I recently ordered some historical DVD's of material from the 1930-1955 time frame, and the color material was fascinating to watch.  The type of material I grew up seeing from that era tended to be (nearly always was) in black & white, and so the border between what looked like the "black & white era" and color seemed to fall right between my generation and the generation proceeding mine.  But switch that older material to color, and add in the new factor that a lot of it was taken with privately owned small cameras loaded with color film....

I was given a free ticket to see "I'm Not There", the bizarre movie about Bob Dylan, and I went out to see it yesterday evening.  I didn't know much about Bob Dylan (except that I liked some of his music), until I read about him on the Internet following seeing the movie.  I would say to anyone thinking of seeing the movie, that it will likely only be interesting if you are thoroughly familiar with Bob Dylan.  If you're not, it's probably not going to make much sense. .....

I used to go out for a beer or two from time to time (here and there in Tokyo, but mostly in Shibuya) with a friend from LA, and one evening he took me and a few other people to this Columbian bar run by a Columbian man he knew (who later appeared in a bit part in a very bad movie here that I can't remember the name of).  Visiting a place like that isn't as big of a deal now, but in 1991, bars run by foreigners were rarer, so it was interesting to go there on novelty value alone.  We had a good time it seems - .....

Another weekend working for the computer.  Typical deal - you figure you're going to spend a couple of hours upgrading an OS, and that couple of hours turns into a couple of days.  There's always something.  In this case I stupidly thought I'd do the lazy and quick [sarcastic and hysterical laughter] thing, and do an upgrade install from v7.10 to v8.04.

Continuing to look around in 2008 Japan and compare it to 1984-1992 Japan, another issue that comes to mind is standing in lines.  When I arrived, I was shocked and dismayed to discover that at banks and fast-food places, there were several parallel lines, rather than one central line that fed to the next open teller or order taker.  So you'd go to the bank in a hurry .....

For about twenty years I lined up on one platform after another and another-n'-another-n'-another, and the lines were always three people across. I remember hearing recorded announcements early on at some stations asking people to line up three across, and it occurred to me that it hadn't always been that way, hence the announcement. After that, though, I don't remember hearing that announcement. Either it was one of those things that is always in the background, so you just automatically tune it out, or they stopped making the announcements since everyone was dutifully lining up three across?

The only problem with standing three across, is.....

On the way home over the past couple of years, I've periodically looked out the train window (when I'm standing at a door that is - the seats face the inside of the train) and noticed an old style (previously ubiquitous) coffee shop, and idly thought I'd like to go in for an over-priced cup of coffee for old-time's sake.

And here I am sitting in said shop writing this by hand (enjoying the experience of writing by hand, but also realizing that each word will have to be reproduced on the keyboard before I can get this through the wires to the screen).

I might just as well have titled this "Finally it's Getting Warm". The cherry blossoms always come out when there is no trace of new leaves on other trees (or the cherry blossom trees - the leaves come out after the flowers), which is their attraction, but it's always really cold when everyone goes out for the hanami drinking parties under the trees. .....

There was a special on a weekly news program last night about how sales of manga magazines (typically weekly publications with ongoing bits of several different manga) have been falling.  Apparently books sales of specific manga - like the long-running "Conan the Detective" - are still selling well, but people seem to be losing interest in the formerly hugely successful weekly magazines (printed on very cheap paper and looking almost like small phone books).

As someone who is kept from going stark raving mad on the sardine run commute to-and-from work by audio recordings (usually there's no space for a book, so listening to something is all I can do), .....