jonkenpon!
HEY! I’m back. Anyone still here? No? Not even that Lloyd guy? Oh well. I shall carry on regardless and bring you up to speed on what’s been happening in my life for the last 1.5 months; “you” being the vast abyss of time and space that spreads before me where once there were about 5 devoted readers and some guy who googled “tiny penis” and found himself at my blog.
First of all, lets get this out of the way, check out my highly controversial(?) new haircut:
The last you heard of me, I was “unemployed”, but that was only a half-truth. Well, more of a false-lie or a quasi-fiction, since I did actually have employment lined up that started about 3 days after the “Unemployed!” post.
I’m now working at jonkenpon, a Tokyo-based web startup founded by myself and a friend who was working at the same web consultancy as I was previously. This is an extremely positive move as it means we are able to focus more on doing what we enjoy and do best - producing web services and applications, as opposed to producing web sites. It also means that the geektastic nerd stuff I used to post on here can now go on that blog instead, leaving this blog available solely for posting up gratuitous, naked pictures of myself. High five, anyone?
More info on jonkenpon can be found at the about page on the jonkenpon blog.
We’ve had quite a productive first month at jonkenpon. Apart from having to set up all our network stuff, development server, CVS repositories, yadda yadda, we managed to bang out our first project within about 2 weeks of starting it. I’m very pleased, even if it’s not a million-dollar idea. As our first project, the fact that we’ve produced something at this pace whilst keeping the production values high is more valuable to me as a testament to what we will achieve in the future, rather than something that’s going to make us a quick buck. You can read more about this first project, haikuplanet, on the jonkenpon blog.
Since production work on haikuplanet finished, we started work straight away on another two projects that we’ve had in our heads for a long time. One will be out at the end of this month and I can’t say much about it but if you are an orchestrate fan, you’ll like it. A lot. The other project will be out in January and it’s shaping up to be really fun and easy to use web service…but beyond that I can’t say anything. Just stay tuned to the jonkenpon blog for updates.
But yongfook, surely leaving your old job, founding a web startup, setting up a blog, completing one project and beginning work on two more can’t have taken up ALL your time, why the FUKUCK haven’t you been posting here? ANSWER ME. *wipes froth from chin*
You’re right. I also moved apartments. This was a decision unrelated to the job move and more related to the fact that my old apartment was a subterranean shithole that I’ve been dying to get away from for a long time, and the fact that I had a very noisy upstairs neighbour who seemed to have zeppelins instead of feet which wouldn’t have been much of a problem if the ceiling wasn’t made of two sheets of cheap MDF.
I searched for about two months and found the perfect place. I’m now living on completely the other side of Tokyo (within 10 mins walk of Tokyo station, in fact) to where I was, in an exciting new faceless corporate environment for me to explore. The apartment is way brighter than my previous one, with walls made of Real Concrete(tm) that are a significant improvement in blocking out the noise pollution from zeppelin-footed neighbours. The toilet flushes automatically after I take a crap (I think it has some kind of turd:water displacement sensor) and there is a roof “garden” (well, they layed some turf down) where I can go and sip wine like the pretentious bastard I am whilst looking at the view, which includes the tip of Tokyo Tower, if I squint and remember to bring my binoculars.
Anyway, I’ll let the pics do the rest of the talking:
Disclaimer: These pictures were taken with an extremely wide 10mm lens, making the space seem HWAUGE!1 - it’s really not that big.
Entrance hall & pointy shoes:
Hallway and bookshelves:
Bathroom:
Kitchen:
View from balcony:
Blinds by the window:
Living area:
iMac on the kitchen counter - for looking up…recipes? or looking at pr0nz whilst I cook:
Sitting on the sofa - Mac Mini, Wii and Xbox 360 flanking the TV:
Oh yes that reminds me, I managed to get my hands on a Wii one day after launch, by queueing for about 1.5 hours. I wasn’t expecting the queue and it caught me somewhat by surprise - by “surprise” I mean I hadn’t prepared and desperately needed to piss for the entire 1.5 hours I was in the queue.
