Before it was the prospectus pamphlet. Now it’s my college’s Arts Day Festival video. Every year, I put together a video to kick off the festival, and it takes up all my free time for a few weeks. This year is no different.

Before, I tried posting these on my blog, but have since discovered how easy it is to use YouTube. So here are two small excerpts from the project. The first is for the Martial Arts Club:

The second is the “Wa-on” taiko drumming group:

Neither are completely finished, a few touches are left to put in, but it gives you an idea of what it’s been about. Editing videos is pretty darn easy in iMovie HD, but it’s still no easy task to collect hours of videotape and edit it down to 15-20 minutes of compact, well-edited video.

This is the 5th annual Arts Day Festival. I may or may not be able to stay for the whole thing this year, depending on how my (probable) herniated disc is doing by November 5th.

And after that? Installing Leopard!

During the summer, my boss had to take a leave of absence, and as I had done his job before, I took over, in addition to continuing my own full-time duties (plus, I was moving house). So that kind of kept me busy through August.

But from August, a new job presented itself: creating a prospectus for my college. We recently got accreditation from the Japanese Ministry of Education (in addition to our two-decades-running accreditation from a U.S. agency), which means that we can sponsor student visas, and admit non-Japanese students. That means we need a new English-language prospectus. Our old one was about a decade out of date, and if we wanted to present ourselves well at college fairs and to international schools, we needed a new one.

Now, we’re a small branch campus, and often don’t have the major resources that universities can depend upon. We get a lot of stuff printed, but we didn’t have the budget for getting this one designed out-of-house. The faculty all were given assignments to collect and create the written text, and since I’m the most computer-savvy among the faculty, I was asked to do the layout and design. Sure, I thought–just give me the text, I’ll throw in some photos, and work out a design. No problem.

What a fool I was!

Creating a document like this is no small feat, and as I would soon find out, it was harder than I imagined, in several different ways. First off, the text that I was given was not in final form; since no one could predict the final layout, they could not produce exactly the text that was needed. That meant re-editing most of the text.

Second, the layout changed as we went. Pages got dropped, added, re-arranged, re-written… every week, there was something that had to be re-designed or completely redone.

Third, the photos weren’t as easy to plop in as I thought they would be. I had to sift through more than a few thousand images to find just the right ones, usually starting the process anew for each new photo that was needed (they were not catalogued or sorted even)… and often times, there were no appropriate images, and so I had to create them–go out and snap the images myself. And then I was often asked to change this photo to that one, and each new request meant reconsidering the entire page spread design.

And finally, I had to get everything right for the printers. All images had to be CMYK (Photoshop naturally does things in RGB, so every image had to be recast), with a resolution of 350 dpi. Two versions of each draft had to be done, one normally, and one where every text box was converted to outlines instead of being presented as text in a font face. All kinds of other small details, from the placement of staples to extending graphics beyond the edge of the page had to be painstakingly taken care of, page after page. Every photo had to get some adjustment to make the color, brightness, contrast, and association with nearby text and images just right.

All this had to be finished by early this month, so we could get it printed in time for a number of college fairs and international school presentations.

Well, we got it done. I even converted the thing into a PDF, in case you’re interested in reading it. To save on file size, I saved all images in relatively low quality–you can see them fine, but you can’t zoom in too closely or else they lose quality quickly.

Here’s a mini-sized sample of the cover and a few inside pages:

They used it at a college fair just today–by chance, held at Sunshine City’s Export Mart, just a few blocks away from where I live.

The thing took such a huge chunk of my time and work, it’s hard to just leave it behind. And I won’t be able to fully–we’re already more than halfway through using the initial 1000-copy printing, and already a few small errors have cropped up that need to be corrected for the next printing.

At least the hardest work is done, and from now on it’ll just be a job of reworking what’s there… but now, I am just a few weeks from having to present this year’s Arts Day video at the Arts Day Festival… and I’ve barely gotten started on that one. I look forward to November, when I will (hopefully) have no all-consuming projects left to eat up all my spare time.

I went to another appointment with the eye specialist today (everything seems fine, they don’t think I need to go back again), and figured that since it was so close, I’d drop by Kasai Rinkai Park.

As it happened, there was not too much to see. It was high tide, so no shorebirds were at the choice viewing spot, and the second-best spot was filled with workers clearing brush. I spotted a few birds that looked interesting, but suffered the usual bird-stays-there-until-just-when-you-point-the-camera-at-it frustration.

Still, there were some good birds around. Right off the bat, I got a fair look at an Ootaka (Northern Goshawk); as it turned out, its head was partially hidden by the tree, but it was a pretty bird nonetheless.

Here’s an animated GIF of the bird eventually taking off, if you can view animated GIFs. It’s a big file, so you might not be able to view it well if you have a slow connection.

There were the usual Great Egrets…

This one got fairly close:

And there were some Azure-winged Magpies to add a bit of color.

Of course, it’s not quite yet birdwatching season; things should get better towards December… if I can find the time these days!

Jeez. I bought a bike lock about 9 months ago. For most of that time, I didn’t even use it, and it never got left out in the rain, ever. I just started using the bike and its lock once or twice a week in the last month or two. And just a few days ago, I heard some rattling around in there.

Then yesterday, when I unlocked it, it literally came apart in my hands. That is, the guts spilled out of the keyhole. And this I bought in Inagi, where the round trip train fare alone would cost more than just buying a new lock.

Goes to show: you never can fully trust an unknown quantity, just ’cause it looks good on the shelf.

Four years ago, I posted a gyoza (pot-sticker) recipe. Later that year, I posted an update–I had found out that adding Mozzarella cheese to the inside mix helped bind the filling and keep it moist.

Tonight, I made a new batch, and found out a few new improvements to the recipe. First, instead of using regular cabbage, you should use Chinese Cabbage (also called “bok choy,” or in Japanese, “hakusai,” or はくさい), and use more of the leafy parts and not really all of the heavy stem parts. Regular cabbage leaves too much bulk and hardness.

