Author: Roy Berman

CCCP Cola

Bringing together Adamu’s post on nostalgia and mine on the wide world of cola, I bring you CCCP Cola. I saw a bottle of this in the supermarket in Almaty, when I was in Kazakhstan, and just had to try it. I asked our local host about it and found that despite the name it was actually created after the fall of the USSR as a nostalgia product. For the curious, it certainly tastes as if it were brewed before Communism fell, perhaps when Stalin was still alive-and aged in Lenin’s formaldyde-preserved armpit. And no, it isn’t in the Cola Database. Maybe I should write them a review.
CCCP Cola

Also have a gander at this awesome Kazak bar that Curzon, Saru and I saw while we were there.

CCCP Bar

Cola Otaku

Japundit has a post on a Japanese web site devoted entirely to McDonalds Happy Meal toys. Well, I’d like to meet them one fast-food related Otaku web collection and raise them one.

Sailor Moon RC cola
See ColaWP.com, aka ‘Cola Whitepaper,’ if not the absolutely the most complete possible web site devoted to all things Cola, certainly making a run for it. From an extremely thorough database of cola varieties, including reviews, to articles on such topics as ‘Cola Dualism,’ which compares the Coke/Pepsi divide with that of Mac/Windows (except of course Pepsi doesn’t have a 3% market share). And who could overlook their analysis of the Pepsi Challenge?

Although unlike the Happy Meal site, WPCola is actively updated, they do have an abandoned English language portion of the site. Although non Japanese readers may not be able to appreciate the full otaku majesty, they can get a pretty decent taste of it. And of course, even if you can’t read the reviews, anyone can appreciate the photos in the very extensive database section.

As a former Coca-Cola addict and still occasional user-erm, I mean drinker, I find this site strangely compelling. I imagine that in a couple of hours I’ll know more than I ever wanted to about all things Cola.

Kim Jong Il Profile – from Japanese Manga

KJI Profile English

I just translated this amusing manga profile of Kim Jong Il. It was passed on to me by Curzon, but neither one of us is sure of the original source. If anyone knows what it’s from, please email me or leave a comment. Japanese readers are encouraged to check out the manga Kim Jong Il Introduction (金正日入門）, which was itself translated from Korean, but not being a Korean reader I’m unable to provide any information on the original version. Avaliable here at Amazon Japan, and the second volume here.

This panel is not from either of those books, but if you like it then you’ll like them.

Untranslated version is in the full post.
Continue reading Kim Jong Il Profile – from Japanese Manga

Resurrection Burial Tomb

Over the weekend I have a small project translating a patent application from Japanese to English. Quite naturally, I went to the USPTO online database to look up some patents and get a better idea of the appropriate terminology, when I stumbled across this patent. Being extremely long, incoherent and mad I’ll just quote the abstract and a sample from the beginning of the main text.

A Resurrection Burial Tomb includes a means to preserve and revive Human Beings and provide power and power systems for the same, comprising of a container of preservation means, holding the suspended dead person’s body and connected to electrical and energy apparatus systems contained in the Resurrection tomb and robotic machine workers that help maintain and work to revive the suspended Huamn Being; wherein the process provides power and security from death to living Human Beings being useful and novel, producing a less savage empowered child culture and machine parents.

I the Reverend Daniel Robert Izzo, hereby claim the, “A Resurrection Burial Tomb” that is a novel means to revive a dead person’s body from the grave; and providing a 1 little more security from an impending death; will preserve and prevent the human body from decay and will prolong the human life and tissue and return it into a conscious state, together with the means do do the same, and a means to produce energy, to do the same; comprising of: an artificial womb and a container with fluid having a crystal radio crown and antenna that connects to a radio and energy devices; wherein the deceased person is prevented from decay within said container and where energy is obtained from the radio crown that oscillates into the desceased person’s nerves and brain and the entire contianer is within a building and tomb that is weather tight, wherein a nuclear device is used to generate electric energy and heat energy; wherein part of the dead person’s bone is converted into a microprocessor and computer; wherein the computer and energy sources, drive a heart lung machine that keeps the dead person’s remaining cell tissue alive, together with an artificial heart assistor pump; wherein the deceased person’s bone will regain consciousness, using the material of their bone and artificial and organic means cosisting of human bone material; that is convertable into a computer and microprocessor, organically grown body parts; artificailly grown body parts; nerves a muscles

Yes, I cut it off in mid-sentence. Amazingly, this one sentence, constituting the first claim of the patent, is over 4000 words long.

Homemade Les Miserables 2d Fighter

My friend Matt passed on a link to this amateur 2d fighting game based on Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserables. The game is being distributed as freeware, so go ahead and download it. It was built using the first edition of a fighting game design program called 2D Fighting School (2D格闘スクール), published by the Japanese media company Enterbrain. The product info page for the newer 2nd edition product is avaliable here.

Since I’ve never seen or read Le Miserables, Matt supplied me with this summary-

Valjean is a former felon, trying to stay out of trouble. Marius and Enjorlas are french revolutionaries, Javert is a police inspector (and Valjean’s former warden), Thenardier is a crook, Cosette is Valjean’s daughter, and Eponine is Thenardier’s daughter.

