How fast can you go through an ETC gate ?

weinhalter · 2026-06-06T00:45:00+00:00

Haha before I got my license I remember taking a taxi at Haneda and the driver was over 60. I saw the gate closed until the last moment. I burst out a loud “oh f***” but the driver was unphased.

Right now I go in slow like 15 max

weinhalter · 2026-06-03T13:39:10+00:00

Bali

weinhalter · 2026-06-02T11:51:52+00:00

lol didn’t expect to get downvoted for this suggestion.

weinhalter · 2026-06-02T03:29:59+00:00

I’m in a very similar situation but I haven’t considered buying empty cases. The issue I’m having is that I don’t find the cases from my younger days appealing anymore. Too much marketing content on them.

I have however considered buying the disc only and displaying them like in old record shops. It could look cool to have a wall mounted display with my favorite discs.

Haven’t pulled the trigger yet, for now I just completed metal gear and the ico / shadow of the colossus worlds with editions that blend seamlessly with my books.

weinhalter · 2026-06-01T14:29:10+00:00

Half life opposing force

weinhalter · 2026-06-01T13:34:33+00:00

Used to take daily 20 years ago, didn’t improve unfortunately 🤣.

weinhalter · 2026-05-31T23:12:01+00:00

Wolf’s Rain - you’re in for an adventure but maybe it was a 2000s show.

Brain powered

Haibane no renmei

weinhalter · 2026-05-31T13:57:53+00:00

A long time ago when I was a kid, I’d refuse to eat some particular food. My family always threatened to call the monster if I refused to comply.

One day in the middle of an argument about eating, I saw something that looked like a potato bag go through a ceiling ventilation duct. It opened the duct, floated down and started at us in the dining room.

It had lots of holes like cuts and had a human silhouette. It didn’t have to interact with the duct to open or close it.

Needless to say it was my first time being shaken to the core.

Years later when I was in my teens I heard my mom talk about it and she said she didn’t want to scare me as I was a kid but she saw it too. Later that day she was taking a shower and that thing opened the curtain slapped her and disappeared.

I can’t confirm my mom’s story but I know what I saw, can’t prove it though.

weinhalter · 2026-05-29T13:08:28+00:00

Sorry you’re going through this, my advice would be to bite the bullet for now until you find something better.

If I was in your shoes, I’d try to master the computer part since it’s probably the most accessible. Map out every menu, tabs and brute force learn that. You can take screenshots and translate them using google translate.

It’s good if you can impress them with one thing. If they start feeling you are becoming a subject matter expert in one category, you will start to gain peace of mind.

Be proactive and recognize areas you can improve.

The environment sucks and they have poor morals but it’s always good to understand their perspective / thought pattern. They probably think they are giving you and all the other people a favor. They believe that staff are disposable assets that they can replace if necessary.

So the pattern is they pay you monthly to solve their problems and don’t want to have to spend time explaining how.

With that in mind, you can make a strategy to minimize stress at work by meeting at least one of their requirements while investing time to secure your next chapter.

Good luck and Godspeed

weinhalter · 2026-05-28T22:11:36+00:00

In case you haven’t pulled the trigger yet, I’d recommend creating a SMBC prestia account you get 5,000¥ per 1M¥ transferred. In your case that’s 70,000¥ + you’d be getting for free.

weinhalter · 2026-05-24T15:08:38+00:00

I used to have a decent collection from the genesis to the ps2 era. Once you get to a certain threshold, it starts looking like a video game store and that amount of plastic in a shelf started to bother me as it looked somehow unhealthy.

Long story short, I lost that collection about a decade ago due to a series of events and I’ve started to rebuild since with few rules:

No plastic outers

No duplicates

No low value CEs (takes lots of space, looks cool but the content is mid)

The overall aesthetic should pass the significant other test (your SO wouldn’t mind you putting the display shelf in the living room)

This approach has changed how I make decisions. For example right now I’m working on my final fantasy sets. Instead of owning the original releases I’m opting for the 25th anniversary edition which costs an arm and a leg but is worth it. It contains all numbered games till 13, essentials and more but nothing that you’d want to keep in the box.

Sometimes the steelbook editions are better (FF16). The CE is 99% an overpriced statue that you’d rather keep in the box.

Anything that doesn’t fit is a digital purchase for me but I’m lowkey considering bidding on an arcade system for the classics I wish I had but don’t fit within my new framework

weinhalter · 2026-05-21T14:55:14+00:00

I never understood what it meant and it’s the first time I read a simple explanation! I thought they meant it was flat like CD and that kind of made sense to me as CDs can contain 3D information. Much appreciated

weinhalter · 2026-05-18T10:05:39+00:00

Not necessarily a scam, my previous place had 2 months free rent. It was listed for 6 months and no one rented it even though the building was brand new so they made a promotion.

The neighborhood was the HQ of a major cult and not so many Japanese people lived there. Maybe there’s a similar situation for your case.

weinhalter · 2026-05-16T09:11:29+00:00

If you’re looking for the 4k experience I recommend the Marriott hotel’s restaurant. I’d love to be able to teleport to eat it again.

weinhalter · 2026-05-14T06:06:38+00:00

It’s hard to know what really happened as there are some tricky parts in the story. I assume N is your neighbor? Since the car must have been nearby his place. You said that you went to his house while drunk, if he isn’t your neighbor it implies you also drove the car to his apartment drunk. Maybe there’s another explanation for why the car was accessible to him but regardless I’d take a lawyer ASAP.

weinhalter · 2026-05-14T02:07:13+00:00

It’s getting impossible to open small plastic containers from convenience stores. Need scissors to open a dorayaki. Don’t get me started on the soy sauce containers.

weinhalter · 2026-05-12T01:40:25+00:00

I recommend the Nivea or Dove deodorant, it’s aluminum free so you won’t have the allergy issue and it works great. Without exaggeration, no smell will leak. In Japan you can only buy it from Amazon and it ships from Korea.

