The five conservatives on the Supreme Court have just handed down yet another abominable decision, this one rewarding bigots and established lawbreakers:

The court held on Tuesday that employees may not bring suit under the principal federal anti-discrimination law unless they have filed a formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days after their pay was set. The timeline applies, according to the decision, even if the effects of the initial discriminatory act were not immediately apparent to the worker and even if they continue to the present day.

Essentially, it seems that the court has now placed a 6-month statute of limitations on discrimination: if you can get away with it for six months without being called on it, then you’re home free. How can this be seen as anything but a slap in the face for those who are discriminated against, and a pat on the back to bigots?

The ruling clearly says that you lose the right to sue for losses due to discrimination even if they are hidden from you. For example, you get a paycheck that is lower than your male or white co-workers, but you don’t find out about the disparity for some time. So unless you are constantly comparing paychecks with your better-paid co-workers, you cannot bring a claim later when you find out by some other means. It also means that you can’t even sure for discriminatory pay within the past six months if the disparity began more than six months ago.

Imagine someone is stealing from you, robbing your house every month. They break and enter and take something valuable, maybe a few thousand dollar’s worth of stuff each time. After seven months, you finally caught the person, and they fully confessed. So you report it to the police. “Sorry,” they tell you. “They started robbing you seven months ago, so they’re free and clear.” You protest: “But the statute of limitations for robbery is six months, and they have robbed me six times since then–including today!” But the police cannot help you. “We sympathize, but this was a long-term robbery over installments; since it started more than six months ago, they can keep whatever they took. You have to let them go, and let them take what they were trying to steal today to boot.” That is essentially the decision which SCOTUS just handed down, as it applies to worker pay disparities.

But it is much worse than just that: this ruling effectively cut the knees out from under anyone who is discriminated against in the workplace, and gave a free pass to discriminatory pay. From here on out, it will be close to impossible to sue anyone for discriminatory pay.

What it boils down to is that the Supreme Court of the United States has just handed bigoted or otherwise dishonest employers a clear set of instructions on how they can legally discriminate. How many workplaces have full disclosure of everyone’s salaries? Few, if any. Most people who are discriminated against don’t find out for years, if ever. All an employer has to do is bear down on employees discussing paychecks and the risk goes down considerably–and if they are found out, they now only have to worry about six month’s worth of pay disparity–a small amount relative to the legal fees of a lawsuit. [Update: my error–they don’t have to worry about anything if they’re caught after six months.] But chances are, they won’t be found out–they can just make up a false claim about why workers’ pay is different. They could claim to the employee who protests that the difference is merit-based, or some other excuse. Sometimes, it takes several different acts of pay discrimination over a long period of time before a solid-enough case for discrimination can be established–at least enough to have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning in court.

Discrimination, by nature, is almost never out in the open or clear-cut.

Even if worker pay is out in the open (have you ever worked in a place where it was?) this ruling still allows for incremental discrimination. All an employer has to do then is to make each pay variance small enough in itself not to be highly actionable. Who’s going to sue over, say, a $50-a-month pay difference every six months, especially when legal fees would exceed the difference? Even if legal fees are not an issue, how many people will risk making their workplace hostile to them and spend so much time tied up in legal proceedings over such a disparity? But over a span of 20 years, that’s a $2000 difference. By going slow and incrementally, employers now have an excellent legal cover for discriminatory pay.

But the ruling could be even easier to abuse. I quickly came up with a scenario which workplaces might now use: make a small pay disparity between workers, not enough for people to quibble over even if it is found out. Then, after six months, if nobody files a claim, then jack it up to whatever amount you want. Because the disparity started more than six months ago, if you are sued, then you can just reveal the first inequity and claim protection because 180 days have passed.

The rationale is that the person discriminated against waited too long to file the lawsuit–but how does that make it OK for what happened previously? The money is effectively being stolen from the worker, and the worker more often than not is in a position of lesser power and more fear. Many people are hesitant to sue for unequal pay because they are afraid that they will lose their job or at the very least, their workplace will become incredibly uncomfortable. So the discrimination continues until a threshold is reached and the victim simply can’t take it any longer–so they sue. But now they’re told, “because you didn’t come out right away and sue, you get nothing, and your employer gets off scot free.”

Ironically, your employer could even benefit by admitting to more discrimination. If you saw a discrepancy start five months ago, your employer could get off scot free if they reveal records showing that they violated the law for a longer period than you were aware of.

At the heart of the ruling was the interpretation of when the crime is committed. Under standing law, each paycheck was seen as a reiteration of a continuing crime starting with the first discrepancy. But Bush’s court twisted that around, claiming that the crime only took place the first time it was instituted, and not since then. Apparently, they felt that an employer cannot be expected to see differences in employees’ paychecks any time after the changes are made. This could fall under the “I forgot that I started committing a crime last year” category of defense. Question: if an employee embezzles from a company for more than six months, can they get off scot free? What if they do so by setting up an automatic system that does the work for them? No, I didn’t think so. This kind of robbery is only legal one-way.

This ruling means that if a worker wants to be protected against discrimination, they must constantly be paranoid. They are forced to persistently badger their coworkers about their pay, and rush to court once they discover a disparity. They no longer have enough time to first establish whether it was discriminatory, merit-based, an oversight, or something else. They no longer have enough time to collect evidence to prove discrimination, which often takes years. They are now forced to rush into court with the weakest of evidence, not even sure themselves that the pay disparity is discrimination-based. They risk alienating employers who might not be discriminatory, and risk damaging their own reputation as a worker that an employer can trust.

And in case you think that Bush, who claims to stand by the little guy, had no hand in the matter, then get a load of this:

Under its longstanding interpretation of the statute, the commission actively supported the plaintiff, Lilly M. Ledbetter, in the lower courts. But after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case last June, the Bush administration disavowed the agency’s position and filed a brief on the side of the employer.

The judgment completely ignores or disparages the nature of workplace discrimination, and represents less a legal opinion than a wealthy, conservative male’s cultural mindset. Yet another ruling from the Court that Bush Poisoned.

This time I tried taking the backstreets from Shinjuku. I made it to the Vanguard Tower in about the same time it took to use the main roads, but probably only because I ran into a few dead ends and had to backtrack. Once I have figured out a good backstreet route, it will probably prove to be faster than Meiji Boulevard–but more important then the few minutes it would shave off would be the safer and more pleasant back roads, with less traffic, more trees, and fewer hassles to deal with.

Again (more due to my schedule than to a preference) I visited at night–but this time with my camera. Here are a few views of the building in the evening:

Note the few lights on in the building.

Here is also a wider shot of the entrance; click for a larger image:

On the left is the 24-hour supermarket which will make life easier. The place is called Pororoca, and seems to be a supermarket owned by the MyCal company; from their web site, they seem to have a lot of stores in central Tokyo. (I have the feeling that it’ll be a tad pricey.) A few are open 24 hours like this one. It’s a bit small, but it’s no convenience store–it’ll have a respectable fish, meat, and vegetable section, as well as a baked goods section. And despite the guy at the store a few nights back telling me that he didn’t know when the branch would open, the web site announces the opening to be at 8 am on June 1st.

Go to the right of the supermarket, and you’ll get into the vestibule with the autolock intercom:

Note the padding to protect the floor while people move in. I think the camera affords a color picture to each unit’s kitchen monitor when the apartment number is punched in, but I have yet to test the color part of that. Once you get buzzed in, you get into the plush lobby (click to enlarge):

The elevators are in back, with more green anti-movers padding. The doorway at top right is to the mail room.

I also spotted Sachi’s Ramen shop across the street. I call it “Sachi’s” because she likes ramen a lot, so we’ll be sure to try this place.

I also spotted a few of the portable ramen shops–the kind set up on street corners, a makeshift temporary restaurant where you sit down on a stool right out on the street and enjoy your noodles. That just a block away from Vanguard.

