ZENZEN DAIJOUBU (not), Shibuya Outback photos, etc

I'm at the internet cafe near Warabi station. Wow, I haven't been here since like August and the desk clerk is still the same kid and he still remembers me from when I came in here almost every night when I first moved to Japan.

I'm downloading Knoppix in the hope that I can at least use my computer at home. Seems it really is the hard drive that's gone, but I'm not really sure what to do about it at this point. Maybe replaceable, maybe not. Laptop is big and heavy and old and slow anyway. Eh. I don't think I can go laptop shopping until the weekend though, maybe Sunday... well, we'll see I guess. Maybe some morning/afternoon I can hit up Ikebukuro or Urawa.

I tried to download knoppix at work today but get this, it turns out our school's computer doesn't have a CD-R drive but just a normal CD drive. WTF? I tried to also put it on my USB stick but that didn't work when I got home. Doh. I bought a screwdriver set so I could take apart my laptop but when I did and looked at it all but nothing seems out of the ordinary. However when I put it back together then it REALLY had trouble and was like "your hard drive is failing, DANGER DANGER" and all. I couldnt even reinstall Windows on it. Yikes.

So.

Work today was crazy, too. I don't really want to talk about it in a public entry but something really bizarre happened. Also Akabane Station had a power outage in the north side so none of the shops were open for foodage -- no bakery, no tonkatsu sandwich place, etc. That sucked. I got lunch from McDonalds and then after work Eri and I got dinner at Denny's. How... American. Bleh.

Speaking of American, I went to Outback in Shibuya for dinner last night. It was awesome. Amazingly, I got a 230g (like 8 oz) prime rib dinner for like... 2300 yen or something like that. It came with a salad, veggies, mashed potatoes, and Outback bread. It was all kinds of awesome and quite delicious. While I was there, I swear there were four different birthdays, and the entire staff came out to sing to everyone, just like in America. Also the waitress spoke perfect English, although everyone else there pretty much spoke Japanese to me, it was kind of odd but nice to actually be able to order in English, it made me realize it HAS been a long time since I have.

I took these photos with my cellphone:

( Outback in Shibuya pictures, mostly of food )

Before going to Outback, and the original reason I ventured into Shibuya, was to see a movie called Zenzen Daijoubu (which is Japanese for "Fine, just fine"). It was awesome, just awesome. Very funny movie. It's about this family that owns and runs a used bookstore... kind of. The father is bored out of his mind, the older (?) brother Teruo is almost 30 but mentally he's really like 14, is pretty weirdlooking, and he wants to make horror films. The other brother Hisanobu is actually pretty normal, but he's a salaryman, working in HR at a hospital, and knows it's boring. One day this completely clumsy but pure girl named Akari comes to the hospital to get a job. He hires her but eventually she ends up quitting due to her utter clumsiness resulting in some awful accidents. Akari, as it turns out, is artistic and loves books, so Hisanobu brings her to the bookstore to work there instead. And naturally Teruo (despite being completely clueless) falls in love with her, as does Hisanobu, as does this OTHER guy, a customer in the bookstore, whose job is fixing and restoring antiques and pottery. Meanwhile Akari is kind of childlike all on her own despite being almost 30 herself, but in the end everything works out just fine. Or something like that. It's kind of hard to explain what made this movie so funny but there were just silly gags all over the place (partially stemming from Teruo being a freak and/or his horror hobby, and partially just naturally funny gags). Like at one point Teruo is showing off what looks like abstract art. Curious, the guests ask "What's that?" As if it's obvious, Teruo answers, "Himeji Castle." A flashback shows the insane father putting together the Himeji castle model... completely wrong. And it's just super-funny. I dunno. I bet anything this movie will make it to SIFF one of these years, anyway, so GO SEE IT WHEN IT DOES BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME.

Before going to Shibuya I stopped in Ikebukuro at Mint, and I got some more Yukio Tanaka cards and saw some other interesting cards as well. They had Nostalgic cards too, so I will have to drag Pau back there sometime for sure.

TV ruled last night too. Thank god Ryo finally confessed to Remi so he will GET OFF THE SHOW ALREADY YAAAAAAY. If only my laptop hadn't died right after Ainori :(

Ok, downloaded! Yay. Let's see if I can burn this baby. Burn, baby, burn.

good news and bad news

the good news is -- I'm updating from my laptop! at home! after burning a knoppix ISO image disc and then riding home from the internet cafe at 2am! which was, let me tell you, pretty freaking bizarre! at least my bike wasn't gone when i came out, heh.

the bad news is -- I'm updating from my laptop at home on Knoppix in failsafe mode because I can't seem to figure out how to get it not to hang trying to do some dma acceleration in startup otherwise (it gets confused looking for the CD in /dev/hdc). and thus for some reason I also can't seem to figure out how to convince it I have a touchpad, or a USB mouse, or anything else, so I am basically using it without a mouse, and having not used linux significantly in the last few years I am of course completely at a loss as to how to do things on pure keyboard, although by using a lot of tabs and pressing weird buttons I managed to get web browsers and it seems the network works just fine...

so uh... I guess this is better than nothing but DAMN I need to get a new computer sometime soon argh.

man, I feel both really 1337 and really lame all at once right now. in this sort of "dude I kick ass I have managed to put a BIG FUCKING BAND-AID ON MY COMPUTER and I can kind of almost use it!!!" sense. i mean, I'm sure there are plenty of people who, if they had the same computer troubles, would have just been like "oh shit" and gone without a computer for a week or two until they could replace it, and here I am, going off to find a way to run an OS off of a CD to prove that it's just the HD and not the computer itself goddamnit. but at the same time I feel really lame because, well, first, this was such a big priority to me. having no computer at home makes me feel really disconnected from the world. and second, because I'm so awful at linux nonetheless. I'm gonna have to start reading up on some stuff for this to survive the next week or two until I can get my hands on a new laptop. very surreal.

this reminds me of my japanese ability. like, "take a step back, deanna, and realize that you do have some ability here." and at the same time, "i took a step back! i still suck! shut up, self!"

it's past 3am now so I should sleep. whee. tomorrow, I will learn more! I hope!