Buy some cheap, big hard disks and make yourself a RAID. If you have a Mac, the RAID software is built into OSX. You can probably get it as shareware on Windows. Non-technical people can buy ready-made RAID units which you just plug in. They are more...
I've never been in a porn shop. There are plenty near where I work in Soho, which is London's premier red light district. The Internet was invented to let us get all the porn we want, 24/7, with no blushes.
2.6 million yen is a pretty low salary for Japan -- the country's average is 4 million -- and certainly not enough to support a family's costs for rent, food and so on. That kind of money is about what a barista at a coffee shop might make. While I f...
Each country's medal haul is mainly a function of the population size and the resources put into sports. That's why China and the USA are doing so well. The reason why the UK is doing well this time, is because a lot of money was put into bike racin...
Actually, cricket is more widely played than baseball, basketball, ice hockey and American football, both in terms of number of nations and population. Since the host nation gets to choose a sport to include, if the Brits decide to include cricket, i...
This kind of gun is an airsoft gun that shoots a 6mm plastic pellet. It certainly stings if it hits you and when used for wargames an eyemask is necessary, as with paintball. Airsoft is what Japanese do rather than paintball. Having been hit by both,...
Kamakura is a great place to visit from Tokyo. You can get there pretty easily by train. I like to take the little train that runs through the town, it's slower but more fun. If you have good legs, the town is very walkable and you can visit several...
Quite right. Toilets don't clean themselves. The world would be a better place if everyone who thinks they are too good to clean toilets was made to take their turn. When you get married and have babies, you have to clean a lot of pee, poo and sick....
They've been doing Japanese stuff for 20 years. I bought NewType magazine in Forbidden Planet in the mid 1980s. I couldn't read any Japanese but it looked really cool. It was like having a magazine published from an alien planet. Otaku stuff used to...
There are a couple on the main street (Lisle St?) Just walk around there a while, it's not big. If you like Kubricks and similar toys there is a shop called PlayLounge in Beak Street, Soho.
The lavatories in Gas Panic in Roppongi used to be dreadful, just swimming in urine. Too much drinking going on. Conversely, the lavatories at places like Narita Airport are so clean, I've been in there doing a wee and a cleaning lady has come in bef...
I always used to watch synchronised swimming, but they took it out again. I'm hoping for the London Olympics that cricket will get made an Olympic sport.
My home Macintoshes have crashed four or five times in the last three years. Twice when playing Halo, most other times when using a web site or a third party app like Skype. They are not crash proof though better than Windows. My work Macintoshes cra...
The exam is done by multiple choice using aural and written sections. There is no speaking or writing. The kanji to learn are as follows: Level 4 = 0 Level 3 = 500 Level 2 = 1000 Level 1 = 2000 They are introduced in a different order to the order do...
I am going to take level 2. I think I have a reasonable chance to pass. It is ridiculous that the current test is once a year. You can take the TOEIC test every two weeks. Fortunately the Japanese seem to be getting more serious about helping foreign...
Japanese culture does not have the psychological baggage surrounding sexuality that the West developed from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Consequently they see sexuality as a normal part of life, not as inherently shameful and sinful.
I think she's pretty and I wouldn't crawl over her to get to Danny if we were all three in the same bed. As it happens, I have never "been" with a girl who didn't shave her armpits, so I can't comment on the experience. I have "been" with girls who d...
I only have a few anime figures. I have a shed load of tabletop wargame figures my wife considers are complete rubbish. She thinks only prison inmates paint wargame figures
I am a native English speaker. As my wife is Japanese, we wanted to bring up our daughter bilingually. My wife spoke only Japanese to her and I spoke only English, until she was about 6 years old. This set back my Japanese fluency (living in the UK)...
Yes, but 3,100 hours on the phone? When did he find the time? If he did an hour a day, that's eight and a half years of entertainment. So perhaps it was not such as expensive hobby after all. I expect he became a good cook, too.
I don't know about Japanese crime stats. In the UK, people are far more likely to be molested , murdered or attacked by close family members than by strangers.
Just bought a MacBook 2.4GHz with 4GB of RAM in it. Runs like the wind... There's no point increasing the RAM in a Windows machine beyond 2 or 3 GB unless you also upgrade to the 64-bit version of the OS. Check out Windows memory addressing issues he...
Sony Alpha 700 is rated at shutter life of 100,000 shots. It's in the manual. This is consistent with known shutter lifespans of film cameras, for example Nikon F3 150,000 shots. The thing is, people with digital SLRs tend to shoot a lot more shots t...
In the UK people typically only bargain about major items like a new car, a house or an expensive professional camera. Two reasons are: 1. It is not worth the time to bargain about lots of small purchases. (This applies to you the consumer and the se...
I don't rent but my mortgage is currently £941 per month = 193,000 Yen. On top of which I have to pay maintenance, utility and council tax some of which you might avoid by renting. Basic message, you don't get accomodation for nothing except when you...
I went there on March 10th. I thought it was a bit small and rubbish compared to Tokyo Midtown which I visited the same day. The wife thought the same.
The point is there are about 3 million surplus men of marriageable age in Japan, so these women have a good chance of landing someone. However a guy earning over 15,000,000 yen per year can easily get himself a great-looking import wife if he wants t...
