In other news, it’s already May 2010, virtually all of my friends are now parents and the Japanese spring is here. Most people seem to think that spring is a time to celebrate life, have picnics, hack seals to death etc etc but they obviously have never spent spring in Japan.
Don’t.

And finally today, this is being written on the Yotsubashi subway line on a best-selling touch screen mobile telephone. My first such post. When the train pulls into the next station (and I get cell coverage again) I will try posting.
Good bye.

Anyway, google helped me narrow the search down to 11 candidates. Out of the 11, VIAddress was the winner. They certainly offered the best freight rates (for the large article I am thinking of shipping). They also had the funkiest web 2.0-est website too.

And now I am exhausted. Anyone else used one of these services to Japan? Any thoughts?

And the result: not much.

The skimpily clad girls were just as skimpy as ever. As a result, the “camera kozo” were still out in force. The cars were as ridiculous as ever.

The only thing that had changed was the fact that a lot of companies were modifying the Toyota Prius.

Amongst all the pseudo eco-cars, I did find this absolute gem. A car upholstered with leather, on the outside!
(and even better, it wasn’t leather, it was vinyl!)

A red vinyl van, anyone?

Just look at this page. What the hell was I thinking? Granted, I didn’t actually make this template but I think it’s way past its best before date.

(Editor: the theme was changed in Jan 2010. I think it looks better now)

I found that I seldom “used” Facebook- in fact I never even look at it since I just don’t have time. I figure if you don’t use it, you don’t need it. You can get rid of it.

For those of you who don’t know what happened…

Put a data DVD in it a couple of weeks ago. Copied the data. Tried to eject the DVD, it woudn’t come out. Made an appointent to see the Apple Store’s Genius Bar, and the “genius” said after 20 minutes, “The DVD is stuck. We’re gonna have to send this in for repair. It’s going to cost 10,000 yen just to look at it.”

I left the Apple Store and took the ‘book to Sofmap, from where I had purchased it 1 year and 363 days earlier.

Sofmap quietly and politely filled out an incident report. Took the ‘book. Told me to wait 2 weeks. 12 days later (today) the ‘book arrived by courier. With the following…

1. New DVD drive

2. New top case

3. New screen bezel

4. New HDD Guide (not sure what that is)

5. New protective seals on my trackpad and clicker button

6. New Keyboard

Now, I am not complaining here, but what’s the deal with numbers 2 to 6? I only had a DVD that wouldn’t eject! The cost of all these repairs was 64,000 yen.

The cost to me: ZERO!

The moral of the story is thus:

If you live in Japan and you buy an Apple brand computer, buy it from Sofmap. If it’s new you can get a 5 year warranty that beats the pants off the laughable “AppleCare”, and if it’s used, then you get a 3 year warranty that covers you for this sort of thing (mine was bought used).

This Macbook is now exactly 2 years old, is onto its 3rd DVD drive, 2nd battery, 2nd keyboard, 2nd top case… and none of these repairs has cost me anything.

And it feels great to have it back.

Here’s a snippet…

““Bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy”, was what he was up to, he said in a videotape. He even did the math. “Every dollar spent by al-Qaida in attacking the US has cost Washington $1m (£545,000) in economic fallout and military spending,” said the report.”

It took a good few hours, but was a great trip down memory lane. Check it out for a bit of nostalgia. Click on a 2004 archive link on the right.