VatoLand http://www.vatoland.com Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:45:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 en hourly 1 My Blog Theme Is Slightly Less Lame http://www.vatoland.com/2008/12/12/my-blog-theme-is-slightly-less-lame/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/12/12/my-blog-theme-is-slightly-less-lame/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:22:01 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/2008/12/12/my-blog-theme-is-slightly-less-lame/ I got a new super minimalist theme and I no longer have scroll bars at 1024×768 so its good for me.

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/12/12/my-blog-theme-is-slightly-less-lame/feed/ My Blog Theme Is Lame http://www.vatoland.com/2008/12/11/my-blog-theme-is-lame/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/12/11/my-blog-theme-is-lame/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:29:19 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/2008/12/11/my-blog-theme-is-lame/ Just realized that my blog theme is lame. I’m looking at it at 1024×768 on an old laptop and I see all the wasted space.

It’s changing…

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/12/11/my-blog-theme-is-lame/feed/ Do you love liquor? http://www.vatoland.com/2008/09/14/do-you-love-liquor/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/09/14/do-you-love-liquor/#comments Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:18:50 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/2008/09/14/do-you-love-liquor/


Do you love liquor?

Originally uploaded by gabrielsond.

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/09/14/do-you-love-liquor/feed/ “Where I Have Lived” On Google Maps http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/23/where-i-have-lived-on-google-maps/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/23/where-i-have-lived-on-google-maps/#comments Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:30:01 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/?p=686 I’ve lived quite a few places in my life so far. I have been working on this map for a while now, trying to remember as many places as I could. I have intentionally left a few places off this map for privacy, including my current address, but this is 90% complete.


View Larger Map

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/23/where-i-have-lived-on-google-maps/feed/ My Neighbourhood In Osaka On Google Maps’ Street View - Part 3 http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/22/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps%e2%80%99-street-view-part-3/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/22/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps%e2%80%99-street-view-part-3/#comments Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:43:12 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/?p=685 GourmetCity
I’m pretty sure this grocery store was called something else when I lived there. It was a nice market, although a little more expensive than Super Tamade, and they had a better selection of beer.

View Larger Map

Post Office
Self-explanatory

View Larger Map

Dog Building (わんわん)
I love this building. I don’t actually know what the whole building was used for, I think they had kennel services. The main floor had a large area where dogs could meet and each other and play and where people could watch.

View Larger Map

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/22/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps%e2%80%99-street-view-part-3/feed/ My Neighbourhood In Osaka On Google Maps’ Street View - Part 2 http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/16/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps%e2%80%99-street-view-part-2/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/16/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps%e2%80%99-street-view-part-2/#comments Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:51:01 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/?p=684 Entrance To Dotonbori
Dotonbori (Doutonbori/道頓堀) is a pretty famous street in Japan, particularily Osaka. It’s only a couple blocks from where I lived and you could see the neon crab from my balcony at night.

View Larger Map

Photography Shop Gone
Warning: This post will not stand the test of time.
As of August 2008, you would see a construction site on this corner that led from a main street to the street connecting to where I lived. This corner used to have a two story building on it with a little photo/camera shop at street level. The store was old and out dated. Japanese electronics shops are flashy and show all the latest models of cameras, etc. but this store was dusty, dark, and only had some somewhat old pamphlets for digital SLRs.

I needed to get some ID photos taken for something so we decided to try to support a neighbourhood store but the shop owner wanted 3000 yen for 2 photos when I could get them done at a photo booth for no more than 1000 yen. I knew his business was not long for the world in an ever changing Shimanouchi.

View Larger Map

Secret 7-11
I often stopped at this 7-11 on my way to school to pick up ice coffee and curry croquette. This 7-11 is kind of hidden in a shadowy part of the hotel, although they do have signs on the street to direct people.

View Larger Map

Korean Consulate
This was my goal on my first trip to Japan, which lasted less than 8 hours.

View Larger Map

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/16/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps%e2%80%99-street-view-part-2/feed/ My Neighbourhood In Osaka On Google Maps’ Street View http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/13/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps-street-view/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/13/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps-street-view/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:53:22 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/?p=683 I already made a couple of posts of places in Osaka on Google Maps’ Street View:

And there will likely be more because I dig maps and I want to mark places that I remember before I forget.

Here are a few other places near where I used to live:

Super Tamade
We bought almost all of our groceries from this store. I could hop on my bike, go to the store, and be back in under 10 minutes. It was very, very convenient.

View Larger Map

This is the “mansion” that my sister-in-law lived in; very nice building and also very pricey!

View Larger Map

Central Osaka Baptist Church
This is the church that my wife went to and where we taught English together.

View Larger Map

My wife and I translated the menu for this Chinese restaurant from Japanese & Korean to English. The previous English menu was unusable :P

View Larger Map

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/13/my-neighbourhood-in-osaka-on-google-maps-street-view/feed/ My Flat In Osaka On Google Maps Street View (Kind Of…) http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/13/my-flat-in-osaka-on-google-maps-street-view-kind-of/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/13/my-flat-in-osaka-on-google-maps-street-view-kind-of/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:33:06 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/?p=682 The Street View on Google Maps Japan does not go down the street where I lived in Osaka, but you can still see the top of the building from a corner nearby. Since I lived on the top floor (10th) I count this as being visible :P It the tall brown building in the middle:


View Larger Map

Here are some photos from the flat:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/13/my-flat-in-osaka-on-google-maps-street-view-kind-of/feed/ My Japanese Language School (EHLE) On Google Maps http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/12/ehle-google-maps-street-view/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/12/ehle-google-maps-street-view/#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:38:07 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/?p=680 I just found out that Google Maps Japan has Street View and has a nice selection of streets in Osaka that I remember well. This is the Japanese language school that I attended for a while in 2005.


View Larger Map

I often bought breakfast/lunch from this convenience store. Mmm, prepackaged curry croquette.


View Larger Map

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/12/ehle-google-maps-street-view/feed/ Kijiji Is Amazing http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/09/kijiji-is-amazing/ http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/09/kijiji-is-amazing/#comments Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:56:38 +0000 Damien Gabrielson http://www.vatoland.com/?p=679 My wife and I put up an ad to rent our condo (downtown Saskatoon) and we got 4 serious responses via email in under 2 hours. I didn’t put the phone number because I figure anyone who is looking at kijiji is likely to just email anyway and I thought it would help weed out the people who aren’t very serious. Very impressive for $0.

Edit: I should also note that there were a few ads for units in the same building already on Kijiji but they didn’t have good photos or any photos and they didn’t use very good language to attract people to the unit.

]]> http://www.vatoland.com/2008/08/09/kijiji-is-amazing/feed/