Lost...in Kawasaki

I'm yet again postponing the last post in the catch-up series...will follow later this week.
I'm thoroughly enjoying the newest installment of Phoenix Wright (the 3rd in the series). I also found myself getting back into Animal Crossing, which I think will help to pass the time during the long boring periods in transit etc.
Watched Transformers with Hiromi the other week, which was awesome! The fights at the end were soooo good! (Although, Swaroop assures me that the original cartoon movie is way better.)
Checked out a little movie called Dejavu on DVD, whose time-travel theories were irritatingly negligent.
Speaking of time-travel, I finished Michael Crichton's Timeline, which I enjoyed thoroughly. (But then again, what Michael Crichton books don't I like??)
I'm currently reading The Running Man by Stephen King (Richard Bachman). Decent book, I'm half-way through.

Everything here appears in no particular order. It just describes many of the significant outings and venues over the past couple of months.

One night; Kim, Kame, Joy, Linton, Hiromi and I enjoyed a small dinner party type gathering at my apartment. That was pretty fun.

On quite a few occasions, we've hung out with Hiromi's gang of friends including; Matsuura, Narita, Koro, Yuko, Jun-chan, Emi, Hiroko, Saiba and a few others whose names elude me right now. Such places included are Dan, a bar in Noborito - of which we've had a couple of birthday parties as well as just hanging out after work. We've also hung out at some Izakayas and one night even went out letting off shitloads of sparklers. I was fascinated to find out that sparklers have the same name as fireworks in Japanese - 'hanabi'

Hiromi took me down to Enoshima beach a couple of times. I enjoyed laying down on the beach in the sun, but refused to go swimming as the sand is black and the water dirty and probably full of trash! Nevertheless, it was fun.

Another night, a whole bunch of us got together in Roppongi at a beer garden (and later playing darts) for the celebration of Yuko and Takako's birthdays. My friends who attended included Ryoko, Joy, Yuko, Takako and of course Hiromi.

Last week, many people from Hello House (Mike, Helen, Bjorn, Nyree etc),as well as myself and Hiromi and some other NOVA employees (Joseph, Swaroop) got together at Moco (Antique and Junk) for Joy's birthday. Master gave us free beers for the first round. Everyone was well and truly drunk that night, leaving at various intervals of the night! Unfortunately, not many photos survived this one since no one was really keen.

Last night, Adrian, Tracey, Hiromi and I had dinner at the Outback Steakhouse for Adrian's birthday and then went to karaoke afterwards in Ebina (which is a long way for me to go these days). It was really cool since the staff sung happy birthday for Adrian, gave him a card with a photo in it and a free desert.
Adrian and I have been to karaoke a few times as well.

A really cool Indian Curry restaurant has opened down the road from Hiromi's apartment, so we've visited that place a few times.

On many an occasion, we have visited the excellent standing bar, Cookie Bar and the regular bargirl, Kaori (of whom Joy is a big fan of).

Matsuura and I got together to jam one night at the Cloud 9 Studio and had some fun (he was playing bass guitar). Now, this weekend, there will be a whole bunch of us. Rob on drums, Linton on guitar, Linton's room-mate on guitar, me singing (and maybe on guitar) and of course, Matsuura on bass. I hope we can something happening!

This technically counts as work, but during school summer vacation we were to go to an English Festival where the majority of us had to teach students particular dances (some of the lucky ones were taught dances, cooking or just played basketball). Also, my school is having their sports festival this month, so I've been joining in the Ouendan (cheering) practice, which is absolutely nothing like the American style...

I remember Joy and I hanging out a few times over the vacation. One memorable day (I think this was around the time Matt and Joy broke up), we went to the Ikuta park close-by to Noborito, which I'm really keen to have a good walk around now.

The last thing I can recall at the moment was the night that Joy, Helen, Mike, Helen's friend from England, Hiromi and I went to a chinese restaurant.

If I've forgotten any other events, it's because this post is covering so much, remind me if there's something missing...

A healthy reminder to any of my friends (this is mostly people in Australia now I reckon...) that haven't signed up to Facebook, you should do it and do it right now! You don't know what you're missing!

