2008-04-14T03:00:39+09:00 Gregg Tavares http://blog.greggman.com Entries from Greggman.com About weblog http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2008-04-14.htm

I’m not sure this is really an “adult” story and the names have been changed even though anyone who this story might affect already knows this story Once upon a time, I think in February 2003 I was living in Tokyo.

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Once upon a time, I think in February 2003 I was living in Tokyo.

I had made a few friends that would meet a 2 or 3 times a week for dinner here and there. One of these friends was Bill and he lived about 45 minutes outside of Tokyo or at least from the parts we used to hang out in.

One of the issues in Tokyo and public transportation is that the trains stop around 1am. That means if you want to get back to your home and it’s far you need to catch the last train that makes it back to your station. For Bill that was around 11:30pm where as for me and the other friends, we could stay out until 12:15 or later.

Bill was married to a Japanese women but they had recently got divorced about 2 months earlier. One night we were out and Bill brought his co-worker and friend, Mineko. Bill missed his last train so he was stuck in the city until 5am when the trains start up again. We all decided to stay out and keep him company. I don’t know why or what it was but she was like a drug for me. It was love at first sight. I don’t just mean her looks either. She spoke pretty much fluent English and she was super nice, friendly and extremely easy to talk to.

The only catch was she smoked and if you’ve read enough of my posting you can probably guess I’m the type of guy that will pass on someone if they have a major issue I can’t deal with. So, I thought about her but decided since she smokes I’d forget about it.

A week or so later we are all out again and my chemical reaction to Mineko is in full force. I really dig this woman and for the first time in my life was I ready to drop the no-smoking requirement. I tell Bill how I really like his friend Mineko.

Another problem I have and the reason I’ve been single most of my life is I don’t pursue women. Instead I just befriend them and if there is mutual attraction I believe things will work out. So, I hoped to spend more time with her, not alone, at least at first but just as part of the group.

Mineko lives downtown and so one night around early April we are out, Bill is getting ready to catch his last train but he doesn’t want to leave so he asks Mineko if he can crash at her place. He does this a few times and one day he tells me, “Mineko and I made out. She’s not my type but it was kind of nice”. The next time they go all the way.

Obviously I’m dying at this point. I haven’t gotten any real chance to get closer to Mineko and here Bill is sleeping with her when he’s not even interested. Arrrggghhh!

Around June Bill tells me they have stopped sleeping together and I should pursue her if I want. I'm happy for that but I continue with my typical way of proceeding. I just hope to spend time with her in our group and try to get some spark going.

That entire summer our larger group of 8-20 people hang out quite often. We have happy hour nights. We go to movies together. We go to restaurants together. I keep hoping I can sit next to Mineko at these events but her and Bill always manage to sit together. When we question him on it he says they are just best friends.

It’s easy to believe because all summer Bill is trying to find a girlfriend. He brings them to some of our events, a new one every 2 or 3 weeks. Mineko is even helping him by talking to the girls and getting impressions.

The only place I have any real success is that Mineko and I chat online quite often. As we have gotten closer in chat many of the topics have turned sexual in nature. Not sex chat but just topics about sex. For example Mineko and I both enjoy watching Sex in the City so we chat about it and the topics in brings up. Of course I take this as a good sign.

Around early October I eventually asked her “out” to Design Festa in mid November. It’s not really a date, just something casual but I felt like I had finally taken another step. It would be the first time with just me and her.

Early November the group decides to go dancing although for some reason I go home after dinner instead of staying for the club. Probably because I was not comfortable clubbing. Later that night or the next morning my friend chats with me. Something happened at the party and Mineko blew up. A few minutes later Mineko starts chatting with me and wants to talk to me about what happened.

What happened was that her and Bill had never stopped sleeping together, they’d continued all summer long. Then, at the club Bill met a woman and started making out there at the club. Bill and Mineko had had sex the previous night and Mineko felt like Bill was being disrespectful.

She still claimed he wasn’t her type and he claimed she wasn’t his type. She still believed their understanding that they were both looking for someone new but she also wanted to feel like they were more than fuck buddies. Somewhere I guess more like lovers without the commitment but who still respected each other until they found someone.

Well, being a total AFC, of course I told her how I felt, obviously the worst possible time to tell her (not that it would have mattered when I told her) but basically I was destroyed. It wasn’t just being rejected, it was that every little thing that happened all summer, every little hope I had, every chat I had with her was a lie. I thought she was talking to me as a single woman, not someone who effectively has a boyfriend. Also, all the times Bill had lied to me about “just being friends” or “she’s like my sister”

I practically felt suicidal. I guess I didn’t feel like killing myself but for the next few days I felt like someone and physically knocked the wind out of me. I had to basically call every friend I had and talk through it to get by.

Mineko said she was not going to talk to or see Bill anymore. I had confessed my feelings and I obviously hoped for the best though I didn’t have high hopes. I even made a totally AFC little booklet all about my feelings for her and gave it to her. She told me she was not interested in me as anything more than friends. That sucked but at least getting it out there let me move on or so I thought.

Mineko and I became better friends for a while with her trying to help me met someone. I also went through somewhat of a transformation. Before that I was rather nerdy. Not that I’m not still nerdy but my typical style was like jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers. I didn’t have any style. I had also only been to a club like 3-4 times in my life. So, after about a week of sulking I decided to do something. I grew my first facial hair, I bought some better clothing and I started clubbing. I figured I really needed to get out and meet people and get better at this. I decided to go to techno clubs because dancing so aggressively was also a way to forgot about her or at least forget about my feelings.

She decided to go to New York for 3 weeks in December with a friend. They went but at some point they got in an argument. Bill is from the New York area and was home for Christmas so Mineko called him and they ended up re-starting their relationship although this time they were officially boyfriend and girlfriend.

I was really happy for them but it still felt like yet another kick.

One of the most frustrating things was just how strongly I felt for her. I felt like I had finally understood the saying “I’ll never love someone again like I loved you” or similar phrases. That’s certainly been the case since then. I met several women over the years that followed and some I liked enough to want to be more then friends but none of the approached how I felt about Mineko.

We stayed friends and with her actually in an “official” public relationship it was relatively easy to turn my feelings off. I say relatively though because on some occasions if I ever got to spend more than say 20 minutes with her alone all those feelings would rush back. Like I said, it’s almost a chemical reaction for me it feels so strong.

You’d think the story would end there but so far there is one other piece.

3 years later I chose to leave Japan. Mineko (and I’m sure Bill helped) organized a giant going way party for me in January 2007. It was amazing. Mineko also surprised me by showing up at the airport to see me off. I told her she was the only person that could have gotten me to stay.

I moved to San Francisco and in March the Game Developers Conference was held here. Myself, Bill and Mineko are all in the game industry so they were coming for a week. I didn’t really think much of it except I was glad to see them. Bill I guess has lived in SF so he didn’t want the tour but Mineko had not and I showed her and 2 other friends around the first day they were here.

Mineko was slightly flirty. I blew it off because our group tends to say strange sexual joke come-ons to each other. A couple examples, she bought me a “Sex Bomb” from Lush. (Bath Soap) and also when I showed them my apartment she jumped in my bed and said “hey, I’m the first girl in your bed!”

I really didn’t think anything of it since as far as I knew she was still with Bill. Sadly her birthday was that week and I really wanted to go but I came down with a cold.

They all return to Japan but a few days later a mutual friend lets it slip that Bill and Mineko broke up. Later I learn that supposedly they broke up in December, BEFORE I LEFT JAPAN but didn’t tell anyone until now.

I suppose on the one had that’s no big deal but still, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me again. That information changed my perception of the last 3 months. The flirting the week before, organizing my going away party... Another thing Mineko did was say she had promised herself she would get a hug from me every time she saw me between the time I announced I was leaving until I left.

Well, that’s that. I now live 7000 miles away and I guess I should take it as a clear signal that since nothing did happen she’s still not interested. At the same time, I still find I think about her way too much. I wouldn’t say I obsess because it’s not like it’s a daily thing. It just that things remind me of her. Stupid things, maybe it’s a song about really wanting someone and before I know it I’ll be thinking of her again. Even stupider, I know we wouldn’t have ever been a good match. But what can you do? Like I mentioned above, it’s a chemical thing. It’s like she was a virus for my brain.

