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Ima gonna let me finish, since I only did 14 back then.

15. I have an extremely boring day job that would put you to sleep if I explained it.
16. I am secretly plotting a return to the home of my birth - the USA.
17. Would like to write an SF novel, but fear I lack the discipline and talent
18. Would like to lose my American accent over here in Australia because I get tired of the first question with any stranger always being "where you from?"
19. I enjoy the show Glee - much to the dismay of most of my friends
20. No TV in our house for over 10 years
21. Started VideoSift after a 6 month, all-bank-accounts drained around the world trip with my wife and two kids
22. I once ran over a dog when delivering pizzas in high school, at night on snowy roads. It affected my driving for life
23. I can blow perfectly formed sprays of spit bubbles that float up into the air and last for up to a minute.
24. I spent a year in Salamanca, Spain as part of a university language program
25. I shat in an empty stairwell once due to explosive diarrhea that I could not contain.

Last one too much?>> ^dag:

1. I lived on the last federally granted homestead in the US in rural Alaska without running water or electricity for 5 years as a kid.
2. Had a ten speed when everyone else had a BMX, and thus never learned to tail slap.
3. Was an accomplice to deathcow stealing a LadyBug and Cosmic Adventure Colecovision cartridges from Art's Video Mart in 1984.
4. Bought my first 300 bps modem in 1985 for the Apple IIe.
5. Wore a spangly sequined vest in my high school's swing choir - and sang bass.
6. Attended Chaminade University of Honolulu for 2 years.
7. Attended Universidad de Salamanca in Spain for 1 year.
9. Worked in Osaka Japan for 3 years - probably for the Yakuza.
10. Married by a catholic priest to my Aussie wife in Japan.
11. Have acted in several community theater productions
12. Would like to have my head frozen at Alcor.
13. Can do good Sterling Holloway and Neil Diamond impressions
14. Founded best online community ever.

they got the idea from Japan: http://videosift.com/video/Cerezo-Osaka-vs-100-primary-school-children

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

single room flat in downtown Osaka, dark, sleeping on a HotCarpet - too much Asahi SuperDry tumbling around inside me. That's where this song takes me.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I spent Y2K in a nuclear hardened bunker.

2000 was a big year for me. Had a baby boy, began my life in Australia in earnest - lost a lot of money (stock options) in the dotcom crash.

The years until 2005 were a bit of a blur, I remember the peaks and troughs, but that's it. Bought a house, changed jobs a couple of times, climbed the corporate ladder.

At the end of 2005 something clicked- I wanted out. We sold our house and most of the stuff we own. I quit my job and we bought round the world ticket for the family. We spent the next 5 months backpacking - went like this: L.A, Las Cruces, NM, Alaska, Vancouver (Lasik), Ireland, Girona, Spain, Osaka, Japan Bangkok, Thailand and then back to Australia- pretty much broke.

In 2006 I rented a little office with a friend who was working on a motorized skateboard thing. I didn't know what I was going to do, but we were paying rent, and we had a bar fridge stocked with Coronas. I started plonking away on my laptop - and VideoSift was launched on February 16th 2006.

Aside from the birth of my son- the highlight of my decade was VideoSift - still feels great to be part of something like this. I've also changed jobs a couple times, taken a few overseas trips, moved house way too many times and watched the kids grow.

*Envy

I'm getting so bored trying half a lifetime to "Get Stable."
I'm not sure if I even want a stable, non-dynamic home.
Although the grass sounds greener on your side of the world, I'm sure you face a lot of the same everyday issues. However, the road that you are traveling sounds pretty adventurist - and I like the sounds of it.

Don't know how you ended up in Aus. though, it sounds like Osaka is calling you home!
Cheers!

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No, we just promote hypnotoad to the front page every few months.

(BTW, Osaka kara, konnichi-wa, mina-san.)

I can't stand the Sea Shepherd Society/Paul Watson and I hate Whale Wars. Why? Because the Sea Shepherd Society is actually hurting their own cause and Whale Wars is glorifying it.

