Runker Room hits The Web!

TORONTO, Ontario After well over a year in development, the home page of Tadaaki Hiruki debuted on The World Wide Web today. "Hiring a home page designer might have been faster," said the bleary-eyed computer enthusiast after another late-night session of trial-and-error, "but accomplishing the task oneself is ultimately more satisfying."

Like other home pages, this contribution to the Internet will endeavour to entertain, educate, and provide a link between people of similar interests. Hiruki hopes that it will one day be even half as good as his inspiration, Mikko's Home Page.

The centrepiece of the website is the Toronto Japanese Canadian Community Event Calendar, a listing of local goings-on enriched with relevant Internet links. (The calendar has since been adopted by the Toronto NAJC, who continue to maintain it --TH 12/05/98)

"Part of maintaining a sense of community is communication," Hiruki believes. "The Japanese Canadian community of Toronto (and, by extension, of Canada) is small and, from what I've seen, scattered-- geographically, generationally, culturally and in other ways. This use of the latest technology will hopefully complement the existing media and enhance the dissemination of information, especially to younger people, who will be the JC community of the 21st century."

Even as it started, The Runker Room received a minor setback: When its creator jumped for joy on seeing that the home page was functional ("Yatta!"), the laptop computer housing the program fell to the floor! The board is slightly bent now, but all the scattered keys were recovered, and are morq or lqss bac5 whqrq thiy bqlong.