Hey guys, prepare for the most boring blog post to date! (I know, how can I top some of those classics…)

I’ve pretty much sorted this blog out for my return to Tokyo now. You can now subscribe via RSS and by email through the ‘Subscribe‘ link in the top right of the blog. Don’t worry if you can’t be bothered to go all the way over there and click, though! Here’s a handy shortcut!

I’m really hoping to get a post every few days whilst I’m there, internet access allowing. Of course, I’m not willing to sit down every night and write huge articles with image editing and what have you in them, but I do want to keep this thing going, partly for you guys but mostly so I can remember what I was up to! The camera is coming with me again, so there will be plenty of photos to gawk at!

I’ve got a project or two lined up whilst I’m there – little things like going back to Yokohama to take more photos of graffiti, and also a video project in the works, but that’s very hush hush right now – mostly because I have no idea what exactly it will entail yet.

If anyone who reads the blog or is involved with JapanSoc or whatever is around in Tokyo, get in contact with me and we will get some Karaoke going or something.

That’s about it. If anyone has any questions do let me know. Now, to save this from being an entirely useless post, I went back through my archive of photos and dug out a few favourites I’ve never posted before and used the magic of iPhoto to make them pretty. Enjoy! (In case you’re wondering – this will probably be the last time I recycle old photos for a while. Probably)

Taken from the bank of the river that runs through Oji. I saw this little guy walking around quite a few times but he never made it into the blog until now. This surely is the start of his career in showbiz.

[From: Two Parks In One Day] Taken in Ueno Park. The trees give the most awesome shadows. I actually posted this picture in the original update, but having played with it I think it looks way better now.

[From: Atami Part 2: Teaching & Eating] Quite similar to another posted photo. I like this one because it’s the only one where all the kids are paying attention. Nearly – notice the kid in the brown shirt at the front. If I see him again I’ll force him to read my entire blog. That’ll show him.

[From: Gentlemen, Start Your, Uh, Engines?] No idea who these guys were, but they won! So good for them!

10 days to go!

Back in January, I posted a short update about JapanSoc, the new social bookmarking site and latest project of Nick Ramsey. That was back in January, not long after it had first kicked off. Now it’s been running for over half a year, I thought I’d give it a review – say what I do and don’t like about it and where I’d like it to go in the future.

As far as popularity goes, the site is doing amazingly. Actually, at the time of writing I don’t have anything to do with JapanSoc on this blog, but now it’s really taken off I’m going to do something about that. It’s pretty much essential for people wanting to read blogs about Japan, and for us bloggers to see what other people are writing about. I’ve discovered some really cool sites through JapanSoc, and as the community is relatively small there’s not too much content, so I do read quite a lot of stuff I never would.

Furthermore, the site is nice and clean, and easy to navigate. If I had to be picky, and I do, I’d have to ask why the theme is orange and not red. I mean, Japan’s official colours are red and white, so it doesn’t make sense really. But that’s not really a huge issue. The JapanSoc ‘soc this!’ buttons are really cool but I wish they came in other colours other than orange, or were offered in different sizes and designs. I know you guys are probably wondering why I don’t shut up and make some myself, but the truth is I have absolutely no idea how to. At all.

The new sumo (most successful members) and Genki (most active members) charts are pretty cool, if only to see who’s contributing a lot to the site. It often reminds me that I need to contribute more myself, but I do worry it encourages people to put too much stuff on the site.

That leads me to my one biggest worry about the site. Whilst most of the content that makes it onto the front page is good, I fear some people, especially when the site gets bigger, will simply post every blog post they do onto the site. I’d hate to have a Digg situation with thousands of stories getting submitted and only three or four being interesting. (Although I’ll be submitting this story, and it’s probably not that interesting….) Perhaps a ‘one/two stories per day’ limit would be good.

Ultimately though, it’s a great site. I mean, it had some teething problems but look – I’ve tried to be pretty harsh here and I’ve come up with a few points, and most of them aren’t even very good. I strongly suggest anyone, blogger or not, to get signed up and involved with JapanSoc.

If you have any suggestions or whatever for JapanSoc, comment here with them and I’ll try to get them across to Nick as soon as I can. Oh, and he totally didn’t pay me to write this post. What? This new car? Oh no, I just found it..

I know it’s taken me a long, long time, but…

I actually remembered not only to take my camera with me today, but also to update my Flickr page. So head over there and tell me what you think! I’m going to be uploading a lot this month, trying to catch up on all of them before the end of May, so keep on checkin’!

I have one new update lined up that I want to write this weekend, and another one in the planning stages, but I’m unsure if it will see the light of day. I know it’s been a bit of a slow month for updates, partly due to exams and partly because I’m really lazy, but obviously it’ll pick up quite a bit when I head over to Japan in 18 days. Wow, that’s not long.

I know, I know. I do one of these posts every couple of months and hardly any of the things I write about actually happen, but this time it’s serious business as I have a trip to Japan coming up and I want to sort things out here before I go.

I have a couple of things I want to do with the site. Here they are, in a handy list!

1. A New Design
Done!

2. Poll
I’m going to have a poll on the site every week or so, and hopefully I can use some of the data I get from them to write updates. Sort of a ‘What Japan Thinks’ approach, but on a much smaller scale. You’ll notice there’s a poll archive link at the top with all the old polls in it. Actaully, whilst you are reading this, why not vote right now on the most important poll ever on Japan Is Doomed? (Incidentally, the only poll so far on Japan Is Doomed…)

3. Forums
I really want a small community for the site, and I’m convinced a lot of the people who comment on here would make fantastic forum members. Maybe one day.

4. New Hosting (& A New Name Possibly)
I’ve been using Dreamhost since 2006 and whilst their service used to be good, these days I find the site loads painfully slowly half the time. I’ve contacted them plenty of times about it but it never seems to get better. If it doesn’t soon, I’ll be moving the whole blog to a new host. I may have to get a new domain if I do that, I don’t know much about moving domains, but it will probably be japanisdoomed.co.uk or something.

5. 日本語
日本語を練習するために、時々日本語でブログ更新を書いてみたい。日本語の間違いがあったら、自然な日本語で説明してください。

6. More Hilarious Photos Of Me

Ok, that was more ‘weird’ than ‘hilarious’, but you get the idea…

So please, if you have any suggestions for anything, post them in the comments of this post. You guys rock so I owe you big time! :)

20 Today!

(19 is gone)

See you at 21!