Metamorphosis

I found a Super Famicom (Super Nintendo in the west) for a measly $3 at a fairly popular used goods shop called Hard-Off (Hard for hardware, there's also a Book-off, among others). $3.00 to own a piece of gaming history, I thought to myself. Of course, the unit comes with none of the accessories needed to play games: controller, AC adaptor or AV cables, or games, of course. Well, after a couple of weeks of hunting around, I've assembled the pieces, a working Super Famicom with Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, ringing in at under $40. So much for the $3 investment huh? It's great though, the best way to study (reading) a foreign language is to do it doing something you enjoy, and playing through a dialog-heavy 60-hr+ RPG is exactly that.

Actually, I have a confession to make. I've bought two other retro gaming systems here, in addition to the "contemporary" DS Lite - an original PlayStation and a Dreamcast and a few games for each. I got good deals on them - the PS for around $15 and the Dreamcast for an insane $8. So the money's not a problem - I've barely made a dent in my wallet, building up the collection. But the whole I'm digging myself in is finding a way to ship this stuff back and the fact that I'm trying to play like 10 games simultaneously. And I'm not even done. At the very least, I must get a slim silver PS2 and Final Fantasy XII before I leave!

On the subject of confessions, I have another one to make. About a month ago, I was wrapping up a project, so my boss told me to do some "jishuu", or self-study, on whatever interested me until they could find me new work. It's now a month later. Time fucking flies. I'm hoping posting this up and making it public will give me the motivation I need to take some initiative and make some work for myself. It's just too easy for me to fall into a "comfort mode" and to waste my days at work "jishuu-ing". Honestly, strictly work-wise, I think I've done less work in these 8 months than I have in any of my five previous 4-month work terms.

I find the drivers in Matsumoto to be fairly good. The roads are so treacherous though, that they really need to be. Almost all the intersections on the minor roads have these blind turns - like a big tree blocking the way so you have to inch forward until you're almost half way into the lane to see if the way is clear. Some intersections actually have these huge mirrors like at the corners of supermarkets for just this purpose, but not all.

Ultimately though, like Jeff, I was struck by a car on a morning commute. This wasn't a blind corner though and it was in broad daylight. The guy just wasn't paying attention enough or didn't belong on the road - he looked kinda old and senile. He tried to make a left turn (right turn back home) to merge into traffic but didn't notice I was passing right in front of him. Anyway, たいした事はなかったよ。Nothing came of it. I fell off my bike and scratched up my knee. I let the guy go and I bought a louder bell.