This has got to be one of the coolest commercials ever made... Can you figure out what it's for before the end?
According to the comments over at YouTube, the song is called Hatsukoi by Mayumi Kojima (hatsukoi means "first love").
Engineering nerds in Tokyo are building the ultimate fart joke:
"IMAGINE being able to record a smell and play it back later, just as you can with sounds or images."
I can see the tagline now: YESTERDAY'S SMELLS TODAY!
.........
In all seriousness, though, I have recently been thinking of what I will miss the most when I leave Japan. Unsurprisingly, certain smells are scoring high on my list. A sample:
- The smell of the pine forest in Nara on a hot summer day
- Old tatami (not rotted, just properly cured)
- The smell of fear when you enter a classroom full of new English students
- The pinsuyaki stall at a village matsuri
- The heavenly scent of yakitori / yakiniku on an empty stomach
- The aromatic combination of natto, sesame oil, and diced shallots spread evenly across the quivering naked body of a geisha
- The stench of shit when you disembowel an uppity peasant with your +7 Flaming Wakizashi!
The full list is being drawn up in my mind and will appear sometime before departure.
(link found over at Collision Detection)
(click to open larger popup)
This is a photo I found from a couple months ago. It was taken at a flower park called hanasajiki that I try and visit a couple times every year. The funny thing is, these flowers weren't even in the main part of the park, they were in a planter in front of the gift store!
Here's a link to the full set from that day: 2006 Awaji Hanasajiki (Warning: Baby pics abound!)
How many times must people be told not to build stuff on ancient Indian burial grounds? On the other hand, it might serve as a handy scapegoat for endeavors that are doomed from the start.
Yo, this shit is pretty dope:
Eternal Sunset endeavours to ensure you can enjoy the sunset live from any location, at any time. As the sunset moves westward, Eternal Sunset continuously tunes into different webcams, chasing the sunset around the globe. This service is currently provided through the use of 206 west-facing webcams across 42 countries.
They need more webcams, though. I've been watching the same shot of Tehran for five minutes - that's four too long.
check it out here (click on the "more" link on that page for background info)
Most of you may not notice, but I've been using the new default design templates for this blog, and I apologize because I have no intention of customizing it until the final version of this blog software is released. Please bear with this generic design for a few more weeks (actually, I kind of got used to it).
P.S. If you see a lot of other blogs that look just like mine, it's because they are all copying me.
I saw a commercial for this on SkyPerfect today and almost bust my gut laughing.
Riding on trains and subways in Japan, it would seem that gray is the new blue. I believe this trend started out about ten years ago and has recently approached the tipping point, where salarymen in gray suits will outnumber those in dark blue.
When I first started riding the subway to work (the route is drilled into my brain for all eternity: Yotsubashi Line from Tamade to Nishi Umeda, walk to Higashi Umeda for transfer to Tanimachi Line to Miyakojima; approximately 40 minutes counting waiting time), dark blue was still de rigueur for a salaryman. Back in those days, Nam and I lived in an apartment possibly the size of a large van interior, in one of the few neighborhoods in Japan where you can actually see drug dealers hanging on the corner, and the local riots over police brutality were still in people's not-so-distant memories. Even in our little slice of roach-infested heaven, the blue rule was in full effect, that is, Salarymen Wear Dark Blue. I always felt like a rebel, because I wore gray. This is not to say that I started this trend or anything (God fucking forbid), I was just one of the admittedly not-really-so-few early adopters. This is to say, however, that I have been closely monitoring the gray-to-blue ratio for almost ten years.
The gray movement lost a few recruits to the School of Black (managers especially seem to prefer the total absence of color, and not just with regards to attire - ha!), but step into any number of ready-to-made salaryman suit factories and you will immediately notice that there are more gray suits than any other color. Black may never attain the crown due to its now dual stigmas: Black positively screams, "Hey, someone died and I'm mourningly toting a new Coach attache to the wake," or alternatively, "I'm a fucking management weenie! I can wear sunglasses on the train and merely pretend to comprehend the Nikkei Weekly, yet still get paid more than you pissants! Bow down to me and the fake Rolex I got during shucho to Hong Kong, bitches!"
So let's review: Gray is the new blue. Black is sharp, but carries the Asshole Manager stigma. Dark blue is just old, man... Doesn't leave a whole lot of choices, does it?