I also noted that there’s a bus stop right in front of our building–handy in case the weather makes us want to ride to the station rather than walk. Also interesting is the NTT building (a big one) right next door to Vanguard. If we get DSL, it’s sure to be a strong signal. Also nearby: the Kuyakusho, or City Hall, just a few blocks down the road.

While in town, I also checked out a few other things. For example, I found another supermarket nearby. In addition to the Pororoca and the Seiyu behind Sunshine City, there is a Daimaru Peacock a few blocks further beyond Seiyu. This one is open till 11:00 pm, and is on the basement floor of a new complex called “Rise City Ikebukuro” (which is also an exit for the Yurakucho Subway Line’s Higashi-Ikebukuro Station). I even ran into an old friend at the entrance, and we chatted for a few minutes. She clued me in to a nearby Tsutaya video rental shop with discount days.

I also found a Don Quixote store, branded “Picaso,” which is open 24 hours. This is closer to the station but still not far from Vanguard Tower. Don Quixote, for those not familiar with the chain, is a discount store famous for its crowded, narrow, non-linear shopping aisles crammed to overflowing with cheap products. Not my favorite place in the world, but some deals can be had there.

Sachi and I are now pretty much committed to the move. Thursday we sign the contract and pay the deposit.

On the one hand, I felt it might be a good idea to read what Bush was saying on Memorial Day. I glanced at Google News and saw a story about Bush at some ceremony, no doubt piously claiming that he honored the troops. But I couldn’t bring myself to read it. I just couldn’t stomach it today.

Here’s a guy who has metaphorically defecated on the troops since before he was even president. The act of not only approving of the Vietnam War but also admonishing his Yale classmates for thinking of dodging the draft–and then using his wealth and privilege to dodge it himself–was the first such act of disrespect. That disrespect became more clear as I watched a 60 Minutes piece on Iowa Guardsmen called to serve in Iraq. One was in law school, but withdrew to serve in the war. There are others like him, most notably Pat Tillman, who gave up a lucrative football contract to serve. Place them next to a young George W. Bush, begging for deferments and then using daddy’s connections to get him a safe National Guard post stateside–and not even bothering to serve just that easy stint. After the same pissant of a young man sneered at college classmates for thinking of going to Canada. This is the character of George W. Bush, a man who doesn’t deserve to call himself a member of the same Guard as the magnificent young men he himself sends to fight and die.

But it was when he became president that the real harm began.

Part of what helped him get into a position in the polls where some Florida election fraud could help get him into office, was his campaign position that Clinton had virtually emasculated the military. Untrue, of course–Clinton was following the same path Bush Sr. had set at the end of the Cold War–but Bush Jr. used the lie effectively, his first baby steps at using the military as a political prop.

However, it hasn’t been the use of troops as a PR backdrop or captive friendly audience that has brought real harm; such is merely indicative of Bush’s willingness to use the image of the military shamelessly, like when he dressed up in his jump suit and had a pilot land him on an aircraft carrier purely for show. That is by far the most innocent of Bush’s relationship with the troops.

The real damage started in full force with Iraq. Bush refused to listen to the generals, refused to ask the country to sacrifice, and so sent to Iraq enough troops to win the initial fighting (“Mission Accomplished!”), but not nearly enough to hold Iraq together. Bush sent them there without the equipment they needed; very early in the war we started hearing stories of family members forced to purchase standard military equipment–especially flak jackets, but also so much else–and mail it to their sons, brothers, and fathers in the field. Some soldiers were even forced to dig through garbage to find body armor they needed to survive. It’s not as if this could not have been foreseen–Bush was moving pieces into place so far in advance that these shortages should have been seen to well before the fighting started. But Bush didn’t give a crap about whether or not a soldier had the armor needed to save his life. When called to task for neglecting the troops, Bush and his cohorts blew off the lack of planning with the flippant phrase, “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.” Then they blamed such lacks to slow production or other such bullshit–and never apologized when it was shown that they simply neglected to put in the orders. Soldiers died because of this. Many died. That conservatives don’t make a big deal about this much themselves shows how much they care about soldiers as well.

Bush did not honor the troops when he neglected to craft an exit strategy (any exit strategy). Nor when he neglected to protect arms caches, instead protecting oil facilities; when Iraqis looted, Rumsfeld said for Bush, “in a free country people are free to do bad things, like looting and robbing.” And so the insurgents got their hands on arms and explosives that they use to kill American soldiers to this day. Bush did not honor the troops when he decided to abandon America’s long stand against torture, instead encouraging it, leading to Abu Ghraib.

But what happened when Bush was criticized for not sending in enough troops? (“I listened to the generals!”) What happened when Bush was criticized for not guarding the weapons? (“It’s not me you’re criticizing, it’s the troops!”) What happened when Bush was criticized for Abu Ghraib? (“It was troops who got out of control, we never authorized that!”) That’s right… time and time again, when things went wrong, somehow it was never Bush that was to be criticized… he always dumped the blame on the troops. Most often, he did this by shifting blame–when Bush was criticized, he claimed it was the soldiers who were really being criticized–thus using the honor, bravery, and heroism of the troops as cover for his sorry political ass. And every time it was “criticize the troops, or criticize nobody.” Nobody honors the troops by being such a sorry-assed coward.

But the use of soldiers to cover his ass did not end with that. When Abu Ghraib was getting headlines, the Bush administration used Pat Tillman, a man with real honor and integrity, to bail them out. How? By lying about his death. Lying to the grieving family members so the administration could use their dead son as a political PR device. Does any man who honors the troops do that? Hell, no.

Neither did it stop when the troops got home. Pay cut, benefits cut, medical care skimped on, veteran’s hospitals falling to pieces. Bush was happy to cash in on the automatic respect the presidency demanded, to be gifted with their purple hearts, to make the obligatory visit with the cameras rolling, always with the cameras rolling. But only to his own benefit.

Did Bush attend a single funeral of an American soldier? Not that I ever heard of. He did visit a memorial service for a fallen Australian soldier–a funeral that the widow was callously uninvited to, lest her presence be uncomfortable for Bush. And in the U.S., Bush did not even allow returning coffins to be photographed. It would be too embarrassing for the administration to officially recognize that our soldiers had given their lives for their country. If it was still widespread to use silver and golden stars in a home’s windows to show family members who served and who died, Bush would probably try to ban the use of the gold stars. This is how we honor our bravely fallen? Hell, no.

Hell, Bush couldn’t even be bothered to spend one minute a day signing form letters to the families of fallen soldiers. It just wasn’t worth it until somebody found out and embarrassed him with it.

So I hope you will forgive me if I do not wish to wade hip-deep in callous lies and hideously insincerely sentiments, the flowery language of speechwriters, language Bush would not think to waste time on except for that he can squeeze yet another PR event in which he can take the luster of the honor of the troops and try to rub some of its magic on his oily, pusillanimous hide.

This is not a man who could ever honor the troops, because of what he has done, unapologetically, and continues to do to the troops. This is a man who does not deserve to lick the boots of the men and women who serve where Bush fled, people who fought so Bush could steal their honor, soldiers who died so Bush could use their sacrifice as a political tool.

Our soldiers deserve far better than that. Our soldiers deserve to come home, only they won’t, not yet. Why not? Because when the American people spoke in the last election, they sent to Washington representatives they hoped would stop the war. But Bush twisted their cries of protest into a claim that they wanted him to surge, killing even more of our soldiers. Then, when faced with a popular demand to eventually end the war, Bush held the troops hostage, threatening to leave them in Iraq without funds needed to survive. And I think we all believe he would do that.

That is Bush’s memorial to the troops: “You are nothing more than a tool. You are fools who could not get out of fighting like I did. Fight and die for my hubris, for my campaign contributors, and I will use your deaths to pave the way for more, to aggrandize my own image. Survive and return home and you will find I spend your benefits and medicare care on my cronies. Either way, once I am through with my photo op with you, you can burn in hell for all I care.”

