When is a Chair worth 50,000 Yen?

The answer is:
- when you work from home and have to park your ass in it all day;
- when sitting in your old chair would cause you get these fantastically balled up knots between your shoulder blades;
- and when you finally find a chair that provides an unparalleled (in my humble experience) level of total back support (not just some lumbar hump).

You see I spend quite a bit of time in front the computer nowadays (blogging, working, reading about the Birds, and just staying in touch with the world). Well lately, I've been getting significant back pain (mostly between the shoulder blades, which had me rubbing against doorjams and such like a bear scratching itself in the wild). The problem? Sitting up! My office chair simply wasn't designed to provide true back support. A little bit of lumbar support maybe, but the rest of the time, if I sat straight, zero support for the rest of my back. Well I went on base last week, and they had NO office chairs in stock (and even the ones they did carry were a couple of chintzy Office Depot rejects)....

So yesterday we checked out the Nogawa Furniture store, which is right down the street. We were looking for something else (small couch) and I saw this weird office chair, with a day-glo orange back pad (turns out it a floating, contoured back to the chair that provides phenomenal support for the entire back!) and this goofy split seat (odd to sit in a seat that provides a cushion for each cheek). After one trial sit, I was hooked, and the winner of the 2007 stop-the-F'ing-back-pain-already-and-buy-a-new-friggin'-chair-you-lousy-cheapskate contest is:
The Zenon Hara Chair - a Japanese competitor to the Aeron Chair (which I simply could not afford to have shipped to Japan).
Now you may notice a few oddities about this chair. Not the least of which is the fact that the seat is split in two (each cheek gets its own cushion). These are actually hinged, and respond to pressure, adjusting the armrests naturally. Its not nearly as difficult to get used to as you might think. I was skeptical at first.
And my "workspace" where the aforementioned ass is routinely parked.
You know, HD Widescreens make AWESOME computer monitors! So long you have a computer equipped with the good video card that had DVI outputs (doesn't work very well with S-video jacks)Just for reference, this is the back corner the home office/Eagles shrine. I keep my trusty old Blue Alienware Area 51 rig up and running, mostly for downloads.
I'll introduce you to more of the house later. That's all for now folks. I should probably get back to work.