my2cents

• Samurai
  If you judge a Japanese restaurants by the number of Japanese who frequent the place this was the clear favorite a few years ago. Samurai was considered an in-sider tip back then. Located next to a striptease club in one of the red-light areas it wasn’t mainstream yet. Since then the number of Japanese guests in the restaurant has declined since the word has spread that you get reasonably price truly authentic sushi and sashimi – most guests are Europeans nowadays.
  My wife and I think that the quality of the food and the care with which the components are arranged on the plates have slightly decreased over the years. However, we can still highly recommend it.
  Reservation almost required for dinner, the place is always full.
• Sala of Tokyo
  The food is good and if you manage to get a table in the quite back room (ask for it if you make a reservation) the atmosphere is nice. It’s a little on the pricy side but it’s justified for many dishes. We wouldn’t recommend paying the extra surcharge to have wagyū meat instead of the regular beef. It’s not worth it.
  We didn’t like many of the rich snobbish other guests. The Swiss owner lacked Japanese hospitality.
• Fujiya
  Next on our list.
• Yooji’s
  Certainly not the most authentic place in Zurich but the sushi is ok. If you go with a group of four we’d recommend to get the big sushi plate for all to share. Friendly staff.
• ISHI
  Too stylish and modern to be authentic. Since they don’t even have Japanese staff we never bothered trying. Heard some horrible stories from friends.
• oKara
• isakaYa
• Ginger
• Takano
  Open-air sukiyaki on the  terrace apparently -> we have to try in summer.
• Ooki
  Ramen shop close to Stauffacher. Tiny restaurant – have dinner early or make a reservation. The place has its own charm, definitely worth a try. The menu is small but the food is really delicious. A few types of ramen and gyoza (must have), that’s all.
• Blue Note
  No website (domain parking)
  Stockerstrasse 45
  8002 Zürich
  Tel: +41 44 202 17 17
• Satori Sushi House

1. Leder Locher, Münsterhof 18/19
2. Furla, Strehlgasse
3. Valleverde, Augustinergasse 15
4. Longchamp, Bahnhofstrasse 58
5. Grieder, Bahnhofstrasse 30
6. Globus/Jelmoli

The title is misleading I admit, it should rather read “Japanese is easy – sometimes”. I’m currently swoting kanji for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test JLPT. Every now and then I come across a kanji combination that is so logical that it’s startling.

Example: what do you do when you feel dizzy – chances are you roll your eyes. In Japanese 目が回る = dizzy. 目 stands for eye, が is the topic/subject marker, and 回 plus る mean to turn around, rotate, revolve. Easy and obvious, isn’t it .

The idea of help desks is very old. Ohh, you knew that? Do you also know what sort of support they offered? It was already about opening, closing, and storing files…but with different media. See for yourself!

The same video with German subtitles.

A bunch of Finnish – from the Airborne Ranger Club of Finland to be precise – skied to the Geographic North Pole during the spring of 2006. The seven-member team set out from Ward Hunt in Northern Canada at the beginning of March 2006. The Expedition was unsupported, i.e. no materials or supplies was delivered to the skiers; everything needed during the 2-month trek was with the skiers from the beginning. Amazing!

Their English log book entries don’t seem to be available as RSS or any other way in a “combined” form, though. So I assembled them into a nice ToC/content site.

In a recent speech I gave at Toastmasters I talked about a snow-shoe trip. Here’s an excerpt:

“…There are moments though, where I feel that this world is perfect, indeed. Right now it IS perfect. It’s early Sunday morning and most of Zug is still sleeping. Akiko & I drive along Ägerisee on the way to Sattel. The combination of cold air and moderately warm water has created vapor clouds floating on the Ägerisee…”Smoke on the water”… The sun creeps over the snow covered mountain tops and sends the first rays of sunshine down to us. When the sunlight hits the vapor it’s pure magic. A perfect world.
We’re bound for Sattel because we plan to hike up to Wildspitz with snow shoes. Wildspitz is a peak right across Rigi at the south east end of the Zugerberg. We park the car and prepare our gear. The cold air cuts through our sweaters and jackets and makes us shiver. We can hardly wait to place our first tracks in the fresh powder. Only minutes later it’s there; that feeling of being part of nature. Not detached but immersed. We tramp uphill putting one foot before the other – one foot before the other. It’s quiet. All you hear is the crunching snow and our breath. Minutes pass. Half an hour, one hour, two hours. Everything is so peaceful. The pine trees carry a thick coat of snow on their branches. Nature hibernates. We only see rabbit tracks crossing our path. As we get closer to the peak nature adds a magnificent view to the basket full of presents offered to us today. A perfect world.”

Today I released version 2.1.0 of CopyMachine. You can download it at http://www.frightanic.com -> Projects.

“CopyMachine randomly copies media files (you select what formats) from a source directory to a destination directoy. In my case the source is my MP3 collection on the PC and the target is a “mounted” SD card that I use in my Palm Tungsten T2. That’s how I fill my mobile jukebox!
You can choose whether the destination directory should be cleared (i.e. emptied) first. You can as well define that CopyMachine should keep n bytes of free space on the target drive. Furthermore, CopyMachine can rename files on-the-fly while they are being copied to the target drive.”

Are men pigs? Some maybe, but a recent introduction to Swiss urinals implies that we all are pigs. “We” referring to men of planet earth…
hit-me is the idea of the Swiss marketing company winwin. It’s a small sticker about 3cm in diameter showing a sad Smiley; yellow on black background. When the sticker comes in contact with urin the sad Smiley changes its mood. The happy Smiley is black on yellow background. So, in order to make the Smiley happy, man has piss right against the Smiley’s face. Sick.
All of this implies two things:

1. Men have a tendency to miss the urinal and hit wall/floor instead, making a real mess. Hence, one needs a measure to improve a man’s “hit rate” (direct the urin into the urinal).
2. Men like to piss against some other creature’s face. Afterall, that creature seems to like that; it smiles, right?

Yuck, do male brains really work that way? Well, mine doesn’t.

Here’s a little comic that explains how hit-me works.