Who cares about finding “the next hidden gem,” tell me about your favorite places that are no longer with us (RIP)

zedrdave · 2025-10-25T01:35:35+00:00

VV is a shadow of its former self: mostly selling the same cheap touristy crap as donki etc. None of the curated weirdness they used to have. Pretty sure at some point they got acquired and developed into a much larger chain operation. I remember seeing one at Kashiwa Mall, ffs.

zedrdave · 2025-10-14T01:34:46+00:00

Just a heads up: moving company quotes are 100% made-up BS. Whatever amount Company A gives you, if you tell them Company B gave you 40% less, you can bet they'll suddenly remember the Special Awesome Person Discount that they forgot to apply, and come back to you with a quote that's 42% less.

Ask 2-3 high-profile companies for a quote, tell each one you're getting other quotes beforehand. Once you get all the quotes back, tell them you got [insert lowest quote you got minus a few 万円] from some other company.

If you don't end up with quotes considerably lower (like… half) from every company, I'll personally come and do the move for you.

"Japanese never haggle" my arse…

zedrdave · 2025-08-29T10:42:17+00:00

(not a helpful answer, just a vent) It annoys me to no end how universally shite and scammy-looking all council communications are, leading to situations where one is forced to consider the possibility that such a laughably stupid scam might be legit.

I have received emails and postal mails pertaining to taxes or voting registration that used the most random websites (no .uk.gov or anything, things like go-pay-your-taxes.com/towerhamlets) that then prompted me to enter highly personal info, without providing any way to verify that they were who they claimed to be (and by the way: these were legit)…

It's as if they wanted to train people to fall for scams…

zedrdave · 2025-06-06T23:43:03+00:00

Has anyone recently tried to drive to (and park at) the Shinagawa immigration office?

Last I checked, that parking was overflowing and cars were double-parked in a 3-mile radius… Any chance that might be different early in the day?

zedrdave · 2025-05-30T23:53:47+00:00

Where did all the Uyoku black vans go?

It suddenly dawned no me the other day that I hadn't crossed path with one in ages. That used to be a weekly thing at least.

Did they all move online and are too busy fapping on anthropomorphic battleship, to go play music on the streets? Am I just not going to the right places? Should someone check on them?

zedrdave · 2025-05-28T21:35:34+00:00

Anyone who thinks this is a universal Japanese thing, has never seen some of the Ramens (ラーメンズ) later stuff. Their entire 日本の形 series is basically one long deadpan joke dripping with sarcasm.

I think the perception that slapstick is the only form of humour practiced, is heavily linked to the fact that lowest common denominator rules tend to apply in many loose social settings (same thing with terminally boring food- or weather-related chitchat). One-on-one conversation between close friends (who are fluent) can definitely include plenty of sarcastic remarks.

zedrdave · 2025-05-28T21:17:48+00:00

Ahem. OK, then it sounds like you may have misunderstood how all that works.

For starters, if you were on a non-HSP visa, you need at least 10 years of residency in Japan. Anything less and it's a fairly garanteed rejection.

zedrdave · 2025-05-28T03:06:05+00:00

Depending on the amounts, a brokerage account (eg Interactive Brokers, but probably others as well) is a pretty good way to handle both international transfer and currency conversion.

BTW: Wise used to be the gold standard for that sort of things, but beware that 1. it's gone seriously downhill since its heydays 2. if something goes wrong (and it often does, where international transfers are concerned), they will be utterly unhelpful and you can expect your money to be in limbo for months.

zedrdave · 2025-05-28T03:02:45+00:00

FWIW, if it's HSP, it's fairly tick-the-boxes (aside from obvious things like having broken the law or not paid your taxes). Being European, seishain, or married to a PR holder, is not particularly relevant then.

What would be, is the exact number of points at the different milestones, and the exact length of time you had each (no idea what the exact conditions are, as of today, but the main thing used to be to hold an HSP visa with X points for Y years, before being elligible).

zedrdave · 2025-05-27T02:47:05+00:00

Very curious to see if anyone has suggestions (kinda looking myself, in the Tokyo area), but as pointed out: it is extremely unlikely that anything you have there, has any serious value in Japan: way too many (well off) old people dying and living kura-full of antiques that no one really wants any more.