I want to try to look at the bright side. It was an incredible experience to feel that strongly for someone and in many ways I’m a better person because of it. I certainly hope it happens again though with someone that wants me as well this time.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2007-11-08.htm

In the beginning of October I spent 10 days in Tokyo.

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I gotta say that the very first thing I thought when I arrived in Tokyo was "damn I do NOT miss the humidity". Even though the temperature was somewhere between 70-76 degrees I guess my body has readjusted to San Francisco weather and I found myself sweating profusely most of the time I was there.

other things I didn't miss. I didn't miss riding on crowded trains. They might be fun as an experience once but after that they pretty much suck. I also didn't miss riding with sick people on the train.

I probably I didn't catch my cold from someone on a train in Tokyo but I did have a cold for 7 of the ten days I was there. Fortunately it was not at all severe and while I didn't get to party has hard as I wanted to I was able to at least make it out every day.

What I also noticed though is that I felt more at home in Tokyo than San Francisco. Of course 7 years there vs only 8 months in San Francisco might do that but SF has the advantage of being America, somewhere I've lived for 35 years.

The biggest reason has to be my wonderful friends in Tokyo. The first day I was back I saw probably 20 of them. Certain things have already changed in the group, one who was married is no longer, another now has a child, yet another got married. Still, it felt mostly the same.

Of course I ate like a pig trying to catch up on everything I miss so much. I had Koumen twice and Wanzhuji once. I had several Japanese desserts and western ones as well. I got to try Tunisian food, does that even exist in SF?

I know some people who read this won't like the next thing I'm about to say but something really stuck out for me while I was on vacation and that is how living in Tokyo really made the things that suck about America stick out for me. I know using the word "suck" is going to invite flamers and I could have used something more like "things that are not all that great" instead but honestly, they just suck.

The #1 issue that sticks out is crime. Being in Tokyo is such a welcome from San Francisco. I don't even think San Francisco is supposed to be considered that bad a place but I have friends that live near the Tenderloin or when I go clubbing down that way and just stepping outside there there are scary people. People who play chicken with the cars passing through. People who are clearly angry at the world. Or, take a look down in the SOMA were where pretty much every 4th parking space on the street there is a pile of glass denoting a recently broke in car. If I go to the AMC Van Ness 14 or the Metron theaters I don't feel safe. There's always some group doing something aggressive. My office which is in what looks like the cleanest area of all the bay has a "no guns" sticker on every door. Even my own neighborhood, Noe Valley, which many would think of as safe doesn't always feel safe to me.

In contrast I can pretty much be anywhere in Tokyo day or night and not worry about a thing. Like I've said before, we in America have grown so used to it we just ignore it. It's not until you live somewhere safer that it really highlights for you how much crap we put up with or that we ignore that we shouldn't. We should instead FIX!

I brought up vandalism before. Why is that part of American culture? I grew up with it. I thought it was cool to make prank calls. I thought it was cool to pour sugar in someone's gas tank. I thought it was cool to step on my friend's brand new shoes. I thought it was cool to go in someone's backyard and throw the fallen fruit in their garden against their fence. Why is that part of America culture? As far as I can tell it's not part of Japanese culture. Where did that come from? Why is it just a part of life now in America. We just expect it. We don't even think that it could be or ever was any different and yet living somewhere where it's not that way I now know we shouldn't be expecting it. We should be ashamed of it. As a small example, the people that live across from me by like 10 jack-o-lanterns out for Halloween. By midnight 3 of them had been kicked into mush by kids passing by. Why did they feel the need to do that?

I'm not saying Japan doesn't suck in other areas or that Japan is perfect. I'm only saying that living somewhere where vandalism and crime are so low has highlighted just how much shit we all ignore in America. Stuff that we should not be ignoring.

Okay, back to the good stuff in Japan, another is food. Food in SF sucks. I used to think it was the best in America. I know I've read that somewhere but there's just something different about food in Japan. They take it to another level or something. It's like in America everything seems to be going toward genericness. More sugar, larger portions, brighter colors but less taste. It doesn't matter whether it's Japanese food or Western food, for the most part food tastes better in Japan than America. I'm not saying Japan is #1. Hong Kong had amazing food too but so far SF has been fairly disappointing in the food area.

The last is racism. I used to think America was the best in that area. That's what we are told. We are supposed to be the Great American Melting Pot. I always thought that's where we were headed. My schools were mixed, my friends were mixed. But, since I've come back to SF I've really felt like racism is getting a LOT worse in America. Each race is carving out their own small insider club and outsiders are not welcome. There are all kinds of Asian events in SF where a non-asian is not welcome. There are all Indian restaurants where you get stares like "you don't belong here" if you are not Indian. I've been told that Hawaii, a place I was raised to believe had the "aloha - love everyone - spirit" that now if they think you are an outsider can you go to the wrong cul-de-sac or beach you can get beaten to death. WTF!

What is making that happen to us? Is it the oppression of "the man?" Is it popular culture's messages? Is it just a desire to feel power through believing you're oppressed? Is it less culture mix on TV? Is it 500 channels of cable TV so each group doesn't need to share anything? Is it the internet that lets us easily keep in touch with only our friends instead of our neighbors? Is it all of the above? I have no idea, all I know is that it exists. I'm not saying Japan is not racist. But I can say that when I'm there those topics rarely come up for me. I feel excepted wherever I go. But, back in SF I don't which highlights the issues for me.

Oh well, that's not where I really wanted to go with this post.

What I wanted to end on is that I really had a ton of fun in Tokyo and I really miss my friends and parts of my life there. I wish I knew of way to live there that didn't require me to live in a 300sqft apartment and never be able to save for retirement and still make games for a living but I don't see that happening.

SF is getting better as I make more friends. Maybe by the next time I visit Tokyo SF will feel more like home.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2007-09-09.htm

Sometimes it seems like I'm the luckiest guy on the planet.

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I made a new friend a year ago in Japan, Kyoko, and through her I met several other people. One of them, a girl named Rumi. My favorite joke "Rumi's Roomie's Roomie's Rumi." We were not more than acquaintances in Japan. Basically I only saw her through my larger circle of friends. One of them would suggest going clubbing and Rumi was always there.

Well, when I announced I was moving to San Francisco, Rumi contacts me out of the blue and tells me she's moving there too and that we should hang out.

She got here around May and since then my life has been much fuller. She's the type of person who makes tons of friends and she invites them out on weekends so on those weekends when I manage to extract myself from work we've had some great times thanks to her.

Sometime in July she announced she wanted to plan a birthday party for me. Why I have no idea but that's two years in a row some female friend who has no interest in me wants to plan my birthday party. What's up with that?

Anyway, she organized it all and with the help of another friend, Jane, 16 or so people showed up at my apartment yesterday and gave me the best present I person can get on their birthday. The company of loving friends.

But, she not only did that, She contacted a ton of my friends in Japan and had them email birthday wishes for me. She then printed them all out and along with pictures of sexy models, pasted them all in a large scrapbook and surprised me with it at the party. It was so awesome reading all their messages. I can't believe how much I miss them all.

Thank you so much Rumi! You are amazing! And also, thank you Jane for everything. You two are the brightest sparkles in my life right now.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2007-08-29.htm

So I went to the dentist last week. The last time I went was only 7 months ago, just before I left Japan but about 2 months ago I had a couple of episodes where something got caught in my teeth in the back and it hurt pretty bad. It would pop out and feel better but then a week or so later something would get in there again. Finally it happened once where it hurt a lot and when I brush in the area there was a lot of blood. My toothbrush came out completely red. I though maybe a filling and fallen out or something so I made a quick dentist appointment.

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He checked it out and claimed basically there was nothing wrong, just something stuck in my gums. He gave me some antibiotics to calm down the inflammation and said to come back in a week for a checkup. Whatever was in there popped out later that day and everything was soon back to normal.

I went to the checkup and he said everything was pretty good except that tooth had some deep gaps around it. I guess the way it works nowadays is the dentist has a little prob he sticks between your teeth and your gums and he sees how many millimeters the probe goes in. The further it goes in the worse. I don't know what's *good* but he said mine were not too bad except for that one tooth which was at 5~6mm. All the rest were below 3. My dentist in Japan had done the same measurements although he didn't give me details on the results.