I'm feeling a huge wave of dejavu as Typhoon Fitow overshadows us here in the Kantoh area.
It's been almost 13 months since I arrived here in the land of the rising sun and I remember my first day here quite clearly.
I arrived on August 9th. As we we entered Japanese airspace, we experienced turbulence and landed straight into the middle of the typhoon! So, my first impression of Japan left a lot to be desired. I can recall being held up in customs as there was such a long line to go through, so I kept my escorts waiting. From Narita to Hon-Atsugi, it took all of about 2-3 hours by train. Along the way I had 3 escorts who showed me which train lines to take.
As soon as I stepped out of Hon-Atsugi station, my newly acquired umbrella blasted up and was destroyed immediately. My final escort showed me to my apartment and helped me buy some toiletries. I believe my first meal was at Ootoya, although I don't remember what I ate, but it took me a while to eat since I using my chopsticks quite gingerly as my experience had been so far quite sparse (in Australia).
I remember wandering around a bit at night, thinking Atsugi was fairly busy. However, it pales in comparison to many other major stations as the ones found in Kawasaki, Yokohama and Tokyo. Truth be it, Atsugi is in the freakin' sticks and is very inconvenient. Who knows why they placed us (Swaroop and I) there since we were working about half an hour up the Odakyu line. (And according to the company, in a completely different zone)
To summarise, my first day in Japan was a rather lonely and dreary one, but since I was in a completely different culture, it really didn't seem to bother me! Craig, my other room-mate at the time was on vacation and Swaroop didn't turn up until the second night.
People say that all japanese apartments are tiny, but it really depends on how much you spend. Even so, it can depend on how lucky you are. The one we shared between three people in Atsugi was massive, the one in Machida was decent (in that it wasn't exactly a shoebox), but my apartment in Noborito is sooo big and I was really surprised to get it for that price!

Conversations for beginners are as hard or as easy you want to make them. Of course, studying on your own can help immensely, however recently I've been teaching myself Japanese just by talking to Hiromi's friends in bars. Like last night, when I joined Matsuura-san and Saiba for a few drinks and a couple of nights ago with Matsuura-san, Narita-san and Koro.
I've earned myself a nick-name amongst them, but I shant publish it due to certain readers becoming offended! LOL

Fingers crossed that the students won't have to turn up tomorrow due to the shitty weather and I can catch up on all my marking!

Rather interesting weekend.
Friday, Hiromi took me to Blue Note Tokyo where we indulged in an excellent Jazz trio. Afterward, we dined at a restaurant. Marvellous!

Saturday brought shopping in Ebisu where we found a birthday present for Matsuura-san - The Beatles Anthology DVD box-set (Has to be my favourite documentary!).
I'm wondering if I can find a copy of the special edition box-set (which has 9 DVDs as opposed to 5); not sure if it was a limited edition or not... - EDIT: I think this whole "special edition" thing was a load of crap because there are in-fact 9 episodes on 5 DVDs.
A late lunch consisted of guacamole, fish & chips and assorted sausages. I'll never understand the whole concept of a sausage on the bone - to me it defeats a purpose - the purpose of which I'm unsure of...
We also bought him some sweets and Hiromi couldn't help but get savoury stuff. I stopped by Good-day Books and picked up 4 books -
IT by Stephen King
The Regulators by Stephen King (Richard Bachman)
Inconceivable by Ben Elton
Congo by Michael Crichton
That night, I jammed with Matsuura-san, Koro, Rob, Linton and Sean at Cloud-9 Studio. It wasn't bad, who knows if we're gonna do it again (at least with the same line-up - I guess it depends on the individuals), but it was fun nonetheless. It's been a while since I've performed with a complete ensemble. Matsuura rocks on the bass!

Sunday was the Sanma (Saury - in Japanese, the kanji is "Autumn Sword Fish") Party at the Tamagawa (Tama river) in Noborito. The usual gang mentioned in the previous post were all there. The more I hang out with everyone, the more I get to practice my Japanese and learn new words. (I should really start studying again though...) We enjoyed fish (of course), lamb, red wine and fireworks.
After, we ate at a small restaurant.

I finished reading The Running Man by Stephen King (Richard Bachman) last week. The book was a lot different from the movie (As King suggests, the protagonist is nothing like the Schwarzennegger character in the movie) and the last 15 pages made me sick literally because of it's graphic detail of Richards' suffering. Alas, I think I've had enough of poker analogies at this point in time.
Just started on IT, gonna take a while as it's over 1000 pages.

