Author: Joe Jones

Titillating!

Mainichi is a wonderful thing, as this passage demonstrates:

Take the Shigurechausu, or time of thin rain and tea. This is a position where the woman gets on top. If the woman shifts to her side while riding atop the man, the position turns into the goshoguruma, or ox-drawn cart like those used by ancient royalty. If you’re both looking in the same direction while being sideways, that is, insertion from the rear while both are lying side-on, it’s called the mado no tsuki, or moon window. Turning the woman in the opposite direction gives you the Tsubame Kaeshi, or inverted swallow (as in the bird)…

I wonder if they’re hiring translators. It might be worth dropping out of law school.

Getting Google Calendar on your keitai

If you have a Japanese mobile phone and use Google Calendar, here’s a minor hack that lets you view your up-to-date calendar through your mobile browser:

  1. Open Google Calendar.
  2. Go to the list of calendars on the left side of the screen, and click on the arrow next to the calendar you want to view. Select “Calendar Settings” from the menu.
  3. Click the blue “HTML” button next to “Private Address.”
  4. Select “configuration tool.”
  5. Select “no controls” and set Mode to “Agenda.”
  6. Copy the Google URL that appears in the code box: everything from the ‘src=”‘ to the next quotation mark. It should look kind of like this:

    http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=username%40gmail.com &pvttk=x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0&chrome=NONE&mode=AGENDA&height=557

    You should be able to go to this URL in your web browser and get a simple list of your upcoming appointments.

  7. E-mail this URL to your keitai, then click through, bookmark and enjoy!

Now, if only Google would provide a really simple way to do this…

Hikki’s mom: high-stakes drug trafficker or poor business planner?

This is a fun story:

Junko Utada, the mother of once-awesome now-lame best-selling pop singer Hikaru Utada, was detained at JFK Airport back in March. She was spotted acting rather strangely (screaming into a telephone and appearing ill) prior to boarding a flight to Vegas.

When investigators searched her luggage, they discovered she was carrying over $400,000 in cash, two boxes of somebody else’s checks, and a lease agreement to a storage unit in Manhattan. She made up a weird story about donating her casino winnings to a foster home in Vegas, but the DEA agents decided that she was probably involved in drug smuggling, and so now the government has filed suit to have the money forfeited to the feds.

It’s a very weird situation, but it’s also not entirely clear why Hikki’s mom would be running drug money around. I’m skeptical, at least. Perhaps she just got caught in the midst of a poorly-planned tax avoidance scheme. Or maybe she just never got over her clueless Japanese tourist phase.

Google coming around

You might remember that I railed on Google’s products for being hard to use in Japan.

Well, two of my four beefs seem to be resolved. Tokyo weather is mostly accurate nowadays, and Google Calendar now sends properly-encoded notifications to Japanese mobile phones.

Now we just need stock quotes and mobile browser support, and I can almost consolidate my web services! (Except, of course, for del.icio.us and rememberthemilk.com and my bank accounts and…)

He’s a knight, even if he can’t be a Master

It’s ridden with clichés and won’t tell you anything that you wouldn’t have already known from reading this blog, but this obituary to Koizumi’s political career, written by the Northeast Asia bureau chief of the Washington Post, was at least kind enough to call the outgoing prime minister a “Jedi Knight.”

Needless to say, I’m assuming that the author ripped this idea from me and Curzon.

So are we reaching the end of Episode III now? Is Mori going to pull Koizumi out of the volcano, slap body armor on him and turn him into a Sith Lord? “Darth Kakuei,” maybe?

UPDATE – Curzon went straight to work on a Fireworks graphic. I also just recalled that Kim Jong Il was supposed to be the Emperor analog, so… hmm. Darth Bulgogi? I got nothin’…

Just go back to being pretty, and leave the discourse to others, please

Japan has a large population of aesthetically pleasing women. However, when they start babbling like this, that appeal wears off pretty quickly.

This is by no means meant to be a generalization. There are plenty of women here who are interesting and fun conversationalists. There are plenty who don’t look all that hot. But the cute and mindless type seem to end up with young urban Tokyoite guys pretty frequently. To quote my boss, “you have to take them out to really nice restaurants, so the quality of the food will keep you from falling asleep.”

INOKIX Series Condoms(tm)

Sadly we missed this one prior to their selling out, but Japanese prophylactic major Condomania lists Inoki-brand condoms in their online catalog.

Condoms that have inherited “Inoki-ism!” Fighting condoms decorated with the Inoki ” DAAAAAAH !” pose!

” USE WITHOUT QUESTION! USE AND YOU WILL FIND OUT! ”

INOKIX 1000
12-pack ¥1,050

  • Big and bulbous at the tip
  • Plain type
  • Jelly manufacture
  • Pink color

INOKIX 2000
12-pack ¥2,100

  • Thick knob-end for sustained effect
  • Serrated to prevent falling out
  • Jelly manufacture
  • Pink and green colors

Nothing says “I’m gonna kick your ass” like a pink condom, guys.