Death of an Old Friend

My trusty mac, who has been with me through thick and thin for the last four and a half years has finally gotten too temperamental to be reliably used for any more than 30 minutes. The cooling fan has busted, and she overheats.

Apple, a company of whose products I have been a great fan of for some time now, has now done the BASTARD thing of not including a Firewire port in their latest Macbook models (unless I get the really baseline one, which doesn't have much more grunt than the one it's replacing) and so I am being forced to buy the next model up, which I really can't afford right now.

(Apple have also downgraded the memory size on the largest of their iPods, which is really giving Tom the shits because he wanted to buy a 160G, and now they're not making them that big anymore).

I need the Aussie dollar to bounce, but it doesn't look like it is going to, and so, this month, I will be unable to talk to any of you via the internet aside from the brief moments where Tom is kind enough to let me use his blackMacbook.


Last week, I killed my phone and was forced to fork out ¥42000 for a new handset and whatnot with Softbank/Vodafone. It felt a lot like the Terry Gilliam film Brazil, wherein I had paid out my departure fees with Vodafone when I left last time, telling them "I'm leaving the country." After the date that I had told them I would leave the country (and indeed I had left the country), Vodafone thought it would be a great idea to send me a bill to an address that I had told them that I had left. Then they got all hissy about giving me a new phone this time because I had ¥4400 owing from 2005. To say I was livid would be an understatement. Anyway, I relented, Tom and I are now with the same phone provider on a 'Family' plan, and this will eventually deliver us great savings, or at least, that's what I've been lead to believe. Anyway, I've had a bad month for electrical equipment, and I am making sure that the hairdryer stays well away from the bath, because I'm convinced that technology is out to get me at the moment.

In other news, Osaka in Autumn is pleasant, dry, comfortable and prettier than usual. I've been sick so I've been having to take it easy, but I have been thoroughly impressed with the Kansai Autumn, and I hope we will be doing more than one of them...

Things what I have learned.

1. Never accept a "gift" that you think should be paid for. The giver will probably extract a much heftier payment in flesh than they ever would have accepted in cash.

2. Never expect a new journey to flow from an old journey. Each new beginning is hard.

3. Never think that people will respect or like your ideas. The ones that they like they will steal and pretend were theirs in the first place. The others they weren't even listening to.

4. You can never have enough savings for a rainy day if you live in a country that gets typhoons continuously. My camera broke the other day, so now I am eating beans until pay day so I can replace it.