![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Big Laptop! It may have hope after all!
Well, kinda. I have sound. It seems a little off from where it used to be before The Great Experimental STOMP, but dude, sound. Now if I could just get the display to work right, I'd be totally in business. The weird thing is, basically, this morning after being fed up with this stupid thing refusing to do anything but bluescreen, I basically re-installed Windows XP on it. For whatever reason, I guess maybe I did something right this time, who knows, but it's been remarkably stable. It hasn't bluescreened yet or made me reboot or anything like it was doing before. And I've been able to run Puzzle Pirates and stuff, and listen to music on YouTube. It's possible this will get some more life out of this thing, although it's also possible that just buying a new laptop with Win7 and bigger faster stuff will also be a better idea. I mean, really, I don't trust this thing anyway, but at least it seems stable so far, which is nice. I just feel like it's a ticking timebomb waiting to go off, though.
On the other hand, I have learned a RIDICULOUS amount in the last few days about device drivers and managers and services and other random crap in Windows that I knew nothing about before. (Which is kinda like when I learned a shitload about Linux in a short time when I ran it off a USB stick for a month or two when my last laptop was dying...)
As for the rest of the day -- I went to lunch at Heiroku, and then stopped off at the au shop to sign up for Hikari internet service with them (the high-speed internet I had when I lived in Saitama but had to give up when I moved). This is so Jenny and I can actually split internet when she's here, since my current e-mobile is unsplittable as far as I know, and slow as ass anyway. The installation fee is pretty obnoxious, and they amortize it into your monthly fee, so I signed up for a plan where I have no cancellation fee when I quit, but I have to pay back the unpaid portion of the installation fee when I quit, which is going to be like $200 at that point if I quit this summer as planned. Yuck. At least I got a few discounts for being an existing KDDI customer, and the other convenient thing is that I can pay for it on the same bill with my cellphone, like I used to in Saitama.
Then came home and fiddled with the computer more; convinced it to install some Service Packs and update itself some more; talked to Mike on IM a bit, etc...
In the evening I went to Yakiniku Erika, which I've mentioned a few times here before, it's the restaurant in Nippori run by the Fighters' centerfielder Hichori Morimoto's parents. I was invited by Tanimura, the guy who hooked me up with tickets for Game 4 of the Japan Series; he spent significant parts of his childhood living in the USA and is fluent in English and Japanese and works at a trading firm and, well, has been reading my Marinerds blog for a few years, which is how he found me in the first place. The weird thing is that we'd only met in person once before, before Game 3, when he sold me the Game 4 tickets, but he'd said we should go to Erika sometime. So I was a "guest" for his work party, as it were... well, or more like, a whole bunch of people from their company were going for yakiniku. A few were actually Fighters fans, one guy was a Giants fan, and then a bunch of other people were "yakiniku fans", basically along for the food. It was like 7 women and 4 men, and some of the women got pretty drunk and were like "so why the hell is a crazy baseball gaijin here with you anyway?" Which was a little awkward. They were also like "Wait, this is the second time you've ever met?!" and my friend was like "...well, I've been reading her stuff for ages, this girl is famous" and the women were like "...whatever."
On the other hand, I spent most of the time talking to Tanimura in English, and it was really neat to geek out about the Fighters in English with someone who ACTUALLY knows the damn team, that almost never ever ever ever happens. And he's been going to games since the late 90's, and this other dude who was there whose name I never caught has been a Fighters fan since the 70's, so that was also pretty crazy. He ranted about Yukio Tanaka for quite a while. I said "Will you come try to talk to him at ni-gun this year?" and he kinda waffled, and Tanimura cuts in, "Talk to Yukio?? But he's.. like... GOD!" Which is pretty accurate, but I'm gonna try anyway, if I don't faint first.
Then some kid who has been at their company only one year showed up fairly late and everyone razzed him about that -- but he loves college baseball so we talked about Tokyo Big 6 for a while. He was blown away that my brain pretty much has the entire league in it, but I was blown away because this guy actually played baseball at Doshisha and even got to play at Omiya Stadium once in a tournament! So I'm all like "What was it like being in the outfield at Omiya?" and he's like "How the hell did you get to meet Kazuhito Futagami?"
