What\'s this??

No, you haven't arrived on the wrong site!! After two years of using the Alek 2.0 theme I thought it was time to do an extreme makeover: I switched to the 960 Robots theme which gives the page a more fresh look and feel:

New look and feel of Banpei.net

If you already can't remember how the old site looked: great! Hope you all like it! :)

About me?

Well, that can be a long story if I want to... But I'll try to keep it short. ;)

I live in the Netherland which is some very small country somewhere in the north-west of Europe.

Education
I've attended the HKU for a short course in video animation back in 1995 and I've received my bachelor in Computer Science at the HVA in 2001.

Work
I startd working for BaseSoft as a programmer in 2000 and worked there till 2003. Mainly created an online Questionnaire tool which was set up very modular and easy to expand with new features. Also involved creating an online reporting tool and report generator. I still look back at those days as the most inspiring job I had. :)

From 2003 till 2005 I worked for Demon Internet, which was the Dutch branch of Demon.co.uk, and worked as a developer for this internet provider. Really cool company, great colleagues and had a good time working there! Sad that it was taken over by xs4all.

I currently work for Spil Games as an Database Specialist. I started working for this company (previously known as Spill Group) in 2005. If you don't know what Spil Games does, maybe GamesGames.com, agame.com, Games.co.uk, GirlsGoGames.com and many more may ring a bell. ;)

Cars
I've been a Japan fan for almost my entire life I think. It all happened in kindergarten when a friend of mine, who is half Japanese, had me over to play with his (Japanese) toys. I loaned a lot of books about Japan in the local library and in my late teens I got into Anime and Manga because of this and started collecting everything I could.

At the late 90s I really got into Japanese games, so of course I started playing a lot of Japanese race games. Most of those featured mostly Japanese cars and that's how I got hooked on Japanese cars! I loved the outrageous cars like the Skylines and the GT3000, but also the smaller lancers, mx5s and Corollas.

In 2000 I got the first fansubbed Initial D episodes and since then I was quite determined to own a hachi-roku (Toyota Corolla AE86) myself! I instantly replayed most Japanese racegames and tried to allocate all AE86s in there. Most of them actually had them! I also registered some domain names (trueno.org hachi-roku.org) and got one of my best friends to buy an AE86. Together we founded AEU86.org, a European community for AE86 owners.

Anyway, I bought my 1985 USDM AE86 in 2005 and owned it up till 2007. It was a converted SR5 (to GT-S spec) and I rebadged it as Trueno with the stickers we were already started selling replicas through the shop.

I sold the AE86 in favor of a mint Toyota Carina TA60 automatic because my girlfriend Emoke was expecting our son Olivér and she couldn't get into the AE86 too well and a child seat wasn't fitting in the AE86. So I swapped the 2 door AE86 in favor of a 4 door Carina.

My father did also own a Toyota Carina TA60 van in the 80s (I think it was 1985-1989) so it was quite natural for me to start looking for a 4 door Carina. The Carina TA60 itself is quite identical to the AE86: it even got the same rear axle!

Anyway, plans are to convert the Carina to manual shifter in the future and then swap the 2T engine for a (more economical) 4AGE or a (more easy swap) 2T-G.

I currently write a lot on my blog and mainly about cars and Japanese subculture. I surely would love to visit Japan once, but with the current life it will not be anytime soon. Besides that: I really need to visit Indonesia before that to see where my roots are!

Anyway, I could write about my personal life, my wife and my son but I chose not to. Why? Well, because my personal life is something I'd like to keep for myself and my hobby (blogging) is something I do for fun. So you don't have to expect any food postings and run in the park pictures either. Isn't that a relief? ;)

I just created my own city, called Banpei City:

As you can see it is quite empty... But it will grow whenever people are visiting the city, so please visit my beautiful city and make it grow:
http://banpei.myminicity.com/