Leeks (nira, or にら) are still an integral part, but scale them down a bit, and fill in with “green onions” or “scallions” (negi, or ねぎ–not too heavy.

Also, drop the regular onions. Makes it too, well, oniony, too sharp. The scallions are enough to add flavor, along with the garlic.

Keep the Mozzarella cheese; as I said, it helps bind and moisten the interior.

I still prefer ground chicken to ground pork; chicken tends to be more moist and tasty a meat. You can even increase the proportion of chicken, unless you like more veggie and less meat.

Next–and this is important–if you can find more than one type of skin (wrapping), choose the thin type. That tastes much better than the thicker type.

And finally, I’ve been experimenting with adding cream cheese to the cooking process; for example, cooking chicken in stir-fry, cream cheese added to the final cooking stretch makes a big difference, and gives the chicken a rich, creamy overtone. Yo don’t need to use much, just a teaspoon or so, to add flavor. And I think it worked tonight with the gyoza. I added it soon after I poured water into the frying pan to cook the prepared gyoza dumplings, just a dab here and a dab there between the pieces, as there was still a good deal of water that had not boiled off. The cream cheese melts and joins with the water, and then slowly coats the gyoza as the water boils off, without becoming crusty or anything. It may even help maintain the moistness of the dumplings.

So follow the original recipe with those modifications. If you do, let me know your impressions!

It’s pretty interesting that while we teach students a lot of things, one thing we tend not to teach is how to study. One would think that this would be a natural topic to cover, but as far as I can tell, it is not widely taught.

Just yesterday, we had the first day of classes in the new semester, and I went over this topic with my students. By chance, LifeHacker linked to a web site that touched on the same topic–how to raise your GPA. Now, such a list could relate tricks that are not necessarily related to study habits, but this list sticks to advice for actually learning. The problem is, I don’t think it’s a very well-put-together list.

A few points are rather obvious, so obvious that they don’t warrant mentioning: “Go to class,” “Sit in the front row,” “Don’t do group work with slackers,” and “Don’t slack off and then pull all-nighters.” These go along with a whole list of other obvious pieces of advice not on the list, such as “Pay attention in class,” “Get enough sleep,” and “Study hard.”

One point on the list is not stated clearly: “Take notes by hand.” By reading the details, one understands the author to mean that many teachers now supply PowerPoint summaries of their lectures which the students use in lieu of notes. The author says to take your own notes instead, but “by hand” is not clear; it seems to suggest writing with a pencil and paper instead of typing into a laptop. Taking notes is good advice in general, but does not go far enough; I will elaborate more below.

The two remaining suggestions are solid enough: “Do a weekly review” is not a bad idea, and “Go to office hours” is one that few people seem to take advantage of. Most times, as a college professor, I have office hours to myself; my students rarely come and take advantage, even though I remind them that they are getting free one-to-one tutoring from an experienced college professor; the equivalent at a language school is not cheap, and they have all this access just for the asking. Many schools also provide free tutoring, which is good to take advantage of.

But there are study techniques which are even better which I share with my students, and figure that it might not make a bad blog topic for the day. So here are my own tips for studying.

1. Read the assignment before the class. A surprising number of students prefer to do the reading for a chapter after they attend the lecture, not before.

The idea here is to maximize comprehension. If you go to a lecture first and read later, you will be ill-prepared. You won’t be ready to ask questions in the right places, or you might assume that things you don’t understand from the lecture will be made clear in the reading. But later, when you go through the reading, if there are things you don’t understand, you cannot ask the textbook questions, or request that it clarify.

If you read the assignment before going to the lecture, you can go at your own pace, take the time necessary for comprehension, get to know the terminology, and understand the subject matter fairly well. Anything you don’t understand, you add to a list of questions. Later, when you attend the lecture, the teacher will probably explain the subject matter you have questions about, and so you can cross those off your list. Whatever the teacher doesn’t cover, you can then ask about in class–just read the questions off your list, already prepared. If you need clarification, the teacher can provide it readily.

Furthermore, this allows you to ask questions intelligently and economically; if you don’t read beforehand, you could wind up asking a lot of questions that are made clear in the reading, thus wasting class time and annoying classmates.

Not to mention that you’ll be prepared for any pop quizzes the teacher springs on you!

One more benefit to reading ahead: it helps you cut down on lecture note-taking. If you know the information is in the textbook, you don’t have to include it in your lecture notes when the teacher covers it in the class.

2. Summarize your pre-class reading. This one may be hard to get used to; it may seem like a lot of extra work, but the payoff can be huge. In the reading assignment, every paragraph or set of paragraphs which encapsulate a concept or chunk of information should be written in your notes with a single sentence, more than one sentence if necessary. Do not simply copy down the topic sentences; re-express the information in your own words. In the end, you’ll wind up with a one-page summary of the entire assignment, written in a style native to yourself.

The first benefit is comprehension. Have you ever read ten pages of a textbook, and then realized that you do not recall or understand a single thing? Sometimes we can go through the mechanical process of reading, but somehow our retention just switches off. Summarizing forces you to focus on the meaning; you have to understand what is being expressed in order to re-word it coherently. It will also force you to learn better how to decode and comprehend the sometimes atrocious writing styles of many textbook authors, and better see the structure and substance of textbook writing.

Summarizing also benefits retention; you are far more likely to remember something you have thought about and written than something you just read as part of as large reading. And finally, at the end of the process, you have a great, concise summary of the reading which will help enormously when you need to study for the test.

3. Take lecture notes. An obvious point, granted, but it is surprising how many people don’t do this, or don’t do it well. You should always take lecture notes.

First, write down everything the teacher writes on the board, unless you observe that your teacher writes meaningless stuff all the time. Usually, teachers write information on the board which they feel is significant, that you should pay attention to–so pay attention to it.

