OK, after the false re-start a couple of days ago I have finally re-wiped everything and reinstalled from scratch, and finally figured out the correct way to import the old database with ALL Asian language text intact. We had some good discussion going on the “welcome back” thread over the past few days, so as I promised I’ll just post the archive of that below, so everyone can re-read their own comments for fun long into the future.
Category: Personal/Blog News
Blog software goofiness
We’ve been having some shaky operation here at Mutantfrog over the past week or two. Currently everything seems to be operating normally, but anyone encountering error messages, or having trouble getting their comments to appear, should send us a message.
Mutantfrog?
I apologize if the following entry is excruciatingly boring, concerned as it is with matters of blog history administration, so please indulge me at your pleasure, gentle reader.
I started “The Mutant Frog Travelogue” a few years ago back when I was studying abroad here in Japan, just to keep family and friends up to date on what I was doing without having to send out mass emails and so on. At the time I was just hosting it on my university web space, (still online at www.eden.rutgers.edu/~royb, despite the fact that I can no longer log in and update it!) and using Blogger (being a Blogger user when Gmail launched got me an invitation to the first stages of the highly restricted semi-open Beta, which was pretty cool) and I had virtually no readership. I blogged off and on over there for a few months, but it was really nothing more than a livejournal style collection of occasional personal news and amusing news clippings, and I had already gotten bored and stopped updating when my friend Adam, who had been on the same study abroad program, asked me to help him set up his own blog devoted to translation of Japanese news articles.
After Adam had been running his blog for a couple of months I decided i would be fun to try again, put together a wordpress based blog on www.mutantfrog.com, and began posting here. Adam’s blog the time was still using Blogger, and hosted at an impossible to remember URL on Verizon, and we decided to merge operations on my new blog, which was using a domain that I had just happened to register based on an old online handle. Eventually, Joe Jones, who had been on the same Rotary study abroad as Adam in high school and also had his own blog, joined Mutantfrog. We were briefly joined by a mysterious fourth member, who wrote anonymously as “Saru” for a few months before circumstances led him to stop public blogging.
Over the couple of years this blog has been in existence, and particularly the past few months, our regular readership and volume of discussion has steadily grown and feedback is almost always positive, but there are some name related issues that have been bothering us about the blog lately.
First of all, name confusion. It is a far too common occurrence that someone, whether a reader or another blogger linking to us or a particular post on our site, attributes a post written by one person to the name of another, perhaps not realizing that this is a group blog and that there are in fact multiple authors. This is of course compounded by the fact that I post under my Mutantfrog handle, which is also the name of the blog.
Problem: How should the blog be revised to make authorship of individual posts clearer?
Second, in a related matter, the name I post under. I am currently thinking about trying to get into graduate school to do research on topics related to some things I post about here, and the blog is of course useful for making contacts and perhaps even having people recognize my name. Unfortunately, as Joe pointed out to me earlier today, I do not actually post under my own name but my handle. I DO have my real name (Roy Berman) on the sidebar by the email link, but I think that Joe is probably right when he suggests that virtually no one will notice that.
Problem: Should I sign posts and comments as Mutantfrog, Roy Berman, Mutantfrog (Roy Berman), or what?
Third, the name of the blog. I haven’t really liked the name “Mutant Frog Travelogue” for quite a while. I chose that title when it was intended to be mainly just a personal travelogue, but it isn’t that at all and could use a new title. Also, as Joe says “Mutantfrog is a fun name, but it’s hard to use it with a straight face when you’re talking to, say, a guy who finances stadium developments.” Is, as Joe believes, “Mutantfrog.com” just too silly a name to put on the CV/resume of a lawyer, a translator, a journalist, an academic, or whatever job any of us are applying for? While changing the domain name is impractical, since that would break all existing links and squander our decent google ranking, changing the displayed title is totally feasible and perhaps a good idea.
Problem: What should this blog be named?
