While looking through the Aerostich catalog I noticed they were selling an anime named “Kino’s Journey”. I checked for it on Netflix and saw that the 15 episode series was available so I put it in my queue. The story is about a traveler, Kino, and her talking motorcycle, Hermes. They travel the semi-fictitious world, stopping and visiting many different countries. These countries vary in size, technology, and culture. Each episode is a small self-contained story and usually has some insight into human behavior. I found the series to be pretty interesting, sometimes shocking, sometimes funny. But most of all, I enjoyed the motorcycle footage. It looked like a cool “motorrad”. The opening and closing theme songs are really good too. When I was riding my motorcycle last week, I couldn’t get the opening song out of my head!

After about 10 years of off-and-on reading, I finally finished Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. What a great relief to finally be done with it. I’ve started this book several times, and really enjoyed how it began, but always hit a wall at around the same point. I love working on my motorbike, and I love traveling, so I always thought this book would be perfect for me. But there’s the third part of the story, which is the philosophical sub-plot which had always derailed me. The seemingly endless “chautauquas” or lectures about Quality were so obscure to me, I always lost interest. When Pirsig applies his classic and romantic reasoning to matters of motorcycle maintenance, the book was thoroughly enjoyable. But the story of Phaedrus left me wishing he’d go back to something related to motorcycles. My most recent effort at reading the book had me not spending so much energy trying to understand Phaedrus’ quest for Quality, but rather skimming over these parts, trying to get back to the travel plot. In the end, I enjoyed the book but also can’t help feeling that Pirsig’s Zen was so obscure, it could have all been a bunch of nonsense.

With all this talk about e-Books on the web these days I figure I’ll talk about a few books that I am reading/have read recently. None are e-Books, by the way. Just good ol bound paper, two from the public library.

Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz

I really like reading travel narratives, especially humorous ones like Bill Bryson’s. I came across Blue Latitudes at the library and it looked great. It even has some praise from Bryson on the back cover. Plus, old sailing ships and adventure are always attractive! Tony Horwitz is fascinated by Captain James Cook, and follows the path Cook took in the late 1700’s when Cook explored the Pacific. The story goes back and forth between describing the adventures Cook and his crew had, and the hilarious adventures Horwitz and his friend Roger had following Cook’s trail. I learned so much in Blue Latitudes: about life aboard Cook’s ship, the contact and interaction of his crew with the natives of the lands he traveled to, and what these lands are like in the present day. Horwitz interviews many native people and gets their thoughts and varying opinions about Cook. What is neat is that the people Horwitz talks to are real. I’ve even done some googling to find out more about some of the scholars and artists Horwitz interviews. I guess that’s part of the appeal of non-fiction.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

This is the final book of the Harry Potter story, but it’s my first book to read. I’ve seen (and enjoyed) the movies, so I’m pretty excited to find out how it all ends. I’m about half way through, but I realize there are so many details, especially about the supporting characters, that I have missed since I haven’t read the previous books. My plan is to finish Deathly Hallows, then go back and read the series from the beginning. It’s pretty easy to get through a book since it was written for younger readers, so I’m not put off by the page count (each book is about 600-800 pages long). I’m enjoying this last book a lot, and will hopefully finish it in a couple days.

Long Way Round by Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor

I love the Long Way Down and Long Way Round videos, and the books are the perfect complement to them. The writing isn’t too deep, but you do gain some insights as to what was going through Charley and Ewan’s minds during the scenes in the TV show. For instance, the one scene where the two are taken in by Igor, and spend the night at his house and party with his friends is much more interesting if you read the chapter to get the full story about their apprehension, fear, and eventual guilt at being so suspicious of their host. It’s sort of like the commentary extra feature of a DVD or Blu-ray disc. If you are a fan of the TV series, I’d recommend picking up the book to go along with it, but I don’t think the book would stand on its own very well.