Anyway, we made a schedule for cleaning and 3 weeks later, last week, I was there for the hygienist. He had that hypersonic vibrating pick and everything was fine until he hit that tooth. The dentist had suggested before that it would probably need to be numbed. The hygienist got out the needle and shot me up. No luck. Add some more. No luck. One more time. Again no luck.

The thing is it hurt REALLY BAD!!! Now, I have had this kind of pain before. I don't know if I'm right but I feel like my teeth are in general sensitive to vibration. I've had the same pain in the same teeth for years. I've really got to wonder though of the hygienist or the dentist even actually understands the pain. It's not like the poking pain I feel when he's digging around in my mouth and sometimes digs a little too deep. That sucks but it's like getting poked with a needle.

No, the pain I feel when that vibrating needle touches my back molars feels like someone took a 3 inch nail, the kind you build houses with. Put it in a fire until it was RED HOT and then JAMMED IT DOWN THE CENTER OF MY TOOTH about 1 to 1.5 inches deep. This is not the kind of pain I can personally shrug off. This is the kind of pain that would make Jack Bauer talk. Were talking torture level of pain.

by the way, I have some small idea of what torture feels like. When I was in high school I had an ingrown fingernail that wouldn't heal on its own and my finger got pretty sore. We went to the doctor and he attempted to numb up my finger. He put the needle in the base of my finger, where it attaches to my hand. A few minutes later he tests, the nail is still super painful. So, he injects again near the top joint of my finger. A few minutes later tests reveal ... still painful. Finally he injects just under the nail. Few minutes later still painful. So, he says sorry, that's all he can do, he's going to have to work on it like that. So, he slices my fingernail lengthwise and then pulls out the smaller of the two halves with pliers. My body practically levitated off the bed from the pain it hurt so bad. That's when I knew why supposedly pulling fingernails is a serious form of torture. I've had the experience :-(

Well, this tooth pain is on that level. It's not a pain I can endure and yet I don't know what to do. I'm not willing to go back to that dentist. His suggestion was to come back and we'd work just on that tooth which he claims just needs to be cleaned and it will be better but the thing is, how can I trust him to make it not hurt if he couldn't get it right the first time?

Note that I tried nitrous-oxide once and it did no good. It's supposed to make you not care. All it did though was make me almost pass out. At no time did I stop caring.

What I really want to know is what are my options? My tooth feels fine currently although just remembering the pain seriously hurts. Are there different anesthetics I could recommend? Is there some other way to clean the tooth that doesn't require the hypersonic vibrating needle? I've been looking on the net but so far I haven't found any good answers. If general anesthesia was an option I'd pay for it but as far as I can tell it's not sadly.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2007-08-18.htm

So I've decided to visit Shanghai. I'll only be there a few days. I get in Sunday September 30th and leave on October 4th. That basically gives me 4 nights and 3 days. Anyone have any recommendations? Must See? Must Eat? Must Experience? Better yet, anyone want to meet up in Shanghai ;-) Show me around, I'll be happy to reciprocate if you ever visit San Francisco.

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Anyone have any recommendations? Must See? Must Eat? Must Experience? Better yet, anyone want to meet up in Shanghai ;-) Show me around, I'll be happy to reciprocate if you ever visit San Francisco.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2007-05-24.htm

Some of my friends have been complaining I haven’t been updating my blog. There’s a bunch of reasons not the least of which is I now live back in the USA so I don’t really have much of interest to share. When I lived in Japan I felt like I was sharing things friends might want to know or at least not have easy access to but now anything I share is just random thoughts. I guess the blog part of my site though has always been random thoughts but then again I think the motivation to update it is not there like it was living abroad.

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As for life in America, I’ve been back a little over 3 months. Some things are good, some are not so good. My job is of course way better than my job in Japan. Sure I got to work on a great game but I felt isolated and not really a part of the team even if I wrote most of the code. Now I’m working with several friends on an English speaking team and so that part of my life is much better.

Another is that I’m paid a normal American salary for a top game programmer which is far more than a Japanese programmer. Sure, money isn’t everything but I don’t feel like a failure like I did the most of the time I was in Tokyo. In fact, one of my, uh..., “friends with potential”, visited me here from Tokyo. I’m not sure I wanted to hear this but she said given my new apartment it would be easy for me to find a girlfriend. Of course I don’t want a woman that wants me for my money which I told her. She said when she saw my apartment in Tokyo it really turned her off or rather gave her pause whether or not she was interested. WOW! I don’t think I wanted to hear that either from her and maybe that’s evidence of why we never went beyond friends. Still, it was validation of how I felt about my living arrangements in Tokyo. I meet one woman a couple of years ago that I could swear decided against continuing to see me the moment she saw my apartment at house party at my place. That’s something I couldn’t verify 100% but still, it’s one thing to live in a 300sqft place sleeping on the floor at 20-25 in Tokyo. It’s another to be living that way at 40+. Well, that problem is fixed.

My commute is a curse and a blessing. I thought the added 15 minutes over my Tokyo commute wouldn’t matter but the difference is in being downtown in Tokyo vs. living and working in separate cities here in the Bay Area. Somehow I need to get my company to move from San Jose to the San Francisco. I can see if I did that my life would probably be much more like my Tokyo life. Going out after work easily and meeting friends often. In my new situation I get home not earlier than say 9:30pm to avoid the traffic and by that time most of San Francisco is closed and friends are settled for the night. I guess that’s also different. Except for movies most entertainment in Tokyo is open until at least 11pm. Bars, Izakaya, Karaoke, Clubs, Ramen and many other food places are open till 5am.

On the positive side I’m using some of that commute time to study Mandarin. Some people have suggested I take the train to work but another friend that works with me says it takes 2.5 hours one way so I think I’ll skip that. If I worked for Yahoo or Google they have private shuttles to get people down to their campuses. Too bad I can’t hitch a ride.

Another thing that has come up recently is allergies. Most of my life I have had allergy problems from time to time. I thought it was just a part of life but that’s apparently not the case. While I was living in Japan I had no allergy problems. I wondered about it but now it’s confirmed because now that I’m back in California all my allergy problems have come back. I’m not saying Japan is better than California in that sense. Hay fever and the like is just as big a problem in Japan with millions of people affected, maybe more than here in California. Maybe it’s something people get as a child in the area they live in or maybe it takes time to work its way into your system but for whatever reason I didn’t have the problem in Tokyo. My mom says it's the same for her. She moved to Florida and her allergy problems have basically vanished. It certainly makes me wonder, short of a cure, if I should consider living somewhere else in the world eventually. Especially right now I'm having one of my worst hay fever episodes ever.

I think the thing that bugs me the most so far though is looking for women. It is embarrassing for me to admit that I never had a Japanese girlfriend in the 7 years I was in Japan. At the same time, I met the most women there. One reason was probably because I tried a little harder, going to various singles activities but I think the bigger reason was that I had a larger variety of friends than at any other time in my life. Here in the USA my friends have generally always been people from work. We work together, go to lunch together, sometimes get dinner together and maybe see a movie once a month. One of them always becomes a close friend and we might do some things on the weekend. Unfortunately up until now, that meant all my friends were game development geeks. There are almost no women in game development and most of us geeks don’t have girls hanging around to introduce to our friends or at least that’s been my experience. In Tokyo, several of my friends were not in game development and meeting their co-workers was always 50%+ women. Financial, I.T., Graphic Design, License Management, Localization, etc. So, they’d go out, invite me and I got a change to meet far more woman than I ever did here even if nothing ever came of it.

Well, now I’m back in the USA and so far it’s the same as it ever was for me. There’s only one woman between the two internal teams of about 25 people at work and if the guys at work have female friends to invite out to activities I’ve seen no evidence of it.

All of that brings up another reason I don’t blog much. That’s because probably the #1 thing I would want to write is about the woman situation in my life. Unfortunately most of women in my life at some time or another get around to reading this stuff or will be informed by someone who does and so I really don’t feel like I can talk about it. I’ll say a few things though.

It could be all in my head but I’ve found it extremely frustrating to try to find a girlfriend. People like to say I’m picky but I don’t see it that way. I see it as I have a feeling of what would work long term and it’s exceedingly rare I meet that type of women and it’s even rarer, in fact in the last 9 years I’ve only met one that I thought was long term that was also ( a ) available ( b ) had some chemistry and ( c ) was interested in me and that was 9 years ago before the first time I went to Japan. Since then I’ve met maybe 4 women that I felt could be long term and that I felt some chemistry with but they were either not available, not interested or both.

