Nothing But Words

• I read that 1 and 5 internet users also use Twitter. I guess now it's 2 in 5 #
• Maria and the boys left for Prague. Mike is alone for a month. What happens now? #
• What happens is Mike tears the house apart. Today I'll finish the wiring in our re-built sunroom, and tomorrow new kitchen cabinets arrive. #
• Kitchen cabinets arrived today from Ikea, 7 weeks late, and with the wrong doors. Sent them back-we'll see when the right ones arrive. #
• Only after I dig up a huge bed of peppermint do I learn it could have solved all my problems a long time ago – http://phaze.me/f7zy #

I was an early adopter with blogging, but I’m late to the game with Twitter. I finally decided to give it a try: http://twitter.com/mtoppa. Someone in New Zealand already claimed “toppa”, but they only posted once, last October. A perfectly good username gone to waste. I’m sure that soon enough there will be a booming secondary market for Twitter usernames, like there is for domain names.

I waited so long because, at least for me, I didn’t see the point. I don’t think the world is particularly interested in what I ate for lunch, or that I just vacuumed the staircase. But I think it might be useful for sharing thoughts that don’t really call for a full blog post. We’ll see what happens.

I’m using Alex King’s Twitter Tools WordPress plugin to share my tweets in my blog sidebar, and to automatically collect my Tweets weekly into an blog post.

With the new Transformers movie opening today, I feel the need to let all the kids know that Gundam are way cooler than Transformers. There’s one simple reason for this: Gundam are real. They’re not just toys or computer generated images – here are the pictures to prove it .

Gundam statue in Odaiba, from pinktentacle.com Gundam statue in Odaiba, from pinktentacle.com12-Jun-2009 19:40Canon Canon EOS Kiss X2, 10, 24mm, 10 sec, ISO 100

Gundam statue in Odaiba, from pinktentacle.com Gundam statue in Odaiba, from pinktentacle.com12-Jun-2009 18:30Canon Canon EOS Kiss X2, 8, 46mm, 0.005 sec, ISO 200

Kai with a giant Gundam, at a toy store in Ebisu, Tokyo

Kai with a giant Gundam, at a toy store in Ebisu, Tokyo17-Feb-2007 03:17Canon Canon PowerShot S230, 2.8, 5.40625mm, 0.01666666 sec,

These are photos of the recently completed Gundam statue, measuring 60 feet tall and weighing 35 tons. It’s in Odaiba, one of my favorite places in Tokyo. When we were living in Tokyo, Kai was crazy for Gundam, along with at least half of Japan’s male population. We spent many evenings building and gluing model Gundam sets, and we filled a suitcase with them for our trip home. Japanese toy stores – as well as electronics stores like Yodabashi Camera – typically have multiple aisles dedicated to Gundam merchandise.

Many toys and anime from Japan have been successful in the US. It surprises me that the massive, decades-long popularity of Gundam in Japan has not spilled over to the US at all.

The photos above are from this Pink Tentacle post. They also have pictures from last month, partway through its construction.

I’d like to point you to a couple of particularly good blogs for understanding the turmoil in Iran right now. Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council for Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan, provides this context in his blog. His post, Iran’s Political Coup is particularly good. Middle East History Professor Juan Cole is often insufferable, but his blog is a great source of first hand accounts emailed to him from the streets of Tehran. His recent post Class v. Culture Wars in Iranian Elections explains why – when placed in the context of the past 10 years of Iranian politics – the official election results are completely implausible.

It’s also fascinating to see the online battle between the protesters and the Iranian government, with the government shutting down cell phone networks and blocking access to services like Twitter and Facebook. Their goal is to disrupt communication between the protesters, as well as stifle their communication with the outside world. In response, people inside and outside Iran are swarming to set up proxy servers to get around the blocks. CNET News has a good explanation of what’s happening in laymen’s terms.

This morning I uploaded minor upgrades for Shashin and Deko Boko to wordpress.org. The Shashin upgrade adds back the getAlbumList function I inadvertently removed in Shashin 2.3. It provides a non-widget solution for showing a Picasa photo album list in your sidebar. The Deko Boko upgrade offers new translations in Spanish and French, and fixes a small bug in the Settings menu (it would show English as the selected language even if you had picked a different one).

Kai’s classmates signed the board congratulating him for his winning entry in the Young Authors’ Project15-Jun-2009 23:05SONY DSC-W55, 5.2, 18.9mm, 0.025 sec, ISO 320

Kai with his 2nd grade teacher and the school principal, holding his certificate for the Young Authors’ Project15-Jun-2009 23:07SONY DSC-W55, 3.2, 8.2mm, 0.06666667 sec, ISO 320

Kai and his classmates looking at the Young Authors’ Project book15-Jun-2009 23:10SONY DSC-W55, 2.8, 6.3mm, 0.06666667 sec, ISO 320

Yesterday, on Kai’s second-to-last day of 2nd grade, he was awarded a certificate for his winning entry in this year’s Young Authors’ Project. He wrote a story that was one of 97 selected from over 1,000 stories submitted by 1st-8th graders in Delaware County. The winning stories were collected into a book, and Kai was given a copy. His story was one he wrote for a class assignment about manatees:

Manny the Manatee

Have you ever seen me in the shallow rivers of Florida? If not, I’d like to tell you about me.

I’m gray or brown in color, cute and chubby with a paddle shaped tail. If you guessed a manatee, you’re right. I like to sleep and eat almost all day. Uh oh, I hear a motor boat! Let’s hope they see my Manatee Crossing sign!

Now back to my story. If someone is in my river, I like going up to inspect them. Don’t worry, I won’t harm you. I’m very gentle. I have to live in water that is sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit or warmer. I love to eat a lot of different types of grass. They are so tasty! You really need to try them. Speaking of food, it is lunchtime. We’ll see you later.

But, next time you come to Florida, make sure you visit a river. You might get to say “hi” to one of my manatee friends.

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.8, and all of my plugins are working fine with it so far. The only problem I’ve noticed is the headers on the Koumpounophobia modal dialogs are no longer styled correctly, but the functionality is fine. If you notice any upgrade-related problems, please add a comment to this post.

And while I’m here: Shashin was one of five image-related plugins (out of the 285 available at wordpress.org) listed in the Weblogs Tools Collection’s article Five Image Related Plugins for your WordPress Site.

(My blog has been quiet recently as I’ve got a big home renovation project going. I’ll post pictures when it’s done. I may not have the opportunity to blog much this month.)