January 23rd, 2005
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An evening in, alone
On the eve of a new phase in my life, I’m getting back to basics. The laundry is put away, the dishes are done, and I’m emulating a typical evening circa first year of grad-school: wholesome grocery store food, sofa computing, and a good movie.
Since I have the PC with me on the coffee table, I have a region-1 DVD in the PlayStation (Raiders of the Lost Ark). This nice little Lucasfilm gem was a thoughtful Christmas present last year from Big Dog, the most ardent supporter of my Harrison Ford mania. One thing that’s caught my eye right off the bat is that Alfred Molina plays the greedy Hispanic servant in the first ten minutes of the movie. The moment of realization was coupled with an MST3K Joel-esque query “Doctor Octopus?”
Last night I got together with one of my buddies from Sega. We struck, two adventurers on the town in search of excitement and whiskey (as we are both minor connoisseurs). Initially, I was presented a choice for dinner: 1) a cook-it-yourself (something actually quite common in Japan) frying joint, or 2) someplace “hen” (strange). It goes without saying that I picked the later.
So we had dinner at Shibuya’s Alcatraz E.R., the “ultimate theme restaurant”. Essentially the place is done up as a grimy prison for the insane, complete with corpses in the floor and blood transfusion IVs hanging from the ceiling. After opening the door by choosing my bloodtype, I was handcuffed and administered a “shot” from an oversized syringe by a girl in a nurse outfit. We were then led to our table in a loft surrounded by iron bars and instructed to summon our waitress via dragging an iron rod across the cell walls. The food was ok, but it could have been better than it seemed as it all had creepy names and dressings, and I’ve been playing a lot of Resident Evil: Code Veronica lately.
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After dinner we went by The S, one of my favorite watering holes, a dark and quiet whiskey joint north of Dogenzaka. This place is famous for its receptionist, a two year old malamute belonging to the owner. We had some good drinks and a nice talk with the bartender [Something seemed wrong about having a bartender younger than me.]. So for an eighty-eight dollar tab we got some good Maker’s Mark, Bushmills, and camaraderie.
We’re heading into Cairo now and things are really going to start picking up soon (“bad dates”), so I’m going to call it a blogging day.
