'Balmy' Demineralized mineral water for $33 a bottle
Topic: Japanese Tech
Buying or selling demineralized mineral water for $33 a bottle: WOTS funnier? Maybe the name?

Hawaii's Bottled Seawater Industry Booming
(Wednesday, April 14, 2004 1:37:30 PM / Honolulu-AP) -- Several Hawaii companies are taking the bottled water concept to another level. Consumers, especially from Japan, are paying top dollar for a bottle for desalinated Hawaiian deep-sea water.
The seawater is being marketed as a mineral-rich, dietary supplement.....
Small bottles of Kona Nigari seawater were selling for 33-dollars in Waikiki this week....

Japan: rotting squid guts kills 3
Topic: Japanese life
Here's the winner of legit Japanese headline of 2004!!
Police: Poison gas from rotting squid guts kills 3
(Yomiuri / Apr 14)

40% of Japanese students think sun revolves around Earth
Topic: Japanese life

40% of primary pupils think sun revolves around Earth
Yomiuri / Apr 13

Do Afghan mujahideen gonna take bookkeeping in Tokyo?
Topic: Japanese life
Disarming militiamen vexes U.N. force
THE WASHINGTON TIMES / 2004-04-11
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan -- Col. Peter Babbington, formerly of the British Royal Marines, has had a few tough assignments in a formidable career that ranged from the Falklands to Sierra Leone. But never, he suggested recently with a grimace, did he know true lunacy until he arrived in Afghanistan to work for the United Nations.... to persuade Afghanistan's recalcitrant warlords to step into line. Instead, he has only carrots to win their compliance....
However, he said, it might seem hard to imagine Afghanistan's mujahideen commanders --- bearded veterans of a 23-year Islamic holy war -- enrolling for bookkeeping classes in Tokyo.

Tokyo Gov Ishihara hails kamikaze sex
Topic: Japanese life

Ishihara backs sexist schooling

(Mainichi / Apr 10)
Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara has slammed gender free education policies, labeling ... their advocates of being "sorry people with weakened sensibilities."
...."Kimigayo," the national anthem, and the Hinomaru Rising Sun flag "present us with a great opportunity to consider our ultimate responsibilities in a human society where membership of a state or a race is inevitable,"
...."(A kamikaze pilot) headed for battle would be given a quiet farewell off away from others by a woman he loved, but whose hand he had never even held. And he would go in the belief that he was sacrificing his own life for the sake of someone of the same age but the opposite sex," Ishihara told the throng. "We're implementing grotesque education policies that don't even take into consideration such relations between a man and a woman."

Gets test

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"My name is Leagon for I am many."
Topic: Me






Here's a legion of bunnies that poop out Easter candy while I'm on vacation.

Don't be a Pod People... Be a SAUNA Man!
Topic: adviceS


Many folks visiting Tokyo think they can save money staying in the pod room, called capsule hotels. Read about them on this guys blog;
http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/lodging/capsulehotel/
Capsule hotels cost at least 3,000yen. All-night Saunas cost 1,200-800 yen. Both have beds. Both are noisey. So save yourself some money and be a real a SAUNA Man!

The public saunas (not gay) are used by real saavy salarymen who miss the last time but don't want to spend money on a $300 taxi ride. At a saunna you check in after 8pm work-out on the gym equipment, do the hot tub, suana, cold plunge, etc, and then crash on a lounge or deck recliner in the "Resting Room" for the night.

I used to do this so often at the "Rosco Sauna" next to my office that I bought an IC card that checked me in automatically for 450yen per visit when buying more than 10 visits. After working overtime past midnight, I would pop in my "Member Card" (sic) into a locker, pull out my yakakata and towel, hit the Unversal weight machine, then the hot tub and plop on the lounge to sleep like the baby Bejesus. They wake me up before 9am, give me a breakfast discount coupon. Then I would snarf their 300yen breakfast in the 1st floor coffee shop, and I'd be back at my desk by 9:30am looking sharper than any of my coworkers.

Don't be a Pod People... Be a SAUNA Man!
But if you're whimp, here's a list of many capsule hotels throughout tokyo
http://gojapan.about.com/cs/accommodation/a/tokyocapsule1.htm

Bombs rip apart packed bullet trains; heavily armed attackers disguised as homeless storm Tokyo city hall...;
Topic: Japanese life
...attack fears among tense public
07 Apr 2004 06:42
TOKYO (Reuters) - Bombs rip apart packed bullet trains; heavily armed attackers disguised as homeless people storm Tokyo's futuristic city hall; a hijacked super tanker explodes in Tokyo Bay, spewing thousands of tonnes of oil into the waters of one of the world's busiest ports....
Japan weeklies fan attack fears among tense public --Reuters / 07 Apr 2004 06:42 <

Basic is the most difficult jigsaw"
Topic: Japanese Tech

Here's a Japanese jigsaw puzzle that cut out one piece of clear cystral glass with a ultra-high-power water jet.
View full-size image
http://www.tanomi.com/limited/images_item/glassjigsaw_01.jpg
Japanese site
http://www.tanomi.com/limited/html/00021.html

Good way to fix a Japanese male?
Topic: Japanese life
Mom held for slicing 4-month-old son's genitals with razor
Japan Times, April 7
OSAKA (Kyodo) A 24-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of cutting off part of her 4-month-old son's genitals early last month,. ... Shizue Tamura from Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, told investigators that she used a safety razor to attack her son's genitals at her apartment March 1, the officials said.

