w00kie's ramblings

my head

Hi 👋, I’m François

I’m a French engineer who moved to Japan after my studies and will soon hit half of my life spent in Tokyo.

  • Sand storm

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    w00kie
    in ,

    Last Saturday in the early afternoon, we had a huge dust storm all over the 関東 area. It started out as a very nice day, sunny 15°C, I went for grocery shopping in just a light sweater. Then around 2PM, the sky suddenly became dark, great gusts of wind started whistling around the corners of…

  • Omotesando Sunday

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    w00kie
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    Walked around 表参道 yesterday visiting interior design shops, looking for cool lamps. Nice shops to check out: The brand new MoMA store in the Gyre building (from which I took the photo) with lots of funny gadgets. hhstyle just down the road from there with very very nice and very very expensive furniture.

  • JLPT Results craze

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    w00kie
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    The results for the 日本語能力試験, more commonly known as JLPT 2008, should be getting in everyone’s mailbox in the imminently and it shows: Visits to my blog post of receiving the results last year have been spiking in the past week. Good news: a colleague of mine got it in the mail this morning before…

  • Kick the demons out

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    w00kie
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    Today, February 3rd, is the day of Setsubun in Japan. As we live in a new place, my girlfriends mother told her we had to start on the right foot and follow the good old traditions to bring us luck. On this day, which marks the turning point between winter and spring, you have to…

  • Address Power

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    w00kie
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    Last July I wrote about a popular Japanese webservice that built an image of your brain out of your name. Everyone at work and on TV was talking about it. The concept was even copied overseas (replacing the kanjis with emoticons). This weekend I saw on TV another of those websites that you know everyone…

  • More tax fun!

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    w00kie
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    January sees its share of administrative tasks for the new year that just started. So I received some new forms from my office’s executive assistant and as usual the English information sheet is of great help: Special Tax Credit Inform of special tax credit (deduction of housing loan) system like house loan etc. of residence…

  • Another tip about teeth

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    w00kie
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    I just received the new Health Insurance Bulletin from my company and we have a new installment of my favorite healthy advice series about dental hygiene: A tip about teeth Winter is here. Do your teeth feel sensitive when you bite into something cold? It might be a gapalong the line between your teeth and…

  • MQL baffles me

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    w00kie
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    My job consists of writing functional specifications and generally managing the architecture of a big R&D information system based on a wonderful jack-of-all-trade application called eMatrix from Dassault. I often delve deep into the application with the MQL console (for Matrix Query Language) to dig out some insight into the data we manage. And, more…

  • New year woes

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    w00kie
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    In Japan, the new year is a big thing. Unlike in western countries, it’s a family holiday when all come, eat traditional food (new year soba) and go to the temple for a blessing and good luck in the coming year. It’s also a rare time when all all shops, banks, etc. can close for…

  • Home for Christmas

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    w00kie
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    I’m back home, in Paris, for Christmas week. It’s the 1st time I come home since I left for Japan 2 years ago (I had an 18 hour stopover once in early 2006 on my way to a business trip in Czech Republic but it doesn’t really count). It really feels strange to be back…

  • Ricoh GR Digital II – Best Seller

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    w00kie
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    Still haven’t decided if I’m going to get me a new GRD or not, my finances look bleak so it’s probably going to be a no-no. But according to the sales ranking of cameras in Japan for the month of November, many people don’t have the same qualms as me: It shot straight to 1st…

  • 80cm of fresh snow

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    w00kie
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    I was in Kagura Saturday for a my second day snowboard of the season. We left at 5:30AM to get there by 7AM, get dressed and catch the first ropeway car up the mountain. I was snowing big flakes the whole day, no wind. Deep powder everywhere, leg-deep out in the forest where we spent…

  • FON Anniversary Campaign in Japan

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    w00kie
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    If you’re in Japan and you want a free (or almost free) WiFi router, here’s your chance. One year after its introduction in Japan, the FON network gives away their Fonera routers for free this weekend only: Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th December. These cool little boxes let you share your connection safely with the…

  • Google UI genius with suggestions

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    w00kie
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    I was just using Google as a calculator this morning as usual when I noticed something new, at least to me: if you type a simple operation in Firefox’s Google Search box, the result will pop out as a suggestion without having to hit enter and going to the results page. I love to stumble…

  • Surf or Study

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    w00kie
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    Sunday December 2nd is for many of us in Japan the dreaded day of 日本語能力試験 – also known as JLPT or Japanese Language Proficiency Test. But this weekend is also the start of what looks like the best ski season I’ve seen since I’ve come to Japan. Trying out my new snowboard gear on 130cm…