Of course chemistry rules over all. My last girlfriend didn’t really match my ideas of what I think it would take to go long term but for the time we were together our chemistry was pretty great. My point is, I’d probably get into something even if they didn’t meet my ideas of long term compatibility if there was strong chemistry but so far no one with that chemistry who is available and interested in me has shown up.

I’ll say what my ideas of long term potential are. You’ll probably unthinkingly make fun of me but they are pretty short, just super rare. The #1 could be described as someone that respects, appreciates, and finds interesting what I do. That is that I make video games. I think I was born 10-15 years too early because the number of 41 year old women that can respect or appreciate video game creation is very close to ZERO. It might sound stupid to have that as I criteria for someone but turn it around and think the opposite. Think of a musician being with someone that hated his music? What about a movie director with someone that thought movies were a waste of time? Could you be with someone who thought what you did for a living was stupid and childish? That’s what most women, possibly most people over a certain age think of video games. I’m convinced, when I put “video game creator” in a dating profile that most women pass on me by that alone. Well FUCK THEM! I’m not going to stop being who I am just to get a woman. Still, it sucks because that’s what my life is like. So, when I say in the last 9 years I’ve only met 4 women that had that quality AND had some chemistry it’s probably not too hard to believe. Of those 4 they either were not available or not interested and so I just have to keep looking but damn it, it’s effing depressing.

Yes, I know now the advice will be "well, don't put video game creator" in your profile. Yea, maybe but I'd rather filter out those women that have an issue with that than leave it out only to meet women the have an issue with it but will put up with it once they get to know me.

It’s a cultural issue as well. This doesn’t *really* bother me that much but then on the other hand I do have to avoid thinking about it or I can get worked up. The other day a friend of a friend was telling a story about some guy inviting her and her friends to a Wine and Wii Party. They were at a bar and it was hard to hear so at first she thought he was saying a Wine and Weed Party as in a party to drink wine and smoke pot. She finally cleared it up that it was Wine and Nintendo Wii and for anyone who’s played at Wii at a party, including her, she knows how fun it is and why someone might suggest that. But then, she showed the exact problem I described above. I don’t remember the exact words but she said something to the effect of “I thought a Weed Party was strange but a Wii party it just geeky and stupid”. Of course she didn’t mean anything by it but with a little thought she might have noticed she just called me, my entire adult life and career geeky and stupid and whatever other derogatory statements you want to add in there.

It’s kind of like people that are into cosplay or anime or trekkies. The majority of people not only don’t respect them, they ridicule them. Those people need to find someone that can except them as is where as I’d say the majority of people out there, instead of accepting, appreciating and supporting a hobby like that would think that person needs to “grow up”, “get a life”, “get over it”. The truth is the person doing the criticism needs to grow up. There’s nothing more strange about any of those hobbies than being a sports fan yet one is social acceptable to most, the others are not. I’ve meet maybe 4 women in my entire life that could not only hang with that kind of stuff but actually embrace it. They were 10-13 years younger than me and not available or not interested.

Like I said, I’m sure chemistry trumps all though it seems just as hard to find as the rare woman who can hang with a video game creator. Add them together and it’s near impossible.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2007-03-05.htm

I've been setting up my new apartment, buying lots of stuff. I have a tape measure I bought in at Tokyu Hands in Tokyo. It turns out it's wrong. After buying a bunch of blinds and having them not come close to being the correct size I was thinking WTF, false advertising. I was about to take them back when I tried putting on a table cloth I bought and having it also not be the correct size.

weblog 2007-03-05T19:00:00+09:00 2007-03-05T19:00:00+09:00 2007-03-05T19:00:00+09:00 Tokyu Hands in Tokyo. It turns out it's wrong. After buying a bunch of blinds and having them not come close to being the correct size I was thinking WTF, false advertising. I was about to take them back when I tried putting on a table cloth I bought and having it also not be the correct size.

So I thought I should go to the store and before I asked to return the stuff I should ask them to check my tape measure. Then it occured to me I could lookup the size of the table which I expected would not be wrong. It's listed as 86 inches. I checked with my tape measure it says 73 inches. So I check the centimeter size, 220cm. Check the tape measure. 220 CM. I know the conversion is supposed to be 2.54cm to the inch or 100cm (1 meter) is 39.37 inches. I look down at the 100cm mark on the tape measure. It says 33inches. WTF! Now I have to take all this stuff back.

---

Looking closer at the tape measure the top scale is not inches, it's in units which are 33 units per meter. Not inches, not metric, must be some old Japanese standard.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2007-02-11.htm

I'm in San Francisco now and there's been quite a lot of reverse culture shock. I guess not just culture shock from Japan to the USA but also I've never lived in downtown San Francisco and it's very different from my experience anywhere else.

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For one, it's extremely hard to rent a place because so many people want to live in the city. Many places have open houses for renting. I show up and 6-7 other parties are there to look. Fortunately it appears I have good credit so I think I might be at the top of the list when the landlords decide who to pick to let rent their places.

Another which I knew but I guess I really didn't think about. I was hoping to find a place with 2 master bedrooms. There are tons of these in LA and Orange County. They are designed for roommates. There's a living room and kitchen that are shared and then 2 bedrooms each with their own bathroom. Well, San Francisco has almost nothing like that. There are basically 2 types of places in San Francisco. 100+ year old Victorian houses. They generally were built for families or couples. Many of them are advertised as 2 bedrooms but I show up and find they are really a living room + dining room + bedroom but someone has decided to call the living room a 2nd bedroom. Because it's actually a living room though it doesn't have complete privacy.

It's funny that so much of the city is 100+ year old places. That stuff just doesn't exist in Tokyo. Of course there are old temples but any housing older than about 30years is considered trash, ready to be destroyed. I would guess some of it has to do with the weather that destroys buildings in Japan quicker than SF and of course Japanese houses are generally pretty dang ugly as buildings where as 100+ old Victorian buildings in SF are kind of quaint.

The second kind are lofts, built within the last 15 years most likely. They are beautiful in their way but generally the 2nd bedroom is the loft area. It doesn't have any walls separating it from the living room / kitchen area.

Anyway, that just means I have to decide to keep looking for a place that can handle two roommates in some form or decide not to have a roommate. The last two times in lived in the U.S. I had Japanese roommates. I'd like to do that again because I know if I don't I'll lose my Japanese ability.

Otherwise, when I first got back I was feeling really disoriented. Almost like shock from moving from Japan to the USA. My friend said I was "F.O.B.". It means Fresh Off the Boat and is generally used to describe immigrants with thick accents. There was something just different about being in the USA without as many crowds, driving around in a car most of the time, seeing so many large people everywhere or for that matter, seeing people not dressed up more. Not that it matters it's just different. In Tokyo the majority of people dress much better than jeans, a t-shirt and a sweat jacket.

After a day or two though I mostly felt back to normal. That's common for me. I can generally go anywhere and in 2 or 3 days feel comfortable.

What else has stood out? Well, my new cellphone is not nearly as good as my old one. It's not bad but lots of minor things make it less easy to use. It holds pictures of people in my address book but it doesn't show them in the list, only when you ask for details. It's going to take a while to get used to the T9 input system. I'm not sure I like it but maybe I just have to use it more. Another minor issue, I actually started keeping my schedule in my Japanese phone for the last few months but my new cell phone's calendar is just not nearly as usable. Maybe I just picked the wrong phone, a Sony Ericsson 810i. It's certainly functional.

On the plus side, USA phones or at least Cingular have great 411 service. You call and it's semi automated, if you want they can text you the address and phone number and they can call the # for you. For some unknown reason Japan doesn't have that service. If you call information on a Japanese phone you have to write the number down. How can they be so advanced in phones and so backward in service?

Of course there are obvious things about being back like the change in food. Portions are so large. I went to some sub sandwich place in Noe Valley and the regular size was about the size of 2 large hamburgers. Fortunately I had someone to share it with. A bowl of fruit and yogurt for breakfast was easily large enough for 2.5 people in Japan. I'm lucky though, so far SF food is turning out to be much better than LA food. Of course I have my favorite places in LA but SF supposedly has more restaurants per person than any other USA city. Of course it's no where near Tokyo but I'm not feeling too let down.

