hmmn: musings from the far east(erwood)
Today some photos of my father-in-law. We like to joke that he is a bit Yakuza-ppoi (meaning there’s a certain Yakuza-ness to his appearance), which the sunglasses and cigarettes seem to highlight. That’s probably why I love the photos of him from this trip where he’s holding the umbrella, which help bring out what a sweet and kind man he really is.
Here’s a bit of housekeeping: I’ve added a new feature to the blog (actually, “feature” is a bit overblown; let’s just say a little widget), in the right-hand margin underneath the latest Moblog post. Basically, it’s a little running list of links I’ve found interesting or worthy of linking to. (There’s nothing much there yet, but give it time).
I pretty much stole the idea from Jason Kottke‘s Remaindered Links sidebar, though in my feeble defense, I’ve been wanting to do something like this ever since I saw Anita Rowland‘s “Daily Crawl,” a long constantly updated list of sites she’s reading (in her left sidebar). (Here’s serendipity for you: just now I checked Anita’s site and see that she just “crawled” me, and I’m listed next to kottke.org!)
I’ve never been much of a “link and run” blogger, but I do come across some things I feel like sharing in case they haven’t “made the rounds.” This new widget allows me to do that without bogging down the main content portion with lots of tiny links all over the place.
(I’ve usurped the name “Of Momentary Interest,” which was my title for non-Japan blogs I read, for this new widget, and renamed the section formerly known as “Of Momentary Interest” the boring but descriptive “Non-Japan Reads.”)
We just experienced what I assume was a very minor earthquake, but which seemed to last an inordinately long time. And of all the earthquakes I’ve felt in Japan (there have been many, including a decent-sized 4.3 magnitude one just yesterday), this is the first one that was accompanied by an aftershock (that I could feel). Kaika slept through it, but there is disquiet in the minds of his parents tonight.
Naoko says that according to early reports being flashed on the TV, in our area of Saitama, the earthquake was only a 3 on the “Shindo scale” that Japan uses to measure quakes, but a 4 in Tokyo. Initial reports indicate the earthquake measured 5.1 magnitude on the Richter scale, and was centered in Chiba prefecture (in the same spot as yesterday’s quake).
UPDATE: Not surprisingly, the quake was jolting enough to compel more than a few of us to post about it: Ore no Buloggu, Tokyo Tidbits, Wirefarm, Cerebral Soup, sajjadzaidi.com, The Blog From Another Dimension, and turquoise all blogged about the temblors.