Those are Bush’s actual proclamations, because, after all, actions speak far louder than words.

One defense of the war in Iraq from conservatives used to be that the soldiers were gung-ho about their mission, that they felt they should stay. I always felt that was a weak defense–after all, soldiers are trained to be gung-ho about their missions. Also, it plays into the idea that the soldiers themselves are somehow tied in to the decision to go into a war or stay there, which the can be twisted by politicians to say that criticizing the politicians is equal to criticizing the troops. In the end, the whole claim is an attempt to save some politician’s ass by covering it with the loyalty of the troops.

But if you still subscribe to the idea that the troops’ attitudes toward the war are a reason to stay or leave, then you should not stop paying attention to what they are saying now:

“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”

But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.

“I thought, ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’ ” said Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.”

His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.

A small minority of Delta Company soldiers – the younger, more recent enlistees in particular – seem to still wholeheartedly support the war. Others are ambivalent, torn between fear of losing more friends in battle, longing for their families and a desire to complete their mission.

With few reliable surveys of soldiers’ attitudes, it is impossible to simply extrapolate from the small number of soldiers in Delta Company. But in interviews with more than a dozen soldiers over a one-week period, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop.

So, should our decision to stay or not still be based upon the opinions of the soldiers on the ground? Especially the veterans, the ones who understand the mission best? You should really read the whole article, whether or not you subscribe to that point of view.

I second TPM’s desire to quote Maureen Dowd:

The president said an intelligence report (which turned out to be two years old) showed that Osama had been trying to send Qaeda terrorists in Iraq to attack America. So clearly, Osama is capable of multitasking: Order the killers in Iraq to go after American soldiers there and American civilians here. There AND here. Get it, W.?

The president is on a continuous loop of sophistry: We have to push on in Iraq because Al Qaeda is there, even though Al Qaeda is there because we pushed into Iraq. Our troops have to keep dying there because our troops have been dying there. We have to stay so the enemy doesn’t know we’re leaving. Osama hasn’t been found because he’s hiding.

The terrorists moved into George Bush’s Iraq, not Saddam Hussein’s. W.’s ranting about Al Qaeda there is like planting fleurs du mal and then complaining your garden is toxic.

Had we not gone into Iraq, Iraq would still be a relatively stable wedge nation, keeping Iran and Saudi Arabia in check; yes, Saddam would have continued as a bloody tyrant, but he would have wreaked far less harm and damage in Iraq than George W. Bush has. Al Qaeda would be far less popular in the region, far less rich, and far less awash in volunteers. The American military would have done far better and probably would have succeeded in Afghanistan, bin Laden may even have been captured, al Qaeda would have been dealt a much more severe blow; our military would be in far better shape, and our budget deficits far lower; our name would not be so horribly sullied and resented worldwide, our standing and influence would have been much higher. Three and a half thousand American soldiers would still be alive, a few ten thousand more would still be in one piece.

But George W. Bush may have lost an election. So, in the end, I guess it was all worth it.

In an attempt to get the most complete understanding of the area that I can before signing the contract to move in, I have been visiting the Ikebukuro area and checking things out. I stopped by in the evening a few nights ago, and noted a few interesting things: first, that the 24-hour supermarket on the 1st floor is now stocked, but a person inside said that they would not be opening until a still-undecided date in June. No problem for us–we move in at the end of June.

The other thing I noticed about the building is that it seems like almost nobody has moved in yet. Only five or six units were lit in the whole building, which has some eight units per floor, on 36 of the 38 floors. While some people may just not have gotten home by 7:30 pm, it is more likely that most people have just not moved in yet. Sachi is worried that way too many people will be moving in at the exact same time, and she has a point. The elevators will be severely taxed, at best, and it could slow things way down. While half the building was taken by people who could move in any time they wanted starting last week, the other half will be spoken for by people like Sachi and me, who may be given the choice of starting rent payments in the same one-week period.

Another thing I’ve been looking at is transportation. Ikebukuro is a hub, and the choices of train lines are considerable. We’re looking at the Yamanote, Saikyo, Shonan Shinjuku, Tobu Tojo, Seibu Ikebukuro, Marunouchi, Yurakucho, and the Takasaki & Utsunomiya Lines. The Narita Express also runs through Ikebukuro, and the new Fuku-toshin Line will start a year from now, if they finish on schedule. There is even a streetcar that runs through, the Toden Arakawa Line, going as far south as Waseda.

I was looking forward to using the new Fuku-toshin subway line starting next year, but then I realized something: the stations are very inconveniently placed for the new apartment building. It’s as if the planners thought, “how far away from this new apartment building can we place the stations?” and then acted on it. The Ikebukuro station of the new line is on the other side of the main Ikebukuro station, adding maybe 5 minutes to the walk to the station. And while the line passes close to the new building, there is no second station close-by; that’s even farther away than the terminal station. As you can see on the map I ginned up from Google Maps below, the blue line is the Fuku-toshin opening next year, the dots representing stations. The yellow line is the existing Yurakucho Line, for comparison. Note that the Yurakucho stations are more conveniently placed; the Fuku-toshin stations are farther out. Ah well.

The good thing is, my work is a short bicycle ride away. I look forward to using my bicycle to make the trip on good-weather days, and at the same time, exploring all of the back streets between Ikebukuro and Shinjuku.

I also looked more closely at the shopping. As I feared, most of it is stuff I would not be too interested in, but as I also noted, you just need a few good shops to make it worthwhile. And god knows that there’s virtually nothing out here in Inagi, where I live now.

Ikebukuro has more department stores than you can shake a stick at–five, by my current count. Down side: department stores here tend to be expensive, upscale places; the best thing about them is the food center in the basement. Clothing stores abound; maybe good for Sachi, but meaningless to me. Food stores are also plentiful, which is nice, but has the drawback of tempting me to eat badly. Control yourself, Luis! Stay away from those Cheetos! Cost might be an issue; a lot of stores are expensive, but I have already spotted at least a few discount places that I’ll have to check out. There are zillions of restaurants, most of which will be too expensive or not very good quality or service (as Sachi and I discovered when we ate lunch at an Italian place last week). Good news: Akiyoshi has a branch there; it’s a bit far away on the other side of the station, but is close enough. And right next to it is a Spanish Tapas joint which touts authentic Spanish chorizo. We’ll have to see about that.

But the most notable point is the volume of stores and restaurants, and the sheer multitude of back streets. Out of so much, even if only 1% is worth going to, that still represents a large number of good places.

For a while, I thought that the movie theaters might be skimpy–there are eight places, but the closer I looked, the more they seemed to be tiny little places, maybe half of them art houses or something. But the Cinema Sunshine has 6 screens, the largest being 426 seats, and the Humax has four screens, the largest being 483 seats; both of these are within a few blocks of our place. The Tokyu has 300 seats for a single screen. Two more theaters have twin screens and three more are solos, all of which have 100-250 seat screens. Alas, I have grown addicted to the Toho/Warner MyCal theater style, with the reserved seating and western-style popcorn, but these chains are typically outside of central Tokyo, like Costcos are. But there is a Warner MyCal in Itabashi, six stops out on the Tobu Tojo Line. Best for going to movies with crowds and long lines–just drop by the theater and buy a ticket a day or more in advance, then stroll in just before showtime.

Sachi and I are preparing all the documentation we’ll need for the contract signing. One of the documents is a form which states that we are engaged to be married. One of the idiosyncrasies of UR is that most of their better apartments are reserved for couples. The agents tend not to take this too seriously; when I moved in to my current place 7 years ago but was thinking of a unit that is only for couples, the agents actually suggested that I fake the engagement form. Sachi and I are not formally engaged, but we have no trouble putting up the pretense.

