Yummy or Crummy?

Oh how I missed you, Japan!

It’s been more than two weeks since we arrived here. I hope to do a more detailed post later, but I wanted to do a quick update to talk about three things.

Humidity
Oh my frigging sweaty balls! I forgot how humid and uncomfortable summer can be in Japan. We change our pajamas daily because we wake up every morning in a pool of our own sweat.

Earthquake
Niigata area was hit again with a big earthquake. It looks pretty scary, but fortunately for us we were not affected.

Typhoon
The day after we went to Kyushu, a pretty big typhoon entered the country. We were greeted with rain and some strong wind, but we escaped the worst from this potential disaster, too. In other areas people suffered landslides and drowning.

Time and time again I’m reminded of the resilience of the people here. We feel lucky to have survived these things!

Lucretia and I are leaving for Japan tomorrow. I’ve been jokingly calling this trip a “Look-at-me-I-have-a-wife Tour.” All kidding aside, this is the trip that we have been meaning to make since we got married in August 2005. My father has been wanting to gather all the extended family members who couldn’t come to the wedding in Seattle, and hold some kind of a mini reception in Japan. We had a very ambitious plan last year to go to Germany for the World Cup, and then to Japan in one trip. Eventually the common sense set in and we had to abandon the Japan part (FIFA couldn’t move the soccer tournament — what jerks!).

So anyway we booked this trip back in March, but the timing couldn’t be worse from the work point of view. Of course the big project I was supposed to work on has gotten pushed, and now it’s slated to kick off in mid July, when the original schedule would have had me finished with it by now. We’re in the middle of trying to recruit so we can grow our department and handle the crazy amount of work that’s been pouring in. So I’ve been working rather hard during the past few weeks to make up for it. The reality is everything will be just fine, but it’s still difficult not to feel guilty about the whole thing. I’m usually pretty good at separating work and personal stuff in my head, but I have a feeling I’ll be dragging this one a bit.

The other concern is that it’s been five years since the last time I was in Japan. What that means is more people to visit, and more souvenirs to bring. Not that I don’t enjoy bringing gifts to people, but I feel uneasy when I don’t even know what these people might appreciate or exactly who to buy gifts for, even. I will be seeing some of my cousins whom I haven’t seen in over 12 years. I don’t even know how old some of them are. Here is a (not-so-complete) list of what Lucretia and I are packing to give to various people:

• 20+ bags of Tully’s coffee
• 9 boxes of smoked salmon
• 5 boxes of Aplets & Cotlets candy (by request)
• 4 Starbucks (original Pike Place location) mugs
• Kenji Johjima bobblehead
• Various t-shirts, including Mariners, Seahawks, and general Seattle related
• Various toys for my nephew and niece, including Blockus
• NY Cosmos t-shirt from Thorwbackmax.com

In addition, we sent 20+ sets of photo-frame coasters from Crate & Barrel. We knew those would be way too heavy and cumbersome to carry. We’re glad we did that — we still have enough goods to fill one whole suitcase.

So there are certainly some crummy things about this whole thing — but wait! I’m also very excited about the trip. For one, I’m super relieved to be finally taking a vacation. I was starting to feel really burnt out, so no matter what I said above I’m NOT feeling guilty about taking a break. I’m also glad we’re going to Japan of all places. There’s a lot I want to do (ride the sick-looking bullet trains) and buy (hopefully some DS games). Obviously spending time with family is something I’m looking forward to. I’m definitely enthusiastic about the next three weeks.

Check my Flickr page for photos. We’ll do our best to upload as often as possible!

I’m going to keep this one short. I enjoyed watching Paprika, but I couldn’t help but wonder why so many anime films end up with a larger-than-life evil monster destroying a city. I mean, literally. Somehow it brings me back to the Ultraman series, and I wonder if nostalgia has something to do with it. On one hand I’m amused by the pattern, but on the other hand I’m a bit disappointed because these artists are so creative, they should be able to come up with something else. Oh well — at least this movie set itself up to have a scene like that. Others, I can’t really find a good excuse for them. Anyway, it sure was a pretty movie. Even though I liked it, I can’t help but expect more from anime as a genre. That’s why this post is crummy.

Woo hoo! SIFF 2007 is finally here. POP is once again one of the grand sponsors, on the account of the work we have done for their box office application and the website. So once again, I was lucky enough to get a sponsor pass that gets me into all regular screenings. I’ll have to purchase tickets for special events like galas or forums, but for most part it’s great to be able to run around and see films without having to be too discriminating because of the price.

The opening film this year was called Son of Rambow. It was a very, very cute film about crazy imaginations, a home-made movie, and friendship. The main characters were sweet, not tooth-achy but more in a satisfying way. And funny, too. Someone at work accurately described the humor as Rushmore-like.

I must say that McCaw Hall as the opening venue was very impressive, too. I know a lot of people were probably there on a free ticket just like I was, but SIFF still did a great job filling up the place, and creating a great excitement around the event. As usual, Gary Tucker did an awesome job of making the daunting task of reading the sponsor list funny and participatory. (This concludes the Yummy part of the post.)

