Friday May 2
 
14:28
 
Retail Therapy

I bought some computer goodies yesterday.

First was a new laptop: Acer Aspire 5520 AS5520-7A1G16.

Second was new memory (2GB) for said laptop, raising the specs to:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Dual Core) 1.9GHz
3GB Memory
160GB HDD
DVD burner
15.4″ screen

This isn’t a “power laptop” - I don’t play games - but for the price I think it’s amazing value: 69200 yen, about 665 USD, for a dual-core machine with 3GB memory. I paid nearly 3 times that for my Intel 2GHz Dual Core / 2GB laptop 2 years ago.

The reason for buying it at first was to replace the little Kohjinsha SA1 that sits beside me at work, to surf the internet, check email, etc. The Kohjinsha is great for travel, but using it with logmein to connect to my home PC is a pain: 800×600 screen trying to display a 1280×800 screen - not nice.

However, I’m going to benchmark it against my machine at home first. If there’s little difference (Intel Dual Core 2GHz, 2GB memory), I’m going to use the new machine at home. Not only will I appreciate the larger screen for viewing photos, but I’ll be able to get all my iTunes on the internal drive. My current home machine is also smaller, so it will fit better on my desk at work. In honesty, I want a nice desktop machines with multiple monitors at home - but I’m trying to resist that, because I don’t want to have yet more junk to carry from country to country. If this machine performs well, it’ll make it easier to resist splashing out :)

Speaking of small: Third purchase - new memory for my little Kohjinsha SA1.

I had no idea memory prices were so cheap these days.The 2GB for the Acer was just 4400 yen, about 40USD - that’s nothing.

My SA1 has been struggling running XP with 512MB and its little 500MHz AMD Geode chip. While looking for the Acer memory, I just happened to search for memory for the SA1 out of interest. If I’d known I could have upped the memory to 1GB for just 6000 yen, I’d have done it months ago. I’ll never get over the limitations of the processor - but for the price of 6 pints of beer, XP can now breathe.

The Acer hasn’t arrived yet - they will deliver it on Sunday. It comes with Japanese Home Vista Premium, so my first task, after slotting in the extra memory, will be either installing XP or an English version of Vista.

Links:

Acer Aspire 5520 AS5520-7A1G16 laptop (with 1GB memory): biccamera.com. Price is 64,800yen until the end of this weekend.

This laptop is not available in the shops, so with the help of Google Translate, I had to buy it online. What astounded me is that even though the website is Japanese only, when I phoned them up to confirm the delivery date after buying, I was able to talk with a guy who speaks fluent English. And they’re delivering on a Sunday. Cool.

Memory: Ark in Akihabara, found from Kakaku.com price matching site.

Kakaku is a brilliant site - I check the price of everything electronic there before I buy.

Ark is a shop that I didn’t know about before, though I knew the street it’s in. As well as very cheap prices on memory, I noticed they also have 4GB SDHC cards for 1,770 Yen - that’s almost giving them away!

Tuesday April 29
 
01:21
 
Tonight McDonald’s Called The Police On Me

Why? Because I asked for mayonnaise on a Big Mac.

I kid you not. I have a 30 minute video to prove it, where I’m told by McDonald’s staff that it’s “impossible” to put mayo on a Big Mac - that if I want it, I have to buy a burger which has mayo AND buy a Big Mac and then they will put that mayo on the Big Mac. When I refused, they said “wait a minute” and five minutes later, four, yes FOUR, policemen turned up.

I’ve got to work out how to upload videos onto YouTube. Almost arrested in Japan for asking for mayo on a Big Mac. It’s ridiculous.

It almost reminds me of when I was trying to buy an S11HT - the big Bic Camera in Shibuya argued and refused to allow me to return it if there was no signal at my home or office, so I couldn’t buy it there. I then went to the small Bic Camera in Shibuya and they said “Sure, no problem” and even wrote on the contract that I could return the phone in 14 days if I had a problem getting a signal. Completely ridiculous. Just like McDonald’s calling the police because I wanted mayo.

Monday April 28
 
14:14
 
Thoughts On Leaving Japan

I was off work for the last week, guiding my brother round Tokyo and beyond. We visited the volcano at Hakone (but avoided the hot springs), ate sushi, okonomiyaki, and Korean BBQ, danced the night away in Roppongi (a place that I detest, but I wanted to show my brother every side of Tokyo), went to a comedy night and to see a live gig, and ended up meeting the band the next day in the pub.

It was an excellent week.

The downside is that today I’m back at work. Bummer. At least there are two saving graces. Firstly, it’s a holiday in Japan tomorrow - so I’ll just get finished clearing down the unread email for the past week and it’ll be time for another day off. Secondly, right now I can see a new decent coffee machine being installed. If this one makes decent coffee and it’s not just here on trial for a week, I’ll no longer need to entertain thoughts of buying a Nespresso machine for my desk.

After my brother left on Friday, I started to think a lot about whether I’m going to continue living in Japan. I originally came here planning to hook-or-by-crook last it out until March 2008 and then revisit the situation. I figured that 18 months is the minimum I could spend in a job without it looking bad on my CV when I leave.

Suddenly - and this was a shock even to me - the thought of moving to America sprung into my mind, and my mind didn’t reject it. This is the first time I’ve even entertained the possibility of living outside Asia since 2001. I’ve no idea where that thought came from.

I’m in no hurry to rush into a decision at the moment. If possible, I’d like to last here until March 2009, since I’ll have saved more money, have stronger experience behind me, and hopefully be a little closer to speaking Japanese (my Japanese sucks compared to my Korean). I might also grow to like Japan more, and want to stay longer.

But now that I’m past the March 2008 mark and I feel safe to move on without it affecting my career, I’m going to start thinking about the possibilities.

Wednesday April 23
 
09:03
 
The Ugliest Band In The World

Last night I went to see what can only be described as the ugliest band in the world - Biffy Clyro. They are, however, a band full of surprises: they are Scottish but sound American; they’ve been going for years and I’ve never heard of them; and, most importantly, despite being hideously ugly - beards, unkempt hair, tattoos, etc and despite me not particularly liking the CDs that I’ve heard from them - they are one of the few bands that has blown me away live. I can’t remember any time in the past when I’ve heard new material at a concert and instantly liked it - usually I need to hear music on CD first.

Maybe now the CDs with grow on me, … though if I can’t get the image of the band out of my head, that’s very unlikely!

Friday April 18
 
00:03
 
He’s Flying High

My brother is currently on a plane flying from Britain to Japan. I don’t know why, but there’s something weird about the fact that he’s actively doing something at the moment, yet I’m about to go sleep.

But then it has been a weird day. Last night I was shaken awake at 4am by a huge earthquake.

In the ~18months I’ve been in Japan, there’s been about 6 earthquakes that have majorly rocked my apartment or office.

Three of those have been in the last month or two.

That freaks me out. I’ve heard that Tokyo is on the “brink” of a major quake. People here don’t even think about it - just like South Koreans don’t think about the fact that they are still technically at war. But the recent rise in the number of earthquakes has certainly brought the fact to my attention.

I ended up going back to sleep and having a huge nightmare about a catastrophic earthquake hitting Tokyo, with buildings toppling down like dominoes in Shinjuku and surrounds, and me just escaping with my life.

Thankfully I have no “sixth sense” that I’m aware of, so I don’t regard it as any premonition. I just hope I sleep better tonight - in 6 hours time I have to get up and take the Narita Express to the airport to pick up my brother.  I’m not looking forward to the 6am rise.