It is indeed PauseTalk Vol. 42 tonight (July 5), happening as always at Cafe Pause in Ikebukuro from 20:00 (with the space reserved from 19:30). Already looks like we’re going to be a good group, and I know a few ex-PingMagers will be there, so I’m feeling like a post-mortem might be in order.

Above, one of the many photos taken at last month’s edition (Vol. 41), courtesy of Michael Holmes passing around his camera — you can see a gallery here.

To my great surprise at the start of PechaKucha Night Vol. 74 last night, Mark and Astrid invited me on stage and handed me a bottle of Moët & Chandon champaign to celebrate 1,000 posts on the PechaKucha Daily blog. Nice. Although I was rather unclassy and ended drinking most of it at a rather rapid pace…

Sure, it’s hot, humid, and yes, rather wet, but I promise a comfortable air conditioned space — in the guises of Cafe Pause — for this coming Monday’s (July 5) PauseTalk Vol. 41. Start time will be 20:00 as usual, with the place reserved from 19:30. I’ve already heard from a few who plan on coming, so sounds like we’re in for a good evening. Here’s also a link to the Facebook event page.

And hey, let me also mention that this month’s PechaKucha Night (Vol. 74) happens tomorrow night (Wednesday, June 30) at SuperDeluxe, from 20:20. I’ll be sitting up front next to Mark and Astrid as usual. A couple of PauseTalkers will be presenting, including Verena Dauerer (the ex-mistress of PingMag) and Vivienne U.H. Doan (Beautified Taboo).

One thing that’s happened to me over the past few years is that I’ve pretty much stopped taking photos. Sure, the odd iPhone-to-Twitter shot is still a regular occurrence, but in terms of taking photos with a relatively descent point-and-shoot — in my case, a series of Canon PowerShots — either for this site, for other sites, or even just for personal use, that just kinda stopped. You’ll notice it also if you check my Flickr account — except for a little rekindling courtesy of an iPhone/Toy Camera fling last year in Macau, not much has gone up over the past couple of years, to the point where I haven’t even renewed my pro account in years, and this coming from someone who was particularly active there.

So why? That’s a good question, and there are several answers to it. One thing is that I grew dissatisfied with the quality of what I was taking and sharing, but lacked the energy (and money) to move up to decent gear and shoot (yeah, pun sadly intended) for more. It also doesn’t help when you have a lot of friends who are so damn talented when it comes to photography — some would say this can be inspirational, but I’m on the side that tends to think, oh well, better leave this to those who are better at it.

But to be honest, the biggest reason is one that actually affected a lot of the content that you saw appear on this blog, and that’s even pre-SNOW Magazine. It got to a point where I just couldn’t “experience” anything for myself anymore. Every time I was out and about and spotted something interesting, I was immediately composing a blog post in my head about it (even if I had absolutely no intention of writing one) and taking photos to “document” it. This ended up literally getting in the way of my enjoyment of things. Many are sure to say that this is a handy skill to have, and I wouldn’t disagree, but it can also be a negative in the sense that I started losing something rather important, and that’s the pure sense of enjoying the moment/space you occupy.

Sure, this wasn’t just about photography, but I think one way to fix this for me was to remove that part from the equation. And you know what, after a while it did in fact work. I no longer cared which angle of what I was seeing or experiencing would best tell the story.

“OK, Jean, but this post is titled ‘Panasonic Lumix G2,’ no?”

Yes, how perceptive of you.

My wife has been wanting a decent camera for a while now, at first mostly to use for her next field research trip to China, but also to just start taking better photos of the things around her, including of course our dog. She finally pulled the trigger on a purchase yesterday and ended up getting the aforementioned Panasonic Lumix G2, the follow-up to the company’s G1, the camera that kicked off the whole “Micro System” craze. For months I’d been suggesting to her the GF1, in part because of Craig Mod’s amazing field test article, but also because at least 5-6 of my friends ended up buying one, to great satisfaction. She was able to get something a bit better — the GF1 is sort of a paired-down more compact version of the G2 (or rather its predecessor, the G1).

So this means we have a nice new camera in the house, and she says I’ll be able to use it when I want — although there seems to be some sort of unwritten rule stating that such sharing will happen after a fixed amount of time. The prospect of learning photography has me rather excited, and despite my fears of getting back to that sense of always being in reporter mode, I’m thinking that it will help get some more original (not reblogged) content on SNOW Magazine.

