He can relate to Japanese movies

One of my friend, an American Taiwanese, said to me that there are many Japanese movies which he can related to. When I asked what it means, then he explained that stories of Japanese movies are typical daily life but with some special things which is likely happen in reality somehow. On the other hand, stories of American movies are not likely happen in reality.


For example, there is a movie which tiles is  "Shall we dance". The story is about a typical man. He happens to find an advertisement of a ballroom dance group on way his home and start to learn the dancing. At first, his motivation is to get close to ladies, but he gradually gets passion for the dancing. After all, he decides to attend a contest for the dancing...

The Hollywood remade this movie with the same name, but I do not know how it got popular.

Honestly, I have not watched both movies actually, I just know a little bit about. So I am going to have to watch this. When I searched this title in Netflix, then the Japanese version comes out. It sounds kind of funny.


 

Unstable idling with my mini cooper 2007

Last week, I was troubled by unstable idling issue about my mini cooper. If I say from the conclusion, it was just because engine oil was low level. However, I did not know it until I went to dealer and I felt a little bit depressed mentally while thinking many bad results. So, I want to list up symptoms about my situation in order to help peoples who are troubled by same thing.

 1. Unstable idling occurred especially after brake to stop. If I look at tachometer, RPM goes down from high to low, and it was unstable around 700rpm by going back and forth during idling. Additionally, during unstable situation, I could feel stumbling of the car. Engine was stalled once after strong brake. At this time, RPM went down to zero smoothly. Fortunately, I was able to restart engine. In my case, this symptom did not happen every time. That might indicate that situation was still early stage, and not too late to be fixed.

2. Irregular acceleration after 2000rpm. This occurred since same day with issue 1, so this might be related to issue 1. After 2000rpm, engine behavior sounded irregular response a little bit. Additionally, when I controlled the mar with back gear, irregular response was awful and uncomfortable sometimes.

3. Warning of low pressure engine oil was displayed on the front panel in special situation. When I curved the corner with a little bit high speed as much as I felt transverse G, this warning came out for a few seconds and disappeared soon. If I look back, this was a sign for the cause.

When I arrived at the dealer, and showed my car, and explained symptoms, then a person in charge, Peter, realized the cause soon after starting the engine and looking at the behavior of tachometer. I was really relieved and felt that I bought reliability at dealer because labor fee is generally expensive at dears.

I brought my car at early morning on Friday, and it took a few hours to fix my car, so I used a shuttle service to go to the office. This service was fee of charge and I really appreciate this service because I have only one car. In mini cooper dealer in San Jose, they outsource this to peoples who already retired, so drivers are old guys. My driver was old gentle man, he is over 80 years old, and moved to this are from Canada more than 40 years ago. His father and mother moved to Canada from England. So he looks like British guy. On the way to the office, we could not communicate well because he did not seem to understand my Japanese accent English. Before 3 pm, I got a phone call from Peter about completion of my car repair. The old gentle man also picked me up at this time, however we could communicate each other on the way to the dealer. It was easy solution. I just spoke loudly. That`s it. I was just because it was hard for him to hear. It was short time from the office to the dealer office, but I could enjoy conversation very much about him and me.

At that morning, I was a little bit depressed, but at the evening I was feeling good even though I paid much money.

Raw beef liver will be gone in Japanese restaurants

As of July 1, Japanese government will ban restaurants from serving raw beef liver officially. If restaurants break the law, they will be fine or responsible peoples will go to jail. According to the announcement, the motivation of having to do this is that raw beef has bacterias no matter how fresh it is, and such bacterias can cause not only heavy stomachache but also health problems, and it is difficult to eliminate or kill bacteria completely before serving it. Actually children and old peoples can die due to these bacterias. However, wait a second ! The fact is not turned out recently, but the fact has been well known for long time from experiences. Japanese peoples eat raw beef liver while realizing this fact, and eating raw meet is up to peoples. Peoples understand, what is called, self-responsibility. Japanese Health ministry has warned that it is better not to eat raw meet, but it has not been prohibited by law. So this underlies in gray zone.  

