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Fun / foon Tokyo
Monday, August 30, 2004
No, no not a tiger too Tomoko!
TOKYO, JAPAN - AUGUST 29: Director Jean-Jacques Annaud (R) and Tomoko Matsushima (L) hold a baby tiger at the Japan Premiere for "Two Brothers"





THE-REST-OF-THE-STORY:
Tomoko Matsushima was bitten on the head by a lion during promotion photo session in the 1970s and has been a not-all-there space cadet ever since. Just look at her face and imagine that she once had a lion's canines locked on both sides of her temples! She has been singing clearly demented Mugi-cha ad on TV and radio for 20-30 years.
In 1986 she was doing a TV documentary program with the wild animal expert, George Adamson in a remote Kenyan region. In the camp during filming, a "tame" lion grabbed her head cracking it, smashing her 4th cervical vertebra and raked her back leaving her deeply scared. She recovered but is not "right." Bless her, she now does charity work for the handicapped and gets a lot of dubbing/ voice talent work using the eerie voice they she has.


Posted by trek/taro at 10:09 PM KDT
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Do you recognize this Japanese guy?
Korean letters on the effigy reads: 'Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi.'
Sun Aug 29, 9:24 AM ET / AP
South Korean protesters burn an effigy of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as others shout slogans during an anti-Japan rally in front of Japanese Embassy in Seoul.... Japanese history textbook under attack by critics for omitting Japanese wartime atrocities ...

Posted by trek/taro at 10:12 AM KDT
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Saturday, August 28, 2004
THE WORLD'S DORKIEST TUNE: 'Radio Taiso' exercise music of Japan

THE WORLD'S DORKIEST MUSIC
Radio Taiso
- the morning exercise music of Japan -
I've enjoyed this music twice a day at work for a couple a decades so I think you think all you need to "enjoy" it too.
Full explanation via Joi.Ito.com
Listen and download the MP3! http://joi.ito.com/music/RadioTaisoDaiIchi.mp3

Posted by trek/taro at 8:39 PM KDT
Updated: Saturday, August 28, 2004 8:43 PM KDT
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OMG, naked pixels in Playboy!



Video game gals take it off for Playboy
--Silicon will meet silicone in October issue of men's magazine---
Money.CNN.com / August 25, 2004: 7:09 PM EDT - - NEW YORK (CNN/Money)-- She's a statuesque redhead with green eyes who stands 5'7". Her measurements are 36-22-36 and she's posing topless for the October issue of Playboy magazine.
Oh, just one thing... she's a video game character. ....Joining her in the CGI photospread (which will accompany an article about the changing face of gaming) will be a handful of gaming characters....
_________________
モ?ベッタ...

Japan develops vaccine for a disease it doesn't have
Japan develops vaccine for West Nile virus
Mainichi Shimbun, Japan - June 27
A preventive vaccine against the West Nile virus has been successfully produced by a group of Japanese researchers based at Nagasaki University... researchers at the university created the vaccine by applying the same techniques used to produce the vaccine for Japanese encephalitis, whose harmful pathogens are similar to those of the West Nile virus.
About 80 percent of the amino acids in these pathogens are the same. The vaccine for Japanese encephalitis was developed in Japan in 1954. ...
モ?ベッタ...

Posted by trek/taro at 4:35 PM KDT
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Thursday, August 26, 2004
Mo' betta than soccer moms.............SUMO MOMS!

Posted by trek/taro at 8:10 PM KDT
Updated: Thursday, August 26, 2004 8:11 PM KDT
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even you who seek the Way must know what you are missing
やは肌のあつき血汐にふれも見でさびしからずや道を説く君 与謝野晶子

yawa hada no / atsuki chishio ni / fure mo mide / sabishikarazu ya / michi wo toku kimi


Having never felt
the hot tide of blood that throbs
beneath this soft skin
even you who seek the Way
must know what you are missing
--Akiko Yosano

Posted by trek/taro at 1:23 PM KDT
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It's all just in good fun/foon!

Fair Use Notice



The Fun / foon Tokyo newsblog contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance the understanding of humanity's problems and hopefully to help find solutions for those problems and well as it's all just in good fun.


This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. A click on a hyperlink is a request for information.


If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. If you want to use the Fun / foon Tokyo's orginal material please give us credit and of course we are not giving up any of our rights of copyright to our material.


You can read more about 'fair use' and US Copyright Law at the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. This notice was modified from a similar notice at Common Dreams.



Posted by trek/taro at 1:13 PM KDT
Updated: Thursday, August 26, 2004 1:18 PM KDT
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Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Tokyo: 'Blade Runner' on a Bad Day
Topic: Me

Syd Meade the "visual futurist" of film 'Blade Runner's said to me that the Tokyo's Kabukicho was his inspiration for Blade Runner's look in his set design. He said he was looking for LA gone bad feel and Kabukicho, Shinjuku area was "perfect."
He spent some time "studying" Kabukicho (since he's gay, Shinjuku 4-chome was "perfect" too).
By mistake, I got to interpret for Syd Meade at a Asahi Shimbun conference on the "Future of Tokyo" back in beginning days of the Bubble, 1985.

Posted by trek/taro at 2:40 PM KDT
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If a f'ed gaijin in Japan has not filed an IRS tax return in years...
Topic: adviceS
FAQ of the IRS wrote:

....the statute of limitations for IRS to assess and collect any outstanding balances does not start until a return has been filed. In other words, there is no statute of limitations for assessing and collecting the tax if no return has been filed. ....

