Microsoft Japan's weblog service will suck

I've had a Japanese blog for some time now and I'm underwhealmed by the service's xenophobic ban on plain ASCII characters (JIS only).
Microsoft will do it wrong in the Japan--- they ALWAYS do till version 3. If you want a Japanese Blog check out what Gen Kanai's blog:

Compare Japanese blog services
July 02, 2004
IT Media has an interesting comparison of the over 26 different blog services in Japan. A year ago, I'm not sure any of these would have been on the list. ...

Japanese Moxie (not)
Hot shit!


Via gettyimages.com, Aug 2--KAWAGOE, JAPAN: Elderly women burn moxa (dried medicinal herbs) atop an unglazed plate on her head in order to improve her health, at the Myoshin-ji Temple in Kawagoe, suburban Tokyo...on the hottest day of summer (doyo-no-ushi-no-hi) on the traditional Japanese calender

Give me that Ol' Time Shinto Religion

Education minister stresses need to cultivate religious sentiment


Japan Today--- Aug 03
Education minister Takeo Kawamura on Monday stressed the need to cultivate 'religious sentiment' in moral education.

Japan Post employees cannot count higher than 10million?
Japan Post has 790,000 customers `over the limit'
The Asahi Shimbun / IHT/Asahi: August 2, 2004
The state-run agency is failing to comply with a 10-million cap on postal savings.
Japan Post is in the spotlight after a government inspection revealed that nearly 800,000 account holders in fiscal 2003 had deposits exceeding the 10-million-yen cap imposed on postal savings.
Sources said the inspection, the first conducted by the government's Financial Services Agency, found that the 790,000 account holders had a combined 2.1 trillion yen in excess, or nearly 1 percent of the 226 trillion yen in postal savings.

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COMMENT: If the account says 10-million yen, it can't be added to: How can they "fail to comply"? Oh, oh, could it be that there's no income taxes on Postal Savings and politicians use it to "hide" income? Nah, that would be stupid way to handle bribes.

Learning to Bow to

Japanese teachers trained to stand
Rebel teachers forced to get training to stand up for national anthem
Monday, August 2, 2004 at 14:18 JST / Japan Today
TOKYO --
The Tokyo metropolitan board of education started a mandatory training program on Monday for teachers ... failing to stand up and sing Japan's national anthem, "Kimigayo," during school ceremonies.

A record: 628 people hospitalized in Tokyo in July due to heat
Here's further proof that Japan is not fit for living.
Record-high 628 people hospitalized in Tokyo in July due to heat
Japan Today / August 2
A record-high 628 people suffering heat exhaustion and heatstroke were taken to hospital by ambulance in July in Tokyo amid the heat wave, the Tokyo Fire Department said Sunday. Tokyo has been hit by a heat wave this season, with the mercury hitting an all-time high for the capital at 39.5 C on July 20...

Japan cops commemorative!
Via the French site of "cakos"...

JAPAN POST's commemorative issue reads: "Current Japanese Police Regulations were inacted on July 1st 1954, and this year is the 50th anniversaries. It protected right of the individual and freedom and for public safety and order maintenance, it guaranteed the management and management of the police who is based on democratic idea, the unit of police management in the metropolis and districts unification, efficiently accomplishing duty it was enforced in purpose."

Red Panties and Pink Salt
I was out shopping yesterday and ran into two Japanesque oddies at ODAKYU Department Store:
1. "Tradition dictates that it brings good luck to wear red all year long during your birth year .... many in the Year of the Monkey prefer red underwear because "some monkeys have red butts too." See alss akapantsu, or red underwear for luck
2. Pink Rock Salt, blessed by pink monks.
VS

It's official: Japan's Princess Masako is crazy

Japan's Imperial Palace Says Princess Ill
Guardian, UK - 30 July
TOKYO (AP) - Crown Princess Masako, out of the public spotlight for months, has been diagnosed with adjustment disorder. ...generally defined as a psychological problem caused by a major life change. An Imperal Household Agency official declined to comment.

