Rémino is the personal Web site and journal of Rémi, a trilingual Acadian Web developer and Japan enthusiast in his 20's from New Brunswick, Canada who resided in Ottawa and is currently in Saitama near Tokyo. He publishes photos and videos and writes here about anything. He also writes a lot on Twitter and about his life in Japan on Edojin.

Happy 30th Birthday, Pac-Man!

Fri 21 May 2010

Google loves Pac-Man

May 22nd, 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of the yellow eater.  Pac-Man rose into fame during the popularity of arcade games during the 1980’s.  In the time, all popular titles were set in space, like Space Invaders, or in sports, like Pong and its countless derivates.  But, Namco was successful at creating a whole new genre with the release of the original version of Pac-Man on May 22nd, 1980.  The character, with a look inspired by a pizza with a missing slice, became one of the most famous icons in video games today.

To commemorate this day, some people have found creative ways to pay homage to the character.  The most amazing paid compliment I’ve seen so far is the playable Pac-Man level on Google’s front page.  It was entirely done in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, using image sprites and DIV tags.  The sound is done through an invisible Flash applet.  Besides the level modelled and widened around the search engine’s logo, the recreation is close to the original — even the cut scenes are in.  Clicking the “Insert Coin” button below the search field adds Ms. Pac-Man to the field, changing the rules for a simultaneous two-player game in which the second participant can help eat all the dots with the WASD keys.

And now, a few YouTube videos about Pac-Man to waste your time!

Watching the commercial linked above, I now recall how Ms. Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was a huge success compared to the failure Pac-Man was on that console.  Even my mom was a dedicated player of the former.  Compare the games yourself with demos uploaded by JimboGames on YouTube:

Can you understand why Atari players preferred Ms. Pac-Man?

Branding Is Burned Into Your Brain

Fri 14 May 2010

historyofbranding.com

“Brand” comes from the Old Norse word “brander,” which means “to burn.” It’s quite suiting for the effect it does to us.

There is something I realised about branding when I moved in Japan.  It’s only when I arrived in this country that I noticed brands matter a lot to us, even if we don’t want to admit it.

In Ottawa, when I wanted to go eat something small, I went to the fast-food chain named after the Canadian hockey player that started it.  For my drink of the morning, a medium soy hot chocolate without whip to go, I went to my favourite local coffee shop at the corner of Bank and Gladstone.  For books, clothing, shoes, banking, cameras, video games, soft drinks, and anything else, there’s a normally brand that I choose.  Even if we’re not looking for anything, seeing one of those brands instantly tells us what it does and what kind of products it sells.

Once I came in Tokyo, I was lost.  I saw many brands but I couldn’t attribute definitions to many of them.  What is that name?  Is that a bank?  A fast-food chain?  A pharmacy?  A cellphone company?  Fortunately, some of those brands have some generic names written along with them, sometimes even in English.

Also, while there are many foreign brands in Japan which anyone will recognise instantly, there are also Japanese brands we came to know which are different here.  A brand name known to sell electronics or cars in North America can also be known here for manufacturing air conditioning systems and rice cookers, or for renting apartments.

I often can’t explain the signification of a brand here without relating it to another one back home.  In my mind, I’ve made some associations between Japanese and Canadian brands, although they have no relationships and despite their differences.

I feel like I know brands like I know people, and it’s a bit scary.  That is the power of branding.

What if everything in the world was branded?

The video above, “Logorama,” was featured on my Twitter account before. The picture at the top is a screenshot from a defunct Web site about the history of common brand names, “historyofbranding.com.”

What if money was replaced with acts of kindness?

Thu 6 May 2010

Absolut Vodka thought about it.

So how would it work with prostitutes?  A hand job in exchange of a blow job?  Oh wait…  The later can’t be done too soon after the former.

Sorry for the sex joke.  Friday just kicked in here.

Glitchy Stuttering Grand Parents

Tue 4 May 2010

I don’t know why I found this video funny, but I laughed… hard.  I guess the only video that can match this is anything with two old grannies on power wheel chairs near a cliff in the Grand Canyon.  Now I’m free to see the world!

There is a ton of senseless “YouTube poop” videos that sound like hallucinations out of the mind of Max Headroom.  Any favourites?

Catching Up On Movie Reviews

Mon 3 May 2010

Sosuke and Lisa in "Ponyo"

It’s been a while since I wrote here.  Then again, you should be used to that by now, as I’ve been updating my other blog about my life in Japan on Edojin.  Also, using Twitter and meeting people on that network has mostly taken over updating Rémino.  I may also need to change the theme of this site — it’s getting too dark for me.

There are several movies I’ve watched since I arrived in Japan which I haven’t reviewed yet.  (Except the first two of them, which I forgot to review last year.)  I watched a few of them in theatres with my girlfriend, but mostly were rented online.  (Yes, I pay to download files with DRM that gets deleted after 48 hours.  I’m not in college anymore.  I got tired of searching for torrent files and to wait for the download to finish.)

For all these movies, like I’ve done in the last day of 2009, I’ve decided to quickly review and rate each of them.

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