Methinks white suits with pastel man-blouses and see-through mesh slippers ala Sonny Crockett aren't that far off. Especially with this whole Cool Biz affair still pumped into overdrive. Can you guess the biggest effect of Cool Biz I have seen so far? The market for desktop electric fans has shot through the fucking roof! Gee, too bad they don't make those in Japan anymore... It might have boosted sales of some poor domestic sod of an appliance manufacturer teetering on the verge of self-immolation and helped avoid protracted price wars over $10 toaster ovens.
In Salaryman's Brave New World, however, a chance at PR supercedes trivial shit like lost jobs, dependent families, or the gross dofuckingmestic product.
P.S. Ironically, these days I like to wear black suits the best. I like being mistaken for a mourner because if I just lose it (FLAME ON, BITCHES!) at someone, I can always just say "sorry, my great uncle just died from avian cancer," or something equally as pitiful, afterward. Plus, Addendum #26 of the Salaryman's Code clearly states that black does not carry a stigma when the wearer himself is one.
..............
Related link:
I'm going out today to drive around my island and hopefully take some photos. I therefore leave you with this:
Space Shower TV is a music channel available on Japan's SkyPerfect TV satellite service. I haven't seen this clip there myself (since the death of MTV I abhor all music stations) so I don't know the background of it, but this a signature Kentaro set and probably his most recognizable one.
Observe the power of properly applied white tape!
Check out this photo gallery of posters in a public restroom in Thailand: LINK
I'm really curious as to where this is located. Are these Cialis ads, or what?
Somebody at work today actually got all teary-eyed when he was told Japan is now out of the world cup. He turned to me and said, "Well, America's out of it, too!"
To which I replied, "You know what the difference is? Americans don't GIVE A FUCK!"
Okay, maybe that was the point at which he got teary-eyed.
I really don't give a fuck.
My favorite line of the memo from Matt Stone to the MPAA:
"Although it is not animated yet, we put a new storyboard in for the scene with Saddam Hussein's penis ...he is in fact using dildos both times."
The name of the track is Absesses. It's really laid back, but it got stuck in my head for a long time, in a good way. The name of the group is Birdy Nam Nam, which is just the weirdest name I've ever heard. I kinda like it. I know Nam likes it. Anyhow.
Found this gem over at aurgasm. There's a short bio as well as a downloadable mp3 by the group there; go check it out.
Had a yummy lunch today - unadon. If the Beef Bowl chain in the states (menu) began serving unadon, would they call it Eel Bowl?
As any self-respecting kabayaki snob will tell you, unagi is best prepared over charcoal. My fondest unagi meal in memory, however, was one I did not partake in.
Way back in our Tenri university dorm days, I had a dog who we named after a certain blue-haired cartoon hedgehog. Sonic's two favorite things were rooting around in irrigated rice fields, and eating our leftovers after every meal.
Well, one day somebody took pity on our broke college student asses and prepared for us a veritable feast of unadon bentos. Idiots that we were, we got drunk and left the bentos out in the torpid summer heat - just over night, but that was more than enough to ensure they spoiled. We cried the next day over our ruined bento, and had the bright idea of feeding it to the dog. Sonic wolfed them down in approximately 17 seconds, and had explosive diarrhea for the next three days. I cleaned it up as well as I could and it was many years before I could stand the smell of grilled unagi again.
Those were the days.
NY Times magazine has put up an excellent profile of Danger Mouse: The DJ Auteur
You know what? You can kind of hear the fact that he digs Portishead in his music.
I remember telling M's boyfriend (self-declared "biggest Jay-Z fan in the world") via long distance call to Canada that my favorite Jay-Z album was the Grey Album. His reply (he hadn't heard it yet): "Even better than Blueprint 2?"
Oh, hell yes.
"Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to be cited for failure to wear a helmet, not having a proper license at time of his June 12 accident."
- And this affects me and 99.9999999% of the world how?
- Please tell me why he should care about a fucking traffic citation, as opposed to, say, the massive trauma to his face and head.
- Please tell me why you consider this worthy of an e-mail news alert while, say, this is not.
Check out this translated gallery of subversive photos taken by a Russian visitor in North Korea: LINK
hint: It's not just that first page, it goes on and on.
Thai fishermen have declared they will no longer intentionally catch the Mekong Giant Catfish, in honor of their king: LINK
Granted, this only covers part of the problem as the river runs through/is boundary to multiple countries. Plus, I can just imagine the rush of people cutting up nets to collect on multiple $500 payoffs. But still... It speaks a lot for having a monarchy that is respected and revered.
(via Magnoy)
A digg user has posted 100 free 80's mp3s over on his blog.
Go download some and relive the glory years of commie-fearing, plastic neon superconductivity.