I’ve been saying for months and months that I would be building a new template/layout for the blog and finally adding some useful features such as an “About” page, and so I would very much appreciate any feedback related either to these specific aforementioned issues, or blog design and content in general.
Green Tea Donuts at Mr. Donut and my first steps toward life in Japan
I’ll be moving back to Japan in April after spending nearly 4 years living in the US and Thailand. Even though I’ve spent the entire time preoccupied with events in Japan and working as a Japanese-English translator, not to mention living with Mrs. Adamu, I feel I must try and brace myself for some of the conventions that I had once been used to. Today, when I placed a call to the local branch of the Funabashi City Hall to inquire about marriage procedures, the man who dealt with me (not sure if he was in charge of marriage registrations or dealing with foreigners) spoke in that endearing Pidgin Japanese where the main vocabulary is replaced by katakana English but the grammar and verbs remain in Japanese. Some people would have been annoyed by the use of such language, especially those who have spent years trying to learn Japanese such as myself. But I’ve gotten used to it and don’t mind as long as the people are nice and give me what I want. And I’m sure that this person has dealt with many foreigners with limited/nonexistent Japanese ability. My only issue was that the man wouldn’t answer a few simple questions, launched into a tortured explanation of the process that I was already aware of, and insisted I let him talk to my ‘garufurendo’ ‘dairektuo ni’. Blech.
Anyway, speaking of blech, Mr. Donut is offering a new limited edition maccha (green tea) flavored donut until the beginning of April. Behold:
They have infused their ‘old fashioned’ type donut with maccha essence. I usually like maccha-flavored stuff, but this looks like they’ve gone and ruined their best donut. This development just reminds me that Mr. Donut and Krispy Kreme will be catering to a distinctly different set of customers. I look forward to trying them both when I get back (there is Mr. Donut in Thailand but it sucks).
(Link/pic via J-Cast news)
Joe’s “Eurasia Odyssey”
Here’s a little trip I’m planning for August:
If you’re asking “why,” “how” or “I wanna go, too,” more after the jump. Continue reading Joe’s “Eurasia Odyssey”
The Joe reading list
I’ve been using Google Reader for the past few months to monitor some of my favorite blogs and news sites. I follow 10 to 15 sites at any one time. More than that, and I don’t have enough time to read it all: less than that, and I feel uninformed.
My list changes regularly, since the quality of feeds (and my interest in them) varies over time. Here’s what I’m currently watching. Continue reading The Joe reading list
Correction & the latest on white collar exemption
In my earlier post ““White Collar Exemption” and the danger to the LDP” I noted that Chief Cabinet Yasuhisa Shiozaki remarked that the government would try and submit bills that would make it possible to exempt workers making more than 9 million yen from overtime payment. I originally said that the move would affect 20,000 people, but that was a typo. It would actually affect 200,000 people. And as this new article from Asahi Shimbun notes, some politicians with sense don’t want to anger 200,000 voters 6 months before a major election:
Despite concerns about a backlash from voters, the government plans to submit legislation to the Diet that would introduce U.S.-style working rules exempting tens of thousands of white-collar workers from overtime pay.
Ruling coalition officials said pushing the so-called white-collar exemptions for labor standards would hurt them in this summer’s Upper House election.
However, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki reiterated on Thursday that the government would submit the legislation to the Diet session scheduled to start later this month.
“We are making efforts now to move in that direction,” Shiozaki said at a news conference.
To alleviate concerns among ruling coalition officials, labor minister Hakuo Yanagisawa met with Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Shoichi Nakagawa and others Wednesday and explained the broad outlines of the proposed legislation.
Yanagisawa said the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare was contemplating applying the white-collar exemption to workers making more than 9 million yen a year and who have discretion over their work responsibilities.
Yanagisawa said that under those conditions the new exemption would affect only about 200,000 workers, or about 0.4 percent of the total working population of 54 million.
Those employees will not be paid overtime allowances even if they work more than the legal standard of eight hours a day or 40 hours a week.