A few weeks ago, Mariko got a nice new Olympus E-PL1 camera. I’ve had some time to play with it, and it’s a sweet little rig! It is part of Olympus’ micro-four-thirds system, which uses interchangeable lenses in a mirrorless body. It’s a lot smaller than a traditional SLR, but the quality of the photos is impressive. This model comes with a 14-42mm kit lens (with plastic mount as opposed to the other 14-42mm kit’s metal mount. The optics are the same, however, and it’s a very convenient lens. You multiply to focal length by a factor of two to calculate the 35mm SLR equivalent, so it’s pretty much a standard 28-80ish mm lens. Like an SLR, you have all the different modes like shutter priority, aperture priority, program mode, and manual if you so desire. On the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty of automatic scene modes, such as sports, portrait and macro. Also included are more obscure ones, like fireworks and beach, and lastly there are the effects such as soft-focus, pop-art, toy, and even tilt-shift. There’s so much to play around with! On the video side, the camera is equipped to record 720p HD at 30fps, as well as standard def mode. I haven’t played with the video too much, other that to check that the AF works even while you are taking video. Very nice, although a little slow and hunts a bit. It’s probably better to practice manually focusing for this.

Unlike an SLR, there is no optical viewfinder. There’s an optional electronic viewfinder attachment, but we don’t have that. Fortunately, the LCD screen is beautiful and sharp. It’s really easy to make sure you are focusing on the right spot because focus indicators will overlay onto the image. AF action is quick, although not as fast as an SLR. Still, it’s perfectly adequate for most things.

My main gripe with the camera is that it would be much better with an articulating LCD. If the LCD swiveled so that it was facing up, it would be much easier to take shots from the hip for more interesting photos of the kids. Even at an angle, however, the LCD is good enough that you can frame the shot, but it would have been awesome if you could tilt that screen up just like on our old Olympus E-10.

Ever since we got the new camera, I’ve only taken a few shots with my own dSLR. It feels so heavy and probably overkill for much of what we photograph. The Olympus is such a nice combination of small size, lightness, versatility, and expandability that it makes a really capable SLR replacement. If all my SLR gear suddenly went poof, I would probably go for a micro-four-thirds set up.

I’m not sure how I missed this dorama when it first aired, but I’m happy to have found it and watched the whole series in a couple days. (A couple long nights, actually) I’m a fan of Miho Kanno and thought she did a great job as Kiina, a detective who handles the odd cases that the regular detectives find either too goofy to take. Each episode is about a single case, usually involving some kind of supernatural angle, but ultimately is solved by some kind of scientific explanation. It’s pretty easy to figure out who the culprit is but the interesting part is how they explain how the crime was done. What makes Kiina (the character) special is that she has a photographic memory, and picks up on obscure clues throughout the investigation. She’s also very idealistic, and her partner serves as a counterbalance to her personality. It’s a pretty good dorama, and I recommend watching it. My only complaint was that the subplot involving the chief wasn’t very interesting, or the resolution of that subplot wasn’t as fulfilling as it could have been. But still, each episode is pretty fun to watch. Also, each episode features a different guest star who will be familiar to regular dorama viewers.

This weekend we watched the movie Departures, the 2009 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film. It’s about a man who loses his job as a cellist when the orchestra disbands, and his new job as an “encoffiner” which mean he prepares dead bodies for the coffin. At first I thought that this is going to be a really upsetting movie, but it is actually really touching and has a lot of humor as well. Throughout the movie, you experience the emotions that Daigo (the main character played by Masahiro Motoki) has, starting with shock and surprise. Soon, you start to see the importance of his job to the families of the deceased. You also understand the feelings of his wife Mika (Hirosue Ryoko) and her objections to his new line of work, and then you relate to the predicament that Daigo is in. The story is excellent and the acting is great. My favorite character is the owner of the encoffining business. You would probably recognize him as the cowboy from Tampopo. He’s so cool, yet you can tell how caring he is. All-in-all, Departures is a great movie. Just make sure to have some tissues handy since it can be a real tear-jerker!

We finally went to the theater to see the new Studio Ghibli film, “Ponyo” and it was wonderful! It’s so fun to see a new release from Hayao Miyazaki because you are sure to see quality artwork and a great story, set to a terrific musical score. Ponyo has all of these elements, but the artwork was what truly stood out for me. You could see so much detail in even the most basic areas of the scene. For instance, the colored-pencil shading was made up of so many different colors as opposed to many other animated films or cartoons, you’d just see a flat grey. Near the beginning of the movie, Sosuke is running down the hill from his house to the water, and the grass alongside the path was amazing. I really can’t wait to get this movie on disc so I can pause different scenes just to check out the quality of the artwork.

