One of the benefits of working next to an R&D laboratory at an electronics manufacturer is that the guys are always playing around with cold lasers and soldering irons and other manly tools of self-destruction. The lab is also the coolest place in the building as the stupid Cool Biz rules don't apply in there - the huge industrial coolers keep it nice and icy. We all make it a point to walk through there several times a day.

The mad scientists next door are currently developing next-gen hydroponics systems for some project or another. They are testing these systems next to our office windows and on the roof with tomato, eggplant, and cucumber plants, and they obviously are onto something because the yield of these plants is unbelievable. I've been supplementing my grocery store and produce stand purchases with what I score at work for the past month or so, and I'm very grateful what with large tomatoes going for a dollar at most Japanese supermarkets.

In work terms, I'm afraid this translates to me commenting that the hydro systems seem to need a bit more tweaking - maybe for, say, energy efficiency! - and that more "testing" is needed. I think I'm going to have to suggest new plants as well, because I'm all cucumbered out.

Just some quick news from back home: Crystal Cove State Park has reopened!

Crystal Cove is one of my favorite places back home. It's been a long decade plus away, and one of the things I miss most about OC is the endless coastline (Curiously, in that decade, our area became quite famous because of a stupid TV program. People never used to know where Orange County was and now they're all like, "oh you're from the OC? I watch that all the time!" I. Cannot. Relate.)

Here's a recent LA Times writeup: LINK
(need a login?)

Speaking of movies, apparently Michael Mann decided he wanted "nothing to do with the TV series" and hence did not use Jan Hammer's original masterpiece in the new Miami Vice movie. Apparently there's no Phil Collins or Glen Frey either.

Nothing to do with the original series, eh? That means no Daytona, no Testarossa, not even a Bren Ten! Hmm... I think it's safe to say, the new movie won't even come close to touching the Perfect Scene:

Even though my masochistic hobby of watching horribly shitty movies is fairly wide known, I am still fairly ashamed to say that I sat through the entirety of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift this past weekend. It is was basically the antichrist of cinema and has since burned a hole through both my eyes and the hard drive it was stored on.

I will not rip apart the movie point-by-point, because it's a waste of time. The only things worth mentioning are that:

1. Somebody didn't do their homework on drifting... (surprise!) I'll go so far as to say somebody didn't even bother to watch Initial D.


2. Worst representation of Japanese culture/language since Rising Sun (this in itself makes it a must-see, but only if you can do so in a way that doesn't allow the studio to recover any of the reportedly $100+ million it spent making it - YOHOHO beeyatches!)


3. Justin Lin reportedly fought to make big changes in this movie, removing typical Asian stereotypes (such as height jokes on the train, and kung-fooey temple scenes) and the like - in the end, I wish he had just concentrated on making a better movie. The whiteboy protagonist is truly a hick piece of trailer park shit who fearlessly wades through endless pools of Japanese teenage tits & ass, beats the yakuza on multiple fronts, and becomes the fucking drift king of Tokyo, for chrissakes. (I am ashamed to say that I hated this character of the Hick Drifter so much, it kinda made me miss Vin Diesel.) YO JUSTIN! YOU ARE REPRESENTING THE NAME, BITCH! STOP FUCKING IT UP! (I saw Annapolis too, fool. That's 2 strikes.)

The intro drags on a bit, but they get a +2 for laying the Gipsy Kings over pug footage:

Could it be said that these photos of an underground Russian submarine base are the pinnacle of glasnost? Or am I just being nekulturny?

And now that I've expended my full knowledge of the Russian language, please move on to the awesome photos on that page.

This is a great way to greet new users to your site:

Gee, I wasn't aware that Google Ads pay per pageview.

Dumbshits.

Also, FUCK ADS! (this rant brought to you by Anger Management, Ltd.)

I can't say much about the Hongshuai Soy Sauce scheme involving production of "soy sauce" from human hair and medical waste, except that the perpetrators should be force fed their own product via beer bong.

The journalists then found the amino acid syrup manufacturer (a bioengineering company) in Hubei province. When asking how the amino acid syrup (or powder) was generated, the manufacturer replied that the powder was generated from human hair. Because the human hair was gathered from salon, barbershop and hospitals around the country, it was unhygienic and mixed with condom, used hospital cottons, used menstrual cycle pad, used syringe, etc. After filtered by the workers, the hair would then cut small for being processed into amino acid syrup.

China, where's your Kikkoman love?

........

On a more serious tip, it says a lot about the assholes who perpetrate this kind of shit, and even more about the really evil assholes who let them get away with it; any chance they're related to the marketers of fake milk powder for babies, which killed several infants and was allowed to continue by the city government for the better part of a year?

If you are eating fugu liver pate and start feeling a tingling sensation on your lips or in your mouth, down a cup of hot sake and then immediately slit your wrists to bleed off the neurotoxin.

That is all.

TK is an older guy who works in my office. He's married, with kids who have long grown up and moved away from the island for the usual reasons; the lack of local jobs, the hellish sameness of the Japanese countryside, etc. TK is the very epitome of salariman, a lifer, so surroundings don't really matter that much to him - living out in the country is just an added bonus because he won't have to move when he retires, and why should he? Life is good for him out here.

