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Beautiful Day

After weeks of terribly cold weather here in Tokyo, today is just amazing. We’re supposed to get temperatures up to 16, and it really does feel like a beautiful Spring day. I have all of the windows in the apartment open, and put out our futons outside to air them out. Feels great. I’m just hoping this kind of temperature is going to last.

I’ve got my iTunes on shuffle right now, and as I’m writing this, Fantastic Plastic Machine’s “Beautiful Day” just popped up. How true.

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Subvitamine

SUBVITAMINE: Beautiful pictures, with a very nice and simple way to view them. I really need to learn some Flash.

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This Is A Magazine

A new issue of the excellent webzine THIS IS A MAGAZINE is out. Issue 8 is the beautiful losers issue. Next issue will be out in March.

Reminds me that I have to get to work on a new issue of GEISHA.

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Phil Brown

Phil Brown directs TV commercials, but the kind that you actually like watching. Some of his Ikea ones are especially funny. Check out his website to see a few of them. The site’s design isn’t bad either.

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Bran Van 3000 and Momus

You can see the new video by Bran Van 3000, which features Momus, for the song “Shopping” by going following this link. I haven’t heard this album, but I did like BV3000’s first release, which came out 5-6 years ago I think.

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Milo

The picture that you see today (030207) shows the way in to A Bathing Ape’s Milo store, which is located under BAPE Cuts in Aoyama. As you go in (I’ll have a picture of the doors on Monday, which are mirrored, with a huge Milo in the design, and slide open) you walk down these stairs that have rows of little Milos on both sides (you can see the reflection of the other side over the glass). As you reach the bottom, you enter a circular room, with a huge merry-go-round in the middle featuring Milos riding horses (like the doll you see in the picture, but huge). There is a circular seating around the merry-go-round, and a few display cases with dolls, pins, keychains, and a few shirts. Definitely a store to check out if you’re in Tokyo.

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Chappie

This is my latest desktop. I’ve been using these monthly Chappie desktops for over a year now. You can get them here. And for those wondering, the devil mask worn by the person on the left refers to the Setsubun holiday which took place last Monday. You throw some beans while wearing the mask (which you can buy as a set at your friendly neighborhood 7/11) to get rid of evil and welcome happiness.

Update (16/08/13): The image that was in this post is unfortunately no longer available. I’m sure it looked awesome.

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The Animatrix

The first of the new Matrix anime shorts is now available online. Directed by Mahiro Maeda, it’s called “The Second Renaissance – Part 1”, and it starts to tell the story of how the robots came to confront the humans. Very good stuff, and I can’t wait for the DVD that will contain all of the shorts, which will be released in June.

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Immigration

Sorry for the lack of a new picture today, but I had to leave home really early this morning (well, early for me anyways, meaning around 10) to go to Shibuya to take care of my visa renewal. It’s something I always dread, as it never goes smoothly, and is was of course the same this year. After waiting 30 minutes for my number to come up, I was then told that I “of course” needed quite a few more documents, which weren’t indicated anywere. Aaargghh. It was still a good day though as I was then off to meet Jason in Aoyama for lunch. I had some time to spare before meeting up with him, so I walked over to Harajuku, checked out Cat Street (very fashionable area with lots of very hip stores), and then made my way to the Aoyama Book Center, a place I’d wanted to check out for a while now. You gotta love a place that stacks all the cool design magazines near the entrance, catching your eye as you walk on. I picked up a few back issues of MINIMIX that I was missing. Then it was off to meet Jason and have a lunch at a nice place called 66 Modern, where I had a delicious pork donburi (a donburi is a meal on rice). I still had a bit of time before heading out to work, so we stopped at A Bathing Ape’s Milo store, which is more of a design showcase – and an amazing showcase at that, really something you have to see – than a regular shop (they only sell a few figures of Milo, and some baby sized t-shirts), and Final Home. Final Home has a cool concept where all the clothes are designed with a sort of netting inside, that lets you pile stuff to keep yourself warm, sort of like what homeless people do. I was intrigued by this 3-way shoe they had that easily converts to a sandal, without removing anything. I wants me some of those.

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Oskar Tennis Champion

imgI stopped at a record store on my way back from work tonight and was very pleasantly surprised to see that the new Momus album, OSKAR TENNIS CHAMPION, was out. Released on Quattro here in Japan, it comes in a very nice digipak casing featuring beautiful artwork by Florian Perret (the graphic you see on top does not do it justice), as well as 2 bonus tracks, one of them being an amazing remix of the track “Beowulf” by France’s Digiki. I’m in the middle of listening the album right now, and can definitely say that I’m enjoying it quite a bit. “The Last Communist” is already a favorite track.