By the way, I noticed they had G-mans new favorite karaoke jam on that page, Cutting Crew's I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight. His semi-faithful rendition of that horrible song at the Big Echo in Umeda a couple months ago had me blowing beer out my nose.
Legal note: Piracy is bad. I do not advocate swilling rum while raping damsels on a dead man's chest. On the other hand, YOHOHO BIOOOTCHES!
If we're Skyping and I suddenly go offline, you'll all know why: Fiber Haters, a.k.a. Cicadas
UPDATE: Oh, great. The crows are out to get me, too. (via Magnoy)
T solved my weekend bug mystery.
The answer is Purpuricenus (Sternoplistes) temminckii, a name even your best friends couldn't remember. Let's just call him beni-kun.
Taro's aunts called from Horyuji to say they were harvesting this year's plums from the ancient trees in their front yard and to ask if I wanted to come pick up the resulting umeshu in seven or eight years.
Um, yes.
I can think of many stupider reasons I've heard for visiting Japan.
In general, bottled water from France is expensive and disgusting.
Funny, it doesn't taste nearly as bad drinking it when you're in France. Maybe they save the good stuff for domestic consumption and export the lower grades. After all, that's what Japan does with, say, solar panels (I've seen the sorting bins at the factory so I know this to be true; Grade A stays in Japan, Grade B is exported to America, and anything below that is shipped everywhere else.).
The worst tasting bottled water, in my opinion, is evian. And of course, evian spelled backwards is naive.
That is as far as I can bear to think today, thank you.
Anybody know offhand what this bad boy is?
(click on image to enlarge)
I found him crawling on my car last month. When I tried to touch him, he flew off into the wind.
UPDATE #1: I've put in an inquiry to What's That Bug. They say they are swamped, but maybe something will work out.
UPDATE #2: Whats That Bug wrote back:
Hi Justin,
We believe this beauty is one of the Cerambycid Longhorns, though we are not positive, and we have no idea of the species. The list of specimens that could use Eric Eaton's assistance is growing and we are not sure when he will return from collecting in West Virginia. How large was this beetle?
To which I replied:
Hi, thanks for the quick reply. The beetle was approximately one inch in length. I will continue to try and find additional information here in Japan, and will update you if anything comes to light.
I'm really impressed with the dedication of the authors of the Whats That Bug site - go check them out as our correspondence is posted there as well, and they may update there when their resident beetle expert returns. Meanwhile, if any of you can help with the identification, I'd be grateful.
I wonder if this is the Eric to whom they refer. Wow!
MYSTERY SOLVED!: T harnessed his ancient Oriental powers of deduction and came up with what looks like the correct answer. This longhorn beetle is commonly known in Japan as a ベニカミã‚リ (benikamikiri); Latin name: Purpuricenus (Sternoplistes) temminckii.
Sources:
http://www2.gol.com/users/nanacorp/ZUKAN/beni.htm
http://naturaljapan.net/?pp_album=1&pp_image=benikamikiri01.jpg
Some photos Nam took with her new Coolpix S6 when we passed under the longest suspension bridge in the world (4km) last month on the Taco Ferry (this "taco" means "octopus" even though they spell it with a "c").
Update: Hi-res versions of these photos, plus more, can be found here: http://flickr.com/photos/cbuddha/sets/72157594175411073/
This time it happened in Okayama, the home of Momotaro (the chldren's story character, not the kaitenzushi chain): Man busted for biting parking inspector
Now I'm just waiting for the first BIG story to hit. You know, "Man Drags Parking Inspector 2 Kilometers, Claims He Thought It Was Rat," or, "Angry Ninjutsu Student Disembowels Parking Inspector," something like that. Followed by a critical review of how revenues collected from third-party ticket collections aren't reaching the projects they were intended for, how parking inspectors are ticketing innocent cars because they work on an underhand commission from their employers, and how it's STILL FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A PARKING SPACE ANYWHERE IN THE CITY.
Let's all guess how many politician's relatives started companies in the past six months that bid on the ticketing work...
Related Links:
The first assault on an inspector (flying knee kick of death)
Wherein I predicted violence unto parking inspectors (Truth be told, I was kinda looking forward to it... It's all fun unil someone's eye gets poked out.)
I was doing some research on Lead Belly for a blues project I've been kicking around in my head, when it occurred to me that he lived until 1949 and there might be video footage... YouTube to the rescue. (The video is actually pretty lame unless you are interested in Lead Belly. This video, however, is pretty entertaining and completely unrelated to the subject of this post.)
