Despite the unfortunate Japanese name, Nitendo’s wii game device has been a smash throughout the world. However, it was inevitable that that the product name would end up with description like this, “wii on your pole.”
Peekaboo pledges pole-dance kit for Wii
The Register / 09 May 2008 —The Wii’s all-white, but it’s hardly a raunchy unit. So, if you’ve been looking for ways to sex-up your console, then how about a private pole dance?…
Deeners’ flickr
Separated at Birth
Golgo 13 vs Spock of the Starship Enterprise
Thanks to the quip by our sharp-eye reader, Gearheadsan, that: “Golgo 13 looks sorta like a younger, more virile Spock.”
Of course you might ask, “What the hell is Japanese ‘can coffee’?”
Crack-in-a-Can, Japanese ‘can coffee’ is the secret of Japan’s success and without it this highly caffeinated country would never function before noon. Ubiquitous in Japan, a large number of companies offer a huge variety types of cans being sold in vending machines both as heated cans in the autumn and winter, and cold cans in the warm months. See Wikipedia for more information.
UPDATE
POOP-DE-DO0!
—FECAL FACIAL IS LATEST WACKY SKIN TREATMENT—
April 29, 2008 — New York Post….just $216, Shizuka Bernstein will slather your face in feces for a full 50 minutes - what she calls the “Geisha Facial” - at her Midtown spa, Shizuka New York. The ancient Japanese cleanser - geisha and kabuki dancers have been using the bird poop to wash off their heavy white makeup…more…
Let’s white happy!
While I’m in the drug store in Japan, I always find aisles devoted solely to skin whitening products. And my favorite traditional Japanese product for skin whitening is uguisu no fun aka swallow nightingale droppings. Being Bihaku ) or a ‘white beauty’ is hot shit here in Japan.
In a machine translation of the product description ofuguisu-no-fun, the cosmetics company uguisunofun.com says to whiten your skin you should take from 0.5 to 1.0 grams (about 1/3 of teaspoon) of the bird poop powder and mix it with soap in your palm and wash your face in the regular manner. Product No. 151 Container (26 g), price: 1,029 yen.
As Japanese love to quote the old Chinese saying: “Being white can cover/compensate for three times of ugliness. ” In the past months that I’ve spent in the hospital, the Japanese student nurses lube me up with NIVEA Whitening Body Lotion after my sponge bath and I always teased them I might disappear into the sheets.
For some women, it’s beauty and the bleach
Concord Monitor—-
….Take a daylight drive through Asian immigrant enclaves such as Monterey Park and Irvine, and you’ll see women trying to shield themselves with umbrellas - even for the short dash from a parking lot into a supermarket.While driving, many wear special “UV gloves”- which look like the long gloves worn with ball gowns - to protect their forearms, and don wraparound visors that resemble welder’s masks….There are doctors who, for about $1,000, will use an electrical field to deliver vitamins, moisturizers and bleaching agents to a woman’s face in a procedure known as a “mesofacial.” Whitening products have been a mainstay in Asia for decades, but cosmetics-industry officials said they have emerged as a hot seller in the United States …..….more….
Typical Japanese bihaku ads for skin whitening products (mostly fraudulent and ineffective like my hospital’s Whitening Body Lotion).
According to the Mainichi News, Nestle Japan is putting out a new killer can coffee, Golgo 13. The can coffee will be for sale starting May 15 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Golgo 13, Japan’s longest-running manga.
Wiki
Golgo 13 is sort of the James Bond of Japan—a professional assassin in the beloved manga as well as two live-action feature films, two animated films and a television series. Learn more about Golgo 13 [ゴルゴ13] in Wikipedia and you can view the video of the open sequence below.
I just floating away this looooooong Japanese “Golden Week” holiday just like this you lovely at the faux-Dead Sea pool at the Yunessun Spa in Hakone, a couple of hours outside of Tokyo.
