The RoggBlog

Winter dawns in Tokyo are pure blue.

See you in two weeks.

The topic of convenience in shopping in Japan is one that quite honestly deserves far more space than I’m actually going to give it.

Suffice it to say:

• It’s 1:14 am.
• I leave for home in 4 absolutely jam-packed days.
• I need a motorbike cover for Betty to cover her shame while I’m gone.

A quick Google reveals a 24-hour Don Quixote a 10 minute ride from my house, that manages to fix me up for about 3700 yen.

That, my friends, is convenience.

(Thanks to Cam and Taka-chan for the heads-up.)

Last night, I restarted my iMac, poured a coffee, and nearly scalded myself when the computer started shrieking hysterically at me. After cleaning up and trying it again, just to confirm I wasn’t having some kind of seizure, a little Googling revealed the source of my woes: a faulty memory module.

Luckily, after forcing it to assume the position (face down on the bed and crying, ladies) and having at it with a trusty Philips screwdriver, I pulled the dodgy one and had it rebooting as normal, albeit short of 2GB RAM.

So what now? I’m not particularly fond of carting it off to Apple for the next week, since they will undoubtedly wipe my hard drive as a matter of course and erase my treasured collection of midget porn university documents. I also tried ringing the Apple store, only to be told its not as easy as just bringing the duff RAM down there and getting a new one.

I’m almost tempted to just write it off and buy a spanking new RAM kit from Crucial: I’ve had good luck with them in the past, I won’t have any downtime, and it’s going to be a damn sight better than the crap from Hynix that comes in the box.

Not happy.

Oi! Freitag!

Two words: motorcycle bags.

I lost a map the other day after the heavens opened and I forgot to bring my current tank bag’s stupid little shower cap. I demand something with the robustness of ten trucks.

Get back to me.

It’s 4.18 am. My neighbour has just beat another tattoo on our adjoining wall, telling me to shut the hell up with the guitar playing and let him get some sleep. Third time tonight, if memory serves. I have a translation to do by Wednesday, along with a raft of coursework my erstwhile group mates will likely blank out on again, bless them, but the real trial of insomnia is that you’re not in a state of sufficient wakefulness where you’re actually able to produce anything worthwhile. It’s just your brain leaking a primal desire for blessed unconsciousness, along with all the neurochemical housekeeping you’re supposed to get done while lounging on a golden deckchair under the sunny skies of the land of Nod.

While I know for a fact that he doesn’t feel the same way, I don’t actually hate my neighbour. True, while writing this I’m actually googling for a subsonic frequency generator I can attach to the wall and gradually tune till I reach the sweet spot where his eyeballs explode, but again that’s the scratching, hamster-in-a-wheel mania of looking for something to do, rather than any real, you know, malice.

Mostly.

Sod this, I’m going for a cig.

But the worst part of it all is knowing that in mere hours I’m going to have to rouse myself and go to work. And since the debacle, it’s not been a fun place. I’ve been switched to translation, which I could deal with if there were any articles beyond regurgitated press release to do; I’ve been stripped of my website editing rights and watched the site design devolve into a piece of grade-schooler’s IT homework, and I shut my new boss’s phone in a drawer after it emitted one of its trademark screams for its owner’s attention one too many times.

(Two, and it goes out the window, I swear.)

I told Roscoe once I’d rather have a test of ability than a test of patience. He thought the latter would be good for me.

It’s not.

/endcommunication

It’s almost time for home. As of RIGHT NOW, I’ve done 16 hours 53 minutes, fuelled by nothing but cigarettes and a hastily-scarfed bowl of tantanmen. Which I choked on, sc-horching my throat.

The upshot of all this? Well, I can now see things that arent’t there and have developed a pressing urge - nay, biological imperative - to punch certain 2channellers in the face and steal their shoes.

At least driving home will be fun. Zoom.

After the rider skills course, the manager of the bike school sat me down, and congratulated me for finally getting all the way through the tortuous licence process. Much stamping of forms was accomplished. And then he said this:

On a motorcycle, you fly down the road, open to the elements, but you must remember: that power is not your own. It’s from a machine. And if you forget this, you’ll come to grief.

A salutory reminder for us all.

That said, there are plenty of big roads up around Ariake and Tokyo Bay that are almost empty even on a Sunday, since the whole area is still under redevelopment. So if you really - I mean, medically - need to put the hammer down, try there.

View Larger Map

My favourite web app at the moment is the fantastic Navitime. It’s a map, it plans routes - either by Japan’s notoriously pricey expressways or regular roads, and with an estimated taxi fare and carbon emission total (if you’re a hippy: exhaust fumes rock) - train routes, and all sorts of good stuff.

And it’s just got a spiffy new look.

I swear, if I couldn’t already I’d learn Japanese just to use this bad boy.

Take Route 440 west out of Tokyo.

Keep going.

Past Nishitokyo.

Little bit more.

And on the right is AFG Moto, Japan’s only Icon dealer. This would be cool enough, but owner Akira also happens to be a damn nice fella. A pair of boots and a jacket later, and he’s thrown in some gloves, a t-shirt (with boobies on, no less), chucked in some stickers and stuff and topped it all off with free delivery.

Robocop quote:

I love this guy!

Dad sent me the Police Rider’s Handbook the other day. As many of the Amazon reviewers note, a gripping page-turner it is not. What it is, however, is chock-a-block with helpful advice on becoming a better rider, and it’s become my bedtime reading since it arrived last week.

“Knowing yourself” is the basic theme of the first chapter, and thinking back to the ride this morning, I’m seriously thinking of staying off the road for a while, no matter how physically painful it is.

What with one thing and another, the only thing I have to look forward to each day is the ride home. But due to my now near-permanent state of seething irritability, I’m riding stupidly. I know it’s happening: the scuttling up between waiting traffic mere seconds before the lights change, the pointless overtakes if anyone dares to drop beneath the speed limit, etc., etc. I don’t think I’ve done anything really bad yet, but still.

The thing is, if I stop riding, I may have to release my stress in other, oh-so-much-more-anti-social ways. Beating on homeless guys seems to be flavour of the month round here at the moment. :/