TK owns a house, and a small boat, and he goes fishing every weekend. There's really not that much else to do on the island, anyway. Until a short time ago, TK had a dog that kept him company, which was great, because it was lonely after his kids moved away.

His boy, his pride and joy, is studying for a year in New Zealand, which TK is pretty sure is an island close to Australia (which is in turn an island close to England) where they have great flocks of fuzzy white sheep and rolling green hills - that's what it looks like in the travel brochures, anyway. His daughter got married to a guy TK never really approved of and they moved away to the distant urban wasteland of Nagoya - they only come to visit once or twice a year now. During these visits, TK really tries to get along with his son in law, but can never shake the feeling that his not-really-kin's greatest achievent in life was somehow getting TK's daughter to marry him (in retrospect, he never should have let his wife talk him into sending their daughter off to college all those years ago).

TK's dog was a Golden Retriever who had big floppy ears and a magnificent coat of honey-gold fur, and for that reason, he named her Honey way back when she was still a puppy, more than a decade ago.

One day not so long ago, TK came to work crying, a sight I was not ready to see, for he was one of the steadiest workers I have ever seen, one of the old guard who knows everything about his job, and generally, very comforting to have around. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, simply, "Honey has died." I was secretly relieved, because from the way the old man looked, I'd thought it had been his wife... I conveyed my sympathies, but felt slightly awkward about seeing him cry at work over a dead pet. It just seemed out of character, and in a way I hated myself for pitying him, so I dropped the subject entirely. Out of sight, out of mind. Until today.

Today, TK suddenly announced he is going to get another puppy, and take it on his evening walks together on the same route he took Honey all these years. At first he was against the idea of replacing her, he explained, but something last night changed his mind.

Last night, he was walking through the same park next to his house that he has walked through every night for the last ten years when a police cruiser came around the street and shined the spotlight on him. Thinking it was a cop he knew from the neighborhood playing around, TK walked up to the car saying, "Hey, cut it out! Turn the light off!" Whereupon, a rookie cop TK didn't know got out of the car, pulled out a nightstick, and told him to back off.

The cop made TK put his hands up in the air, and frisked him. "We've been looking for a peeping tom in the area," he said, using a slight varation on the standard excuse cops use when they want to jack you in Japan. TK apologized and said he had thought the cop was another cop he knew, that he had made a mistake. The rookie wan't having any of that, though.

"Why are you dressed in black, then?"

TK explained the black running suit was just his usual walking clothes, but the rookie wasn't one to be fooled:

"What is this cord you had in your pocket?," he demanded.

TK explained it was a leash for his dog.

"And where is your dog, then?"

TK explained, on the verge of tears, that his dog had recently died.

"Why do you still carry around the leash if your dog is dead, old man? Do you think I'm stupid? Fucking imaginary pet stories..."

By this point point, a crowd of neighbors had gathered around to watch what was happening, and several of them spoke up:

"Leave the old man alone!"

"TK is our neighbor; he walks around here every night!"

"Fuck off, pig!"

Embarassed, the rookie sheathed his baton and started muttering about peeping toms and perverts (and who knows, maybe Night Elves as well) they were on the lookout for, and got back in his car, and peeled off into the night.

.....................

The moral of this story is, never carry around a leash not attached to an actual dog at night in Japan while wearing black, lest you get beat down by a rookie cop. (Aesop, eat your heart out!)

.....................

As of this writing, TK has not yet decided what kind of puppy to get. I will suggest he gets one with big teeth to scare away peeping toms and Night Elves.

I can't figure out if this is a joke or not.

"iLane[TM] consists of a powerful and small device that interacts directly with existing Bluetoothâ -enabled handheld devices and vehicle audio systems or headsets to read messages out loud and to listen to driver instructions. The presence of the driver is automatically detected by iLane[TM], which then assumes control to intelligently capture and manage inbound information as soon as it arrives on the driver's wireless email device (e.g., BlackBerry)."

(thx sen)

Remember that rant about "Web 2.0" I wrote a few weeks back? That post resulted in angry geek hate mail (ooo, scawy), but today I stand vindicated: Who turned the trendportal firehose on Technorati's front page?

My proposals for a new slogan up top to complement the groovalicious avatars and collegehumor color motif:

1. Where Blogsearch Is Fun!


2. Digg This, Bitches!


3. Check out the Featured Bloggers, yo!

Update: I may have figured out the culprit - I believe it's the same guy who applied a default Blogger template to Slate.

