Here's a quickie recap of the weekend, as it were. Time flies, regardless if one's having fun or not.

Friday was "abekana's" farewell party. She's leaving Hitachi GST to get married in Germany. Good for her, "bad" for the younger gang at HGST. The youth is dwindling: everyone's getting married and a couple people have left. We need some new blood, but when the industry's in such a pinch, it makes it hard to hire. Anyway, the turnout was pretty big. We had a course at Hatta (East Side). I drank a lot of reishu, which gave me a hangover on Saturday morning. I made use of my Sony T3 camera to shoot some video of abekana's farewell speech, as well as some of the general insanity going on. Turns out one girl there who I hadn't met before had studied in Cincinnati, which is very strange since nobody here knows where Ohio is. That's a sad state of affairs considering Dayton was where aviation was born!! Anyway, the party was upbeat. Those sorts of things come with mixed feelings: a sort of selfish sadness in parting, and a more benevolent hope that the person finds happiness in their latest adventure.

There was a second party with about half the members. Yasu had brought along his new girlfriend, who's actually a coworker, to introduce to the group. They're an interesting couple. Since they went to the 2nd session, we had a chance to talk a bit more. Larger gatherings are hard to deal with, because one has to make the rounds to talk to everyone. Smaller gatherings make it easier by not requiring such effort. I'm too lazy for big parties, I guess. Anyway, we also interrogated abekana about various things related to getting hitched. I caught the last train back home, after eating entirely too much. When I drink, for whatever reason, my brain doesn't send the stop signal like it should.

Oh yeah, one girl who works at HGST is related to the governor of Tokyo (his niece, I think). One can tell she's well-off just by looking at her. She showed up to the party late and had to sit next to this gaijin, hah! So after she moved to talk to one of the other girls, she asked T.S. to pass her purse. He said, "Which one?" and when he handed it over realized that was a dumb question. Of course it was the Louis Vuitton one. Well, T.S. was very drunk.

Ok, Saturday. I didn't feel so good in the morning, ostensibly due to a hangover. It was mostly my stomach, being queasy, but that could've easily been due to overeating, too. Sachie got me some funky bottled antidote at the convenience store and that helped. Still, I was in a lousy mood. Since Katie's PowerBook had died, Sachie and I went down to Ginza to meet up with her at the Apple Store to provide moral support. The suspect part is the HDD, which unfortunately contains a bunch of irreplaceable pictures that Katie didn't bother to back up. (That's a jibe for you, KT!) The guy at the "Genius Bar" didn't seem to know much, as he only ran the Disk Utility that's a basic diagnostic tool. They wanted to charge a lot of money to replace the HDD, and not even give back the old one! Katie wanted the old one back in case there was a means to recover her stuff, so we told the guy no dice. Apple's got themselves a nice little scam on the repair bit—I'll write an entry about that later.

We had eaten lunch prior to the Apple Store at a gyouza place, which made us sorta late for the "Genius Bar". I say sorta late, because although they had said a time, it was just a guideline, and even though we were 15 minutes late, they still didn't call Katie for another 15 min or so. The gyouza place was annoying, too, because they forgot part of our order. In retrospect we should've complained; if my Japanese was better, I would've. Good thing for them they don't depend on tips.... So after the Apple Store, we hit a cafe to take a load off. The cafe mocha I got was horrible, and the tiramisu was none too good either. I didn't have a very good experience at Ginza.

Then we met up with Yoshi at Tsukishima to go eat monja-yaki. He arrived on this little bike that folds up so you can take it on the train. Cool. So we went to this one place and had to wait for a while to get seated. The monja-yaki experience is cool. It's like partially cooked okonomiyaki in a way; in another way, it's like a stew you dump on a hot plate until it thickens into almost a gravy. Another good talking-eating-drinking activity. Afterward, we went to a Jonathan's for dessert.

Ah yes, the decadent life of the bourgeois. I tend to spend quite a bit on weekends. Probably as much on food as the weekdays, but then again, I'm generally buying for two when the weekend rolls around. Hey, I work for it. (Not many Americans have experienced the hours I have, and even if they have, they probably haven't sustained that pace for a year's time.) Yoshi works even harder than I do, though. He was in at work on Sunday. At least I keep weekends for myself, for the most part.

Prior to parting, Katie handed over her PowerBook for me to replace the HDD. Disassembling the PB was part of my Sunday. Sachie and I then went home, only to have Sachie's bro call us up because he needed a sober driver to take him to Don Quixote (a funky department store that's open late), and Sachie's mom wasn't feeling so great. We went over there at 1am so he could pick out a gift for White Day to send to some girl. I ended up buying a couple items, like the "Lovers" DVD (House of Flying Daggers). Haven't even seen it, but I bought the DVD. I have several movies like that on my shelf.

Sunday was strange. It was sunny for a while, then started snowing later. Sachie went to her yoga class in the morning, so I did some cleaning and laundry. I tried calling Brandon, but didn't get through. I called my dad and talked for longer than I expected. There're a lot of things in the world to complain about: for example, the stupid politicians that stupid people elect. (I don't just mean Bush, because I think Clinton was just as bad if not worse—politicians are cut from the same cloth.) Well, I'll leave the politics for another time. My political theories are bound to piss a lot of people off. Sachie and I then went out to this Korean ramen-type place that Mr. Green frequented when he lived here. Actually, I had ishiyaki bibinba (or bibinpa, I'm not sure what the correct K-lang is for it). The kimchi there was awesome, so we bought some and brought it home. Sachie went to Campari and I went shopping in Fujisawa for White Day stuff. Argh. Buying jewelry is torture. The lady at the Marui Take-Up was pretty nice and patient, but perhaps that was because there was no one else vying for her attention. I also bought a Torx T6 driver that I needed to take apart the PowerBook. I picked up the latest Nakashima Mika CD, as well as Rie Fu's album. (I'd been looking for her single since I heard a clip of "Life is like a boat" in a CM. Another thing bought on a whim.) Dinner was a "hot wrap" from Subway, and some chili thingy from Tully's. I like to sit in the Tully's and write letters. For some reason, at home I can't concentrate because there are too many distractions. I didn't finish writing, though, because Tully's closed at 21:30. When I got back, I finished disassembly of Katie's PowerBook. That was actually kinda fun.

And that was my weekend.