"Cherry Blossoms Mostly Gone"

I might just as well have titled this "Finally it's Getting Warm". The cherry blossoms always come out when there is no trace of new leaves on other trees (or the cherry blossom trees - the leaves come out after the flowers), which is their attraction, but it's always really cold when everyone goes out for the hanami drinking parties under the trees. By the time the weather is feeling a little comfortable, the petals are all gone. It's a good scam those trees have going! Just a week or so of flowers and they're given pride of place all over the country. Not so lucky fruit trees, which are considered bad outside of commercial farms, since they include the possibility of attracting (gasp!) insects!

Watching one of my video tapes from August 1990, I was surprised to see myself pointing out a security camera that had been installed over the train station platform. Trying to think of something in the news that prompted a stepped up security diligence, I looked up the gas attack on the subway (I was here, but had forgotten when it happened exactly), which turns out to have been in 1995, so it was either something else, or just the flow of time towards the odd age we live in now.

And in the video department - a view of the famous (or maybe infamous) Shibuya crossing near the Hachiko Plaza. Wait a minute.... Hmm? In the upload, the aspect ratio was destroyed and it looks extraordinarily horrible now! I should delete it, but I'll leave it up as an example of what happens when the aspect ratio is ruined:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2652041080428925137

Also (aspect ratio okay):
"In the Shibuya Hachiko Crowd" (2008):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8922230731899878598

And:
"Shibuya - Waiting in Hachiko Square" (2008)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5996966598135971503

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/