Murakami toy in the giftshop at Roppongi Hills

Metropolis mention

Make sure to pick up a copy of this weeks Metropolis magazine where TokyoShoes is featured in an article about blogs and blogging.

The article also features James Luckett of Consumptive.org. Make sure to check out his CV. Brilliant!

Today’s and yesterday’s photo from Daddy’s restaurant. The “art” was a bit disconcerting to me.

Credit where credit is due

The revamp of TokyoShoes is (almost) complete. Special thank you’s to fellow blogger,MJ, who set me up with an upgrade to MT 2.63, Jeremy for providing the code for the archive drop down boxes, and Lil for offering support all along the way.

A number of sites provided creative inspiration; three well designed stand-outs include Antipixel, Exposur3, and mood-indigo.net.

Currently there are five new logo images, refresh will display a new one. I plan to add more and periodically include seasonal, limited additions. The revolving image code courtesy ofJavaScript Kit .

I have also added a search function and a category archive. Feedback and comments are always welcome.

Now back to proper blogging!

Beginner’s Guide to Blogging with MT

As promised I have completed and posted my Beginner’s Guide to Blogging with Movable Type on how to create a blog using Movable Type, the software used to run this site. It is based on a DigitalEveJapan workshop I taught in March 2003.
A kind of “blogging for dummies,” it is aimed at the beginner and assumes little knowledge of website design/building. However, programmers and other web gurus unfamiliar with blogging may find it useful.

Comments and questions are welcome and encouraged, especially any blogging tips that you may have.

Wow, wow, wow!

I am very happy to share with you that tokyoshoes has just been featured in this month’s Japanzine magazine as “Best of Japan on The Web 2003”.

They call my site, “funny, smart, and they get around to lots of interesting places in Tokyo. It’s everything a blog should be.”

Right now I am feeling about like this:

Me, age 5, wearing a blonde wig that I insisted on wearing to school… and my mom let me.

Blog party de-brief

The blog party on Friday was a great success. Thank you to my co-organizer, HunkaMike and all the attendees. A number of people asked for additional events so stay tuned for more.
Paul of in-duce.net, has so kindly posted portraits of most to the attendees. Since I worked the door so long I didn’t get a chance to talk to everyone and I didn’t take one single picture.

It’s a blog, blog, blog world

Reminder, it is not too late to sign up for the Tokyo bloggers party on Friday, February 28 at The Pink Cow in Harajuku organized by me and HUNKAMIKE. Details are here. If you havn’t rsvp’ed to Mike, please contact me if you would like to join.

In addition, I will be teaching a Workshop on creating a blog using Movable Type on Saturday, March 15 in Tokyo. The workshop is organized through Digital Eve Japan. If you are interested in attending, please email: workshops@digitalevejapan.org. After the class I will post my notes to tokyoshoes.com.

Below, these three pint size police women looked so funny in their leather motorcycle suits and crash helmets. For what I could determine their job was to write parking tickets.

Bloggers are like so cool

Contrary to popular belief bloggers are not geeks. I know this because I am not a geek and all the other bloggers I have ever met are also not geeks. So if you are a Tokyo-area blogger or blogger enthusiast why don’t you join HUNKAMIKE and I at the coolest Tokyo bloggers’ party on Friday, February 28 at The Pink Cow in Harajuku. Please RSVP if you would like to join. Details are here.

I have lately been on a ramen kick. Here are some plastic ramen displays at a restaurant in Roppongi with a curry in the front, right.

Your own blog

If you are Tokyo-based and interested in setting up your own blog, on March 15 I will be teaching a Workshop on creating a blog using Movable Type, the web-based content management system used to run this site. The workshop will be taught through Digital Eve Japan at a beginner’s level. Further details to come, but if you are interested in attending, please send an email to workshops@digitalevejapan.org.

DigitalEve’s mission is to promote women’s digital lifestyles by offering a supportive community and programs tuned to women using IT in their workplace and in their everyday lives. I have taken a number of courses taught through them and they were all excellent including a web building class by MJ. Below are two photos I took as a part of a digital photograpy class taught by Kristen.

Tokyo bloggers unite

Last night I went to a MovableType users meeting and met not only the creators of MT, but also the people behind 3 popular Tokyo-based blogs:

• Hunkabutta – a stranger’s life in pictures, some of the best photography I’ve seen.
• Antipixel – free of the drudgery of being useful, well designed and well written.
• TokyoTidbits -One women One cell phone Many angles, great concept, she posts pictures taken with her cell phone.

Yesterday I took this photo  on the subway (Yamanote line). A guy wears a “Bozo the clown” hat.