So why does the government do this now ? 

I have one clue about this. Although some peoples die throughout one year, there was mass food poisoning due to raw beef in a restaurant in Japan. In this incident, some old peoples died and some children suffered from health problems. Moreover, many TV news took this incident seriously, and many peoples realized how risky eating raw meet is. This was because hygiene management in the restaurant was terrible. Raw beef was not fresh and they did not trim the surface of beef which is commonly done to eliminate bacteria as much as possible. So I guess that the health ministry keeps eyes close so far but they can not do that now. I am really sorry about restaurants which care about freshness of meet and properly do this process. Because of bad restaurants, good restaurants are damaged somehow.

What is happening in Japan is that many peoples rush into restaurants to enjoy last chance of raw beef liver and remember how tasty it is. If I were in Japan now, I would do same thing because I like it. However, please do not get wrong idea about Japanese people, not every people eats raw meet. I am sure that beer lovers tend to like to eat it because beer and raw beef liver is perfect match combination.

When I was in Japan, I used to eat some raw parts of chicken, beef, pork, fish, horse, deer. 

But since I came to U.S, I have never tried those except raw fish because peoples do not have a habit of eating something without heating.

To tell the truth, I have suffered from food poisoning of chicken due to raw chicken, although I do not remember what part of chicken it was. At this time, I was suffering from fever, stomachache, and diarrhea for a few days. But I would not give up to eat those when I go back to Japan.

Link 

http://jp.wsj.com/japanrealtime/blog/archives/11841/

Music in the park at Los Gatos

Last Sunday, I went to Los Gatos to enjoy free music. At this time, a Japanese engineer was visiting the San Jose office for work from Japan, so I took him there although he is shy and an Otaku, and prefers playing inside than outside. Generally peoples would take guests to something special places where you can easily find in guide books. However I wanted him to enjoy something which we can not find there. So this was it. The reason why I came to know this festival was that my wife`s English teacher told her that we should go. According to the teacher, this festival is annual event during summer season. Music takes place in the park in Los Gatos, and musicians play music from higher stage. People can bring own chair and enjoy own alcohol and snacks with musics. Just by hearing this, my expectation became high. My concerns were parking space and public restrooms because I can not enjoy if we can not find parking space, and because I personally can not enjoy the music without restroom.

Music was supposed to start from 5 pm, so we packed our necessary staffs to my car and left my apartment before 4:30 pm. I was wondering if we can find parking because I felt that it was a little bit late with no margin. When I passed the park by car, it looked like that many peoples were ready for the music on lawn, and parking space close to the park were fully taken, so I felt nervous a little bit because I was thinking what we should do if we could not  find space but we managed to find space a little bit far from the park. When we arrived the place, good place like under shade were already occupied, because this day was really hot and people would afraid of bad for eyes and sun burning under the Sun. So we did not have any choices for place but we put our chairs as close to the stage as possible. At this moment, what I had to do at first was to know where restrooms are, so I asked some peoples where they are, but nobody knew it. I gave up to find it to some degree but fortunately event organizer kindly announced where it is. Regardless to say, I really felt relieved to hear that, and what remains is to enjoy music.

As far as played musics were concerned, I was really satisfied with them like what I had heard because every played musics were popular from 70s to 90s, and I was familiar with them, and musicians played musics well and sang well. Most surprising thing was that many people came in front of the stage and started to dance well according to musics. Even old peoples did so and looks fine physically and mentally. While looking peoples in front, I was thinking this is not going to happen in Japan. In Japan, people would stay at own space, listen to musics, and never do dancing. I sensed and felt something about the reason why Japanese failed to world war II.

This time, music was focused on popular rock music, but this community will hold another similar event focusing on the Beetles next month, so I have to go there again because I like the Beetles.