• Visited some cousins from the states I haven't seen in years
• Went out drinking with friends for the first time in months
• Had some damn good yakitori, too (mmm, namagimo)
• In the wee hours of the morning, rode three people on a motor scooter blasted out of our minds
• Also, shit our pants when another scooter passed us with a cop car chasing him yelling, "STOP! We saw your face! You might as well stop!" over the bullhorn (Note to aspiring donut-nemeses: This tactic doesn't seem to work so well as you might expect; you must put forth the effort to lie convincingly to escaping criminals)
• Met up with the younger brother of a good friend from France who I hadn't seen for a few years and fulfilled a promise I made to him long ago
• Stayed out til dawn, and, upon exiting the bar, cursed God for inventing the sun, and specifically, direct sunlight in my eyes
• Watched someone wake up not knowing where he was (this was hilarious because it happens to us all at some point in life, doesn't it? Or if you can't relate to that, maybe it just happens to good people.)
• Extracted belongings on behalf of someone important to me from his ex-girlfriend
• Managed to refrain from spitting in contempt at said party, although it was a close thing
• Arranged a plan for safe return of abovementioned belongings - at minimum additional cost
• Attended live house/instumental jam at new club in Osaka where a couple friends performed
• Reaffirmed my sincere hatred for second-rate house DJs
• Discovered they are selling Sasebo Burgers at select Family Mart convenience stores (quite pricey at 380 yen; tasty but not worth it)
• Discovered the existence of a huge online Japanese society of sex doll-photographing perverts/shut-ins/true otakuzoku
• Returned to my alma mater to convey an interest in student exchange on behalf of my wife's university in Thailand
• My attempt was belittled by someone I respect, but I have learned to bear these things with humility, y'all (and more importantly, the attempt itself will be remembered, which was my ultimate goal - I sacrificed the chicken to win the donkey, bitch!)
• And yes, the above use of "bitch" is an honorific and purely figurative
• A friend and and I visited the grave of our beloved demon dog, Sonic
• True story - one time in the past when we visited Sonic's grave, there was a whole, bloody pigeon's wing right on top of it
• There was not one today
• But I got several mosquito bites behind the library, where I once had to take a crap during my sophomore year because I couldn't make it to a toilet on time
• True story - a friend who saw it named that crap Red Indian, for reasons I prefer not to disclose as it lacks class, which is what my tens of readers expect when they come here
• The crap wasn't there anymore
• Saw a cute girl in short yellow shorts walking a huge dog with ENORMOUS balls that swayed in unison to the girl's hips as they walked down the street together
• The enormous balls were more disturbing than the girl was cute, so I implore all cuties of the world to choose their pets wisely, or at least neuter them
• After that, I had several hours to kill, so I hooked up with a good pal in Nara, and we shared a pizza and saw half of a B-movie at his crib
• Remember the cousins I spoke of in the first bulleted point of this entry? I met all their kids today - 7 in total, plus more cousins and and an aunt from L.A. to boot
• It would make me feel bad to say why, but the whole three day affair ended on a sour note, and on the way home, I broke a land speed record fueled on pure rage

Enjoy!

1. POSSIBILITY IS NOTHIG!
2. MEETING WITH WORLD
3. NO SHIRT NO SHOES NO JUICY

There is a sex doll desecrating my bridge.

That is all.

UPDATE: OK, that wasn't all. If you are feeling brave today, click here.

If you didn't poke your eyes out after that last link, go ahead and try this one as well.

Be warned: This is actually titled the F_cking Short Version, for good reason.

It's White Russian time.

...for world peace

Today I convinced several Japanese people that Canada can be properly referred to as Little America. A Taiwanese guy in the room snorted; I was gracious enough to ignore this and refrain from making a crack about "Little China."

In other news, I may have met the worst candidate ever to work in Japan: He hates rice. He hates fish. He hates noodles. He explained that he had just been transferred to the Japan account from Switzerland, where food is apparently "awesome" and there are no communal baths "which are obviously for gays." Bummer, dude.

For citizens of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka Nepal, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Palestinian State, Nigeria, Afghanistan, China, and North Korea, the Thai visa applicant must first be granted status of residence in Japan.

I wonder if this only applies to people applying to the Royal Thai Consulate in Osaka.

I have a feeling I will be watching 24 long past the point of it jumping the shark; such is my love for J. Bauer, Esq., that I will probably watch every episode up to and including the one where Jack and Chloe are sent to the moon to prevent Tamil Tigers from detonating a Chinese nuke on the surface and dislodging enough moon dust to obscure the sun from the earth, which would start a new Ice Age.

It was much the same with the X-Files. I was one of the semi-dedicated who stuck with it until the movie came out, and I religiously watched every episode. I was in denial that it started sucking for quite a while. Maybe with some luck and more judicious tasering of ardorous salarymen by Chloe, 24 can last a while longer. Meanwhile, it is the long period before the next season starts, and it is good to know that others are keeping the dream alive:

"If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice."

"If Jack Bauer's gun jams, it's because he wanted to beat you with it."

"When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer fucking hates lemonade."

"There are no such thing as lesbians, just women who never met Jack Bauer."

Ad infinitum, here: Random Jack Bauer Facts

When a CNN Breaking News E-Mail Alert says the exact opposite of the anchorman on CNN International at the same time, which one is more credible?

This is not a trick question; either Israeli ground troops have entered southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah bases (via E-Mail Alert), or they haven't (CNN International). I know, I know, fog of war and all that, but still...

I've been a fan of Takeshi's movies for a long time. His early directing efforts were truly visionary.

That said, Takeshis' 2005 was disappointing and just too damn long. There is a difference between looking at yourself in a mirror, and watching yourself look at yourself look in the mirror. This movie was filmed with the latter in mind instead of the former, and I'm pretty sure that's why it sucked.

