World Record: Most Clothes Pegs Clipped on Face
“Itte Q” star Ayako Imoto visits Brazil and meets a man who wants to break the world record for most clothes pegs clipped on face:
When the man reaches 109 clips, he can no longer endure the pain. He gives up. To break the record, he would have needed well over 150 clips. When Imoto tries it herself, she cannot get past 42 clips.
If you want to see more people trying to break that stupid world record, here are a few more videos from YouTube:
As the Japanese TV show noted, this world record doesn’t require any spectacular skill. You just need to have somewhat flexible skin and be able to endure a lot of pain.
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Categories: Odd / Strange
News Program Builds Replica of Mummy Man’s House
In its report on the family in Tokyo that had been collecting pension payments on behalf of a 30-year-old corpse that that they “lived” with, NTV’s “Bankisha” news program took some extraordinary measures. Instead of following the trend of using computer animation, they friggin’ built a full-sized replica of the man’s house inside a studio:
A mannequin was placed in the bed where police found the “111-year-old” man. The “Bankisha” staff took great care to arrange the room’s appearance so that it matched police reports, even finding some newspapers from 1978 (the last probable year of the man’s life).
Although his family has come up with the excuse that they had not disturbed him for 30 years because they respected his plan to become a Buddha, no religious books were found in the man’s room.
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Japanese Oil Tanker Damaged: Attack or Accident?
A lot of people are speculating about what caused a Japanese supertanker to receive heavy damage while traveling through the Strait of Hormuz the other day:
The Royal Oman Police believe it was an explosion caused by overheating. In an article for the Christian Science Monitor, Justin McCurry has mentioned other possibilities:
- collision with a submarine
- collision with a mine
- pirate/terrorist attack
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, the owners of the tanker, are leaning towards the attack theory and have hired experts to investigate the incident. The U.S. Navy is in the process of checking the damage and will probably soon have its own official theory about what happened.
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Categories: General Japan
Chimpanzees Like Ice Cream & Ham
“Shimura Zoo” star chimpanzee Pan-kun hangs out with Ken Shimura and eats some ice cream, drinks some Ramune soda, and makes cool noodles:
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Categories: Animal Videos
A Chinese Family That Loves Japanese Stuff
An NTV reporter visits an apartment in Shanghai where every appliance to have been made in Japan:
The family that lives there says they buy Japanese products because they trust the quality of the brands.
Their daughter also really seems to like Japanese stuff. Her mobile phone ringtone is from an Arashi song and she’s got posters of the boy band all over the wall. The narrator says that the spread of the internet has caused an increase in the number of Chinese people who like Japanese pop music.
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Categories: General Japan
20 Billion Tweets
A Japanese internet user has been officially declared the author of Twitter’s 20 billionth tweet:
The Twitter message was sent at 3:44pm GMT by “GGGGGGo_Lets_Go,” a graphic designer in Tokyo who works at an advertising agency, according to the user profile. The message was part of a conversation that appeared to be a comment about a third party that had come online and onto Twitter.
The precise meaning was difficult to translate due to lack of context, but the user’s reaction to having sent the 20 billionth Twitter message was much easier to understand.
“It looks like I posted the 20 billionth tweet. I’m getting replies from people all over the world. It’s scary. What are the chances? Maybe I’m going to die. Is it more amazing than winning the lottery? I thought it was a joke,” he said in another Twitter message moments later.
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Categories: Technology