Link

http://lgmip.com/miperformers.asp

First time experience of blues music

Last weekend , my colleague in the office kindly invited me to go to enjoy blues music. He is an American, and he said to me that blues is one of gifts from America to the world. He is married, and he is working in San Jose, but his wife is in the east coast. Last week, his wife was visiting him, so he tired to entertain her every day by taking her somewhere. Last Friday, it was blues music. He said to me that the place is close to my apartment, but when I heard of it location, I was feeling scare because its building is very old and dark at night so I would never say it looks safe place at night and I would never go without him. He suggested me to take my wife , so I asked my wife if she wants to go there, then her first though was same for me, but she said that she wanted to go because she could feel safe with my American colleague.

We were supposed to meet in front of the door of the place because I hesitated to go inside without him, but when I arrived there, he and his wife were already inside. When  I called him, we got out from inside and let us in together with him. After the the door, a lady was standing and asking customer to pay 20 dollar to go inside. Inside the place, stage for musicians are close to the door, and bar counter is at the end. It was dim entirely inside the office. Some peoples came alone, and some peoples came together with someone like wife, boyfriend, girlfriend. Peoples enjoyed talking and drinking before music started. It was not scare feeling than I had before.


Music started 10 minutes later than it was supposed to. According to his wife, it was usual case for blues music. Musicians seemed to be famous but I did not know it. Although I did not know whether placed musics were popular or not, I could feel comfortable. Some peoples went in front of the stage and started to dance, some peoples are sitting in the table while shaking their head according to music.

We stayed there for one hour and half and got out before 11pm because we had a doctor appointment in the following day. Without it, we would had stayed longer. It was short time but it was very interesting experience for us because I would had never experienced this if we would have been in Japan.


I realize again that I should try many thing once without hesitating to do them, even though I do not feel like doing them. Once is better than zero.

Brevoort can reduce risk of suffering from liver cancer

　Link

Good news for health related matter.

According to a release news from the national cancer center in Japan, it looks like that peoples who eats fish like brevoort everyday can reduce risk of becoming liver cancer around by 30% than peoples who eat it once a week.

In Japan, Brevoort is fish with which you can feel autumn season because the season of this fish is autumn. As autumn comes, we come to see this fish gradually at supermarkets. People usually eat this fish by broiling with salt in the above picture. Additionally, it is better to put grated radish with soy source. If you have this with Japanese beer, it is going to be perfect.

What they did was follow up research of dietary life in around 90,000 peoples for 11 years in order to investigate correlation between risk of liver cancer and eating habit. Although what they found was already mentioned above, precisely speaking, unsaturated fatty acid in brevoort seems to contribute reduction of risk much. Researchers said that this acid could keep down inflammation, and it can reduce the risk of the cancer which can be developed throughout chronic hepatitis. Researchers do not know that they can observe same results by supplement. Research news said about brevoort as representative fish, but other fishes like mackerel, salmon and sea bream also have unsaturated fatty acids like DHA, EPA.

As many people already know, fish is health food except fired fish, and Japanese peoples eat fish more than peoples in other countries. I do not know correlation but, Japanese life expectancy is longest in the world.

News resource

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20120607/t10015669151000.html

 

Venus transit observation at bay area

Pic link

It was great time for everyone on the earth last Tuesday. Many peoples got excited about the Venus transit at this bay area because next transit will be more than 100 years later. So was I. 

One of my colleagues in the office told me that we could watch internet live from the observatory at Hawaii at the Nasa facility at Mountain View. So I went there with my other colleagues around 7pm. When we arrived there, so many people were waiting at long line to enter a huge white tent because Nasa people restricted a number of peoples to avoid congestion. On the other hand, some amateur astronomers brought own telescopes with special filters for observation of the sun outside the tent. They kindly let us use them and look the transit throughout a finder.
We tried both inside live and outside telescopes, but outside experience was better than inside live in my opinion. My colleagues totally agreed on this. This is because we could tried many filters outside and importantly it was great to look at this with own eyes.


I regretted that I should have come here at Lunar eclipse a few weeks before.

link

Blue color LED does harm to your eyes

link

Some experts say that blue color LED seems to do harm to your eyes according to some news, which is called blue light hazard. 

