Running Around

I haven't been inside a bank for a couple of years, but yesterday my streak ended when I had to transfer some money. I spent a lot of time waiting and picked up a newspaper to kill time. All the major pc makers had great deals on their web sites and there were plenty of computers with LCD monitors in the $450 to $1100 price range. After the bank, I walked across the street to a big electronics chain, Yamada Denki. There were lots of shiny PCs with TV tuners and DVD burners going for $1600 to $3000. Most of there were packaged as home entertainment centers. Monitor sizes ranged from 17 in. to 26 in. With prices like these, I'm not surprised that Gateway is reentering the Japanese marketplace. The thing to do is to check out computers at the big electronics stores and then buy your choice, or something similar, at the manufacturer's web site.

Later my wife picked me up and we went for lunch at a French restaurant. I had some sort of sauted white fish, served over braised daikon, bok-choy, and a mixture of red and yellow bell peppers. It was delicious. My usual lunch is rice, vegetables, and a protein du jeour served in a gray plastic box. I chase it down with instant coffee. Note to those who must make do with instant: Go for UCC The Blend, Taste No. 117.

During lunch my wife got a call from one of her friends. Her computer went down during a lightning storm, but luckily she had insurance. Now she had a new laptop and needed to set up her email program. My wife immediately volunteered my services and we dropped by on the way home. She had a new Toshiba laptop with a nice clear, bright screen. I didn't have time to check out the specs and just set up her email and downloaded the free AVG anti virus program for her. Like a lot of people here, she said she was more comfortable doing email on her cellphone. They mostly used to laptop to play DVDs in the car.

I'd rather plunge my hands into freezing water and clean bushels of squid than input kanji and kana into cellphone email. There is a program that anticipates what you are writing and offers words and phrases as you type in characters, but I'll take a keyboard and a monitor any day. Most Japanese seem to get their first taste of the Internet and email from cellphones and not computers. This may change as the government is making a push to make sure everyone has access to a broadband connection to the Internet, but the cellphone remains the cheapest way to get connected.