think movies like ju-on and the ring… you know, really scary movies out of japan and korea. now, i can watch movies like the “suicide club” with blood and gore all day, but as soon as there is a supernatually scary little girl, forget it. i watched exorcist a long time ago, and i couldn’t sleep for a month. same thing with poltergeist.

the thing is, if a movie contains a scary little girl, it freaks me out. i think there’s even a word for a wuss like me… it’s called “virginophobia”, or something like that. so movies like “the ring” are out. if i watched it, i’d have to sleep inside a clothes dryer for a week.

which is why i find this quirky little cartoon very helpful.

it says “if ’sadako’ appears on your PC”… “pressing alt+tab will take care of it”.

indeed.

買物

かいもの [kaimono]
meaning: shopping

買 to buy
物 thing, object, stuff

when lunch is concerned, poor american kids have what, peanut butter and jelly sammich in their lunch bag? maybe if you’re lucky, it’ll be a bologna sandwich on slices of wonderbread. tsk, tsk. like yoda would say, “how you get so big eating food like that?”

korea and japan, on the other hand are doshirak (bentou) culture. as i mentioned before, all over japanese railroad stations one can buy some mad delicious ekiben feauturing local favorite ingredients. my favorite? hokkaidou bound shinkansen’s hotate(scallop)bentou washed down with cold cans of sapporo. is there finer dining under God’s green earth?

a month or so back i feautured a “sunde artist” who makes little figures out of sunde(korean sausage) called creatively enough, “sunderella”. if you missed the post, click here.

we have today in a similar vein and genre, what i’d like to call “doshirak art”. dig it, mang!

it’s miffy! that rules.

check out more at “doshirak sarang”

到着

とうちゃく [touchaku] (long “o” sound)
meaning: arrival, to arrive

到 arrival, reach, or to attain
着 to wear, put on, or to arrive

from my good buddy “Tsu” from kobe comes this rather unique commercial for what i believe is “sex machine guns’” new single.

japan is a country of singles as opposed to albums, and to generate a buzz for a new single that is coming out, the record labels spend extraordinary amount of money sometimes to promote the artist. albums are released as well, but they are not as frequent and generally if you’ve been buying singles, there’s really little incentive for a fan to grab the album as well, as most songs they will already own and the rest are not so great filler songs.

in this video is a real live demonstration of “denki anma”, the repeated stomping of one’s crotch simulating, um, “electric massage”. it’s a great way to promote sex machine gun’s song “good vibration”.

what we have here is a video of a distinguished gentleman, tooling about on a moped somewhere in japan.

no surprise there, right?

but i suppose for this particular gent, a moped with two wheels is… well, possibly too pedestrian. so he is riding around a moped powered by, for lack of better description, four robotic feet that scuffle to propel the moped forward.

it is severely awesome.

借金

しゃっきん [shakkin]
meaning: debt or loan

借 to borrow or to rent
金 gold

oh, sweet merciful lord… why, why?

there is no justice in this world.

発売

はつばい [hatsubai]
meaning: sale, to be on sale

発 to emit, disclose, or discharge
売 to sell

note: you will see this word a lot when a new product is introduced in japan, especially in print or tv commercials.

i’ve always pretty much associated japan’s NEC with boring desktop pcs, but this website full of NEC’s vision for future technology is something else entirely. they are envisioning a near future in which many of our current clunky, disparate gadgets will be replaced by some sleek and intuitive, not to mention some svelte industrial designs.

i am particulary drawn to the “duo pc”, as it seems eminently doable and looks killer to boot.

from NEC