Finding your inner turtlehead
thethisisabadidea blog

Find your inner turtle head

"
....learning about turtle heads and the difference between the Cantonese package stalk and false package stalk."

Zippy the Pinhead "does" Taiwan after Japan

The world according to Zippy
The Taipei Times / Monday, Sep 06, 2004, Page 16
.... Griffith has placed Zippy and Griffy in a few strips that took place in Japan, with lots of funny English terms and phrases that the Japanese use on T-shirts, product names and store signs. When asked if Zippy might visit Taiwan again for future strips, Griffith said, "It's true, the Japanese interest in the English language is very Zippyesque. Strangely poetic."
"Zippy did go to Taiwan recently -- it was in the strip from Feb. 18, 2004, titled "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free," and the animal statues in the four panels were inspired by photographs from Taiwan that an expat there named Aaron Spinak sent to me. "The photos were from a lawn sculpture store in Pingtung. "
--See Zippy other visits to Japan at the following:
zippythepinhead.com A roadside tour
zippythepinhead.com Nov-03
zippythepinhead.com 12-Feb-94
zippythepinhead.com 14-Oct-03

Sony executive loses slavery suit
Maid who won suit against Sony executive decries slavery
Associated Press --- 3:33 pm PDT Friday, September 3, 2004
LOS ANGELES - A Filipino woman who won $825,000 in a lawsuit claiming a Hollywood executive and his wife enslaved her said the case should be a warning to others.

Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine sumo sullied strange student alien!
Tokyo's ultra-right Yasukuni Shrine sumo seems to have been defiled by a strange foreign student!Getty Images, TOKYO - SEPTEMBER 4: Japanese student sumo wrestlers fight during Japan's university sumo cup at Yasukuni Shrine...

"SHIP HAPPENS!" Sleeping skipper slams ship into Japanese homes

Ship happens! Man hurt as freighter slams into homes
Mainichi Shimbun, Japan - Sept 4
OSAKIKAMIJIMA, Hiroshima -- An old man suffered minor injuries in a freak accident here early Saturday after a cargo ship captain fell asleep and his craft slammed into three coastal homes, destroying them ...


See news video here!

"the beauty of controlled chaos in these wads"

Japan's Toru Nakanishi--
"Ration for the Generation"
(Did you think a pill would replace a meal?)
5.3 billion servings per year in Japan,
3.3 billion servings per year in US,
54 billion servings per year worldwide.

... abstract images of ramen noodles, exploring ideas relating to Japanese pop culture, ethnicity, immigration, and "the cult of the noodle" ....
...the instant ramen noodle has an important place in Japanese pop iconography, and its significance is growing in the U.S. as well. Esthetically, I see the beauty of controlled chaos in these wads of noodles.
---The 2004 DeCordova Annual Exhibition / Jue 12 - September 5, 2004---

Health Support Restroom(tm) the "Raw footage" from Japan!
Topic: Japanese Tech
Via Reuters TV, Aug 30 (requiring Windows Media Player or Real Player)
Japan's Hottest Inventions--"Future Creation Fair"
The future was on display on Friday (August 27) in Tokyo as hundreds of the latest high-tech inventions exhibted ..... celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Japan Institute of Invention and Innovation, many were inspired. ...

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.

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 ...

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

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...

Posted by trek/taro at 7:42 PM KDT
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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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Mo' betta than soccer moms.............SUMO MOMS!

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

It's all just in good fun/foon!

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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.

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

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.

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...

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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