Takeshi's on a bit of a sucky streak at the moment - that fucking godforsaken remake of Zatoichi and the movie with the title that basically precludes having to call it gay, Dolls, from a few years back kinda makes this three strikes... I still have faith in Takeshi though. After all, so did Kurosawa when he passed the torch to him.

If I were asked how I would like to be awakened at six in the morning on the third day of a three day weekend, "by a Jehovah's Witness" would be near the bottom of the list, believe me. Obviously though, God thought differently today. And it really sucks, because I was having a dream about flying, you know, the full on will-yourself-off-the-ground-and-begin-floating freedom only afforded one without the sting of disappointment when rudely awoken seemingly once every few years. So, fuck! the doorbell was rung relentlessly and I instantly vowed to kill the fucker who dared ruin my awesome flying experience.

I opened the door to a short obachan with hair dyed light purple (it's a geriatric Asian thing), who started with a curt, "Oh, did I wake you? Sumimasen."

I'm in my underwear wiping boogers out of my eyes, ya think?

She thrust the following in my hands and says, "We're passing these out...":

And with that, she walked away. Walked away! Bioooooootch! If you're not even gonna try and convert people, why even ring doorbells! At six in the morning!

Note to future solicitors of less plausible/just plain crazy-ass religions: At least have the courtesy to stick around and say something so I can tell you to fuck off and slam the door in your face; then you can go home crying to the great floppy bunny rabbit (named after the guy who cuts people's lawns) in the sky! Fucking fanatics! Six in the fuckin' morning!

Note: This is not a tribute to absinthe.

If you thought my obsessive Gmail observations last week were sad...

That's right, it's time for DICTIONARY BLOGGING. This is my ode, in haiku form, to Green Goddess.

Indispensable
I can kill a full grown carp
With your mighty bulk

Seriously, this is a J to E translator's best dead tree friend.

That is all.

Get down, obachan!

(via)

An insider's view of the miserably failed EV1 line of electric cars produced by GM: LINK

I'm pretty sure I saw one of these parked at a recharging station in front of Fry's Electronics in Fountain Valley a couple of years ago. I wonder if it's still there...

(link via waxy; the movie he refers to is covered here)

Cue Fuckin' in the Bushes:

Position Title: Diamonds Assistant

Location: Ueno-Tokyo, Japan

Job Listing: I need a Japanese guy who can help our diamonds activities such as sort certified goods at the brinks office and other things. No need for special education. We need a very reliable person.

To apply for this position, please send your resume as the body of an email message to jobs(at)japanesejobs.com with ID#7692 in the subject line. No file attachments.

///

Note: Make sure to bring a tea cozy and a hacksaw to the interview, and practice the following line for perfection: Ver ees ze STONE?

This is great news. One can only hope that Wired Japan will recover as well; they stopped updating their site at the end of March.

I suddenly realize that in my quest to post all of the Zatoichi jackets, I have been negligent: I left out #1!

Bust a move, Katsu!

As I mentioned previously, I have my j(at)cosmicbuddha.com address set to forward all mail to my cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com address. Spam sent to the first address is not forwarded; I am OK with this. However, I have noticed that messages sent from cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com to j(at)cosmicbuddha.com are not getting forwarded to cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com. I do not understand why, because emails sent from cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com to cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com do appear; emails sent from j(at)cosmicbuddha.com to cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com do appear; emails sent from third parties to j(at)cosmicbuddha.com are forwarded to cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com.

Is this because I'm fucking with the time-space continuum, or what?

UPDATE: My Account status on the Dashboard (Gmail for Domains control panel) is still updating. Maybe that has something to do with it.

All this forwarding business is tempting me to tempt fate with an infinite loop - to set both addresses in question to forward to each other. Should I do it?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Getting. Hard. To. Resist. What the hell? You only live once, right?

POSSIBLY FINAL UPDATE: Well, that was anticlimactic. I expected both mailboxes to instantly fill and throw the Google superkryptoniteleviathanserver cluster off just a bit, yet the net result of sending a test message to either e-mail address was one received message in each account (exactly as it should be). Props Google, you proactively foiled my plans for infinite loopty-looping.

So e-mail for our domains is now handled by Gmail; the switch was a simple matter of changing MX records and adding existing users of cosmicbuddha.com email to the Gmail for Domains web panel.

The way I was using my cosmicbuddha.com e-mail before was simply to have it forwarded to my Gmail account, and archived on my webhost's mail server.

The way I will use it now is the same, except that my cosmicbuddha.com account is also hosted on the Gmail server.

This should reduce some stress on my webhost's mail server, which is theoretically a good thing since it should reduce their costs, if even by a minute/insignificat amount. It is in my interest for them to benefit, because I pay for their services. You could counter that I have traded this benefit for security, but that doesn't really worry me - if you want to keep something secret, don't mention it in e-mail at all; it is that simple. Whether it is Google or some other party that wants your secrets, they are not safe in your e-mail. Period.

One practical issue I have regards Spam filtering. Spam from my cosmicbuddha.com account seems to be getting caught at that address and not forwarded to my gmail.com address. This means that in order to catch any false positives, I will have to log into the cosmicbuddha.com account and dig through the spam bucket.

