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Had you bet me I’d be writing this a few years ago you would have won a lot of money….. today I became an Uncle and my Dad a Grandfather. This morning around 9am British time, my sister delivered a baby boy weighing 8lbs 8oz. As is the custom, both baby and mother are doing fine. I’ve heard no official word of a name yet but when we were back in England it sounded like it was going to be James if it was a boy.

Its not without some sadness – my mum always wanted a grandkid and she is not here to see him – but its exciting news and I’m pleased for them. Fun times ahead for them, I am sure.

Having been at the mercy of the fabulous airport security people over the last couple of weeks I thought this cartoon summed the situation up rather nicely.

Source: Telegraph Newspaper.

Thanks to some luck and some hard work I was today able to purchase two of this season’s hard-to-buy items: I ordered my PS3 system to arrive sometime before Christmas, and I finally managed to get my hands on a couple of TMX Elmos. All I need now is a Wii and I will be quite the ‘lucky’ person. I bundled the PS3 with a couple of games and a second controller. Looks like most everyone on the local craigslist wants $2500+ for standing out in the cold last night, I really can’t believe people are willing to pay that much, but I suppose someone is.

Last night there were signs up at the hotel alerting us to the fact that several Major League Baseball stars were staying at the hotel and we were not to bother them, or be asked to leave. No problem there, I wouldn’t recognise one if he hit me with his bat and even if I did, last thing I care about is an autograph.

And I forgot to blog it before, but Condi Rice was in our hotel when she visited Japan last week. Quite the high scale place I’ve been staying in.

The Sony building we work in has a ground floor lounge displaying all the Playstation products and is open to the public from 10 to 7 every day. When we go to lunch there is usually a group of people sat playing on the PSPs or PS2’s. But over the weekend they installed 4 PS3 kiosks. Each kiosk has a a PS3, controller and shiny new High Def Bravia screen. Slick setup. Yesterday we watched someone playing GT4 and I had a go on some tennis game, making Tim Henman cry like a baby when I out served him.

Yeah, I work for Sony but the PS3 is a sweet device. If you like games, its a must-buy. If, of course, you can get one. Sony has promised to do the best they can to get me one before Christmas. Yeah, I’ll accept bids.

We tried to take a picture of the lounge but two security guards came out from nowhere and made it clear we were not to. Spoilsports.

We all worked Saturday so that we wouldn’t have to work Sunday. I actually probably won’t have to work Tuesday either but we’ll see. I may have to hang around the office just in case something turns up that they need me to do. When I left the office Saturday evening they had turned the downstairs reception into a big PS3 play area, it looked sweet.

So, my final day of sight-seeing and I got up late and made my plan. First, I would go to Asakusa to see the Sensoji Temple, the oldest such building in Tokyo dating back to 628. From there I would go to Akihabara, the electronics capitol of Tokyo where lots of small (and not so small) vendors hawk the latest gadgets. After that, a long subway ride to Harajuku, famous for the Tokyo youth to prance around in freakish fashions.

I’ve uploaded some pictures to two new flickr sets: Asakusa set, and Akihabara set, and added some new ones in the regular Tokyo set that don’t belong in either. If you want to read more, click on the link….
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Just like the USA, cell phones are everywhere. Its rare you see anyone without one in their hand, if not talking then usually playing a game. The phones I see everywhere have a much squarer-look to them, not the rounded flip-top design popular in the US. But the biggest difference is that, in the 10 days I’ve now been here, I am yet to here one cell phone ring. I asked Aki last night and he said that it is polite to have the ringer turned off. Too bad we can’t have that in the US, save us from hearing the latest Britney tune butchered by tinny ringer going off all the freaking time.

Its Friday (here at least) so time for another video of the week. This one is nostalgia time for the Brit readers amongst you…. A little background…. we have a machine that we have to connect to in order to jump to the san diego environment. In Tokyo we have to go via a first machine to get to the jump machine, someone said it like a skip and a jump so I quickly named the machine Skippy. And with that, here is the video.

I don’t really understand why but it seems there are requests for me to appear in some of the pictures. I was going to say that here is proof that I am working in Tokyo but let’s face it this could be a meeting room anywhere. So, trust me when I say this is at SCEI, Tokyo, Japan.

Outside our ‘office’ is a large cubicle area, almost every desk has a test PS3 unit and there are numerous large LCD TVs, monitors around. Everytime I walk out to the toilet I see people playing various games; there are some great looking titles for the PS3. I know its expensive, and will probably be harder than a TMX Elmo to get hold of, but if you like games I think it will definitely be worth it.

No word yet on whether we will be working at the weekend but, if not, we might try and get out to Fuji Lakes and see the mountain. If we do, I’ll try to get someone to include me in at least a couple of the pictures.

Looks like I am stuck here for another half-week, the Japanese task leaders have requested that we stay until next Wednesday. It seems awful not want to be in one of the major world cities “most expenses paid” but really I am tired of not being able to read anything, understand anything, find anything to eat, or afford a beer. And I want to be back home with my family. Sigh.