i've had it

That's it. I quit, I'm throwing in the towel, I just can't take it anymore. I'm going over to the dark side -- I bought a Mac.

Windows has driven me to it. I've seen the Blue Screen of Death once too many times.

My computer woes began in the summer, when my computer's performance gradually began to deteriorate. Now, I'm by no means one who needs top performance from a computer. It's not like my usual habits involve much more than Word, the internet and occasionally Starcraft or Civ 3. But by the fall, it was the basic functions that weren't doing their thing anymore. I don't think it's too much to ask that it take less than 10 minutes to boot up. And that it take less than 10 minutes to shut down -- that is, when it shuts down at all. And programs randomly seem to just stop working -- for no apparent reason, they just won't start up. And also for no apparent reason, sometimes they start working again after a while. And then there's the crashing. The repeated, persistent crashing, followed each time by the 10 minute reboot, of course.

I tried to fix this. But two reformattings, one hardware diagnostics check, and several registry cleanings later, I quit. Reformatting made no difference (and it was a 2-day operation each time); according to the diagnostics the hardware is all working perfectly; cleaning Windows registry was useless.

I've had a couple of suggestions of other things to try, but none of them seem likely to make any difference. I'm not investing any more time into this, especially as it seems likely I'll be back doing it again in a few months anyway. Enough of this garbage.

Windows is dead; long live Mac OS X.

what we did in japan when we left tokyo

So, what did we do in Japan when we left Tokyo, you ask? We toured around the central part of the country by train. The rail system in Japan is excellent -- I don't think I'd ever rent a car there even if I wasn't terrified by the idea of driving on streets that are exactly four inches wider than the car. And they're not one-way streets, so what do they do when two cars approach from opposite directions? Curious, and best observed from afar, if you ask me. Anyway.

We spent a day in Miyuki's hometown, Kawagoe. This is a town about 30 km northwest of Tokyo, considered "out in the country" or "out in the sticks," depending on your point of view. Part of Kawagoe is still built along traditional lines (left); the banners are up because they were preparing for the town festival that weekend. We went to the festival, where hundreds of people came out despite pouring rain. We spent a large part of the night huddling out of the rain at the Buddhist temple.


We also went to Kyoto, which is a three-hour shinkansen (bullet train) ride west of Tokyo. Kyoto was great -- if I was going back, I'd base my trip out of Kyoto instead of Tokyo. Kyoto is the "Cultural Heart of Japan," with hundreds of temples and shrines. Many were damaged during WWII but have been rebuilt in the traditional style. Here's a rather small temple (right), which I like the look of. At least, I think it's a temple. For all I know it might be a maintenance shed.

Of course, there are also spectacularly huge temples as well. This (left) is at Heian-jingu, also in Kyoto, which we visited at sunset on a beautiful day. (This is only one small part of the entire place.)

Also, Kyoto is where you look for geishas! We tried one night but didn't find them (not surprisingly as they are noted for being elusive, which I think is part of the appeal). We did see one woman dressed up as a geisha, but given that she was right outside of a photo studio, I have doubts about her authenticity. Whatever, she looked cool.

Also, Kyoto is where we got engaged. We were at another temple (Kiyomizu), which was incredibly crowded with kids on field trips. Looking to get away from the throngs for a bit, we found a little path, which turned out to lead up the mountain behind the temple. Out of curiosity, we wandered up, and up, and up through this beautiful forest. Reaching a clearing, Andy felt that he should run down and tell the others where we were, and when he returned (looking like he was about to drop after running all the way back up), he had the ring! (I said yes.) We continued the rest of the way up the mountain, where we found... a helicopter pad and another throng of school kids. It was kinda surreal.

so what did we do in japan, you ask?

Andy and I went to Japan this October with Andy's brother and sister-in-law (Kirk and Miyuki) and mom (Catherine). It was Miyuki's grandmother's 100th birthday (!), and since Kirk and Miyuki were going, we tagged along.

We spent our first week staying with Miyuki's family in Kawagoe (a "small" town 30 km northwest of Tokyo) and taking the train into Tokyo pretty much every day. Armed with our trusty Lonely Planet, we hit several of the districts in Tokyo:

Central Tokyo: The Imperial Palace (you can only walk around part of the grounds, and the palace itself isn't visible -- see left), Ginza (very very expensive shopping), the Sony building (a showcase of their new stuff), and Tokyo (train) Station, which is something to see in and of itself. And Godzilla, who we caught attacking a building.

Akihabara: Electronics central. In Canada we have large department stores with maybe part of one floor devoted to electronics; in Akihabara the whole floor is devoted to just one type of electronics, like mp3 players or cameras. And it's one department store after another.

Asakusa: The Shinto temple Senso-ji is here, which you enter through Thunder Gate (Kaminari-mon). Between the gate and the temple is like a mile of tourist shops (Nakamise-dori).

Ikebukuro: An entertainment district. Here Kirk introduced us to the wonder that is the dai-jokki (large beer). It was our first night in Tokyo and we also hit an arcade (six floors of Sega games, including The Typing of the Dead and a taiko-drumming video game).

Shinjuku: This is the big entertainment and shopping district. Here we went to Tower Records and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices (ie. City Hall), which has an observation deck where you can really start to appreciate how big Tokyo really is. Urban jungle in all directions, as far as you can see.

Harajuku: Here is Takeshita-dori, where one can find all the 'Engrish' shirts you could ever want. For example: "Listen is the floatable of my progress." Very deep.

Next post: what we did in Japan when we left Tokyo!