The truth is, I can't be bothered to do that - it takes too much time and is aggravating to see how many different ways spammers can spell any given prescription medication. However, in the past couple years of using Gmail, I have only had a couple false positives, so I figure I can live with that.

The greatest benefit, of course, is that we now get to use the Gmail interface for all of our e-mail, and this beats the hell out of old, tired webmail programs like Horde, NeoMail, and Squirrel Mail provided by many webhosts. And all of our mail archives are now hosted on Google's supermagneticgoliath cluster, so I feel secure there and bask in the joy of native Google searchability as well. All in all, I feel Google is providing a wonderful service here.

[/end verbal fellatio]

I have applied for the Gmail beta for domains for cosmicbuddha.com. I hope it comes through. Gmail is the killer web app as far as I'm concerned.

I recently switched hosting providers for this site and chose Dreamhost. The biggest complaint I have about them so far is that their webmail app, Squirrel Mail, is crippled for the sake of stability of all Dreamhost users, and as a consequence, does not support the languages my users need most besides English: Thai and Japanese. This is a deal breaker as far as using our cosmicbuddha.com e-mail goes, because in addition to POP and IMAP accounts, we really need the webmail option. So I set everybody's cosmicbuddha e-mail accounts to forward to their Gmail accounts (while still maintaining archives on our mail server), and we have been testing this configuration for about a month now.

I'm actually very happy with it - I could go the extra step and set the reply to (or even Send as) field for my Gmail account to j(at)cosmicbuddha.com, but this hasn't been necessary (and I for some reason think of it as a bit dishonest or misrepresentative).

So a native Gmail account matched to our own domain name is the next logical step in the evolution of this system, and I hope we are accepted for the beta testing.

...............

I just felt like writing about shit no one else is interested in today.

There are times when beating on a fucker like this with a baseball bat would just make my day. Why do we even tolerate clowns in modern society? They should be burned at the stake as far as I'm concerned, right along with mimes, jugglers, and human statues.

Oh, and parents who hire clowns for their children's birthday parties should be fucking shot, too.

The title says it all:

HEY DAVE! !f you watch this at work, turn down the sound first!

BIG MAN is one of the first landmarks you should memorize in Osaka, and I learned this the hard way ten years ago when somebody told me to meet them there later.

I was all like, "what big man?" Everyone within a two kilometer radius spontaneously combusted in laughter at the country boy chawing on a rice stalk, with cow shit caked on his boots, driving his daddy's tractor.

So yeah, this is me giving props where they're deserved.

The newest canned coffee offering from Georgia. Although the spelling reminds me more of Mississippi.

I'm almost scared to try it without a solid network of friends and a handful of Paxil.

Taro's grandmother passed this morning. She was 94, and one of the coolest old ladies I ever knew. The first time we met, she regaled me with her full knowledge of the English language, "Hello," "How do you do?," and, "encyclopedia!" We never figured out where she picked up that last one. She will be missed.

I'm on my way out to Nara from now.

A sign specifically forbidding standing urination in the parking lot of Ms. K's, a funky cafe in Nara where T plays gigs every week.

Mostly because it is an overused marketing term with seemingly no real meaning aside from "a new generation of web sites with nifty features and groundbreaking/useful services."

However, there's a great comparison of US/JP Web 2.0 sites over at PingMag that's definitely worth a look: Web 2.0 in Japan

It's official. A post-lunch stroll through the company parking lot confirmed my suspicions: Japanese CAD (Computer Assisted Drawing/Drafting/Design) companies have the funniest names.

I've written about this one a couple times before: ZERO PLANNING
With a name like that they pretty much have to be doing work for the government (or perhaps Sony's been using them as of late...). They had a branch office near our apartment in Tamade, and seeing their logo everyday on my walk to the subway never failed to put a smile on my face.

As I walked among the parked cars today, one with a huge green logo on it stopped me in my tracks: Sodick
You might have to click on the "Global Sites" button to load the English page, but it's worth it. My favorites:

1. "Why Sodick technology attracts users?"


2. "Sodick is to celebrate 30th ever growing anniversary..."


3. "The Sodick Group"


4. Would you not feel a little embarassed working here? Or driving around in a car painted with the company logo (like the one I saw today)? Does the company have a hard time giving away free t-shirts at trade shows in the US? (I just don't understand it, we splurged for pockets and everything!)

The best, though, is the history behind their company name:

The name of "Sodick" is the abbreviation of 3 Japanese words. They are "Sozo" "Dikko" and "CuroKokufuku" which means "to create", "to implement" and "to overcome hardship."

A while back I wrote a post regarding the Ministry of Justice proposing changes to immigration/foreign worker policy, and specifically how the Nikkei (Japanese ancestral) visa will be affected.

Gen Kanai left a comment on that post yesterday which I will reproduce here in full (the only change I made was to add hyperlinks and remove double hyphens because I think they might still cause problems in MT):

J, I was holding back my opinion on this because I knew that there was information lacking.

I'll forward a review by Arudou Debito of the proposed changes. He was, like you, initially angered by the proposal, but after investigation into the details, his tone has changed significantly.

Please take a moment to read the actual proposal. I'd appreciate your evaluation afterwards.

