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Xmas Cards

Well, it's Xmas, and these are cards:

David Caruso in Tokyo

David Caruso is in Japan, promoting a CSI: Miami DVD release. Here he is posing with the Michael Jackson Kano "sisters".



I'd love to see him team up with Charlton Heston, William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban for a "CSI:Tokyo".

Phony Magician Cons Diners

Here's a weird story I haven't seen reported anywhere else. The article says similar incidents have happened at least nine times in Naha, Okinawa.

The latest incident Sunday had the man eat a ¥5,000 meal, then tell other customers “I’m a magician and would like to show my magic. Can I borrow ¥10,000 yen in paper money?” People gave him ¥30,000, and he went through the motion of performing. Suddenly, he declared “Oh, sorry, I can’t” and then raced out of the restaurant.

Sounds like a good scam to me, but I don't think it would fly anywhere except in Japan.
"Nobody here knows me, but I'm a magician. Now please give me hundreds of dollars. Thank you."

When the pickings are that easy, it makes the three-card monte seem like waaay too much work.

Kanji of the Year: "Fake"

The results of the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation's annual poll are in, and "偽" ("nise" —fake, imitation) has been chosen as the kanji character which best sums up the year 2007 in Japan.

After a string of problems including government money scandals, falsified construction safety data, and mis-labeling of food products—to name but a few—18 percent of those polled (or maybe it was 6550 entries--see below) selected "nise".
(Perhaps fittingly, one of the numbers above is incorrect in the Kyodo article [article has been removed]. The math doesn't add up.)

Here are a few more "imitations" to add to the list, just off the top of my head:

-Christmas (so romantic! Reserve your Xmas cake now.)
-Christian-style weddings, Shinto New Year's prayers, and Buddhist funerals. Which is it?
-Wedding chapel priests —white fake priests are cooler than real Japanese ones.
-Giri choco —Valentine's Day without the sentiment.
-Indoor beaches and ski slopes.
-The Kano Sisters —is anything on them real besides their jewellery?
and of course:
-Public apologies for the aforementioned scandals —just as false as what they are apologizing for.

Fake, imitation...let's call it "phony".
Yep, without a doubt, 偽 is the perfect choice.

Pure Gold Hello Kitty Playing Cards

Nothing says "I'm rich and I love you" like a deck of 99.99% pure gold Hello Kitty playing cards.



It's a standard 52-card deck plus two jokers, with a total weight of about 40 grams (1.4 ounces).

At a price of 567,000 yen ($5110 U.S.), that's only 10,000 yen per card, plus tax.
Imagine the look on your Japanese magician/gambler girlfriend's face when she looks in her stocking on Xmas morning.

(from the French-Point blog, one of my main sources of magic-related info in Japan)

J-Celebrities Who DON'T Believe in Psychics

I'm so sick of the endless parade of musicians, actors, "talents" and yes, politicians ooh-ing and aah-ing over the "psychic" talents of bullshit artists like Kazuko Hosoki and Hiroyuki Ehara.


Besides dominating the airwaves, these vultures have a grip on the minds of a huge chunk of the population, if my acquaintances are anything to go by.

So I thought I'd keep a record of those Japanese celebrities who I have seen "come out" over the years—those who have stated publicly that they do NOT believe. Quite brave of them really, as I imagine the networks don't take kindly to celebrities who go cash-cow tipping.

Here's the list I've amassed so far:


That's all.

Just now on tv, after another celebrity was going on about how he's "really into feng shui", Chiaki (千秋) declared, "I don't believe in feng shui, fortune-telling or any of that stuff."
Bravo.
Surely there must be others, but where the hell are they?

Dead Animal Safari

November's looking like a pretty dry month for blog posts. My video camera, which also serves as my tv-to-computer interface, is on loan until December, so I guess it's gonna be random dear-diary crap and look-what-other-people-are-doing posts till then.

Dear Diary,
As regular readers may know, I'm a birdwatching nerd, and this season provides a good opportunity to see a variety of migratory birds, including several species which don't even live in Japan, but stop here briefly for a place to rest along their way south to Indonesia, etc.
A few weeks ago, I went to the nearby prefectural forest park (県民の森), a 65-hectare (160-acre) spread that even a Canadian might consider to be "real" nature.



