young woman, very quiet and soft-spoken, kind and polite. But it is her size which is relevant here. When a new movie came in (which was several times a week, as we were a rep house), the cans holding the prints were almost half as big as she was. Well, not quite, but it seemed that way. Kazuko would have to practically drag those things up to the projection booth.

One day, the manager (an American guy) noticed Kazuko struggling with a new movie, and suggested that she get one of the strong young men who worked there to help her. Wanting to express strength, Kazuko took up the pose you see the Bento Lady showing in the image above (though Kazuko’s gesture was much closer to the traditional western one)… and shocked the manager in so doing.

Anyway, I kept riding down to my objective for the day: a park which looked nice on the map. I found it, but also discovered something that was not on the map: an admission fee. There’s another nice-looking park nearby listed on the map which is shown to cost ¥300 for admission, but this one looked free. Not so. It cost ¥330. However, from the peek I got, it looked nice enough to visit–with Sachi, sometime soon.

On the way home, I noticed again a restaurant that had caught my eye before. I have to hand it to them, they went out on a limb to name this place, and I do like it:

Whether that’s a literary allusion, or it’s simply how the proprietor felt when opening the business, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll eat there someday and ask them.

As my knee was beginning to get the better of me, I pedaled on back home, and rested for a while with Sachi, who had returned from department-store shopping (which she knew I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about, as much as I gamely hang in when we go shopping together otherwise). We both sat out on the balcony and read books, snacked, and I got a bit of work done on my computer (the WiFi reaches out there just fine).

After that, we came back in and had dinner while watching Lost. Not a bad day, for a Lazy Sunday.

Well, that was quite an adventure. Sachi and I held a housewarming party last night, and it was pretty successful. Almost everyone who we expected to come made it to the party, for a total of 15 people at one point (including Sachi and me). Sachi and I overstocked on food and drinks, even not counting the good amount of goodies brought by guests; we still have quite the stockpile left in the fridge, despite the many courses served throughout the evening. We started with snacks–chips, pineapple & ham, pretzels, bread, and bagels. Sachi added salads and fried chicken, after which I broke out the salmon casserole. At one point, I microwaved some mozzarella on Nan bread. Then Sachi made her famous niku-negi tofu, with some cold noodles and rice on the side. Later, I cooked some filet steaks for anyone who was interested, and Sachi cooked some pasta. At the end, there was a bit of ice cream and other snacks. For the last few courses, people were beginning to wonder aloud about their waistlines; it was quite a bit of food over the evening.

The party was also successful in terms of how the evening was spent. We didn’t have any games or other novelties, but we didn’t need them. Oh, I showed some people how to use the Simsponize-Me web site (hat tip to Sean), as we used Simpsonized versions of Sachi and me on the web site giving directions to the party. But other than that, it was just good food and good company. Everyone enjoyed the view from the balcony (despite the limited visibility due to cloudy weather), and there was animated conversation from one end of the party to the other (it lasted about 6 or 7 hours). Put a lot of good people in the same room, that’s what you’ll get, I guess.

I think another reason why it went as well as it did was because of the location. The last time I held a party was in Inagi, and so everyone had to travel quite a distance to get there–not just by train, but by foot or taxi as well. A lot of people declined, understandably. This time, centrally located, most everyone made it, some even on foot, several by bicycle. Most of the people I work with, as it turns out, live in central Tokyo; for quite a long time, I was the main holdout.

After the party, Sachi and I discovered a problem with the apartment: the water from the air conditioner that was supplied with the apartment. We were aware that the machine had such a problem, but last night, after about 10 hours of continuous use, we discovered the extent. The thing had poured probably the equivalent of a cup of water to the floor and the TV and speaker below it. Fortunately, none of it was on to open circuitry, but still, it’s not good. Beyond that, it’s not acceptable as a device. The machine is woefully weak for cooling the big room, and if it pours water out when failing to meet its main purpose, that just won’t fly. Sachi and I will be talking to the building people about this.

Despite that small glitch (not in the party, either–just an apartment flaw), the evening was an unqualified success, and we had a great time (as we hope everyone who visited did as well). We were able to clean up in about an hour after the party, and just relaxed for an hour or two, drinking a bit more wine and enjoying the evening.

When Windows users start using Macs, there are a few things which throw them off. One of them is how to close programs: in Windows, you can quit an application by closing the window, using that “X” button at the top right of the window. And while that will work in a few Mac apps (like System Preferences, for example), it will not work for most programs. Instead, closing the windows just… well, closes the windows. The app stays open. Immediately, this is only apparent by the fact that the app’s menu bar is still visible, but that goes away when the user clicks on something else, like an active window from another app, or the Desktop. It’s also noticeable from the Dock, where a tiny black triangle below an app’s icon indicates that it’s still open, or from the Command-tab program switcher–but since new Windows users don’t know those, either, they don’t see what’s going on. A few times I have been asked by switchers as to why their Macs have slowed down so much, only to find that they are unknowingly running a dozen and a half apps at the same time with only 512MB of RAM.