We’re also looking at moving companies. One which dropped an ad in my mailbox last week advertises a move for a place my size for about “from $300”–not too shabby, so long as they don’t go too much higher than that. This would include taking down my air conditioners for me, not a small thing. But the big thing is the inconvenience of my building. The people who designed it, for some malicious reason no doubt, made it so that the elevators stop at mid-floor on the stairwell–meaning that even if you take the elevator, you still have to walk up or down a half-flight of stairs. I think I mentioned this when I had the broken foot. It also makes moving a bit of a bear–have you ever tried to carry a large refrigerator up or down a flight of stairs? Not fun.

All we need instead, then, is the deposit money, and first month’s rent. Since we’re starting on June 29th, that’s only two day’s worth. (We’ll have to ask them how the July rent will be handled; as soon as I can, I’ll want everything to be automatically debited from my bank account.) Despite there being no key money or agent’s fee,we’ll still have to plunk down ¥739,940 (about $6,080). Still, that’s far better than double that amount!

In any case, it’s now pretty much solid that we’ll be moving. For a while, I was afraid that Sachi was doing this for me, humoring me with my choice; however, she assures me that she likes the place more than well enough to move in. So here we go!

The surge has bloodied our troops. While troop deaths have surged in general over the past six months, the recent surge in and of itself has proved fatal to so many of our people on the ground. The current death toll for our troops in May is 106 (101 American), or 4.1 per day. The last time troop deaths were so high was January 2005–but then the death toll was high only because of two aircraft crashes, a transport plane crash that killed ten British soldiers, and a helicopter crash that killed 31 American soldiers.

So discounting January 2005, May 2007 is set to become the third bloodiest month strictly due to combat.

So far, I have not heard of evidence that we are much closer to winning the war as a result. This is not due to the failure of the troops; rather it is simply because Bush has by now rendered Iraq unwinnable. These good men are dying for no other purpose than to allow Bush to look like he’s doing something.

This is also known as “supporting the troops.”

Incredible. In his latest press conference, Bush was asked, after having been wrong so much and failed so badly in Iraq, why should he be seen as a credible messenger on the war; in reply, he claimed that “I’m credible because I read the intelligence.”

Before 9/11, there was a large amount of intelligence telling Bush that an attack was coming. He did not act on it. Before the Iraq War, there was a large amount of intelligence warning Bush about the problems that would arise pursuant to the invasion, like sectarian violence. Again, Bush did not act on it.

In short, you do not gain credibility by just reading the intelligence. You gain credibility by reading it, then judging what should be acted on, and then acting on it. Maybe somebody should explain this to him.

Josh Marshall has the goods again:

“If we quit Vietnam,” President Lyndon Johnson warned, “tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week we’ll have to fight in San Francisco.”

I understand that we’re still holding vigil in Honolulu, waiting for the Viet Cong invasion that could come any day now. Any day.

No doubt about it, the Democrats were once again the timid lapdogs that we came to know and disrespect during their minority days in the Bush administration. But that doesn’t excuse Bush or the Republicans, either. I am always struck by how people hold the Democrats responsible for the war because they did not stop it–as if Bush and the Republicans are not as responsible for actually starting it, and maintaining it.

But the real thing of note is how Bush rather unabashedly held the troops hostage in the whole issue. While it did not come down to a test, Bush made it very clear: if Democrats cut off funding for the war, the troops will stay in Iraq anyway without proper funding. That was his message, however it was dressed up. Even if our soldiers start dying because the money for ammo or support dries up, Bush would hold them there and the Democrats would be to blame for the troops not having what they need to fight.

Which, of course, is a false choice; Bush could also pull out. The Dems were not saying “underfund the troops,” they were saying “get the hell out of Iraq.” And Bush essentially replied, “give me the money or I’ll start depriving the troops, they’ll start dying more, and I’ll blame you for it.” And the Democrats caved.

One has to wonder how far Bush would have gone. I mean, had the Democrats withheld funding, and if we had passed Bush’s claimed deadlines for money to run out, and the a few months later, the money actually did run out… would Bush really keep the troops in Iraq without the money needed for them to stay alive? Really? Bush would have been content to do that, just so he could use it to bludgeon the Democrats?

Not that he hasn’t underfunded the troops already. From the start, our troops were not given the right equipment. Even years into the war, they still were not given sufficient body armor, nor vehicles armored well enough to protect them well. That stands true to this day. And when they got back, they got shafted further. If that’s Bush’s idea of “supporting the troops,” then god only knows what Bush’s idea of underfunding them might be. It has virtually been a policy of this administration to not give a rat’s ass about the troops, instead using them only to achieve political goals and as human shields.

But this is what it has come down to: Bush using the troops as hostages. Give me the money, let me continue the war, or the troops get it between the eyes.

Idiots. Democrats caved and passed a full spending bill without any deadlines for withdrawal. I know that there never would have been enough votes to overturn Bush’s inevitable veto, but they could have put up a fight that would have cost Bush dearly and weakened his hand. Instead, they just folded. Idiots.

Crooks and Idiots. The ever-greedy RIAA is now seeing about charging public radio to play songs. Talk about money-grubbig, not to mention biting the hand that feeds you. They got an artist to agree with them, saying, “They’ve gotten 50-some years of free play. Now maybe it’s time to pay up.”

The “idiot” part? Radio is not a free-play giveaway that radio stations have greedily stolen over the years. Instead, it is essentially a massive and completely free advertising campaign for the record labels. How the hell do you think people find out what kind of music they want to buy? They hear the music someplace free, and then they want to own it. (Which is why pirated music similarly boosts music sales.) The relationship between radio stations and music labels is symbiotic. In fact, in the past, music labels have paid off radio stations to play their tunes more than other labels’ music.

Not to mention that public radio is probably i worse shape than the music labels right now, competing with now only pay radio but also the ever-expanding Internet with its explosion of podcasting and whatnot.

Asking public radio to pay for playing music is like me putting an ad in a money-strapped newspaper and demanding that they pay me for it. Idiots.

Damn. If rumors are correct, Apple will discontinue the Mac Mini. If they do that, I may lose my only chance to switch my school from Windows to Mac in a year or two–unless Apple comes out with another easy-to-be-a-switcher machine.

Hot Damn. Is George Lucas going to announce a seventh Star Wars movie on the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Star Wars movie tomorrow? (Today in Japan, but we’re from the future.) Maybe, maybe not. But Lucas has talked about a Star Wars movie or two in order to kick-start a TV series… and let’s face it, almost any Star Wars movie will likely bring in so much money at the box office that Lucas would have to be an idiot not to go that route, as long as he’s making a 2-hour Star Wars film.

I didn’t know just how many videotapes I had. In part of my pre-moving cleaning, I just bagged and dumped 8 trash bags each with 37 tapes. And I still have another good 50 to 100 tapes left to dump. They’ll have to wait until next week as the garbage guys just came around. The things are mostly full of old American TV shows my dad taped for us, dating back to the early 90’s (I’ve got most on DVD now anyway). I thought about trying to sell them, but hell, it’s enough of a hassle just to move them downstairs, let alone ship them off to someone.

The thing that surprises me: Tokyo considers videotapes to be “burnable” garbage. Umm… really?

A found item on Flickr:

The image caption claims that this is at the Zune headquarters. It has been noted that all of the iPods in the bin are of the same generation.

It seems clear to me that this is simply a stunt by the people in the office–but if so, it’s a weird one. I mean, who would ever believe that anyone, even Zune employees, would toss several thousands of dollars of personal property in a box at work? Instead of, say, giving them to family or friends, or selling them on eBay? The expression “strains credulity” comes to mind. The only way I could see that happening was if the company offered a free Zune in exchange. (Lord knows they must have scads of the things available to give away.)

Instead, one would assume that the people in charge at the office set this up and put the iPods in there. But that doesn’t make great sense, either; I mean, it’s a pretty expensive stunt (assuming that they didn’t just have a few dozen iPods around doing nothing), and what’s the payoff? First of all, it immediately comes across as fake, and therefore as lame. Second, the bin is far too big; despite the expense represented here, the physical appearance makes it look like almost nobody participated. And third, how many people will see this display, and even if it were believed, then what possible impact would it have to make the expense worthwhile?