You can read my thoughts on the Wii at the jonkenpon blog.
So, what does this all mean for YONGFOOK.COM?????!??!??!!
Not really sure. To be perfectly honest, I’ve been wondering what the purpose of this blog is for a while now. When I was on JET it was my personal “Ey! Japan so Crayzy!” blog, and proved to be quite popular. At the tail end of JET it became my “Ey! Japanese food, it so Crayzy!” blog, and proved to be very popular. Then I experimented with podcasting, which was also quite popular. THEN my blog became more about my project work and I think less of this blog’s audience was able to identify with that, despite my enthusiasm.
What I’ve been wanting to do is focus, but by doing that it means kissing goodbye to one or more aspects of my blogging interests. However, now with the jonkenpon blog I have a place to focus my nerd interests on. That’s going to be my place for tech / web-related blogging.
Which leaves food blogging and posting up videos / audio of myself, celebrating my ego.
Food blogging is something that I’ve neglected for a really long time and to all the readers of this blog who have been waiting for a food review or a picture of some food or maybe just a picture of me with a droplet of Carrot Au Lait on my mouth - I apologise profusely. Food is something I am truly passionate about and actually, is something I am more interested in now than I was when I was blogging about it. However now, my interests have broadened to actually enjoying good food, not only chuckling at the 100-yen snacks that are available in the convenience store. I’m something of a decent cook now and I’ve also had the fortune to eat at some very exciting places in Tokyo in the past year - and that’s the kind of thing I’d like to write about in the future too.
However, is yongfook.com the right place to do that? I’m not so sure. And for that reason I registered a brand new domain name to start up a dedicated Japanese food blog. The name for the site is a secret for now and regular blogging on the new blog will only begin once I buy myself a camera that is more discrete to whip out in a restaurant or supermarket than my current dSLR. I’m thinking end of January launch. This will be a personal project unrelated to jonkenpon, and the incentive for me to update will be my genuine love of food and my desire to fill this Japanese food blog niche that is as-yet not very well represented on the web.
So what becometh of yongfook.com? Well it’s going to be hard to limit my personal blog to one theme, that’s for sure. Like myself (Brit/Singaporean), I think my blog is going to be a rojak or “champon” of many different things. It won’t be entirely free of technical nerdery, because that’s part of who I am. Also I will be still working on small, personal web projects unrelated to jonkenpon and this is where I will be talking about them. I might try my hand at jumping on the bandwagon of becoming a youtube whore, but I need to think of an “angle” first. I’m thinking “guy who talks about his day whilst you can clearly see he is masturbating under the desk, and always climaxes and goes to sleep before he finishes talking”-guy. But it’s probably been done already.
If you have any suggestions for my upcoming youtube whoration, do post them in the comments below.
Cheers,
Jon
You’re not dead!
Thats a really really good update.
I can see the comments spilling in already. I for one come onto the website with tissues and vaseline in hand.
The apartment looks spanktastic mate. Absolutely gorgeous. But i do have one question though. The pic with the Mac on the Counter, is that where your bed is? sorry am totally unaware of apartment/building structures in Japan am more accustomed to “bed in bedroom”.
How much are you paying if you don’t mind me askin.
your apartment looks interesting, something like a studio concept ? =)
Good to see you back. =) Any changes…is a good change. Wii sold out over here. I’m on the dead long waitlist.
ben > apartments in Tokyo have to do a lot with very little space. I never showed my previous apartment (not in this much detail anyway) as it was ridiculously small and you all would have laughed and pissed your pants and the last thing I want is the cleaning bill for fifty urine-soaked chairs.
This is what is called a “one room”, or a studio, in other words. It’s up to you (the owner) what you do with the space.
As always with house-hunting in any country, there is no free lunch and at any given price level when you prioritise one aspect (e.g. size) you will lose out on others. I looked at other, larger places, but wasn’t satisfied with the age / quality / location of the buildings I was being shown at the price I was prepared to pay - bear in mind that I was only looking at designer apartments (because I’m a pretentious bastard). This apartment was a great find for me - it’s accessible, brand new, and it has more space than my old place. It’s not huge by any means, but it’s highly livable, I think.
