Author: Heather Meadows

Apparently there has been a huge recent trend of middle-aged Japanese men falling in love with Filipino hostesses and following them back to the Phillippines, only to be unable to thrive in the workforce, to run out of money, and to have their new wives leave them. These “desperate Japanese” end up appealing to the Japanese embassy for help.

The lower cost of living in the Philippines allows them to enjoy a good life initially, but unable to speak English or the local language, the men, mostly in their 50s, cannot find work and use up all of their money in a year or two, he said.

[…]

The consular official said the embassy had dealt with less than 50 “Desperate Japanese” until 2000, arranging their return to Japan, but the cases had risen in the last five years with the number rising to around 180.

[…]

He said “Desperate Japanese” as a phenomenon was almost exclusive to the Philippines, adding that the “Philippine pubs”, found even in rural Japan, provided comfort to the men facing a midlife crisis.

“These men, they may have been victims of their company’s restructuring and may have felt isolated at home,” he said.

“So they may have been heartened by a young Filipina at the local hostess bar and decided: ‘what the heck, I’ll go to the Philippines.'”

I subscribed to 101 Cookbooks because it showed up in my Gmail Web Clips and sounded interesting. Since then I’ve really enjoyed the recipes and the insight into food culture.

Today they’ve got a Best of Show post by Heidi Swanson, founder of the site:

This time each year the NASFT Winter Fancy Food ambles into San Francisco and takes over both massive halls of the Moscone Center. I kid you not – there is mile after mile of artisan cheeses, chocolates, teas, crackers, cookies, jams, jellies, spices, juices, wines, beers, wound tightly up and down a hive of aisles. This is all the stuff you will eventually see in places like Dean & Deluca, Whole Foods Markets, and Williams-Sonoma. I walked and talked my way from 10 a.m. this morning until 5 p.m. and still had an aisle or two to go when they flashed the lights for last call.

How awesome would it be to go to a food convention for work? :D

This.

See that AOL email address? Yeah, that doesn’t exist. It’s an advertisement in AIM. When I click on it, a browser opens and takes me to the signup page for AOL Mail.

What’s really annoying is that sometimes this will pop up by itself, when I don’t even have mail in my actual email account.

I have always used AIM’s mail alert feature, so I wouldn’t have to leave Outlook open, but if this stupidity keeps up I guess I’ll have to turn it off. My OCD won’t put up with it. It’s like a blinking AIM window; it’ll drive me nuts until I can make it go away somehow.

So I thought I’d try out imstar* and see how close to my actual appearance I could get an avatar.

Here are the results.

It’s hard to make one of these avatars overweight. They have great options for changing the shape of the body, but the options only go so far in terms of girth. I guess they figure nobody would want a fat avatar.

The face is hilarious. I was limited by the software: you have to purchase hair and eyebrows, and I couldn’t find the right styles. That hair is totally ugly, but it’s the closest I could find.

As for the general face, there are face shape, eyes, nose, mouth, and cheeks and chin adjustment options. I messed with them until I got them as close as I possibly could to my own face, but it still doesn’t look a thing like me.

And they only have four pairs of glasses in the shop!

Oh well, that was a fun waste of two hours. Now to get down to what I’m supposed to be doing…

There’s a new IM client called imstar* that boasts 3D, moving avatars. It’s supposed to add realism to your interactions. What really gets me is the fact that you can change your avatar’s outfits by going to an online store and buying new clothes.

You want your Avatar to look her best right? Ergo, you must shop! Welcome to the starpoint Galleria where shop after shop is jam-packed with all the coolest, latest looks no matter what your style. This is yet another place where you can express yourself at imstar*- your Avatar can dress any way you want.

You’ll find all the best jeans at “Denim Daze” and make-up at “Glamourstar*.” Need a new coif? Hit the “Head Shop”, and if athletic wear is your thing, try “Sportster.” There are contacts (at the “Eye Pod” shop) and shoes galore at “Shoe Fetish.” There are more stores, more styles, more stuff than you’d ever dream of. You can even shop for more animations and more moves–can you do that at your local mall? The whole mall is searchable, just type in what you’re looking for and bam.

Are you afraid to commit? You can try before you buy. Don’t be caught with your pants down–after twenty minutes, if you don’t pay, the clothes will simply be returned to the store. Oh, and a little hint- if tons of people buy an item in the store, it could sell out, just like at the real mall. So get the goods while you can, they won’t always be there for the buying.

Is that scary, or what? I guess with stuff like this there’s no point in living in the real world, is there?

Players of MMOs are already familiar with this concept. :>

So, China’s going to build the sun! And apparently other scientists around the world are building “similar devices”. (via Slashdot)

Scientists believe that deuterium can be extracted from the sea and an enormous amount of energy can be obtained from a deuterium-tritium fusion reaction under huge temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius. After nuclear fusion, the deuterium extracted from one liter of sea water will produce energy equivalent to 300 liters of gasoline.

If a device is developed that can withstand temperatures as high as 100 million Celsius degrees and control a deuterium-tritium reaction, it will be as though an “artificial sun” had been created able to supply infinite, clean energy for human beings.

I guess we didn’t learn anything from Spider-Man 2.

Take a look at this picture, the largest size. See that kind of white oval thing on the shelf?

That’s my wedding dress :>

The day after the fire (technically the day of the fire, since it happened at 2 am), Brooke and I went to the apartments so I could take pictures.