One might assume that it’s simply meant as a humor item (the “bite me” on the sign suggests that), or a morale-booster… but then we get back to the whole lameness issue.

There is also the possibility that this is not from Zune HQ, that it’s a hoax or something, but that’s unlikely, considering the number of iPods in the bin and quality of the bin itself.

And then there’s the faint possibility that it’s intended to be real, that the Zune management believed they’d get employees to dump their iPods in there. I know, that’s too stupid to believe possible. But we are talking about the people who made the Zune, here.

Sometimes it’s a good thing to have insurance.

A few weeks ago, I was coming back home on my scooter. My apartment building is part of a complex, and each column of apartments has its own bike/motorbike parking area, with a little pathway leading into it from the parking lot. The parking lot has little roads connecting a few different lots.

As I came in on the parking lot road, a takkyubin (delivery) vehicle was parked there, and as they often do, they left their empty cart blocking the entrance to the bike parking area. I asked the delivery guy, who fortunately was there, inside the truck, to move the cart, while I waited. I was almost in the middle of the road, the back of my bike pointing out.

When they guy came to move the cart, he was careless; he got between myself and the cart, his back to me–and then started backing up right into me. Not wanting to get hit and fallen on by this guy, I used my feet to back up a little bit out of his way (scooters don’t have a “reverse”), while uttering some kind of sound to let him know he was going to back into me. That’s when I heard the pop and scrape.

While I was waiting for the cart to get moved out of the way, a guy and his wife were driving out of the lot. There was barely enough space between the back of my bike and the other side of the road for this guy to get through, only a few inches clearance. Worse, since he was going downhill, he coasted, which meant there was no engine noise to warn me he was there. He did not make any signal that he was about to pass within inches, despite the fact that he could clearly see that I could not see him. He saw everything that was going on and had ultimate control of the situation. I did not have to back up much for my tail luggage rack to hit the side of his car as he passed.

Well, you know people and their cars. In Japan, it can be even worse than America, in fact; people have an almost obsessive-compulsive desire to keep their cars spotless. There are exceptions, of course, but one thing even car-loving Americans tend to be surprised by when they first visit Japan, is that so many of the cars look squeaky-clean and new.

So this guy hears the scrape, stops his car, and jumps out, pissed off as hell. Even in Japan, where people tend to avoid fights and conflicts, if someone feels that you’ve scraped his car, he’ll be ready to jump down your throat. A few years back, I passed a van in a close situation. I know exactly what happened: my muffler scraped the curb, but I know for a fact that I did not touch the van. The owner of the van, having heard a scrape, felt differently. I knew nothing of this until several blocks later, when a man jumped out of his van, leaving it in mid-traffic, strode up to my bike as I waited at a red light, and made a grab for my keys. He later came back and parked nearby when I told him I’d wait. He was pissed as hell, saying I’d scratched his van. I asked him to show me where, and in an ironic twist, this was one of the few people in Japan whose car was full of scratches. He turned to his van and started to point, but soon saw it would be hopeless to identify which one was supposedly the one I had caused. In our pursuant discussion, he said that the scratch was not as important to him as the fact that I did not apologize (though I think that the fact that his van was already in bad shape helped to turn that balance). I explained that I did not scratch his car, I was positive I had not–but he said it made no difference. So just to end the situation, I apologized. They guy nodded in a lordly manner, and left.

That is one way to defuse the situation: apologize profusely. In Japan, that does not necessarily mean a legal admission of fault or guilt, it is often just to grease the wheels. It was the same with the guy I was now dealing with in my building’s parking lot. Had I turned over, shown my belly, and allowed him to growl over me, his dominance assured, things would have gone differently. Unfortunately, my American tendency not to instantly apologize but to stand my ground, this was still strong enough–in addition to the fact that it was not such a clear-cut accident. I have no problem admitting that I should not have backed up without looking. However, there were mitigating circumstances. First, I did not move under motor power–I simply backed up with my feet, and did so to avoid collision, under a split-second choice. Second, it’s not as if I switched gears and backed up while having time to be careful and look both ways–it was a sudden, reflexive avoidance reaction, like ducking back if someone puts their hand too close to your face. And third, his car was to my back and silent–and I still hold that if you decide to pass within inches of people with their backs turned to you, you must accept at least some of the blame yourself.

This guy was having none of that. Even more pissed that I did not immediately humbly apologize for being fully at fault, he became even further enraged when I explained that I was not yet sure that I was 100% to blame. His wife was no help to defusing things, she backed him up and was similarly angry.

Well, we called the police to take a report on the accident, and called the insurance companies. In this kind of a case, despite the mitigating circumstances, I was technically at fault–mostly because my bike was moving backwards, no matter how little or for what reason, and hit his car on the side door, leaving an almost invisible blemish. He had the blemish, and all I had was my story.

You may think I understate when I say the words “almost invisible blemish.” However, I use those words because when the police asked the guy to point out the scratch–they could not find it themselves–the guy came to point it out…but couldn’t find it. Not for several seconds, at least. As it happened, I had already found the scratch a few moments before he tried to, and saw that he started by pointing almost at it… but then his finger wandered away from the scratch, and he had to look really hard in order to finally locate it. That was the extent of the damage. It was so light that at one point, I wanted to try to rub it with my finger to see if it would come off, like a soft paint transfer–but before I could touch it, the guy yelled at me threateningly, telling me not to touch it. The way he was looking at me, I swear he would have gotten physical had I gone ahead and actually touched his car. (Who knows, maybe he was afraid I’d wipe the smudge off and he’d have nothing to stand by; it’s not as if I wasn’t going to pay for it anyway if I made it worse, he already had my insurance info by that time.)

It still rankles me a few weeks later to remember it. I could not prove that he passed within inches, nor could I prove that I only moved back a few inches, even if it would matter (which it probably wouldn’t). The delivery guy had his back turned and so saw nothing. I accept responsibility for not looking before backing up, no matter why I did it, but this guy refused to acknowledge that he might even be in the smallest way also responsible for his silently passing within inches of me when I had my back turned. Instead, he acted like I had just delivered the worst possible insult to his manhood by leaving a near-invisible scar on his automobile and did not immediately prostrate myself and beg forgiveness.

Fortunately, I have insurance for this; I paid about ¥40,000 for two years’ worth of insurance to cover damage to other vehicles and property. When I spoke to the insurance office (someone there speaks English well), they at first suggested that I wait until the damage estimate came in to decide whether or not insurance would pay, as my next insurance payment would go up by $100 if I did. The insurance agent seemed to think that the repair could be done for under that amount, and if so, it would be better just to pay out.

A few days later, I called them back. They told me how much Mr. “My Car Is More Precious Than Life Itself” had the vehicle repaired for.

¥181,461. In U.S. dollars, that $1,493.

For a nearly invisible smudge on his left rear door.

Am I nuts, or could you not replace the entire freaking car door for less than that? It wasn’t a Mercedes or any type of luxury car, just a standard domestic sedan. And in Japan, this kind of repair is usually less than it is in the U.S., at least as far as I have seen and heard before now; parts may be a bit more expensive, but labor is usually much cheaper here.

So naturally, the insurance will catch it, and if I want further extended coverage, I’ll cough up the extra hundred. If people can get away with highway robbery like that and the insurance company agrees to pay, it means that I’d better have the extra coverage just in case something like this happens again.