As for the rent question…contact me directly if you really want to know…
Oh finally… And end to my yongfook withdrawal syndrome. Nice place by the way!
squee!
looking forward to a new food blog!
I’d like to see more of your Tokyo Gotham project. Hell, I’d like to see more of life in Tokyo basically.
YEAY! NAKED YONGFOOK MASTURBATING PICTURES COMING RIGHT UP!
u no longer look like a boytoy.
congrats
Nice apartment, my fiance is in the real estate analytical/purchasing field and was drooling over your interior photos. Although, how does, “Hey, wanna check out my hot pad over by Tokyo station?” translate into a pick-up line? The gov building’s there, right? Nice one starting your own business, hope all goes well. Your jonkenpon site is very nice. I like the information hierarchy, well thought out. Word.
The gov’t buildings are in Shinjuku and Nagatacho. Tokyo station area is actually not that sexy. It’s very corporate. However, it’s just a short walk to Ginza which is a little more interesting. Saying “hey do you want to come to my place near Tokyo station” might not get me any tail, but saying “my place is walking distance to Ginza” might get me TOTALLY LAID with one of those rich, 80-year old Ginza grannies dressed head to toe in the fur of virgin unicorns.
That’s rockin.
Heeey… is THAT how you’re scorin rent? wink wink
jesucristo, I don’t even want to know what you’re paying for rent.
Your bathroom looks nicer than my neighbourhood.
I worked in Kayabacho for 5 years . . . there’s a Spaghetti place there, right next to the canal, called Blue Planet IIRC (gots an aquatic theme) that is the TOPS for Spaghetti.
yur haiku site is most impressive; don’t know WTH your business model is, but good luck!
Yongfook –
I’ve been checking your page every few weeks or so for quite a while. Glad you’re back, writing, and have taken the jump with your own business.
excellent update! I’ve enjoyed yf.com ever since I started reading…ummm. the bread review, I think. It’s been amazing watching the site and your entries change over what, less than 2 years? Keep it going! The apartment looks great, but I’m beginning to think fat people must not live in Japan. I’d die in ze narrow hallways. ^_^ Thank goodness your writing’s still fun to read tho’. Jia you!
Glad to see you posting again, its great youre able to create new ideas and i hope youre jonkenpon site goes well
your place feels cold but beautiful
yay
I’m moving to Tokyo in six weeks to stalk Yongfook!! JK…well not really as I REALLY am moving there. In six weeks. I too love good food and am something of a chef. Any suggestions for a fellow pretenious foodie snob?
And of course, I am open to meeting anyone who lives in the area. Cheers!!!
well there is of course the invaluable restaurant review site http://www.bento.com
if you’re a foodie, that should keep you occupied for a while. how come you are moving to Tokyo?
does the happy dance ^^ now i can sleep soundly. (?)
I also freakily have my mac mini, xbox360 and wii set up with my HD flat screen.
But you have a far more rockin’ place. bastard.
Btw, here’s a yongfook-like Christmas tip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dmVU08zVpA
Why am I moving to Tokyo? To teach English, general shenanigans, and to experience Japan for myself.
Love the site, thanks much for the suggestion! I have a whole week to myself before training commences…the possibilites are endless.
Your new digs look rather posh indeed. I do doubt that my eikawa sponsored abode, likey shared with other expats of unknown gender or ethnicity, will quite compare. Should be interesting. Woohoo!!!
Zeppelin feet sound mighty interesting. First, they’d have to be mighty large and filled with hydrogen. Then, one little rupture or impact and oh the humanity!
I do hope the title has a tad bit of inspiration from the epic dance film/masterpiece, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Very, very glad to have you back.
That flat looks smaller than my room in halls. :s
Are those YOUR pointy shoes…?
get one of them mega-ISO performance Fuji point and shoots?