Second, learn how to filter information in the lecture, and distinguish between note-worthy information and non-essential filler. If you try to write down everything the teacher says, you will fall so far behind that you won’t catch most of what the teacher is saying.

Third, develop a shorthand. Writing even just the high points out fully will again set you far back and make you miss subsequent information. Work out abbreviations, and decide on graphic representations of ideas and actions. An obvious example of the latter would be to use an arrow to represent cause and effect.

4. Type out your lecture notes after class. Here’s another thing most people don’t do, but should. When we take lecture notes, we often use shorthand devices that we make up on the spot; it’s hard to have a shorthand squiggle prepared for every eventuality. We can read our own lecture notes and understand them if we review them quickly, on the same day they were written. But come back to your lecture notes after a whole week, and you will find that a big chunk of what you wrote now appears as nonsense to you.

So as part of your daily ritual, sit down and type out in longhand everything you took notes on in class. In the end, you’ll have another set of clean, concise notes that will nicely complement your reading summary. Furthermore, re-typing (and having to translate from shorthand to longhand) again aids comprehension and retention.

You might think that all of this note-taking will be time-consuming. It may be so, but you will get a better payoff in terms of improved grades, and in the end, you might even wind up saving time otherwise spent re-reading the textbook or otherwise trying to understand something you missed because you didn’t take such notes. And with experience, the time needed to take notes will decrease as you become more efficient at both note-taking and at comprehension.

5. Join a study group. Again, it may seem obvious, but a lot of people don’t do this. You should have a study group for each class that requires you to acquire information. If possible, form a study group with people who share several common classes, so you can condense the sessions. Study groups should ideally be between three and six people. You should meet at least once a week, with perhaps special sessions before exams.

First, everyone in the study group should have enough copies of their reading and lecture notes to pass around to everyone. That way, you wind up with three to six sets of notes. Studying other people’s notes (if they are well-prepared) can reveal information you may have missed, and otherwise will offer a fresh perspective and style that may make reviewing more pleasant and informative.

Second, everyone should ask questions on points they still don’t understand, or which they don’t understand as well as they would like to. There will likely be someone in the group who knows the information and can explain it to you. Questions asked by others may highlight information you should know but had missed or neglected.

And third, everyone should close their notes and have one member of the group quiz everyone else, everyone taking turns. Each question should be targeted at a specific member of the group, else one or a few members will answer most of the questions and defeat the purpose for the slower members. When another person is asked a question, see if you can answer it in your head. If someone gets an answer wrong or doesn’t answer it fully, don’t put them down or blurt out the answer yourself. Instead, try to supportively prod them for the correct or full answer–but don’t push.

6. Don’t insist on studying with people who are smarter than you are. This is advice on study groups, but I feel it’s important enough to have its own header. When choosing your study group, you may feel like joining one that is populated entirely with people who are ahead of you in the class, thinking that their smarts will rub off on you. This is not necessarily true, and may backfire.

First, you may lose confidence; if everyone is way ahead of you , you might start to feel that there’s something wrong with you when nothing is wrong with you.

Second, you may miss information you need to know, if others in the group feel it is obvious or assumed as known by everyone else.

And third, you may find that it is far more beneficial and enlightening to answer questions than it is to ask them and have things explained to you. I found this out in my post-graduate studies at San Francisco State, where I formed study groups primarily with Japanese students, due to my background in Japan. Since they were non-native speakers, they naturally caught a lot less than I did, and during study group sessions, they peppered me with questions. I gradually discovered that explaining the information to the others led to much greater comprehension on my part. This is because explaining something forces you to organize and process the information in your own mind first–something you don’t usually do when it is simply explained to you. Being in the role of tutor also gives you motivation to study harder, knowing that others are depending on you. And finally, taking on the role of tutor to classmates gives you greater confidence and a sense of pride; your classmates will likely see you in a better light as well.

7. Set up a study schedule. I will freely admit that I was the kind of student who waited until Sunday evening at 11:00 pm to start working on assignments. Needless to say, this is not a good study technique, unless you perform exceptionally well only when under time pressure. The thing is, just saying “I have to start studying earlier” usually doesn’t do the trick; you have to have a method.

You should set aside times which are dedicated to study, and treat that schedule as seriously as you would a job or an assigned class. Work out a schedule which works best for you, depending on your personal habits and quirks. General scheduling advice might include points such as studying before meals rather than after them, when you are sated and more inclined to doze off. You might want to break up your study schedule into two-hour pieces, giving yourself intervals to rest, relax, and enjoy yourself so you can return to your study refreshed.

But the core idea here is to respect the schedule and stick to it religiously. Feel free to study longer than the schedule dictates, but never shorter, unless you are assured that all your work has been completed, and effectively so.

8. Finish assignments early so you can wait and then review. One of the biggest problems with completed assignments that I see as a teacher is the lack of proofreading and review. When you finish an essay or other assignment, you tend to be tired of it and eager to set it aside, without proofreading it. Even if you do take the time to proofread, you are probably “too close” to the work and will have difficulty seeing its flaws.

Make sure that you finish an assignment at least a day before it’s due, preferably two. Then set the assignment aside at least overnight, and then proofread it the next day. You will find that you have distanced yourself enough from the work that you can look at it more objectively, and note the errors in it.

Proofreading might seem like a pain sometimes, but it is probably one of the easiest ways to hike up the grades you receive.

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I hope that this list has helped you out some, if you’re a student. Even if you’re not a student, a lot of the principles here may help in other endeavors. Cheers.

Last Sunday was the first anniversary of Sachi and I meeting. We took the morning off, and then celebrated in the evening.

I had been preparing for this for a while. Every three months since we met, I would get Sachi another three small stuffed dogs, from a line put out by a company that had a large variety of breeds, nicely crafted. So before this anniversary, she had nine little dogs. For this anniversary–a yearly thing instead of quarterly–I decided to go whole hog. I found stuffed dogs at several different places, finally having to go down to the Ginza to find one that I wanted to top things off.

