Archive for November, 2007
やった！ Why I wasn’t able to post the interview yesterday
On November 23, 2007 in Announcements, Blog Improvements
Wordpress is a great blog platform… most of the time.
I spent most of yesterday fiddling around with wordpress and searching for a fix so that we can post Japanese characters.
It is supposed to do that by default. Well, a lot of things are “supposed to” [blank] in life but alas they do not.
So after beating my head against the wall all yesterday…
+ |
= wordpress |
finally I found the answer.
In case anyone else with a wordpress blog (that won’t speak Japanese) is reading this your answer is here or somewhere here.
So now that I’ve taught my blog Japanese I can patch up the whole in my wall and post that interview! Yay!
more [hopefully] little things and today should be the day
On November 22, 2007 in Announcements
Doing some upgrading of the blog software. Hopefully this will go smoothly like it did onthe test blog (a spare blog we keep for testing edits).
If you are reading this and the blog isn’t horribly misshapen then I have succeeded. 
Here goes nothing…
btw, today should bring that great interview I’ve been talking about.
little things
On November 21, 2007 in Suggestions Please, Uncategorized
I updated the blogroll and added the recent interviewees (sorry I took a little while to update that guys)
Seeing as it is not a regular blogroll, where we just add links all willy nilly nilly, but links to past interviewees’ sites I am thinking about renaming it “interviewee roll”
what do you think?
Daimajin slash and burn electric dragon gaijin tonic
On November 20, 2007 in On the J-web, Uncategorized
Self-proclaimed worst title ever. 
What’s this all about? I promise it will all make sense, but first some pictures:
More confused you say?
Gaijin Tonic.com blogged about a couple of Japanese films so I when over to Slash and Burn to see if Adam had reviewed them.
Here they are:
http://gaijintonic.com/2007/11/12/more-mad-japanese-dvds/
Electric Dragon 80000V
http://slashandburn.typepad.com/slash_and_burn/2006/10/index.html
Daimajin
http://slashandburn.typepad.com/slash_and_burn/2006/09/daimajin_trilog.html
Stay tuned
On November 20, 2007 in Announcements
We have a great interview coming up very soon (maybe tomorrow?) with a site that everyone needs to know about. It is absolutely 100% not to be missed!
If you are cool, you will be here
Some practicals from past interviewees and a new blog on fingerprinting of foreigners
On November 19, 2007 in Community building, On the J-web
Things have been really busy and that has kept me from putting the kind of effort I would like to put into the Daily J mission recently. Hopefully that will change soon. Ganbaru!
Anyway, in keeping with my last couple of posts on going for depth and building community, I am posting a little bit about what our blogger buddies are up to.
JapanNewbie gives some advice on picking up and moving abroad
Rising Sun Of Nihon talks about health insurance for ESL teachers (or anyone in Japan)
Keeping Pace In Japan gives some “practical” advice on trash-sorting
On a more serious note, KPIJ also announced the start of a new collaborative blog about Japan’s new fingerprinting policy and re-entry to Japan, reentryjapan.blogspot.com
I really like this collaborative idea. What do you think?
Busier than…
On November 17, 2007 in Announcements
No goodies today. Sorry.
Firefly from Your-Japan.com put it best:
Busier than a one legged man in an ass-kicking competition
That definitely describes me today. (That reminds me, I still need to talk to firefly about an interview…)
so much to do, so little time 
Where are they now? - What these sites have been up to after the fame and glitz of their Daily J interviews ;)
On November 16, 2007 in DailyJ Mission, On the J-web
LOL. It’s good to laugh at yourself.
No Daily J won’t make you famous (yet), as much as we would like to make the whole world aware of your website.
But maybe we can help you strengthen ties and contribute to a growing community of Japan-related websites, a community bent on informing and entertaining all with an interest in Japan.
If Daily J is going to go for depth and build community among Japan-related sites it will have to keep up with what they are doing , right?
So today let’s drop in on a few of the past interviewees and see what they are up to:
- Adam over at Slash and Burn just reviewed a Japanese ’80s film with Japanese teens who dispense justice with spiked yo-yos!
- And Harvey over at JapanNewbie is chatting about American Pastime a film about interned Japanese during WWII.
See the film connection between them?
- Harvey also did a great post on using Google images (of all things) for Japanese language learning. Sound strange? Well, actually its genius. Check it out. And to Harvey I say tell NihonHacks about that one!
More connections
On November 15, 2007 in DailyJ Mission, On the J-web, Suggestions Please
Yesterday I posted about connections I see between past interviewees, but time prevented me from posting all that I wanted to.
So here are some more:
Humour
Gyaku<—> KeepingPaceInJapan<—>RisingSunofNihon
Discuss political, economic, cultural issues in Japan
Digital World Tokyo<—>Jamaipanese
Gadgetry and other good stuff
Connections - How some of our past interviewees are alike and why it matters
On November 14, 2007 in DailyJ Mission, Future of the J-web, On the J-web, Suggestions Please
Hello friend.
A few days ago I declared that I will be going for depth in the relationships between Daily J and interviewee blogs. I also wondered out loud about how Japan bloggers can become more of a community.
So the question is:
What do you think about that? What do you think are some ways that we can form a tighter community (for the benefit of people interested in Japan)?
I don’t have the answers.
But I do have some ideas about how Daily J might contribute to this community building. Maybe Daily J can be a catalyst.
In chemistry a catalyst is an outside substance that speeds up a chemical reaction. By calling Daily J a catalyst I mean that Daily J can help Japan-related websites learn more about other Japan-related websites and form bonds with them.
Looking back over the interviews we have had so far I see lots of similarities, little connections between the interviewed bloggers. To me these seem like great opportunities for these bloggers to collaborate.
Here are a few of those connections:
JapanNewbie <—> Slash and Burn
Both are into Japanese film and mention it as a good way to learn Japanese.
Waikiki2Yanai <—>RisingSunofNihon<— >KeepingPaceInJapan
Great information and experiences related to teaching English in Japan
JapanNewbie <—> Watashi To Tokyo <—>Jamaipanese
Fun posts on Japanese culture and subculture
JapanNewbie <—> Rocking in Hakata
Some great posts translating things (songs, ads, etc.) into Japanese
These are just a few of the connections I came up with in a hurry today. I plan to post more tomorrow. See you then