So as you can see, not knowing the differences between platforms can get you into a bit of trouble sometimes. Another very common problem area is with disk images, which as far as I know, are mostly just used on Macs. They are a way of sending compressed data from one place to another. On Windows, people usually use the ZIP format to do this; disk images on the Mac work differently, thus causing the confusion.

In this post, I am using the disk image for a freeware game called “Quinn,” essentially a nice version of the Tetris game.

When a disk image arrives on your computer, it looks like a picture of a hard drive on a piece of paper, as pictured above and to the right. It has the filename extension “.dmg” (for “disk image”). This is the compressed version. If you’ve seen “.bin” and “.cue” files on a PC, this is their equivalent. It is, essentially, the image of a physical storage device. It’s the same as taking a CD or DVD and copying it precisely on your hard drive, for example; that’s why such files are often used to make copies of such disks. But it does not have to be a copy of an actual physical disk; that’s merely one use.

When you open up the disk image file by double-clicking on it, another icon appears on your desktop, which usually appears like the image at left. It does not matter where the original “dmg” file is on your computer, the new disk icon will appear on your desktop. It also will show up in the left-hand sidebar in any open Finder window, along with your other physical disks (see right). At this point, it is acting exactly as if you attached a hard disk or popped in a DVD; it does not act like a file on your computer, but like an attached drive. Note that you can see both the “dmg” file and the virtual disk which came from it at the same time.

What is important to remember is that the virtual disk is not really “on” your computer; it is a temporary representation of that original “dmg” file. You can test this by throwing the original “dmg” file into the Trash while the virtual disk is open, and then trying to empty the trash; you’ll get an error message (below, right) telling you that the file is still in use.

Usually, when you open up a disk image, the contents of the image will open up in a new Finder window, as pictured below (in the case of Quinn). There are a couple of things to note about this window. First of all, there’s no toolbar or left-hand sidebar; the window is optimized to make it appear slicker. Personally, this annoys me, but there’s a simple solution: click the “toolbar button” which is located at the top right of any Mac window (see small image below right); your toolbar and sidebar will reappear (or disappear, if they were already visible).

However, you don’t have to bring the sidebar back; it’s just convenient sometimes, as I’ll explain below. Instead, for now, just look at the window with the disk image contents below:

This is an example of a well-designed disk image window. The reason: it’s an application, and they kindly gave you a shortcut (or “alias”) to your Applications folder. Here, it’s dead simple: drop the icon into the shortcut for the Apps folder. A copy of the program is made to your computer. Bam, you’re done. Sometimes they don’t give you the shortcut, and that really annoys me. Why? Because when you open a disk image, the sidebar is missing, and the sidebar is usually where your Application folder can be easily accessed from. Without a sidebar, and without a shortcut to the Applications folder, it becomes harder and less intuitive as to where to put the file in the right place (hint: use the toolbar button to show the sidebar, then drop the icon into the Applications folder visible in the toolbar).

There’s another reason why not including an Application folder shortcut can confuse people: they assume that the virtual image is actually “on” their computer, and so they just run the app from the disk image directly, without copying it onto their computer. This will work, but only in a limited fashion. For example, I’ve seen people drag-and-drop the virtual app from the virtual image onto their Dock. This is fine, so long as the disk image is open. But then they shut down and restart their computer–at which point the virtual disk is discarded. When they then click the Dock icon for the app, the original “dmg” file is re-opened automatically, the virtual image is brought back up, and the program runs again. Sloppy, but it still works. Trouble ensues when the user later trashes the “dmg” file, thus erasing the program–and it surprised when the Dock icon can no longer find the program. Oops.

You might think now that disk images are more trouble than they’re worth, because of this long and complex explanation; however, the process is actually very simple. When you get a disk image, double-click it to open the virtual disk. Then copy the contents to the location on your computer where they are needed (usually the Applications folder, but sometimes elsewhere). Then just eject the virtual disk and erase the “dmg” file (unless you wish to archive it somewhere). That’s all.

Small detail: there are three ways to eject the virtual disk. One: click the virtual disk icon on the desktop and type “Command-E” (which also will eject any other kind of disk which is selected). Two: go to the sidebar in an open Finder window and click the “eject” icon to the right of the disk’s icon. Or three: drag the virtual disk icon from the Desktop to the Trash–which, as you’ll note, transforms into a metallic “Eject” icon in this instance.