Here’s how I arranged it: when Sachi and I left for dinner, I made an excuse to run back in to the apartment (I intentionally left a fan running so I could go back and turn it off). That gave me the chance to leave the first present out on the dining room table: a small basket with two tiny stuffed dogs in it. Each of these came with a card with a note inside. When we came back from dinner, Sachi found the first dogs, and the note told her that the dogs “bigger brothers and sisters” were hiding under the bed because they were afraid of the fireworks.

This worked out really well, in fact: we unexpectedly got treated to two fireworks shows at dinner. We ate at a restaurant on the 58th floor of the Sunshine 60 Building, the view out the window looking down on our own building. It’s a nice place, with multi-course dinners; reasonably priced, but food and service equivalent to a more expensive restaurant. We arrived at 6:30 and left at 8:30, which happens to be the time frame for fireworks in Japan during the summer. One show started to the northeast, relatively distant–but it was pretty big, and was nice to watch. But then another show started up a lot closer, and that was even nicer. Almost all the way through dinner we watched the shows. So when we came back, that first note “from” the two tiny puppies made sense in a way I had not intended.

In any case, the note with the first two puppies led Sachi to the drawer under the bed, where I had placed six stuffed dogs, of the same kind I had given her before (she now has 15 in total).

Their note gave clues as to where the next dog was “hiding,” a floppily-stuffed yellow lab about a foot long. His note led to the back of the top shelf where we keep the towels, where I’d stashed his “bigger brother,” a two-foot-long version of the same dog.

The note on that one led to their “even bigger brother,” who was “hanging out in the closet.” I had that rather large 3-foot stuffed dog–the biggest version of the same dog–suspended from the coat rack in a closet Sachi uses for winter-wear storage. That dog directed her to ask me for the final dog.

Sachi loves Shiba Inu dogs. They’re kind of like small versions of huskies, the most common type being light brown with white underneath and some spots of white on the face. But finding stuffed Shibas is very hard. In Japan, Shibas are popular, but for some reason they don’t make stuffed Shibas much–and when they do, they do them rather poorly. But at the Ginza store, I found a very nice stuffed Shiba puppy doll, which was perfect as the final gift.

The notes on each had more than just directions to the next dog, but that will remain private. Needless to say, Sachi enjoyed them thoroughly–but later, she mentioned that I had better stop getting her dogs, as we were quickly running out of places to put them.

The exercise also proved difficult in terms of setting it all up. The anniversary was Sunday evening, but after Friday afternoon I knew that Sachi and I would be together all the time–so I had to set them all up before then. The problem: we have a small apartment–not too many good hiding places–and they all had to be in places where Sachi would not find them by accident. I could not even steer her away from the hiding places all the time, because Saturday afternoon I was out for six hours at the graduation ceremony for my school, while Sachi relaxed at home. And even though I did find good places, it was almost undone when Sachi text-messaged me at the ceremony, asking where I had stored the ironing machine. I knew exactly where it was: right next to the medium-sized dog on the back of the top towel shelf. I had to tell her that she couldn’t iron anything that afternoon.

Not that she was surprised; she figured that there would be stuffed dogs involved, and I’ve done the treasure-hunt game before. She just didn’t know the extent I had gone to. As we went shopping before dinner, she speculated on how many dogs, what sizes, and so forth while I kept mum. She only guessed as high as three dogs, though–not twelve. I kept the secret pretty well.

Sachi, on the other hand, is not nearly as good at keeping secrets. Two of the three times she has gotten me gifts, she has accidentally blurted out what she got me. This time it was at Eddie Bauer, just before dinner, when we were looking at clothes I could buy. I mentioned that I should get some new short pants. Now, Sachi could have said something like, “the shirts you’re getting today are enough for now,” or “I know a better shop to go to for that,” or something else which would not have roused my suspicions. Instead, she blurted, “I got you a pair already!”–and then was instantly annoyed that I had “made her” tell me what (part of) her present was. She couldn’t be mad, of course, but for a while we had fun while I teased her about not being able to keep a secret well, while she just as kiddingly blamed me for tearing the secret out of her. (She told me lightheartedly that I was “ijiwaru,” or being mean.)

It was a fun evening.

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!

A very large earthquake just hit Niigata, and boy, did we feel it here on the 21st floor in Ikebukuro. It measured a high six on the Japanese scale. More soon.

Okay, a few minutes have passed. It looks like it was a 6.6 on the Richter scale, centered just off the coast of Niigata.

Let me elaborate about how it felt here. I was sitting here finishing up my morning Internet ritual, when I felt the swaying start. It was a weird sensation; unlike most quakes, where the swaying can be fairly quick, the swaying here on the 21st floor was very heavy, but slow and rolling, like being on a ship at sea. Nothing shook or rattled, but doors were definitely swaying several inches. It never felt like anything was ready to break or fall, but it did for a while feel like it was threatening to do so.

I called my brother, who lives maybe ten km away, and he reported similar feelings–that this quake swayed a lot more than usual, that it felt like a Japanese “3” but not a normal one. So we definitely felt it stronger here in the tower. The power felt a bit magnified, though Sachi did correctly class it as a “3” on the J-scale. What really got exaggerated here was the length–we felt this one roll for at least a few minutes, and it continued to sway for quite some time.

Makes me wonder, will a big, local quake feel the same? Will the power be magnified but the energy converted more to swaying than to jumping? Hrmm… not something you want tot think about, with your ability to flee so restricted.

Update: Looking at an animation (click image at right) of the effects of the quake, maybe we didn’t feel the length exaggerated so much… it’s interesting to take a look at. If the animation doesn’t play in your browser, then right-click on the link here and download the target file.

For those of you Americans who live here in Japan, just a reminder that today is the last day you can file your taxes with the foreign earned income exclusion under the automatic two-month extension. So if you haven’t filed for another extension already and you haven’t sent in your tax forms, time is running short. Don’t know how? No problem, here are the instructions that I wrote out three years ago. It has links to download the 1040 and 2555 forms, and a link to the 2006 annual average exchange rate (same link as the 2003 rate). As I stated then, I’m not a tax expert and you follow the instructions at your own risk. The forms are a bit outdated–the line numbers have changed a little–but with the illustrations, you can still follow it perfectly well.