Gen

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
"ON HOW TO ALLOW FOREIGNERS ENTRY FROM NOW ON"
MOJ "PROJECT TEAM REPORT"
TRANSLATION FOLLOWS, YOUR FEEDBACK TO MOJ BY JULY
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
July 4, 2006. Freely forwardable

Last newsletter, I wrote you about how Dietmember and Senior Vice Minister of Justice Kouno Taro and folks at the Ministry of Justice have issued a statement regarding future policy regarding immigration and foreign workers. They are accepting feedback on this until Saturday, July 15, so time is of the essence here.

I sent you a blurb of three bullet points, but of course there are more. So before bed last night I pored over the document (available at http://www.moj.go.jp/NYUKAN/nyukan51-1.pdf ). At seven pages, it's not a bad read. And it's not all bad news. Allow me to summarize the recommendations immediately below.

(These are not direct translations. All errors, and there may be several in this hasty translation, are mine. Please see original document if you need to check or clarify any sections.):

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1. BASIC PREMISES
(1) Cap the foreign population at 3% (not including the Zainichis).
(2) Increase foreign tourism, exchange students, and working holidays.
(3) Increase foreign workers to fill the gaps in sectors where there are labor shortages, working in sectors such as assisting the elderly, part-time, and developing economic sectors. Change (henkou) policy regarding low-wage labor (particularly regarding systems to accept trainees, researchers, and Nikkei workers). [NB: Unclear what direction this "change" will take.]
(4) While expanding foreign labor, increase administration of their residency (zairyuu kanri).
(5) Require foreign laborers to have equal wages with Japanese unemployed (hikoyousha), along with equal social insurance. Punish noncomplying companies.
(6) Have compulsory education for the families of foreign workers.
(7) For a diversifying (tayouka) Japanese society, give due consideration to the nationalities of resident foreigners, without favor towards any one particular country.
(8) Make Immigration procedures rational and efficient.

2. SPECIFIC POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
(1) REGARDING TRAINEES AND RESEARCH LOW-WAGE WORKERS
- Require Japanese language ability and study for foreign trainees and researchers. Make continuation of employment contingent on improvement in language ability.
- Allow for exceptions under bilateral agreements with countries.
- Restrict these workers to specific economic sectors deemed to need them.
- Restrict this system to allow workers from countries with good guest worker programs (soushutsu taisei).
- Pay workers the equivalent of a Japanese worker if the level of skill is equivalent.
- Create a revolving-door system for foreign workers if they do not plan to stay in Japan.
- Create a system for resident foreign workers to bring over their families, and require a degree of Japanese language ability from them.

(2) REGARDING RESIDENCY FOR FOREIGNERS IN GENERAL
- Create a system for understanding their lifestyles and statuses of residency.
- Require them to advise the authorities whenever they change jobs. This requirement also includes employers to do the same, in order to avoid overstayers.
- Create a similar system for understanding the situations for overstayers.
- Punish offenders and organizations severely.
- Create an information bank between administrative organs overseeing foreigners, in order to serve them better.
- Create a super Gaijin Card which will service foreigners beyond just administrative registering.
- Increase awareness (haaku o okonau) that Zainichis are also residents. [NB: Does this mean they will get a Juuminhyou residency certificate at last?]
- Create a system for severe enforcement and policing of employers who employ foreign overstayers.

(3) REVISING THE NIKKEI WORKER SYSTEM
- Stop importing Nikkei just because they are blood related to Japanese. Increase the technical quality of Nikkei workers from the start.
- Acknowledge that Nikkei families (including those with Japanese citizens) who have been here long-term have increased qualifications to be here.
- Require language ability for their continued residency.

(4) REVISING THE ENTERTAINER VISA SYSTEM
- Crack down on the water trade business expressly importing "entertainers" for prurient purposes.

(5) REGARDING GUEST WORKERS AND EXCHANGE STUDENTS
- Crack down on exchange students becoming overstayers by capping the degree of students to between 1 and 10% of the foreign population.
- Make it easier for the real educational institutions to bring in foreign students.

(6) REGARDING PERMANENT RESIDENCY AND NATURALIZATION
- Encourage (sokushin) foreigners who are contributing to our economy to become established (teichakuka), and loosen restrictions for them to become Permanent Residents.
- Give due consideration those nationalities which will increase our country's diversity (tayouka).
- Make naturalization more difficult for those applicants who do not have Permanent Residency or Zainichi status.
- Even after granting Permanent Residency, check on their residential status (zairyuu joukyou) and punish offenders. [NB: Unclear what those offenses might be even if you have PR.]

(7) REGARDING CREATING A MORE SECURE LIFESTYLE BASIS (seikatsu kibon)
- Accept foreigners as part of Japanese society, and guarantee their reasonable rights (gouriteki na kenri no hoshou) and make them pay taxes. [NB: Naturally, I'm wondering what kind of rights are involved and how they will be guaranteed.]
- Give foreigners the same social security (nenkin, shakai hoken etc) as unemployed Japanese. Also, take responsibility for their housing and living environment (juukyo tou seikatsu kankyou).
- Enforce compulsory education for families of foreigners, and shorten residency for noncompliers. [NB: I see lots of problems here-see comments below.]