As soon as you’re used to disk images, you’ll find that they can be as convenient and as easy to use as “zip” files, or any other form of compressed data. But they also have another function: using Apple’s “Disk Utility” program (in the “Utilities” folder, which is in the “Applications” folder), you can save a disk image onto a CD or DVD. That is, the CD or DVD will become an exact physical copy of the virtual disk image as stored in the “dmg” file. This is also a way to copy a CD or DVD–you can use “Disk Utility” (or better, an app like the freeware “Burn“) to make a “dmg” copy of a disc, then make new discs by impressing that “dmg” file onto them.

Something new I noticed: Diet Coke has suddenly appeared on all the menus of fast food places in Japan. For a long time, I wanted to get a diet drink at these places, but none of them had it, except for Subway (Diet Pepsi). Now, I eat at hardly any fast food joints except for Subway, but I have noticed they all seem to sport diet colas now. Last week, when shopping with Sachi in Sunshine City, I needed a fast drink, and noticed it for the first time. Since then, I noticed it at KFC as well. Interesting…

Via TPM, McClatchy has the numbers on the recent balls-to-the-wall filibuster “Surge™” the Republicans have been employing in Congress, an intentional strategy to block legislation for the sole purpose of making the other party look bad. Here’s how it looks:

In short, they are projecting this to be the most obstructionist, filibuster-filled Congress in history, almost tripling the previous record. Frankly, I think that’s a conservative estimate (no pun intended); when we get closer to the election, the GOP may really want to make the Democratic Party look like a “do-nothing” congress, unable to get “bipartisan cooperation.” That’s their bag, really–be as partisan as you can, then say it’s the other guy’s fault.

The headline today:

Bush to Undergo Colonoscopy, Hand Power to Cheney

Oh, so many jokes, so little time. Let’s see: “It took them six years before Cheney would take his hand out, so someone else could put theirs in.”

Add yours in the comments, if you don’t mind shooting fish in a barrel.

Hard to get used to this. When I bought Apple stock, it just happened to be at a peak. For a whole six months, the stock did not go above that peak without soon falling back down; in fact, if often fell below, sometimes well below. But then, in April, things changed after the 2Q earnings report, and then buzz about the iPhone release started working up. After the iPhone was released, a lot of good news on sales, profit margins, and so forth shot the price up significantly on some days. So what’s hard to get used to is, after six months of disappointment (to the point where I couldn’t read the stock news very easily), I find myself waking up to news that the stock I bought is up another thousand dollars overnight.

Now my only regret is that I did not put fully half of my savings into the stock, like I wanted to at first. When I floated this idea to family and friends, I was strongly warned not to go there. They even warned me against putting in as much as I did. And as far as general advice goes, it was excellent advice. The thing is, I have never invested money in a specific stock before; I have never had enough confidence to. But with Apple, it was something very different, and much stronger. They say that when you invest, it should be in a company that you have strong confidence in, but also one whose product you very much approve of. Well, if you read this blog, you’ll know that all of that applies here, in spades. And had I figured this out four years ago, I could have gotten in on the ground floor–Apple stock was at $7 a share in April 2003, and that was before a stock split in 2005. Had you invested $12,000 in the stock in April 2003, you’d have a cool half million by now. Yikes! If anybody out there invents a time machine, let me know!

It appears that the stock may yet have far to go. There are naysayers, and they may be right. Or not. One analyst put a sell on Apple in May, when the stock was at $111; the stock is now at $143.75. Today, Piper Jaffray put a new estimate on the stock’s ceiling, to $205, predicting a “tidal wave” for Apple by 2009. Of course, a serious defect could be found in the iPhone tomorrow, sending the stock plummeting, or a thousand other things could happen. I’m simply betting the other way. So far, so good, but that’s what the guy said as he passed the 30th floor on his way down to the pavement. Who knows?

In preparation for our housewarming party tomorrow, I went to Costco early this afternoon. One of the down points about moving away from Inagi was leaving behind easy access to a Costco; the Tama-Sakai store was less than a 20-minute scooter ride away. And since Costco keeps prices low in part by setting up in way-out-of-the-way locales, that means that Ikebukuro is quite a distance away from any one of them. A cost of living centrally.

Now, just last week, a new Costco opened up in Kawasaki. Like other Costcos, it’s in a hard-to-get-to location, but it is the closest one to central Tokyo yet. It’s just across the southern border of Tokyo in Kawasaki City. The address is 3-1-4 Ikegami-Shinmachi, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa. You can Google-Map it here. It’s about a 1-km. walk (perhaps 20 min.) from the closest station, Sangyo Doro Station–and that station is not on a line directly to or from Tokyo. It’s on the Keikyu Daishi Line. The best way to get there from Tokyo is to go to Shinagawa Station and transfer to the Keikyu Main Line; go to Keikyu Kawasaki, and transfer to the Daishi Line.

