It's about 11:30 and I'm getting ready to settle in for the night. The rain is falling pretty heavily outside but I'm in what I can call my own apartment/bachelor pad right in the middle of Tokyo. It's just under 20 square meters (215 square feet), and has a balcony too. I'm paying $1370 a month, or about $6.4 a square foot (which is still cheaper than Luke's $800 for 78-square feet, which comes to about $10.3). Still, this far exceeds anything I had expected to pay, though I quickly realized that my options for rent in Tokyo boils down to a few key concepts:

a) Most housing contracts in Japan are on a two-year basis.
Not terribly surprising, but it does prevent me from looking at traditional rent options (with a renting agency, or fudosan), which would be cheapest.

b) Many housing contracts require key money, deposit, and guarantor
This is fairly unique to Japan, as far as I know, because the key money (reikin) is essentially money you pay to the landlord as thanks for renting the place to you (it is illegal in the UK as well as in the United States). A guarantor is also typically desired just in case you fail to make payments - this is largely a result of very generous tenant laws in Japan that prevent landlords from kicking nonpaying tenants out easily. But to show you just how ludicrous this policy can be, my parents, who are also planning on renting in Tokyo, had to find a guarantor, despite having enough money to pay for a decade's worth of rent (at least!). If a rent system requires key money and a deposit, it usually means your first month's pay is 3-month's rent.

c) The deposit is rarely returned in full
Landlords typically use a good portion of the deposit to clean the apartment as you move out, so the deposit is, according to my landlor, very rarely returned in full. Landlords are very nitpicky about cleanliness, in other words.

d) Some renter's agencies will not rent to Japanese nationals
This is somewhat of a bias (and I've inquired for further information), but at least two companies work "exclusively with foreign passport holders". My landlord suggested that it may be because rental agencies are inherently suspicious of Japanese folks who want to rent without key money and deposit, which might suggest the inability to pay future payments.

That's getting closer at about $8 per square foot - see listing here.

There's a waiting list? I bet some of you have walk-in closets that are bigger than 97-square feet! listing here.

What worried me most was the fact that many of these units were actually being occupied, and available units that I had scoffed because of size suddenly became appealing in the eyes of those unknown folks who seemed willing to pay. Granted, I was fairly particular about location - I'm right in the middle of Roppongi which clearly narrowed my choices to begin with. There were several other options I pursued, including craigslist and another rental agency, but in the end I settled with one of the first units I saw when I arrived in Japan.

It'll be interesting trying to accomodate some of my friends in my apartment as they try to map out their visit to Japan this summer. We'll see how it goes.

Even if you subscribe to the most expensive plan (in the 2-year contract), your per-minute call price ends up being ¥7.875 (or 10 cents). This is pretty expensive given that Tracphone's most expensive pay-as-you-go plan is at about 13 cents a minute, and AT&T's price is also 10 cents per minute. 2-year contract prices obviously bring this price down considerably.

By contrast, there is only one prepaid phone provider in Japan (SoftBank) and one phone to choose from, and their price ends up being about $1 a minute for outgoing calls. Incoming calls however are free and unlimited, and you can pay about $4 for 30 days of completely free email and MMS. This may be the general reason as to why per-minute outgoing calls are so expensive. There's also the general (unfortunate) assumption that prepaid phones are used by foreigners or by the yakuza.

Here are some of the reasons I've been able to say good-bye to Facebook, along with 617 friends (although obviously I downloaded a copy of my data, and extracted all of my contact's email addresses along the way). I'll be the first to admit that I've been an avid and almost compulsive user, and along the way I've had many reasons to believe that Facebook was worthwhile using.

a) Facebook makes me an egotist
Facebook makes it exceedingly easy to share news, snippets, photos, and all sorts of going-ons about one's life. Regardless of a person's interest in you, that kind of information filters into other people's channels. While I did keep my privacy particularly strong (such that no one can find me unless I add you), once we do become friends, I do inevitably end up sharing bits and pieces of my life. That's a failing on my part (as I know folks who use Facebook a lot more conservatively). The scary part comes from changing things like relationship or job information - it has come to a point where I can hardly "not care" who reads it or not.

b) I have no idea what Facebook does with my data
It's a long-held tenet that if the software product is free, you're the product, and nothing hold more true than with Facebook. I'm worried about what Facebook has planned to do with my data. Furthermore, Facebook's acquisition of Instagram gives me another reason to be suspicious about where they plan to go in the near future. (Has it ever crossed your mind that the photos you take give you the most perfect indicator of where you are? You don't need to "check in" anywhere if you just have a photo trail.)

c) I've long since passed the point where I am making new friends
The main reason for my use of Facebook has been to connect with friends I've long since lost in touch with - now it has become an easy way for me to "stalk" friends I haven't been in touch with (or correspondingly be stalked). It gives me the superficial satisfaction that in doing so I've somehow kept in touch with that person, but nothing could be farther from the truth. It always catches me a bit off guard when a friend rattles off something I've done or shared on Facebook, especially if it comes from someone who didn't interact ("Like" or comment) with that particular piece of news online. Liking or commenting gives me a way to imagine how I might have shared that piece of information with that specific individual.

d) It's hard to say "I don't have Facebook" anymore
I was asked by an elderly Japanese man staying at a hostel last week if I had Facebook, and I had a hard time telling him no, particularly since I think he saw me using it previously. While his intentions were fairly innocuous, it did give him licence to all the photos I had there, which was a bit tough to bear (I unfriended him after I left).

e) Some of the folks I admire the most don't use Facebook (or use it very sparingly)
While this isn't a particularly powerful argument, it does make me wonder what I could do with the time I otherwise spend on Facebook. Given that I am the kind of guy that, given a tool or resource, will have a hard time controlling my use of it, locking myself out is the best available option.

