A few days ago I blogged about the problems with my web host I was having. Since then things have been worked out and after being contacted by the CEO of Site5 directly and I now fully understand what the problem was and now I am assured its over.

Why I was mad as hell

I was angry because my hosting service was offline for almost 3 days. I was in the dark and not knowly properly why my web server was offline other than being told it was a server migration error, that coupled with generic “robot-like” responses to my support requests which were few and far between, anxiety from having my websites offline and experiencing loss of and redirection of traffic to a site I didn’t know, fear of being penalized by search engines and the worse one was being repeatedly being assured that my server was back up only to find it still offline time and time again.

The Site5 CEO known only as Ben was very helpful and truly did all he could to help and then the error was properly explained in detail and I was offered proper compensation. Now I am happy but sad because I’ll have to retransfer most (but not all) of my sites and those of a few friends back to site5, which when it works properly is one of the best hosting providers.

Lately I have been practicing more Japanese and will be making more updates on my progress in Japanese this year in the form of Japanese only posts, reviews of Japanese study resources and I am actively seeking a Japanese friend in Japan that hopefully I will correspond with for more than a few weeks like all the others I have had. While reading posts from various blogs and looking into various ways to stay inspired while studying I decided to start watching Japanese dramas.

I started out watching My Boss My Hero

….need to hear more Japanese…

I am not completely new to Japanese Dramas as I have scanned through a few in the past but now I will be watching a few series completely from start to finish with the aim of getting used to hearing Japanese being spoken more. I’ve found that through my practicing and writing Japanese my main obstacle is not having the opportunity to hear natural Japanese being spoken much and while anime watching is cool and I do a lot of that I am aware that only listening and learning from Japanese spoken in anime is not such a good idea.

Innocent love is next on the “to watch list”

I welcome your J-Drama recommendations

I’ve started watching  “My Boss My Hero” (hilarious!) and through requests via twitter and other mediums for names of hopefully subtitled J-Drama I have so far compiled a list of shows I’m considering watching and them will eventually review. Are you a fan of or have experience watching Japanese Dramas? Please suggest a few by leaving the name in a comment below or contact me directly.

Suggestions so far (updated Jan-7-09)

• Innocent Love


• Nobuta wo Produce


• Great Teacher Onizuka


• Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu


• 1 Litre of Tears


• Koizora


• Stand Up!!


• Hanazakari no Kimitachi e


• Akihabara@DEEP


• Ryuusei no Kizuna


• Bloody Monday


• Kaze no Garden


• Remote


• Liar Game


• One Missed Call


• The Ring


• Battle Royale


• Nodame Cantabile


• Boku wa Imouto Ni Koi wo Suru


• Tada Kimi wo Aishiteru


• Tokyo Boy


• Kurosagi


• Absolute Boyfriend


• Last Friends


• Satorare


• Trick


• Mop Girl


• Crying Out Love


• Center of the World


• Kikujiro


• Danishi Man


• Okane ga nai


• Odorudaisosasen


• Nodame Kantabire

This is the fifth edition of a monthly recap of interesting posts from my photography blog and my video game blog.

Eyeshrine.com

My journey to learn and love affair with photography continues. I had another minor achievement last month when a photography I took on a trip to the U.S. last year of the Capitol Building in Washinton DC was (and continues to be) featured on the Schmap.com guide of Washington DC. My monthly photography link-up with my favourite Flickr group took us to Hollywell National Park, high up in the Blue and Johncrow Mountains of eastern Jamaica. I took a few photos during the trip there and after arriving. Finally I tagged a long with 2 friends for a 15 minute Sunday evening drive from house to take pictures of the sun setting in Port Royal.

Infidel101.com

Amazon had a pre Christmas sale on video games I wish I could have taken advantage of. Another independent video game studio was snapped up by a big named company. After many delays Playstation Home finally launched.  Trailers for Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2 caught my eye. Spike TV’s Video Game Award Show for 2008 was mostly retarded and I idled away the slow days during the holiday season at work with a browser based RPG called Monster’s Den: Book of Secrets that I recently discovered.

