Do I have to post a “this is not cat litter” sign in Kanji too?

I bet none of you did notice that smooth server migration (unless, that is, you were one of the poor fool who tried using either unknowngenius.com or wp-plugins.net during the past 5 hours). Everything should be back to normal now, please contact me if you notice anything broken…

Why’d I change?

While not exceedingly bad (compared to the worse I had), my former host, HostForWeb, really had sub-par uptime (2 or 3 failures a month on average), rather sluggish performances and downright asinine handling of the last DDoS attack on my server (upon seeing one single IP pulling my index page 50 times a second, they simply disabled my account in the middle of a week-end: that is just retarded)…

Renewing my contract for a year with HFW being out of the question, I went with Site 5 instead: they came heartily recommended and their rates for the amount of disk space (one of my biggest priority) is damn near incredible (I’m getting three times what I was getting on HFW, for the same price, and wasn’t getting such a crappy deal either). We’ll see if the rest is on par (so far, so good).

1.45AM just when I am trying to get home there are no taxis for
miles. Waited for 30 mins! Serves me right for going out the night
before a nationial holiday. /rant
〓Tracey〓

The sharpest among you, dear readers, may have noticed a surge in guest moblogging in recent days.

Indeed, Tracey has joined the powerful ranks of our secret organization, with the established mission to bring a dearly missing element of femininity to these testosterone-drenched pages.

In sticking with the stakhanovist ideals that power this blog, and because no reward shall go undeserved, we promised her a formal introduction as soon as she’d reach the magical threshold of ten posts. Immediately prompting her to deliver, no hold barred, shocking accounts of:

• what she sees from her office window
• what she sees from her office chair…

As you can see, the girl means business…

As long as she leaves gardening up to me, we should be able to find our marks…

OK, she didn’t solely post photos of stacks of paper and urban street parking: she also posted a mug shot of her charming personal sex-slave assistant.

But well before the fascinating insights into the merciless world of a Tokyo power-exec, or even her interesting tidbits on colourful local customs, there is one major reason you should keep an eye open for her contributions: the off-chance of drunken posting featuring nudity and/or behaviours outlawed in at least 15 US states (and punishable by death in 4 of them).

Giving Tracey a cameraphone and moblogging access is a bit like these tv spots for lavish shower products, featuring people lasciviously soaping themselves while the camera always manage to keep the naughty bits tastefully off-frame: there’s that improbable chance the cameraman might one-day trip and show a nipple… a towel fall off unexpectedly… who knows…

Except here, the chances are much higher and the cameraman more likely to be drunk.

But please let that not distract you in any way from the quality of her more traditional contributions to these pages…

N.B: She also has her own dedicated page, where she might one day tell you more about herself. It’s here. At the moment, it only contains the official press kit excerpts, but will no doubt soon be updated with more personable tidbits.

Kasumigaseki is the “Government district” where half of all Japanese ministries are located within blocks of each other (had to help Nordine get some papers sorted out at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
The whole place would make Oscar Niemeyer proud… and anybody else seriously depressed, even on a sunny day like today.
Haven’t seen a single casual atire in miles and half my ass is showing through my torn out jeans.

… but I’m a bit of a curry god, I think…

A look at the sins that shape this blogging machine of a man…

And we got in close order:

1. pride
2. lust
3. wrath
4. sloth
5. envy
6. gluttony
7. avarice

What’s your personal Top 7?

This is pointless enough with just what it needs of self-centered drivel in disguise, that it might make it as the next big blog filler around: knock yourself out, but if you do, in the name of all things sacred, just do not call it a meme. Or I’ll personally go all se7en on your ass. Thanks.

Now, you don’t think I was gonna post a list of flaws without some pathetic attempt at justifying them:

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… for asking, but since when has “Earth Day” been exclusively about buying consumerist crap?

Ran into a shinto wedding ceremony while crossing Meiji Jingu

- Got up at 9
- Ran half-an-hour
- Drank a pint-sized homemade smoothie
- Sitting on the grass in Yoyogi park with Rie
- Doing equations and writing my thoughts on superfluid quantum vortices, like a good little boy that I am…

If serious drama doesn’t happen soon, this damn thing is gonna turn into a LiveJournal with pretty pictures of sakuras…

[and those shitty overexposed pics are what you get when you rely on a cellphone screen for luminosity feedback]

When I grow up, I want to become a snarky jaded bitter old man, just like him. Complete with asshole-tearing writing skills and all.

Ah, I wish…

No, please, don’t object: try as I might, I know I’m nowhere near that level of bitter, yet… I can’t keep up.

Plus, it just might be that I don’t care enough (I’m told caring only comes with age or when you go off your meds).

But I’m sure glad somebody does.

Hell if I remember which one of the dozen herbs this is… we’ll just hope it’s not weeds (I said weeds).

When doing any academic work requiring a bit more than casual concentration, my choice for musical background invariably veers toward jazz.

House or techno is great coding music, but just takes too much of my attention off; and the kind of classical I can study to, also tends to get on my nerves quickly whenever the studying doesn’t go as smoothly as it should…

On the other hand, old jazz tracks, first half of the century, New-Orleans, Dixie, later French stuff… they just got the perfect mix of bouncy instrumental and subdued beat that helps keeping you in a working groove without turning your nerves into a knot. My playlist currently rotates lots of old no-names Charleston big-bands and swing tracks, along with everything I got by Stephan Grappelli, Django Reinhardt or Sidney Bechet…

As a high-school student in Paris, my buddy Pierre and I used to hang out quite often with local jazz musicians. Pierre’s younger cousin, despite being barely pubescent, was an incredible jazz piano player. Last in a lineage of music nuts, he had been enrolled very early on in the family affair, a band that had once, in typical jazz fashion, spanned over three generations and was now composed of the son-father duo completed by a couple other professional players. Among them was Daniel Bechet, son of Sidney and all around talented drummer.

Of the numerous episodes of strangely anachronistic fun I remember from these days, one particularly stands out:

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Guess what I lovingly planted in my garden two weeks ago and is starting to pierce the ground amidst the fallen sakura flowers?

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