adviceS: Dial-up in Tokyo & greater Kanto?
Question: Using an antiquated laptop with a serial modem port is there a free or inexepnsive dial up service in Tokyo area?

Do you LIKE getting reamed in your hinterlands by NTT?

For a modest 20-30 minutes a day connection time to NTT for checking email and news, dial-up will cost you much more than 2,000yen/month.

Flat-rate ASDL at 1,500yen/m like Yahoo BB will save you a lot of money. If you live WAY out in the boondocks where ADSL doesn't work, old ISDN modems from NTT are dirt cheap(free?) and flat-rate is 1,200yen/m or less. I use "bonded-pair" IDSN out on my rice ranch in Shikoku that provides 256k speed (two ISDN lines, 128k + 128k) because ASDL is impossible in my Jomon village.

Your PC card slot will allow you to try WiFi or most modern ASDL and LAN-type services.

For more about low-tech 56k and ISDN modems services (as well as ASDL) read this truely definative source:
ISPs in Japan FAQ , by Keith Wilkinson (2003 info)

Sex and the city, Shibuya style
Sex and the city, Tokyo style
Shibuya, in Japan's capital, is a magnet to youth. But many fear their children falling victim to its seedier side.
Independent, UK - 26 Feb
.....scouts hover like hawks, preying on the gullible, the curious and the greedy. Usually recognisable thanks to their perma-tans and designer clothes, the male scouts can instantly size up their female prey for their sexual marketability.
"We aim for women around 18 to 20 and rank them A to D, for beautiful to ugly, and S for saiko (best)," says 20-year-old Kenichi Sato, who scouts for a strip club. "I'm on a commission. When I deliver the girls to the club, and provided they stay for a set time, I get paid ¥40,000 to ¥50,000 [£195 to £245]." ...Recently, female scouts, such as those employed by Yoshisato, have also started working the area. ...."If you're a young girl, even a fat, ugly one, the scouts will bug you," 19-year-old Emi Ishii says.
----More scout pix here....

Japan squeaks at the Billgatus of Borg
Japan's lapdog yaps at Billgatus of Borg...
Japan watchdog raids Microsoft
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 Posted: 11:59 PM EST (0459 GMT)
...Microsoft Japan is suspected of attaching improper restrictive conditions when signing software deals with Japanese personal computer manufacturers, such as requiring that Japanese companies allow infringement of their patents.o

Posted by trek/taro at 3:43 PM JST
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Radar monitoring around-the-clock for the Yellow Peril

Yellow sand monitoring starts

NHK News / Thursday, February 26, 2004 11:23:29 AM
Japan's Environment Ministry has set up the first radar system exclusively for monitoring around-the-clock how yellow sand from China is blown to Japan. The yellow sand is blown from deserts in China in early spring....

Cytotoxicity of yellow sand in lung epithelial cells
J. Biosci. vol 28; 2003
DISCUSSION: There is a clear association between Asian dust events and enhancement of mortality. During a dust event, a 1⋅7% increase in the risk of death from all causes was observed. Specifically, the relationship between the Asian dust events and deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory causes was strong. This means that people with advanced cardiovascular and respiratory disease may be susceptible to the Asian dust events....

"Fun, fun, fun, till her grandson takes her T-Bird away"

Japanese dinosaurs driving at 104 years old

Driver license holders 65 and older outnumber youths for 1st time
Kyodo / Thursday February 26, 9:20 AM
The number of driver license holders aged 65 and older topped that of those aged 16 to 24 for the first time in 2003, the National Police Agency (NPA) said Thursday. The agency said there were four driver license holders 100 years old or older and that the oldest was a 104-year-old man in Miyazaki Prefecture, who still drives. ....

"Why is this Japanese engineer writing vague, false but polite instructions.

vague, false but polite

Japanese cell phone manual I've working on reads as follows:

"When you has ended with your video-phone, an image does appear depending."

That's it!
The above sentence is just floating alone in the the middle of the page like a turd in a Baptismal Font.
No explaination. No reference. Nothing.
Not unusual. Most Japanese written documents are the same: Instructions as Haiku without direct meaning. Sheesh.

The standard rationalization/apologia goes this this (which in itself is false and vague).

Aimai - ambiguity and the Japanese
Chinmoku - silence in Japanese communication
Haragei - an implicit way of communicating in Japan
Honne to tatemae - private vs. public stance in Japan
Uchi to soto - dual meanings in Japanese human relations

----"The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture" (Tuttle Publishing 2002, ed. by Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno) essays about Japanese culture and communication.

Japanese are given to non sequiturs
Yet another strange non sequitur in a Japanese news story....
Sun Feb 22,10:41 AM ET
Reuters
Hitomi, an Exotic shorthair act, wears a cow outfit during a beauty pageant at a cat park in Tokyo, February 22, 2004. Bird flu has spread to a new species in Asia, scientists said last week, reporting that two house cats in Thailand died of the same strain that has killed 22 people across the continent. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

George Bush's Japanese TV commerial
Topic: Media
This TV commerial really summarizes Japan's strangest English school, "GABA".
.これでもグループレッスンを信じますか？?Group lesson is the way to go? TV staring the Commander in Chimp, Geo. Bush!

Come now. Everyone say it: "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA", "GABA"...

iPod zombies stalk the 52nd floor of Roppongi Hills
iPod zombies stalk the halls of the Mori Art Museum....
iPods provide museum audio-guide
Macworld UK, 24 Feb
... Tokyo's brand-new Mori Art Museum launching an audio guide service using Apple's iPod. Visitors to the museum can borrow one of 20 iPods at no charge, and listen to an audio guide of the current exhibition...

'waitresses in Japan wear their kids in a pouch'
This is not in the least bit true, at least for the past 60 years. If anything, Japanese women take more time off after birth than any developed county on earth.

Sometimes I gotta wonder where people get these zany ideas about Japan?

The waiting game
..few Australians choose to pursue the restaurant waiting game as a career. But professionals do exist.
The Sydney Morning Herald. / February 24, 2004 - 10:08AM
...Lela Radojkovic, manager, Restaurant Balzac...
"The burn-out rate is very high... if you're a woman, you usually quit to have babies. You can't bring your freakin' kids to the restaurant. I love what I do but I also obviously want to have kids one day - what then? I hear that some waitresses in Japan wear their kids in a pouch for the first six months, so maybe that's the go."

Posted by trek/taro at 10:54 AM JST
Updated: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 1:07 PM JST
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