As we were leaving, we saw a fireman standing in my apartment. He was trying to put out a small fire that was still burning. He picked up an object and it fell open, and papers fell out and fluttered down to the ground next to the pond.

I recognized that he was holding my medical records mini-file, that all my documentation about my cancer treatments was still there…albeit some of the pages were slightly burned, and some of them likely went into the pond. I regret not trying to go over there and pick some of them up.

But what I really regret is not yelling up to the fireman and asking him if he could toss my computer down.

I think back to that event every now and then, and every time I berate myself for being so stupid as to think that someone would retrieve my hard drive for me “later”.

Asahi: Weekend Beat: Wooden toy maker starts from scratch, carves out new niche

“Did you know that picking up beans with chopsticks is a good rehabilitation exercise?” one family member said.

“It’d be good practice for children, too,” another added.

And thus “Ohashi de Dozo” (With chopsticks, please)–a game in which players pile up cylindrical wooden pieces with chopsticks–was born. The toy, which has proved popular at kindergartens and day-care facilities for the elderly, is a product of [Harumasa] Ono’s firm Heiwa Co., a wooden toy maker based in Nagoya’s Showa Ward.

It would also be good practice for people who don’t use chopsticks daily. I wonder where I could get a copy of this game?

The picture in my last post came from our honeymoon photos, which I have uploaded here. Bear in mind that they have not been preserved in their original size, but I think the quality is okay for viewing at least. [I was able to pull the full size photos from PhotoWorks! Yay!] I spent a few hours captioning and tagging them and wishing desperately that I had the rest of them. I took so many pictures on that trip; these 52 are just the ones I uploaded to PhotoWorks because I wanted to make prints to put in an album. I’m glad I was at least able to recover that much, but it still hurts to think of pictures I know I took and have lost forever. I can still see a lot of them in my mind…

Anyway, I originally selected these for prints because I was proud of how they turned out, so you might enjoy them as well. This was of course back in my “point and shoot” era, so don’t expect anything fancy like yesterday’s shots ;>

Japanese houses don’t have central heating and air, as many Japan blogs have been noting recently (here’s Amy Nakazawa’s take from last year; it’s nice and thorough). Today, Simon points to an article by Amy Chavez about how gaijin can survive this:

The first thing you’ll need is a wall-mounted heater and air conditioner, which the Japanese refer to as “aircon.” This will keep the average person warm enough, but not the average gaijin. Therefore, supplement the “aircon” with a “kotatsu,” a small table with a heat lamp under it, to keep your legs warm. If you turn up the kotatsu high enough, it’s almost like sitting around a bonfire. You’ll find that almost all of your body is warm now, except your fingers. Therefore, sit on your hands. Now don’t move until springtime.

Read the whole thing; the ending is funny (and scary).

I haven’t actually experienced much of a Japanese winter. Our honeymoon took place in March, and when we were in Kyoto it snowed (boy was that neat).

However, our ryokans were warm and cozy for the most part. In the ryokan on Miyajima, which was the coldest, we had a heating mat under our futon. The bathroom was freezing in the morning.

As my experience is limited, I’ve never had the opportunity to try a kotatsu, though I’ve always wanted to. I imagine that if Sean and I ever move to Japan for any length of time, he’ll spend the winter sitting at the kotatsu with his computer.

TGIF!

I’m kind of shocked that I haven’t posted yet today. I was pretty busy at work, and during my breaks all I did was chat and websurf, and I didn’t really take long breaks anyway…and after work I went straight to the Greeneway with Brooke, and we walked until it was dark, just like yesterday. When I got home I settled in and did some reading and ran some errands and made dinner, and we just ate, and now here I am.

Of course, I also uploaded pictures: yesterday’s and today’s.

Those last two aren’t very good, but I felt bad for the last few pages in today’s gallery, as they weren’t getting much exposure ;> I am really happy with the lichen photos, though.

Well, they do:

Kuniko Inoguchi, the recently named minister for gender equality, said companies need to respond more to the needs of working mothers by granting child leave for fathers and not encouraging pregnant women to quit.

“If you decide to have a family, and eventually you decide to go back into society, you’re never fully employed and never fully paid,” Inoguchi told a small group of reporters.

“So the opportunity cost for many women is very high,” she added. “My suggestion is that we have better policies for a work and life balance.”

This isn’t just an ethical concern:

Japan’s population of 127 million began to fall for the first time on record last year, fanning worries that future generations of workers won’t generate enough tax revenue to care for the growing legions of elderly.

At the center of the population debate is the question of how to encourage women to have more babies. Japan’s average fertility rate of 1.29 babies per woman is one of the lowest in the world.

Asahi: Key figure in Livedoor scandal kills self as prosecutors start questioning officials

Noguchi’s death came as prosecutors started questioning officials in the Livedoor conglomerate over the suspected stock-price manipulation of an affiliate, Livedoor Marketing Co.

They also plan to question Livedoor President Takafumi Horie not only about the affiliate’s actions, but also about suspected window-dressing of accounts at Livedoor group companies.

Noguchi would have likely been one of those questioned.

Meanwhile, the plot thickens:

Mainichi: Livedoor repeatedly made false takeover announcements of firms it already controlled

Mainichi: Tokyo Stock Exchange looks to de-list scandal-tainted Livedoor

I previously mentioned the Livedoor scandal here.