No sleep till Fukushima.
I have successfully infiltrated the Hakodate Comfort Inn common area and am currently interloping their continental breakfast.
Hokkaido night train.
Hakodate.
Today. Hakodate-bound; hunting a whale.
#DONDA
Natasha VC: Google Spider of Anxiety
Google has those crawlers or spiders that scurry around the internet all day to find keywords and phrases to put into it’s system or whatever. The Google spider goes all the time. I have always felt this is a great metaphor for anxiety. When I don’t feel anxious or actively melancholy, the Google spiders go scurrying. They go all around my brain and look for key events and memories that could trigger a dark mood and put it all back into my system. After years of seeing an analyst (and just getting older) I can sense when the Google spiders are on the move. Some times the spiders unsuccessful but they are very rarely still.
The future: Thousands of invisible spiders crawling across your digital corpse, ad infinitum.
Darth Vader as you’ve never seen him before; as a cheeseburger, entering your mouth, sliding down your throat and then being processed through your digestive system.
Top ten cultural products of 2011, in alphabetical order:
Always informative, often mesmerizing, this is the internet done right.
Al-Jazeera Live
Many late nights were spent this spring and summer smoking cigs and watching history unravel on their livestream. Their coverage this year gave one the impression that you were truly bearing witness to significant world events. As opposed to most news networks, which just ruin everything with their parade of assholes.
Breaking Bad
I wasn’t enthralled with the previous seasons, but they hit a lot of high notes this year.
Misha Glenny remains one of the most impressive journalists in the game.
The show was so-so, but this video sliced deep in a really good way. A moment of insight where one could see the past and present with the utmost clarity. Like mmm … everything felt so real the first time I watched it that I got kind of dizzy and wanted to call up that girl that got away and do mushrooms and go shopping for used furniture.
Drive
First of two films I watched back to back this year. And I had a really weird dream about Carey Mulligan last night.
Game of Thrones
I derived much pleasure from watching this, and the finale? Tits and dragons? come on. That’s television sorcery.
Financial crisis as disaster film. Second of two films I watched back to back this year. Quite a silly film in many ways, but very well constructed, with a few standout performances.
Interesting tour of the global black market. With a lot of ink and paper spent on economic analysis this year, this was one of the few originals that covered new territory.
Watch the Throne
At first I resisted due to my preternatural distaste for Kanye West. But once I let my guard down it was on repeat for the better part of a month.
Honourable mention: One Cup Ozeki mini, because getting a buzz on for just $1 is a beautiful thing.
the neighbourhood watchdog
Dear Leader’s funeral X Black Mirror X Asahi Super Dry
Traditional Japanese breakfast #3 (grilled cheese w/discount saké)