To be perfectly honest, if it were me, I would not even have cared about such a blemish. Cars get scratches. Deal with it. Live with the shame. Better to have a few scars than constantly be wound up about what might happen to your beautiful faux manhood. My brother and I used to share a car in college; it looked like crap, and we didn’t much care. It’s a thing, and the thing worked just fine. In that car my brother and I had, we got rear-ended several times; each time, the insurance companies pointed out that the car wasn’t worth enough to make a full repair of the severely dented back end, so they just paid off the total cost of the car–something like $700. My brother and I just had a basic un-denting done, and didn’t think about it again. We certainly didn’t get mad or angry or excited about it, nor did we go ballistic when the other driver essentially said, “whoops!” and “here’s my insurance info,” even though we knew the insurance wouldn’t pay to set things back to the way they were before. And heck, my scooter has been scratched on several occasions–some by myself, other times by others–and I barely notice or care. Who really gives a damn? I mean, I love my Mac PowerBook like some people love their cars, but if someone scratched it, I’d say, aw, too bad, and go on with life. I wouldn’t fly into a rage and demand his insurance pay $1000 to replace the casing. If it still worked, that’s what matters.

Now, safety, that’s something else. A few years back, on my old scooter, I was driving across a bridge, in the middle of the single lane of traffic going my direction. Some ass in a car wanted to speed past me. He did not even bother to honk at me, flash his brights, or otherwise indicate he wanted to pass. Instead, he just flew past in a confined roadway while I was still in the middle of the street. I was already going about 10 kph faster than the speed limit, about 60 kph, and this guy was easily doing 70 or more–and as he passed me, his car side-swiped my scooter, throwing me off balance and nearly making me crash. I could hear his car scrape against my bike for what seemed like one or two seconds as he passed me. That must have left quite the scrape on his car… but of course, he did not stop. He sped off.

I was soon able to catch up to him, and honked at him to pull over. I know, it was stupid to, probably, but I was pissed. Not because he might have scratched my precious bike. Rather, because the bastard had come this close to frakking killing me. He dodged down side streets, tried to shake me as I pursued him, honking my horn all the way, hoping to attract a police officer. I busied myself memorizing his license plate (Tama 300, な 81-83, and I don’t give a damn who knows), before he finally got away by going up a ramp to an expressway, which my level of scooter was not allowed to enter. Maybe I should have still followed him and caught him at the toll gate… but then again, the prick had a nationalist hi-no-maru sign in his rear window, so maybe I was better off leaving him go as I did.

Instead, I went to the nearest police station, gave them the license plate number and a description of the car, and filed a report. The police assured me that my name would not be released to the guy; they could not file charges, after all, having no eyewitnesses, but they told me they would visit the guy’s house and give him a talking-to. Despite my lack of faith in Japanese police, I have little reason to believe they did not. Maybe I wound up causing the guy some grief after all–maybe it was a stupid kid driving daddy’s car, and the police visit did him no good. I like to think so, anyway. I also was confident it would not come back to me as the guy did not have my license plate number, nor any idea of who I was or where I lived.

My point? If somebody nearly kills you, getting pissed may be stupid, but at least it’s understandable. If someone barely smudges your car, I can even understand you not accepting what responsibility you had and trying to lay it all on the other guy–you’re protecting your own interests and being defensive, and that’s human nature. Maybe I’m doing that here more than I deserve to–I don’t think so, but it’s possible. And understandable.

But don’t expect me to accept your rage as an equally understandable reaction.

Are you in Tokyo? Want to buy a fridge? A washer-dryer? Two microwave ovens? A nice fan-driven gas heater? A gas range? One or two rice cookers? A sofabed? A one-person western-style bed? Maybe a desk or two? Various other pieces of furniture? A vacuum cleaner? Various and sundry other household items?

Let’s talk.

This is what happens when two people move in together: you tend to have an entire apartment’s worth of appliances and furniture left over.

I’ll likely place ads in the Daily Yomiuri and the next issue of Metropolis. Ye gads, I forgot what a pain this kind of thing is. How do you ship out all that stuff? Takkyubin will cost half as much as what we can sell the items for…

Oh yeah, a satellite dish for Sky Perfect TV with a huge balcony brace? Anyone? Anyone? Ferris?

Five weeks hardly seems like enough time already….

Before I start, I should give you warning that this post delves deeply into minutiae about the new apartment. Unless you’re into checking out other people’s places or are curious for some other reason, this post may be a huge bore for you. So be warned.

Before going to work today, I stopped by the Vanguard Towers to measure the place. In order to figure out which of our things we can fit into the new place and where they will go, I have to get precise measurements of all walls and distances; then I create an accurate-to-scale map on my computer; then I measure and represent each piece of furniture in the map; and then I arrange things to see how they’ll fit.

Already two things have become apparent, even before making the map. The first is that the bedroom will be a tight squeeze. I was hoping to have a bed and cabinets in the room. Now I have to wonder if the bed alone will fit. A 6-mat room (actually, a shade less than 6 mats) does not fit a queen-size bed very well. The problem is that my current bed has a headboard that’s 25 cm (10 inches) long. Without it, the bed would fit sideways into the room; with it, the bed fits, but it prevents a closet door from opening. Argh. But that’s what the computer map will be for–arranging the furniture well before it’s an immediate physical concern.

The second issue concerns space. The apartment is 72 square meters, only 12 square meters less than my current place. I’m wondering where the hell all that space is going; cut off a 6-tatami-mat-sized room (roughly 12 square meters) off of my current apartment, and I still seem to have more space here. The space, as it seems, goes to two places: the hallway in the new place (my current apartment has none) and the odd shape the living-dining area has. Angled corners eat up a certain amount of space without allowing for full utility.

These things are kind of disappointing and are leading to second thoughts. But then I just remember that really, almost any place we get will be like that. We’re not getting any bigger-sized a place near central Tokyo, and finding one that would fit the furniture perfectly would be even more rare still. I have to remember what a huge place I enjoy now, and that there are compromises to be made–especially with two people moving in together.

But in the end, these are design and arrangement problems; again, the map will help figure out how best to utilize the space. So we’ll see. Hopefully I can have the mapping done by the end of the week, and Sachi and I can puzzle over it.

In the meantime, I got digital photos of the apartment and the view. The first time I visited, I only took videos. So here are some images of the place:

Click on the image for a larger (1000-pixel wide) view.

This first shot is a combination of three photos showing the kitchen (left) and the living-dining area, or what was visible of it from the other end of the room (my camera’s lens is not wide-angle). The brown-paper “curtains” make it hard to see the cut-in angle of the large windows. I show the apartment layout again below so you can see where I was standing for the shot–I was in the Living-dining (yellow) area, lower right corner, as seen on the diagram below.

Now here’s a shot taken from the other end of the room (top left of the yellow area) again with a larger view on click::

Now, for the view from the balcony. First, the balcony itself. It’s really hard to show the whole thing, so I won’t try. But for a small taste, the image below shows the really narrow part of the balcony, the central part. Note that the balcony widens out to twice this much at each end–but since those are around corners, they’re danged hard to show.

I can’t really show the wider end areas enough to do justice to them, there’s no vantage point far enough away to show them in full, so enough gets cropped out to make them look cramped; in addition, the outward view gets cut out as well, which is what makes the spaces refreshing. Ah well. Just imagine them.

Because the balcony goes around two corners of the building, it allows a view that starts (from left) just a shade left of North; East and South are both in full view, and West is just occluded by the building at the other end of the balcony. Here’s a squeezed 580-pixel-wide version; this image is a stitched panorama of eight or nine different photos. The original was 9000 pixels wide. If you click on the small image below, you’ll get a bigger (3000 x 333 pixels) image. The cardinal compass points are marked in light blue text and arrows. Just remember when you’re looking at it that it appears flat, but really represents a 270-degree roundabout view. If you could print it out on a strip of paper and then curve that to make 3/4 of a circle, that’s be the real view.

One more shot, a crowd-pleaser, I hope: our new toilet.

This is common in Japan: the bidet/washlet toilet. Or as I call it, “The Captain’s Chair.” Now do you see why?

That note, by the way, says that you can’t use this toilet yet.

Inevitably there will be more coming about the apartment. Can you just not wait?