One strange thing, I've been searching for Apricot Wine or Anzushu 杏子酒. It's Chinese and among the top 3 liqueurs in Japan which are plum wine (umeshu), Anzushu and Cassis. Well, you can get Cassis at most places in SF and you can get plum wine in many places but even though there are tons of Chinese people in SF with Chinese markets all over SF we've been to pretty much every single one and none of them carry Anzushu. We've also been to the Japanese shops and they don't carry it either. It's both puzzling and frustrating. It's seriously in the top 3 in Japan. You can get it at pretty much every Izakaya in Japan. You can even get it at pretty much every convienence store in Japan. It's made in China and yet as far as I can tell it doesn't exist in SF or for that matter the USA in general. I can't even find an internet shop that carries it. I guess when I'm down in LA I'll have to look. LA has more Chinese and Japanese markets than SF so maybe they'll have it.

I've been pleasantly surprised by a few things. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by mentioning this but so far drivers have seemed not too impatient in SF. There's lots of stop signs and traffic but I've heard very little honking.
I got a car the 2nd day back. My thinking was that without a car I wouldn't be able to get around and look for apartments very easily. I'm afraid to say what kind because I don't want people to think I'm a snob or stuck up but I wanted a manual transmission still and I went and test drove a few cars. I was a little scared because there are so many steep hills in SF that it can be really hard to go from stopped to shifting into first on an incline. Anyway, the car I got, the computer will automatically hold the brake for you for 2 seconds giving you time to let off the break and shift into first and get going before the car starts rolling. I don't think I could handle a manual in SF without that feature for long.

I've been really lucky. My friend Danny is letting me stay at his place until I find my own. I hope that's soon. Also my friend Youko just happened to be vacationing for a month in SF. She knows the city better than me and has been almost my constant companion for the last two weeks.

Anyway, I hope to get back on my feet and settled soon. After which I still have 4 or 5 articles to write about Japan.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2007-01-01.htm

I'm Leaving Japan.

weblog 2007-01-01T19:00:00+09:00 2007-01-01T19:00:00+09:00 2007-01-01T19:00:00+09:00
I was a hard decision. I guess living here for the last 6 years has made me comfortable with life in Tokyo. In the end though I didn't feel I could make a living here, at least not making video games. I looked for other jobs but in the end I couldn't see myself leaving games easily and if I'm staying in games then Japan is not the place to do it. It sounds counterintuitive, Japan makes great games, unfortunately they do it by paying almost nothing.

If I was 25 that would be fine but I'm 41 now and I can't keep doing it knowing that I'm giving up any kind of future.　The only workable option might be to start my own company but I don't have a clear vision for that at the moment.

Some other things contributed as well. The first time I was here in 1998 I made some close Japanese friends at work. This time though that didn't happen. I couldn't really say exactly why. I can say there was a huge difference in the atmospheres of the two companies. The first one felt like a big family. The second one felt like lots of individuals that just happened to be sitting in the same room. A friend recently started there and she commented on it as well, so much so she's only been their a month and already wants to quit.

A different company or more effort might have fixed that but either way I know that problem will be fixed going back because I'm going to be working with close friends this time. Something I've really missed.

So, I'm moving back to the states. San Francisco to be specific. Of course I'm a little apprehencive. I have lots of friends here in Tokyo and I'll miss them. I also love Tokyo. It's great city with lots of fun stuff to do and great food and it's safe.

People ask if I have any regrets and I do have one giant regret. I never had a Japanese girlfriend. Pretty strange for a white guy in Japan. I met lots of women but none of them clicked. Well, there were a few who I fell head over heals for but they didn't want me. As well there were a few who fell for me that for some reason I couldn't get interested in. Attraction is a strange thing. I know one other factor is being in my late 30s early 40s I was always looking for a wife, not just a girlfriend and so unless I was sooo attracted as to ignore that feeling then most women got passed through the lens of long term and didn't seem to fit. With a few it was a timing issue.

Of course just having a girlfriend would have been nice but being in Japan and not having had a Japanese girlfriend means I missed out on a ton of experiences. Cultural things I would have been asked to participate in. Japanese TV I would have been asked to watch. Some might consider that torture but with someone to explain the cultural references or even some of the jokes I might have at least a slightly better understanding. Another example, I never learned any slang. Non, zero, zilch, nada.

But, that's water under the bridge. I'm outta here. I should be gone by the end of January. I'm looking forward to starting the next step of my life and seeing where it leads.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2006-09-18.htm

Just Amazing. My friend Yukari convinced our female friends to all go out and get Chinese dresses and wear them as a surprise for my birthday party. OMG!

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Amazingly they all picked different colors without coordinating with each other. I can't thank them enough. I don't know if I'll ever get to see something that amazing again in my life!
]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2006-09-06.htm

Hong Kong totally rocked! If you want to see pictures of Hong Kong check out my last trip. Although I thought HK was an awesome city last time I didn't have such a great time being alone.

weblog 2006-09-06T19:00:00+09:00 2006-09-06T19:00:00+09:00 2006-09-06T19:00:00+09:00 check out my last trip. Although I thought HK was an awesome city last time I didn't have such a great time being alone.

This time though my friend Alan and I decided to go together. Both of us don't travel enough for lack of someone to go with so we decided why not go together. What really rocked though, Alan had a friend Mondie he had met through the internet and although they had never met in person they had been friends for 6 or 7 years.

We also had a friend, Ken, who lives in Guangzhou China which is relatively near Hong Kong (2 hours by train). He used to live in Tokyo studying Japanese until just a few months ago and was part of our group so he came down too.

Alan and I didn't really know what to expect but Mondie and Ken both spent all 4 days showing us all over HK. They were amazing!


To add to that, it just happened that our friend Momoko was starting a new job on Sept 1st and they sent her to HK for training the first week so she was there as well.

A few highlights:


Because of the SARS scare a few years ago, at more casual restuarants when you sit down they put a pot of hot tea on your table. You pour some in your glass then swish it around with your chopsticks, then pour it in your bowl and swish it around there and finally pour it out into a bucket they supply. It's a second chance to make sure your utensils are clean.

There was other evidence of the effects of the SARS scare as well for example:


A hand sanitizer next to the elevator. I guess after you press the button you can sanitize your hands as well as signs in all the subways about it being a $5000 fine for spitting (US $650). They should have that in Japan. I've seen people spit in the deptartment store here :-(

Otherwise, this time I got to eat lots of awesome delicious HK food!I even got to eat frog legs...yes, they taste like chicken just smaller.


One day Ken took us to the HK Museum of History. It started off pretty bad. An entire 2 story, 3 to 4 gymnasium size area was dedicated to the geology of HK getting way too detailed into how the earth works. A whole gym size room with a model of a forest for example. It was overkill but it that stuff belongs in a Science museum.

Fortunately that was not all. Directly above that area for another 2 stories was the more human history of HK. Probably the most interestng part was about the occupation of HK by the Japanese. I shouldn't get into politics but it often seems to come across that all anyone in Japan remembers of WW2 is they were bombed. That they forcfully took over most of the South Pacific and East Asia and killed 6 to 7 million people seems to have been forgotten. (that's not to say the USA doesn't have it's share of issues but at least some non small percentage of our population seems to be aware of them)


Another interesting part was the history between WW2 and now. They showed how the war had made many people very poor and many of them lived in shacks. HK has typhoons every year and the shacks would blow away. Now they say that's mostly a thing of the past as all the buildings are modern. Still, there were many amazing pictures like this one with about 30 cars all piled into a heap from a typhoon.


There was a model of one of the old style apartments. Just maybe 120sq feet. Mondie said she used to live in one. She also said she lived on a junk boat for a while as well.


Mondie also took us to Lantau Island. On the top is a giant Budda statue and a temple. That was cool but even cooler was the tiny fishing town of Tai-O on the coast. In some ways it seemed almost untouched in many years. One thing that made it so surreal was it's basically within the borders of the rest of HK. In fact just out of the of harbor you can see the HK International Airport just around the hills. Still, Alan noticed one of the houses had satellite dishes :-)


The last meal was the coolest. Mondie took us to the Wan Chai area which is a busy area of downtown HK. She then walked us and walked us several blocks. Things started calming down, the stores started disappearing and finally we came to this block with pretty much nothing going on. It looked like the entire block had shut down for the night.