Anyway, good food, interesting crowd, I had a few beers, which is unlike me, but made it easier to talk, since I was switching back and forth between English and Japanese a lot.
Came home, played with computer. Accomplished SOUND! Am happy. Now just need to get a few more things driving, like the proper display stuff, and USB 2.0, and... whee!
On the other hand, I have learned a RIDICULOUS amount in the last few days about device drivers and managers and services and other random crap in Windows that I knew nothing about before. (Which is kinda like when I learned a shitload about Linux in a short time when I ran it off a USB stick for a month or two when my last laptop was dying...)
As for the rest of the day -- I went to lunch at Heiroku, and then stopped off at the au shop to sign up for Hikari internet service with them (the high-speed internet I had when I lived in Saitama but had to give up when I moved). This is so Jenny and I can actually split internet when she's here, since my current e-mobile is unsplittable as far as I know, and slow as ass anyway. The installation fee is pretty obnoxious, and they amortize it into your monthly fee, so I signed up for a plan where I have no cancellation fee when I quit, but I have to pay back the unpaid portion of the installation fee when I quit, which is going to be like $200 at that point if I quit this summer as planned. Yuck. At least I got a few discounts for being an existing KDDI customer, and the other convenient thing is that I can pay for it on the same bill with my cellphone, like I used to in Saitama.
Then came home and fiddled with the computer more; convinced it to install some Service Packs and update itself some more; talked to Mike on IM a bit, etc...
In the evening I went to Yakiniku Erika, which I've mentioned a few times here before, it's the restaurant in Nippori run by the Fighters' centerfielder Hichori Morimoto's parents. I was invited by Tanimura, the guy who hooked me up with tickets for Game 4 of the Japan Series; he spent significant parts of his childhood living in the USA and is fluent in English and Japanese and works at a trading firm and, well, has been reading my Marinerds blog for a few years, which is how he found me in the first place. The weird thing is that we'd only met in person once before, before Game 3, when he sold me the Game 4 tickets, but he'd said we should go to Erika sometime. So I was a "guest" for his work party, as it were... well, or more like, a whole bunch of people from their company were going for yakiniku. A few were actually Fighters fans, one guy was a Giants fan, and then a bunch of other people were "yakiniku fans", basically along for the food. It was like 7 women and 4 men, and some of the women got pretty drunk and were like "so why the hell is a crazy baseball gaijin here with you anyway?" Which was a little awkward. They were also like "Wait, this is the second time you've ever met?!" and my friend was like "...well, I've been reading her stuff for ages, this girl is famous" and the women were like "...whatever."
On the other hand, I spent most of the time talking to Tanimura in English, and it was really neat to geek out about the Fighters in English with someone who ACTUALLY knows the damn team, that almost never ever ever ever happens. And he's been going to games since the late 90's, and this other dude who was there whose name I never caught has been a Fighters fan since the 70's, so that was also pretty crazy. He ranted about Yukio Tanaka for quite a while. I said "Will you come try to talk to him at ni-gun this year?" and he kinda waffled, and Tanimura cuts in, "Talk to Yukio?? But he's.. like... GOD!" Which is pretty accurate, but I'm gonna try anyway, if I don't faint first.
Then some kid who has been at their company only one year showed up fairly late and everyone razzed him about that -- but he loves college baseball so we talked about Tokyo Big 6 for a while. He was blown away that my brain pretty much has the entire league in it, but I was blown away because this guy actually played baseball at Doshisha and even got to play at Omiya Stadium once in a tournament! So I'm all like "What was it like being in the outfield at Omiya?" and he's like "How the hell did you get to meet Kazuhito Futagami?"
Anyway, good food, interesting crowd, I had a few beers, which is unlike me, but made it easier to talk, since I was switching back and forth between English and Japanese a lot.
Came home, played with computer. Accomplished SOUND! Am happy. Now just need to get a few more things driving, like the proper display stuff, and USB 2.0, and... whee!