its1204.com

These certainly aren't new, but just in case you missed a few, here's a short list of travel tips using free services from Google:

• Check flight status on your cell phone through SMS. You can send a text message to 46643 (daily mnemonics: it spells GOOGLE on the keypad) with any flight number (i.e. NH5) to check the flight status. Google will reference information from flightstats.com and send you a text message response with information about that flight. This trick is good for reconfirming pickup or drop off times before you leave for the airport. Beware of text message charges which may be incurred by your phone company though.
• Google web search can check flight information. If you don't want to check via text message or if you want even more details than the SMS service provides, you can simply search any flight number (i.e. JL 61) on Google's main page. The search results will present a special link to flightstats.com for in-depth statistics and real-time flight tracking.
• Install Picasa. You can load the hundreds of pictures you took into Picasa for light post-processing, tagging, and sorting. You can even attach coordinate tags to your images for integration into a mapping application later.
• Google Earth. Not only can you gain a solid geographical understanding of the places you will visit/visited on your trip, you can also use Google Earth's Geographic Web layer to see community contributed points of interest.
• Localized search. When accessing the internet abroad, Google will typically return localized results for that country. Unfortunately, this means the language displayed will also likely be localized and difficult to understand. To go to an English edition regardless of where you're searching from, simply click 'Google.com in English' found at the bottom of the main page.

I never imagined I'd be categorizing a post into food, culture and gadgets, but here we are.

Pictures of the new Asus 9" Eee PC 900 were published today on flickr. I'm looking forward to trying this device out... The 7" version was kinda nifty, but having the screen fill the bezel should increase utility of the Eee quite a bit.  Judging by the composition of the picture, I'm guessing it was put up by someone from Taiwan or Hong Kong; the casual shot features the popular machine next to a pretty typical Chinese dinner of fried fish and pickled vegetables and pork. As people commenting on the Engadget post show, however, this type of food is particularly unappetizing for some Western readers.

It's interesting that such a seemingly mundane post could strike a chord with me. As our clientele shifts more and more to the mainstream market (people accustomed to Western culture), we run into these sort of large cultural gap situations every day. For Americans going to Japan, Asian food can be quite a shocking experience. Even though the fish shown in the picture is close to its natural form (aside from the big slice exposing its bones), Americans are so accustomed to eating food processed beyond recognition that it's become disgusting to eat things in pure form.

Of course, being born and raised in the US and thoroughly Americanized, I can completely sympathize with those appetites that are totally turned off by the sight of such a thing. There are still plenty of more 'exotic' things I have a hard time stomaching. I just wish people wouldn't be so quick to judge and consider that natural just might be better.

Apparently LA's first cosplay restaurant/cafe will be opening soon.  There's some conflicting information about the actual opening date for the cafe section, but the gallery section had an opening event last week.  If you're into it, check it out - it's a maid cafe/art gallery out in Culver city called ROYAL/T.  Although from the looks of it, it's quite different from the ones in Akihabara.

The PORTA-PARTY from the video looks cool.

Bizarre.

Considering how challenging it's been for me to communicate with the general populace when I'm in Japan, I've always thought it was pretty amazing how Japan has developed into such a prominent country on the world stage.  I think the ability of Japan to overcome the language barrier speaks volumes about the country and culture.