At last I’m out of the “death” age. In Japanese, “42” can be pronounced “Shini,” which is the same as “death.” So I dodged a bullet there, having turned 43 a few days ago. (The age 33 is probably no better, being homonymous with “sanzan,” or “misery” in Japanese–which is why there are no rooms 33 or 42 in Japanese hospitals, just like there are few or no 13th floors in the U.S.) Here is the proof of my passage: my birthday cake, which Sachi so kindly arranged:

For Japanese cake, it was excellent; Sachi said the bakery was famous in the area, and I don’t doubt it. But Japanese cakes are made with whip-cream frosting; frosting based on powdered sugar and butter are pretty much unheard of in Japan–too sweet. Nevertheless, the cake was delicious, and even better was the message board–white chocolate… mmmmm….

We also had a nice couple of dinners. For my birthday, some fancy marbled steaks and Sachi’s famous salad (or at least it should be famous)…

We did no worse tonight, two days later, with a very satisfying yakiniku layout, accompanied by another of Sachi’s great salads:

But two nights ago, on my birthday, I got the real treat. As with most men in my family, I am notoriously hard to buy a present for. And yet, Sachi hit the whole gift thing nail-on-the-head, getting me a very cool new backpack. I swear, just the previous day, I had been saying to myself, time for a new backpack, but where can I find a good one? And there was Sachi, with just the answer.

I’ve got it sweet here.

Idiots. Democrats caved and passed a full spending bill without any deadlines for withdrawal. I know that there never would have been enough votes to overturn Bush’s inevitable veto, but they could have put up a fight that would have cost Bush dearly and weakened his hand. Instead, they just folded. Idiots.

Crooks and Idiots. The ever-greedy RIAA is now seeing about charging public radio to play songs. Talk about money-grubbig, not to mention biting the hand that feeds you. They got an artist to agree with them, saying, “They’ve gotten 50-some years of free play. Now maybe it’s time to pay up.”

The “idiot” part? Radio is not a free-play giveaway that radio stations have greedily stolen over the years. Instead, it is essentially a massive and completely free advertising campaign for the record labels. How the hell do you think people find out what kind of music they want to buy? They hear the music someplace free, and then they want to own it. (Which is why pirated music similarly boosts music sales.) The relationship between radio stations and music labels is symbiotic. In fact, in the past, music labels have paid off radio stations to play their tunes more than other labels’ music.

Not to mention that public radio is probably i worse shape than the music labels right now, competing with now only pay radio but also the ever-expanding Internet with its explosion of podcasting and whatnot.

Asking public radio to pay for playing music is like me putting an ad in a money-strapped newspaper and demanding that they pay me for it. Idiots.

Damn. If rumors are correct, Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini. If they do that, I may lose my only chance to switch my school from Windows to Mac in a year or two–unless Apple comes out with another easy-to-be-a-switcher machine.

Hot Damn. Is George Lucas going to announce a seventh Star Wars movie on the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Star Wars movie tomorrow? (Today in Japan, but we’re from the future.) Maybe, maybe not. But Lucas has talked about a Star Wars movie or two in order to kick-start a TV series… and let’s face it, almost any Star Wars movie will likely bring in so much money at the box office that Lucas would have to be an idiot not to go that route, as long as he’s making a 2-hour Star Wars film.

Are you in Tokyo? Want to buy a fridge? A washer-dryer? Two microwave ovens? A nice fan-driven gas heater? A gas range? One or two rice cookers? A sofabed? A one-person western-style bed? Maybe a desk or two? Various other pieces of furniture? A vacuum cleaner? Various and sundry other household items?

Let’s talk.

This is what happens when two people move in together: you tend to have an entire apartment’s worth of appliances and furniture left over.

I’ll likely place ads in the Daily Yomiuri and the next issue of Metropolis. Ye gads, I forgot what a pain this kind of thing is. How do you ship out all that stuff? Takkyubin will cost half as much as what we can sell the items for…

Oh yeah, a satellite dish for Sky Perfect TV with a huge balcony brace? Anyone? Anyone? Ferris?

Five weeks hardly seems like enough time already….

Here’s a Shocker: more Republican corruption with ties to the Bush family.

• A company called Moving Water Industries (MWI) won a $32 million contract to sell drainage pumps for use in New Orleans.
• The pumps have since proven to be defective.
• When bids for the project were taken, specifications were given. It turns out that those specs were copied from the MWI catalog, “typos and all,” as a way of ensuring that MWI got the contract.
• MWI used to employ now-Florida-governor Jeb Bush, and has strong ties to the Republican Party.

Surprise!

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Yet another piece of evidence that the White House, and especially Condi Rice, had a great many significant warnings about 9/11 beforehand and ignored it. George Tenet, formerly willing to take the blame, now asserts that he had a briefing with Condi Rice in July 2001 where he told her that “There are going to be multiple, spectacular attacks against the United States. We believe these attacks are imminent,” and that “We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now.”

Rice’s response: “I don’t know what we were supposed to pre-emptively strike in Afghanistan.”

Umm.. maybe, I dunno, Osama bin Laden? Remember how Bill Clinton tried to pre-emptively strike bin Laden in Afghanistan and was castigated by Republicans for it, who blamed him for trying to wag the dog and take attention away from more pressing matters like Monica Lewinsky?

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Democrats may very well end up picking up even more House seats than expected next election, and probably Senate seats as well. Why? Well, partly because Democrats in Congress are doing notably well in the polls. But even more so because Republican have such a bad image that their party is more and more considered to be a “toxic climate.” Fewer people are willing to identify themselves as “Republicans,” and it doesn’t help that even after the 2006 drubbing, congressional Republicans are still supporting Bush with their voting records, and are still voting down highly popular measures such as the minimum wage hike, Medicare negotiation for drug prices, and an exit from the Iraq War.

