Nice to see that the Japanese police are living up to their reputations as the most incompetent police in the 1st (ish) world. In what has to be the funniest piece of happy-news this year, Japanese police officers at Narita Airport planted half a bar of weed on some poor bastard at the airport, in the hope that the airport's sniffer dogs would find it. They didn't and the officer apparently forgot which bag he put it in, allowing the passenger to walk off with the dope. Brilliant. Serves the fuckers right. It's interesting, in all the reports I have read about it, the officers said how sorry they were that the mistake was made, but none of them seem at all guilty about planting weed on some poor passenger in the first place. I can't imagine anything much worse than a bunch of sniffer dogs attacking and then police actually finding drugs on you, particularly somewhere like this with the laws here. Imagine the trouble they would have been in if they had planted it on someone with a heart condition or something...Unforgiveable behaviour. Shocking...but time for some lucky so-and-so to get high!
Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
I don't really know why April 29th, the former "Green Day" holiday, has been renamed "Showa Day". I thought it could have been thanks to the negative associations with the diet-punk band of the same name, but then that doesn't really explain why it would be renamed in honour of a war criminal ex-emperor. According to various reports, the change (which had completely flown over my head when it took place in 2005), was meant to encourage reflection on the turbulent period of the Showa Emperor's (Hirohito as he is known in my head), rule. I imagine that the right-wingers wouldn't be too unhappy that another concession has been made to their goose-stepping, pencil moustache-wearing lunacy either. Apparantly, "Green Day" has been moved to May 4th, and "People's Day", has now been abolished. So, in the end it seems rather fitting that an Emperor that did so much to aid the suffering of his people has once again manage to barge his way, at their expense, into the spotlight.
This Omnipotent-Fascist-Ruler Day Showa Day, Eri and I went to Super Festival 46! Super Festival 46!! was a chance for Eri to see a live performance by Kazuo Umezu, her favourite manga artist and all-round lunatic. He actually lives a road away from me, and we see him almost every day, walking to and from his latest project, the much-protested-against-by-small-minded-neighbours red and white striped house he is constructing near the park. He was scheduled to perform some of his songs and would be selling some hard-to-find Umezz-goods, which Eri was dying to buy. I was a little worried by the thought of being at a 6 hour live performance and question/answer session in Japanese with an octogenarian mad-man (as Eri described the event), but was happy to go as payment for numerous things she has gone to with me in th past. The event was in Ueno at the science museum.
Except that it wasn't. Eri had glanced at the flyer which said blah, blah, science museum, blah, blah、importantaddressdetails, blah, blah, blah, and had presumed that the science museum mentioned was the huge National Museum of Nature and Science in the Ueno Park museum complex. We got to Ueno, left the station from the wrong exit, and walked about a mile in the hot sun (me with a streaming cold), up the hill to the right exit and had a look at the park & museum map. The science museum was there, except that it was National Museum of Nature and Science and not the Science Museum Tokyo, where the event was being held. After checking the flyer, we realised that the actual event was in Kudanshita, about 30 minutes away by two trains.
When we finally got to the museum, I found out (to my utter dismay), that it was a good, old-fashioned toy fair, with loads of old and new toys, figures, comics and props and most amazingly of all, a meet and greet with ADMIRAL CRIX MADINE of Star Wars fame!!!1111 Oh, and we were also too late for the appearance by Umezu. Still, I met the Admiral, forgot to get a photo with him, bought 5 Star Wars Kubricks for 1000円 (bargain), and met some famous Japanese Manga people that I hadn't heard of. Eri did manage to buy a lot of Umezz-goods so was not too sad at not meeting him. I just wished I had known about it earlier as I would have been able to (finally) meet an Ewok. Oh well, the quest continues.
Well, my Macbook Pro stopped being able to burn dual layer DVDs again. This is the third time that the disk drive has broken since last June when I first bought it, and the fourth time something has needed fixing. I was really worried when I rang up Applecare that they were going to be unwilling to fix it again and would claim that whatever the problem was, it was something that I had done and therefore not their responsibility.
I called them up and as expected the guy sounded a little sceptical. He said that he would have to go off and speak to the technical staff and to his shift boss and would call me back. I wasn't holding out much hope, and was bracing myself to launch into a massive argument, demanding my consumer rights. He called back and indeed told me that Apple were not going to be able to repair the computer again, but instead were actually willing to replace it with a brand new, updated Macbook Pro, from their new line! I couldn't actually believe it, and listened in amazement as he reeled off the stats of the machine they would be giving me. I kind of felt a little guilty at first, but then again, if a computer breaks down 4 times in less than a year, it does suggest something is seriously wrong and any decent company probably should be willing to make a repair in those circumstances. The computer arrived late last week and since then I have been busy installing all the programmes I had on my old one and realising that some don't work now as the new versions of the Macbooks all come with Leopard.
I am still not sure about Leopard. I am not sure if it's a result of the new processors or the ram increase or Leopard or a combination of them all, but it's very, very quick, even compared to my last Macbook Pro. Of the new features, the multi-touch trackpad is really nice, and pretty useful. I can imagine some of these functions will become part of my basic workflow as the two-finger scrolling has done. Stacks seems pretty pointless - even a little annoying - I may have to get rid of the downloads stack quite soon. I haven't got enough disk space to use Time Machine, and probably wouldn't anyway. The empty trash button in the trash can is very nice, and I like the new hover functions in the dock. The transparent menu bar is alright, but seems a little pointless. The other changes seem a quite good, mainly ironing out little problems with Tiger and cleaning up the interface. I think it's probably something that will grow on me, the more I use it.
On the whole, I have to say I am pretty pleased with the way Apple have treated me - and it's not often that you get a chance to say that about a customer service department.
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Here are my Flickr favourites from March. Of these, I think I like Untitled by Billy Gomez (bottom right) and Sound of the City by Sanoi (far right, third from bottom), the most. I have also finally had enough time to work out how to do individual images, so just click on any of the pics above to go to that shot's Flickr page.
Patapon is spinning me out. That is all. (Chaka Chaka Pata PON!).
Pon-Pon-Pata-PON!
As the shops open again after the New Year break here in Tokyo, shoppers, frothing at the mouth after 2 days of national holidays and rapid at the thought of the New Year sales, swarm back into shops to be greeted by Fukubukuros. Fukubukuros (literally "lucky bags"), are sealed bags that are sold in most shops on the first day of the January sales. They usually sell for about 10,000円 or about £50. Normally they contain goods worth slightly more than that, but from the previous year's stock. My girlfriend works for a shop that does a very brisk trade in Fukubukuros (they made 1,500,000円 in a day from them), and tells me that the ones they sold, mainly had stock they couldn't get rid of, from the 2006 season. They also occasionally have much more expensive items in them, to act as an incentive for shoppers, and to represent the "lucky" in the "lucky bags". I was tempted to queue for 2 hours in the local camera shop to get one, as I knew I had a one-in-300-chance of getting the 120,000円 lens I am after, for 10,000円. I didn't though, sleep being a more tempting offer. Yesterday having spent 5 hours looking for a present for the missus, she rewarded me by allowing me to visit Few Many, one of my favourite toy shops. They were also selling Fukubukuro, in 1,000円, 3,000円, and 10,000円 versions. I've never bought a Fukubukuro before but for 1,000円 I succumbed and am exceedingly glad I did! Click the picture below to see the loot that was hidden within. Also shown is the Few Many Temple Omikuji (fortune) I got. It's the worst one possible. The Japanese text states that the god has no idea what I can do to improve my chances in life, love, fortune and work. Great. Oh well, at least I won a free postcard...can't be that unlucky.
