What a mess

East Bay residents: What's wrong with this picture? Discuss.

Diet Coke Plus

Holy Mother of God, why wasn't I informed of this? Diet Coke with vitamins!

Tried it today and it wasn't bad -- somewhat sweeter than regular Diet Coke, which I didn't care for much. Next, can they infuse steaks with veggie-goodness?

Bedroom Haiku

Bright Halogen Lamp
So Hot Flies Incinerate
Smells Just Like LASIK

Made in China (sometimes Taiwan)

Wow, I'm going to start factory OEMing all my stuff. Try queries like [mp3 players] and [strollers]. Or, how about a bus?

Trunki!

This was a darned good purchase. Went over well at both ends of our flight, although in retrospect it was kinda recklessly dangerous to let the kid ride it on the moving walkways.

Free Upgrade on United Airlines

If you are...

* Flying on UA before 5/31/2007
* Going far (preferably over 6 hours, bonus points for overnight flights)

... I have a systemwide upgrade certificate that's turning into a pumpkin at the end of May. Contact me for a free upgrade.

Back in Cali

... where a whole giant tub of strawberries costs $5!

Arrived 12 Noon yesterday, went to bed at a seemingly normal time, and woke up at... 2 PM today! The older kid and I just slept FIFTEEN freaking hours. Hoping tomorrow AM would be more normal.

I am everyday people

Throughout the vacation we noticed ourselves as categorically the worst-dressed families in the residence. Most people in central Tokyo just don't loaf around in fleece, jeans, and sneakers.

On my friend Chris' advice I looked in the garage one day, and the sight there had me snapping some poorly focused cameraphone pictures. Hey, an SLR:


Great. Now our cars are fuddy-daddy too.

(Here's an supplemental link for all you non-car people.)

As a bonus, this exotic car dealership Bingo Sports was down the street from us; during our stay there they turned over a lot of wacky cars!

My Vacation Map

Here's our Tokyo vacation map, a work in progress:


View Larger Map

More Amazing Deliveries

We've been sourcing the baby's diapers from Amazon Japan, and the delivery times are just staggeringly fast. Free shipping means next day delivery. And for an extra JPY 600, you get same-day delivery. Hats off to the distribution system!

Amazing Deliveries

The laptop showed up today, and I'm back up and running with a new motherboard. (Video controller failed, replaced Planar M10-GL128GBE w/ TCPA 39T5495)

Kudos on the amazingly quick service turnaround by Lenovo Japan!

Pink!

The whole town came up pink, and it's much warmer now. Gets people coming out in full-body tiger costumes.