Continue reading Correction & the latest on white collar exemption
We got hacked
Our wordpress index.php file was filled with “animal sex” spam… I reset the file, but I don’t know what the security vulnerability is. So we’re back up for now, but might not be some time soon. Let’s hope no more jackholes try to interrupt our fun.
A brief look at free English-language online sources on Japanese politics
Happy New Year, everybody. 2006 was Mutant Frog Travelogue’s 2nd year of existence and a good one for a number of reasons: our readership has surged, we’ve been dubbed a top 10 Japan blog, and most importantly we have learned a lot in the process, both through researching for blog posts and through reader comments. Loyal readers: thanks for the support. Newcomers: Stick with us!
We don’t pretend to offer anything but whatever inspires us to click the Publish button, but we do hope you’re interested in what we have to say. Of course, you wouldn’t want to use this site as a main source for information, especially since there are much more comprehensive and professional sites out there.
For example, if you want information on Japanese politics in the English language, there is a wealth of sources to consult. For background, you can consult Wikipedia or the CIA World Fact Book to brush up on the basics or find papers by various experts in the field (the two best sources I am aware of: JPRI and Japan Focus), all free of charge.
On top of that, the Japanese government (such as METI’s think tank RIETI and MOF’s research institute, the websites of the various political parties, especially the LDP, as well as every ministry and agency’s English websites) and various think tanks (Keidanren, Daiwa, and other corporate-sponsored tanks are often quite interesting though they often focus more on the economy) provide much of their research and information in English free of charge.
To find out what’s happening now, there are several excellent English-language sources that are either straight, on-the-scene reporting or translations thereof: Japan Times, Asahi, and Yomiuri all offer different perspectives on daily events. Though you often won’t get the “story behind the story” you can nevertheless keep yourself informed of the details. And if you’re looking for a lighter side of the news, there’s even Mainichi’s WaiWai section that includes many translations of weekly magazine articles, rife with speculation and sensationalism.
And then there are various sites run by foreigners with a particular axe to grind or focused interest. The source most narrowly focusing on politics is the Japan Considered Podcast, run by a veteran Washington Japan policy hand Robert Angel. And there are plenty of others: the people at the new TransPacificRadio take a comprehensive look at the latest news, Debito has a blog chronicling developments surrounding Japan’s treatment of foreign residents, Marxy keeps an eye on pop culture and its gatekeepers, and (until last year at least) Japan Media Review took a look at Japan’s news media industry and let us know how awful the kisha club system is.
Even compared with 2 years ago, the amount of good information out there has become almost staggering. So with so many great resources out there, what can I, Adamu, offer? Biting analysis? Not so much. I try, but there’s a lot I need to learn about Japan, and I feel that I lack a certain perspective by not actually living in the country. In essence, I try to give you two things: (1) My observations as someone who follows the news in Japan with an almost religious devotion; and (2) Translations of interesting articles that would otherwise never find their way to an English-speaking audience. And if you think the increase in freely available Japan information in English was impressive, the surge in Japanese-language online content is even more staggering. It’s not as impressive as the revolution that’s occurred in the US: Japanese newspapers have not followed their American counterparts in posting their entire contents online, for starters. But that may only be a matter of time, and meanwhile there’s enough to keep me busy in my offtime at least.
Terrorist attacks in Bangkok
This is what I’ll be returning to next week:
A series of bombs exploded Sunday evening December 31, 2006, and Monday morning, January 1, 2007 in several locations in the Bangkok metropolitan area. The explosions killed two persons and caused numerous injuries. The US Embassy has confirmed that no American citizens were injured or killed in the explosions.
The Department of State and the American Embassy in Bangkok urge all American citizens in Bangkok to stay indoors whenever possible, to avoid all public gatherings, and to remain extra vigilant as they travel in and around Bangkok. Please monitor local news channels or CNN for further information.
They hit a police box near the Big C supermarket in Saphan Kwai. That’s where I shop! I think my life from now on will be a straight line from my apartment to the fried rice restaurant, at least for the time being.