BRAAAAAAINS....and stuff

J81 Thursday, June 28th 2007
I've been busy these past few days, and I haven't had time to jot everything down digitally. I'm sorry, and I'm going to start making more updates. One every weekish just isn't going to cut it.


Last week was pretty uneventful. The weekend was, as always, awesome. Kind of.

Saturday the 23rd
Finishing an amazingly light (6 classes) Saturday load, I was eager to start my weekend. Ran into some of the other foreign teachers in these parts, Josh, Brandon, and Tim. Josh is an avid video gamer and comic nerd. Brandon is terribly stylish. Tim is British. They have a great groove going on. Josh and Brandon are also the first people I would classify as nerds in these parts, much to my delight.

There is something that every nerd does. Nay, that every nerd needs, and that is to geek out. This process is unique to nearly every group of nerds on the planet. It can be an intricate dance of nuance and word, a rattling off (in a style evocative of the Dueling Banjos) of statistics and data, or perhaps a rousing philosophical, theological, or political debate. It boils down to talking a lot, very quickly, about nerdy and/or geeky things.

I haven't actually, honest-to-God geeked out since I left the States. I haven't had the time, but most importantly I haven't had the contact with others. My time with E.J., Tom, and Brain was very enjoyable, but it was a more somber occasion than I would have preferred. This was because of no action (or inaction) on anyone's behalf. We were merely four friends, four brothers, united for a short period after vast gulfs of space and time had separated us all. It was a reunion and a reconnection, which left precious little time for talk of who is the better thief, Carmen Sandiego or Arsène Lupin.

I digress. I encountered the trio of gentlemen as I was on my way back home. They requested my presence at a nearby bar, the B.B.A. (Barbie's Barbecue Apartment) which I happily obliged. A quick stop home to refresh myself after a day's teaching later, I found my way into the B.B.A. What followed was a whirlwind 5 hour geek fest. Every topic I could hope for was discussed; politics, comic books, video games, tabletop gaming, psychology, and of course, personal introspection that can only come near midnight after several beers. Around 1 AM I decided to pack it in. The others were heading off to several night spots, but I decided to grab some sleep, so as to be fresh for the next day's adventures (which I had not yet planned).

Oh, how wrong I was to be. You see, near the end of my time at the B.B.A. I decided to have some french fries (fried potato in Japanese). These were delicious, but alas they were positively soaked in grease. Normally, grease doesn't bother me, but when one considers the substantial lack of grease in my diet (as I have become somewhat of a health nut after coming here) the effects on my system were monumental. I got, maybe, two hours sleep that night, between bouts of knife-in-the-gut pain and cramping. To paraphrase, it was a near-fatal intestinal maelstrom.

Dawn broke (again at the ludicrously early hour of 4 AM) to find me mindlessly surfing the internet, hoping to take my mind off of the inevitable gastrointestinal event that would end with me pale, sweating, and fearful of my life.

Sunday the 24th
I spend the entire day reading webcomics. I wanted to go out and do something, but my lack of sleep, dehydration, hourly processions to the Land of Toilets, and overcast weather sucked my energy reserves dry. I did manage to brave the wind and rain (truly ominous as they were) toward the evening to procure dinner and a bevy of beverages to see me through the night. My walk cleared my head a little, and I enjoyed very much the growing storm, the harsh winds and light rain, and the almost complete lack of people on the streets. I felt like I was almost entirely alone in the city.

K messaged me toward the end of the day, wanting to see if I had any plans for Monday. I told him that I wanted to go to Wonder Goo (media warehouse) and K's Denki (electronics store). I wanted to go to both stores today, but didn't have the time or energy, plus the storm made me leery of bringing home any delicate electronics I would buy. K and I planned to go out the next day together, to see what we could see.

After a day of (relative) relaxation, I drifted off to sleep around 2 AM

Monday the 25th
I slept through the night without any further discomfort; my difficulties had passed. Thank God. K and I met up at Doutour, a hot sandwich deli (understand that the word "deli" used here should not evoke ideas of an actual deli. Like all things Japanese, this is their own interpretation of the concept, and I use this word only because it is the closest concept my mother tongue can express) and had a nice breakfast of hot ham and cheese sandwiches. Naoko, a nice young lady that had befriended the Gaijin Gang a few weeks ago at G-Bros. found us and had breakfast, too. She's a wedding photographer and piano teacher.

Another woman, middle aged, approached out little group and wanted to know if we were English teachers. She wanted to take private lessons. My contract, and K's, prevents us from accepting any English education work outside of our respective companies, so we had to politely turn her down. However, both of us know plenty of ex-teachers who would be more than happy to take her on as a student. The woman was so happy that we would pass her request along that she bought us a round of grapefruit juice. Man, do I love grapefruit juice!

Our fast broken and our goodbyes said, K and I biked off to a nearby manga cafe, which is (shockingly) a cafe where one can read manga. K had heard of the place and wanted to see it for himself. We stopped in briefly, awed at the sheer volume of manga we were presented with. Bookshelf upon bookshelf was filled with collections of Japanese comics. Larger print magazines were found closer to the tables and stools that were the cafe section, but the entire place was easily the size of my school. We realized that we needed to buy food or drink in order to enjoy the treasure trove of comics, and since we were both quite well-fed, we decided to dash elsewhere.

We parked our bikes and headed for Hitachi-Taga, the next town south, where both Wonder Goo and K's Denki are located. One leisurely local train one stop south and another ten minutes of walking north found us at the joint parking lot shared by these two behemoths of electronic perfection.

We hit Wonder Goo first. K had never been in one before, to my amazement (he's been here nearly a year). I walked away with two old, but beloved games (Panzer Dragoon 1 and 2 for the Sega Saturn) and a really spiffy collectors edition of the Fullmetal Alchemist movie, all for just over $20 American. The used section was kind to me.

We hit K's Denki next. I was in the market for a printer; it's been ages since I've had one of my own and I miss the freedom one finds with the ability to print your own stuff out at home. Plus, I have this neat aged yellow paper that's just itching to be printed on. The initial prospects looked bad; every printer I found was covered in buttons and switches that spoke of high cost. I didn't want anything fancy, just a printer. Prints stuff, y'know? Just as K and I were about to call it a day, we found the perfect machine. Simple. Color. USB. And it only cost about $70. I snapped up the last one they had, along with a USB cable (it didn't come with one) and a power strip.

Overjoyed at my purchase, I then realized I would have an amusing time getting it back home. I wound up carrying it back. K and I found a nice shrine, a near twin to the one I found two weeks ago, and stopped for a quick photo-op. We dashed on, though, and got back to Hitachi within the hour. I bought a few bungies at the 100 yen shop, with the hopes I could lash the printer to my bike's rear platform and carry it home that way. After the Japanese lesson, I did just that. The whole way I was convinced it was on the verge of falling off (which it was), but I'm lucky like that and it didn't. I got it home in one piece. K had mentioned a night cap at G-Bros, which I dashed out for. It was a pleasant, relaxing evening with the Gang, sans a few still-working members, but after an hour or so I felt the call of fresh technology waiting to be installed.

Surprisingly, I got the printer hooked up on the first go. Very easy to unpack, connect, and install. I had a functional printer about 20 minutes after I opened the box, no fuss and no frustration. Happily installing some nice fonts and testing out the gizmo, I was delighted to find it is blazingly fast. I haven't clocked it yet, but I would be surprised if it takes more than a second to print a page.

With that, my weekend drew to a close. It felt too short, mostly because of my day spent as the living dead on Sunday, but ce la vie. This week will, hopefully, not be too bad.

I will write more tomorrow! I promise!