The worst comes to Tokyo
Get ready for the new contender for the world worst film.

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

TOKYO, JAPAN: US movie director Jonathan Frakes receives a bouquet from Japanese actress Masami Nagasawa before a press conference to promote their film "Thunderbirds" in Tokyo, 21 July 2004. The movie will be shown all over Japan from 07 August.
AFP /21 July 2004

The Cute Customs of Japan
Does the "C" stands for cute?

Check out this video of the Cuteness of Customs at Tokyo/Narita airport.
_________________
モ?ベッタ..."Land o' concrete" is a trademark of Taro, et al, Inc.

Japan game center fun! Catching hamsters with tongs & crane

Shop uses hamsters, turtles in crane game

(Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, July 21, 2004)
A Tokyo game center has been forced to stop giving out hamsters and small turtles as prizes after the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's animal protection center lodged a complaint, it has been learned.....
"It's against the spirit of animal protection," a Tokyo official said. "It's not acceptable that they keep hamsters in cases kept in a game box."

Badass breasts (and here's the Japanese science)
Topic: Japanese Tech

Breast augmentation: no leaking or rupture
Modern medicine offers women titanium-coated breast implants
07/15/2004 18:04
...Doctor Kotaro Yoshimura and his colleagues from the University of Tokyo are working on a principally new method of enhancement. Japanese doctors transplant adipose cells from woman's stomach or thighs. The transplantation of adipocytes is used in cosmetology for smoothing out wrinkles or scars. However, the transplantation of a large quantity of adipose tissue, which is practiced for breast enhancement, may kill a part of adipose cells due to the lack of the blood circulation. However, Dr. Yoshimura believes it is possible to avoid such side effects adding stem cells to the transplanted adipose ones. ...
The new method has more chances to gain success. It uses natural cells that will not be seized. Moreover, women will like the idea to get rid of some fat from the stomach for the benefit of their breasts.

Tripod beer photography
Topic: Japanese Tech
Now here's the right way to take pix...
Via JeanSnow

The ONLY Hawaiian food in Tokyo worth eating
The ONLY Hawaiian food in Tokyo worth eating is at Kua 'Aina , run by the ex-sumo tori, Yamato aka George Kalima.

It's 39.5C/103F in Tokyo (Why do people live here?)
Topic: Japanese life
The temperature in Tokyo hit 39.5 degrees Celsius ---that's
100.4 F and NHK Morning News says the temp never dropped below 30 C in the past 24 hours! More than 190 were hospitalized.

Mercury hits record 39.5 C in Tokyo, some 190 ill
TOKYO, July 20, Kyodo -
A heat wave hit central and eastern Japan on Tuesday....Nearly 190 people were taken to hospital with heatstroke nationwide, according to a Kyodo News survey as of 11 p.m.

Four die as heat wave hits Japan
Sydney Morning Herald,
A heat wave in Japan has killed four people, most of them elderly, and left at least 10 others in serious condition in hospital, officials said Friday. ...
Torrential rains flood buildings in Saitama Prefecture
Mainichi wrote:
SAITAMA -- Torrential rains hit northern Saitama Prefecture late Thursday, flooding seven buildings, police and a meteorological observatory said Friday.

Seperated at birth? Charles Jenkins and Ross Perot

All Harajuku goth freakazoids look the same but....

All Harajuku goth freakazoids look the same but haven't I checked out this French guy's photo site before?
Harajuku : quartier chaud de Tokyo

Dr. NakaMats' silly claim of "inventing" the floppy disk
Topic: Japanese Tech
Dr. Nakamatsu aka NakaMats makes many bold claims to fame but he prefers to be known as the inventor of the floppy disk and the CD.
What he invented was a phonograph record of fine wood could be read poorly by light sensors. IBM owns the patent for the floppy disk after it had to agree to a number of computer-related patents that Nakamatsu wildly claimed in the 1970s.
Many people have really get suckered on that floppy disk claim just like Nakamatsu?s assertion that he "invented" the fuel cell. Sheesh.
Dr. NakaMats filed a floppy disk patent claim in JAPAN only because IBM Japan farked up and forgot. Both IBM and Dictaphone companies had floppy-like disks years before the good Dr. As part of the patent settlement, IBM had to pay off old NakaMats just token ammount of yen and agree to never publically contradict Dr Fraud's claim (since Dr. NakaMats' ONLY real money maker is selling fraudulant "creativity" self-help kits).

Via ABC News' "The Wolf Files"With the floppy now standing as one of the century?s great contributions, IBM claims its scientists invented the disk in the late 1960s using in-house technology.
Inventor Soaks His Head
Big Blue admitted in the past that it has licensing agreements with the doctor but downplayed his contributions. Now, spokeswoman Laura Croker says the company line is ?No comment? on Dr. NakaMats?s claim.
?I signed a non-disclosure agreement,? says NakaMats. ?I can?t talk about it. But I invented it.?

World's smallest diamond ring for an Otaku spermatozoid engagement
Japanese firm makes world's smallest diamond ring
)Kyodo / July 17
TOKYO, Japan - Hitachi High-Technologies Corp. has produced a micro diamond ring , which can only be seen under microscope and is believed to be the world's smallest, by utilizing technology normally used to produce semiconductors. The ring, with a 0.02 millimeter diameter, bears a five billionth of a carat diamond.

