Happy New Year everybody! I hope everyone had a great holiday and is looking forward to a good 2008. Starting on February 7, it will officially be the year of the Earth Rat according to the Chinese New Year. As such, mice-related goods can be seen everywhere here in Japan. It’s very different than in the States, where the New Year isn’t given much thought other than to make resolutions and party party party.

Here is a video I took of fireworks New Year’s night that I saw from the balcony of my room in Okinawa. It’s hard to tell, but it is above water.

My resolutions for 2008:
- Read one novel in Japanese: My language skills are at a point where I can watch television comfortably. This year, I want to move on to books.
- Take home things I learned in Japan about appreciating the environment: This means eco bags, water conservation, and bike riding!
- Respect money: I have always been hard up for cash, but I am starting to realize that just because you have extra money, doesn’t mean you should spend it. Likewise, you shouldn’t buy something just because it’s a good deal.

They are simple and perhaps vague, but I think applying general concepts to your way of life is better than achieving little specific goals. What resolutions have you made, if any?

- Saving the Whales? Or Leftover WWII Resentment?
- Music: The Unfortunate Twist by Time Machine
- What's Happening Wednesday
- All Asians Have Beef With Other Asians
- Disney Offers No Dental Plan for Fireflies

How much do you love this environmentally friendly, non-toxic adorable gourd birdhouse?  This was inspired by  the desire to use design for good instead of evil (ie., “trendy” products designed for the moment but will inevitably lay dead in a land fill for ages.)  Hooray for common sense!

- Music: The Unfortunate Twist by Time Machine
- If Only My 5th Grade Teacher Was This Cool
- Font Conference
- The Candle Night Campaign
- Design: Chocolate Themed Nintendo DS Cases

If you haven’t heard of the Diva Cup, then you are in for a treat. The Diva Cup is a environmentally friendly, body friendly, wallet friendly, traveling friendly menstrual solution (shut up, it gets better). It is most certainly one of the best investments I have made this year and I whole-heartedly endorse it.

Read the rest of this entry »

- The Candle Night Campaign
- Japan Bans American Beef...Again
- Happy Earth Day 2008
- Environment: Meat-Eating Chinese and Other Causes of the World's Food Crisis
- Drink Yourself Pretty with Sake Therapy

OK, so you may think you love mother Earth more than the average person, but do you really?  Enter No Impact Man, a blog about a man’s mission to make as little of an environmental impact on the water planet as possible.  That means not buying anything new, composting and recycling the shit out of everything (including shit itself), and mourning over the loss of pigeons.  Quoth the philosophy behind this idea:

Lions neither starve themselves nor gorge to the point of wiping out the gazelle population. Instead, they promote the health of the gazelle herd by culling its weaker members and preventing herd overgrowth which in turn prevents overgrazing of the savannah. Animal waste does not poison the ground but fertilizes the soil so that it can produce more vegetation for the animals to eat. Bees feed on the pollen of flowers but far from damaging them they provide the crucial service of pollinating them.

After reading this blog, I cannot even comprehend the amount of waste we humans produces in our daily lives just going about our business.

While staying here in Japan, I see that cleanliness is embedded into everything–even the streets are so narrow I would be discouraged to even think about buying a car here.  And public transportation is within reach nearly everywhere you go.  Fellow students who are staying with families instead of dorms complain about how their host families have air conditioners, but don’t use them.  Or if they use them, they have to be put on a timer.

This may seem ludicrous to some, but remember that this is a country of limited resources and thus forced to deal with imminent environmental dangers.  That is why our showers in this dorm are constructed so that we have to essentially take a military-style shower: you push a button, the water comes on for about ten or fifteen seconds, and then stops.  You soap up, shave, etc., then push the button again until you get clean.  Makes showering faster and saves a ton of water at the same time.  I haven’t seen any paper towels or napkins since I got here–everyone is expected to carry around their own hand towels to wipe with.  I think these differences are a great example of using what you need, not using things in excess.

Other resources/inspirations:
- Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ways to Simplify Your Life (Zen Habits)
- Life Changes, With a Latte to Go (NY Times)
- Have You Fallen For These 7 Negative Attitudes? (Turn Off Your TV)

- All Asians Have Beef With Other Asians
- The Candle Night Campaign
- Algorithm March...with Ninja!
- Visa Stays are Extended for Those With Japanese Skills
- Happy Earth Day 2008

It seems that men always have a knack for crushing cans.  Against their foreheads, against each other’s foreheads.  Now, they can showcase their masculinity in style with this frog can crusher that is being sold in an online Japanese “Men’s Select Shop” called Cataloger.

If you live in an area where you get refunds according to weight of recycled goods, then this is for you.  Living in an area where cans need to stay intact in order to get a refund, I have no excuse to buy and use this (not to mention that I am not a man.)

- Music: The Unfortunate Twist by Time Machine
- If Only My 5th Grade Teacher Was This Cool
- Font Conference
- The Candle Night Campaign
- Design: Chocolate Themed Nintendo DS Cases

Just by taking a walk outside, one can see how nature inspires designers. Colourlovers.com has a post all about butterflies, complete with stunning photos from Flickr users alongside a little color palette. Beautiful beautiful.

It’s really amazing how everything in nature is very geometrical, such as flowers and bugs. Butterflies are extraordinary in that they are also quite symmetrical and have adapted to their environment beautifully, with complimentary colors and everything. It’s as though they have their own built-in color wheel!

Here’s my contribution to the list (it’s kind of blurry, but I was in a butterfly garden and I was terrified of those things landing on me):

You can see blacks, light pinks, and yellows. It’s appropriately called a Nymph Butterfly–those are exactly the colors I would imagine in some kind of fairy tale. Maybe I will adopt to using butterfly color palettes for my future web designing or art ventures. I guess it’s true that you can find inspiration almost anywhere…!

- Music: The Unfortunate Twist by Time Machine
- If Only My 5th Grade Teacher Was This Cool
- Font Conference
- The Candle Night Campaign
- Design: Chocolate Themed Nintendo DS Cases

I hope all of you are enjoying a marvelous Earth Day. In New England we have been kindly given awesome weather after so much time spending spring in the rain (not that that’s a bad thing!) Here are different ways you can contribute to Earth Day.

Read the rest of this entry »

- The Candle Night Campaign
- Japan Bans American Beef...Again
- Happy Earth Day 2008
- Learn a Language Faster By Slowing Down
- Environment: Meat-Eating Chinese and Other Causes of the World's Food Crisis

Save the Bay is an organization that aims to clean and preserve the San Francisco Bay. Right now they have an ad campaign that features people dressed as animals littering an polluting in front of people, with the slogan “They don’t do it you.” Very powerful stuff!

A leopard shark pours motor oil into an office water cooler, a pelican chases a girl with a plastic six-pack ring, a seal pours garbage onto an elderly couples bed! As featured in Save The Bay’s new ad campaign on BART and MUNI – Bay animals are fighting back!

Now if only more environmentalist groups would follow suit in using dark humor for advertising campaigns. Heads would be turned for sure! Check out Save the Bay’s website for more pictures and videos (and if you live in the area, what you can do to help!)

- The Candle Night Campaign
- Japan Bans American Beef...Again
- Happy Earth Day 2008
- Environment: Meat-Eating Chinese and Other Causes of the World's Food Crisis
- Drink Yourself Pretty with Sake Therapy