Kimura’s blog

WTF is "Oscar Mike"?

8 hours ago
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I keep hearing those soldiers in the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 use the term "Oscar Mike". As in, "We are Oscar Mike", "Squad/ fire team is Oscar Mike", and "Tango is Oscar Mike".

What's this? So I googled it up. Apparently, it means being "on the move". The military abbreviation for "On the Move", it seems, is "OM". And in NATO phonetics "O" is "Oscar" and "M" is "Mike", so "OM" would be "Oscar Mike".

Sounds like this term got famous after having been featured in the drama Generation Kill.

Interesting. At least, I can now concentrate on what's actually happening instead of wondering what that means:-)

QotD: Gifted Ideas

3 days ago
3 comments

What’s the perfect gift to give to the person who has everything?
Sponsored by Best Buy. Find holiday gifts for everyone on your list.

No one has everything. If the person is an arrogant idiot who thinks s/he does, you probably shouldn't give anything to that person- at least the person would know there's something s/he doesn't have! :-) (Therefore, by definition, the person doesn't have everything :-)

Who's threatening who?

4 days ago
10 comments

Just saw this poll on CNN, which asked American people if they thought China was a military threat to the United States.

If you ask me, the real question is - and this is probably the question the U.S. government don't want its citizens to give too much thought about- "Is the United States a military threat to China?"

Ask yourself this before you brush me off as another America Hater; Who's paying the America's military bills? At least a part of it? Or the financial stimulus package? Or health care, for that matter? China's America's biggest creditor. All the Abrams tanks, Apache choppers, Predator drones, M4 rifles- at least a part of all that's been paid by China (if not purchased, then probably maintained by their money). All the nuclear warheads sure look impressive on paper, but would the U.S. fire one at China? The value of the U.S. dollar could be the first casualty even before the missile goes anywhere near the target.

In fact, longer the whole conflict goes on in Middle East, stronger Chinese position over the U.S. would be, because of the monetary cost. Maybe President Obama was bowing to the wrong head of state:-)

... And all this won't be good news to the politicians of Taiwan. The U.S. administrations in the past have always said if there would be a showdown between mainland China and Taiwan, America will come to Taiwan's rescue; I wonder if the current administration is still saying that. Maybe this is part of the reason why I hear Taiwanese government is kind of leaning towards friendly and constructive relationship with Beijing.

The world is surely changing, isn't it ??

Resident Evil, Tokio Hotel, maNga and Asia Argento

6 days ago
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Something was wrong with my head (which has always been that way, I know (^ ^), but it felt even more wrong than usual:-), so last night I took aspirin (headache is my lifelong friend. Another of my lifelong friend is depression, but somehow I haven't seen him for a while), stayed home and (a) finished playing Biohazard (aka Resident Evil) 5, (b) watched MTV European music award, and (c) continued my reading of "Descent into chaos".

As for Biohazard 5 (It's the original, Japanese title for Resident Evil), I had picked it up quite a while ago from a bargain bin (don't ask me how it got there), but the control scheme was so cranky I decided to let it marinate for a while. Then somehow I read on the net that there were several control options available, I went back to it and found one that worked for me, then it went fairly smoothly- though I think it's pretty dumb that you can't move and shoot at the same time- and contrary to my expectation, I enjoyed it quite a lot. Sheva Alomar has to be the hottest cyber babe ever invented on a game!!

And this year's MTV European music award was held in Berlin, (everything seems to be taking place in Berlin this year because of 20th anniversary of The Fall of The Wall) and what was interesting watching it was not Biyonce or Shakira, but the fact that there's a Turkish band called "maNga" (I am not making this up) and also there's this apparently quite popular German band called "Tokio Hotel" (I am not making this up either) !! I thought that was pretty funny! None of the members looked Japanese, and I have no idea if any of them has been to Tokyo- but maybe someone here should form a band with a name like, you know, "Berlin Love Hotel" (^o^) Their song was actually pretty cool.

Again, I am a bit worried about the whole Japanese pop culture taking over the world and the weird image of Japan spreading all over... But I guess it's better than sliding into complete oblivion, which, if not complete oblivion, seems more and more likely in terms of business world (ask someone in the auto industry about this year's Tokyo motor show compared to Shanghai motor show)... Wait, maybe "manga" means something else in Turkish. Sorry about my utter ignorance if that is the case.

I was glad I'd watched it because U2 did a great performance. Oh, and Asia Argento is so hot!!!

