AirBetweenTeeth comments

This woman is a living, walking cliché. A (no doubt cosseted and pampered) Manhattanite with a penchant for Southern vampire fiction, the obligatory iPhone references when there are numerous other brands with exactly the same functionality, the weekend yoga retreat in the mountains . . . I can't believe AP paid for this pap.

We lay on our mats, listening to the softly tapping rain and chirping birds and complied. We breathed.

Oh puhlease

What's the odds that the video to this will feature Becky making the peace sign, head cocked to one side and one leg bent up behind her, grinning like a cutesy moron?

Hahaha. Nail on the head there, Ivan.

It was a purely commercial arrangement – 300,000 yen a month in exchange for her availability

And there's absolutely no connection between geisha-dom and prostitution — no, no, I won't hear of it.

“Mr Uno,” says Nakanishi, “had absolutely no consideration for a woman.”

Look love, you're a hooker — get over it. What did you expect? Daily gifts of chocolates and soft toys?

and neighbors say that the young and good-looking mother “had many friends.”

Classy reportage as ever from Shukan Post

JT, these figures are for megabits (Mb), not megabytes (MB) per second. Big difference. Not so long ago, speed performance was measured in the latter. When I came to Japan, I noticed that the standard abbreviation used for transfer speed was the deliberately ambiguous "M". Typical misleading ISP BS. If you want to find your Internet speed per second in MB as opposed to Mb (or "M"), divide by eight. Provides a much more realistic picture of what you're actually receiving — who the hell measures the size of a file in megabits?

That's a fearsome set of chompers the bird's got on her.

"I fear something has radicalized ordinary Swiss people.

I wonder what it could be."

Stellar post, ProfJuanColePhd! Hit the nail on the head with that one.

Ahh, the good old days . . . Standing up in some dodgy arcade playing Donkey Kong, Zaxxon, Pengo, Crazy Climber, Moon Patrol etc. Anyone know of an old-school arcade in Tokyo that still has some of the old classics?

I had the idea to make a fashion line that is made of 100% chihuahua fur.

Totally with you on that one, dr. jones. You can start with the yappy little sod two storeys up from me.

Lovely jubbly. And let's not overlook this little gem from the essay (closing out in fine style):

For us, the sun is an important existence. We respect and fear the nature.

just gold