I start to think maybe she was lost as she walked up to a door in the middle of nowhere, rang the bell and the guard comes out.


She talks to him for a few minutes while I notice a "Members Only" sign. I start to worry. Being tourist and being so hot Alan and I our in t-shirts, shorts and sandals. I hope she is not taking us to some tie required place. Finally he lets us in. We walk down a non-descript hallway and into the freight elevator.


The second floor exits to a small hallway with a door surrounded by red peppers.


Once the door opens I breath a sign of relief. There are about 8 round tables with 6 to 12 people at each table. It's a very casual place. We sit down and Mondie orders for us and we have one of the best meals of our lives.


It started with a very thinly sliced spicy pork that was perfect. Next up was these black noodles that tasted like they had been soaked in vinegar and then put in a spicy sauce. That was followed by these paper thin slices of beef and some delicious spicy salty dipping sauce. Alan's favorite was next, a sweet and spicy chicken dish.

The most eye bugging one was next, a giant bowl of peppers. It was the largest dish on the table and at least 2 inches high. Submerged in the spices were white fish steaks that were oh so good! Next up was spicy green beans and pork. Followed by my favorite which was a spicy pork dish with crispy crunchy rice. The last dish of greens was the only non spicy dish of the meal.

We really owe it to Mondie. We would never in a million years have had an experience like that if it wasn't for her. Thank you to both Ken and Mondie for making our time in HK one of the best vactions ever.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2006-08-30.htm

So, I have a cold again. This time so far it's just a sore throat. The problem is I'm going on vacation in 36 hours and it would certainly suck to be stuck in my hotel room the whole time. So far if I drug myself up I can probably make it out but I'm going to Hong Kong again and according to the weather forecast it's 84 but feels like 94 because of humidity. Walking around sweating to death might not be best for a cold.

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Today, as I contemplated the suckage I remembered I read somewhere the average adult gets a cold 3 times a year. That same document says symptoms usually last a week.

So I got to thinking, what are the odds I'll be sick with a cold any one day. Assuming an average of 3 times a year and a week of symptoms per cold that's 21 days out of 365 or a 1 in 17 chance of being sick any one day. For example I've been sick Christmas day and missed out on family celebrations twice in my life. Given a 1 in 17 in chance that means on average I should miss one Christmas every 17 years. Another way to look at it, in the states, assuming 6 major holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Easter, Memorial Day, Labor Day that means the odds of being sick on one of those days each year is 6/17ths or better than 1 in 3!

Worse, as far as I know those stats are for colds only. Other things like back-pain or headaches or whatever other ailments a person might have only make the odds higher.

Back to Vacation, If the odds of being sick with a cold any one day are 1 in 17 then if you have a week long vacation the odds are 7 in 17 one of those vacation days will overlap a sick day. That's 1 chance in 2.4. In other words, every two~three times you take a week long vacation odds are you'll have a cold during part of it.

I guess that makes this cold that will most likely overlap my vacation not so unlikely. I only hope since the symptoms started Sunday and I leave Friday that they'll be over soon and I can enjoy most of my vacation :-)]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2006-07-21b.htm

This week I had a serious back pain issue. I've gotten different kinds of back pain in the past. I've assumed it was from bad posture while programming. I used to get some pretty serious back pain in the states now and then. It didn't usually seem to last all that long, a couple of days.

weblog 2006-07-21T19:00:00+09:00 2006-07-21T19:00:00+09:00 2006-07-21T19:00:00+09:00
Well, in the last few years there have been a couple of times where I've had some serious back pain. A very sharp pain in my lower back, so sharp that I can't use my back. There have been times were I literally had to drag my self across my apartment by my hands. I would just tell myself to pay attention to posture more, stretch more, take some ibuprofen and the problem would go away.

Well, this week it got really bad. Starting last Sunday I woke up with back pain but it seemed manageable. It lasted through Tuesday. It was pretty bad but I could still get up. In the past I had done things like hang from the chin-up bar or something trying to stretch my back. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do that with in my apartment. It was hurting pretty bad so I asked some friends to stretch me but they didn't get it I guess and couldn't or wouldn't pull hard enough. Maybe a good thing but you know how they always show someone fixing someone's back in the movies. In my mind I imagined a pinched nerve and if I could just give it some space maybe it would slip back out.

That night I even braided some rope, tied it around the only fixed thing in my apartment, the toilet, across to the bedroom were I could stick my feet out the sliding door of my apartment onto the balcony and catch my feet on the curb leading into the apartment. Then I could grab the rope, pull, and hopefully stretch my back. No luck as far as I can tell. I think the big problem is unlike hanging, with both arms and legs pulling I think they use all the muscles in the back so it can't stretch. Maybe that actually made it worse though I doubt it, but.....

The next morning. PAIN!!! I got up, immediately felt like I was going to faint, made it to the bathroom and braced myself on the sink. Lowered my head and hoped maybe I had just gotten up to fast and the feeling would pass but actually it didn't pass, my face was pale and I felt nauseous. I went back to lie down and felt like crap. I could barely move. Even turning over to adjust my position in bed was hard. To get up I would have to very slowly roll over on my stomach, straighting my legs and putting my arms above my head to make myself into something easy to role but at the same time stick out a foot or arm to make sure there was absolutely no pressure on my back as I turned. Then, once on my stomach I would lift my torso up by my arm strength alone although if I wasn't careful, when I was on all fours my back would have some pressure and start hurting and I'd have to quickly get back down. If I managed to get on all fours without pain then I would have to push myself up by bracing my hands on my thighs, again, keeping my back out of it.

I managed to take some pain pills and that got me able to waddle over to the doctor. One thing nice about Tokyo, there's pretty much a doctor's office within 2 ~ 3 minutes walk of anywhere. Of course the bad part is lots of them suck.

Anyway, my doctor told me he didn't need to take an xray since he had taken one just about 5 weeks before (another story(1)). He felt my back, said my right muscles in the area that hurt were super tight and prescribed some muscle relaxing medicine. That was Wednesday. He also told me to just use the pain medicine he had given me for the last problem(1). I tried both but they didn't really seem to do anything through Wednesday and Thursday.

Even sleep was hard because face down or face up was not comfortable on my back for more than about 3 minutes. Some muscle tension would build up and it would start hurting. I could only sleep on my side which I don't normally do because normally that makes my back hurt the next day :-p

So, today I woke up not feeling any better. I took 600mg of ibuprofen. Then I looked up the medicines just for fun. The drug he gave me is called Tizanidine and typical, the Japanese doses are MUCH lower than the American doses. The Japanese doses are 1mg. According that webpage the American doses are 8mg. I wasn't ready to try taking 8 pills at once and I thought maybe I should go to a specialist so I went to a local hospital.

Japanese hospitals are not like Western ones in that you can go in for any reason, even a cold and see any specialist, just walk in. No referral. Hospitals are not just for things that need a hospital like they are in America, they are just a place doctors happen to be and equipment. Rather like a large clinic. In some ways it's good, in others..most don't seem to have an emergency ward and they are only open from like 9~12 and 3~6 or rather only take patients then. Because they are open to walkins you generally have to wait a long time.

Anyway, by the time I got there, about 10am, I was actually feeling pretty good. I assumed it was the ibuprofen but I actually felt almost cured. I thought that was both good and bad. I was happy to be feeling a lot better but I wanted the doctor to be able to find the problem. The constant pain or tightness was gone but fortunately or unfortunately, when I tested the sharp pain was still there in certain positions.

That doctor moved my legs and had me lay down in different positions which brought the sharp pain out. He ordered 6 x-rays. I think that's the most I've ever had. He couldn't see anything in them so he suggested I get an MRI.

I was a little scared having heard about having to be completely still for 40 minutes at a time. I had heard on the net they had newer equipment that only took 10 but the doctor said I was mistaken, that was CT. MRI took 30~40 minutes. He said their MRI was really busy and I'd have to wait a week but I could go to some other places to get it done if I wanted. They called the closest one and I could have it done today at 5:50pm.

It was 2pm when I got home. 4 hours to see the doc. I looked up on the net and found out they do have faster MRI. I got to the MRI place at 5:30. It was a clinic just for MRI and was happy to see they actually had the newest equipment.