Reading "Descent into chaos" today is kind of weird, because I may have been reading about life and career of Musharraf one night and the next day, Musharraf himself is on GPS talking to Fareed Zakaria about how paranoid he is about India, just like the book said:-) Kind of like multi-media education on Central Asian politics:-)

iPod Touch

7 days ago
1 comment

I'm definitely not one of those people who just jump at supposedly "hot new stuff" they try to sell. When I spot something interesting, I start monitoring news and reviews on the net to see what's up with it, if anyone seems to be complaining about some faults/ bugs/ glitches/ whatever.

So I've been watching a whole lot of people start using iPhone and going blah blah blah about how great it is. It seemed okay enough (although SoftBank, which is the service provider for iPhone in Japan, tends to feck up every now and then and their network goes down- but that's not Apple's fault, I guess), and I have been curious about the whole new phenomenon, but wasn't ready to (still not) jump from DoCoMo.

Which is kind of why I got an iPod Touch, which is pretty much iPhone without phone capability. You can download and use the apps for iPhone and do pretty much the same thing. Downside is that, the thing is designed to be used in the environment always connected to the Internet- which you can't get out on the street unless you sign up with some data-steaming services (not particularly cheap; I would rather just get me an iPhone along with my DoCoMo keitai. Some people do this though).

I've set up the network so it can get in on my home wireless network, and it's pretty interesting. It feels, you know, future:-)

Must be bad for my eye though. I should probably invest in contact lens manufacturers. This and all the mobile device will produce a generation of people with cool gadgets and bad eyes in no time. (^ ^;)

Quote of the week

Nov 11, 2009
2 comments

"My love for Albertine had been but a transitory form of my devotion to youth."

Marcel Proust

November has come

Nov 8, 2009
3 comments

It's that time of the year.

It won't be of much concern for the unfortunate souls who are not gamers, but most of the game publishers from the West, particularly America, have this strange fixation that every big-name title HAS to come out in so-called Holiday season (which in their part of the world starts with Thanksgiving, I understand). So there is this deluge of games coming out from November to January, mostly in November (and December).

This is clearly very stupid. One hot game coming out in August will completely dominate the fecking market, but I guess the suits are still under the impression that average gamers are 12 year olds who need their gift from grandma to buy games they want.

And this year's holiday season will just be crazy. There are so many titles that any sane gamer just can't miss. This will have seriously negative impact on my intellectual readings (I'm immensely enjoying reading "Descent into chaos" by Ahmed Rashid; if you have any passing interest in current Afghan conflict or the whole Islamic extremist movement, this is a must-read).

Grandma sick

Nov 2, 2009
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This weekend is not that great as my grandmother apparently spit blood and there were some family-related activities. She's stable now. And the last two weeks I took care of some household appliance replacement frenzy (long and tedious story, don't ask). Good thing is, I'm actually good at this; you know, measuring stuff and space so they would fit, think how and where the power cable should go, etc. My meticulous, database-keeper side works pretty well in my office as well, though it disturbs me slightly- it's obviously a gift I inherited from my father, and I grew up hating my father.

But you know, coming to terms with your blood is one of those things you need to go through to "grow up".

Quick update

Oct 24, 2009
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* On the train I'm reading: "The Appeal" by John Grisham

* At home I'm reading: "Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia" by Ahmed Rashid

* I'm watching: Cold Case season 3, NCIS season 4, Boston Legal season 4

* I'm listening to : "21st Century Breakdown" by Green Day

* I'm playing: Halo 3 ODST, Biohazard / Resident Evil 5

* Good film I saw recently: "Frost x Nixon"

Quote of the week

Oct 19, 2009
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"Guerrilla warfare is Afghan's national sports."

Some expert dude on CNN program GPS, hosted by Fareed Zakaria

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aneles said:
oops, sorry to bore you ^^ read more
on QotD: Gifted Ideas
Kimura said:
I was gonna write something along that line, but thought that would be too boring:-) read more
on QotD: Gifted Ideas
Kimura said:
Actually, what's funny about the Japanese is their (I mean our) reluctance to admit how much influence Japan was under... read more
on Who's threatening who?
aneles said:
I really like giving experiences or non-tangible things rather than stuff. Like a massage or a sewing class or something... read more
on QotD: Gifted Ideas
An Ex-Expat said:
'It just had money' ... read more
on Who's threatening who?