...The IRS continues to improve its database of income transactions and increase its ability to identify people who have a filing requirement but have failed to file a return. Eventually, contact will be made and the correct tax liability computed. By this time, howevr, the original tax bill will be multiplied many times by the addition of interest and penalties....

....There are numerous practical reasons to file tax returns. Whether buying a home or financing a business, copies of filed returns must be submitted to the lending institution. Important programs like federal aid to higher education also require applicants to submit copies of tax returns to qualify for loans. And the filing of tax returns has a tremendous impact on the future. Social Security retirement and disability benefits as well as Medicare are all computed based on a person?s lifetime earnings reported to the IRS and the Social Security Administration. State benefits such as unemployment compensation and industrial insurance are also based on reported income...

For people with multiple unfiled returns, IRS practice is generally to limit investigations and examinations to the last six years.
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=122901,00.html

Posted by trek/taro at 10:31 AM KDT
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How to find any Japanese technical term in English
Topic: adviceS
You can get better results by Googling with the following trick:

1. Access the Google site, either Japanese version or select Japanese-only in the Google preferences.
2. Enter each compound term delimited with double quotations.
3. Either select "Japanese sites" or add a Japanese term in kanji/kana.
4. Out of the output references, select any document that includes both the English original and a seemingly synonymous term.

Posted by trek/taro at 10:03 AM KDT
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Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Japan's newest action hero: Shinichi Kitazume
Prisoner escapes after climbing through roof of detention center
(Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Aug. 24, 2004)

SAITAMA -- A prisoner escaped a detention center on Tuesday by ripping the wire nets on the roof of the 4-story structure and then by fleeing through several nearby buildings....
Kitazume tore the wire net on the roof of the Saitama detention house and jumped across to the roof of a nearby structure in the detention compound.
He climbed down to the ground through several buildings and finally managed to escape over the detention facility's 2-meter-tall concrete wall...

Posted by trek/taro at 4:59 PM KDT
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Suprise! Japanese hate their bosses the most
Suprise! Japanese hate their "leaders" aka bosses the most of all the countries of Asia according to this survey. See chart.

Korean Employee Commitment World's Lowest
KoreaTimes.co.kr / 08-23-2004 18:19
A recent research by an international employee-research and consulting firm has found Korean employees to have the least commitment to their organizations and among the least respect for their leaders.
he research by ISR, drawn from opinion surveys ..... with 56 percent [of Koreans] expressing favorable opinions of their leaders, Korean employees? perception of their leadership is also one of the least positive in Asia, behind that of all Asian countries except Japan.

Posted by trek/taro at 4:32 PM KDT
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Whoa! $12M for an RSS bunch of crappy blogs?!
Topic: Japanese Tech
My friend, Gen Kanai, is saying on his weblog [August 24, 2004] that $12 million in venture capital is being dumping into often-offline-&-buggy, RSS blog search engine, Technorati.


Gen Kanai wrote:
Technorati = $12M?!
Whoa!


Draper Fisher Jurvetson does a $6.5M Series A of Technorati at a $12M valuation.


Now.... it's a waiting game for Bloglines and Feedster.


Technorati gets fed VC dollars

Posted by trek/taro at 3:14 PM KDT
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Monday, August 23, 2004
Coke "Can bottle" can go boom
This has been the hottest summer in Japan. Here is the sticker on all Japanese Coke machines warning against leaving "can bottles" in the car. It's so hot in Japan, the new aluminum "can bottle" can explode.




Posted by trek/taro at 10:33 PM KDT
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Topic: Japanese Tech
Habitat Perspectives "talks about that process in the form of a visual representation as users gradually turn strange spaces into neighborhood..."
'Habitat Perspectives' is a Keitai-cam experiment were people send in images tagged with GPS space/time info. As people send in more and more pix from their cell phones, a social/mental map Tokyo gradually emerges of the keitai users' personal "opportunity space."

Posted by trek/taro at 7:16 PM KDT
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'Move Latte(tm)': the car, not the enema

"Move Latte" by Daihatsu Motors

AFP/Getty Images, Aug 23, TOKYO, JAPAN - - - A campaign girl of Japan's auto maker Daihatsu unveils its new small car "Move Latte", aiming at young women...a new car with 0.6-liter engine on the domestic market today at prices ranged from 0.96 million yen (8,800 US dollars) to 1.515 million yen (13,900 US dollars)

Posted by trek/taro at 6:19 PM KDT
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Gaijin wins Silver for Japan!
Ok, ok, he only half gaijin...a son of a five-time Japanese Asian Games hammer champion and a Romanian javelin thrower. See the profile of Koji Murofushi

Murofushi gets silver in hammer throw.
Monday, August 23, 2004 at 07:18 JST japantoday -- olympics 2004
ATHENS ---
Koji Murofushi put his Sydney Olympics nightmare behind him Sunday by capturing the men's hammer throw silver medal at the Athens Games. Murofushi failed to live up to his billing as Asia's "Iron Man" when he finished ninth in the final four years ago...

Posted by trek/taro at 4:19 PM KDT
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Baka but beautiful gaijin

TOKYO - AUGUST 23/Getty Images:
Actress Milla Jovovich attends a press conference to promote the film "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" on August 23, 2004 in Tokyo

Posted by trek/taro at 3:52 PM KDT
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Saturday, August 21, 2004
Mr Sparkle violates Pink Cows!
Mr Sparkle show part 1

Posted by trek/taro at 6:07 PM KDT
Updated: Saturday, August 21, 2004 6:13 PM KDT
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