Monday's entry -- college ball, etc

(posted from McDonald's where I'm leeching wireless right now, and backdated)

I'm trying to write this and put it on my phone. We'll see if it works. (Ed. note: it didn't. I can SEE text files on my phone but can't copy and paste from them.)

So Monday I got my phone back with the data on it. That was good.

I went down to Jingu and watched the Tokyo Big 6 college ball games, or more like, I saw the end of Meiji-Rikkio -- including Yusuke Nomura, the Meiji pitcher that I like -- and then saw the Tokyo-Hosei game. Todai is TERRIBLE at baseball but, they tied Saturday's game so they were playing again Monday. I wanted to see their ace Suzuki. I had my big camera and sat on the 3rd base side, which was a double mistake -- first, Tokyo was on the first base side. OOPS. Second, Suzuki is left-handed. Oops. So I didn't get that many good shots of him, BUT get this, Tokyo actually won the game 5-4 on a sayonara fielder's choice. They were even actually ahead for parts of the game. Hosei must really suck, or maybe Suzuki-kun really is that good (I saw him strike out a bunch of guys, he throws a nice changeup too). But after 188 pitches on Saturday and 167 on Monday I feel kind of bad for him.

After that the skies opened up. Literally. There was lightning and rain and even HAIL, as if the baseball gods were protesting the idea of Todai actually winning a freaking game. I managed to make it to Sendagaya station before the worst of it, but it was pretty nasty. It calmed down by the time I got home, at least.

I napped for an hour or so, then went down to Akabane, had some ramen for dinner because it was so cold outside, then checked out an internet cafe, Primus. There seem to be three main internet cafes near the station, maybe more... anyway, this one is a little cheaper than the others BUT there doesn't seem to be a no-smoking area so after an hour and a half my clothes were TOTALLY permeated with smoke. YUCK. I'm gonna check out the other ones and see how they are for non-smoking areas soon I hope.

Then watched Ainori; Yokko kouhaku'ed to Kosuke and it's fairly certain he'll say yes, they've been acting like a married couple for the last few months anyway.

This morning I woke up and saw the World Series game except it stopped in a rain-delayed tie at 2-2! Yikes!

Also, my right shoulder is now totally killing me -- my arms don't hurt as much but I must have pulled something at volleyball because I couldn't sleep without rolling over and waking up in pain. Sigh.

Tuesday's entry -- kuyakusho, wandering Tokyo, Mexican food, Doala, etc

(written Tuesday night... entry backdated, posting from McDonald's where I'm leeching wireless)

Okay, so I went and ran errands in the afternoon. First thing I did was find the Kita-ku kuyakusho, or ward city hall thingy, so I could update my gaijin toroku card. (The way I figure it, I have time on my hands, I should make sure I get everything properly taken care of.) Anyway, finding it wasn't too hard, it's in Oji, on the other side of the big park north of the station. It wasn't too crowded, either. The problem is... I don't have a lease, and I didn't even have anything with my address on it except my mail forwarding slip from the post office.

So, they're like "um... what's your apartment number?"

"I don't have one. It's a house."

"A one-building house? Eh? You are living alone?"

"Yeah, I live alone."

"Can I see your lease?"

"Err... I don't have it with me today..."

"Can you identify which building it is on this map?"

I identify it and even tell them "this is not a road, this is a staircase here."

They don't believe me, though; they ask if they can speak to the landlord or real estate person, if I have the number. I tell them sure, and give them Sam's number, only they can't reach him at home and I can't reach him by cell. Oops.

Finally after about 10 minutes of this, I swear to them that no really, it's the second building in, I swear that's where I'm living, etc, and they shrug and say okay and update my card. I guess it took about an hour total for the whole process.

There was an extremely freaky-looking gaijin guy there with his Japanese girlfriend. He was short and skinny and had some kind of 1980's metal-band hairdo and was dressed like a Johnny's boy band member circa about 2 years ago. I'm sure that he thought he was super-cool looking, but MAN was he strange to me. As far as I can tell, he had moved in with her and they were trying to update some sort of registration.

Uh, so anyway, after that I started on a square -- Akabane->Oji, Oji->Korakuen. At Korakuen I went to the Tokyo Dome, shopped in the store a little bit, resisted buying most things, got a Takuro Ishii pen since it's my last chance, and a Morino fan since I am one. Har har. Went to Yamashita, got the last two weeks of Shukan Baseball (my real goal in going there), including the draft issue, which I'm going to devour by Thursday, hopefully.

Oh yeah, they had the Tokyo Big 6 fall season baseball card box set and oh man are they pretty I WANT I WANT but 2000 yen, sigh.

Next square side: Korakuen->Ikebukuro. I hung out there for like 2 hours waiting for Jeff to show up. I went to Mint and got boxes to display/protect my baseballs (I only have 3 but they're kinda meaningful and I usually just let them sit out there and collect dust, no more will I do that) and also looked through more cards I WANT I WANT I WANT I won't buy. Went around the arcades a bit looking in the UFO catchers and OMG I saw a Doala UFO catcher. Oh man! The crane was really weak but DOALA!! I did see a guy get one but it took him FOREVER. His girlfriend was nagging him, it was funny.

Jeff showed up, I met him at the station exit, we went to get Mexican food at El Torito. We split a bunch of stuff (salad, tacos) and that actually worked out really well, better than being screwed with their combination selection.

On the way back we stopped at that arcade with the Doala catcher and I must have put 2000 yen in, but WE GOT DOALA TO COME OUT OMG, so now I have a UFO caught Doala. It's so damn cute. I was going around like "I has a Doala!!" for the next 20 minutes or whatever until we caught trains home.

At home I listened to Spitz, built another bookcase, and chilled out. I'm a bit worried about going to sleep, I hope my shoulder does better tonight.


Doala UFO catcher. UFOキャッチャーに登場しちゃった、すみません。


Me abusing the Seibu Lions advertisement with Doala.