About music and expensive chairs

OK....After almost 6 months of hard working at my new Japanese company and total silence I decided to continue this blog (f** I almost forgot how to use all this Blogspot Dashbord :)
Yep...It is better to write something on weekly basis at least - just to continue train my brains to think in English and just to save some memories (it feels lately that time flies so fast....)
This week was full of music..Friend of mine introduced me TRAVIS (yes, I heard about them but never listened-shame on me - in place where I was born in Russia people thought you are crazy if you say you love Beatles ...). Travis was a bit monotonous for me...but I downloaded Florence and the Machine as well and she just blew my mind - she sounds for me like some Medieval witch...kinda of Margarita from Mikhail Bulgakov`s novel (I guess almost none knows it ) - some kind of magic in her singing (I listened to "Lungs" only though)
Not to say about Killers and Hurts - I downloaded all their albums 2 months ago and still keep listening

Photo above is one I found - it was taken 2 or even 3 years ago - I remember late night in Yoyogi Park - we were doing this shoot for some Japanese brand...forgot it`s name...cold, we were always hiding from park guard man- that`s all I remember
so...yes, only photos and writings remain. will keep writing....Sometimes I am afraid that months, years pass and nothing happened....

Hope it is not true....BTW should not forget to find desk chair...so lazy to go to Furniture Stores..the one I visited today (it was called something like Otsuka Furniture) has exactly what I need for price of JPY350,000......khhhh...keep looking for...hope I will find something good and cheap

Movie: "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" (1980)

"Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" ("Москва слезам не верит") (1980) - film which is loved by almost everyone in our country.
According to Wikipedia Ronald Reagan watched it several times to understand "Russian soul" before meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev
A lot of memories in this movie....Life in big city and fate of three women struggling for happiness in Moscow . Generation of our parents is depicted and there is something in it that only Russians can feel - this sense of humour, this warmth of old Soviet movies..
Irina Muravyova who played Lyudmila is really good here -Russian great actress and beautiful woman.

Studying: Noboru Nakamura "Introduction to TeraPad"

TeraPad is text editor program which was developed by Japanese programmer Susumu Terao specially for Japanese language inputting and editing, and along with other editors like Hidemaru and EmEditor is one of the most popular programs used in Japan for coding fixing...In my company I use it for HTML corrections and other daily operation work - and decided to examine it`s functions to speed up my workflow as I am still so slow in it all - even simplest tasks take me so much time ... Should say if you are attentive and curious enough you don` t need any books - just check all the menus and tabs..But anyway it did not take much time to read this book and it helped me to learn basic short-cuts and functions.... Now I am reading another cool book - smth like "Introduction to Web Analytics" in Japanese - really interesting! Almost pass my train stop when going home every night.....

Studying: Yoshinori Ikeya "WEB Design Usability"

Sometimes desperate, sometimes happy - I am still struggling in my new way - web design and IT industry.... Never thought I would do smth related to PC and to tell the truth sometimes felt that I made wrong choice...But every day now brings me so much new - new knowledge, new experience and I really enjoy discovering this whole new world. Usability and User Center design is one of the most interesting topics of web-design as they require skills from absolutely different disciplines: research, psychology, design and sometimes just sort of "sense" - ability to feel best balance of elements... This book which my manager lent me has a lot of clues and hints regarding layout, navigation, color scheme of web site from the usability point of view. A lot of examples, pictures and simple language make it a pleasant reading somewhere in cafe.

P.S. This week has started from introduction with Dreamweaver - everything is so new to me! Bought book on it and trying all these functions - really exciting and so simple (afraid I`ll have to fix all tags though, as code seems so dirty and overweight)..

Shikoku&Kansai Trip

When news in Russian net about "nuclear disaster" and absolute calm of Japanese TV just freaked me out - I decided to go anywhere just away from Tokyo that turned into mad city with disappearing bread, water, eggs, milk.....My friend called me and offered to go with him to Kansai and then to Tokushima City where his family lives. And that was my first trip in almost 3 years in Japan!

It was really nice and I felt so refresh and ready to phone attacks from my mother (" Are you OK?" "Don`t you think about coming back to Russia?" "How about radiation level today?"....and so on)

小便小僧 Manikin Piss ......in the middle of nowhere (Tokushima Prefecture)

In town called Komatsushima in Shikoku you can find sculptures, symbols, pictures, signs of "tanuki" (Japanese raccoon dog ) throughout the city

Osaka was so full of energy! Very positive people

....alive

and back in TYO

Movie: "Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro" (1979)

Classis of Japanese anime - film directed by Hayao Miyazaki and the most famous of series about thief Lupin III. Old-fashioned adventure story

Movie: "Confessions" (2010)

Child violence, tons of blood every 5 minutes, euphoria of sadism - all in best traditions of Japanese violent anime and "Battle Royale".... Mixture of such elements should be sold very well in the West (film was even included in Oscar short list of Best Foreign Language Movie) - but I don`t like it - destructive, ugly world...
Good points: cute merry tunes for scenes when people are cut, blown up, beaten, "stylish" camerawork , and cute girl who played heroine named "Mizuho".