Let me explain. I lived in Japan for eight years and I saw that every time the Japanese whaling fleet was attacked by the Paul Watson's group sales of whale meat went up in Japan and the resolve to continue hunting strengthened. The sales of whale meat has been falling for years in Japan, to the point now where there is over 1000 tons of frozen whale meat, some of it going back 12 years, in government freezers. The government can't give it away, but they try. If this trend continues it just won't be financially viable for Japan to continue whaling.

I taught at a university in Japan and I would ask my students if they eat and/or like whale meat. The vast majority of my students (90%+) said they didn't eat whale meat (however almost all of them had eaten whale meat at some point, usually served to them in their elementary school lunches, of course provided by the government). Almost the same number said they didn't like whale meat. Then I would usually give them the above statistic and ask if Japan should continue whaling, again a big majority would say "No". However, when stories about the Sea Shepherd Society attacking Japanese whalers hit the news (and it hit BIG TIME), attitudes would change. Then most of my students would say Japan should continue whaling. This was not just found in a university setting either. Editorials and opinion letters to newspapers would echo the same feelings.

In direct response to the Sea Shepherd's attacks on Japanese whaling ships supermarkets, restaurants, street vendors, etc. would suddenly begin carrying whale meat. More schools would serve it in their lunches (kids don't get a choice of what they can eat at school, one meal for everyone), and a restaurant in Osaka made headline news when they began to sell 'whale burgers'. There was a line around the block for those burgers and many of the people in the line made it clear that they were there as a giant 'fuck you' to the Sea Shepherd Society for attacking the Japanese whaling fleet.

As I said above Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Society are hurting their own cause. What they need to do is put more effort into better information campaigns within Japan. Record and photograph what's going on then use Japanese bloggers and YouTube to get the info out there. This worked very well when the Sea Shepherd Society and others documented the Taiji Dolphin Hunt:
http://www.seashepherd.org.uk/taiji/taiji_sscs_in_taiji.html
http://www.savejapandolphins.org/

Many people in Japan were shocked to find out that Dolphins were being hunted by Japanese, and the hunt now gets regular news coverage in Japan which has led to Japanese themselves protesting.

Pacifism has been so ingrained in the Japanese people since the end of WWII that using even mild violence to get what you want will assuredly turn the average Japanese person against you and whatever cause you are promoting, even if the cause is a 'good' one.

This fight will be won only if the Japanese people can be turned against whaling and make it too expensive for the Japanese government to continue to fund the whaling fleets, it won't be won by using the tactics of the Sea Shepherd Society.

Sorry for the long rant, but you can probably tell that I feel strongly about it.

>> ^ponceleon:
Knife-a goes in, a-guts come out that's what Osaka Seafood Concern is all about!


Osaka is in Japan, not China. But.. I get what you are trying to convey

Fish and Oyster sauce is quite good, though if you knew how it was made, that can quickly change one's opinion. Shrimp paste is another one of those odd things, even some Asians don't like it. But I love the Japanese shrimp crackers with little embedded shrimps. They even have eyestalks with little black eyes. Not a picture.. actual embedded mini-shrimp LOL.

Knife-a goes in, a-guts come out that's what Osaka Seafood Concern is all about!

Your video, RoboCup 2008 Humanoid Soccer Final: NimbRo vs. Team Osaka, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Ok... here are my requests.

http://www.videosift.com/video/RoboCup-2008-Humanoid-Soccer-Final-NimbRo-vs-Team-Osaka

http://www.videosift.com/video/Ancient-Greek-Robot

Watch this... it is incredible.

http://www.videosift.com/video/RoboCup-2008-Humanoid-Soccer-Final-NimbRo-vs-Team-Osaka

>> ^plastiquemonkey:
yappari, kansai ichiban ya na...


何でローマ字使った？ｗ

>> ^Shepppard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37X1t1Myz7A



Exactly what I thought! Good stuff.

>> ^boksinx:
how about acting like you're dropping atomic bomb or something?


cough sorry. gomen ne.


Yeah maybe that would freak people out. But how the hell would you act that one out? I think it would be more freaky that someone was capable of miming such an expression and making it clearly understandable. daijoubu.