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.

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."

'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)

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...

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

Mr Sparkle violates Pink Cows!
Mr Sparkle show part 1

Japanese Stranger in Strange Lands
Counselors now target Japanese overseas


--Agencies address expatriates' increasing mental health-care needs--
The Japan Times: Aug. 19, 2004
The growing number of Japanese nationals residing abroad -- expected to surpass 1 million by 2006 -- is being matched by the need for specialist counseling agencies that help with the stress of living in an
Work-related stress is meanwhile exacting a toll. 2003 saw a record 1,878 suicides in Japan alone directly related to work out of the 34,427 suicides for the year, according to the National Police Agency. Company employees who killed themselves, including those posted overseas, also hit a record 9,209 for the year....
.... [Quality Life Consulting Ltd.] Harada observed that women who live abroad and seek her help typically are in three social positions with three typical problem types.
"The first are expats who feel they have missed out on women's happiness by solely pursuing their careers," Harada explained.
"The second are expats' wives suffering an identity crisis who want to shut themselves in because they feel they aren't good for anything, and
the third are students who study abroad because there are no jobs in Japan but have lost confidence trying to cope with a foreign language and culture."

Epson Japan's micro-robocopter, autonomous with Bluetooth, w00t!
Topic: Japanese Tech
Honey, I shrunk the robo-copter


Epson Announces Advanced Model of Micro-Flying Robot
Epson's microFR-II
Aug 18, 2004 / Tokyo (JCNN)- Seiko Epson (TSE: 6724) has announced the successful development of a lighter and more advanced successor to the FR, the world's smallest and lightest micro-flying robot.
Utilizing advanced micromechatronics technology, Epson has redefined the state of the art with its FR-II micro-flying robot, which also features Bluetooth wireless control and independent flight.
The FR-II will be on display at the Emerging Technology Fair, part of the Future Creation Fair that runs from August 27 to 30 at the Tokyo International Forum.
モ?ベッタ... more...

Mine is longer than yours (China vs Japan)
Shanghai to build longest bridge
---BEIJING, Aug. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- The Central Government has approved a 19-kilometer bridge and tunnel link in Shanghai, one of the biggest projects of its kind in the world...The route to Chongming Island would combine a 10-kilometer suspension bridge with a nine-kilometer tunnel... the Chongming bridge would more than double the size of the world's longest suspension bridge, the nearly four kilometers Akashi Kaikyo bridge in Japan ...
... Chongming, known as a sanctuary for waterfowl, is being aggressively developed as a residential and leisure outpost for Shanghai?s 20 million people.

Crime/trauma scene cleanup job is better than teaching English in Japan
Oh, gross: A job I couldn't bear
Dallas Morning News (vile "free" subscription required), TX -
09:18 PM CDT on Monday, August 16, 2004
Michael Tillman's students have to be tough. During a class last week, the group shouldered in close for a sober view of training exhibit A, a beat-up mattress soaked to the springs with partially congealed blood and studded with flecks of tissue and bone. They listened earnestly as the lecture commenced. I edged toward the door and fought a powerful urge to vomit.
It wasn't the worst the students would see and smell that day – they had yet to cover "decomp," Mr. Tillman's brisk shorthand for the natural effluvia produced by a corpse in the later stages of decay --- and they were paying $1,400 apiece for the privilege....
One woman who said she has an undergraduate degree in literature from Texas A&M told me that she spent the last five years in Japan teaching English. She wants a career change, and she figures that decontaminating trauma scenes is a valuable service.
"Someone has to do it," she said matter-of-factly. "If you think you can handle it, you can help people who can't."
read the full text here....