Granted, Facebook has been great for communicating to large numbers of folks on short notice. I will miss that ability, but then again I have access to email, and that, for now, will have to do.

The video station with the station cop repeating about how security is his number one concern fades into the recesses of 30th Street Station as I sit awkwardly near a wall socket. It becomes a haunted mumble (listen) echoing through the space, as weary travelers try to get a bit of rest or wander about, waiting for the next train. The last Amtrak has just left for Washington DC, so most of the people here are going to be waiting for a while. The Dunkin Donuts guy bashfully admits there is no more ice, so some of us drift towards the McDonalds, where there isn't ice coffee, but at least some super sweet tea, only in Large, of course.

I'm here waiting for the 4:30 airport train - it's hardly worth $25 for a cab fare - but it also means I have to devise a good enough tactic to stay awake or sleep intermittently. So far, the wireless is helping. My charger, however, is not. Apple's socket-heavy Mac chargers are horrible for fitting into loose sockets, because they just fall out. Apparently Apple's engineers never thought of that, did they.

My back is not particularly happy after a 7 hour BoltBus ride from Boston's South Station to here, but the ride was decent. It's important to consider that at least for MegaBus and BoltBus, given that they respect speed limits, in my experience they have hardly ever been on-time for arrival (Fung-Wah and the other Chinatown buses get around this by violating most common traffic rules, including going 80 on the highway). The stop at Arby's in North Haven is appropriate enough, if only because it lets people stretch our their legs, buy some greasy roast-beef sandwich, and make a queue for the restroom.

Update 2:10am: Good of the Philadelphia PD to stop by and ask what I was up to inside the station, ostensibly to take care of the vagrants. They asked if I had a ticket and whatnot, and while I hadn't purchased my ticket yet they were civil and nice. The cop even knew the train schedules for SEPTA, so I was duly impressed.

Sometimes the best technology is the one most suited for the job it was designed for. The Kindle falls squarely in that category, and as a former skeptic of the tool I have to admit how wrong I was to doubt its capacity to amaze. About a month or so ago I acquired the Kindle 3 (Keyboard - geez, there's so many varieties!) from the Stanford bookstore at a discount because the box had been opened and returned. I bought it in response to some scathing criticism from my dad, who said that I wasn't reading at all and that it made me incapable of having any meaningful conversation (lacking the context to put famous quotes from literary classics, etc, etc.). To be fair, I had really lost the art of reading for a while, having been attracted to the shiny, wide screen of a laptop since getting into college and then dropping the more colorless, static paper except where textbooks required.

The reason the Kindle Keyboard made sense for me was that I was hoping to be able to get some mileage out of the Kindle outside of a simple reading device. The keyboard would likely make the most sense for typing content, I figured. The model I got, a 3G+Wifi variant with special offers, also was appealing because it gave me access to a free Internet connection, something that I still have been too cheap to consider, especially with free wireless connection on campus, at home, and in Mountain View proper.

But as I travel from home to hotel to hostel I find myself increasingly considering the Kindle as a prized possession that travels with me as I run about town. There are several reasons:

a) It's a darned good eReader.
eInk provides the best contrast even with sunlight glaring down at you. You don't feel any particular eye strain looking at the screen, and the pastel finish makes the Kindle feel almost indestructible. You can download calibre, a eBook managing tool, to load new books onto it without going through Amazon.

b) It's so portable.
When I went to a Lab126 tech talk last quarter I was surprised to see a Product Manager whip out his Kindle from inside his jacket pocket. Now I know that it does fit, there's really no reason not to carry it. Stuck in a long line? Waiting for the train that never comes? It's so easy to pick it up and read, and it's obviously more portable than carrying a paperback with you all the time.

c) It's got free 3G
Though the browser on-board the Kindle is pretty much as bare bones as it gets (it chokes on the desktop version of Facebook.com, for example) it nonetheless can render Gmail, Google Maps (some of it), Twitter, and Google Voice. This is sufficient for basic communication, way-finding and a bit of social networking.

In short, if there's a store near you that you can buy from that will also let you return it if you're not happy with it, I'd say give it a whirl. That's what I did with my bookstore's 30-day return policy, and I have no intention of returning mine now!

I rewatched They Live because a particularly memorable scene surfaced on Reddit recently, where the protagonist picks up the famous sunglasses that gives him insight into a world driven by aliens bent on reducing humankind into slaves to consumerism. As a fan of dystopian futuristic movies, They Live is particularly appealing in this day and age where rampant consumerism is finally being questioned. While the 5-minute 20 second fight scene between Nada (Piper) and Frank (David) was decidedly excessive and boring (not to mention completely needless), the movie does have a compelling story and a decent delivery, in a sort of sinister H2G2-kind-of way. Now, if only I had a pair with me to see what things are being broadcast silently into our brains?

Score: 7.5 out of 10 for a sinister and clever plot but some unimpressive fight scenes

Ironically one of the previews that were shown before the movie itself was "Snow White and the Huntsmen", making this one of two Snow White movies this year. I was pleasantly surprised about how much I liked this movie, though I credit knowing that it was directed by Tarsem Singh (The Fall) with costumes designed by Eiko Ishioka (also The Fall/The Cell). Rather than drive the plot into a dark, terrifying direction, the movie plot peppers the actor's lines with just enough humor to make it incredibly approachable. And though I was not particularly impressed by Lilly Collins initially, by the end I was positively smitten. Julia Roberts fleshes out the queen as a pretentious, despicable character while also remaining vaguely aware of her vile character. Finally, Nathan Lane plays the meek and wimpish butler Brighton while making him appear quite amiable.

Score: 8 out of 10 for a great cast, a catchy tune, and the well-placed humor.