Somebody upped a better version of the DJ Kentaro/Shinichi Kinoshita clip from NHK's LiveJam last year. This is basically his best stuff so far, besides the Solid Steel compilation, so it's worth posting again.
I got so hooked on the Solid Steel CD, it was loaded in my car stereo for five months straight.
Some Japanese really love their pets... And among those that do, some choose to express that love in strange ways.
Most people who know me also know I am generally opposed to ads on personal sites. But do you really know why?
This basically sums it up.
Note: If you have AdSense (googlesyndication.com) blocked on your browser, you should try temporarily enabling it just for that page to see what I'm talking about.
(thx to cherryrice)
That video I posted yesterday is stuck in my head. On one hand, it's been positively liberating having that tune on my lips all day. Delivery truck cuts me off on the way to work? Hey yo, fuck the shit. Cleaning lady wants to sweep out the stall next to mine while I'm dropping a load? Shit the fuck. The air conditioner in our ferroconcrete office breaks down for the third time this month, on the hottest day so far this year, and we can't have it fixed because it requires tearing out part of the ceiling which is a safety hazard during work hours? FUCK THE FUCKING SHIT.
On the other hand, too many fucks and shits makes me sound like a Canadian rock star. So instead of emulating, I will instead try to use the power of link. Watch this blog closely.
Dave just sent in this article regarding the King of Thailand's love of jazz. (I hereby refuse to use CNN's pathetically retarded titles as links anymore.)
No denying the king seems really cool, but it must be pretty damn hard for him to get an honest opinion of his music.
Nam was in Bangkok this weekend and she said there were more yellow shirts than Ojibagaeri (it's a Tenrikyo thing, baby) in August.
Warning: DATBNSFW (definitely applicable to, but not safe for work)
c'mon, laugh! you know it's funny!
IMPORTANT UPDATE: This is a Canadian band called Sons of Butcher. Just thought I'd let you know, in case you wanted to buy the album or something.
The view out of the bus window this morning was unusually interesting. A huge crane pontoon was working in conjunction with a tugboat to maneuver a trash barge (used to transport river silt dredged from the river bottom) next to it. The crane operater was very skilled and the men working under the huge yellow arm completely trusted him. He had a soft touch and you couldn't even hear the metal scoop as it grabbed the side of the barge - why is heavy machinery so fascinating to me? I think in another life, I was a dumptruck driver who ran a freelance backhoe operation on weekends.
Anyway, the Sumoto River is once again teeming with mullet fry, something I haven't seen since the hurricane caused the big flood a couple of years ago. Also, I counted seventeen turtles on the way to work. Seventeen! That's probably more than I've seen in total over the past five years! The were mostly small ones, about the size of the palm of your hand. I like to think that these are offspring of the big daddy I released upstream a couple years ago.
One more interesting thing regarding the mullet: When the big ones come upriver this time of year, they start looking quite moldy and beat-up. I don't know why this is, at first I thought they were spawning and dying off like salmon, but this is not the case. Maybe they are molting. In any case, the skin under their scales is white, and they start losing scales in large patches. This gives them the appearance of white koi! I've overheard a few people in the past few weeks talking about or pointing out the "schools of koi" in the river! This is funny as hell, especially since my little brother and I used to think the same thing and tried to catch them with koi bait - unsuccessfully - for months! It wasn't until we saw them schooling in clearer water that we could tell the difference; they really do look like carp in the water. When viewed out of water, they look a lot different, their face is squared and they are have a distinctively prehistoric look to them.
G-man is transferring to Osaka this week, so we spent a great part of this past 3 day weekend hanging out and contemplating our lives and times on this great island/origin of the Japanese archipelago (according to the Kojiki).
One of the places we decided to visit for the last time was the Gandalf Bridge. Even though I am not leaving for another four months or so, I doubt I will visit it alone because it is right near G-man's house, which is up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Gandalf Bridge got its name from the hordes of Shelob-sized arachnids that spin webs across its railings, necessitating a stick, aka magic wand, with which to clear a path. The Gandalf Bridge is one of the narrow, steel platform bridges you see spanning over the Awaji-Naruto Highway every ten miles or so. I have never seen anyone besides me and G-man using these bridges during my entire stay on the island.
I think they exist to allow road maintenance crews pass over, but not the crews for the highway itself - the crews that service the roads on either side of the highway. However, the roads on either side of the highway, for the most part, are totally overgrown with vines and seem unmaintained, so maybe my theory is just shit. Either way, Gandalf Bridge is a fucking cool spot to chill and drink beers. It beats the hell out of getting into fights with Japanese rednecks in the Lawson's parking lot or slowly rotting to death in front of the TV, which seem to be the primary pastimes around here.