(8) PROMOTING INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION AND COOPERATION
- Greatly (oohaba ni) increase the number of working holidayers and tourists.
- Increase scholarships, confer credits to international universities, and bring higher-quality students here.
- Increase the brain drain by bringing foreigners with educational qualifications higher than baccalaureate. [NB: Humph. Watch the universities and Monkashou shoot this down promptly by refusing to reform Japan's academic apartheid. [ http://www.debito.org/activistspage.html#ninkisei ]
- Enliven Japan's international business knowhow by allowing longer-term visas for business expats.
- Increase worker flow from the US and South Korea by considering making border controls more automatic.

(9) RATIONALIZING IMMIGRATION PROCEDURES
- Unify application and renewal procedures.
- Allow for Internet applications and announcements.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
ENDS

COMMENTS
It's surprisingly not all bad news. There are proposals and ethos that we have been saying repeatedly over the years (particularly about foreigners being taxpayers and contributors to society-bravo!). So let's give praise where due and criticisms where not.

GOOD POINTS:
I basically agree with compulsory education of immigrants. I think anyone who lives in Japan should become as fluent in the Japanese language as possible (as the alternative-functional illiteracy and a lifetime of limited communication ability with society-limits one's world and severely impinges upon one's ability to control their own fate). The emerging underclass of uneducated Nikkei youth gangs down south illustrates this quite well.

HOWEVER:
The requirement of improvement of language in order to continue employment, or compulsory education for minors with reduction in residency for noncompliers is definitely open to abuse.

a) Who controls the education of workers, and who assesses their ability and improvements? If it is the employer, any nasty boss could simply report that the level has improved insufficiently and use it as a means of sanction or firing (I personally have experience with this situation). Standards and qualifications should be made clear even at this stage. Nihongo Kentei Shiken at least.

b) What systems are in place for children of foreigners who face bullying and ostracization at school, and cannot for psychological reasons attend? Will they and their families be exiled back to their native country simply because their kids got a raw draw of classmates or teacher? I suggest the Ministry of Education offer ethnic alternatives (such as accrediting the ethnic schools found nationwide) for children who do not, for whatever reason, fit in.

MORE GOOD POINTS
I herald increased enforcement of laws regarding overstayers as long as they zero in more on the employers which encourage the practice, by specifically employing foreign labor from a standpoint of weakness (confiscating passports, etc.), and threatening them with exposure if they complain about slave work conditions. Not all overstaying is deliberate, or avoidable, and there has been too much punishment of the victims in Japan. Consequently Japan, as the US State Dept. has famously pointed out, is an egregious human trafficker. Glad to see a crackdown on that at last.

However, this crackdown is also open to abuse with nascent policing (including Permanent Residents) all over again. Central control and notification of even change of employment is open to abuse, with people squealing on foreigners already (through Immigration Snitch Sites, see http://www.debito.org/immigrationsnitchsite.html), and opening them up to all manner of harassment. There has to be a check on police powers here or else there will be wanton raids and racial profiling.

I also cheer the lowering of the bar for receiving Permanent Residency and citizenship, and hope that awareness raising campaigns (if any) will be successful in encouraging the popular view that citizenship and residency are not a matter of race. However, there is no clear sign that foreigners will yet get a "juuminhyou" residency certificate. When will Japan do away with the requirement of citizenship for formal registry registration? (http://www.debito.org/residentspage.html#checkpoints)

I also am happy with the news that human rights (whatever "reasonable rights" is supposed to mean) should be guaranteed. However, given that Japan's government recently applied to the newformed Human Rights Committee (and received a seat) without mentioning ONCE a single thing about guaranteeing foreigners' rights in their application, I think I will take a "wait and see" attitude. More on this later in a Japan Times article.

FINAL POINT-SIMPLIFY THINGS, PLEASE!
If Dietmember Kouno and the MOJ were really interested in getting feedback from the public, particularly the international residents whom it will affect, one would hope they would make the Japanese as easy as possible (with furigana as a minimum, and simplified Japanese as a nicety). Not to sound provincial, but an English translation would also have helped. Instead, the proposal starts out with flowery bureaucratic language (such as "honne to tatemae no kairi" (乖離), the last word I spent at least twenty minutes just trying to find!), completely unnecessary for public (not to mention international) consumption. If you want more feedback from the public, make the policy proposal easier for the public to understand!

Anyway, that's enough for now. I've commented on the arbitrary and unreasonable 3% population cap, so others can point that sort of thing out themselves to the MOJ. I encourage you to do so. By July 15.

////
Address: 100-8977 Houmushou Nyuukoku kanrikyoku Kanri Kikaku Kanshitsu
Fax: 03-3592-7940
Email: nyukan42@moj.go.jp
Questions to 03-3580-4111 ext 5685
It's all up at http://www.moj.go.jp/NYUKAN/nyukan51.html in Japanese.
Or you can contact Dietmember Kouno Taro directly (he reads English)
at http://www.taro.org
////

Thanks for reading. Back to work.
Arudou Debito in Sapporo
debito@debito.org
http://www.debito.org
July 4, 2006
ENDS

................

My response to the MOJ document follows in the extended entry.

