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14 May 2008
Getting lost in Tokyo's Gran Cyber Cafés
Sometimes they look like nothing special, only marginally cooler than carrels you might find at a college library. But at other times, especially late at night, they seem visionary, an architectural realization of the social and personal life of the future ... I loved 16-A the instant I saw it. I closed the door, slipped into a low-slung leatherette seat and surveyed the all-you-can-eat tech feast, which includes VHS and DVD players, satellite and regular television on a Toshiba set, PlayStation 2, Lineage II and a Compaq computer loaded with software, all the relevant downloads and hyperspeedy Internet. In the nearby library were thousands of comic books, magazines and novels. On the desk was a menu of oddball snacks, like boiled egg curry and hot sandwich tuna .... Nobody cares what you do, which enables you to be absorbed in whatever fantasy you want to indulge in through Net surfing, Web games or manga. Yet you can satisfy your timid desire to belong.
06:31 Posted in Computers/IT , Web | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Japan, cyber cafes, video games, web, food, lost in computers