the thoughts and experiences of Heather Meadows
Ampontan at Japundit suggests the Pavilion of the Sex Gods in Utsunomiya.
Here’s a Japanese restaurant in China where you could, until recently, eat sushi off women’s naked bodies. I suggest visiting in protest!
And finally, here’s a vacation idea that I doubt anyone would recommend…sowing rice the old fashioned way, including manually lugging a huge piece of lumber across the field to flatten it. (I feel like I would like to try it, just once…obviously this is the curiosity of the ignorant.)
From WXIA-TV Atlanta:
AUGUSTA (AP) — A former bail bondsman was arrested Friday after being accused of soliciting someone to harm two men, including an Augusta attorney, and to rape one of the men’s wives.
Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Columbia County Sheriff’s office arrested Danny Lee Savage Sr., of Appling, at about 11:30 a.m. Friday.
At first I thought one of the targets, Billy Morris, was the Billy Morris. But it wasn’t. (Here’s an interesting–and melodramatic–story about the Billy Morris.)
Anyway, that’s scary and freaky. What kind of person would do something like that? (The guy’s last name is pretty fitting. :P)
This will cut down the time it takes to get from Hakodate to Tokyo by two hours. Sweet!
Japan Today seems to have moved/removed the article, but I’ll link it if they ever put it back up ;P Here’s a story about it in the Japan Times, that I found by googling “hakodate aomori bullet train”. Ah, Google.
Edit 2005/05/22 1:41 pm: The Japan Today article is back up.
Paul and his girlfriend Ashley had us over tonight to watch the first season of the Clone Wars cartoon. I’d seen the one that introduced the Punisher-esque cyborg(?) on the speeder bike, but that was it, so this was a treat.
I have to say, for most of the beginning, I was laughing at everything. The exposition was very terse and to the point (which makes sense, as each episode was five minutes long), resulting in some hilarious moments between impatient teacher Obi-Wan and surly student Anakin. (And I must say, Anakin’s pout-scowl is hysterical.)
The show is essentially a bunch of fighting (including a scene with the mostly ineffectual–and horribly cruel to poor Threepio–Padme Amidala), but it’s stylized, and the voice acting is decent, and all the Jedi are badasses. It certainly explained why Paul’s reaction to Revenge of the Sith was “They gimped so many people who were much bigger badasses.” Mace Windu and General Grievous certainly stand out along this vein. I mean, you should have seen Windu singlehandedly taking on about a zillion fucking droids, plus a giant droid ship (that looked like something out of an anime) whose sole purpose was to smash everything in about a mile radius. (Seriously. Its stomper thingy covered that much ground. I told you it was huge.)
And where was Grievous’ signature limping and wheezing? That sort of confused me. He was, in any event, definitely a badass.
There was all sorts of cheese in the series, and the dialogue really wasn’t all that great. (After the DVD was over, we flipped on Cartoon Network and caught the last half of an episode of Justice League Unlimited. The dialogue in that show was leaps and bounds over Clone Wars. Man. I’m starting to wish we had cable, because that show was cool.) But anyway, it was neat overall. I liked the use of original Star Wars music and sound effects, mixed with new stuff. And I liked how every time the Jedi did something badass, they paused in a badass pose. It was hilarious.
So yeah, I recommend it :)
Asahi has three interesting stories:
Draft-dodging youths scramble to renounce S. Korean citizenship
A change in South Korean law has twentysomethings scrambling to renounce their citizenship before the law goes into effect.
Under the South Korean draft system, males mainly in their 20s, must serve in the military for more than two years.
To exempt their children from the draft, however, many pregnant women began going overseas, particularly to the United States and Canada, to give birth. Since nationality in those countries is conferred as a birthright, the children end up with dual citizenship.
The practice became such a big issue that South Korea’s National Assembly revised the Nationality Law to close the loophole.
Overnight freight service taking off
The growing air freight industry in Japan, fueled by new speeding restrictions on transport trucks, promises to speed up business and promote trade throughout Japan. It will also support local economies near the airports involved in the service, such as that of Kumamoto-shi. (I stayed in Yatsushiro-shi in Kumamoto-ken in 2001, and visited Kumamoto-shi while I was there. -shi: city, -ken: prefecture)
ANA rival Japan Airlines Corp., meanwhile, plans to start a midnight freight service between Haneda and Kyushu’s Kumamoto airport in July.
The airline aims to attract business from all over the island as the airport is located at the center of Kyushu and 10 minutes’ drive from an expressway interchange.
“We expect the service will encourage businesses to set up shop in our prefecture and also expand the market for our farm produce,” a prefectural government official said.
This article discusses how a citizen committee invoked what is referred to as the “ultimate weapon” to investigate the use of public lands for private use, and how their following actions are questionable. It’s an interesting discussion of Japanese law.
This spring, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly established the Article 100 Committee. The last time this was done was 35 years ago. After its deliberations, the committee determined that Vice Governor Takeo Hamauzu had committed perjury during a committee session.