See the other 3Yen reports on the weird baths in Hakone in:
–Cup Ramen spa (Pastafarian Baptismal Rite)
–Japanese wino baths
–Chocolate-covered Japanese bathing at hot spring resort
– Hot spicy Japanese girl
Right now it’s “Golden Week” in Japan and I’m dogging it since all the big companies and factories are closed from April 26th to May 7th (see Wikipedia). And what better way to dog it during Japanese Golden Week than with these new 1/25 ounce commemorative gold coins designed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Snoopy lost in translation in Japan. Today the Japanese commodity house, Taisei Coins Corporation, is unveiling their new, “The 40th Anniversary of Snoopy in Japan” commemorative coin featuring coins with Snoopy of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
Actually, these Snoopys are legal tender of the Cook Islands and were made by the Perth Mint that produces all sorts of weirdo commemorative coins, gold bullion and medallions. These are almost as much fun as the Silver and gold Hello Kitty euros I previous reported about.
The obvious Japanese solution is to BAN ALL SWIMSUITS!
Swimming: Japanese coach urges swimsuit war at Olympics
Macau Daily Times - AFP-Saturday, 26 April 2008—A Japanese Olympic swimming coach on Thursday urged domestic makers to rival Speedo’s record-breaking swimsuit…”It’s swimsuit doping,” Norimasa Hirai, who coaches defending double Olympic breaststroke champion Kosuke Kitajima and others, quoted one of his charges as saying of the LZR Racer [Speedo’s swimsuit]….Japanese Olympic swimmers are obliged by the national federation to wear products supplied on contract by one of three Japanese makers — Mizuno, Asics and Descente — at the Beijing Games…more…
At $550.00 for 100 grams of swimsuit, Speedo’s LZR Racer costs more than dope.
“Unintentionally funny” ought to be the slogan of corporate Japan.
Eisai Introduces “Chocola BB® Royal 2” Vitamin B2 Drink for Extreme Fatigue
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - April 24, 2008–-Eisai Co., Ltd…will release “Chocola BB® Royal 2” (quasi-drug), a new 50 mL vitamin B2 drink, on Monday, May 12….address consumer needs and developing market for nutritional drink for women…
Case in point, I did a double-take when I saw these “Let’s Try!” self-suicide exercises on official health website of Chocola BB®.
See a larger version of above photo of old-school Chocola BB and other mega-funky Japanese patent medicines at PingMag.jp and the Retro Museum of Packaging from the Showa Era.
Today I spotted this elephantine e’pissoir cleaning robot for urinals that was demonstrated at the Kobe International Airport.
Don’t you think the little yellow hat on top of this “labor-saving” 100kg (220lb) robot is precious?
The following is my mega-funky machine translation of the Robot.Watch’s description of the demonstration of the the robot.
[pronounced “DaSuBiEh“] is the reversal of the letters “ABCD.”
Ok, it is hard to imagine how shoving and wrestling the 100kg DCBA robot into position would be a savings in labor. In the top photo, the DCBA robot dwarfs the operator girl. However, the company claims the machine cleans one urinal in 10 seconds and saves eight liters of water in the process. The robots are intended for the cleaning operations of large institutions including highway rest areas and public restrooms of railroads. The selling price will be 1 million yen (about $9,700 USD).
UPDATE!
There are scant details available yet, but I hear there is already prototype robot–pictured below–that is designed to challenge the “reversal” concept of the DCBA robot. That is, this robot cleans the source needing cleaning rather that urinal (ha, ha).
In the past, I have reported about Japanese spa baths filled with Beaujolais, chocolate hot tubbing and curry bathing.
Today’s flavor is bathing in a hot tub of RAMEN noodles, which is really a Far-Eastern Pastafarian Baptismal Rite of Ambrosian total immersion.
For more information, refer to the English website of the Hakone Kowakien Yunessun.
ラーメン風呂 — RAMEN noodle spa
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