Just found out there's a 99% chance I'm going to Australia for a 10-day vacation. See how it goes - more news as it comes.
But, if so, October 5th - My birthday, Oct. 6th - Dad's wedding, Oct. 7th - Suzanne (My sister)'s birthday. Then the rest - who knows!

Like I said, more hectic weekends to come, including Cookie's BBQ next weekend.

So, due to accidental neglect (mostly on my part), the 30 Gb 5.5th Gen iPod died a slow death in which the battered hard drive eventually refused to boot correctly and the battery ran out (I don't think it could have been fixed even if there was enough battery, the hdd was f#!*ed).

I want to buy myself another player, but questions arrise....

Custom firmware / Format compatibility: Ideally, I want something that's going to allow me to immeadietely transfer my favourite formats such as Vorbis (OGG) and FLAC. However, only select players support Vorbis straight out of the box and FLAC basically requires Rockbox.
So, this poses one question: Do I go with an older iPod or iRiver in order to achieve said ease-of-transfer? (For example, going after an 80 Gb 5.5th Gen iPod or the H3xx series of iRiver)

Smaller, newer, sleaker: Then there's all the appeal of the new-fangled models. For example, the new iPod Touch and Classic (6th Gen) series have just been released. Both with new video features (H.264 support) and a smaller design. The touch with the obvious - a touch screen. The classic with a higher capacity at a cheaper price. Haven't checked out the new-new iRiver series yet and Creative has NEVER appealed to me.
So, the further question is posed: Should I bite the bullet and just deal with converting OGG to AAC and FLAC to ALAC?

Compromise: I can go with a newer player, doing the whole conversion thing until the day Rockbox is ported to the newer player - but who knows how long this will take
Will I devise an easy way to convert files in batch whilst waiting for said port?

Availability in Japan: I reckon if I can pick something up cheaply and easily in the vicinity of where I live, then that will probably make up my mind.
So, I think the basic question is (now that I've done basic research - more advanced research on models I may not have considered may follow), when do I go window shopping??

I thought I'd go in another direction this time in order to make both the writing and reading experiences fresh.

Friday

School was confusing
The schedule had changed state
When the working day was done
The children, I thought I'd escaped

Dinner at Saizeria with Joy
Alas! The children I have rejoined!
Beer and japanese-italian food
Together with unwanted noise

Adrian and Aussie TV
Further beers to follow
A small interruption from Australian phone
Shaun Micallef brought the opposite of sorrow

An unexpected call
My darling, where are you?
Hiromi in a new bar
Drink more, I didn't plan to

Saturday

A lazy day with a lazy start
Began with burgers and gaming
Animal crossing before lunch
Indian curry was amazing

Animal crossing was the theme of the day
Fight Club, I watched for the thousandth time
Of these things I did, while you were away
Pachinko, I detested because I hate gambling
You returned bearing gifts
So I stopped my rambling

Mountains of sushi indulged at dinner
Enough to make my stomach burst
Accompanied by sake and beer
That quenched a long kept thirst

Sunday

Metroid, Animal Crossing and Phoenix Wright
The day commenced with these
But then shortly, we were to take flight
Back to the Tama River
Where the people of Cookie all be
The onigiri bar, run by Kaori

Merriment and drunkenness
A variety of photographic poses
Until there was darkness
"Back to Cookie Bar!", someone proposes

A momentary visit
By another suggestion, it was cut short
The King of System, the place of karaoke
We docked at said port

A series of blanks
Blackness, it seems
Singing recalled
Later, pain he redeems

Monday

A public holiday
Oh, what a joy
For my body, it feels
Like a well-mangled toy

A lesson in Okonomiyaki
Taught by the beautiful sage
Heaps of rest and sleeping
Proceeding this stage

Saturday
Went to the school sports festival.
No more ouendan practice! In case anyone's wondering, ouendan is the whole japanese cheer squad thing, but their's is on a much larger scale. Needless to say, we haven't had any peace for the last 2-3 months. All of the teachers were required to do their own ouendan dance which included a "Billie's Bootcamp" workout. I certainly wasn't looking forward to it, but it pleased me to learn that basically, like myself, most of the teachers don't want to be taken seriously!
I was also required to run in a relay race in which I ran faster than I can remember running in quite some time. It was all over in a flash.
I was wearing a hachimaki (a japanese headband) for the entire day and wasn't wearing any sunblock. After returning inside at the end of the day, I took off the hachimaki and it was pointed out that my entire face was sunburnt apart from this huge white line across my forehead. I had to get a picture of it (see facebook).