When a situation arises that gives cause for strong concern about an administration, it seems perfectly reasonable that the assembly should be able to invoke its powers of investigation. But in this case, everything about the investigation–from the reason why it was set up to the conclusion it arrived at–was very unclear.
I stumbled across it while watching some MSN Video (which always crashes IE, but I wanted to see Daniel Radcliffe waxing poetic about Harry Potter’s love life. “That’s what I like about Harry as well, is he’s PATHETIC at the whole romance thing. He’s RUBBISH”). I was pretty sure the banner ad stating that a certain Audi had been stolen, and asking that people go to http://www.audiusa.com/a3 to report any sightings, was just a clever way of getting people to visit the website. (And, of course, I visited the website.)
But the campaign is much bigger than just that. The A3 site led me to this homepage for their “internal investigation” into the “theft”. A little box on that page states, “Recently uncovered information has led us to believe that the missing 2006 A3 might be related to other events.”
So I clicked the link on the text “other events”, and found Chapter 1 of a story about spies, hackers, and an eccentric art thief who hides information in Audi A3s.
The story is being blogged. And there are about fifty gazillion videos. The blog has been up since April 1; here’s the original post, which explains that this is all for fun.
Additionally, there’s a website for the spy/hacker team trying to track down the missing Audi (and thereby some missing art), and you can “hack in” (just click the “username” box and pick somebody’s name) and see about a hundred gajillion emails, voicemails, phone calls, videos, and other documents supposedly created by people in this fictional company.
I mean…wow! This is fucking elaborate!
Normally I wouldn’t take other people’s pictures and post them here, but I mean, wow. What the hell is going on there, Obi-Wan?!
Stolen from Derik. (Poor guy…)
Alexander Bukh has written an article for the Asia Times offering a different perspective on the Japan/China/Korea political maelstrom. It’s a good read and brings up many important points, including the following:
No doubt Japan bears a certain responsibility for the recent wave of anger in China and Korea and the resulting diplomatic frictions. The Japanese leaders seem not to understand that certain acts send the wrong signals to their neighbors. At the same time, putting the whole blame on Japan simplifies the issue and leads to a rather one-sided perception of the situation. We must not forget that both in Korea and China, the state plays a major role in education, exercising complete control over what textbooks are chosen for usage at schools and put a strong emphasis on “patriotic education”, while in Japan the role of the government is much more marginal as the writing is done by scholars not affiliated with the government and the process of choosing a textbook is conducted by local committees.
The projection of the “self” on Japan, in Korea and China, can be seen as one of the reasons for the anger.
Via Japundit.
From Yahoo! News – Oddly Enough:
A 3-year-old boy upset that his mother wouldn’t let him use a crane vending machine to try to win a small stuffed animal took matters in his own hands. He climbed up the chute to get the prize himself.
This next part is great.
Manges said James has been sick and sleeping odd hours so they went shopping about 3 a.m. Thursday at a Wal-Mart in the city some 15 miles east of South Bend. She let the boy play on some of the rides, but wouldn’t give him money for the vending machine.
At first, Manges thought it was funny.
“He was playing with all the toys and hanging from the bar like a monkey,” she said.
Manges said people leaving the store went back inside to buy disposable cameras to take photos of her son. She bought one herself.
That is hilarious. Personally, I’m glad the woman has a sense of humor. I can imagine how it would be to think you’d failed as a mother or something because your kid climbed up into a toy machine while your back was turned for two seconds. And I’m also glad she got pictures, because that is just priceless.
About 40 people watched as the firefighters removed the back of the machine and freed him.
James still came up empty handed.
“He definitely didn’t get a toy after that,” Manges said.
I think this is a funny, great story. And I think it’s fantastic that the mom didn’t just cave to the kid and give him a toy. Good for her! The kid sounds like a smart cookie, and with a mom who knows how to say no, I think he’ll grow up to be somebody special.
(I wonder who’ll be the first to try and delve into the “toy pit” [as opposed to “ball pit”] market?)
I’ve subscribed to a couple new Japan blogs: dottocomu, which I’ve known about for awhile but hadn’t subscribed to for whatever reason, and Japan Window, which I discovered today through Global Voices Online.
Here’s a story from Wired (via Slashdot) that startled and scared me:
Korean scientists have used cloned human embryos to derive tailor-made stem cells, a breakthrough with dramatic implications for the development of useful therapies that could help shift the debate over human cloning.
The researchers derived stem cells from patients with spinal cord injury, a congenital immune disorder and juvenile diabetes. The advance, announced Thursday, raises the stakes in the political and ethical argument surrounding embryonic stem-cell research. Once a pie-in-the-sky possibility, human cells now exist that could theoretically be transplanted back into patients without the fear of immune rejection, since as cloned cells they would be a genetic match.
And here’s a story about a lesser panda that can stand upright on two legs, complete with cute picture for all you furries out there. Via BoingBoing.
Here’s a story that Kevin might like (if he’d ever read my blog). (Keep Your Fork – There’s Pie!)
Hai’s cousin Dom posted a cute and funny rant about his whirlwind trip to E3. (I guess since it’s a blog post on a webcomic, it has to be called a “rant”. I don’t create the lingo, I just abuse it.)