As always, I soon veered off the main walking route to a narrow path normally ignored by visitors.
This time I was hoping to spot a winter wren (ミソサザエ)—turns out it was too early.




After 15 minutes of traversing a semi-treacherous overgrown path which I'm sure no one has travelled in years, I happened upon an animal's skeleton. Wow! Untamed World! (Check out the sound file for the full natsukashii experience.)

At first I thought it was a cat, based on its size. But when I looked closely at the skull, I could see large, rodent-like incisors.
What could it be? I couldn't imagine a rodent of that size, living in my area. I had to investigate, which meant taking a sample home for observation!

Now, any typical Japanese hiker would have been equipped with the top-of-the-line hat, gloves, hiking boots, telescopic walking stick, utility belt and backpack, but I was just dressed in cheap street clothes.


What's a fellow to do when he wants to transport a skull?
I pulled a large leaf off of a nearby tree, wrapped the sucker up and stuck it in my shirt pocket.

After I came home I discovered this great website which lists the "Mammals of Japan".
The only rodent I could find that seemed to fit was the North American muskrat. Imported and bred to supply fur for Japanese troops, escapees after WWII first propagated in swampland around the Tokyo area, then steadily decreased in number. My god, had I found the first such specimen in my prefecture? The excitement!

Then suddenly I had a disappointing revelation. A quick google search confirmed it.
It wasn't a rodent. It was a rabbit.



I would have figured it out sooner, but rabbit skeletons don't have ears.

Though most people here have never seen a wild one, they're not exactly an endangered species. I had spotted a couple of them (alive) in the same park last year.
Suddenly I felt so dirty, like I had just been walking around for two hours with, say, a dead puppy in my pocket.

But the story doesn't end there.
Last week I went back to the park with my wife for a nice leisurely autumn stroll. This time, just a few metres from the main path we found another dead rabbit! This time it wasn't a skeleton—it was fresh. Complete with ripped-open guts and flies still on it. What the hell?
Needless to say, I didn't carry this one home.
I can't think of any animal around here that would attack and kill a wild rabbit, besides somebody's pet dog. The only other possibilty I can think of is that it died of natural causes—in an open area frequented by humans—and was then assailed by crows.

Two dead rabbits in as many weeks. Wacky. Must be aliens or Satan worshippers.

Japanese to "come of age" at 18

Mainichi reports that the Japanese government is planning to lower the age of majority —the age from which one is legally an adult — from 20 to 18.
At present, Japanese can legally smoke, drink and vote (not neccessarily in that order) from age 20.

Normally, I'd think that this was a good idea. It has always seemed strange to me to read a news story that begins with "A 19-year-old boy..."
Although some people make me feel like they should raise the age of adulthood to oh, around 27....

Anyway, I haven't seen any other articles on the subject yet, so it raises a few questions:

Will this just apply to voting rights, or will the smoking and drinking laws also change?

What happens to "Coming-of-Age Day" (成人の日)? Will ceremonies be held for people who turn 18 during that year?

Will psychological and societal effects result in a more mature, independent, politically aware and active younger set?

Will hell freeze over?

Atom lives

This stupid post is here to lay to rest any rumours that Astro Boy died in the recent South Park suicide bombing.

New Mac OS

Friday afternoon 200 people lined up in the rain to await the release of the new Mac OS 10.5 "Leopard" in Tokyo. As the sale began at 6 p.m. local time on Oct. 26 in stores around the world, the Ginza location became the world's first Apple Store to launch the product.
Leopard is the first major upgrade in two and a half years, the longest waiting period yet between new Mac operating systems.

So I guess tomorrow I'm off to the local electronics shop—to buy the old "Tiger" OS from two and a half years ago.

Why, you ask?

[lonely sound of crickets chirping]

Well I'll tell ya.
After using my "Jaguar" OS since 2002, I finally decided over a year ago that it was time for an upgrade to "Tiger" OS 10.4.
Then I heard through the grapevine that Apple was planning a new release in "spring 2007", so I decided to wait. Unfortunately in April 2007 the release was postponed until autumn. In the meantime, a lot of new software had appeared that was unavailable for the Jaguar system, including Skype, which friends abroad kept nagging me about.
Still, I figured I'd hold off till October and then rock out with my state-of-the-art new system.