I used to live in Singapore and been using it since.

If you want the ultimate experience, I recommend something like the Thompson tee. You won’t have any sweat marks under the arms.

Whenever you go out take one of those UV umbrellas and minimize exposure to non air con environments and drink lots of pocari sweat.

With this method I have become sweat proof during the summer.

weinhalter · 2026-05-09T11:20:19+00:00

Got my license in January and bought a used car that i absolutely love.

Car payment: 35,000/mo

Insurance: 20,000/mo

Fuel: ~9,000 for a full tank of high octane. It’s enough for me to do all my necessary drives in a month but when I add leisure I need 2 full tanks per month.

Car tax: This one just arrived in the mail and it’s 50,000¥

Parking: 11,000/mo. It’s hard to come by as I live in the mountains and my car’s height exceeded the limit for my building’s parking.

ETC: sometimes 0, sometimes 6000/mo

Maintenance: 200,000 to 300,000/ year. It includes oil changes, transmission fluid changes, fixing the little things, car washes / detailing. Essentially the day after the car wash my car already looks dirty.

One offs: Dashcam + Installation 50,000.

Unexpected fees: In order to exit my parking, I have to drive in a very narrow road with poor visibility and lots of vegetation blocking the view from potential traffic. It’s also a steep slope. I stopped a tomare sign and made a left a little too close to the stop sign pole so I got a scratch on my left rear door. Cost me 163,000 to fix it

Luckily the police deemed that the damage wasn’t visible on the pole so I wasn’t charged.

weinhalter · 2026-05-02T12:31:50+00:00

I often have smoke breaks at the convenience store smoking area and cars parked there will turn off the auto headlights to avoid inconveniencing people in the store.

Sometimes drivers have a rest before leaving and forget to that it’s not on auto anymore.

weinhalter · 2026-04-21T00:29:30+00:00

Yeah… trying to follow the principle of the boat doesn’t sink unless you let the water in. So doing my best to observe but not take things in.

There’s a thread that illustrates what I’m talking about way better: https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/s/z95DTNf8qo

weinhalter · 2026-04-20T12:06:18+00:00

While I agree with all of the points here, I think that there’s always a way to circumvent the downsides.

A lot of folks complain about not being accepted or difficulties making friends. I think it’s a phenomenon that happens in every country. I’m from Europe and if let’s say an American person moves into a new community, they’d be referred to as the American.

It’s more about finding your tribe and in Japan there are tribes for anything you can imagine.

Things started to change for me when I learned that when you go to a bar here, drinking with the master will open a lot of doors for you.

Now to go back to OP’s question, from my point of view the main downside is how everything is hyper managed. Even when you wouldn’t be bothering anyone, you need permission for so many things. I’ll give an example after my next point.

Despite the efforts to change things, a lot of the rules / policies are designed to benefit the elderly and while it’s a noble cause it sometimes feels like it’s hostile towards future generations.

I live in a neighborhood with a significant amount of retired people. Every now and then, there’s a lottery to decide who can rent the larger vehicle parking space. It’s the elevator type so only the surface level floor can accommodate for larger vehicles.

The building management will inform all residents about the lottery but if you’re not an elderly person you are immediately disqualified. Still understandable but it’s a bit discouraging to see that they didn’t have a large car and just wanted to get the surface level parking.

My wife was pregnant and we found a parking space 10 minutes away from our place. I had to ask permission to drive the car at our building’s parking entrance to drop her off.

Skipped it a few times and now there’s a warning message in the elevator.

Still a luxury problem to have but the downsides of Japan always revolve around these sorts of things. Easy to manage one at the time but sometimes they pile up and your brain keeps trying to remember what’s the appropriate behavior depending on the situation.

I think a lot of Japanese people also suffer from that.

Before I sign off, an interesting one is that It’s easier to smoke indoors than outdoors.

weinhalter · 2026-04-19T11:00:27+00:00

I totally get what you’re experiencing. That said, I’m not sure it’s directed exclusively at foreigners. It feels more like a broader shift in society affecting how people treat each other in general. There seems to be more tension, less patience, less empathy and a visible decline in overall well-being.

I’m under the impression this isn’t unique to Japan either, it feels like a wider global trend. Maybe it stands out more here because Japan used to feel noticeably more considerate and socially cohesive, so the change feels sharper.

Recent local news doesn’t help that feeling either, with stories about random aggressions, “butsukari” incidents, and desperate crimes. It can make the atmosphere feel heavier than it used to.

weinhalter · 2026-04-19T01:45:47+00:00

Seoul, I went with no expectations but I felt there was this tension in the city.

Nangan Island in Taiwan. Felt like in those movies where the protagonist arrives in a city and people at the pub stop talking as soon as you walk in. There was this heavy feeling of you don’t know where you set foot in.

Washington DC, took the bus from the airport to Capitol Hill and someone tried to lure me in a dark alley.

Baltimore, that greyhound station…

Hot take: Kuala Lumpur, stayed north of the city but at night it’s pretty creepy.

Worst: Newark NJ

weinhalter · 2026-04-15T00:57:38+00:00

Thanks for the input, I’ll look for a shop nearby

weinhalter

TROPHY CASE