I enjoy hanging out with fellow photography geeks..um..I…mean…photography “enthusiasts”

Update

Web Host Forgiven - Problems Absolved

At the time of this post it has been 25 hours since my problems started with my (previous) hosting provider Site5.com. I woke up yesterday morning, checked my site visitors and responded to a few comments like I usually do but sometime between leaving home for work and arriving at work to check on my site again my blog and every other website hosted on my site5.com web server was down and displaying a “cpanel is successfully installed” blue screen. I was busy around the office for about 2 hours and couldn’t address the problem but I soon I fired off a support ticket but a day later and after countless responses my problem is still present!

Site5 introduced me to another version of the blue screen of death

Instead of getting better my problem was magnified when all my traffic from all my websites were being pointed to a website that didn’t belong to me! I thought it was some kind of hack attack at first but then support told me there was a mix up with ip addresses with a recent server migration and it has been fixed and I should wait 90 frickin’ minutes for the DNS changes to propagate and my sites would be back…1 hours, 2, hour, 3 hours after that notice and my problem was still existent and when I made inquired and threatened to move to another host and speak out about Site5’s crappy service I was offered a free month of (crappy?) service. I quickly signed up with a new host and began transferring my blog to a new server. I temporarily lost a post but I permanently lost a few comments when I mainly Happy New Year wishes and I apologize if your comment was lost in the transfer.

Second rate customer

The work day soon came to an end and the responses from Site5’s supposedly 24/7 support became less and less to the point now where I have not gotten a response in 8 hours and still my hosting account is down. All night I have been transferring other sites off their their server and unto my new host and I wait to see how long before my problem is fixed if it is ever fixed before I ask for compensation or a refund. I am once again feeling like a second rate customer because I am not from the United States and I strongly believe that if I was from the U.S. my problem would have been fixed much quicker and given more attention.

January Curse

It seems January 2-4 has been an unlucky period for me for the last 2 years, who remembers my problems with my domain registrar at exactly the same time of this problem last year when I was accused of fraud and all my domains taken offline to for 36 hours?

What have I learned

• Twitter is a uber cool web app, I got a lot of help and feedback from users responding to my tweets for help


• Never host another site with or recommend Site5 hosting to anyone again


• Not surprisingly I am addicted to my geek repository (blog) and couldn’t eat, sleep or function properly without it.


• I’m motivated to blog even more and had some time to think of some great ideas for posts this year.

Update

Web Host Forgiven - Problems Absolved

At the end of 2007 I made a posts entitled to the Top 3 popular posts each month of 2007  on Jamaipanese.com. I used statistics from Google Analytics  to see which posts were popular in the month in which they were made. I wasn’t satisfied though and I pointed out in the post that entries made later in the month was at a disadvantage of making the list. So this year I decided to hand pick my top 3 favourite posts of 2008 for each month. This blog is about Jamaica an Japan so it’s no surprise that most of those posts were on top along with a few personal posts. Check it out.

January

A guest post by a true J-pop Fanatic

Annoyed with the Naruto Manga and Anime - quick rant

Tokyo World’s forth most Important city, Number 1 in Asia

February

Japan launches Kizuna - Experimental Internet communications satellite

HMS Jamaica - Former British Royal Navy Ship

Meet the Smileys - 22 Custom Smileys for Jamaipanese.com

March

Sign Petition to Help Make Bob Marley A National Hero In Jamaica

Two of the best cosplaying Photoblogs I’ve seen

Doraemon now an Official Anime Ambassador

April

Gundam 00 Season One Review

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations - Jamaica

The Oldest Company in the World - *hint*…..it’s Japanese

May

Tokyo has Secret Underground Warehouses

Masaya Hayashi of Japan Keeps coming to Jamaica for good music

Going to the US on “vacation”

June

WoOt…tall buildings, mostly white ppl and lots and lots of food!

One Week Left

Finally my home sickness is cured

July

Computer Generated Girls are coming

Jamaican Store in Tokyo spotted in Top Gear special episode in Japan

Japan Number 1 in Blogging

August

Usain Bolt is on top of the World!

Kingston Cafe - Sendai Japan

To arms my Otaku brethren!