This is probably best evidenced by the fact that the Republican Party is failing to get their top candidate picks for 2008 congressional races to sign on, and that Democrats are doing a better job fundraising than the GOP–a reversal of past trends.

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Learned a new word: IOKIYAR. Acronym for: It’s OK If You’re A Republican. Referring, of course, to the common Republican double standard of condemning Democrats for certain things, but at the same time forgiving Republicans who do the exact same thing.

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I agree–this is just creepy. Does Condi really feel this way about her husb–er, I mean, her president?

As I mentioned last night, I am getting a lot of hits from Google for my blog post on gun control in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. There has also been some talk about the topic in public.

I am pro-gun control, but I do not feel that incidents like the one at Virginia Tech are germane to the issue. Gun control is mostly about firearm safety and making it more difficult for criminals to arm themselves; gun control also acts as a net to catch wanted criminals or known felons who attempt to purchase firearms.

The Virginia Tech shootings, like most other such rampages, really don’t apply to this issue one way or the other. While they increase our awareness of the issue and perhaps spur people to push for better gun control, they are not the kind of incidents that can really be prevented with better gun control.

According to reports so far, both guns were purchased legally; the shooter did not have a criminal record aside from a single speeding ticket. While he had a record of depression and other psychological difficulties, it was not so severe that any regulation of sales to a mentally ill individual would apply. Virginia even has a relatively strict law about how often you can buy firearms, limiting purchases to one per month; from what I gather, the shooter bought one gun in February, and the other in March. He bought handguns, not assault rifles or semi-automatics, if I understand the description of the weapons correctly. Virginia police destroy records of gun purchases after 30 days, in an apparent sop to the gun lobby. But it would not have made a difference had they kept the record on file for longer. Concealed weapons permits would also not apply, unless the shooter happened to be searched by police or security people between leaving his dorm room and arriving at the scene of the crime.

In short, this is the kind of incident that just doesn’t apply to the argument. Even a complete, nationwide gun ban would not necessarily stop this kind of violence.

That is not to say that gun control would not work; just as it would have yesterday or ten years ago, sensible gun control could stem a good deal of violence and crime.

Just not stuff like this.

This is the recipe that Sachi invented, the one I mentioned last week. It’s a simple dish that should take no more than 15 minutes to produce; however, a few of the ingredients may not be available to those of you outside Japan, unless you have a good Oriental Foods section at your local supermarket, or have a store specializing in such goods nearby you. If not, then you’ll have to fudge on a few of the ingredients. But if you can do it, this is a fairly cheap, pretty simple, and very delicious dish. I was lucky enough to have Sachi make it for me tonight, and chronicled the process.

The recipe below is proportioned for one person; just multiply for each additional guest. Sachi cooked for two below. Enjoy!

Ingredients (per person served):

• 1 package / 300g Tofu (soft, white variety)
• 150-200g ground hamburger (any other ground meats can be substituted, if you want to try)
• 1 bunch green onions (“negi“)

The following are approximate amounts; you may change to suit taste:

• pinch of red peppers
• 1 tsp. Kim-chi sauce or other hot sauce
• 1 ¹/₂ tsp. Mirin (a Japanese cooking saké), or sweet white wine
• 5-6g sugar (you can use a sugar packet for coffee, or two depending on the size)
• 2-3 tsp. Tsuyu sauce (soy sauce which contains “dashi“; you may add soup bouillon to soy sauce instead)

Directions:

Unpack the tofu, drain liquid, and wrap in paper towels to dry; set aside.

Rinse green onions, cut off and dispose of the root ends, and chop into ¼-inch lengths. Rinse again in colander; set aside (this will look like a lot, but will shrink with cooking).

Put ground hamburger into an non-oiled fry pan; cook on medium-to-high flame until it changes color to brown (not dark brown). After that, keep the flame on medium.

If you prefer the mix to be not-so-fatty: Segregate the hamburger to one side of the pan, then tilt the pan to drain some (but not all) of the fat; collect with a paper towel, which you throw out.

Add the green onions;

Add a pinch of red peppers, and then start mixing;

Add 1 or more teaspoons of Kim-chi sauce or other hot sauce of your liking, mix;

Add 2 teaspoons of Mirin or wine, mix;

Add sugar; mix.

Add 2-3 teaspoons of Tsuyu sauce or Soy/bouillon sauce, and mix.

Taste what you have so far to see how it’s going; add whatever of the ingredients you feel needs to be added.

Unwrap the tofu from the paper towels, and hold in your hand. Be careful–it’ll fall apart easily! Using a knife, gently cut the tofu down the center, then across its width five times, so you have 12 slices; place on a plate and stagger them a bit. You may heat the tofu in the microwave if you prefer a completely hot dish; otherwise, it will be a hot/cool dish (which I prefer).

Then just dish the hamburger-negi mix onto the tofu.

Done!

Eat with a spoon, and have it with beer, sake, shochu, or wine. You might want to add a salad. Yummy!

Today, I had a bit of an upset stomach, so Sachi and I agreed that we should eat light–a simple salad, that’s all. This is what Sachi cooked up:

Sorry the photo is a bit washed out; it doesn’t do the dish justice. The thing is, for Sachi, this is a “quick and simple” dish. Every meal she makes she calls “simple,” no matter how elaborate. I try to do my share of the cooking, but in sheer talent and the number of different meals one can produce, she’s got me beat hands-down (though I do make a mean salmon casserole, and can serve up steak with the best of ’em). But really, there’s no contest.

Sachi has this one original dish that floors me every time. It’s a simple dish of ground hamburger and veggies (mostly negi, or green onions), cooked in a mix of spices, and then poured on top of diced tofu. It may not sound like much, but it’s one of the best dishes I know.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of that, but here’s another random sample of a “simple” dinner by Sachi:

Seriously, I gotta watch out or I’m gonna gain weight again.

