Andrew Currie on Posterous

Just over four months ago yours truly began a grand experiment with Posterous, the anti-aggregator. That experiment is now complete.

Whereas lifestreaming, as seen on the likes of FriendFeed and MyBlogLog, pulls in content from disparate sources for reading on a single page, Posterous does quite the opposite -- blasting out the same content to multiple destinations.

In my original defence of Posterous I wrote of my desire to hit people where they live -- i.e. let folks comment on my shit in the online spaces where they're already active. But in practice it hasn't quite worked out that way. While I've gained a couple of followers on Blogger (scroll down to the very bottom of the page) a single post on WordPress (with a shout-out on Twitter) has generated more discussion than the combined comments everywhere else -- including right here on Posterous!

I won't be abandoning Posterous altogether, but from this point onwards all content will originate from my WordPress.com blog -- at least until I launch my brand-new site in 2010 8-)

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A heartfelt thanks to Q-Taro and his lovely girlfriend for ensuring that the penultimate meal of my trip around the around wasn't McDonald's...

After an afternoon of shopping I got the call to head out to Umegaoka Station on the Odakyu rail line. A short trip that should have taken 15 minutes instead took over an hour, partly because I couldn't actually find the Odakyu line in the cavernous Shibuya station, partly because I took the express train instead of the local and overshot my destination and partly because email wasn't working on my N86, due to lingering connection settings from Taipei.

None of this ultimately mattered, because by the time I got to where I was supposed to be my fellow diners were 45 minutes in to an hour-long wait for a table at Midorisushi.

Though we sat down for raw fish one of friendly staff talked us into this rather large cooked tuna jaw:

Once you scraped the meat off the bone it was a lot more tender than you'd think!

After that massive appetizer and an assortment of fresh-from-the-sea sushi (which I unfortunately neglected to photograph) it was time for dessert -- (from the left) black sesame, green tea and sweet potato ice cream. There was but a single order of the black sesame left and it was supposedly the tastiest of the three. As the guest I was given the honour of devouring it but I shared because I'm cool like that...

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Though Japan's kick-ass keitai aren't really suitable for export, there's plenty of other stuff that is. Here are some highlights from my Tokyo stopover:

It's not only white phones that I like... Here's a collection of man-purses from Wise-Walker on display at the fashionable Tokyu Hands -- specifically the Shibuya location near my hotel.

These neoprene netbook/laptop sleeves were also pretty cool. I might have picked one up but truth is my Eee PC fits in my Porter bag just fine.

I was also quite thrilled to find an ample supply of phone ninjas in Asakusa, exactly where I had purchased them some three years ago. No white ones, though. :(

And not being the selfish type I had to make my way back to this crazy cat store in Odaiba so I could bring back something for my boy. They had an interesting selection of humiliating strap-on hats and such but I settled for a more practical gift -- some salmon jerky, which he polished off in less than 24 hours...

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Here's something a little different -- an audio walkthrough of the fancy toilet in my Tokyo hotel room. If you've been listening to the DyscultureD podcast you'll have already heard this at the end of Episode 59. If not, check it out -- it's totally SFW!

Japanese Toilet Audio Walkthrough by acurrie

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Here's a little video I did live from The Grand Hotel -- a hugely impressive property but man, I'm glad I didn't stay there...

The Grand's big drawback is its location -- it's a $100 TWD cab ride from the nearest MRT station, whereas the place I stayed at is right beside a stop further south and much closer to downtown Taipei.

The Grand's massive lobby. The secret tunnels lie beneath, I think...

Though reports on TripAdvisor tell of shoddy run-down rooms the place looked like it was in pretty good shape to me. It would be a good choice for travellers not planning to actually leave the hotel -- conference-goers, honeymooners, that kind of thing.

You could probably catch some pretty cool views of the city from the higher floors, but as a non-guest it didn't seem to me like I was allowed up there...

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Here's David and Carol (Sandy Chen's Mom and Dad) outside the world-famous dumpling restaurant DinTaiFung. As you can see from their expression, folks in Taiwan take their dumplings very seriously.

