Archive for June, 2009

Sea Shepherd gets “spaceship” boat

Radical animal rights group Sea Shepherd will be using Earthrace, a futuristic-looking biofueled boat, in its violent activism against Japanese whalers:

“It looks like a spaceship. It can do 40 knots and dive under waves completely. We’ll be using it to intercept and block harpoons.”

In 61 days last year Earthrace circled the globe fuelled by biodiesel. The New Zealand owner/skipper, Pete Bethune, said he decided to become involved because “this is happening in my backyard and it really pisses me off. I’m going to make a stand.”

He said he was adding half a tonne of Kevlar to the vessel to toughen it against the ice. It had the endurance to go half way round the world on a tank of fuel.

“They won’t get away from me,” he said.

Earthrace’s role was unveiled as the International Whaling Commission heard that Sea Shepherd’s protests endangered the lives of whalers in the Southern Ocean last summer when the Steve Irwin was involved in two collisions.

The second season of “Whale Wars,” a reality TV show that serves as a PR engine for Sea Shepherd’s activities, is currently airing on the Animal Planet channel.

[via JapanSoc]

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Eating Japanese food with a chimpanzee

Genius chimpanzee Pan-kun was taught how to eat various foods on last night’s episode of “Shimura Zoo”:

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A toilet that sighs

“Nanikore Chin Hakkei” discovers a toilet that makes a human-like sighing sound after it is flushed:

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Uniqlo to buy the Gap?

Amy Odell of NY Mag reports that Uniqlo owner Tadashi Yanai might buy the Gap:

Yanai is trying to turn Fast Retailing into the biggest clothing manufacturer and retailer in the world. The easiest way for him to do this by targeting the U.S. market is not to open a million new Uniqlo stores — that would be too much of a pain. So he plans to take a shortcut and simply buy a large chain. Insiders speculate that Gap is that chain.

[hat tip to Marxy]

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Pepsi Shiso: How is it?

• Matt Alt: “Surprisingly drinkable.”
• Curzon: “I LOVE the new soft drink.”
• Iwakan – “This was rockin’ good.”
• Claytonian – “Not bad.”
• Kumaboshi – “It’s actually not bad, and does smell and taste (at least at first) like shiso.”

Negative Reviews

• Gaijin Tonic – “While it might be refreshing on a humid summer’s day, there’s no escaping the fact that it tastes like mouthwash.”
• Tokyo Five: “unappealing” & “mediocre”
• Rinkya – “Medicine taste, but makes you feel worse.”
• Hikan Ninja – “tastes like a mild mouthwash.”
• Adventures in Japanland – “Whoever decided to make SHISO into a Pepsi flavor needs to be pushed off a bridge.”

My verdict: It tastes like shiso and it is not terrible. Good to try once for the odd flavor experience, but other soft drinks are far more tasty and refreshing.

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Benedictine monastery in Japan

MinnPost has a very interesting article up about how a Benedictine monastery in Japan was able to thrive after Japanizing the lifestyle of its monks:

To outsiders, this may seem obvious. In fact, it was obvious to insiders, too. But it’s one thing to suggest that a culture needs to change, and another matter altogether to actually change it. Nonetheless, last year — with great effort, and after much discussion — the monks at Trinity made the decision to shift the monastery’s culture — especially in the dining room (second in importance to the chapel — which had benefited from a Japanese liturgy for years. Japanese cuisine became a more regular facet of the Trinity dining experience; chopsticks began to appear at the common tables and, most significantly, conversations were translated from Japanese into English, and not — as had long been the practice — from English into Japanese.

Father Edward Vebelun, 41, a still boyish native of Ohio who was trained as a priest in a Japanese seminary, describes the transition as a revelation. “From there, the flood gates really opened for us.”

Read the rest of the article here.

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