Tigers and Cranes

Origami, the art of folding paper is strangely therapeutic.

Long time ago, after I “graduated” from college and was a wastrel because I had no marketable skills, I whiled away my time in my studio apartment throwing playing cards into a hat(try it… it’s very addicting), and folding origami animals to pass time.

I sometimes miss those simpler times.

On another subject, it’s no secret that Koreans are absolutely bonkers over a computer game called “Starcraft”, made by a company in Irvine called Blizzard. I used to work for this company at one point, and even so, I could never understand the total fanatical devotion Koreans have for this game.

Flipping on the TV in Seoul, and wading through hundreds of cable channels that hey have over there, I came across some strange channels, such ones devoted to Go, or Baduk, fishing channel(two of them), a kung fu channel, and to my disbelief, two channels…TWO CHANNELS devoted to broadcasting Starcraft matches 24 hours a day. And this was couple of months ago.

Do you realize this game was released over seven years ago? That is ancient history in computer terms, let alone a video game. You’ve heard of a dude dying because he played some game for over three days straight without eating? Starcraft.

I recently received a call from an old coworker who still works at Blizzard. He was telling me he was traveling to Seoul, in what I assumed was a leisure travel.

“So, do you know where I can meet hot Korean girls?”
“Hm. You’re asking the wrong person. Why are you going to Seoul anyway?” I asked.
“We’re releasing Starcraft Two, and the launch event is in Korea…”
“Geez, you’re announcing the game in Korea? Why?”
“Well, you know how devoted Koreans are to our game, so we decided to reward them by making the announcement and showing the game there before anywhere else.”

I present you with some pictures origami, which I can only assume are made by a Korean otaku. In case you’re not familiar, all of the paper foldings here are units and things from the game, Starcraft. Made with such care and attention to detail, it made my jaw drop.

What, did you think Japan is the only country with nerdy fanatics?

A “Hydralisk”

A “Scout”

An “Ultralisk”

From Z Design Studios

It’s always mystified me why in Japan, with its proliferation of cigarette vending machines, one still sees old style cigarette vendors, usually older man or a woman, sitting behind a counter selling smokes, usually next to three or four cigarette vending machines.

What function do they serve? Are they there for customers who only have large bills?(unlikely, as I know many machines take large bills) To sell lighters?

I suspect that the reason that they still exist is to sell cartons of cigarettes. I recall walking up to one of these vendors, asking for a pack, and they told me to use the machines right next to them.

Here are couple of pictures of cutest cigarette vendors. I’d buy packs from them over a vending machine any day.

I’ve seen some whacky commercials from Japan, but by far this is one of the most disturbing, yet humorous one I’ve seen.

Warning: if you are easily offended by nudity, or villainous little kids, it might be better if you not watch.

Source: Skoopy

Thanks to my bungling, idiotic internet provider “Globat.com”, my website has been down for a while. This is the second time this has happened, and I’m flabbergasted as to how they stay in business with their incompetence. Anyway, it’s back up now. Sorry for the outage.

-Junosora

Well, it looks like people are still dressing up as their favorite anime/manga/game characters and trading lipgloss and hairstyle tips everywhere.

Some of them are, admittedly pretty cool, like this one,

Is this a soldier from that anime “Jinroh”?

and some are insanely detailed, like this one here,

and my personal favorite, a costume that costs approximately 35 cents to make, but still maybe the best I’ve seen so far.

Aaah!

From my Hollywood contact in the Global Tigers and Cranes Enterprise, report of “Hadaka Sushi“, AKA Nekkid Women Sushi.

Basically, this sushi restaurant from Hollywood(where else?) serves morsels of food, mainly sushi, on naked people. At first I was going to remark that this restaurant is chauvinistic, and sexist, as I thought they serve food only on top of women’s body. Then I read a little further, and it seems that you can order food on naked dudes as well. Okaay…

Called “Nyotai Mori”, here’s the description of what goes on at this joint.

“Also referred to as “body sushi”, nyotaimori is the practice of eating sashimi or sushi from the body of the woman”.

I quote. It’s markedly different from cannibalism, where the flesh of the said woman is eaten.

“Sushi is not merely food,(it isn’t?) but the culinary expression of art and sensuality. At Hadaka Sushi, the gourmet experience is taken to a new level as the model’s inherent beauty and energy enhances the exquisite cuisine.”

“The food never touches the model’s skin(whew!), but instead is presented on banana leaves draped on top of the flower-adorned body.”

So, how much for this “expression of sensuality and art”? Try $1100. And, the website notes, it doesn’t include food(what the hell?!), beverage (oh, double snaps!), nor room charge(restaurants now charge for rooms?!), nor, tax and gratuity, which, I suppose is fair. Let’s see, what is the tax and tip for a $1100 “model fee” sans food and drinks and shit? uhm… gotta bust out my calculator… punching some numbers in… well, it looks like additional $300 or so, and you still haven’t even touched the food.