They took the scan. It took less then 10 minutes I think. I'm not sure what they found but as I was leaving I thought, "hey, I'd really like a copy of the raw data to try to display on my own" so I asked them if they had it and they said, "Sure thing and we can burn it to a CD for you for $25". EXCELLENT!

I got home thinking if I wanted to see the data I was going to at least have to write something to convert it to 2d, let alone 3d. But...........

First, the CD came with the data in multiple formats. One format called ".dcm". No idea what it is but it's 338k per file. Another though was a Javascript enabled webpage that would let you browse all the images quickly and even animate them. Here's an example


Finally there was windows software that would actually let you see the data in 3d, compute cross sections across the range of data and all kinds of stuff. Pretty impressive.


click for full size
Monday I go back to the doctor to look over the MRI images and tell me what he sees. Interestingly, the way doctors work in Japanese hospitals, there are usually 3~5 per speciality. When you get called in you get whoever is free. So, Monday I'll have a different doctor than I had today as the doctor I had today said he's not in on Monday. I don't know if that's good or bad. Is it better to have 2 eyes looking at me or is it better to have one who is more familiar.

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(1) Just a few weeks ago I had a different but similar problem. I had a pain in my tailbone area. I almost felt like there was a rock in my tailbone but it hurt pretty bad. Actually somewhat similarly in that at certain positions it really sharply hurt. I couldn't move easily without setting it off and had to rest for a few days.

I went to the local doc and he took an x-ray and didn't see anything. He gave me some pain piils and sent me on my way. That was a Friday. By Monday the problem was not gone although the pain pills worked pretty well. So, I went to the big hospital. The specialist there looked at the x-ray and explained that problems in that area are hard to diagnose and the problem should normally go away in a week or two. A week or two stuck in bed didn't sound very good but fortunately the problem was mild enough by the next day I was back at work. For a couple of weeks though I could still feel it in certain positions. No pain perse but at least something, the rock in my tailbone.

I hope it's not all something worse.

---

Followup: I went to the doctor with the MRI and basically he said nothing. He pointed out 3 discs of cartilage in my lower back are wearing out and said that might be the problem but otherwise he didn't have anything else to say except hope it gets better and once it does start exercising and also take stretch breaks at work.

On the bright side, at least he didn't say it was anything worse. :-)]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2006-05-22.htm

I am so lucky! My friend Yuri makes clothing for a living. I don't know how I got so lucky but she said if I wanted she would make me a shirt. Especially here in Japan it's hard to find shirts that fit. Well, she went nuts and made me 4 shirts! She exhibited them at Design Festa which was this last weekend Check them out on her website. I totally feel like the luckiest guy on earth. Thank you Yuri!

weblog 2006-05-22T19:00:00+09:00 2006-05-22T19:00:00+09:00 2006-05-22T19:00:00+09:00 Yuri makes clothing for a living. I don't know how I got so lucky but she said if I wanted she would make me a shirt. Especially here in Japan it's hard to find shirts that fit. Well, she went nuts and made me 4 shirts! She exhibited them at Design Festa which was this last weekend Check them out on her website. I totally feel like the luckiest guy on earth. Thank you Yuri!]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2006-03-05.htm

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was at a Chinese restaurant and I accidentally called 2 friends Chinese. I knew neither of them were Chinese. One is Korean, one is American of ??? descent. What ??? is I'm not going to say at the risk of more offence.

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What I said was or started to say was something like "because we have 2 Chinese people here they can help us order". What I meant to say was "because we have 2 people here that speak Chinese they can help us order". Both of them speak Chinese. That Korean friend speaks Mandarin, the other speaks something else, I'm guessing Taiwanese but since I don't remember for sure I'm not going to say at the risk of more offence.

Anyway, when I said "2 Chinese" this friend corrected me, "I'm not Chinese". I knew that, I knew that (1) he is an American an (2) he associates with Taiwan. But, as a semi joke I replied "Yes, you are", "No, I'm not", "Yes, you are" and I explained. For those that don't know it, the official name of Taiwan or rather the country that runs Taiwan the island is "Republic of China". The government of Taiwan claims they are the legitimate government of all of China and that the government in mainland China are impostors. In my mind it was a harmless joke based in fact. Well, HE BLEW UP! DON'T E*V*E*R CALL ME CHINESE!.

Of course I apologized. I know that whole topic can be at touchy issue and everyone has their buttons that you don't want to press. Still, no insult was meant. I'm fully aware of the differences and basic history between the two countries.

Still, as much as it pissed him off and ruined the mood of dinner I as a little pissed off myself that he couldn't calm down when no offence was meant and there was no misunderstanding as well. My joke was not in ignorance, it was in full knowledge of what I was saying. Taiwan is "the Republic of China". vs the mainland which is "the People's Republic of China". Of course I also know there is some percent of the population of Taiwan that wants to change the official name to "Taiwan" but that has not happened yet as far as I know. The country is still the "Republic of China".

But, even more, regardless of any history between the PRC and ROC....My ancestors are from various countries, Hawaii, Tahiti, China, Portugal, England, Ireland and Holland. I associate with those because they are where my ancestors are from. It's likely, though not 100% for sure, that his ancestors (grandparents, great-grandparents) are also from mainland China. Of course it is fully his right to not want to be called Chinese and I will of course fully respect that.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be some heated responses to this post.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2006-02-26.htm

Today I went to the "Japan Cultural Affairs Agency Media Entertainment Skills Festival" which is at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu. I wasn't really sure what would be there but it was much more interesting than I expected.

weblog 2006-02-26T19:00:00+09:00 2006-02-26T19:00:00+09:00 2006-02-26T19:00:00+09:00 Japan Cultural Affairs Agency Media Entertainment Skills Festival" which is at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu. I wasn't really sure what would be there but it was much more interesting than I expected.

All 4 floors of the museum were being used for the festival making it relatively large as these things go. On the first floor is a theatre. We didn't wait for it but they are screening all kinds of stuff from anime to cg shorts for the duration. Here's a list.

The 2nd, 3rd and basement floors were all exhibits. The 2nd floor included a few video games including Nintendogs and Shadow of the Colossus. Some things were web based like Flipbook. There was a manga section as well. This animation was pretty amazing in that it the human was entirely hand drawn, all 1500 frames. I didn't actually get to see as much as I wanted as the person I was with seemed barely interested in most of the festival.

The 3rd floor had more interactive stuff. Including some giant stereoscopic viewing display. An electronic pendulum that drew pictures in virutal sand, and many other things.

Probably the coolest thing on the 3rd floor was called "Virtual Brownies". Brownies (as in small elfs). There was a table with a small metal tea container on it. In front of the table was an LCD display connected to a camera viewing the table. On the display you should see three 3d rendered elfs superimposed over the camera's view of the table and the container. The elfs would walk around the tea container and start pushing it around, as they pushed it around the actual container on the table would move. You could push the container on the table and the elfs would react on the screen. It was certainly something that could AND SHOULD be done with the eyetoy. The first 2 movies on this page kind of show it off.

The basement had several amazing things as well. These VR tiles were there with a demonstration every hour. Cool but also scary was a display showing a map of Tokyo. If you swiped your suica train pass it would show you everywhere you had gone and highlight the stops you used with a circle. The bigger the circle for that stop the more you used it. This is not actually that hard to do, they sell the card readers and you can pull the data off to your computer but still, seeing in infront of me plotted on map was both cool and a little scary to know that info exists.

The most amazing thing in the basement was this strange device that created these strange realtime shapes in real space. It's very hard to describe. The one at the exhibit was a cone, about 8 inches tall and about 2 inches at the base. It was in a pool of, if I was to guess, oil mixed with metalic power. Using controlled magentic fields they could get the oil to stick out from the cone in small spikes up to an inch in length. There's a picture on this page but no movie. You can take a look at some of their other creations to get an idea. Here's a movie of a similar but smaller device.