These days, we have been surrounded by LED related products like displays since blue color LED was developed successfully which accelerated LED products. Blue color was more difficult to develop than other colors. Behind the development, there is a long story about a Japanese engineer who could succeed in this development almost alone. I would like write about it some other time. Wave length of visible light range from 700nm to 400nm. In terms of colors, it is from red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. If you are familiar with basic physics,  you know that as wave length reduce, energy of wave increases, so blue color light has highest energy in visible light. According to some researches, blue light can do harm to your retina, and can cause many disease and symptom of tiredness by looking at LED display. Below 400nm, its light can be absorbed by some material before reaching your retina.

An eye glasses make and an eye clinic worked cooperatively and made special glassed which can reduce strength of blue color from LED. They performed statistical survey by comparing two cases. One case is that they let peoples look at LED displays with special glasses. Other case is without special glassed. Statistically, many peoples said that they felt more comfortable and less tiredness with special glassed, although detail of how to do the survey is not available.

 

These kind of surveys would come out more later because LED display would be prevalent more due to explosive growth of smart phone devices.

News link

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20120602-00000301-yomidr-sci

One moment please this channel should be available shortly

Hi, Comast TV users.

I guess that some peoples suffer from this message on your TV display, which always annoys, disgusts, and irritates you when you watch this. I am writing this for these people and want to help you. I can understand how you feel about this and that you want to say "what the hell is this" and want to fix this soon. It is because I have suffered this situation three times within one year and half. Every time, a problem was same in my situation. Let me tell you my situation.

1. My Comcast Services

Cable TV and internet

2. Situation 

I could not see any image and any voice but only the message like "One moment please, this channel should be available shortly". However, the cable box could download time and TV programs well. So this bothered me because that it made me feel that box was not broken. Regarding internet, internet is working well. TV signal and internet signal share same coax cable but they are using different frequency, so at this time I guessed that signal power of TV was weak, and I thought that I just needed a low noise power amplifier before the cable TV box.

3. Symptom

In early stage, I sometimes could see TV and sometime could not see TV. Gradually, situation was getting worse, and finally I could see only the message all the time. It took a few weeks in my cases every time.

4. Comcast call center. (link)

What I did was to call service center. A call center phone number is listed in the above link. I have called several times, but last time was very strict for identification process. I had to tell an operator many things, although it was not so strict previously. After the identification, I told the operator my situation, and the operator advised me to confirm connection of cables. Additionally, the operator controlled my cable box remotely and tried to turn off the box in order to make sure that the box responded properly. After all, the box could respond but the box could not be turned off according to the operator. Finally the operator came to a conclusion that a technician needed to visit me to see what`s wrong. And a technician was supposed to come to my apartment at 10am on the following day. 

(*) This is my matter but I felt again that it is still difficult to do communication in English throughout phone. Regarding face to face communication, it is ok now.

5. A technician came

A technician was supposed to come 10 am, but a technician came one hour later. I was not surprised at this because I was already used to this country culture. I told myself that this is not Japan and I could not expect high quality service. Before he came, he called me to make sure that cable TV was only problem and internet worked well. When he came, he had new TV box with him. It sounded like that he realized that TV box would be problem. At first, what he tried to do wast to make sure whether signal level was fine or not. While he was doing this, I asked him what problem would be, and he said to me that it would be box before he completed signal check, which turned out to be fine later. After he replaced old one by new one, TV came back and started to work properly again. It took about ten minuted. After all, this was the problem of box. It was just broken, just broken.

6. What I felt

Before I called to the call center, I asked many peoples in the office if they have ever experienced same situation. But everyone has never experienced this kind of situation before. I wanted to say "Why do only I suffer from this ?". 

7. Another solution other than calling to call centers

When I asked a question to my colleagues, someone told me that this kind of situation happens to many peoples because my colleague saw many people take broken boxes to local services center of Comcast ,and receive new one, and get activation done there. This will help when your box is broken.

I am going to do this when I see same situation again.

I will be glad if this helps someone who suffer from same situation.

(*) Unfortunately, the same thing happened a few month later, and I tried to take it to a local service center like what I described in "7".
I wrote about the detail of it at the link below.

http://my-life-in-second-stage.blogspot.com/2012/10/one-moment-please-this-channel-should.html