Giant Robot Store and GR2 News

This isn’t a Top Ten list like “Best Concert, Best Movie, or Best Toy”. It’s a list that’s as important and there are highlights in them all, but by no means is it a Top Ten of anything. They’re just important as everything else – family, friends, and so on. Maybe I’ll try and turn out a list that’s more like that…

 

 We painted the mural on the wall. That alone was an 11 hour project. 

 

Zen Garage – The year started off great with the Zen Garage art opening just a few days before the new year. Yet, the actual New Year’s Day kicked off with the Oshogatsu program at JANM. It was motor vehicles including the Giant Robot Scion Car I designed but also custom motorcycles and the now vintage David Choe Scion. Thanks to Len Higa and Shinya Kimura for jumping on board. The year began with a GR show in a museum – it’s a great start with you get to do a project with friends, new friends, and a place like JANM. Collaboration can be more fun than doing something alone.

 

 It’s great when artists install their own work. 

 

James Jean Art Show – Aside from it being one of the greater or even greatest art shows of the year, it also indelibly marked the night that the earthquake struck Japan. I recall, it was at the after party, the twitter messages were beginning. An 8.9 quake? The thought of a giant quake was one thing, yes there would be lives lost and yes a lot of damage, but less than an hour later, the Tsunami hit the shores and that’s when the things got real, it became internet news for days straight.

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The people at reddit often find interesting things. Check this close up out of the Kim Jong Il funeral. A man, about twice as tall as the other men. Jokes about the malnourished people’s heights in North Korea aside, there is a freak at the funeral. It must be the 7’9″ North Korean basketball player, Ri Myung Hun.  
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Jeremy Lin gets a write up in the NY Times. It has nothing to do with playing time, since he hasn’t had any that really counts. Yet, there’s a lot of hopes riding on him making it on a team, even if it’s being the last guy on the bench. He might have problems if or when Baron Davis comes back, but for now, he has a spot. For the “Asians in us,” we need to know how much money is he making. $788,000. Guaranteed if he makes it through past Feb 10th. (NY Times – Jeremy Lin)
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Long before the Occupy movements, Occupy Wifi has been going on for years. Often you see “Free Wifi” that’s been hacked in some areas for anyone to use. In Japan, this hasn’t happened. If you’re a smart phone user, laptop carrier, iPad using traveller, Wifi  is important, but you won’t find it often in Tokyo. The antidote? Wifi vending machine that dispenses 30 minute passes in a 50 meter radius. How much will it be? Hopefully around $3? Can you share it? Will a community of Wifi junkies hack the system and make it not free but cheap? (zdnet – vending Wifi)  
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Bummer for Kwanhyun Park. He’s a straight A student who didn’t get into the UC school of his choice although he was plenty qualified. Maybe it wasn’t enough extra curricular activities?Overachieving Asian Americans are getting bumped by the international students. Why? Because schools can charge more to have a spoiled child of wealthy and perhaps corrupt official or landlord in a country filled with savages. (We’re kidding). However, the enrolling rate of Chinese students are increasing and taking spots away from qualified students of all ethnicities. “In 2009, University of California administrators told the San Diego campus to reduce its number of in-state freshmen by 500 to about 3,400 and fill the spots with out-of-state and international stu dents, said Mae Brown, the school’s admissions director. California residents pay $13,234 inannual tuition while nonresidents pay $22,878.” (Bloomberg – China Students)
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