Right back where I started from.

When I first visited Japan in the summer of 1983, my group took a Limousine Bus from Narita Airport to the Prince Hotel in Ikebukuro, where we stayed for the first three days in Tokyo. The apartment which Sachi and I are probably going to move into is situated on the very next block, right across from that hotel. Had the building existed 24 years ago, the view out my hotel window would have looked right out at our new digs.

It kind of surprises me that before I could even belt out my second post about apartment hunting (it’s still coming), we seem to have settled on a place. Despite early attention to Musashi Kosugi, one rather significant factor intervened: key money. Not that we can’t afford it; my savings would cover such a fee, but still, as we looked at places for rent and the fact that almost all of them would immediately sock us for about $7000 in non-refundable fees (the gift money and the agent’s fee), it was a rather sobering thought.

We also started looking with UR (Urban Renaissance), which is the agency I rent from currently. As I will go over in the upcoming second part of my apartment-hunting post, UR is a government housing agency. Not only do they welcome foreign tenants (still an issue with many landlords in Japan, as I have discovered), but they charge no key money or agent’s fees. You pay 3 month’s rent as a deposit (hefty, but not unheard of in private renting), and the first month’s rent of course, and that’s it. You’re in. And anything that saves you $7000 right off the bat is nothing to sneeze at. UR rents also tend to be a bit lower than usual market value, and are not slow about going down if market value so dictates; my own UR rent in Inagi has dropped considerably, maybe as much as 15%, in six years’ time.

But timing was as important as anything else in finding this new place. Sachi and I visited the UR office in Shibuya on Saturday, and grilled them about possible openings. Unfortunately, it was like pulling teeth sometimes. They would not look to see if any rooms were available unless we told them about a specific building–but there are so many buildings, and so many potential locations on so many lines that we could have accepted. Musashi Kosugi got ruled out early, at least as far as UR was concerned; it was a popular spot. And as Sachi and I soon discovered, that was the case with virtually all UR buildings close in to Tokyo. They go fast, and in most cases, it’s first-come, first serve.

Then the agent we dealt with told us about new buildings being constructed. UR puts up maybe a dozen or more new buildings in the area each year from what I can tell. For example, a new 247-unit building is going up in Ningyocho, just a short walk from the Ginza, which opens for signing up in September. If there are too many applicants, then they’ll do a lottery, but otherwise, UR just gives apartments to the first people who apply. Ningyocho caught our eye, but there are several other buildings opening, including two in Adachi Ward (a less-desirable but cheaper location), one in Setagaya, another in Yokohama, and another in Saitama.

But then the agent mentioned that there was a building which had just opened for people to move into, one which people had applied for a few months back. Probably what had happened was that a lot of the people who had originally applied in advance had found other places in the meantime, or otherwise decided not to go for this one, so they cancelled. That left a lot of rooms open–a situation that would last for only a short time (ergo the good timing). We were given a pamphlet and decided to check it out.

The building is called Vanguard Tower. While the photos on their site are better than what you actually get, it’s still a very nice place. They just finished construction, so all the units are brand-new. It’s a 38-story building in the heart of Ikebukuro, the next block over from Sunshine City. The advertisements say it’s a 10-minute walk from Ikebukuro station, but you know that they always make that figure sound as attractive as possible. We haven’t timed our own speed yet, but it’s probably closer to 12-14 minutes, I’d guess. Still, it’s pretty damned central.

Vanguard Tower as seen from the observation deck of Sunshine 60.
Click to see a larger view. Our unit would be halfway down on the right.
That’s Mt. Tsukuba on the horizon, by the way.

The walk from the station is pretty straightforward. When you come out of the east exit of Ikebukuro Station, you go down the main street for a little then veer left down a big shopping street leading to Sunshine City. Vanguard is visible along that street, and in fact, I could see back down to that street from the apartment.

A rather extreme zoom of Sunshine 60 Street from the unit.

We spoke briefly to the staff on the second floor, in the recruitment office, and were given building passes for looking at the room. We went up to the 21st floor and checked the place out. While not perfect, it is a very nice place. At 72 square meters, it’s very spacious for central Tokyo. Here’s the layout as provided by the building’s web site:

You walk in the door, and there is a small walk-in shoe closet on the right, and a smaller shoe cabinet on the left. The toilet is also immediately on the right, and is of the variety I like to call “the Captain’s Chair,” as the bidet and washlet controls slightly resemble a futuristic starship seat. Immediately down the hall are the two bedrooms. Sachi and I will probably use the smaller one as a storage room–and even at that, we’re both going to have to pare down our belongings considerably. To get out on the balcony, you can use either a door in the larger bedroom or one in the living room. The balcony area outside the bedrooms is wide enough to have a small table and chairs, but we might opt for a smaller table and two chairs in the little inset pocket just around the corner; it’s protected from winds better. The larger area might become a small plant garden/exercise area (I have to put my large elliptical trainer somewhere). The larger bedroom we’ll use ourselves, though we may need a new bed; it’s just small enough that my present bed might not fit the way we want. We looked at new beds last night, and they tend to range from 200,000 yen ($1,650) for a queen size. Ouch. Anyone know a place in Tokyo that sells beds cheaper?

The bath room is nice–two mirror/dresser areas, with plenty of cupboard/shelf space. The bath itself is nice, though Sachi noticed that the rubber fitting at the bottom of the bath room door may not keep water in as well as one would prefer; she noted that it seemed cheap. However, the complaints more or less end there, aside from a few small kvetches.

From there, you come in to the main living area. It measures about 6 x 7 meters (20′ x 23′), with a diagonal cut in one side where the balcony windows dominate. The kitchen is fully electric (no gas in the building, so I’ll have to sell that sweet new heater I bought recently), with three stove “burners” and a small internal grill. There’s a large sink and (for Japan) ample counter space. It might be hard to fit in a fridge and the nice rack of kitchen shelves I have at my place, but they could work. There’s enough cupboard space, and the nice feature is the open counter to the living/dining area–something I like a lot. It opens up the kitchen nicely.

The living/dining area itself a large, though the odd shape may make it hard to utilize as well as we might like. Still, it’s hard to beat the window area–large glass windows/door all around the room. When we were there, brown-paper faux curtains which we could only open partially cut off most of the light. But the room faces southeast, and will be very bright. The floor is heated from beneath, and they give us one air conditioner/heater. The windows are all double-paned, which will insulate the place very nicely, in addition to silencing traffic noise. The view is great–not fantastic, but great. Alas, here’s where the advertising photos cheat: they make it look like you can glance down at the dinner table and see the cityscape past the table settings. But the balcony railing cuts off the view of the cityscape unless you stand up. That’s a good thing, though–were the railing lower, you could fall over it too easily! It’s sphincter-puckering enough to look over the railing on the 21st floor as it is.

The view is a cityscape, and should be beautiful at night. We might even get a distant view of firework displays like the one over the Sumida River. But the view does not, alas, include the beauties of the Tokyo night. The Sunshine 60 and Prince Hotel buildings dominate the southern view. Tokyo Tower is visible, but mostly blocked by a nearby skyscraper. Shinjuku’s skyscrapers are also visible, but just through the gap between the Sunshine 60 and Prince Hotel. Mt. Fuji is blocked by the Toyota building (maybe ten floors higher and we could have had a view of it). So unless the Sunshine complex is going to be more dazzling than I expect at night, the view will have to simply be… north-central Tokyo. Which, hopefully, at night, will be a nice enough view for the city light show. (A small note of amusement: the pamphlet for the building shows a room with a telescope. But due to light pollution, the scope would be useless for skywatching–but great for looking into other people’s windows!)

The view to the west. Anything to the right is dominated by Sunshine City. Click to enlarge.

