Can you believe it, another coffee episode already!!! This time recorded completely live over Skype, warts and all. Joined by the illustrious Fred, we talk about his new coffee machine as well as do a short sound tour of some places to drink coffee in Japan. Come along for the ride with us and grab your cup of coffee!

Show Notes:

• Explosive laughing intro
• Fred’s rant about podcasts
• People who talk about how they make podcasts on their podcasts
• Joking about the FindingJapan DVD
• Reminiscing about “Netiquette”
• Why we’re talking about coffee
• Talking about the previous original video episodes before the official FJ episodes started
• The original coffee episode - Episode 21
• Doutor Single Service Packs
• 
• Fred’s New Coffee Machine
• A magical tour of Fred brewing coffee
• Discussion of froth vs. no froth with automatic coffee makers
• Baronette flavored coffee taste test
• Japan Coffee Place Audio Sound Tour Review
• Clip 1 - Starbucks in Asakusa
• Clip 2 - Campus Coffee Shop at Waseda University
• Clip 3 - Excelsior in Ikebukuro
• Clip 4 - Doutor in Ueno Station
• Hot and Cold
• Perhaps a non-coffee related show with Fred about Japan in the future??

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcast [47:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Short video clip from the Tokyo Game Show. I only had my cell phone on me that day so I was only able to get some small video. No narration or commentary, just some sights from the show. Hope you enjoy!

 FJ47 - Tokyo Game Show [2:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Well, I finally did it. I launched a Mogulus channel. But rather than force it on people here, you can check it out at the following link below. Right now, all of the video podcast episodes are in rotation along with some Japanese commercials in-between.
What is Mogulus you ask? Well, its like streaming episodes on ABC except you get my video episodes with cooler commercials instead. It’s worth it just for the Andy Warhol bit! If you are bored, go get a watchin’.

Watch the Finding Japan Mogulus Channel

This link comes in from Scott Lockman over the twitter today. Check this out if you like cool flash animation, Japanese-type drumming, and electronic music. A fun little flash piece for you all to enjoy.

Link to Tokyo Drum Machine

As if actually being in Japan weren’t enough, today I ventured into Second Life today to see what I could find that was Japan related and perhaps find a venue for some more in-depth language practice. This was also to do some research for an upcoming video episode that I wanted to do. More on that later…

I first found this sign on “Help Island”. Pretty encouraging to see the use of Japanese even in the introduction section. This area is like a sandbox and full of just random things.

But I was able to find Japan city pretty easily. I only explored one area since the area I wanted to go to was not available at the time. Notice the grid map over my left shoulder which shows all of the land areas for Japan City. This is my “I am the master of Japanese Text” pose.

In Japan city, I quickly met some people. The person all the way on the right then proceeded to give me some items that I was able to keep - including a maid-cafe thing that follows you around. When you double-click on it, it brings you to a maid-cafe. I could have sworn I saw this guy at Tokyo Game Show. Something fishy here.

Ahh, but certainly like real life. It all goes downhill real quick. This Mr. Slick turned into Ms. Lush and proceeded to drink large beers and stumble around wildly. Though it sounds immature, all interactions were in Japanese so it did have at least some education aspect for me.

Overall, I think Second Life has some potential for learning another language. Japanese support within the program is great and definitely has some advantage to your helping your reading skills. Also, since the last time I have checked out Second Life, there is also voicechat, which makes conversing with people in their language that much easier.

I want to explore some more as I get some free time, but at least for now I’ve gotten myself situated and can find some other areas to practice Japanese in. Now, if I can only find that maid cafe in Akiba… (^_-)/

Seems like this turned out to be the review episode. A Kanji dictionary, a great g4 video podcast to share, and some podcasting software review action. Is this podcast really about Japan?! And why do I mention sheep being on the radio? Find out if you listen here. Let’s go!

Show Notes:

• Intro
• Getting motivated to bring out some more content
• Review of Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten DS Dictionary
• Who should get it
• Where you can get it
• Play Asia
• Features
• G4 Code Monkeys
• Great clip from a great online show
• iTunes RSS Feed here
• Other G4 podcasts
• Review of Ubercaster
• Podcasting tool
• Great functionality
• Poor performance in editing
• Update: Turning off waveforms really helps though
• Update: Ubercaster is now available for a discount, see the site for details.

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcast [37:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Kotaku is reporting that there is an easter egg in Metroid Prime 3 with the voice of Satoru Iwata (President of Nintendo). I understood about 50% of this without the translation. Yay!

Translation according to Kotaku:

Hello, this is Iwata from Nintendo. You may not know from an outsiders point of view, but being a director is really hard! When things are really busy and stressful we (us directors) may look tired and sick, then people may feel sorry for us! But in my case, it’s the opposite, I get fatter and fatter, so then people don’t think I’m stressed at all!

No only if I could understand enough to play entire games in Japanese.

This was too weird not to post. Again this showed up in my del.icio.us trawling and was not something I searched for and was not prepared to see, yet it did intrigue me so.

(direct video link)

Click the link above to download the video. It looks like a series of three mini-commercials. (I call them this because Japanese television is famous for short-short commercials, almost less than 4-5 seconds at times). However, I can’t quite put my finger one what is going on here. Aphex-Twin anyone?

I found a site that seems to be a launch site for either a television show or character, here the character is quite promininent. I also found a bit of research on the origins of the Japanese word Inochi.

Can someone help clue me is as to what is going on here!?! I feel somewhat violated and yet concerned at the same time. If I ever hear a child in Japan singing the song in this video, I think I might run away in fear.

At any rate, enjoy the video. The subtitles are accurate so non-Japanese speakers can enjoy too.

Its coffee time again. Join me for round two of my discussion with Fred on the finer points of Japanese coffee. If you’re not sick of hearing the word “coffee” yet, you will be after this episode. Grab a cup and enjoy!

Show Notes:

• Milk teas, bubble teas, what’s going on here?
• Fred thinks Doutor is the best in the world
• In-shop Doutor iced coffee discussion with Alex
• Internet Cafes / Denny’s Coffee (Millstone)
• Coffee Crown
• Trend of instant coffee

This was recorded a while ago so my outro comments may seem out of context. Hope you like it anyway. Cheers!

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcast [40:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ok ok, now you all know what I’ve been up to when I’m not podcasting. I’m sorry for the farce.

Storm troopers in Akiba!