You can sit on the bridge for hours, watching cars pass both ways underneath you. If you are an asshole, or maybe in junior high, you can pee on the cars both ways, too. I suppose if you were a sicko, you could crap on them, too. We just chill, tho.
It was sad. The end of an era for G-man. No more Island of Salary for him. For me, I got a few more months. I guess it won't be all that bad. Hey, I started out doing my time here alone - I can finish it that way, too. Good luck in Osaka, G-man. Good luck, G-man's fam.
..........
- This article was brought to you by the Association of Fam = Family for President.
We have successfully moved to our new webhost, Dreamhost. Our old host, iPowerweb, was cheap but there was way too much downtime, we were running out of room for all the sites we host, and their customer service was horrible... Anyway, with some coupon codes I found on the web, this Dreamhost account ended up being cheaper for two years than if I had renewed for another single year at iPower! So, I'm happy. Thanks to Gen Kanai for recommending Dreamhost. Shell access totally kicks ass!
Unfortunately, I do not have time to tweak the looks of my site all at once, so changes will come gradually (starting with my blogroll, I guess). This blog may change colors every time you see it for the next few months are so, which is annoying, I know, but bear with me.
That's right, we're running beta software, baby! The MT upgrade took longer than it should have because of a weird FTP glitch that prevented all the necessary files from being transferred to the server; it was driving me crazy trying to figure it out, but it all worked out in the end.
I have to say, waiting this long to upgrade had its merits - it's been like riding around in a new car for the past half hour. So many new gadgets and features I had no idea I needed until I tried them! I may have even found an alternative hack for my sidebar photos.
Anyway, we can't get too settled here yet; the move to a new webhost is still coming. Soon. Ah, it's nice to know I at least got this tempermental software to work once, though!
I'm working on the site from now - just upgrading MT in preparation for the transfer. Fingers crossed...
I would like to take time out from my completely stressed-out crazy bad news week to point out that I totally called this one: LINK
I plan on moving this site to another webhost this week, so there will be some downtime. I may also switch blogging platforms... Anyway, don't be alarmed if we are down for a while, I have to do some gnarly things to start preparing for the move.
Nam called me up in a panic yesterday because she crossed paths with a snake in the yard of our house (in Thailand). She told me it was about a meter long and light green, and she asked what she should do so I said LEAVE IT ALONE, because all I could think of was:
Behold the awesome glory of the White-lipped Pitviper.
Of course, it might have been the Toothless Leaf-eating Snake of Northern Thailand, but I wasn't about to ask her to see if its head was shaped like a diamond or not (and I'm sure Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin would have agreed with that decision). Meanwhile, the snake decided to escape - up the storm drain of our house and onto the first story roof. Cool!
I told Nam to go get help, but just then a university kid happened to walk by, so he helped her somehow knock the snake off the roof and over the back wall into the adjoining forest. So all ended well, because I had heard before that Thais immediately kill any snakes that come near their homes, but Nam assures me that people in the Isaan region (where our house is) think it's bad juju to wantonly kill shit, so they just try and get along with nature. That makes the Discovery Channeler in me so goddam happy to hear...
Thailand is not the best place for those squeamish about snakes and crawly things - a large portion of the cobra family (including the King Cobra), krait family (including the beautiful Red-headed Krait), as well as several kinds of waterbound and sea snakes can be found pretty much throughout the country.
Mapion is my favorite map site for Japan because of its huge-resolution BB (broadband) maps and excellent GUI. I was on the site today looking up directions when I noticed a new feature - distance measurement! Basically, you plot a course on a map by drawings points with your cursor and the distance between each point as well as the total are calculated in a handy little table, which also shows estimated time and calories burned if you walk, jog, ride a bike, or drive the route you plotted.
For instance, this is what it would look like if you walked out of the men's restroom of Jusco (Sumoto branch), crossed the parking lot, ran to the nearby Sumoto river, and walked over water to get to the nearest Mobil gas station:
(click to see full size)
Unfortunately, there's no info for performing that last miracle - but remember, IT'S STILL IN BETA. Let's see if Mapion can include that, plus wind resistance, blood-type factors, and gravitational pull of passing delivery vans in the next version, k? Until then, you can see just how long it takes to get from my corner (where the nearsighted old man and his wife attempt to hawk wilted cabbage to all who pass) to anywhere else in Japan...
I think this new feature will be damn useful for planning bank heists.
Real men wear haramaki (to literally hold their guts in if they get slashed).