FGS > yes. I have several more pairs, too. Some of which are even pointyerer.
Paul > link?
Actually I was thinking of getting that Kodak one with the twin lenses, one of which is nice and wide. But yeah on second thoughts I’m probably going to need a camera that performs well indoors, so either a big bright lens or one with low noise at high ISO.
Ah, I remember your pointy shoes. I distinctly remember feeling self conscious at the comparative bluntness of mine.
It looks a bit like my new place. Although I wanted to go for ‘wabi-sabi, minimalist, put me in a magazine chic’ and I ended up with ‘pube, coffee carton and keenex nest of clutter’.
Go with an expensive new lens! DSLR team unite!
I just bought a new lens (10-22mm EFS) - the one I used in the pics above - so I’m not really in the market for a new lens right now.
your apartment looks gorgeous w/all the stuff in it.
For the benefit of a complete ignoramus, how exactly would jonkenpon generate income? Would it be based entirely on the fees users have to pay to utilize the services?
For that matter, have Sketchplanet and Orchestrate generated returns, and if so, on the same basis?
(Cue YF telling me to pick up a copy of “Internet Entreprenurialism for Dummies.”
Monetising a web service can be done in a number of ways. There is direct income (user fees, advertising revenue etc) and indirect (e.g. using your service as a marketing platform for others).
Good, targeted advertising on a high traffic site alone can bring in more than enough income to pay bills and roll back into development. That’s another reason I’m starting up the aforementioned food blog - I want more personal assets of my own that tick over and generate (however small amount of) revenue in the background.
At JKP we aren’t going to concentrate on one particular area of revenue model. It doesn’t make sense to - you have to be more dynamic than that and figure out which one is going to work the best for you once things settle and you can look at your site’s audience and say “the best method of monetising this crowd is X”. Right now our applications in development employ a number of different methods. The main goal with all of them is to make something simple, useful and that makes people come back again and again.
As for Orchestrate and Sketchplanet, they only brought in direct revenue through kind personal donations - that’s because I didn’t put any advertising on the site. However, they brought me indirect revenue in terms of exposure. Sketchplanet was on TV and was also used in a promotion with Mozilla Japan, Orchestrate got me a mention in the Wall Street Journal. Which in terms of motivation to keep the services running, is more than satisfying, especially for two quick personal projects.
When you say words like, “traffic” and “revenue” in the same paragraph, am I assuming that this is related to Google adwords? Or are have you built your own system of targeted text-link ads? I understand the importance of site optimization and making content clear and easy for search engines to locate, but just bringing traffic to your site doesn’t automatically generate money.
I’m still surprised that people click on banner ads and text link ads and that somehow generates money. Like now with your “bushclintonkatrinafunds” banner ad on the right, do people actually think that’s part of your site? I guess the psychology of it fascinates me as much as the monetary return of these things. Readers come here and read your content and somehow see a relation between, “HAPPY FUCKING BIRTHDAY TO ME”(no offense, I find your writing very enjoyable) and a Katrina hurricane donation fund ad, so they continue their online excursion by proceeding through that banner ad. Who are these people? It will be very interesting to see how your business proceeds. As one of my design heros(Tibor Kalman) would say, “The toughest thing when running a design studio is not to grow.” You may not be running a design studio, but that’s advice I’ve sworn by for years. You’re an interesting fellow Mr. Yongfook, best luck to you.
Hungry Dinosaurs > I can absolutely assure you that I have thought about this more than you have, so you needn’t worry. Leaving my old job and setting this up is not something I dreamt up on a whim, and it’s not something where I am basing all my hopes and dreams on revenue systems involving people accidentally clicking adverts. Just chill, and use the stuff we make. You don’t have to worry about whether it’s making money or not. It might not even be meant to be making money in a way that is innately obvious to you as the user - just let us take care of the strategic choices.