Number of miles on the odometer so far: 480
Number of hours it has taken to rack up that many miles: 10
Number of hours if you take out the 60 total miles of commute to the LA Convention Center: 6
Speaking of “rants”, J. Jacques most recent “newspost” (ah, there’s another term for it!) on Questionable Content contains the following neat little story:
While riding my bike on a trail today, my front tire caught in an unexpected ditch and sent me flying over the handlebars. As I lay there, battered, bruised, and beset by opportunistic mosquitoes, I could not stop laughing. This is what it is to be alive.
I dunno, I really liked that. It made me smile last night at around midnight, as I was sitting around waiting for my damn pot pie to finish cooking so I could eat it and go to bed.
Wil Wheaton has a good anecdote and some advice about parenting.
Simon has defeated the trough toilet! I must say, bravo. I, personally, had some problems with it…
Andy Gray of Japan Window posted last month about feeling his own mortality:
I think I began to face my own mortality for the first time in the weeks leading up to my marriage. I didn’t want the fickleness of life to cut short the journey we had begun. I realized in the face of great happiness that I was helpless to guarantee it would continue. The second time I experienced mortality so intensely was prior to the birth of the twins. Hitomi was in the hospital on bed rest; Reia and I were staying with my in-laws in their house. At that time, on the news they were saying an earthquake could be imminent on the major fault that passed nearby. Furthermore, I knew that an engineer had declared that the house would completely collapse if that happened. I had a hard time sleeping at nights. I didn’t want to miss seeing my daughters and watching them grow up. No wonder sometimes we’re afraid of even good things, because they make us so vulnerable.
In the comments, he talks about why he’s writing, and the kind of person he targets his blog to. I found this pretty interesting, especially since I fit the description to a T.
For now, I would say this about my intended readers:
1) They are interested in Japan, Japanese people and Japanese culture.
2) They are sensitive, postmoderns who are open to a story that talks about truth and love among other things (my story).
3) They are attracted to creative expression (e.g., photography).
4) They read blogs and realize what they are reading is personal and autobiographical.
5) They are not Christians necessarily. Although I talk about Jesus at times, I’m more interested in hearing honest responses than agreement. I don’t intend to write myself into a box of popular “Christian culture,” but I realize some will put me there at the first mention of the “J” word.
As I write this, I know that I’m narrowing down my potential audience a bit, but I’m optimistic that most people won’t automatically reject my blog because I write openly about my faith. Either way, I always knew I’d eventually have to go there in order to be honest as I write.
There was a time in my life when I’d read someone talking about their faith, and immediately turn up my nose. I’m glad I’m past that immaturity now. This guy seems to have a lot of interesting things to say, and I’m looking forward to reading him further.
Mr. Gray also has an insightful piece about politics in East Asia, focusing on how the Japanese have offered a revised history to their schoolchildren.
My wife completed her education in Japan and graduated from a good university here, but she never knew what really happened in Korea and China until she went to the USA for graduate school. In the USA she learned about the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers and saw (through Korean and Chinese friends) how real and raw the wounds are even today.
And let me also point out this post, which talks about his family’s trip to Karuizawa, a mountain/forest tourist town that he said reminded him of Colorado. I want to mention it because of this line:
Every locality in Japan must be known for some kind of food or craft. If not, they make something up.
That is so true.
(Side note: I’m not sure if it’s a Moveable Type thing or an IE thing, but I have trouble highlighting text to copy and paste on his blog. I have to double click each paragraph to highlight it–click and drag seems to want to highlight everything that is in front of the mouse. Very irritating.)
Finally, I’d like to redirect everyone’s attention to my Return of the Sith review–more specifically, the comments section. I’ve added a few thoughts there. Please feel free to continue the discussion if you’d like.
Here’s an interview with CheeseburgerBrown (Matthew Frederick Davis Hemming), author of The Darth Side. It’s really good. Hemming’s got style, like Tycho or Eric Burns. I’ll definitely be watching for his next project.
And now, I’m finally going to bed.
Gah.
CNN has a neat article up entitled “Was Darth Vader born bad?” It provides insight into the characters of Luke and Anakin from Lucas, Christensen, Steven Spielberg, and even a child psychologist.
“However Luke managed to become selfless, because he wasn’t really trained in the same way a Jedi would be trained, but in the end, when push came to shove, he made a decision to be selfless,” Lucas said. “He did not want the power to control the universe. He didn’t want to be the emperor’s right hand. He didn’t want to destroy his father, and he refused to go along with the program.”
Put simply, Han Solo once carped at Luke, “Don’t get cocky.”
Luke got the message. Anakin didn’t.
“I think it comes from someone’s obsession and someone’s ambition, letting their ambition get the better of them,” Christensen said. “That’s something that Luke didn’t really have. Although he had this sense of wanting to have something bigger, leave Tatooine and all that.
“But Anakin believed the hype. He thought he was the chosen one. That’s a much different level of wanting something more. Absolute power, that’s not something Luke wanted.”
Anyone care to explain this to me?