Tokyo in it's true glory
Topic: Concrete Japan

Via GRACE.tc

Learn the POWER of the Ninja ... $5!!
Learn the POWER of the Ninja

Freddy VS Samurai?
I have no idea what a "Nachi" is but WTF?!
Aya'sblog in reads"
Nachi - Nachi - Nachi!
Woah... NABUHAY ba si Nachi!!!! And why ninja ang kasama nya... Hhmmm. "

underdressed Ninja
Via the zaftig Coco in Tokyo brings you the Ninja of Ueno-shi, Mie Pref. (where some say ninpo originated) who have started to wear a summer uniform to beat the heat.
Ninja Summer uniform

The concreting of Tokyo's Mt Takao & strict Buddhist doctrines
Topic: Concrete Japan

Who prefers concrete and cars to Tokyo's natural gem?
The legal fight goes on to save sacred Mount Takao
By KEN KAWASHIMA, Special to The Japan Times; July 29, 2004
....The entire mountain [of Tokyo's Mount Takao] and its wildlife is being threatened by a tunnel project spearheaded by the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry that is part of a grandiose plan to build a 300-km road around Tokyo called the Ken-odo.... to shave minutes off journey times, two 10-meter-wide tunnels are planned to be blasted through Mount Takao's core.....
Meanwhile, up until now, one key reason that has ensured Mount Takao's forests remained in their natural state was the 1,200-year-old Yakuoin Temple' strict Buddhist doctrines forbidding the destruction of any wildlife on Mount Takao, whether animal or vegetable. During the feudal era, Yoshiyama even says the felling of a tree was a crime punishable by beheading.
....[Yakuoin] temple spokesperson put it last week: "We cannot take sides in matters of conflict, whether it be a war or the dispute over a new road. We must always remain neutral."

No arsenic-filled Hijiki seaweed for me please
UK Food Agency Advises Against Consumption of Hijiki Seaweed
Bloomberg - 28 July
-- The U.K. Food Standards Agency warned people not to eat a type of seaweed served in Japanese and Korean restaurants after finding it contains high levels of a naturally occurring arsenic linked to cancer.
People shouldn't eat any hijiki -- a near-black, shredded seaweed harvested around Japan and Korea -- although occasional consumption probably wouldn't have increased cancer risks, the agency said in an e-mailed statement. U.K. regulators did a study after Canadian authorities found arsenic in hijiki....

New-old
Via the labyrinthman blog...

The '60 Minutes' news program had a piece of the "revolutionary" "undercover marketing" -- marketing by masquerade, or stealth marketing: Undercover Marketing Uncovered. Example: "Freedom Tobacco wanted to market Legal, their new brand of cigarettes, they didn't have a big budget, so they did what a lot of companies are doing lately: they went undercover.?The goal here is to be sitting at the bar, you have your package of cigarettes on the table, they're open, they look full, and you're really waiting for someone to come up to you and bum a cigarette,? says the marketer.

PRIOR ART!
This "undercover marketing" technique has been around so long that there's a Japanese word for it, SAKURA meaning a 'shill' who promotes an event, play or product. In Japan, anytime crowd forms on the street Japanese will clamor to join. SAKURA people are hired to form fake crowds or lines to draw the SAKANA --literally the fish--the 'marks' into the promotion. Of course "shill" and "mark" are old carnival terms.

Let's "gabu-nomi" Japanese milk coffee!
I was drinking some Sapporo ミルクコーヒー milk coffee which is sort of sweet trainer coffee for sleepy Japanese kids when I noticed this slogan on the side of the pet bottle: "[Let's] gabu-nomi milk coffee."

Gabu-nomi Gabu-nomi Gabu-nomi
I loooove it!

Here's every kind of "Milk Coffee" you'd ever want to see.
Natukashi old-timey milk coffeeVS new-age pyramid milk coffee

Typhoon Namtheum is gonna hit Japan

It looks like its moving real slooooooooow but....

Powerful typhoon heading toward Honshu

TOKYO July 28 Kyodo - A strong typhoon was heading northwest in the Pacific toward Japan's largest main island of Honshu....
Typhoon Namtheum, the season's 10th typhoon, was located around 370 kilometers southeast of Hachijo Island, about 300 km south of Tokyo, moving at a speed of around 15 km per hour as of 9 a.m. Wednesday.

TROPICAL CYCLONE ADVISORY
NAME TY 0410 NAMTHEUN
Big animation of the weather map Japan Metrological Asso.

Flying sumo ninja

Ex-sumo champ, Akebono, is a flying ninja in this Japanese CM (.wmv) for FromSoftware's "Tenchuu Kurenai" game.
http://www.tenchu.net/kurenai/download/movie/kurenai_cf01_bb.wvx
See also: http://www.tenchu.de/english/kurenai/movies.asp