1)
Put a deposit of Y10,000 on a Y50,000 digital camera, the Olympus
C-2040.
The 2040, 3040, and 4040 all have pretty bright/fast f1.8 lenses,
which means when you're hanging out at a dimly lit karaoke bar on
Saturday night with your bandmates, you can take good shots without
interrupting the evening with an obtrusive flash. It'll also be handy
for concerts where dimmer colored lighting is often used. (The 2040
is a 2 megapixel camera, more than enough for me and this website.
The 3040 is a three megapixel, the 4040 is a four megapixel.) All
come with 3x optical zooms, so I'll be able to get better pix of the
drummers and stage-left guitarists now too, huzzah!
In
Akihabara, pretty much all the camera prices were the same... sometimes
there was a difference of Y2000, I guess because certain stores bought
certain more popular cameras in bulk, but all in all, prices were
always within $1 of each other. That's pretty cool. And name brand
64mb Smartmedia cards were always within a few yen of Y3800, so that's
also cool. Ne?
2)
There's several cool CD/DVD shops in Akihabara too. Along with Raphael's
First DVD (they're live at the Shibuya Kokkaido on 7.26.99
-- what were YOU doing on that day?) and Dir en grey's macabre
00>>01 live document (not a live concert, just 10-second
bits and pieces from every show on the tour, which i bought new, two
months ago), i also got the single for One Way Drive, for cheap,
and, significantly, solely for the single's cover. This is the first
time I've bought a CD irrespective of the music inside. It won't become
a habit, but it is a little depressing! Makiko Esumi, the actress/singer,
isn't even all that hot. It's just a cool photo!
3)
For Y96, I bought WinDVD 2000 Studio. Not a bootleg version, just
a version meant for distribution only with Fujitsu Lifebooks. I really
wanted PowerDVD (for the still-capture from DVD function) but they
no had, so me cry.
And
when I got home and popped the CDrom (not CDr) into the drive, not
only did i get, "You need to be running the Japanese version
of Windows to use this software," I also got the warning box
"This is not a qualified Fujitsu machine. [So installation will
not continue.]" So my Y100 yen foray into the world of grey market
software reselling has thusly been stopped dead in its tracks. And
until I get PowerDVD, I won't be able to make and post screen captures
from new DVDs... my trial PowerDVD 3.0 has expired. And it's $50 for
a new copy.
So,
when I tell you about how everyone, and i mean everyone, at the 1999
Raphael gig at the Kokkaido was dressed head-to-toe in white, making
all the crowd shots reminiscent of a cult suicide event, you'll just
have to picture it in your mind's eye. And when I describe Kazuki
as "Ace Frehley circa 1977", you'll just have to trust me
that, literally, you'd have such a difficult time telling them apart
that you'd "want a deuce!"
4)
Also in Akihabara (which, has lots of hentai anime shops -- and I
mean LOTS, like, one or two on every block -- snuggled in between
the giant tech superstores and tiny mom-and-pop PC shops) I saw SDRAM
selling for mega cheap: namebrand 128mb 168-pin dimms for $20 or so!
Didn't they used to cost, like, a lot more?! Anyway, i figure my PC's
been running too smooth lately, so I wanna fuck it up, so I'm probably
gonna pick up a gigabyte's worth of SDRAM DIMMs and install 'em and
see if i can crash/freeze my machine and make every day at home a
living hell til I solve the problem. But it's worth it, because every
photo on this site has been Photoshop'd, and Photoshop ~loves~ RAM,
and the faster I can process 2-megapixel live images of Kisaki from
Syndrome (that gig's in a couple weeks), the better, ne?
5)
Speaking of "ram": condoms! I got a 10-pack of "Big
Boys" last week. They're the same size as any other brand of
Japanese condom, despite the "L Size!" proclamation emblazoned
on the box... AND they're black! This is bad. Because now your chin-chin
seems all discolored and gangrenous when you put one on. "Sexy!"
What
I really wish I had done was saved the box of X Japan condoms I picked
up at my local Sunkus conbini six years ago. Ah, now -they-
were cool... I mean, a band putting out it's own prophylactic?! Damn,
that's the shit! I think they had pictures of the band on each tip
too. Har har, no no no, just kidding, they were pink, wholly pink,
and nothing but the pink.
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