The English voice-acting was pretty good, and it was cool that they used all the Japanese names for the characters. And it was pretty neat to see a Ghibli movie set in Japan again. I like the movies that are set in other places, but the Japanese ones seem the best to me. Totoro and Spirited Away are examples. I guess it’s because I think Japan is such a neat place, and it just seems natural for a Miyazaki movie. To me, it’s a little strange to hear Kiki or Porco Rosso speaking in Japanese while the setting is in a Western country. (Yes, I prefer to have Japanese audio/English subtitles) Ponyo has a lot of really Japanese elements to it, like the mother’s micro-car, the Kindergarten, and even the mother cracking open a big beer! (looked like a Sapporo to me).

Another thing I love about Ghibli movies is that you find yourself expected to take these fantastic and unexpected things as being normal. For instance, this strange fish with a human face and hair is seen as just a goldfish to everyone. And the towering waves that were chasing a car were so crazy, but the mother just remarked casually something like “what’s with the waves today?”. That kind of thing really opens up your mind and you think that anything is possible in that world.

I’m not sure how much longer Ponyo will be in theaters here in the U.S., but if you haven’t seen it yet, you should!

One of the strengths of the Android OS is its ability to run apps in the background. However, this can also be a weakness because sometimes you can feel the OS bogging down after you have been using it a while. It’s supposed to automatically shut processes down as needed, but it doesn’t always do a great job. That’s where the task manager app Close Everything 2 comes in. This app will basically shut down any processes and services that you don’t want running any more. To use, just click the icon to launch it.

You’ll then be presented with a list of running apps. From here, you can choose to close everything in the list, or you can tap an individual app to close it, or select multiple apps to close using the checkboxes. One really nice thing about Close Everything 2 is that you can choose to exclude certain services from being closed. Just long-press on a service in the list to set it as excluded. It’s a good idea to exclude things like weather widgets, otherwise their auto-refresh will be disabled.

Finally, there is a Close Everything 2 widget that you can put on your desktop. It indicates the number of apps running in the background (that aren’t on the exclusion list) and you can just tap the icon to shut down the background processes. Whenever I feel that my phone is running a little sluggishly, I just tap the widget and voila, my phone is running at top speed again!

Close Everything 2 at AndroLib

Amazon.com recently released their native Android app and it’s a keeper. With it, you can check your account, cancel orders, view recommendations, and of course buy stuff. But what is really cool about it is that you can use it to save products or “Reminders” for later purchase. Here’s a quick run-through of the application.

First, launch the app and then you’ll find yourself at the home screen, with your recommendations that are pulled from your previous activity associated with your Amazon.com account. (The first time you launch the app, you can sign in) From here you can search for a product or if you are in the store and standing in front of the product but don’t want to buy it right then, you can click on Search using barcodes or photos. This will take you to the Amazon Remembers screen where you can view your saved items.

To add an item into your list, you can take a photo of the product or scan its barcode. The G1 has a really nice camera that can auto-focus within a few inches making it perfect for barcode scanning, but I prefer to use the photo-mode since it’s pretty cool technology. After clicking on the photo button, you just need to line up the product and then click the on-screen shutter button.

You’ll then be asked if you want to use the image or take another one. Once you are happy with the photo, the app will add the photo to your “Amazon Remembers” list.

If it found a match, you can click on the item to see more detail, such as price, ratings, reviews, and the option to Buy Now, Add to Cart, or Add to Wish List. If you’ve enabled the optional “Mobile 1-Click Ordering” feature, you can purchase the item that way as well. Besides the Amazon Remembers feature, you quick access to the Goldbox specials page and your Wish List.

I’ve been using the wonderful SnapTell app which uses the same camera analysis technology as the Amazon.com app, but I’m not sure if I will keep using it. The advantage of SnapTell is that you will get links to a list of retailers besides just Amazon.com, online and local prices (it uses your GPS fix), and also links to other information about the item such as Wikipedia, Yahoo search, and Google reviews. However, with the Amazon.com app, I can save these items to my Wish List as well, which I can access on any computer. For now I will keep both since they each have their plusses.

The only complaint I have with the Amazon.com app is that it is not really built for browsing. You can search for an item, but there aren’t categories to browse. Hopefully they can add something like that in the future.