Archive for August, 2009

Stealing a taxi cab in Japan

A video from NTV news of a man stealing a taxi in Osaka:

The video comes from security cameras set up inside the car. Apparently the vehicle was left with its keys in the ignition, so all the criminal (35-year-old Hiromori Kim) had to do was smash the window, open the door, and drive off. The taxi driver, who was probably having a smoke nearby, shouts and chases after his vehicle. After recklessly driving a safe distance away, the thief searches the car and finds some cash. Kim was later arrested. Police believe he may have been involved in other thefts.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Weird Suumo Commercial

A commercial featuring the weird green mascot of Suumo, an apartment/house search site:

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Getting drunk at the Tsingtao Beer Festival

Japan’s NTV news travels to Tsingtao (Qingdao) to report China’s biggest beer festival and discuss how Japanese beer companies are trying to enter the Chinese market:

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Japanese for Morons Massive Collaboration

Gimmebreakman reaches 100 videos in his Japanese for Morons series by compiling the favorite Japanese words of every Japanophile in the world. Well, a lot of them anyway.

Otsukaresama Victor!

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Contributor Bio: JJ, shockingly, teaches English, but would prefer to do other things (shockingly). So he writes songs or comedy or the occasional theological treatise. Sometimes he tries to combine all of them. This is most easily observed at www.youtube.com/fatblueman.
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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Graph: Japan spacecraft launches

Wondering how many rockets Japan has lobbed into space lately? Here’s a useful graph from the Economist:

Although it looks like Japan is outranked by other countries, I’m sure that JAXA would argue that quality of junk launched into space is more important than quantity.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Forbes: “Shabu Shabu” is an illegal drug

An embarrassing error in Tim Kelly’s article for Forbes about the Noriko Sakai drug scandal:

Though discussed little in public, estimates put Japan’s regular drug users in the millions. Amphetamine crystals, known locally as shabu shabu is common, but cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana and other narcotics are readily available despite stiff penalties. Japan doesn’t differentiate between soft and hard drugs.

Shabu shabu, as some of you Japanese food lovers out there may already know, is a term for Japanese hot pot cuisine- not amphetamine. He may have confused it with “shabu,” a drug which is apparently different from “aburi,” the actual street name being mentioned in Japanese press reports about the drug arrest. The article also incorrectly states that Noriko “went on the run for a week with her 10-year old son” (she left the kid with a friend), and that police found “less than one thousandth of a gram” of drugs (they found 8 thousandths of a gram).

For all you junkies at home, here’s a video about how to brew your own batch of shabu shabu:

[hat tip to fukumimi]

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)