One and a half years ago, I made the decision to buy a new 1.67 GHz G4 PowerBook, even though it had just been announced that Apple would switch to Intel. Part of that decision was based upon the announcement that the transition would begin one year later and might take another year before all the models had made the switch; that meant a potential 2-year wait for a high-end laptop to come out.

Another part of the decision has to do with my standard 3-year turnover with such purchases, and the idea that early adopters sometimes get burned with problems in the new hardware. I decided that if I bought a PowerBook G4 in June 2005, I would then wait 1-2 years for a new Intel model to come out, then another year or so for the second-generation model to be released, and that would mean a smooth transition.

One other factor that motivated me was that I was, at the time, stuck with an 800MHz PowerBook G4 that was way too slow for me, and was itching to upgrade. So I made the decision to go for the 1.67 GHz G4.

Well, Apple switched to Intel way faster than anyone anticipated; in fact, the MacBook Pro was one of the first new Intel models to come out, in January of 2006, just six months after my purchase. Furthermore, there were no significant reports of problems with the new hardware, so early adopters weren’t really burned.

So, a year after the MacTels came out, I’m saddled with a G4 PowerBook that will have to last me for another year and a half. Not the first wrong move I’ve ever made, that’s for sure.

But just yesterday, I came across an article that caught my attention. The story was on the excellent resale value of Macs, something that helped me make the decision to get this G4 PowerBook in 2005: I was able to sell my aging 800 MHz machine for ¥80,000, which subsidized maybe 30% of my new purchase. My current PowerBook now has a resale value of $975. At almost the same time as I found the first article, I saw a report on refurbished MacBooks, where a top-of-the-line black MacBook model is selling for $1300. That got me to thinking. A refurbished MacBook with a new 1-year warranty could very easily outshine my old, out-of-warranty PowerBook, and it would cost me a lot less than a brand-new computer would.

Hmmm…

Of course, there’s more to it than that. The models are fairly different from each other. I’d have to give up my 15″ screen for a 13.3″ one; however, the smaller screen would have nearly the same resolution, and perhaps better contrast & brightness, so that’s kind of a wash. The MacBook has no PC Card slot, which for me is a bit of a big thing as I always use that to load my digital camera images via a Compact Flash card reader. However, I could just bite the bullet and start using the camera-to-computer USB cable like most people use (I just don’t like to carry cables around). The new MacBook also has an inferior graphics card (an Intel GMA 950 versus the G4’s Radeon 9700–I think the Radeon is much better, I’ll have to research that). The MacBook has fewer ports, but none that I’d miss; the FireWire 800 port is the only one not matched, and I never use that anyway. Also, the MacBook’s DVD burner is 6x speed, as opposed to the G4’s 8x–a difference I’d hardly notice–just as I’d never use the MacBook’s dual-layer option.

These disadvantages are minor, however, compared to the plusses of the MacBook. First, it has a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, which is a huge leap ahead of the 1.67 GHz G4. The MacBook also sports a 4MB L2 cache and 667 MHz system bus, compared to the G4’s weak-ass 512 KB cache and 167 MHz bus. The hard drive is bigger (120GB vs. 80GB). The MacBook also comes with an iSight camera, one of those magnetic power adaptors, and might even have the upgradable WiFi-n option (I’d have to look that up as well). The MacBook is also smaller and a little lighter.

Additionally, the ability to run Windows using Parallels would be a huge thing, as I teach Windows in my Computer course and XP under Virtual PC on an aging G4 just isn’t cutting it. Using Parallels would be a major improvement for me.

The MacBook comes with Apple’s crappy new 2-chip RAM arrangement, with 1 GB built-in, meaning that if I want to match my current 1.5 GB of RAM, I’d have to shell out close to $90 for a 1GB replacement chip, or $180 if I wanted to go for 2GB (which is likely).

SofMap says that they would pay ¥108,000 ($900) for the G4 I have now. That’s their top range and could be reduced if they find anything they don’t like, but this machine is in good shape and even has an extra GB of RAM inside. If I tried to sell the computer through ads, I might get an extra ten thousand yen or two.

The refurbished MacBook is $1400 including tax. Add $70 for shipping from the U.S., and $180 for new RAM, and it comes to a whopping $1650. That would make the difference $750 (or $590 to $670 if I can get a better price by selling via an ad)–more than a thousand dollars less than the same un-refurbished MacBook would cost with the same configuration ($1812, add $70 for shipping).

This idea has occurred to me just now, and this blog post is kind of a part of my rumination process on the issue; I am still pretty far from making a final choice, and have some looking-into to do (e.g., are there refurbished MacBooks here in Japan and for how much, etc.). I’d love your feedback as well, of course, and any alternate ideas or information.

An 8.2-magnitude earthquake hit the islands north of Japan yesterday. It was big enough to cause a great worry about tsunami, but eventually the warnings were called off when the highest waves seen were only 40 cm high and there were no reports of injuries or damage. Sachi and I went to an Indian restaurant after getting back from the dog walk, and they had NHK (with English) turned on, and they were focused on the story. It sounded scary at the time. And it does make you think: that earthquake could just as easily have hit Tokyo instead of hitting a sparsely-populated area up north.

An interesting look at Schwarzenegger over at C&L, talking about how he has shifted notably to the left. I still am strongly disapproving of the way he came into office–a “recall” election (solely created for the purpose of clearing out someone who did terrible things after an election) used to invalidate an election held only months before. And then Arnold moved in a host of Republican cronies, and tried to push a spate of “reform” initiatives that could have pushed California much farther toward being a red state. There were measures that were specifically aimed at decimating Democratic Party influence and power in the state–specifically, redistricting to favor Republicans, throwing up roadblocks to keep unions from participating in politics, and attacking teacher tenure (both unions and teachers being major Democratic backers).

