You know you are living in Tokyo in 2006 when

1. You accidentally try to scan your ATM card on the train ticketgate suica pad, and then try to insert your Suica or Passnet train cards into the ATM...

2. You haven’t been to a real cinema for years - you just download movies and TV shows and watch them at home on your computer or ipod video because (a) going to the cinema is around $20 a pop and may involve waiting in a really long queue, (b) International films get released about 6 months behind the rest of the world anyway and run for about 2 weeks if they're lucky, and (c) because foreign films are only subtitled in Japanese (of course).

3. You have no idea who at least 30 of the people in your keitai (mobile phone) address book are despite the fact you photographed almost all of them with the phones camera and attached their photos to their profiles.

4. You IM or SMS your family abroad on your G3 phone to tell them that you'll Skype them later tonight.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don’t have e-mail addresses, IM or skype (or use dialup).

6. You automatically pull your phone out and place it on the table in front of you at any restaurant, cafe, bar or picnic you visit and so do all your friends, and you will all proceed to send and receive emails throughout the day or night as you are conversing with the live people in front of you. As the evening winds up you check last train or route-finder info on your keitai's internet access. If you are underground or in some no-network-access area, it is acceptable practice to excuse yourself at least once to go outside to connect to the network to check for emails.

7. You have to arrange (via email) dates with your friends weeks in advance or else you never get to see them.... but you all manage to keep up with each others news by subscribing to each others blog RSS feeds.

8. Leaving the house without your keitai or iPod, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get them.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You’re reading this and nodding and laughing.

12. Even worse, you know you're gonna post this to your blog (or forward it) first chance you get.

13. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

14. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn’t a #9 on this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

Adapted from the Sore Eyes living in 2006 post, which was lifted from Gordon McLean, which was lifted from Xanth. Feel free to make your own additions and comments.

In other news, no, I'm not dead. It's just that my computer is STLL in the shop where I've been told it will stay for another few weeks. I still don't actually know what is wrong with it and I wonder where else in the world it is considered acceptable to take a month to repair a one year old under-warranty computer? Makes life a wee bit tricky when you live in Tokyo in 2006....

I do have the use of my vintage windows machine which feels positively medievil after my powerbook. Slow and unwieldy - lots of freezes and crashes, it's so excruciating that I just don't bother- with 20 gb HD and 125 mb of RAM, why would you? This situation is pretty worrisome as I have a couple of jobs on at the moment (anda few more in the near future) that can only be done using the powerbook - this windows machine can't read my external HD data and I have no access to the essential software.... I'm planning and writing a magazine article mostly by hand. Fun in a novel kind of way.

But it's all good because spring is finally here and the cherry blossoms have started blooming and and as of tomorrow, I have a weeks spring holiday - planning a trip to Ohama beach near Shimoda with the most lovable multi-talented illustrator, character designer and animator (and old family friend) Andrea. Please go take a look at her enchanting portfolio site otoshimono. And of course there'll be loads of beer drinking under the sakura with the multitudes. I love hanami time.