Tokyo Gov Ishihara works to increase the number of call-girls

Tokyo governor gets hard on world's oldest professionals
Mainichi.co.jp, WaiWai, by Ryann Connell
August 15, 2004 - -
Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara's battle to drive sex businesses from the capital may well be appearing to work on the surface, but is in reality making the flesh trade sleazier and dirtier by driving it underground, according to Spa! (8/10-17).
Ishihara's clean-up campaign that really kicked in from July has already started wiping out erotic massage parlors and imekura, or "image clubs," establishments where customers can ask to be serviced by workers clad in selected outfits such as schoolgirl uniforms or maid's dresses.
Popping up to take their place, however, are the seedier varieties of call-girl businesses, which only need to register with the national government above Ishihara to be permitted to operate.
"I suppose the government is aiming for increased tax revenue by having a greater number of call-girl operations registering with it. But, sex businesses operating without a storefront can easily do things on the sly and I fear the sex business is going to be driven underground like it was in the past," adult entertainment industry writer Namedaruma Shimamoto tells Spa! "....

No wait. Bobby Fischer isn't a German Jew, he's Filippino.

Fischer said to have Filipino family; RP asylum sought
Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aug 16
BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines -- Filipino chess grandmaster Eugene Torre has asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to grant American grandmaster Bobby Fischer asylum in the Philippines, saying that Fischer had a family here.
"I spoke to (First Gentleman Jose Miguel) Arroyo and I asked him to raise the possibility of Bobby's asylum here. There is a good reason. He has a wife and child here. He wanted them out of the limelight because he was afraid the US might try to get to him through his (Filipino) family ...

Let's Loser Day! 3 ministers visit Yasukuni
<---poster in front of Yasukuni

3 ministers visit Yasukuni Shrine
Japan Today, Aug 14
TOKYO---Three members of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet visited Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on Sunday to mark the 59th anniversary of the end of World War II ...

Boobies! Bull! Bjorked!

Boobies!

BULL!

Bjorked!

Blogging's prior art: the "the BLOGG"
SF author Rudy Rucker's is running a guest column on BoingBoing and has uncovered the orgin of "Blogging"... Dr. Seuss!

Dr. Seuss's The Shape of Things...-presents the silhouettes of various things: "A bug, a balloon, a bed, a bike/No shapes are ever quite alike." Among all these familiar items and animals, exactly one nonsensical creature is depicted and described:
Suppose you were shaped like these or those,
Or shaped like a BLOGG!
Or a garden hose ....

Cheerleader Ninjas for the Japan's Olympic hopes
Cheerleaders and Computer Geeks Battle Catholic Schoolgirls to Save the World from Global Internet Zombie Domination! --- the film classic--"Cheerleader NinjasZ"

Caption via GettyImages.com: Members of Japanese cheer team perform during a promotional show...Four teams from the US, Australia, China and Japan arrived here to raise the spirits of the city ahead of the opening of Olympic games in Athens Date Created: 12 Aug 2004 12:00 AM

Tokyo Summer Swim Fun
Via gettyimages.com / August 13
Caption: TOKYO, JAPAN: People crowd a swimming pool at Tokyo's Toshimaen amusement park 12 August 2004. Tokyo's temperature rose to 34 degree Celsius 12 August.

Heat Beaten
"Tsutsushinde, shochyu omimai moshiagemasu."
(With utter modesty, I wish you comfort in the midst of the summer heat)."--The Japan Times: Aug. 5, 2004

Tokyo's dread "Prole Gap"
Ok, off-the-rack jackets and suits tend to "gap" around the back of the collar....
.... I present to you all the dread Tokyo Prole Gap....
Click here to enlarge
GettyImages.com / Aug 12
TOKYO, JAPAN: Universal Studios Japan new President Glenn Gumpel (L) and Doc Brown look alike give thumb-ups in front of the Derorean car for the promotion of an attraction "Buck To The Future The Ride" of the Universal Studios Japan (USJ) 11 August 2004 at a Tokyo department store....

The Japanese Post Office now sells condoms
Convenience store opens at Japan Post branch

(Kyodo) Aug 12 SAPPORO, Japan - - Japan Post President Masaharu Ikuta shops Aug. 5 at a convenience store which opened the same day at Japan Post's Hokkaido branch in Sapporo.