Archive for May, 2008

Woman Found Living in Man’s Closet

Wow – the bogey man is being given a run for his money by Japanese homeless people, apparently. Talk about a closet case. Where do we even begin on this one?

Japanese man finds woman living in his closet

A Japanese man puzzled by food mysteriously disappearing from his refrigerator got a shock when he found out a woman had been living in his home for months without permission, police said Friday.

The 57-year-old man living alone — or so he thought — in the western city of Fukuoka installed a security camera and called the police when he saw images of someone walking around his home while he was out.

“We searched the house in the man’s presence. We found the woman in the closet,” said a local police spokesman.

The woman, named as 58-year-old Tatsuko Horikawa, was found in a flat storage space only just big enough for a person to squeeze into lying down.

Wow. I don’t know if I’m more horrified or impressed. A number of questions do jump to my mind immediately, though. Did the man freak out and wet himself upon discovering his unknown guest? How many times did she enter / exit / steal his food? Did she secretly use his bathroom too? What else was living in his closet? When was the last time that guy opened his closets? Did he think he just had a seriously bad rat problem? How does this happen?

“She told police that she had nowhere to live,” the spokesman said. “She seems to have lived there for about a year, but not all the time.”

It is unclear how she managed to enter the home undetected. Police suspect she might have been closet-hopping, moving from house to house.

AFP via Breitbart

You hear that, Japan? You have shadowy ninja-like closet-hopping homeless people living amongst you. A nomadic group that secretly infiltrates other peoples’ closets. And so far as the bogey man goes, hey – at least he didn’t eat your food.

Mariah Carey throws a baseball in Japan

Maria Carey showed up to a Yomiuri Giants game the other night and threw the first pitch:

Japan to use Australian ship for whaling research

Some support the plan, while others fear it may actually help Japan’s case for whaling:

JAPAN will lease Australia’s prime research ship to study whale food, sparking Opposition warnings Australia is bolstering the case for whaling.

But the Government says research findings could actually undermine the case for whaling.

Japan will use the 94m Aurora Australis vessel to conduct research on plankton and krill, a Budget estimates committee has been told.

Opposition senators say Japan could use the data to back up its pro-whaling campaign before international bodies.

“We are actively assisting in co-operation with the Japanese, who (are) a scientific hunter of whales, their understanding of the availability of food source for whales in southern oceans,” Liberal senator David Johnston said.

The information could go to “people we don’t want to give it to”, he said.

Old film of Japan

This clip of Japanese acrobats was apparently filmed by Thomas Edison in 1904:

For more video of early Japan, check out this Japanese documentary about the Meiji/Taisho/Showa eras on YouTube.

Virgin Mary arrested for operating a brothel

Mainichi reports on the arrest of several people involved in a brothel business:

A brothel owner and three other people have been arrested for allowing a female employee to use a hotel room for prostitution, Tokyo police said.

Toshiko Uchida, 70, the brothel owner, and three unnamed suspects stand accused of violating the Anti-Prostitution Law.

For some reason, Mainichi’s article left out the best part of the story. If you watch the video embedded in this post, the news report says that Uchida considers herself the “Blessed Virgin Mary,” and is denying the charges against her on the grounds that she is too pure to engage in such a crime.

Nekkid Sumo

Somebody likes to photoshop pictures of sumo wrestlers to make them look naked:

View the full gallery here. [not exactly work safe]

[via Zaeega]