Well, October has come and while I was waiting, it seems that my G4 800 MHz eMac has been relegated to the Mac orphanage, along with the G4 versions of PowerBook Titanium, PowerMac Quicksilver, iMac, and iBook.
Yes, Apple has announced that the new OS requires at least an 867MHz CPU to run Leopard properly. Oh well.



On the upside, there aren't that many new features in Leopard that I would have used, but dammit, I just wanted to be up-to-date with the rest of the (Mac) world!
(I still don't have a cellphone, either.)

Alas, it looks like I'll finally upgrade to Tiger, like I should have in 2005.

**Update**

I stopped by the nearest denkiya-san this afternoon, and after spotting a lone new iMac among the myriad of computers for sale, I decided to ask the staff whether they had any Mac OS software.
The guy told me (in Japanese) that all they had was a Japanese-language version of "Panther" (actually the nickname of 2003's OS 10.3).
It turned out that what he was referring to was not Panther, but the brand new Leopard software which, like several releases before it, has built in support for most of the world's major languages.
Although they had the new product for sale, there was nothing on display, no signs, announcements, promotion, no nothing.

It reminded me of the time a few years back when I bought some RAM for my old iMac. The store clerk insisted, "I'm telling you, there is NO WAY that this memory chip will work on an iMac!"
A friend of mine with the same computer had bought the same chip at the same store two days earlier and successfully installed it.


Q: How many Japanese shop assistants does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Shoushou omachi kudasai...

Killing Them Softly

Japan minister seeks 'peaceful' method of execution

"I fully understand what is prescribed in the [1907] penal code [—"hanging"—], but frankly I feel that there must be some more peaceful method," Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said.

Hey, this reminds me of a Monty Python recipe: "...baby frogs...lightly killed..."

Anyway,
What a nice guy! Oh, wait...No, it seems this was just a retarded attempt to appease those who may have taken issue with his previous statements:

Mr Hatoyama, the 59-year-old grandson of a former prime minister, came under fire a month ago when he suggested death row inmates should be hanged "automatically" without the usually-required approval of the sitting justice minister, saying it placed an emotional burden on that official.
Instead, Mr Hatoyama said he wanted Japan to implement a little-enforced law that requires the execution of inmates within six months of their final sentences.

Emotionally burdened Hatoyama puts the "moron" back into "oxymoron":

"we have been seeing extremely violent, vicious crimes in recent years.
[Capital punishment] plays a significant role in deterring serious crimes," he said then.

Read that again to fully appreciate its meaninglessness.
(Technically it's a non sequitur, I guess...)

This is just one of the various reasons why some oppose capital punishment:

Sometimes the government executes innocent people.

For those who support the death penalty in Japan (over 80 percent), how many mistakes are acceptable, I wonder. One per year? One per ten years?
More evidence of how this society has been habituated not to consider societal issues too deeply, not to "go there".
As for Hatoyama's six-month dead line (and therefore fewer—if any—"wrongful conviction" discoveries), how about forcing the convicts to play Russian roulette, once a month? At least they'd have some notion of when they might die.

Totoro Survives Terrorist Attack

There's no sign of Astroboy (アトム), but Tonari no Totoro survived last week's suicide bombings on South Park.



There's still hope. Part 3 airs next week.




Bonus:
Here's a photo of Trey Parker and his wife, Emma Sugiyama.

Close-Up Magic Event

I just got back from the third annual "The Close-up" magic show in Odaiba.





This year's lineup was Kiyono, Hiroshi (both listed at this site), Johnny Hirose (ジョニー広瀬) and American magicians Chad Long and Bob Sheets.


As expected, it was a great show.








Before Chad Long's act, MC Hiro Sakai (same as last year—perhaps you know his "younger brother" Dr. Leon) held up a Japanese phrasebook and explained that Long had recently been using it to study the language.



One effect:
Long shows the audience a light bulb, places it in a zip-lock bag, finds the proper note on a harmonica, sings said note, and the bulb shatters.
His patter (I've translated from his Japanese):

"This is my wife...Please speak slowly... Does this train stop at Tokyo station? No... Yes...[bulb breaks]. It's delicious, isn't it?"

After the routine Sakai joked that the phrasebook was co-written by Bobby Ologun.

Akira Fujii and Dr. Sawa were both there as spectators. I talked very briefly with Fujii, but again chickened out of the opportunity to meet Dr. Sawa. Maybe next year....