had a great saturday meeting with some members of the japan photography mailing list in shinjuku for the monthly shoot. wish I came to their first 2 outings.

photoblogs.org has a new design and new voting system. If you enjoy my site or voted for vudeja in the past please vote one more time. big thanks.

* photos taken with lomo lc-a

read an excellent interview over at salon.com today with the co-founder of Perceval Press Viggo Mortensen, or more widely known as Aragorn in "The Lord of the Rings" films. In it he talks about his photography, indie publishing house and his view on the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.

* photos taken with canon new eos kiss

2 sundays ago Masako, Frankie and I checked out her friends blues band, The Blue Well, perform at Sagamiono Station. Never thought I would like blues but they did have a lot of style.

more photos here sagamiono blues explosion

Watching a show called Animal Precinct on animal planet. It can't be more opposite here in Japan! We contacted the Japanese branch of the ASPCA, the JSPCA and they merely advised us to contact the Kanagawa prefectural offices. If this was NYC the armed Humane Law Enforcement agents would bust down the door and take the pet shop owner of to jail and be pressing criminal charges.

* double exposed images taken with lomo lc-a

Frankie has been discovering new parts of her face lately. Her new thing is to suck on her bottom lip and make loud smacking sounds. Doesn't get much cuter than this. Out with the pacifier and in with the bottom lip.

You know how the last song that you hear on the radio in the morning is with you all day no matter how bloody irritating. Well, I don't listen to the radio, and if you ask why, then you obviously have never listened to Japanese radio. Because I don't listen to the radio or watch TV in the morning before work my brain has to work extra special hard to dig up some annoying tune or tv commercial jingle. Today it's the Seinfield theme, even though I haven't watched that show ages. Well it could be worse. What's in your head?

just saw a commercial for UFJ, one of Japan's "Big Four" banks, advertising their new 24 hour ATM machines. What will they think of next!

Too busy today to post an update on the pet shop story but will get to that tomorrow. Masako and I are going to check out tokyo tower tomorrow night as it will be lit up in pink light. When matrix reloaded opened in Japan tokyo tower was lit up in that matrix neon green colour and I missed that one, so not again.

We will post English and Japanese updates on the pet shop tomorrow.