10:20 PM

parties and such

it's been a busy week.
Monday me and the other Metropolis eds got taken out on the town in style. A couple weeks before I joined the mag, they did a review of a place called Charcoal Bar Tunnel in Roppongi, and apparently thanks to the review, they started getting lots more foreign customers, and they were so grateful they called and asked to treat us to dinner! yummmmm
We got to meet the promoter of the restaurant, and the 社長 who was like "here's my card, it's got my cell phone number, anytime you want to come here give me a call and you can eat for free." seriously!
then, on Tuesday night Hiroko and I went to the 1 year anniversary party for Billboard Live Tokyo. again, seriously yummy food. and it's an incredibly neat venue, really small and intimate. i kept imagining how cool it would be to go see a live there.
no pictures, but i did actually get around to replacing my broken camera yesterday--yay! i am SO in love with my new digicam. so hopefully there will be lots more pics to come.

oh, and speaking of pics, i get another photo credit in this week's Metropolis! so, i was writing the terebi blurb, and i decided to write on this tv tokyo show about famous japanese landmarks, that was gonna be showcasing Itsukushima Shrine. mostly cause i hadn't had time to call for a photo yet, and TV Tokyo has a site where you can DL press photos. only, it turns out that the photos they had up for this show weren't very good (you'd think on a press site they'd have decent quality photos!) and the design people were all panicking, so Steve goes "does anybody have any photos of Itsukushima Shrine?" and i was like, "oh! i do, actually...." (cause we went there during the Great Nihon Adventure when my parents were here, on which trip I took literally about 500 photos...
so, in short, the below photo (slightly cropped) is running in this week's Metropolis! (my second photo credit!) XD

11:27 PM

Field trip!

Today the other eds and I took a trip over to Tokyo station. We're going to be doing an article in a few weeks on 駅弁 ekiben. They're seriously a craze. There are a million different kinds, and if you search online there are tons of websites devoted to ranking and cataloging all the different kinds of ekiben.
We decided to just focus on Tokyo station, so the four of us went over there this afternoon and each bought one ekiben (except for Steve who got 2), took them back to the office, where Koji-san photographed them, and then we ate them for lunch!
It was pretty fun. I won't talk much about them now, so keep your eye out for the article in issue 756 (a month or so away). Oh yes, and might I add that the excursion also culminated in one of the eds going on a beer run.
Yes, we drink at the office.
At 2pm.
On a Thursday.

Also! Be sure to check out the Movie News section in this week's Metropolis, to see my Emily Deschanel piece (and photo that I took).
Or, on second thought, maybe not. It's there, but not terribly pretty on the website (and there's no photo). Scroll down (keep scrolling....) and it's in the left sidebar, under the "eiga" section.
Maybe you should just check out my Koizora blurb in terebi instead.
( Cause Squishy's hair is lol >_< )

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Also, there's a PV again. Very very strange group called "Ego Wrappin." They've got a really quirky sound, but I kinda like it.

8:54 PM

Lingerie is Love-Jewelry

Sometimes I am right.
Got an email from Chris today, who's the person in charge of the movie sections at Metrop, asking me if I had managed to get any photos at the Jodie Foster press thing yesterday.
Flash backward to yesterday's conversation--

me: Can I have the camera to take with me to the press conference?
them: no, Chris said he's sending a photographer, you don't have to take photos this time.
me: oh, I thought I did.
them: no, Chris said he's sending someone.
me: okay

Back to today.
Chris didn't send anyone. Which, actually is not that big of a deal--they always have an official photog at these events, so all we had to do was call up the movie company and have them send us a picture, which they've already done. I just thought it was funny.
Oh, and it turns out that my piece on Jodie Foster is going to be a Star Struck instead of a Movie News--because Will Smith, who the SS was supposed to be about, is too cool to give an actual press conference--which means that now I have to write 600 words instead of 250. Thank goodness I took a lot of notes.

P.S. the subject line has nothing to do with anything, it's just the ad line from a poster I saw on the train today.

9:43 PM

Interviews! the good kind

So Metropolis, as an entertainment/&c mag, gets to go to some really cool events! (read: the pay may suck, but the perks very nearly make up for it)
So, first off: 2-3 weeks ago, Emily Deschanel came to Tokyo to promote her TV show Bones. It's been airing for like, 4 seasons now, or something, but the third season starts airing on Fox satellite here in October, so she was here promoting that. And I got to go to the press conference! It was in a suite on one of the upper floors of the Peninsula Hotel near the Imperial Palace--picture that scene in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant's character goes to the press thing for Julia Roberts, with all the cameras, in the hotel suite...it was kinda like that. Kinda scary, I had to take photos too--so there's a bunch of pro photogs with lights, and reflector things, and multiple cameras...and then there's me going, "Okay, cheese!" (lol, I mean not really, but it was almost that bad)
But I got to write up a movie news blurb about it, and my photo will run, too... so check out the Metropolis website on Friday, when the next issue comes out, and read all about it!

Second off: today, I got to go to another press conference for Jodie Foster! This was a really big one, so there was no one-on-one time, or me taking pics (they hired a pro this go-round. I tried not to take it personally). But I did get to ask a question!
Check this out: where I was today

Okies, that's it for now. And from now on, I promise to post updates ona regular basis. Oh, and I hear that Metropolis will be starting a blog soon, too, so perhaps you will get to see me posting in another place, soon, too!

8:29 PM

復活!!

Not that there's anyone still reading this blog--but just in case, this is to announce that I am finally starting it back up. What's it been, a month? (no, probably more)
In any case, there's far too much to catch up completely so I'll just give a brief run-down.
My parents came to visit right after IUC ended, and we went on a whirlwind tour through Tokyo, Yokohama, Nikko, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Miyajima.
And just as the trip rolled around toward an end, I got a call from Metropolis, with a job offer! So I've been working there for...well, nearly a month now. I'm an editorial assistant, which means I'm in charge of exhibitions, events, and club listings, as well as a few of the weekly blurbs like keeping tabs and terebi.
And in honor of my new job--and the fact that it's in Tokyo, and not Yokohama, I've moved!! I'm living in a real apartment of my very own, with a fridge, and a washing machine, and a bed, and a real closet....and it all feels very adult and weird.

And, that's the catch-up. Check out my kodakgallery for pictures from my trip with the parents, and there will be pictures of the apartment soon, now that it's up and running (tho there's been a slight mishap with the camera--as in i might have to buy a new one).