And, for $6000, one can order the “premium package”, which does include food and booze.

The idea of eating food off a person kind of gives me the creeps, but hey, different strokes to float your boat, I guess.

I posted a while ago about those garish, over-decorated Japanese minivans.

For those Japanese that may not have the dough to roll in one of those monstrosities, some have opted to trick out their bikes. By bikes I mean velocipedes, not motorcycles.

I wonder where the power comes from to make all those lights be all lit up.

From TechEBlog

I came across this website called “Etsy”. Basically, it’s like Ebay, except, I suppose, it’s a place where one sells and buys stuff that is hand made. I wish I would have thought of it.

Now I knew a guy who was so talented, or had a lot of free time on his hands, that he made his own wallet… out of duct tape. Why on earth would you be carrying a wallet made of duct tape, I dunno, but I did appreciate the effort and the ingenuity that went into making such a product.

Which also reminds me of a story told by my old co worker, who said to never carry one of those velcro surfer wallets.

“Why not?” I asked. I have a beat up leather one, but I was still curious.
“Well, let’s say that you were on a date, and you pulled out your wallet. And what is the sound that the velcro wallet make when you open it?” He replied.
“Hm. The velcro sound?”
“Yeah, and it sounds like this to your date: ‘CHEAAAAAAAAAP’” Ha ha ha! he did the perfect velcro opening sound.

Well, you just had to be there.

Anyway, back to Etsy. I found this item for sale, and it’s relevant to this website, since it’s a “Ramen wallet.”

Pretty cool, huh? And the maker had the good taste to use the shrimp flavor packaging (no visible or discernible shrimp chunks, those lying Top Ramen jerks) though He/She claims that it can be made with bunch of other flavors too. Including “Oriental Flavor.” Hm? Where’s the Occidental flavor?

Tres Chic, regardless.

Go ahead and bid on it, make the wallet-smith a little richer by bidding on the item!

I’d have to say I had an interesting experience riding in a Korean subway.

Now Seoul subway system is a marvelous engineering, taking you and your lazy non-walking ass anywhere you want to go in Seoul… most likely to go drinking or eating. But, did something change on these subways or is it me? I recall Seoul subway being unbearable exercise in putting up with rude-ity, with loud and obnoxious riders practically screaming on their cellphones or doofuses listening to music real loud-like.

I haven’t seen much of that this time.

In fact, I found myself riding the subway much more often than I used to, sometimes preferring it over taxis when there’s a lot of traffic on the surface. It also helps that the ticket is a buck.

But what is it with the transfers? For example, for me to travel from the nearest station to my hotel to anywhere intersting, I have to transfer once, maybe twice. I don’t really mind that, but sometimes I’d have to walk for ten minutes underground and countless flights of stairs to change lines. Most Koreans don’t seem to mind, and I’m just probably being a non-Seoulite whiner, but DAMN.

Anyway, the interesting story on the train:

The car that I was trundling along in was pretty much fully occupied, and I was staring blankly at the space in front of me as I contemplated the long “transfer walk” that lay ahead of me. Then, I see this tall white dude in a suit walking by my seat, which is not at all unusual in Seoul, as the city is teeming with foreigners learning to make kimchi or what have you.

He looks around, and spots me, and hands me a flyer, and begins to read from a type of script to everyone on the train in fairly fluent Korean. This is odd, because he handed the flyer to no one BUT ME. In the entire car.

What the?

So I read the flyer, and realize it’s a “Get married in Unification Church” Run by no other than the Moonies.

This got me to thinking:

He gave me the flyer to me and only me because:

1: It looked like I’m just the sort of person who’d love the idea of mass marriage wth 20,000 other couples, or,
2: I looked just like the type of dude who’d join the Unification Church run by Rev. Moon.

Either way, I was flattered.

Here, I even took pictures of the flyer.

speaking of the dead, i feel pretty drained after returning from marathon 7-days a week, 12 hour work days out in the sticks. And to think, i didn’t even have internet access for a while.

So now, catching up with what’s going on in the world, and i see there are some disturbing trends in out favorite island country, Japan. How shall i describe this? As best as i can tell, it’s dead body removing robot.

What the deuce? Is the act of removing a lifeless body so odious a task now that one needs a pincer-ed robot to drag it around unceremoniously? Is there no decency left in the world?

Perhaps it’s for removal of bodies that are results of contagion or dangerous, in which case, this invention is about time in its arrival. Still, it looks mighty creepy…

From Unique Daily