i-sako.com

…is a terrible way to end one’s twenties!

Still, everyone who survives this long does it, so I guess I can take some consolation in the fact that turning 30 seems to be a vastly more popular choice than the alternative—which is, of course, not to live past 29.

I wish I had something more insightful to say on this occasion, but it is rather late and I have an urgent deadline to meet first thing in the morning, so I guess I’ll have to save the commentary for later. In that sense, being 30 (at least so far) is a lot like being an undergrad, just without the youthful vitality required to stay out drinking all night and still be able to pull off a passable bit of work the next morning. 

It never fails. For as long as anyone can remember, whenever anyone mentions the top schools in the United States, my alma mater is always associated with one word: Party.

Poll: Northern U.S. colleges party best

New York, NY, Aug. 17 (UPI)—Five colleges in the northern United States are best for partying, the Princeton Review’s poll of 110,000 college students has determined in its 2005 guide.

The annual review of 357 of the country’s colleges found the State University of New York at Albany the number one party place, followed by Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.; University of Wisconsin at Madison; West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va.; and Ohio University in Athens.

We talked about this a lot when I was a journalism student there. It’s actually a pretty significant public image problem for OU, because although it actually has a number of excellent academic programs (including the journalism school, which is also typically ranked in the top five nationwide year after year—which is why I was there, honest!), it can never shed its reputation as a “party school.” Pity.

All this writing is making me thirsty. Anybody want a beer or somethin’?

Golden Week is now upon us—and not a moment too soon! The last six weeks or so have been incredibly busy, so I’m glad to have a few days off.

My wife would willingly attest to the fact that holiday seasons in Japan used to bother me a lot. It’s true. I used to hate Golden Week in particular, partly because it took a big bite out of my pay (when you’re working on a contract basis, a week without work is a week without pay), but also because I thought it was dumb for the whole country to go on vacation at the same time (anywhere you go—no matter where, be it the beach or just the local convenience store—you find everyone else is already there). This year, though, I’m really looking forward to it. Perhaps this is a sign that I am growing too accustomed to life in Japan? Perhaps.

One thing that I’m really looking forward to, though, is getting caught up on a number of pet projects. Among them is one that I’ve been meaning to get around to for quite some time, moving this site to a new server. That said, the site may be down for a day or two while I make the transition. (My e-mail may also be temporarily disrupted, so let me know if you are expecting a response from me—I may have missed your message.)

I recently set up an account at smugmug to share photos with relatives and friends. There’s not much there at the moment (mainly snapshots of our daughter), but the combination of the upcoming birth of our second child and my new job provide a number of good reasons to take a lot of pictures. Over time, I expect to the galleries to grow considerably.

It took a while to search through the various photo-sharing options before I finally settled on smugmug. In the end, the feature that most sold me on the service was the ease of getting prints made from uploaded pictures. I’m often too short on time (and cash, too, at times) to be able to have prints made for the folks back home, but with smugmug I can just upload everything I think might be of interest and let them pick and choose for themselves. The unlimited storage was also a considerable perk. And, hey, if smugmug is good enough for Howard Dean, it can probably handle the enormous flood of traffic from this blog as well.

I had been planning to install Gallery for this purpose, but ended up choosing smugmug instead, mostly for the reasons described above. Gallery is still pretty attractive, but I think I’ll hold off on using it until I get a faster computer, one that I can use to run my own server (both of our current computers are of the 1997 vintage, just barely in the Pentium II class--still quite useful, but hardly server material).

If by any chance you are inclined to try out a photo-sharing service, I can heartily recommend smugmug.com. It’s ridiculously easy to use. If you do go for smugmug, be sure to tell them that “QX3HpXVETUGvw” sent you (delete the quotation marks, of course). If you do, you’ll get a discount on your account—and I on mine.

As weblogs become more and more popular, people who seek to twist the medium to serve their own purposes have found a way to increase search engine traffic to their own sites: comment spam. For someone with a bit of programming knowledge, it is a small task to write a program that will visit blogs and write ads for penis enlargement or other bullshit in the comments section, with links that point back to the advertisers’ sites. 

Recently, this blog was spammed--twice.

It’s a practice that is every bit as obnoxious as spam e-mail--and just as likely to stick around. That does not mean that we simply have to put up with it, though. In fact, I’ve already taken steps to make sure that this blog is not spammed again. Although I don’t like to have to require registration for people to post comments, it will provide a mechanism for keeping the spam out. As of today, anyone who wishes to comment here must register first. It’s a shame to have to do this, but I am left with little choice. Chalk up another major inconvenience to the unrelenting persistence of the spam industry.