So that was Thursday night… Lucretia and I decided to take advantage of the Memorial Day weekend by checking out some movies while the buzz from the opening night celebration is still strong. So Friday night, we went to see Pleasant Moments (Hezké chvilky bez záruky), a Czech film about a female shrink whose “endless parade” of patients seem to drive her crazy by the end. I must say, we did not enjoy this movie very much. Some people might say that this is exactly the style of movie to expect from a Czech director, but if that’s the case I’ll have to say, “No, thank you” to all movies from that country. I’m trying to stay somewhat open-minded about this, but shaky camera work, faded colors, circular plot with no real progression, bad acting, bad dialogue, and even bad translation combined to make a pretty bad experience for both me and Lucretia. When I went to see Once last week, the director was happy with the sometimes shaky camera movements because he was able to achieve authenticiy without making the film ugly. And I completely agree — it was a beautiful film. Unfortunately I can’t say the same about this film — it got ugly! But hey, don’t take my word for it. Go see for yourself!

I’m mailing a heavy parcel to Japan, so I was looking up the prices when I found this:

Observations 1. Human ashes may be accepted if presented for mailing by a licensed crematory or licensed mortuary. The ashes must be packed in a sealed metal container enclosed in a substantial outer container. There must be enclosed within the outer container, but outside the metal container, a certified copy of the death certificate and a statement or certificate executed by the crematory or mortuary to the effect that the ashes are those of the person named in the death certificate.

This is one of those things you didn’t know and didn’t really want to know.

A good friend of mine works at SonyEricsson as a phone designer, and whenever I ask him about work he tells me about all the limitations that Cingular and other carriers place on the manufacturers because they fear a certain feature might allow a customer to accomplish something without going through the network and using the data bandwidth. Or he would complain about how the carreirs dictate where their logo gets placed on the phone, usually smack in the middle and top of the phone, more prominently than the manufacturer’s logo.

They have way too much power in North America because consumers here can’t imagine paying what the phones actually cost. So the manufacturers rely on the carriers to subsidize the cost of the phone, which cause you and me to get locked up with ridiculous contracts.

I wrote a little bit about that when the iPhone came out. Now there’s a story on NPR about the same subject: Mobile Malcontent from On the Media

Under a lot of carriers’ constructions today, Bluetooth is almost completely crippled. You can’t send music back and forth. It’s very hard to send photos from your phone to your, all, again, because there’s a fear of losing control and there’s a fear of crippling some potential business model that revolves around charging you to do something with your phone.

I wish more people would complain about this, so that we can cause things to be better. We need to start demanding better design for the phones, better features, better contracts, and better services from these guys.

I used TurboTax to do my taxes for the last 3-4 years, but this year I was attracted by what seemed like a cheaper alternative, TaxCut from H&R Block.

It sucks ass. If you’re tempted to use it, don’t do it.

The UI sucks ass. It tries to be easy to use, but in various ways it fails to be as easy as it could be — or as easy as TurboTax.

The software sucks ass. Sometimes you find yourself clicking a button to tell the software to do something it probably should know to do on its own. I bought a CD version, and it required some updates to be downloaded before I could finish.

The cost sucks ass. I bought it because I thought it included the cost to e-file Federal tax, but all it did was prepare my forms for me. I could have done that for free with Turbo Tax online, I think. I admit I was too lazy to do all the necessary research, but it shouldn’t be that confusing, either.

Conclusion: TaxCut sucks ass.

Lucretia’s old phone was getting REALLY crappy — some buttons stopped working, and the battery wasn’t charging well. It was time to switch, which meant that we could finally look outside of Cingular. After doing some research, we settled on T-Mobile since their selection of phones was decent, plus she was really set on getting a PEBL.

I probably could have kept my SonyEricsson S710a, which I really liked. But the battery on that was dying as well, so I decided to take this opportunity to switch to something else. I think in general, SonyEricsson has the best phones. Nice, satisfying industrial design, better-than-average UI, and great features. It’s just that North American carriers don’t sell any of their good phones, and you end up paying a lot if you want an unlocked one. As expected, T-Mobile didn’t have any SE phones that I wanted, so I chose the next best thing — the relatively recently released BlackBerry Pearl.

My first impression is that it’s slick. Shiny and slippery — but not in a bad way. The buttons are small, but with a stick phone you deal with it. The back cover on mine comes off a bit too easily, although I talked to a friend who has one and his is too tight. Go figure.

The namesake feature — the “pearl” trackball in the middle is easy to use, and it’s pretty good for scrolling down a long list, which the BlackBerry UI has many of. I’m afraid of wearing it out with constant use. If the trackball breaks, I guess I can use the keypad as the directional pad (which I just discovered) — but that’s no fun at all.

So I’m assigning both “Yummy” and “Crummy” to this post — because there are some things I like about the Pearl, and there are some things I definitely don’t like.

