New Things

Over the last week and the next few days a few new things have been acquired, or will be. They will be described below in no particular (vaguely chronological) order.

A bit over a week ago, as a consequence of signing my new contract I had to apply for a visa extension. So on the 22nd of August, I went in to the immigration department's office in Osaka and submitted my application. It consisted of a three page form and some other various bits and pieces (a copy of my new contract, a tax certificate, my passport and my gaijin (alien resident) card). Part of the process was I had to write my address on a postcard which they post when your visa is ready for collection. The postcard arrived last week, so tomorrow I'll make an early start and head into Osaka to pick up my new visa. And it will cost a mere 4000 yen. While I'm there I may get myself a re-entry permit, as I'm planning to visit my sister next month and since you get the re-entry permit at the same place as getting a new visa, I may as well kill two birds with one stone.

Speaking of new visas, my new credit card arrived in the post last week. It arrived just after the old one expired, but since it came via Australia, it's not that bad. It's pretty much the same design as the old one. I guess this means I've had 4 years of debt, although I've not owed money for most of that time.

And since it's two years since I got my last credit card, that means it's two years since I bought my iPod. And frankly, it's started showing it's age. For the last month or two the battery has been playing up and not working all the time. It would show as being fully charged, but after less than twenty minutes show as empty and turn off. Because of this I had been pondering acquiring a new iPod. Apple's recent announcement of new iPods changed my thinking from if to when. Last night as I was getting on the train home from work the battery died and I decided to head into Umeda and pick up a new iPod. I still hadn't really decided between a nano or a classic, but when I got to Yodobashi camera they only had silver classic iPods left, so that pretty much made my choice for me. It's not that much bigger than my old mini (now relegated to portable hard drive status once I get some music off of it), a bit wider and taller, but thinner. The display is a lot nicer too, although the cover flow feature is not so great (it treats each album artist combination as a seperate album, while I think it would be more useful if it realised that some albums have several artists involved (movie soundtracks for one, and most annoying, the Triple J Hottest 100s, which end up having about 80-90 separate variants for all the artists involved.) and of course would be better if I had cover art for more of my music. I've spent perhaps too much time since buying the iPod making sure all my music is organised with artist and album information.

Another recent acquisition is Evensong, the final trade paperback collection of Lucifer. Like the final edition of the Sandman, this is also more of a coda than a part of the story, but interesting none the less as it ties up a number of the loose ends in the story. I had already read the final issue, but it was good to fill in some of the gaps between the last issue and the end of the previous trade paperback.

End Post
Writing time: 1 hour 20 minutes (I got distracted)
Time since last post: 11 days
Current media: Samurai Champloo