Wow. Anyone with an interest in old Japan really should take a peek at this recreation of Edo - plainly, an exceptional level of care has been put into its creation, spanning twelve sims.

I'm also going to have to pay a visit to the Popcha sim - that looks about as subdued a visual concoction as Yellow Submarine after being given the Gantz Graf treatment. What's not to love? ^_^

Amazingly, merik noticed that Tiny Toon Adventures is finally coming to DVD, with the first season - 35 episodes - on four discs, due on July 29. =:D Definitely a welcome event, given how much fun TTA was, not to mention it being the show that led to me falling in love. ^_^

Music for the day: The Diaphanoids: Escape from Martius 42. Just so funkeh.

If I get an opportunity to design my own kitchen, I want this gas range. Sounds eminently practical, with attention paid to simmering capability, but also a doddle to clean, with the pan supports and burner retracting when not in use. =:D

Call me geeky, but I found this discussion about the definition of "a couple of.." quite interesting. It seems to confirm the ambiguity I've witnessed, apparently without much basis in nationality or region - some regard it to mean "a small number", whilst others regard the term to be precisely two, with fuzzy exceptions. (I'm in the former group - "a couple grommits" could mean anything from two to four, maybe five, but not only two)

Quite a remarkable announcement on the SL front - IBM will be hosting sims. That is, they'll be hosting the sims themselves, not Linden Lab, with the explicit intent of offering them for corporate use. Nothing special, you might think - true, this is a somewhat geeky matter - but the key point is that for the first time, SL grids will need to genuinely interoperate between organisations, working as a platform, rather than merely an end product. This is the difference between the heterogeneous web we have now, with servers and clients of all varieties, and the strictly walled garden of the AOL of old. I'd imagine this will be a good opportunity for both parties to sort out any issues involved (though already, LL sims are split between hosting in the City, and somewhere in Texas) in distinct sim operations, before attempting to release the server code to the unwashed masses. Which, as far as I can gauge, remains the intent, but one frought with technical and legal obstacles - optimistically, perhaps we might see something by the end of 2008, quite likely into 2009.

I haven't had a chance to check them out yet, but this series, Usavich piqued my interest - miniature CG episodes of furry life in a Russian prison, from Japan. (Each collection of five is barely eight minutes long, so don't worry about the length)

Forgiving their claim that "unlike conventional mice limited to movement on two flat planes, a 3D mouse lets you move effortlessly in all dimensions", Logitech's 3D mouse for SL could be quite nice.

As rabitguy noticed, if you're running Safari, this Surfin' Safari entry has the devteam showing off some neat little geegaws. ^_^ They intend to try introducing the new attributes to the CSS standard. (It'll only show in a recent Safari, as OmniWeb 5.7b2 doesn't appear to have a sufficiently shiny WebKit build)

And I'm up with the morning bunnies again, in yet another new nook of the world to me - Sussex, in the UK, with Eastbourne, Brighton, and London quite readily accessible. ^_^ And thus another adventure begins, with a particularly cool coworker (yep, "a" - I'm only the second full-time programmer, making for quite a cozy office, given it's just us and the boss) with a million stories. With an offer letter in my paws - or, to be strictly accurate, The Bag Of Wonders - and keys to the office, it looks like there's quite a bit of professional fun ahead, of an interestingly embedded nature. It's going to be a very busy April (and more, I'm sure =:), but it'll be rewarding, being instrumental in the completion of a project that'll set the foundation for the future of the company. I get the impression they'll throw money at me occasionally, which I shan't protest. =:) And there do seem to be some fun acts at the Brighton Fringe Festival, too.. ^_^

Sadly, this has been responsible for the recent lack of dinner postings, but I was quite pleased with tonight's visit to a local Indian restaurant, where I plumped for a lamb vindaloo, sag aloo, and keema naan. :-9 It's not the same experience as I enjoyed after a day at Orban, when we'd sometimes head up to Scenic India, but still nummy, despite the lack of company. I feel sushi must figure into things before long - London seems like the best bet, but where to try? (Preferably a bar rather than boat - I love requesting particular rolls and watching them being made in a tenth of the time I'm able to =:)