I miss big fireworks shows on the 4th of July at the beach every year. Hell, I miss just having the day off from work. Barbecue, longnecks, bottle rocket wars, I miss all of it. Y'all have a good time on my behalf, I think I will go out of my way to buy a bottle of shitty American beer at the convenience store and maybe light off some incense when I get home.

On the brighter side of things, I intend on seeing a natural fireworks show as soon as I get to Thailand in October: The Naga Fireballs

And I'm pretty sure I'll be able to tell the difference between methane plumes rising from the Mekong and tracer fire from the Lao side of the river.

Speaking of tracers, the first time I saw them in person was down the street from my grandparents' house in Los Angeles, on the fourth of July. I believe that was the year when a police officer deftly caught in his hand a bullet that fell from the sky and bounced off a car window.

Happy fourth.

Article in question: "YouTube" Web site has Japan's broadcasters in a tizzy

"Piracy of web contents, both in Japan and abroad, has been increasing recently," an NHK spokesperson tells Shukan Asahi. "NHK devotes time to confirming these violations one by one, and requests their removal. Even if extra efforts are involved, we believe that it serves as a discreet means of preventing illegal use of program contents."

"One of Japan's top promoters of showbiz talent, Johnny's Jimusho, the office of Johnny Kitagawa, said it is mulling legal action to make sure its performer's rights are not infringed upon. A spokesman for the agency said it was determined to "root out" YouTube and similarly predatory web sites."

"Once, TV would broadcast a segment and that was the end of it," recalls a program director. "But now things have come to the point that anybody can watch things anytime and anywhere. This is creating a sense of alarm among the people on the production side and can be expected to impact on programming quality. To discourage lowbrow piracy, it might be better for us to try to improve, even slightly, the type of programs we air on a daily basis."

1. Fuck people on the production side. It's called work for a reason.
2. I fail to see how inspiring TV networks to improve is a bad thing.
3. Isn't this the same argument made against Sony when the first BETAMAX machines went to market? That one worked out real well for these idiots, too.

............

[Note: I just headed over to Riding Sun and realized I've again unintentionally covered the same article after he has, which has happened a couple times recently. I swear it's not intentional, GB. Besides, you earn the serious linkage, so I don't imagine it bothers you too much... But writing the same comparison to the VCR issue of old is just plain spooky.]

As if it wasn't already official, convenience store chain Lawson has now sealed the fate for my beloved island as the Isle of Dentures (and Onions): Lawson opens 1st store tailored for elderly

I am so gonna get the first photos of the brown Lawson sign up on the net. w00t.

BTW, Awaji-shi is the new name for the area of the island north of Sumoto, including Tsuna-cho, Higashiura, Hokudan, and Iwaya.

UPDATE: Oh no, I've been scooped! So I imagine photos are online at some Japanese news site, as well. Oh well, I'm just gonna have to make up for it by taking really good photos, say of an elderly gang of ojisan squatting in the parking lot eating yakisoba UFOs and loudly lamenting how much they want to get their hair cut... I think I got a good tip as to the store's location (interesting story: A coworker who took a week off to see the world cup noted that a Lawson near the airport bus terminal in Higashiura was shut down for about ten days for remodeling). Thanks to stu for the tip.

I have just watched possibly the best ocean documentary, ever.

That's pretty much all I can say, because it just completely blew me away.

Well, on second thought, I guess I can quickly describe it as a two-part show (1 hour each) that traces the life and amazing journeys of a sperm whale. I should also add that this show features some of the best computer graphics I have ever seen in the sense that the models are just real enough - they aren't too real so as to seem spooky ala the Uncanny Valley effect, but they were good enough in places to make me wonder if it was actual camera footage or not (if you do happen to see it, tell me if you think the arctic ROV footage was real, and if it was real, whether it was CG-enhanced or not).

The BBC produced it and you can read a bit about it here (the BBC has stupidly moved or removed the page for this show on their own site). I hope this is eventually shown in the states on the Discovery Channel, because it deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. In short, I highly recommend you try and see it.

Fighters vs. Bombers (Orcas vs. Sperm Whales)

I took my camera to work last Thursday so I could snap some photos on the way home.

This is a construction barge that's been scooping mud from the river bed in the city's effort to deepen it, as an anti-flooding measure.

There was a huge school of mullet fingerlings under a bridge I crossed, where two branches of the river merge and the current runs strongest.

Another shot of the barge, and the adjacent "dump boat," taken from the opposite bridge.

The high resolution shots are available here: 2006 Sumoto River

me: i need to delete this chat later
Taro: hahaha
why?
me: or my grandchildren will know what a disgusting old man their grandfather is when they go through my gmail account
Taro: How?
me: you can access all of your past chat sessions through gmail
look at the Chat item in the menu on the left
Taro: oh
but it was not me
it was not written by Taro.
me: holy shit, I am not me, either!
who the fuck is taro?
who the fuck are you?
Taro: I dont know
me: dont write depraved shit here!
Taro: maybe somebody just broke in this chat
me: hah
you're a hacker!
Taro: bad people
me: i am innocent!
oh wait... i'm a hacker, too!
Taro: not me
me: i'm not me, you're not you
THE WORLD DOESN'T EXIST!