Check this out:

Like something straight out of a Jules Verne novel, an enormous tentacled creature looms out of the inky blackness of the deep Pacific waters.

But this isn’t science fiction. A set of extraordinary images captured by Japanese scientists marks the first-ever record of a live giant squid (Architeuthis) in the wild.

The animal—which measures roughly 25 feet (8 meters) long—was photographed 2,950 feet (900 meters) beneath the North Pacific Ocean. Japanese scientists attracted the squid toward cameras attached to a baited fishing line.

Neat-o! (Thanks to Lori for the link.)

I still hadn’t found a good utility to restore playlists; Senuti did it, but only manually (i.e. you had to physically drag and drop the playlists from your iPod into iTunes), and for some reason didn’t preserve my playlist ordering. So I went looking around this morning, and found iPodRip, which while in manual mode still shows the song ordering problem as Senuti, but which has a simple menu option that does backup your playlists from the iPod into iTunes, and which does it right. So I bought it; being able to restore my playlists with the touch of a button is worth $15 to me.

but I had to change my template. My eyes were feeling parched for cooler colors than oranges and browns. Ergo my latest theme, which I call Twilight. Sounds awfully pretentious, doesn’t it? But that comes with the territory any time you try to name something. So what do you think? Let me know. I’m still working out the logistics of offering WP templates for download, so this one won’t be publicly available for a while yet.

for me. First there was Salt Lake, then there was Toronto, and finally, this past weekend, there was Japan. My next trip isn’t until Thanksgiving, when I’m going to Chicago for my 10-year high school reunion, so I get some time at home to relax and hang out with friends. The next big event? This weekend’s We ♥ Katamari release party at Matt, Jieun & Austin’s place! Aww yeah.

On Sunday night, we saw リンダリンダリンダ (Linda Linda Linda) again—you might remember me mentioning it before—at a small theater in Shinjuku. It was awesome (even without subtitles); I am upgrading my rating to 5 stars.

PS – Matt, we almost got you a リンダリンダリンダ t-shirt, but we realized that all they had were girls’ sizes, and all of them were cut to bare the midriff. Somehow we thought you might not appreciate that too much.

Here are a few pictures of interesting stuff from my recent Japan trip:

This is a view of the Yokohama Landmark Tower from the ground.

Here’s the view from our room on the 52nd floor of the Landmark Tower. Notice the enormous cell tower on top of the DoCoMo building. That skyline you see in the distance on the right is Tokyo—if you look really closely at the full-size image, you can see the Tokyo Tower. Interesting fact: I could see 11 (that’s right, eleven) helipads from our window alone.

Jieun, this one’s for you. The morning of the wedding, we went walking around Queen’s Square, a large entertainment-plex (shops, restaurants, etc.) adjacent to the Landmark Tower. Here’s a picture of the ginormous Snoopy outside Snoopy Town.

If you look a little to the right of Snoopy, you’ll see this large black decorative wall (spanning 5 stories) with a message written in Japanese and German. Here’s a closeup:

No idea what it means, but it looks cool.

Here’s an amusing sign we saw for a coffee shop in Queen’s Square. I want a cup of happiness, too!

On Sunday, we went to Shinagawa in Tokyo to see the newly-built Epson Aqua Stadium (an aquarium). While it was nothing to write home about, we had an interesting experience afterward, as we were walking into Shinagawa Station to catch the train to Shibuya. This band, タオルズ (or Towels, in English), was setting up to play just outside the entrance to the station. At one of my friends’ insistence (and I am so glad he did), we stayed to listen a while.

Before their performance, the lead singer (the guy on the left) handed out leaflets with information about their new album (to be released on 10/26/05), and their show schedule, etc. It turns out that they already have a record deal with Columbia; here’s their website on Columbia’s web, and here’s their official website. In any case, we ended up staying around to listen to a couple of songs, both of which were really quite good: the first was called 君に幸あれ (or Kimi ni sachiare) and the second ペダル (or Pedal) (the links are to samples in Windows Media format). I liked the songs enough to buy both their full-length albums from Amazon Japan; they are located here and here, respectively.

Unfortunately, in order to avoid paying $16 for shipping (considering that both CDs cost $32 together), I elected to have them both shipped together, which means that I won’t get them until the end of October. I’ll post a review then.

Had a great time! More to come tonight, when I upload some of my pictures.

I don’t really have anything to say; I’m just sitting here enjoying the novelty of blogging from our room here in the Yokohama Royal Park Hotel. The view is amazing (for those that don’t know, our hotel is on the top floors of the Yokohama Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Japan)—or would be, if it wasn’t foggy right now. Hopefully the weather clears up in time for the wedding later today (it’s 7:30 on Saturday morning here). OK, well, I guess that’s all I had to say. Later. I will post some of my pictures when I get back.

or, to be honest, nonexistent—until about this time next week. In a few minutes, I’m off to Japan for a friend’s wedding. Whoo!

In the meantime, here’s something to keep you power users occupied: Mac keyboard shortcuts. It’s pretty comprehensive; check it out! (Thanks to Matt for the link.)

I ordered this to replace my old external HD. It’s designed by Porsche. Coolio.