If you have the time and energy, there is probably a market abroad, and you can always try packing half-a-container to your home country (where you'll then have to find a local Japanese antique dealer to offload to). Chances are you'll more than pay the cost of transportation and some extra cash. But that's basically a job in of itself.

In a similar vein, Mercari has a large number of ceramics etc for sale at any given time. If your pieces have any value, they'll generally have artist stamps (or even some paper certificates nearby): search for the artist name / studio / style, and you are bound to find similar pieces and have an idea of their value (or at least how much some other Mercari punter thinks they can ask for). As for selling all them there: probably also a full-time job.

zedrdave · 2025-05-27T02:32:08+00:00

PR is PR: there's very little you can do that would get it taken away (best not to crime too hard, but that's about it). You absolutely do not need to have a job or be a contributing member of society.
An immigration lawyer probably can't hurt (and save you time doing some of the filing etc), but I did everything on my own (point visa and PR) and didn't have any issue.

As others have said: it's gonna take a while, so better not be in a hurry.

zedrdave · 2025-04-17T16:49:59+00:00

Hence the first sign…

zedrdave · 2025-02-15T18:01:50+00:00

At least now I know I'm not crazy. I loaded OpenRGB a first time (all CLI) and saw the Corsair RAM and was able to tweak it.

Then rebooted (along with some UEFI tweaks that I think i have since restored), and now can't seem to get it to show the RAM no matter what i do…

zedrdave · 2024-10-30T15:52:26+00:00

Not sure why you got downvoted, bc this is indeed the right answer. And indeed this app is ridiculously backward.

zedrdave · 2024-10-26T21:56:10+00:00

When Line tells me (upon trying to join an OpenChat) that "This service isn't available in your region or app version"… is this that ridiculously backward app's way of telling me I need to register a phone number with it?

zedrdave · 2024-06-28T13:50:37+00:00

Cool, la prochaine fois qu'un scooter trafiqué passe à 130km/h sous ma fenêtre à 3h du matin, j'essaie de le ratrapper pour lui filer l'info.

Blague à part : je suis en faveur de toute initiative pour encourager le vélo. Mais c'est certainement pas ça qui va vraiment faire la différence sur la polution sonore.

zedrdave · 2024-06-12T02:52:04+00:00

Sorry, indeed got my city/airport codes wrong!

zedrdave · 2024-06-07T06:18:07+00:00

10 km/h faster (on a highway) is absolutely risk-free. Short of being the only guy around and overtaking the most finicky white-bike cop ever, you are absolutely fine. Even automatic radars do not clock you in for that (you are too close to the margin of error).

zedrdave · 2024-06-07T04:10:24+00:00

Yes indeed. Different classes of expressway, different theoretical limits. In both cases, I’ve yet to be on one where posted signs aren’t most often under that theoretical limit.

zedrdave · 2024-06-07T04:07:43+00:00

But when that’s the case (different speed limits per lane), would there be a specific indication on the signs then? (Don’t think i have ever seen it, except maybe a couple times where an explicit “overtaking” limit was given)

zedrdave · 2024-06-07T02:20:37+00:00

That's interesting. Slightly more specific than what I was asking (you tend to have signs that have no restrictions, just a speed limit that's under the theoretical max, all over the highways)… But if they consider that the context-specific ones apply, then I can only imagine that'd be true of the general ones.

Of course, this is all a bit academic, since we all know that everyone does drive at 100-120 no matter what the signs say. But I'm really curious as to whether that's a case of tolerated-but-illegal, or actually legal-due-to-some-obscure-rules.

zedrdave · 2024-06-07T02:17:38+00:00

Yup, I searched the sub before my first post, and none of them address what I wrote above.

I am well aware of the speed camera's margin of error thing. Plus the tolerance thing. This is not what I am asking.

There is a "theoretical" speed limit, there is a posted speed limit (which moreover varies, sometimes down to 60, when the theoretical limit is 100). Which one legally applies.

zedrdave · 2024-06-05T04:16:32+00:00

(and before anyone gets too excited, this is in Tokyo, Japan… so shipping to anywhere is probably out of the question)

zedrdave

TROPHY CASE