Takakanuma Greenland is no more…

So my friend messaged me about two weeks ago saying, “How do you feel about abandoned amusement parks?”. I was hooked immediately and inquired about it more. My friend showed me a page on Atlas Obscura for Takakanonuma Greenland, an old Japanese amusement park.
http://atlasobscura.com/place/takakonuma
Per Atlas Obscura’s reference, the park was shut down in 1999 and left behind to rust. Many intrepid urban explorers has dared to venture into this place and see this eerily creepy place in person to take some wonderful pictures. Immediately, plans went into action with my friend to plan a road trip here since we both easily lived close enough to make a small road trip out of it. We knew somewhat about where it was located, but not exactly. In fact, even AO mentions that the park has become so obscure that people don’t know where it is located. So I began the great Internet search to find out where this park is located.

Using Steam in Japan

My Steam purchasing process:
“Ooo, I want that.” -> Add to cart -> Purchase for Myself -> Steam:Unknown Error!
(Gah! Bullshit, Steam, you know…)
Exit Steam -> Sign into VPN (Are my torrents closed? Crap…) ->Restart Steam -> Open Cart -> Purchase for myself -> Steam purchase: Success.
I hate Steam while I’m in Japan…

So to say the least, I’ve been having difficulties with buying things on Steam.  Luckily, I still have access to my VPN from when I was a student, but who knows how long until that gets shut off.  For those Steam-heads that don’t have a VPN like me, the best way to get around this is to use the web browser and make sure you browse to http://store.steampowered.com/?cc=us and make your purchase.  This was the best answer I could get from Steam Support.

In a world of digital distribution that is permanently tied to one account, why should region-locking even matter.  To some extent, I can understand why region-locking works for physical media, but games on Steam are intangible (Intangir, what have you!)!  It’s not like I can buy a bunch of English copies of the game and sell them to other people in Japan (while I could gift them to other people for an outside/under-the-table agreed priced, such a deal would put both accounts at risk of being terminated by Steam’s TOS).

Bah, Steam, get it together!  Especially since I want to give you my money!