The Details

About Q-TARO.COM

First off my name is not Taro. Q-Taro was taken from the comic Obake no Q-Taro which this site doesn’t have anything to do with. I just happen to be able to purchase the domain name. I’ve taken some gifs from the comics and used them here and there (Don’t tell anyone)

This is a personal website and I write about stuff that interests me. All the experiences I write about here are 100% true and really did happen (except maybe a couple). I don’t use my blog to create an online persona to fill any void in my life. Those voids are alive and well, thank you very much. I don’t really expect anyone to read what’s written here but hope you find it interesting anyway. If you disagree or are offended by anything, well too bad. I try to keep the content light and don’t feel a need to write about politics or anything of depth that requires brainwork.

I started this site a few years ago hand coded in PHP and MySQL but there wasn’t much to it because I spent all my time writing the code rather than content. Ever since migrating to MovableType in March 2004, this site has since gained lots of momentum and as you can see has grown to a considerable size. I can now proudly call myself a blogger and not feel like a pseudo-blogger. This site is version 3.0.

About Roy

I was conceived the usual way (I think) and was born 9 months later in a pig farm in some rural smelly part of Taiwan whose name I can’t pronounce. Right after that I got on a plane and moved to Japan where I spent my first year on earth before immigrating to Canada.

The middle part of my life was a series of repetitively mundane and more or less unfulfilling events that I’d rather just erase from memory. Except for that day in 1977 when I saw Star Wars and was reborn as a nerd.

I came to Japan in 1987, because I wanted to draw Giant Robot Anime (that was at a time before the rest of the world knew what anime was). While all my animator friends back in Canada moved to Hollywood and have since become famous and have even won academy awards, I gave it up because I realized that the industry here was not what I expected and not the kind of lifestyle I wanted to lead. However, I did want to live in Japan because it just felt right, so I stayed (except for a couple years when I returned to University in St. Catharines, Ont.). To make a living, I’ve done all kinds of jobs here including washing dishes, waiting tables, drawing comics, teaching English and making websites. Currently, I work for a major multi-national financial corporation in the IT department. Who knows what I will be doing next?

More facts about me

Feel free to contact me so long as it’s not a threat or a request for money. Also, recently I’ve been getting a lot of short demanding emails like “I want to live in Japan, tell me how” or “I want to buy ______ tell me where I can get it and the name of the store”. Generally these emails will be ignored. Not because I don’t want to be helpful but because if these people didn’t bother to take the time to introduce themselves and tell me a bit about why/what they are asking then why should I waste my time helping them? Also, anyone who can type a word in google will be able to find loads of better information and advice than what I can offer. I’m not a company and or information booth and everything here is done purely for my own satisfaction. But I will go out of my way to be helpful if I can. So please understand.

E-Mail: blog(at)q-taro.com

About Content and Copyright.

All the drivel written here is my own and I took all the photos (mostly). Everything is copyrighted by me, all rights reserve etc etc. which means don’t steal anything from here. Please ask if you want to use something, generally I won’t mind. And don’t link directly to any images to suck up my bandwidth (pages ok). Because if you do, I have lots of talented hacker friends who will hunt you down.

The Q-TARO comics are by Fujiko-F-Fujio. I would ask for their permission but I don’t know where to go to do that..

The images of Toys in the header are used with permission from Soda Fountain

About Photos

I use whatever camera I have with me when taking pictures so some photos are from my cell phone, others with one of my digital cameras. Some of the older pics in my gallery are scans from film negatives. Most photos are snaps and don’t have any artistic merit. I wish I had the time and money to do real photography but generally I enjoy getting those unexpected shots. If you get obsessed with some attractive person in my photos please do not ask me for their name and do not stalk them otherwise I will have to password protect all my galleries. Unless you are a hot girl and the one you are obsessed with is me, in which case please contact me directly ;)