To be fair, I also have a feeling that the iPhone 4 is going to help with that. I finally got around to ordering one yesterday — the wait will take up to a month though — and from the examples I saw in this Boing Boing post, I think it will make for a great device when you’re in a pinch. But more than just the camera, it’s the prospect of HD video recording that has me excited, and I’m hoping that you’ll see the results on SNOW as well — and hey, that G2 takes some pretty decent HD videos too, just look at what Craig was able to get out of his GF1.

Next up is moving to some more serious photo editing tools — iPhoto and quick Photoshop touch-ups have been fine so far, but I want to move up. After asking about Adobe Lightroom versus Apple Aperture on Twitter, the feedback was overwhelmingly pro-Lightroom, and Adobe certainly makes it easy for you to try it out for yourself. It seems that Lightroom 3 was actually released just recently, so looks like I’m hopping on at a good time.

What you see at the top of this post is just me having fun with some of the filters in Lightroom, on a photo my wife took of me this morning — this is pretty much what I look like, and where I find myself, everyday. Funny how adding a vignette/sepia filter makes everything look oh-so serious. Looking at the photo, I really feel like a hard-working writer. Yeah.

I may not have talked about it a lot here on the blog, but I’ve certainly tweeted a bunch over the years my love for tonkatsu spaghetti, which I get at this great little pasta joint in Ikebukuro (not far from Cafe Pause) called Nobu. I like it so much I’ve even added the place to the next editions of The Rough Guide to Tokyo and Japan.

Here’s beautiful shot of the meal in question, taken the other day by Hiyoko Imai — a fellow GOOD person.

Just posted the 1000th post on the PechaKucha Daily blog — that’s a lot of posts. Sure, there were a few up there before I started, but I must be responsible for at least 99% of them. If you didn’t know, yeah, that’s one of the things that I do as part of my PechaKucha duties, trying to keep a lookout on happenings across the 300+ cities that host PKNs worldwide.

Very nice to see that when my friend Jeriaska decided to interview Michiru Yamane, composer to the Castlevania series, he did so at Cafe Pause here in Ikebukuro. You can read the full interview here, as part of his “Chiptuned” column on the 1UP site.

Rush is a cool new iPhone game based on the terrific Arkedo series of games (especially the third one, Pixel!) that came out on Microsoft’s Indie Games service for the Xbox 360. Why do I bring it up here? Well, the company behind it, Pix’n Love, is also the publisher of the French edition of Arcade Mania, which is pretty damn neat.

Again, thanks to everyone who made it out to this week’s PauseTalk Vol. 41 — we were a smaller group this time, around 17 or so I think, but I believe a good time was had by all. As I mentioned before, I’ve decided to bring back the attendance sheet, and so the attendees listed below are the ones who gave me their info to be listed here. Also, I know there was a camera being passed around, so we should get lots of photos sometime soon — probably best to check the Facebook group, as I imagine they’ll show up there first.

And just to clear things up, the gaming industry-themed PauseTalk happening this summer will not be held as a regular edition (or on the first Monday), but instead will be its own thing. More details to follow as we settle on a date. The next regular edition (Vol. 42) happens July 5.

• Ayako (Shodo Artist)
• David Steinberg (Game Developer/Musician)
• Edward Harrison (Designer/Illustrator)
• Felicity Hughes (Writer)
• Jean Snow (Good Person)
• Jeremie Nuel (Graphic Designer)
• Jody Godoy (Writer)
• Kumi (Interior Coordinator)
• Magdalene Klosek (Architect)
• Martin Holtkamp (Photographer)
• Maryan Zalusky (Art Direction and Design)
• Michael Holmes (Whatever)
• Rasa Tsuda (Online Gallerist)
• Robb Englin (Industrial Designer)
• Steve Curcuru (Storyboards/Illustrator)
• Vivienne U.H. Doan (Architect/Artist)
• Will Goodan (Art Direction and Everything)

Just a reminder that PauseTalk Vol. 41 is tonight at Cafe Pause, from 20:00. See you there!

Yesterday after getting lunch at the nearby Maison Kayser — it’s the one located inside Ikebukuro’s Sunshine City with a terrace, so it’s dog-friendly — we decided to just start walking, with the general idea of heading towards Iidabashi. Three wards later (Toshima, Bunkyo, and Taito) we ended up not only stopping for a drink at the very enjoyable Canal Cafe (you sit outside by Kanda river), we continued on to Yasukuni shrine. We wanted to end up at Sanbancho Cafe — it’s also dog-friendly — but there was a wedding reception in full effect, so no go. But the epic walk was an enjoyable one — despite some feet dragging on my part towards the end because of fatigue — and we’ve realized that it’s something we want to start doing more often. It gives us a chance to get out and about without having to leave the dog at home in his cage, which he doesn’t much like.

