You have to love that video:)

Will be back in Japan end of the week – will have to dig our Nintendo out of storage – now where can we get one of those cartridges…

There are two trips on running days – departing at 11:30 and 2pm from the Glenmark Station. To get there drive north from Christchurch and then at Waipara turn off at the SH1 and SH7 junction and follow the signposts through the Village of Waipara on Glenmark Drive to find Glenamrk Station on the North side of the Village.

The trip up through the Weka Pass is a pleasant ride through some beautiful North Canterbury landscape and some amazing rock formations. Being able to ride in the outside carriage behind the steam locomotive is also a very special experience. Looking forward to it!

You can see a nice photo of Cassandra with their daughter Marta later on in the video.

To date we have hosted almost 90 people / groups in both Sydney and Tokyo and it is a very enjoyable experience. Highly recommend Couchsurfing if you are travelling, or like us you want to meet people from all round the world.

This post fixed it: VIM: arrow keys display A B C D.

Basically:

If you have the above problem try this:

• go to /usr/share/vim/vimXX/ , where XX is the version … in my case is 71
• copy the file vimrc_example.vim in /etc/vim/vimrc

That solved my problem…

Solved mine too!

Install dependencies for psycop2 and postgres:
sudo apt-get install python-dev libpq-dev postgresql python-django

Download and install psycopg2 (path will change – check – http://initd.org/psycopg/download/)

wget http://initd.org/psycopg/tarballs/PSYCOPG-2-4/psycopg2-2.4.4.tar.gz
tar -xvf psycopg2-2.4.4.tar.gz
cd psycopg2-2.4.4/
sudo python setup.py install


Add a user and database in postgres:

su - postgres
CREATE DATABASE djangotest;
CREATE USER django WITH PASSWORD 'django';
GRANT ALL ON djangotest TO django;

Run django-admin.py startproject mysite as per the tutorial website to get started.

In settings.py I had to specify localhost as the database machine – they comments say this isn’t needed.

So in settings.py the database section will look similar to this (I have changed the password…):


DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'postgresql', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
'NAME': 'djangotest', # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
'USER': 'django', # Not used with sqlite3.
'PASSWORD': 'django', # Not used with sqlite3.
'HOST': 'localhost', # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
'PORT': '', # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.

From there you should be good to go with the tutorial.

Lost in Tokyo from Mark Bramley on Vimeo.

Happy New Year y’all!

Here is my top list:

1. Salmonella Dub, The Black Seeds, Kora etc
Good New Zealand dub. Nice and mellow with a sense of humour.
2. Peter Pik
Australian jazz guitarist. See him playing sometimes on the streets of Sydney.
3. Jose
Another Australian Jazz guitarist. He also plays on the streets of Sydney. I don’t go to music stores anymore, so buying CD’s on the street is a good retro way for me to get new music.
4. The album Ishi Kubari
Okinawan folk songs. I like to float along to this.
5. Koh Tao – On
Chilled ambient music.

That is what I am currently listening to while coding. I have tried lots of different music, but have found anything classical beyond the early modern composers too discordant to code to. And coding to Mandalavandalz or Texas Faggot is fun, but I always get distracted.

I think listening to music while coding is important, especially if you work in a busy office as it helps one to concentrate. What do you like to listen to at work?

Here is my short list:

Yakatabune

Yakatabune are (were) fishing boats (pleasure boats) that one can rent out, or buy seats on to enjoy dinner or fireworks in places like Tokyo Bay. I always wanted to go out on one, sitting on the tatami and enjoying the fireworks. Expensive though and you need a minimum (depends on the company) of 4 people, and to book in advance. Famous since the Edo period, yakatabune would be perfect for a summers evening.

National Gallery
National Museum
Galleries and museums are funny things. I quite like installation art like the exhibitions that used to be shown at the Physics Room in Christchurch. That and looking through drawers of butterflies. There are many ways to write history – museums and galleries being a big part of that.

Tokyo Stock Exchange
Tokyo Stock Exchange has free tours. I went to the free museum at the Bank of Japan and that was fascinating.

Ghibli Museum
Feel like I should have gone, though I am not much of a fan of anime. Have enjoyed a couple of Miyazaki’s works though.

Japanese Diet
Ah, Japanese politics…

Sumo

Baseball
The only baseball game I have ever been to was Futatsui Junior High vs. Hatchimori Junior High (iirc). Seeing a professional game would be fun – J League Soccer sure was.

Visit Kamakura
Visit Nikko
Visit Hakone
There always seemed to be less trodden places to visit.

Climb Mt Fuji
Not sure if I really want to do that:) but I visited close by often enough.

You can listen to them via the following links:

Reflection:
http://kindatrippy.bandcamp.com/track/reflection
Jun 2011

Entire Being:
http://kindatrippy.bandcamp.com/track/entire-being
Jun 2011

The Lookout:
http://kindatrippy.bandcamp.com/track/the-lookout
Jun 2011

tat tvam asi
http://kindatrippy.bandcamp.com/track/tat-tvam-asi
Jun 2011

A Free Song
http://kindatrippy.bandcamp.com/track/a-free-song
Jun 2011