Monday 29 December 2014

New Years Recipe

So it's official, steam is the future.

I recently obtained a steamer of some kind, big enough to steam a chicken breast and all the vegetables.  It's the only way to cook potatoes (I really didn't eat many potatoes outside of England).  It's the best because you just turn it on and leave it, you don't have to worry about it boiling over or not being covered (so basically there's no difference between steaming and boiling).  It's good for just setting and forgetting which is perfect for me because I can't cook.

The one downside is that there's literally no flavour.  Spuds are so devoid of taste that they go with anything, but that's not exactly a boon for someone who can't cook.

The answer is simple, and is one that I've only reached today.

Before I unleash this recipe upon the world I must add that I'm making it now (I'm writing this while it boils away) and I haven't tasted it yet.  But here goes:

Boil or steam or fry your vegetables and chickens.  Or microwave them; whatever suits you best.  Put it on a plate in your preferred order.  Put cheese on top.  Wait, you're not finished yet.

Now add lots of marmite.

Done.

Wednesday 24 December 2014

A Merry Hacking!

So someone in Holland has tried to hack my Hotmail account.

Obviously, he's not actually in Holland (or he's a really bad hacker), but Hotmail detected the intrusion and told me someone from the Netherlands was trying to access my account.

This is nothing new; Hotmail gets hacked weekly by some botnet sending out e-mails about viagra (if you've ever wondered where all that spam you get comes from - hacked e-mail accounts!).  They're pretty good about fixing stuff, to be fair.  They won't jump all over the news and warn you, but they fix intrusion weaknesses quickly enough.

I've decided my password library needs an update.  If you use a-z 1-9 and all the other stuff on your keyboard and have an 8 character password there are 3025989069143040 possible combinations (roughly) (I think).

That's a lot of combinations, but computers are pretty quick so I've decided to upgrade my passwords and whatnot. The best way to make a password, jam on the keyboard! Write it down and after a few inputs you'll remember the combination. You need three or four passwords for all the things you do, so as a service to the internets, here you go:

password 1: eirgbp347b3iubi3g4igbs
password 2: 432982h2uifdwnhifbuwib
password 3: huisghsdfsdfaoujbfamn83
password4: asikudfb3671bsdhfbsdhfbv3

Now you don't even have to come up with your own passwords!

Nothing of importance was taken this time, but you never know.

Also merry christmas.

Monday 22 December 2014

It's Nearly Christmas

Christmas rolls around again.  I've got a small pile of boxes in the corner, containing (hopefully) many kilo's of chocolate and/or marmite - we'll have to wait for the 25th to find out.  In case you were wondering what Christmas day in Japan looks like the following pictures have a handy guide.

The girlfriend is annoyed that I appropriated a bed sheet to cover her present (too big to wrap economically).  I don't think she gets the Christmas spirit.


There are one or two parcels knocking around on the left hand side that aren't in shot - I found that spreading your presents out makes them look more voluminous than just heaping them up.  Top money saving tips on this blog!  This year I'm expecting lots of shoes, because almost everything came in shoe boxes.  The reindeer wrapping paper is bright and sparkly enough that it had to be kept out of direct sunlight; it was causing an 80's disco lighting effect around the room which tends to be distracting outside of a nightclub.  

When packaging your presents in stripes, remember that vertical stripes makes you look taller and thinner, horizontal the opposite.  Therefore accentuate your natural body shape or some such nonsense.

As you can see in the bottom right, Dean and Deluca sent something this year, which was nice.  I'll have to send them something next year.

At this point, some of you may be noticing the lack of a Christmas Tree.  Do not despair.


This is a typical Japanese Christmas tree accompanying the traditional Japanese Orange Juice that is drunk during the holiday season.  Don't forget the traditional Japanese Playstation Controller, used at this time of year.  This troika create a Traditional Japanese Holiday Scene tm..  

So there you have it, a small look into the world of a Traditional Japanese Christmas.

Saturday 13 December 2014

The Film Version

The film version is never as good as the book, but these colours are really great so I'm tempted to say that the film camera can still kick it.

As per usual, these are the low quality jpg's they gave me on a DVD.  I have the negatives so I can make high quality prints directly (well I can't, but someone can) or I can scan them in with a decent scanner and get decent files that way.


I really, really like the reds this particular film gives.  I don't know whether that's a thing (having film toned towards good looking reds) but they do have film aimed towards nice skin tones.  If I ever get a willing victim in front of the lens I'll try some of that out and see what the results are like.


This is the colour version of the black and white one I took before.  Except this time it's from the film camera.  I waited for literally an hour, sitting on the next bench in line waiting for the entire avenue to clear.  Needless to say it didn't and the light was fading, so I left with only this shot.


The colours really are nice.  I like this new camera quite a lot.  (It's a bit expensive to get films done regularly though).


Thursday 11 December 2014

Last Colours of Autumn

So these are the last photographs from the Autumn season.


The night before I went out it started raining and winding all over the place.  The result was a floor covered in leaves and trees very much lacking them.


The trees that retained their leaves were showing some really interesting colours though, so even though they were a bit thin, they made up for it in impact.


The yellows played off the greens really well.  There are a lot of evergreens in Japan, so there are a lot of pictures like this one.


Obligatory black and white picture.


A decent mix of colours on show.


In the more enclosed areas around Shinjuku Gyoen there were a lot more trees intact.


It was mainly yellow when I went, so I wonder if the different trees are uniformly different colours or whether they start of yellowing then move through oranges and reds.


This is the most stock-photo-esque picture I think I've ever taken.


It was a tossup between making this one b/w or leaving it as is.  I was tired and sitting on a bench waiting for one of the above pictures (too many people) so I took this one while eating a sandwich.

Monday 8 December 2014

Autumn Colour

So I made a really quick video showing the kinds of colours you find around Japan in the Autumn.  It really is quite spectacular.