From here we get into the small stuff, a lot of which is nice. There’s an auto-lock security system (you buzz people in at the front door), with a video monitor to see who’s coming. The toilet and bath both have emergency call buttons which sound an alarm in the main living area (Honey, I forgot my towel!). There are two places where you can let (sound-buffered) air come in from the outside to create an air flow, aside from what you get by opening windows on opposite sides of the unit. There’s a clothes-drying system above the bath that allows for speedy hang-drying, with laundry poles and changeable rests for them. Rails with hangers adorn the side walls of the living area, allowing us to hang pictures or other ornamentation. And the mailbox system is a special treat: it’s closed off to anyone except you and the post office. No more regiments of part-timers flocking to stuff your mailbox with annoying ads! Yay!! Even better, there’s a system of locked closets for receiving large parcels, so if you get a Fed Ex delivery, you don’t have to be at home. Just give the delivery service the code number for the box, and they can leave it there for you to pick up at your leisure. Cable TV and Internet services are available but not included in the rent; that’s something we’ll still have to work out.

A small difficulty: there’s no garbage disposal chute. You have to carry your trash down to the 2nd-level basement and leave it in one of a few different rooms, depending on its type. However, that’s the same basement level where I’ll park my scooter, so I’ll probably be the one carrying out the trash. For the whole building, there are only 21 spots for motorcycles/scooter above 50cc, but I checked this morning, and they had a space available that I could reserve. It’ll cost ¥4000 ($33) a month, but that’s OK. It’s also very secure–locked behind a gate–so I won’t have to deal with theft like I did with my last scooter.

As for the environs, there is shopping galore. Sunshine City is one block away, with a massive shopping mall. Alas, as is usually the case, 90% of that is clothing shops, almost all of them hideously overpriced and fashion-bound. But the key is finding the dozen or so shops that suit you. For example, Subway sandwiches are good for my diet; a half-sandwich is enough to do me for brunch and is low on calories. I never had access to that in the Tama area. In the meantime, I’ll have to avoid all the other fast food shops which exist in abundance, like the six local McDonald’s stores or five Starbucks locations in the immediate area. I’ll probably spend the first few months just walking around, trying to figure out where everything is, and taking note of the shops I’ll want to frequent.

The shopping element that I worried about was plain-old supermarket shopping; downtown areas are not noted for their grocery stores. But in addition to the Seiyu supermarket just on the other side of Sunshine City, the builders of the Vanguard Tower foresaw the general lack. Half of the ground floor, the part that is not taken up by the semi-luxurious lobby and the mail room, is occupied by a medium-sized supermarket which will be open 24 hours. We’ll have to see about their prices and product quality. I’ve never heard of the market name before (and have forgotten what it was now), so it’s not a known quantity.

There’s good and bad here, but there seems more good than bad. In any case, we have ten more days to mull it over before contract time comes.

Opportunistic: There’s a news story which is as sad as it is unsurprising: al Qaeda is making money off of Iraq. We already know that Bush’s invasion of Iraq has enormously swelled the ranks of al Qaeda. By going into Iraq, Bush has weakened the United States military on a fool’s errand, and strengthened our enemies to no end. Well done.

But here’s my thought: on September 11, 2001, even before the shock of the day’s events wore off, a good president would have asked himself, “How can I fix this?”

Instead, what we had was a president who asked, “How can I use this?”

3,422 U.S. troops dead. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead. So many more to come. This is how great piles of corpses are made.

It looks like I’ll be moving to Ikebukuro at the start of July.

We still have ten days to change our minds, but it doesn’t look like that’ll happen, very likely. We’ll probably be moving in to the apartment a bit more than halfway up on the right side of the tower as seen above, from the observation deck of the Sunshine 60 building just across the way.

More later.

We’re just getting started, but Sachi and I have two potential choices. One is an apartment near where Sachi lives now, on the third floor of a building atop a convenience store. It’s 72 square meters, a 3LDK with two small carpeted bedrooms, and a sizable hardwood-floor LDK (13 tatami mat size), with a classic 6-mat tatami room which, with sliding doors open, opens up the LDK even more.

Pros: location (one station out from Meguro, 6 minutes’ walk from the station), and there’s a Cherry-blossom-tree-lined street right out the living room window. It’ll only be in bloom once a year for a week or so, the rest of the time it’s just trees–but it’s trees. Another big plus: there’s no key money, just 3 month’s deposit, just like UR’s selections (though we’d still pay a month’s rent for the real estate agent). Also, there’s a big park about 5 minute’s walk away.

Cons: the rent is fairly high, right at our upper limit. There’s a fairly high-traffic street right out front, which we can only hope won’t be too loud–though the bedroom is away from that, in the back of the unit (though its window is barred, and looks out on the hallway). There is a nearby supermarket, close to the station, but almost no other shops close by. And there’s a steady incline from the station to the apartment–though that’s a questionable disadvantage. (Why can’t I ever get a place which is uphill going to work and downhill coming back home?) There’s also virtually no balcony, and might not be any place to park a scooter.

The second place is one we’re going to look at today. It’s a UR property, so it’d be 3 months’ deposit and first month’s rent to get in. But here’s the corker: it’s a brand-spanking-new 38-floor high rise smack in the middle of Ikebukuro, just ten minute’s walk from Ikebukuro Station (almost across the street from the Sunshine City complex). It’s called Vanguard Tower. Apparently, we’ve just caught it at the right time–a lot of people had reserved apartments, but when the building opened, they had already found other places, and so canceled.

An example of one of the openings? A 72-square-meter 2LDK apartment on the corner of the 21st floor, all hardwood floors, with 2 smallish bedrooms (6-mat and 5-mat) and a 16-mat living-dining area–19+ if you include the kitchen. There’s a wide balcony (what will the winds be like so high up? Will traffic smog be an issue?) and the view will be to the south and the east, from Ikebukuro’s skyscrapers to central Tokyo, including the Imperial Palace. There’s even bike parking (bicycle and scooter) in the basement levels. It comes with built-in everything, though you apparently have to contract for your own Internet service.

The location is excellent. Sachi would have a direct train line to work, and I would almost have a direct line (which would change starting June next year, when the new subway opens up from Ikebukuro direct to my work). By scooter, it’d be a short 5-10 minute hop for me. It’s on a major boulevard, but so high up, traffic noise will not be an issue. There are no big parks in the immediate vicinity, and from so high up, trees would not really help much anyway. But the shopping would be unbeatable, not to mention movie theaters and lots of other stuff just a short walk away. (Though a good supermarket might or might not be available closeby; we’ll have to check.) Another benefit: Ikebukuro is a terminus for the Narita Express. No more humping through transfer points with major luggage every time I visit home, and coming back from the airport would be a breeze.

A possible major issue: wait time for elevators. We’re sure as hell not walking 21 flights, up or down. Sachi is worried about this, and when we go to see the unit today, we might see it at its worst: people just started moving in a few days ago, so there’ll probably be much worse traffic than usual. There are five elevators; one large car that stops at every floor, and four smaller ones. Two of the smaller ones are express elevators to the 18th floor and above; the other two service the 18th floor and below. People on the 18th floor have it sweet–they can use all five elevators. On the 21st floor, we could potentially (in a pinch) use the lower-half elevator to the 18th floor and then walk up three flights. Also, the empty elevator shaft above the 18th floor is converted into storage closets for the tenants on those floors.

Earthquake safety would seem to be an issue against, but frankly, I think it’s an advantage here. Nobody’s going to skimp on earthquake safety when it comes to such a high-profile high-rise, while smaller buildings could fly under the radar and not have as good protection.

The square meter-age and the prices of both places are almost exactly the same. Both are close in, though one is a station off the Yamanote, the other is right on it. The differences are obvious: high-rise with city view vs. just-above-tree-lined-street-level view; slightly older small mansion vs. brand-new high-rise. One would be more rustic, neighborhood-oriented with limited shopping, the other would be modern big-city style with downtown right outside the door.

I’m excited about the high-rise myself, but we’ll have to see what it feels like when we’re there.