The kind where everything seemed to go right? (Updated!)
I’m talking about one of those days where even when stuff goes wrong, it winds up leading to something better. They’re not that common, are they?
But man, do they rule!
Yesterday began fairly normally. I woke up around 6 (an improvement from Monday’s 4:30 wakeup), took out the trash and grabbed a coffee from a machine, made a simple breakfast, did some geeking online and rearranging of my music files. (For once I have my iPod and computer on the same page. Of course, this has got my iPod at over 90% capacity now, but I really don’t think it needs to be replace. Not yet, anyways. ^.^)I went to Akihabara in search of accessories for my new PowerBook (not for a new iPod!) and to sell a couple of older games I don’t play anymore. I stopped in at Sofmap and took a number at the trade-in counter. I was number 70 and they were currently serving #44.
I had some time to kill.
The Sofmap in Akiba that takes trades is right across from the Sofmap Mac store, so I popped over there to see what I could find. Not much, unfortunately. They didn’t have the keyboard cover (goes in-between the keyboard and screen when the laptop’s closed) I wanted, nor did they have a DVI-HDMI video cable (for hooking the PB to my projector). Oh well. After poking around a bit more I went and checked what number they were up to. Only #51. More time to kill.I went to on of my favorite game shops (Media Land – on the station side of the street, almost right under the Chuo Line tracks) to see if they had any good used games. No games, but I found something even better – this:
You might remember a post I made about the Ape Escape (Piposaru in Japan) series a while back. The one thing I couldn’t find was the banana-yellow memory card. Well, today I found it! I almost hesitated to buy it, as my present memory card is hardly close to full (but hey! I can trade that one in and go with the monkey card.), but I picked it up because it was the first time I’d seen one in a shop and didn’t want to be kicking myself later if I came back to get it another time and it was gone. (It didn’t have the monkey case like the new ones do, but since I’ve never even seen a new one, I decided to take what I could get.)Then it was back to Sofmap to check my number.
# 74 – Oops!
Too much time spent prowling game shops. Ah well. It’s really not a big deal. I decided to walk down to Ginza and see if the Apple store had any of the stuff I was after, but before I’d even gone three blocks, I found a new Mac store I hadn’t seen before.
So of course I had to check it out.
They had the usual assortment of stuff, and a decent used section for a shop their size. I love the “used Mac” shops here. They’re almost like mini-museums. This one had a fair bit of odds and ends, including a box full of letters for keyboards. It was in this box that I made the next cool find of the day. A bag full of these:
No, they’re not Lego keys. Nor are they a Skittles or Starburst theme set. What they are is a set of custom keycaps for Final Cut, a very nice video editing package put out by Apple. (I’ve got Final Cut Express, the amateur version. The big guys use Final Cut Pro. Thankfully the keycaps are good for either version.) These keycaps replace the keys on a regular keyboard, and they’re marked with the tool icons and names for Final Cut. Perfect for me, since I’m always having to look at a reference chart to see which keys do what.I’d be keen on getting a set of these for a while, but held off since they kind of expensive. At $59.95 a set (plus shipping) they cost more than a lot of keyboards. The box they were sitting in was marked “1 key = ¥100.” With 59 keys in the set, it looked like I’d only be saving the shipping cost if I picked them up. Then I noticed the price tag – ¥2,100! ^.^
Sweet! Needless to say, I bought them.Of course, keycaps like these can’t be put on a laptop keyboard, and I don’t own a desktop one…so…
I think you can see where this is headed.
Now, since my new machine has Bluetooth, a handy wireless technology (see, I told you you’d be hearing more about that), it made sense to get a BT keyboard. Of course, I wanted to get the most for my money, so I hopped a train to Shinjuku to go to Bic Camera. (Gotta use that point card!) They had the US version of the BT keyboard and I was in and out in a flash.
Since I was in Shinjuku now, I figured I’d check out the local Sofmap trade-in store and see what their line was like.
There wasn’t one.
I was in and out in just a few minutes. After that, I went to the other Sofmap Mac store to take a look at what they had. Check out their PowerBook section and what do I find? The keyboard cover I was looking for! Whoo-hoo! That makes me 3-for-3 for the day. And I was really only after one thing to begin with! The other two were just things I wanted but didn’t really expect to find. I woke up in a good mood (and was weirdly hyper around 9:30 yesterday morning – no idea why) and went to bed in an even better one.
Kinda hard to top a day like that, but I’m going to try! ^.^
For now, I’ll leave you with a few pics from yesterday. First the new keyboard.
Before:
After:
And here’s the spiffy OS X 10.4 “Tiger” display from the Shinjuku Sofmap Mac store:
Update!
(4:47 PM)That new keyboard’s helping out already! I redid the movies page (link up top) and put a new one up there. A short clip of a band playing in Inokashira Park after a day at the Kichijoji Music Festival. I’d been hanging out with Rob Pongi and he took over the camera when I started filming these guys, so that’s why he gets a credit at the end of the clip. Enjoy it, and be sure and try to catch these guys should you find yourself in Tokyo and wanting to see a good show.