September

Learning Japanese is complicated but not difficult

Erotic Otaku and Anime Subculture

Aalawi - Jamaican Jerk Restaurant in Japan

October

Jamaica’s second Mobile Technology Revolution - Claro is here

Tokyo 2016 Olympic bid

Funny Robot Fight

November

500th post and thinking about converting to Wordpress

Japanese Scientists have Cloned a Frozen Dead Mouse

Obama City Japan riding on the Barack Obama Victory

December

Japan: Robot Nation

Nucleus to Wordpress Conversion Complete

Nicotine free battery powered Cigarettes

What was your favourite post on Jamaipanese.com for 2008?

2008 has come and gone and it was good year for me professionally, personally and as a blogger. It just seems like a few weeks ago 2008 started and now it’s all over!

I’d like to take this oportunity to wish all my readers, friends and family and Happy New Year and good luck on all your endeavours in 2009. I for one have so many plans that I am trying not to be overwhelmed. I have grown so much as an individual in 2008 and I am looking forward to a very good 2009!

To all my readers expect big things from Jamaipanese.com in 2009 ^_^

The latest Jamaican to gain my respect and turn into a role model for me is a simple honest lady. Her name is Dhaima Brookes and she found 1 million Jamaican dollars (us$12,500,  £8650, ¥1,132,000) in an ATM machine smack in the middle of the high spending “festive season” and turned it into the police.

Jamaican money - image by Chavaneth

I have read many headlines over the years of persons in Japan finding large sums of money and even precious gems and metals and turning it them in to the authorities but Miss Brook’s actions have touched me in a way I cannot explain but when I read her story in the newspapers and watch her on TV (she is now a local celebrity) it warms my heart to know that there are still honest Jamaicans roaming the streets and all hope is not lost for our troubled society.

Women return $1m - Cash found handed to Portmore police - read the full story

One in a million

What would you do if you found 1 million dollars in an ATM?

Late last year I made a quick blurb of a post about how extraordinary something as simple as a manhole cover in Japan can be and personally I think that some of the intricate designs are a a work of art. Recently my regular browsing of Japan related news turned up and interest manhole cover related discover on Mainichi daily news. There was a lengthy news item about people who travel Japan looking for uniquely designed manhole covers and how a website has sprung up with the sole purpose of documenting the location of these covers for “ardent manhole cover buffs.” Talk about putting Google Earth, cell phone cameras, the internet and global positioning satellite technology to good use…hold on, that is good use right?

Visit the Ittemia Zensen website (Japanese)

It was good to learn why so many of the manhole covers in Japan are designed the way they are:

It’s estimated that there are 25 million manholes in Japan, of which around 12 million cover sewers, according to the Japan Ground Manhole Industry Association. In 1983, when the sewer penetration ratio was only 33 percent, the Construction Ministry demanded that manufacturers make manhole covers with distinctive designs in order to raise awareness of sewer construction. In 1986, 20 sewer manhole covers were selected for their unique designs, and since then local municipalities competed to design manhole covers specific to their areas.

New mashup Web site reveals the hole story behind Japan’s manhole covers

It’s been a while since I took a trip to the theatre but with so much free time lately I decided to go check out a movie. The only movie out that was interesting to me was The Day the Earth Stood Still. I am not a big fan of Keanu Reeve’s acting but being a sci-fi fastasy geek I couldn’t resist and I learned at the last minute that Will Smith’s son was also in a leading role.

This is a remake of a film released more than 50 years ago and too the time to read the plot of the first film after watching this one. The Day the Earth Stood Still is filled with very well done special effects and a good pace early on but over time things slow down to expose a very underwhelming story that the more I think about it the more retarded I think it is. An ultra advanced, super powerful, futuristic race of aliens send a single being to earth to meet with the UN, to advise them that the human race will need to right their wrongs or face extermination in a effort to save our planet from us.

Out of all the acting performances in this film my favourite would have to go to the US secretary of state  played by Kathy Bates whose role was well played with her first encounter with Klaatu being one of the most interesting scenes in the entire film. When it all boils down however this film is underpar many because it doesn’t surprise and at times doesn’t make sense, I for one am sick of the whole aliens attacking or visiting a major US city (90% of the time it’s New York) or world capital like London or Tokyo. If you are a sci-fi genre fan or like films with great special effects go ahead and check out the Day the Earth Stood Still.

More The Day the Earth Stood Still Images in the Movies and TV Shows section of the gallery.