But after his resounding defeat and then the loss of control by Republicans in Congress, Arnie now seems chastised to the point of becoming halfway reasonable. After losing the initiative fight, he hired a Democrat as his chief of staff, which brought howls of anger from Republicans, not to mention threats of stripping his party endorsement (Kennedy is still in that position today, but I don’t see Republicans throwing Arnold out of the party). And now Arnie is pushing a raise in emissions standards as well as universal health care–both pet Democratic issues.

So, are right-wingers still as vibrantly enthusiastic today about amending the Constitution to allow Schwarzenegger to become president as they were a few years ago? Something tells me that they’re not.

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A lot of people have been wondering why Apple would stick to the “iPhone” brand name since the name is owned by Cisco Systems; it would seem a stupid move to invest so much publicity in the name before an agreement could be worked out with Cisco. After all, why invest so much in a name someone else still owns? You’d just be making their case for demands even stronger. You’d be begging for a lawsuit, and why bog down a new product with such legal problems when you have a team of imaginative marketing experts who can think up other cool names?

Well, it turns out that Apple may have done this because Cisco might not own the name, after all. A close read of this article explains how Cisco has probably lost the trademark because they did not use the name for a long time, and probably did not renew the trademark legitimately. If their trademark did indeed lapse, then it would go to Ocean Telecom Services LLC, a firm many people believe is a front company for Apple. Additionally, it appears that several other companies also use the “iPhone” name for their products.

So maybe Apple isn’t so dumb after all.

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Four down, two to go. Congress passed a bill to help lower drug costs to seniors by using Medicare’s huge purchasing power to negotiate with drug companies. Enough Republicans opposed this to block a veto-proof majority (only 24 Republicans joined the entire Democratic block), which shows you how bought out they are–after all, Republicans are all about a free market system, right? Let the market decide, let people negotiate… except when they want to benefit their super-rich corporate backers.

Even if Bush vetoes this (as promised threatened) and Democrats force another veto-breaking vote which fails, it will be a huge public relations boon for the Democrats: we support the people, but Bush and the GOP favor far less the people than they do huge corporations which make massive, usurious profits from seniors and taxpayers.

Every one of these 100-Hours issues are supported by a strong majority of Americans. Makes me wonder what the Republicans think they’re doing. Maybe they figure that no one will remember two years from now. I’m guessing that the few dozen House Republicans that voted with Democrats on the last few close votes are ones who are ones who will face very close battles in the next election.

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Bush has pretty successfully claimed the right to tap your phone calls without a warrant, and to read your mail. Now this administration is looking at your bank records as well. Not that this should be news to you, or surprise you in the least.

Aren’t Republicans supposed to be against this kind of thing? From debating gun control with right-wingers, I have heard the argument countless times about why we should avoid gun registration lists because the Nazis used them someplace in WWII to confiscate guns, and if the U.S. government ever became fascist, they would do the same thing here. Well, the U.S. government is slowly but clearly turning fascist, and for some reason the same people who made the argument about gun registration have no problem at all with this level of government spying on citizens. Nor do they seem too bothered by the government suspending habeas corpus, and holding citizens in jail without a charge (and without their guns!). Which kind of demonstrates how fake the whole argument was in the first place.

But you would still expect right-wingers, who profess to be so strident about getting government out of our lives, to vehemently oppose such intrusions. I can only guess that they are so frightened by the specter of terrorism that they feel it is perfectly OK for our own government to do this kind of stuff.

Or perhaps the whole get-the-government-off-our-backs philosophy is yet another fake argument used to cover for a more specific agenda like tax cuts. That does seem to be a common practice for right-wingers–to claim a greater philosophical belief to make a more specific, but less-defensible position seem more legitimate. This is done with the philosophy of strict constructionism as a cover for a pro-life and anti-civil-rights agenda, just as the “smaller-government” argument philosophy only serves to cover for a stance against Social Security as well as many other Democratic-favored social welfare programs. But when it comes to issues that Republicans favor, these overriding principles suddenly become irrelevant.

Israel is planning to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran’s own nuclear weapons program. That should settle things down in the Middle East.

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Demonstrating their desire to be responsible and accountable, the White House shifted recording of White House visitors from the Secret Service logs to the presidential records, so as to hide them from Freedom-of-Information-Act filings. Such information requests were used by Republicans to help uncover the Monica Lewinsky visits to the White House–precisely the scandal Bush claimed he would avoid to “restore honor and dignity to the White House.” Yes, it is true that no scandals about Bush getting a blow job have been unearthed, but a host of other scandals have instead. I suppose that hiding such scandals could be considered more “dignified” than being caught committing them, but how it is more “honorable” is beyond me.

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Dammit, I did it again–listened to CNN for more than a few minutes. This time what sent me over the edge was picture painted of Washington D.C., where Bush was represented as “bipartisan” and “conciliatory,” trying hard to “work with” Democrats, while the Democrats “couldn’t resist” going partisan, while at the same time having no hope of getting their “first 100 hours” achieved, as they have no ability to actually do anything, while Bush has an “arsenal” that includes the veto, Republican filibusters, conservative Democrats, etc. Damned liberal media.

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On the non-political side of things, Hitachi is going to release a 3.5″ 1 TB drive (as opposed to the multi-drive versions that have been on sale for some time), breaking the Terabyte barrier–and it’ll sell for less than $400. And here I was, thinking I got a deal on a $240 500 GB drive….

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Meanwhile, Apple is gearing up for the Big Event–the MacWorld Expo, where The Steve will present The Keynote. That’ll be on January 9th at 9 am Pacific time–or 2 am on the 10th for here in Japan, as usual. Suspected announcements: 8-core Desktop Macs and maybe other CPU upgrades, the iPhone, iTV, a possible full-screen touch-controlled iPod, and a full unveiling of Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard, including iLife ’07 and iWork ’07, the latter including a new spreadsheet app which should round out the productivity suite. Engadget had the best reporting at the last Apple event, followed by MacRumors and TUAW.