the.[ED]ition

For those of you interested in photojournalism at its finest, I highly recommend you check out the World Press Photo exhibition, which features some of the best award-winning photos taken by some of the world’s foremost photographers, ranging from a study on people who work at a circus to disturbing images from hotbed warzones. There are even photos taken before, during and after the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The exhibition in Tokyo at the Metropolitan Museum of Photography also had a sort of video memorial to Kenji Nakai, a Japanese photojournalist who was killed during an anti-government protest in Myanmar. Sorry, I can’t find a site for him since I can’t spell his name in Japanese but if someone finds it, please let me know.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. There’s a very good and actually a little funny exhibit on the people’s faces at the finish line of a marathon that garnered a few snickers and a photographer who took pictures of microscopic organisms.

But the majority of the photos featured work by war photographers as well as those that delve into the less desirable areas of the world, including one photographer’s study of adults who were sexually harassed as children and another’s pictures of dead animals who were hunted in the arctic. However, this is the nature of photojournalism, really. These should be pictures that inform you of what is happening in our world and make you think about the important issues they represent.

I highly recommend you check it out if the exhibit is available in your city. The full list of dates can be found here. Unfortunately for those of you in Vancouver, it will not be coming to our great city. In fact, the closest it gets is Montreal (Aug 29th - Sept 28th) and Ottawa (Aug 1st - 24th). In fact, there are only three North American dates that I see here, with the third being New York (right now…til July 17th!). If it isn’t available, you can see most of the winning photos on the official site. Maybe that’s because World Press Photo is based out of Amsterdam. But if you’re a photographer or if you’re interested in world events, then definitely give it a look.

After a long day last week, I ate at a little curry place on the bottom floor of a department store n Shinjuku. It wasn’t as epic as our curry in Taipei (if Stephen will ever get around to showing people that video) but the rice omelette with curry was quite good. Afterwards, I walked around and saw an interesting dessert stand selling mochi, which are basically flavored rice paste. They were sold as three pieces of a skewer for 105yen so I thoght, why the hell not? I’m not big on desserts, really but for a buck I’ll try it.

In my poor gaijin-esque Japanese, I asked “One, please.” and pointed at the skewers. The cheerful lady behind the counter told me how much it was and accepted payment. Honestly, I thought she would just hand me one or put it in a small paper pouch or something. I mean, I don’t know what I’m buying…I just want to give it a try. Instead, she proceeded with what was probably the most elaborate wrapping scheme I’ve ever seen for such a cheap item.

She first put it into a small plastic wrapper, then into a small plastic box. The small plastic box is first taped once on each side and then once all around. With the small plastic box now impossible to open conveniently, I expected her to now hand that to me. No, instead the box goes into a small plastic bag and then bound with a rubber band. The box now more secure than Fort Knox…now goes into a disproportionately large plastic bag. All this for a 105 yen mochi skewer that I was going to eat near immediately.

Now I sort of know the reasoning behind some of this. Not only are Japanese people incredibly tidy and want all products to be sealed in ways that would survive the end of the world but you are expected to take things home before use.

Tip #1 for travelers going to Japan: Do not eat while you’re on the go. Do not eat while walking, while riding a bike and especially not on the train. Doing so is rude and while I suspect they don’t expect us silly foreigners to abide by these regulations…we shouldn’t do it anyways. It’s okay to stand or sit somewhere and eat but not while you’re moving. I found a nearby table to try to solve the impossible puzzle that was my mochi and…well, it tastes exactly how you’d expect, really.

It was okay…I liked that it wasn’t too sweet and the green one was actually pretty nice.

But aren’t we supposed to be trying to clean up our act here? What’s with all the excessive plastic wrapping in Japan? Whenever I buy the smallest thing, people want to put it in bags for me even though I’m usually carrying my messenger bag with me and seem puzzled when I request that they not give me a bag (which is usually taped shut…and then sometimes put into a slightly larger bag).

Please, people of Japan…I’m not exactly the biggest environmentalist on the planet but even I know needless waste when I see it.

That being said, I highly recommend that you all read the latest issues of Wired and GQ, which have some very interesting articles on the myths and reality of saving our planet.

While it may appear like Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton are duking it out in the Democratic primary races, we now all know the truth. True story.

With a press release today, Toshiba officially announced that they would no longer be producing anything HD-DVD, ending the format war with Sony’s Blu-Ray. They also said that they had no plans to produce Blu-Ray products for the time being and all HD-DVD production will cease in March. This is probably bad news for anyone who shelled out the cash for a HD-DVD player or Microsoft’s HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360. I admit, I was lured by the attractive price tag as well but now I’m glad I decided to wait awhile before going in either direction. I saw some HD-DVD players at local stores today going for $129. Of course, they’ll all be entirely useless as there won’t be any new titles on them.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

This ends months of speculation as studio after studio jumped ship and ran to Sony but I think the real nail-in-the-coffin was the recent announcement that Wal-Mart would exclusively back Blu-Ray.

This is, however, good news for consumers (well, maybe not the consumers that shelled $600 for a HD-DVD player) since we now know what to buy and maybe prices will continue to fall. I, for one, will now be picking up a PS3…although I might wait for that cool white one to be released.

I say almost because it’s not finalized as far as I know but all parties have agreed on the deal and the freakin’ Writer’s Strike, which has deprived us of everything on TV for the last couple months, is finally all but over. Many believe that the upcoming Oscars and the canceled Golden Globes had a big impact on the decisions made but I really can’t see why. I know some people make a big fuss about awards shows but I can’t see why. Why watch four hours of boring speeches? I prefer to just read about them in the paper the next morning.

Anyways, let’s hope this means all our favorite shows like The Office, How I Met Your Mother and Heroes can return and we can all stop rotting our brains with all this god forsaken reality television and…ugh, Prison Break.

Not quite sure what the deal entails but the strike was over profit sharing on digital media such as…say…television show episodes downloaded off iTunes and the sort. Hopefully the cease-fire lasts so we never have to deal with this crap again.