Now, as the crow flies, the new Costco is just 23 km. from where I am now; the old Tama-Sakai store is 35 km. However, to get to the new Kawasaki store, I have to go through the heart of Tokyo, and that’s never easy. It took me an hour to get there, and an hour to get back, taking different routes each way. By train, it would be almost an hour on the trains alone; add 12 minutes from home to the station, and 20-25 min. from the station to Costco, and we’re talking an easy 90 minutes here.
To get to the old Costco from here would actually be more or less equivalent in terms of travel time. Maybe a bit longer by scooter, but almost identical travel times by train. This despite the Tama Sakai Costco being a lot farther out. Count on Costco to find even more and more inconvenient places to locate…

Now, if you own a car and you don’t mind paying tolls, then you’re in luck; the new Costco is right along an expressway; if I were to take that route, it would likely be a very short trip, certainly less than half an hour door-to-door.

However, if Costco is too far away, and you’re just looking for foodstuffs, you might want to try Niku no Hanamasa. Before now, I liked the shop, but was not too impressed. The reason: I only saw the Shinjuku-Kabukicho store, which does not have all that much great stuff. I simply assumed that they were all like that. But when I checked out the Ikebukuro store this week, I found out that this was not the case.

The Ikebukuro store beats the Kabukicho store all to hell. There is tons more in terms of selection, loads and loads of beef, but also generic but good foods of all types. They have very good wine for very cheap. Good dried fruits. Low-fat yogurt ice cream, which is pretty good. Some imported foods. And so forth and so on.

One surprising thing: their beef is cheaper than Costco’s. I got some Filet steaks from both places; the quality was about the same, but Costco charges ¥600 per 100g for American filets, while Hanamasa charges ¥400 per 100g for Aussie filets. The difference in taste is inconsequential enough to make Hanamasa far more desirable on that count.

Of course, Hanamasa doesn’t have all the great stuff you’ll find at Costco, even as far as food is concerned. But if you’re jonesing for some cheap food, especially meat, Niku no Hanamasa could be a good source for you. Find a store near you.

There is a particularly perilous hall down on the first floor of Sunshine City, just across the street from Seiyu. I say perilous because it threatens my waistline as well as my wallet. A line of pricey stores which sell very attractive foods.

Begin with the market-like shop called “Seijo Ishii Select.” It’s a small market with mostly imported or otherwise high-class foods, kind of like the Draeger’s supermarket back home in the S.F. Bay Area. I was surprised that they had relatively cheap cheddar cheese–just ¥300 for a medium-sized block–when other local shops like Daimaru Peacock charged twice as much for less. We also got a very nice cheesecake for just ¥300, very delicious–but they just told us that the product has now been discontinued. A shame and a relief. I tried some large (six-inch) pretzels for ¥500 yen; aside from being expensive, they were not very good at all. But there is loads of stuff I would have gorged on before I started losing weight, which I can only be sorely tempted by now.

Next is a string of bakeries, featuring mostly cakes, Japanese-style. These are usually ¥300 to ¥500 for a small wedge maybe three inches wide and four inches long. The shops’ names seem to be “Boutique Mont-Blanc,” “Grass Tiara” (no typo, it seems), and “Mariage.” Note that they are all “Patisseries,” as if they have some connection to France or something.

This string is topped off by a bakery–bread-themed, not cake-themed–called “Maison Kayser.” Again with the French. This place seems to have both a store front with a constant line of customers as well as a small cafe.

Across from Kayser is a wine shop and a meats shop. The wine shop seems decent though maybe 30-50% pricier than usual shops–though they do seem to have a much better selection in general, and good shop attendants as well.

Top off the line of shops with one more, on the corner across from Kayser:

It’s called “Rosenheim,” and seems to be a small branch of a shop that sells various meat products, in particular sausages and sliced meats. Like Seijo Ishii, they sell prosciutto and even Spanish Chorizo–but small amounts for very large prices. A 100-gram package with only half a dozen thin slices can set you back as much as a thousand yen (about $8). Still, Rosenheim sells a homemade “chorizo” sausage which, like 99% of “chorizo” sold in Japan, has no resemblance to Spanish chorizo–but Rosenheim’s version is still very good, with a very smooth, spicy flavor.

In short, the more I stay away from this row of shops, the better…

In the wake of Krispy Kreme’s insane success, Burger King has returned to Japan, and their second shop set up business in the basement of Sunshine City last month. A very good location–they are the first shop people see coming in through the underground passage starting at Tokyu Hands. Their success does not seem to come close to rivaling Krispy Kreme’s, but they had pretty long lines; the McDonald’s down the way had nobody in line, despite a steady supply of customers.

The location might explain some of it, but likely it’s the “new thing” effect that Krispy Kreme totally made off with that has helped out Burger King. The chain was previously here in Japan for several years, but lost out to McDonald’s in a price war.

In the meantime, McDonald’s, feeling the heat from places like Starbucks, has decided to start their own brand of McCafe at the end of August, offering low-cost alternatives to Starbucks. What, a McFrappuchino for ¥250?