Oh, ignore the mascot...

Further proof: As soon as I sat down with Mr. & Mrs. Chen the server handed me this Laowai guide to Taiwanese soup dumplings. Little did they know I live just down the street from a soup dumpling shop back home...

The soup dumplings were indeed delicious, but by far my favourite dish was the taro dumplings we had for dessert.

The caption for this photo on Flickr: "You have no idea how sweet ass-crap-delicious this is..."

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Okay, seriously... How can you not want to eat at a restaurant chain who's tagline is "Shit or Food"?

Though Modern Toilet is a Taiwan-wide chain with multiple locations in Taipei alone, I chose to eat in the trendy Ximending shopping district. It proved quite challenging to find, and took a combination of Google Maps, the GPS on my N86 and an ad from a tourist map I brought with me from my hotel to arrive at this spot.

Though I was early for dinner I wasn't early enough to beat the after-school crowd, and was sat at a large glass-covered bathtub with some non-English-speaking locals. I didn't let that stop me from ordering up a big black toilet-full of chicken curry.

Okay, the toilet wasn't actually to scale...

My meal also came with dessert, served up in a mini squat toilet. Can't say it was as good as the curry, though... It looked like ice cream but I couldn't really taste any dairy in it.

At the counter where you settle up you can also buy some souvenirs, like an oversized plush coil of poop with stitched-in plastic flies.

I can certainly recommend Modern Toilet as a unique dining experience. About the only complaint I had about my visit there was that I couldn't use the actual washroom, as it was being cleaned at the time. Gross!

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Living in a city with a fairly tall tower myself I of course had to pay a visit to the famous Taipei 101...

The architects who designed this monolith cleverly stuck a mall in front of it that you're forced to walk through to get to the tower. Evil!

Facing northwest from the 89th-floor gallery. That building with the yellow roof is the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. The large domed structure behind it is the Taipei Arena, and just a bit further down the street is my hotel. Can you see it?

Two floors up on the 91st is an outdoor observation deck -- surprisingly calm until you realize there are guards keeping people from the windward side.

Top of Taipei 101 by acurrie

But there was this odd whistling sound that you can hear above.

You can thank my N86 on loan from Nokia for the awesome pics. More on that in a future post...

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Another public service by tireless Canadian copyfighter Michael Geist...

It seems that the Society of Composers, Authors & Music Publishers of Canada (or SOCAN) tried to make their public submission for last summer's Copyright Consultation anything but. While our country's government rightly denied SOCAN's request to not publish their document online, in order to see it you must request it by email on the CopyCon site.

Just in case you were worried that someone might be building a secret list of citizens who don't blindly worship the music industry or something, you can read the document right here without turning over any of your personal information.

You're welcome! 8-)

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Though the battery on my N86 ran out mere seconds into this recording, the story here is that halfway around the world and a week into my trip I was back on Qik, and it was all thanks to the SIM card I got with unlimited data from local carrier FarEasTone.

Because my costs for transmitted data were now $6 CAD per day instead of $4 CAD per megabyte I was now free and clear to (for example) make a public nuisance of myself in my hotel's lobby restaurant:

Though this little coffee shop offered a great view of Monday morning commuters, I spent the rest of my breakfasts at the top-floor buffet...

Shortly after breakfast it was time for another meal -- this one with Carol & David Chen, parents of my good friend (and top-notch cat-sitter) Sandy.

After lunch Mrs. Chen kindly offered to take me through Guang Ha Digital Plaza, which must have been boring as all hell for her so I bought her ice cream. She returned the favour by taking me to a night market and buying me a bag of this bizarre Taiwanese chewing gum:

This concoction is actually areca nuts wrapped in betel leaves. You're not meant to actually eat any of it, just swallow the juice and spit out the rest once it dries up.

Though often sold at roadside stands by scantily-clad ladies my purchasing experience was a little different; the grumpy old woman that eventually sold me this bag had to be talked into it -- she was convinced I'd have a heart attack if I had all of it, and she was probably right... Just one piece gets your heart racing!

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