That night, all the teachers went to an izakaya for nomihodai / tabehodai (all you can drink / eat) and we were all regailed with stories and comments concerning the day (but I couldn't understand anything!)

Sunday
The Tokyo Game Show 2007!!!!
This was so much fun! Hiromi, John, Adrian and I went there together.
Nintendo seemed to be MIA on the days open to the public, so I was dissapointed I wasn't able to get a look at Super Mario Galaxy.
SquareEnix was awesome - I was really glad to have seen people playing Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core on the DS and PSP respectively.
Halo 3 looked exquisite, the graphics had everyone drooling on their Xbox 360 controllers, especially Adrian.
Adrian and John were particuarly impressed with the new Lord of the Rings MMORPG - The Shadow of Angmar, I watched on with interest.
There was also this really weird Dragon Ball Z stand-alone TV game that involved putting on a scouter and a ring on each finger - I couldn't work the damned thing out, but Adrian and John seemed to get the hang of it (again, see facebook for photos). Dragon Ball Z - Sparking! METEOR seemed to carry the same engine as it's predecessor (Sparking! NEO), but appeared to be obsessively comprehensive with the number of characters to fight with. Some of these characters playing only minor roles in some of the series and at times, barely (if at all) fought.
I'm not sure if we couldn't find it or it just didn't exist at the days open to the public, but when checking out the Capcom stand, I couldn't see any Apollo Justice (Gyakuten Saiban 4) stuff, as I was hoping to see the English trailer (but, it doesn't matter - it's online now).
Many of the games had such long lines - but the biggest of all was the Metal Gear Solid 4 booth which had a whopping 4-hour wait!
The best part for me, however, was the Tecmo booth where I tried the Ninja Gaiden - Dragon Sword preview which impressed me to no end with it's dedicated gameplay and unique control techniques.

We took a miriad of pictures (some including booth babes (or eye-candy chicks as I called them)), but weren't as obsessed with it as some of the press seemed to be. There was the usual cosplay stuff - some people seemed to have gone to great lengths to dress up like their favourite Final Fantasy characters.

Afterward, we headed to Akihabara (what's a game-day without a trip to Otaku Town?!) where we tried to find a DS flash cart since Hiromi's Slot-1-based DS Supercard had bitten the dust. Unfortunately, we had gotten there too late to purchase of such a device, but we had dinner at a tabehodai shabu-shabu place and had drinks afterwards.

Hiromi, did however, decide to buy a Nintendo Wii and a copy of Dragon Quest Swords - this brings the Wii game tally up to 3 (including Super Paper Mario and Dragon Ball Z Sparking! NEO). So, I'm pretty stoked about that.

Monday
Monday started off very lazy, but we eventually decided to go back to Akihabara to find a DS flash cart. I had the choice between an M3, R4 or DS-Linker. Since I suspected that compatibility with Micro SD cards might bring us another bricked flash card and we never really use cheats in games, I decided to go with the 2 Gb DS-Linker which has in-built memory. Although there are no real bells or whistles with this card, I'm quite pleased because it runs everything at perfect speed and has 100% compatibility.
I might still have a bash at fixing the Slot-1-based SuperCard (even though my Slot-2-based SuperCard still works fine), but I'm not holding my breath.
EDIT: I *may* have found a solution - After reading on some forums, I suspect the SuperCard itself actually killed the MicroSD card because it was turned for too long on many occasions, but I can't test said theory unless I buy a new MicroSD card - so I won't bother for the moment.
We spent a bit of time in an Internet Cafe, then afterwards went for drinks.
Hiromi also got her hands on a couple of Pachinko games for the PS2.

Tuesday
Got my Re-entry permit for my passport.
Got a new job involving teaching students English in cafes to make some extra money on the side.
Organised my tickets to Australia. However, since we couldn't buy them until recently, things didn't go as planned. I had to book tickets for two days earlier than I wanted to go and Hiromi might not be able to come unless someone cancels on a different flight. This all can't be helped, but we were still kind of pissed off...we spent our time after eating excellent food and drinking.
Caught up with John and Joy in Noborito later that night.

Wednesday/Thursday.
Was sick yesterday and still feel sick today.