Promises. promises
Magnet Hook Bra, Sabrina of Gunze Ltd
http://www.gunze.co.jp/sabrina/index.html

Back on March 3, 2004 try promised Uno-chan was "cuming soon"...heh.

Hmm, I swear my ikebana said something to me at lunch.
Topic: Japanese Tech
Turn up the Flowers! Let's Party !

Listen to the flowers
... A Japanese woman listens to music through a bouquet of gerberas during a demonstration of the "flower speaker". The flower speaker uses a coil in the base of a flower vase to send musical vibrations through the water and have them emanate from the flower petals and leaves. Photo: Reuters

Tortured Bobby Fischer Japanese jail

Fishing for Fischer
Via the The Daily Dirt Chess Blog
July 15, 2004....Bobby Fischer's scrofulous website has just added the news that he has been detained at the Narita airport in Japan. ....

Bobby Fischer's site
"The World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer has been viciously attacked brutalized seriously injured and very nearly killed when he was illegally detained and arrested by the Japanese immigration authorities at Narita international airport in Tokyo Japan. Also the Japanese immigration authorities at Narita international airport have illegally detained Bobby Fischer at the Narita airport jailhouse.
Furthermore in collusion with the U.S. government the Japanese immigration authorities have confiscated and destroyed Bobby Fischer's U.S. passport. Bobby Fischer is still in jail at Narita airport in Tokyo Japan. Bobby Fischer does not wish to return to the Jew-controlled USA where he faces a kangaroo court and 10 years in Federal prison and a likely early demise or worse on trumped political charges. Nor does he wish to remain in a hostile brutal and corrupt U.S.-controlled Japan.
He urgently requests at immediate offer of political asylum from a friendly third country. Any country wishing to offer Bobby Fischer political asylum should do so immediately

MY COMMENT: Who'd think that Bobby Fischer would end up a wasted freak is Japan ranting pro-Hitler pro-911 Holocaust-denying droll (his mother was Jewish, but he denies it). I've hard that Fischer Nazi bend to chess that according to Kasparov is a game where your "ego must destroy your opponent's ego" but WTF?????

FedEx Hydrogen in Hell

FedEx tries out GM?s hydrogen fuel cells
Jul 15, 2004, 11:24 AM ET by Christopher Diken
GM has been testing its fuel cell technology on one of the most arduous motoring courses in the world: the stop-and-go hell of a FedEx route in downtown Tokyo. The yearlong experiment uses GM?s HydroGen 3, which GM claims does not pollute one single iota. The FedEx implementation puts the fuel cell through its paces by subjecting it to high temps, constant stopping and starting, and long idle times.

Ubiquitous RFID wristwatch for Japanese Borg
Topic: Japanese Tech

RFID Reader Wristwatch
Via Wristdreams.com July 14, 2004
Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory led by Professor Ken Sakamura of the University of Tokyo unveiled the "UC-Watch," a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader embedded in a wristwatch.
The UC-Watch features a function to read data based on "ucode," an RFID code system that the Ubiquitous ID Center developed. Users can pick up objects that contain a RFID chip to read the info, which is then displayed on the 120 x 160pixel screen on the RFID wristwatch.
More details on the Nikkei

Funerals Japanese
Topic: adviceS
Steve B suggests--->... write 'Kono tabi wa honto ni zannen deshita, gomeifuku o oinori shimasu"

このたびは、本当に残念でした。ご冥福をお祈りします

Can you believe the rudeness of forcing a gaijin on crutches to sign the damn register standing up, sheesh?

Everyone here in the office is under orders to not to help me (too teach me a lesson). Wish me luck 'cause here goes nothing....

52 Japanese school girls VS Tokyo's Chou Line
Blood -n- gore!
Click here first for the soundtrack

Then click here for suicideclubtrain

Full link for--53 japanese school girls versus a tokyo subway train

a K-coooool Japanese treat
Koooooool off and enjoy this....

The WACKIER World of
Japanese Ice Cream
By Ryann Connell / MDN June
Japanese Cool doesn't get any cooler than ice cream! And, perhaps we should all be thankful for that. .....
Raw Horseflesh Ice Cream (Basashi Aisu)
...Not wanting to be a nag, this flavor needs a definite gee-up. The only saving grace is perhaps that tonight's dessert could well have been last week's odds-on favorite. ...
...more....

Killer Klowns & War "buddhists"
Soka Gakkai, a Nichiren sect that counts some 7.5 million members in Japan. Japan's Komeito Party which is the political wing of Soka Gakkai voted for the Fools War in Iraq against the wishes of its own memembership and the Buddha.

Nichiren, utimately the orginal founder of Soka Gakkai, was insistant on eliminating other Buddhist sects, warning that Japan would be punished if they didn't make his brand of Buddhism the universal one. He even took credit for the Mongol invasion as proof that he was the true religious leader of Japan. Theologically speaking, Soka Gakkai is a pyramid business selling newspapers. Soka Gakkai use wild presure and can resort to strong arm tactics to convert people.

SGI is worse than Mormons and appeal to same wannabe, upward-aspiring l0sers. The Victims of Soka Gakkai Association has a website including the expose in Time magazine:
http://www.toride.org/eindex.html

Counterpoint (typical problem that SGI is "buddhism" to the Western world and the only Japanese religion that "exports".).
http://joi.ito.com/archives/2003/08/20/meeting_with_kenji_yoshigo_of_soka_gakkai.html