The festival only runs until March 5th or next weekend. Admission is free so if you can make it I suggest you go ASAP! The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography is in Ebisu on the back side of Yebisu Garden Place. GO! NOW!]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2006-01-09.htm

I went to a Vivienne Westwood exhibit at the Mori Arts Center Gallery in Roppongi today. It was recommended by my friend Chrissy. I had a date planned and needed something to do so I decided on thatI really wasn't expecting all that much. I'd been to the Mori Arts Center Gallery once before for a Hello Kitty exhibit and it was actually pretty lame but we needed something to do and so I thought I'd check it out. I knew it was a clothing exhibit and that was about it so my expectations were pretty low. Boy was I surprised.

weblog 2006-01-09T19:00:00+09:00 2006-01-09T19:00:00+09:00 2006-01-09T19:00:00+09:00 Vivienne Westwood exhibit at the Mori Arts Center Gallery in Roppongi today. It was recommended by my friend Chrissy. I had a date planned and needed something to do so I decided on that

I really wasn't expecting all that much. I'd been to the Mori Arts Center Gallery once before for a Hello Kitty exhibit and it was actually pretty lame but we needed something to do and so I thought I'd check it out. I knew it was a clothing exhibit and that was about it so my expectations were pretty low. Boy was I surprised.

First off, I didn't know who Vivienne Westwood was. Sure, I'd seen her name somewhere on some boutique probably in Harajuku or Omotesando before but other than that I had no idea.

It turns out she is supposedly one of the founders of "punk" clothing as in the clothing punk rockers wore when that whole thing started. At first I was kind of thinking "so what, big deal" but as I looked at the exhibit I realized that although many of the kinds of things on display are not shocking now, back in the 70s this was pretty controversial stuff.

I was also completely inspired by her creativity. It's one thing to make generic Gap clothing but quite another to make truly custom and unique clothing from scratch and not the kind where you follow a pattern but making it totally from your own designs. She didn't do just punk, that's just where she started. There were over 150 units on display of which maybe only 20 of them were "punk". Also, if I got this correctly she didn't set out to be a fashion designer. It's only after years of making fashions did she realize that she happened to be doing fashion design.

She not only made amazing clothing but she and her husband decorated their store to the extreme apparently. There were no pictures but at least from the descriptions they sounded pretty amazing the amount of work they put into the interior design completely remodelling every few years. At one point her store was designed like the inside of a pirate ship tossing in the sea with the entire floor tilted.

Another thing I came away with is just what kind of personality it takes to wear those kinds of clothes. Some of the clothing are pretty outrageous and without the kind of personality that can wear something like that with total confidence they would never work.

While it's not quite as cool as seeing it live you can see much of the exhibit on this site. Click the links under "The Exhibition" and you can see her clothing and read about their original stores.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2005-09-23.htm

I turned 40 a couple of weeks ago. Yee-haw!

weblog 2005-09-23T19:00:00+09:00 2005-09-23T19:00:00+09:00 2005-09-23T19:00:00+09:00
For whatever reason, here's a random number of things on my mind.

First off, for my birthday I bought myself 3 LCD monitors. Two 19 inches and one 24 inch from Dell. My TV is also connected for a 4th monitor although I pretty much only use it for video playback.

After using 2 LCD monitors at work for the last 2 years I found that it's frustrating to work with just one at home. Typically at work one monitor will have reference material and the other code. If I only have one monitor then I have to switch back and forth, look at the reference material, memorize a little, flip back to code etc. LCD monitors have gotten pretty cheap. Costco is selling a 19 inch BenQ monitor for like $280! Also I've been wanting an LCD monitor for years now thinking that a CRT monitor puts out radiation and an LCD does not. Of course it's not supposed to be an issue but then I use my computer more than most so it seemed like a good idea. Finally, LCD monitors are never blurry were as CRTs can be blurry (well, assuming you have a digital connection).

Anyway, I was at first thinking of just getting those cheap BenQs but after looking and asking around I decided since I use these things every day and since I had my last monitor for 8+ years it seemed like it would be better to pay a little more and get something I'll be happy with for longer. All 3 LCD monitors combine were cheaper than my one 21inch CRT from 8 years ago.

If you are not using 2 monitors for your work I suggest you try it out. You'll never go back.

I did have one problem though. My 24 inch monitor has these garbage streaks from time to time. Basically, with certain arrangements of windows on the screen I get streaks of digital garbage. Here's an example


Move the window 200 pixels left or right and the streaks go away. Put another window to the left of the window with the problems and the streaks go away. The streaks also appear or go through a 6hz cycle. They aren't constant, they flicker about 6 times a second. So far my impression is it's my graphics card. Basically it seems like when the fan comes on I start to get the garbage. I'll have to try to borrow a card from someone and see if it goes away.

Otherwise I have a ton of projects I want to work on and so far I'm not getting far on any of them. I want to right (or find) the perfect BBS system. It would be modular with plugins so you don't have to hack the code to add stuff. It would support email tracking of new messages. It would support email participation in threads (no need to go to the board to reply). It would also support multiple hand drawn images per post (for illustrating things). I don't know if I'll ever get around to hacking one together but it would be pretty cool. I wonder what the interface for illustrations would be. Not so much the drawing itself but requesting a new draw area and placing it in your post sounds like something not real easy to do intuitively on a webpage.

I also want to make a game engine. Well, actually I don't *want* to make it. I want it to exist and so far it doesn't. All the free ones out there are total crap. None of them are close to console ready and none of them have good tools. There are some good commercial ones but I can't use those without $400k to $1 million so those are out as well. So, that's something I'd like to work on.

I suppose I could break that down more as there are 2 or 3 game tools I'd like to write which would end up being part of that engine.

I'd like to make a game with that engine. No idea what it would be, maybe just a bunch of smaller "hobby" games for now.

I'd like to write my own blog system. So far I'm not really happy with the ones out there. Maybe I just don't know how to use them well but they don't feel all that flexible to me. I can't see myself carrying it through all the way though to a nice UI etc.

There's a website a friend and I want to make. I can't say what it is but I can say it would require several weeks of programming so it's not just as easy as putting up a blog.

I want to update this site. I have 5 or 6 articles I've been meaning to post, some for more than 2 years, but either I need more pictures or more info so I've been putting them off. I also have or had several Tokyo restaurants to add but now I go back and find the pictures and it's been so long since I went I can't remember any details. Doh!

And here's a really hard one. I'd like to find a girlfriend that would participate in some of this stuff rather than detract from it :-p

Okay, I guess that's my birthday wish list. To actually have the motivation to make those happen :-)]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2005-08-22.htm

How cool is it? My game is sooo cool that even though our characters' expressions and A.I. are not in yet I can put 3 of them on the screen and just stare at their current behavior for 20-30 minutes and that alone is already completely mesmerizing.

weblog 2005-08-22T19:00:00+09:00 2005-08-22T19:00:00+09:00 2005-08-22T19:00:00+09:00
Dang I wish I could show it off.]]> http://blog.greggman.com/edit/editheadlines/2005-08-14.htm

Well, Best game I've ever worked on. About 3 months ago I finally got off a failing team and on to a new project. This new project is a PSP game and I can honestly say it's probably the best game I've ever worked on. That is not to say it's the best most fun company I've ever been at but as for the game I'm pretty stoked.

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First off it's super original. New idea, new style. It's also super simple to control, only 3 buttons no pad. It's super cute and it's actually fun. The designers laugh and giggle as they build and test their levels and we still have quite few features to go until we get the true feel which we are sure will make it even more endearing.

Even cooler, it could be argued to be specifically designed for PSP. While it would be possible to implement on nearly any system when you see the way you control it it just works best with the PSP layout with the screen between your hands. Sorry I can't be more specific, you'll have to wait and see.

It's also a small team and a short project, 3 month pre-production, 4 months production. 7-10 people total on the team. So it's easy to feel like part of the team and have a stake in the project. It's sad though, we could have shipped this title for PSP launch or shortly there after but it took nearly a year to get it approved. Early last summer a simple prototype was created by one programmer after a game designer had the inspiration. Then it was several months of trying to get a producer interested and convincing the company to fund it. To us game players from the initial quick prototype it was obviously a great idea but the people above never have any imagination so they require more convincing than a prototype.

Of course there's no guarntee it will be a hit and I'm sure that's a big concern by marketing being that it's an original idea it might be a hard sell. You can't say "Better than Halo!" if it's not an FPS or "Better than GT4!" if it's not a racing game. I'm hoping marketing will be able to give it the support it needs. Being that it's cute and easy it could also be a casual gamer's game as well. We'll have to do our best to make sure it doesn't get lost among PS3/360 hype over the next 9 months.

Anyway, it should be announced in a month or two so keep your eyes out for a new original PSP game from Sony Japan.]]>