Yummy

• Email — I hooked up my personal and work emails, and they come in with no problem (I had to play with the work email a bit, but it didn’t take very long). I realize I’m not away from a computer all that much, but it’s still nice to be able to read quick emails when I’m sitting on the couch or whatever. Plus it’s great when you are actually away.
• Camera — has a flash. Not perfect, but better than nothing.
• Browser — I haven’t played with the settings, but it looks like I can tweak it to make the pages look more like they do in real browsers. I got T-Mobile’s unlimited internet access, which seems to work in most places that I would go, and the speed is not bad for a phone.
• Address book — can handle many fields. It even kept the notes field from my Mac address book.

Crummy

• Camera — no video! WTF?
• Bluetooth — doesn’t seem to be able to receive anything. It can send, though. This may be due to some settings I don’t know about, but it should work out of the box.
• Browser — can’t display Flash. No YouTube on the go for me.
• Email — can’t handle attachments other than images. I sent myself an MP3, but no go. Do I need to install something? It’s not clear. UPDATE: Since I wrote this, I have opened a .doc attachment on BB. Haven’t been able to open a large PDF, and still no luck with MP3. To clarify, MP3 plays on the phone, if you manage to put it in the right folder. I just can’t get the phone to recognize the file in email attachment.
• Clock/calendar — when I flew to Chicago for Christmas, the phone detected that the network’s timezone changed. But the phone’s clock wouldn’t automatically change! According to this messageboard found by another friend, it’s so that your calendar doesn’t get messed up. Dumb!

Overall, I must say I miss my S710a in a lot of ways. I would consider switching back if the battery on it wasn’t so dead and the email didn’t work so well on the Pearl. But the emails keep popping in no problem, and now I can see why people get addicted to it. Any free moment I have, I reach in my pocket and start playing. I really should do my homework and read up on how everything works and maybe download/install some add-ons — so my impression may change over time after I take the full advantage of all of its features. I just hope SE phones will have penetrated the market better by the time I consider switching to a new phone after this one!

If you’re not in business for yourself, that is, if you work for a company of any size, you often hear of “passion” as somewhat of a requirement for your job. You must have a passion for your profession, and you must be passionate about the company you work for. Otherwise, the implication goes, why are you there, and why do you do what you do? Many companies, including my employer, lists passion as one of their brand values. Passion is often touted as an integral ingredient to a success at any level. How did that guy build such a great application all by himself? He must be super passionate about it.

It’s not that I don’t believe in passion. I do believe in most of what I just said, 90% of the time. But even when I believe in it, part of me always remembers that it’s just work, I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t getting paid, and at the end of the day IT’S JUST A WEBSITE. I’ve always thought of it as a healthy way to keep myself in check with reality. My theory is that if you’re too passionate about your job, you may lose sight of more important things, like spending time with your family or telling someone you love how you feel. Or you may put too much importance in what you do that you can’t have empathy for others who don’t work in your field. Ever since I started working, I’ve gotten used to carefully maintaining the balance of passion for my profession and for everything else around me.

Possibly as a result of that — I’ve recently realized that I rarely feel like I’m putting in 100% into doing anything. That’s not really a great feeling, because when you’re putting in 100+%, you’re pushing yourself, and that’s when you learn something. That’s when you discover something new about yourself, whatever you’re doing, and others around you. If you’re not putting in 100% you’re coasting, and while nobody can go “pedal to the metal” all the time, it’s probably a good thing to at least try once in a while. To feel alive, to keep the engine going, whatever.

I recently began subscribing to the Studio 360 podcasts, and a recent show was about how five years after 9/11, there is a range of creative responses to the tragedy. Here’s a quote from Jonathan Safran Foer that made me think about the topic of this post. He was responding to a question about using 9/11 as a backdrop for his recent novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close:

I can’t imagine any way to be more reverential of something than to use it as a material for fiction. That is how I am most serious about something. There’s nothing I spend more time on than my writing. There’s nothing I think about more or care about more, outside of my family.

Here’s the link to the podcast.

Of course he added “outside of my family” so he doesn’t come off as a crazy out-of-balance writer who only cares about his craft. But there was something in his voice, a pride, or a conviction of some sort — that said he can’t help but do what he does, because that’s the best way he knows how to express what is inside. This guy is passionate about his craft, and he’s sure of it. I felt a twinge of jealousy for his conviction.

I don’t have that. I don’t even know if I want that level of conviction about what I do — information architecture. But I’m starting to think that as long as I’m spending most of my time during the week on it, I might as well put in 100%, and try to challenge myself, learn something new, and maybe even inspire others while at it. OK, maybe three out of five days.

So — just to confuse myself, I’m thinking it’s time to mix it all up again. Too much passion is bad. But too much balance, if there can be such a thing, is also bad. When you’re passionate, you challenge yourself. When you challenge yourself, something changes — either you change, or others around you change. In general, changes are good, and the size of the change has to vary from time to time, too. Phew — is that confusing enough?

Jerry is fine. He still has a big hole in his neck, but he’s whining and sleeping like his old self. The vet took out the tube that was in the drain on his neck. It always amazes me how quickly an animal can heal.