I’m still trying to figure out how Ponpon the car-driving rabbit and the ki-fireball throwing French policeman fit into the story. I guess I’ll have to read the book.

Continue reading Homemade Les Miserables 2d Fighter

Racist Hot 97 Skit Mocking Tsunami Victims

I seem to be a couple of days late noticing this, but when listening to last week’s episode of the WBAI hacker radio show Off The Hook on my mp3 player earlier today I heard a segment on an extremely parody song produced by an NYC area radio station. Now, New York may not quite be my home city, but it is my home radio market, and I was pretty shocked that a prominent commercial radio station thought that they could get away with such outright racism on the public airwaves, especially in a city like New York with such a large Asian population.

This post on hiphopmusic.com has some general info, and also linked to this mp3 of the song, preceded by a conversation between one of the co-hosts of the show (who is apparently Asian) trying to explain that she had declined to join in this skit because she had found it offensive, and then being yelled at by the host for “not doing the job the way it needs to be done cuz you have a different agenda,” and “You always want to act like you’re separate. If you want to be separate, be separate. Why not go all the way then?”

For the last week Hot 97 has been running a hideously unfunny and offensive skit named “Tsunami Song,” that ridicules the victims of the Tsunami as “ch*nks” whose children will now be sold into child slavery. It’s being played on the station’s morning show, hosted by Miss Jones.

NOTE: If you use the word “tsunami” in your email it will probably get filtered now, and not read. So try to leave that word out..

HOT 97
395 Hudson St. 7th Fl.
New York, NY 10014

(212) 229-9797

hot97@hot97.com

Or even better, Hot 97’s parent company Emmis broadcasting:

ir@emmis.com
jsmulyan@emmis.com
rcummings@emmis.com
jsteele@emmis.com
khealey@emmis.com

Here are the lyrics to the Tsunami Song

“There was a time, when the sun was shining bright
So I went down to the beach to catch me a tan.
Then the next thing I knew, a wave 20 feet high
Came and washed your whole country away.
And all at once, you can hear the screaming chinks.
And no one was saved from the wave.
There were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away.
You can hear God laughing, ‘Swim you bitches swim.’

[Chorus]
“So now you’re screwed. It’s the tsunami,
You better run and kiss your ass away. Go find your mommy.
I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head.
And now your children will be sold. Child slavery.”

I should also mention that, aside from being morally repugnant, this is some of the worst singing I have ever heard outside of karaoke.

Asian Media Watch also has a report on this, located here, which includes quite a bit more information, including ways to contact the radio station. They also discuss filing a complaint with the FCC, but I personally feel that this is the wrong approach. A number of advertisers have canceled the contracts with Hot 97, and they’ve probably also lost a fair number of listeners. I would rather see Emmis Communications punished by the market than by the government.

The True Story of the Hello Kitty Vibrator

When I went to study in Japan I had to field a lot of strange questions and requests from people. One of the most asked-for souvenirs was the infamous Hello Kitty Vibrator.
Kitty-chan Vibe
When my cousin came to visit we even went looking for one- but we never found it. And now, thanks to the Asian Sex Gazette, I finally know why. Finally, I can sleep at night.

The emergence of the Hello Kitty vibrator as a cult adult item caused friction between Sanrio and Genyo, and Sanrio ordered the company to stop making the units. Genyo refused, since it had paid a lot of money to license Kitty for their products. There seemed nothing Sanrio could do, since they had approved the item for sale (see the official Sanrio sticker on the boxes). The answer came when the Japanese tax authorities raided Genyo on suspicion of tax evasion. It seems that some creative accounting was going on between the president of the company, a Mr. Nakamura, his vice president, and the owner of the factory in China where the units were made. All three were arrested, and Sanrio had the excuse needed to yank Genyo’s license. They seized the molds used to make the vibrators and destroyed them.

Extra: Everyone should check out the picture Curzon posted in the comments section.

Mamederumon, the Magic Bean of Japan!!

Boingboing points out a BBC story on a magical new product from Japan. The BBC article doesn’t say the half of it. Here’s a full translation of the original product site.
Note that the name Mamederumon is made up, but translated literally means, ‘thing which sprouts from a bean’

Mamederumon
The bean with a message in it is being born!

The egg of Mamederumon!
From an egg a plant is born!
Exciting and thrilling!
The introduction of the egg!

Simply water the egg, and after a few hours have passes the shell will split by itself.

A bean with a message inscribed on it will sprout from the egg.

Then if you just take care of it, something good may happen.

Plans to go on sale from late February for ¥798 (¥760 with tax).

Magic beans

The story of Mamederumon
Once upon a time there was a land called ‘Mamederumon.’ In this land there dwelt a peculiar hen. The eggs laid by the hen of Mamederumon were rather large, and from within would sprout a large bean. On this bean a message was inscribed, and if cherished and cared it would grow rapidly in size, and the person who raised it would likewise be filled with vigorous energy.