"so many otaku -- calling them 'sick' loses all meaning"
Topic: Japanese life
Otaku proud of it
Japan's 'otaku' have been branded just about everything from geeks to anoraks, but they couldn't care less
The Japan Times: April 6, 2004
....Last December's Comic Market convention at Tokyo Big Site attracted a staggering 420,000 people: per day, more visitors than the Tokyo Motor Show. ...As counterculture gatherings, otaku conventions dwarf mere "political" events. The anti-Iraq war demonstrations in Tokyo, despite being the largest of their kind for decades, only had tens of thousands of participants, whereas large otaku gatherings regularly attract hundreds of thousands.....
"When we reach the present situation -- where there are so many otaku -- calling them 'sick' loses all meaning," says Hiroki Azuma. "There are just too many."

More Filipina nurses!!
Topic: Japanese life
Job hunt: A reluctant Japan is being asked by Asian nations to open up its labor market.
The Asahi Shimbun / April 7
.... Nursing is a job area given special treatment. Foreigners can work up to four years in the profession in Japan as long as they have passed Japan's national qualifying exams, which are difficult and require high competency with the language.
Nguyen Thi Duyen, 23, from Vietnam, recently passed the national exam after graduating from a nursing school in Chiba Prefecture this spring. She arrived in Japan three years ago at the invitation of the Tokyo-based civic organization AHP Networks, which supports Vietnamese studying for Japanese nursing qualifications.
``Just learning Japanese was difficult (in addition to studies in nursing),'' she recalled.

Japanese vibrating condom VS Taiwanese vibrating
Topic: Japanese Tech

Vibrating Condom Video Shocker gadgets
Gizmodo / FRIDAY, APR 2 2004
...video of a Taiwanese news report about the Vibro-Jimmy which somehow involves none-other-than Latin pop sensation Ricky Martin. Has Martin endorsed the product? Is he using his international acclaim to broker negotiations between the conflicting Taiwanese and Japanese condom technologists?.....
VS
... {{Ryann's}} Japanese vibrating condom from 2002. Is there intellectual theft here? God forbid, physical theft? Could Gizmodo be breaking the vibro-jimmy controversy of the century? Read Gizmodo's I Think These Were In 'Dune'

Using keitai & holding an umbrella while bicycling
Topic: Japanese life
Using keitai, putting on make-up and holding an umbrella while bicycling in a typhoon....Sheesh, that's like half the population of Tokyo.
Japan cracks down on 'killer' cyclists
Telegraph.co.uk, 7 April
... campaign against cyclists yesterday after more than 2,000 pedestrians were injured and six killed in collisions with bicycles last year ... Cycling while using a mobile phone or holding an umbrella will be liable to fines of up to #250 or up to three months in jail.

"Masuyama" Rare Lehman Toy. 1910. Chinese coolie pulling a geisha girl in a ricshaw $2300.00

Let's retro 1979 happy!
Topic: Japanese Tech

Sony Walkman Museum

Posted by trek/taro at 11:09 AM KDT
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"You're too fat, your sugar level is high and you drink too much beer."
Topic: Japanese Tech
High-tech Japanese home of the future
Companies envision robots, high-tech toilets, personal jellyfish "agents."
April 6, 2004: 9:59 AM EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - Imagine getting home from work to be greeted by the family robot, which recognizes your voice and reminds you that you've forgotten your spouse's birthday ...You go to the study and use a touch panel to activate your video messages on a display that takes up half the wall. A doctor appears: "I've been monitoring your urine on the Internet. You're too fat, your sugar level is high and you drink too much beer."

Get Geisha!
Topic: Japanese life
Via Metafilter check out...

Immortal Geisha

Mo' betta than Batboy. it's CARPMAN!
Topic: Media
Today on the front page of "Tokyo Sports" shimbun....
After 14 Years
In Korea
Fish With Human Face Re-Discovered!
See the weird, full-size JPEG picture of the front page and find the Japanese link at the Michael Schubart's Weblog.

Love doll

Morissette strips down to blast US 'censorship'
Mon Apr 05 2004 14:14:52 ET / Drudge
Not another wardrobe malfunction !! ... feisty rock singer Alanis Morissette poked fun at Janet Jackson's notorious breast-baring episode by stripping on stage to reveal cartoonish fake nipples and pubic hair.
Morissette, hosting Canada's annual music awards, said the stunt, in which she appeared in a provocative skin-hugging body-suit was intended to expose US "censorship."