Today's Japanese lesson:"Do not learn Japanese"

"Is that everything? Are you sure?
It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that..."
If you watch closely, you'll find a number of things at work in the fifth chapter of the "Go-En Chronicles."
The first, and most obvious, is me trying to get my $600 doorstop either repaired, or outright replaced.
You may already know that such attempts were expectantly unsuccessful.

Anyone who has ever studied it at length, can probably tell you a whole hell of a lot about the "say one thing, mean ten" mentality of the Japanese language. On one hand, it's fascinating. On the other hand--the hand smacked repeatedly against one's own steaming forehead, is how irritating and exhausting reading through all the fluffy subtext can be. As with any other context-heavy languages, in Japanese, a compliment, a suggestion, an assertion, an insult, or an outright verbal pimp-slap could very well be cunningly tucked between the politely apathetic folds of the same statement. Translation boils down to a lot of contextual approximations, which may vary from time to time depending on your relational distance to the speaker, or on the audience.
Or sometimes simply how annoyed you are with the lack of progress being made.

The following video is a short compilation of lowlights and frustrations from a 45 minute phone call, by the end of which, if it were physically possible to stab someone in the mouth through the phone line, I'm sure SCEJ's "Toyota" and I both would have thrown down in spectacular no-holds-barred fashion. In their defense though--I didn't expect Sony Japan to attempt service on an American machine (I assumed the attempt would fall apart as soon as they requested the serial number, but it was unfortunate that my operator kindly waited until the end of the call to obtain this information). Lucky for them, I still picked up the phone, being bored, hopeful, and totally stoked about giving Docomo another hefty chunk of my tiny paycheck last month.

Japanese speakers may pick up on other thinly veiled attempts at satire within, but for most everyone else, this is simply me being juvenile about my situation, and how calling Sony Computer Entertainment's J-train tech support just made it worse.

You're welcome.

Tech "support"

I made two separate phone calls this evening. One was local to SCEJ, and the other was international to SCEA.

Tech Support in Japan:

"Oh hello, you must be the emperor. Please listen carefully to my obscenely polite keigo while I kiss your ass and make sure absolutely everything is ok with my superiors before I make any real decisions of my own. Oh, and please hold the line while we ring up your cell phone bill before I tell you to take you and your American PS3 and go screw yourself."

Tech Support in America:

"Aw hey bro, hell yeah, we'll fix it for real. Oh, you're in Japan? Aw, that's cool. Just send it to your mom, and we'll send the system coffin to her. Oh yeah, wait a second. You mind bending over a bit? We have to penalize you $150. Warranty violation. You're not allowed to take your system out of the states.
So...I'll need your mom's address, and your credit card number."

The best part? How both calls required more than 30 minutes of wanking about the bush to arrive at the same conclusion: I was being gleefully screwed.

So my system is still broken, and the warranty is now officially expired.

Beautiful.

My karma ran over my dogma

There is a God, and he is laughing at me.

Just hours from one of the biggest releases of the year for me, a critical component in my Playstation 3 has unceremoniously failed, leaving me stranded with an irreparable, nonexchangeable machine, and little choice other than to place it in early retirement...


...as an exceptionally proficient, six hundred dollar doorstop.
The "critical component" at fault being, whatever selective and diabolical elven black magic that reads disc media upon insertion. Adding the delicious sting of unleaded soy sauce to the wound, is how the elven's timely send-off for my faithful roommate's permanent holiday occurred just moments before a glorious vessel bearing such saviors as Guitar Hero 3, the aforementioned R&C, Uncharted, Rock Band, and pretty much every other piece of software, long-awaited version update, and legitimate reason to own a goddamn $600 doorstop (which should handle multi-tasking as a functional gaming platform), was scheduled to make triumphant and historical landfall on my pitiful deserted island of irony starting today.

Early adopters always get screwed. Apple is living proof of this. But early adopters are not supposed to get screwed by a cactus butt-plug lubricated with Icy Hot, and dipped in wasabi. Granted,I'm fully aware of certain risks that come with embracing new technology, but they should never be associated with slipshod or rushed craftsmanship, of which there is no. Goddamn. Excuse.
This would be easier to stomach if such incidents were more isolated, but certain frustrated PSN threads are starting to suggest otherwise.

No, that acrid stench in your nostrils isn't the rectal destruction.
That would be the smell of more rotten Sony PR.

For a year, I've tenderly loved the hell out of the system's only flagship games: Resistance and Warhawk, along with a small handful of other downloadable titles, and patiently waited for November '07 when we were promised our ship. The time has finally come, and...yes.
This.

This deplorable, reprehensible, shit.

The very kind that's only funny when it's on somebody else's porch.
In a sack. And on fire.