Pictured, photos taken by my wife near Yasukuni shrine, showing my dog Confiture simply hanging out. I think we should start a regular series of these, with him checking out various parts of Tokyo.

Oh, hey, it’s time to start thinking about PauseTalk again! Yes, Vol. 41 is just around the corner, happening this coming Monday (June 7) at Cafe Pause with the regular start time of 20:00 (the space is reserved from 19:30, so feel free to come early). We all had a blast at last month’s Vol. 40, and again, thank you all for showing up and celebrating that “anniversary” with me. Also, I’ve had a few requests for a return of the attendee lists, so at this month’s event I’ll prepare a sign-up sheet for those who want to be listed on the PauseTalk website and here.

As promised, here we are with a brand new episode of Radio OK Fred (22), the “Robot” episode. Yes, that’s us trying to act cyborg-like with a few wires sticking out — and from the looks of it, I’m a pretty broken machine I think. Below is the link to download the episode as well as the playlist, and you can subscribe to a feed too.

Radio OK Fred 22 (50MB)

1. Kraftwerk – “The Robots”
2. Prefuse 73 – “Robot Snares Got No Cadence or Balance”
3. RJD2 – “Chicken-Bone Circuit”
4. Playdoe – “Neolectro Afrobotic”
5. La Chatte – “Cosmique Cosmétique”
6. Universal Robot Band – “Dance and Shake Your Tambourine”
7. Cornelius – “Brazil”
8. Röyksopp – “The Girl and the Robot”
9. James Kochalka – “Monkey vs. Robot”
10. Breakbot – “Happy Up Here (Breakbot Remix)”
11. Dan Deacon – “Jimmy Joe Roche”
12. Born Ruffians – “I Need a Life (Four Tet Remix)”

Don’t you just hate posts that refer to the lack of posts on a blog? Oh well, such is what you must deal with on occasion, as your humble blogger feels the need to assure everyone that it “ain’t dead yet.”

I’m coming off what has a been quite a project — it’s no secret that I’m a contributor to the upcoming updates to The Rough Guide to Tokyo and Japan, set to come out in early 2011. I still have a bit of follow-up work to do, but the bulk of it was handed in the other day, and so suddenly I have a bit more breathing room.

Throughout this I continue with my work for PechaKucha — for those who don’t know, part of what I do there is update the PechaKucha Daily blog, but I do a lot of stuff on the administrative side of things as well. And without going into details, I can tell you that I’m lining up a lot of interesting things for PK this year, and I can’t wait to see it come to fruition, and be able to share it with everyone.

Part of this involves the fact that this year I’ve associated myself with Amsterdam-based art director Luis Mendo, a good friend I’ve mentioned on this blog a few times, and who I met just last year when he came to Japan for a 3-month “inspirational retreat.” Luis runs his own company, GOOD Inc., for which he pulls help from the Goodfellas Network, an amazing collection of potential collaborators who work in pretty much all fields. Not only am I a “Goodfella” — both professionally and personally, me thinks — but me, Luis, and graphic designer and artist Hiyoko Imai have formed a Japan branch of GOOD Inc. Our expertise is magazine-related production, so do get in touch if you are interested in working with us. And yes, we are currently developing something PK-related (which is how this paragraph came about).

Other than that, SNOW Magazine continues at a fine pace, and if you missed it, here’s a media kit we recently put together for the site — it includes details about advertising on the site, both pricing and placement, as well as a few reasons on why you might want to do so. I’m of course very excited about the upcoming “SNOW Magazine Cafe” event as well, and have already gotten lots of amazing contributions — imagine my surprise when the first email I received after announcing it came from The New York Times Magazine! If you’d like to participate, please get in touch. Oh, and there’s a great collaboration with the site Poolga coming too.

I think that’s enough for now. Yes, I’ve got my hands in other things — of course — and I’ll try to cover more of it here in the days/weeks to come. For all you Radio OK Fred fans, a bit of good news: me, Ay2, and Yoshi are getting together next Wednesday to record a new episode, so expect that to be online very soon (very likely on that day).

It’s been a while since we’ve had photos to share from a PauseTalk, so big thanks to Martin Holtkamp for sending me these from last night’s edition (Vol. 40).