Although I am not at liberty to go into too much detail about our specific situation, we do have some quite unique circumstances which means that revenue streams can come from a number of different opportunities outside of the applications that we publicly release. We have very strong professional ties in the areas of real estate, banking and insurance and we will be exercising those ties; but maybe not in a way that you will actually be aware of. Jonkenpon’s public products are, as I have said, simply about making useful products. JKP products are as much about making things for ourselves as they are about making things for you. So lets can it with the skepticism and just enjoy, mkay?
Cheers Jon
Not meant to be skeptical or negative at all, just curious. It is awesome that you’ve setup shop. I did the same almost three years ago and it’s been a great adventure, worth every second. My quip about banner ads/text link ads was merely something I’ve generally been interested in for some time(plus I should have worded it more generally). I studied interface design and psychology so it’s an area of interest for me. I’m just really impressed with your progress, and the speed at which you accomplished your goal. JKP looks great, and I have shown your site to colleagues who have also been equally impressed. You never know, maybe our companies will meet up one day in the future. The services your company offers are invaluable and essential to my customers as well.
Cheers, Satisfied Dinosaur :)
Cool. Sorry if I sound defensive, but obviously it was quite a big decision for me and there’s no escaping me taking it personally if people think JKP is ill-thought-through or arbitrary in some way - which I understand you didn’t intend.
Interface design and psychology sounds like an excellent combination - perhaps something to discuss over a beer some day.
Honestly, I felt really guilty after that. I was having one of those “Charlie Brown”-karma days where I made one dumb move(made a pretty awful Xmas cake for my office) that had a domino effect on the rest of my day(but didn’t get hit in the head with a baseball). I didn’t mean to put you on defense and can totally understand where you’re coming from. Actually, since finding your journal and following through to the development and release of JKP, you’ve really earned my respect. Before I dig my grave any deeper I’ll keep it at that. JKP is awesome and I’ve always stood by new companies with fresh ideas and I always will. You’re going to make a lot of good friends along the way and I hope I can be one of them.
Cheers and a Merry Christmas! Mr. Dinosaur
The more we use sketchplanet/haikuplanet/orchestrate = the less time YF has to walk the streets selling his body. :)
Merry Christmas all.
But I want his body. x
Good luck with that! A question though. Have you ever considered your corporate image? I mean, you host several sites under your real name (or is it…?!) where all you talk about is your small penis.
I think if he used a small penis as a metaphor for a web services company logo, he’d probably discover an entirely new sector of business never before considered. Or it would discover him. :P
Good luck for jonkenpon! And Merry Christmas!
Your yongfook troll
c
Hey congrats on the start-up. That tyoe of thing is hard and sucks time away from other things.
Small cock? When I was at school - during sex ed, one of the stupider (there were many) members of the class asked if (and I quote) “pulling your pud(?) was OK for it”. The teacher answered “it might become a little longer and you should try to avoid too much friction”.
In retrospect it seems that the teacher was encouraging the “pulling of pud” - good for her.
So quit with your penis pump and tug on big boy.
A pearl of wisdom from thecorporateraider - get enough and you can have a necklace!
Fucking Awsome Appartement!!
Hi Yong Fook.
I cannot believe it’s been 5 years ago since I met you briefly from Britishbornchinese.org.uk website. I looked at YongFook.com again after I read some comments made on dragonlink.co.uk. (There, that’s a little bit of advertising for them too. ;) )
I just skimmed your website, and personally speaking, well done to have kept up with the internet wave. I think many have dabbled with web design, but the ones that have kept with it are few and far between now. Reading this page, I cannot believe you have that much exposure. It’s kinda weird to think that you can market your own name! I read your comment about JKP, and Dinosaur’s replies. May I wish you all the best in your ‘little projects’. The world is indeed your oysters, and girls will indeed visit this site. For what, I don’t know… Sex sure sells, even on a global scale! >.
Grr…darn the technology.
I was going to say. It must feel like being in Big Brother having your own blog. Also, well done to have continued doing YongFook.com. Can we please now have a real foodie section of real food. Now that you’ll be leaving behind the Quarter-life crisis, and be eating real good food.
That’s it.
From UK, Big Sista Wanna-be Producer.