Baibaikin comments

Shucks. Can I assume the Access Denied display in the middle of my screen is where there's an embedded link to beautiful legs? My company web server obviously doesn't approve.

Fluffy observations, some of which have hints of truth, but just superficial snapshots on the whole. The lawsuits part caught my eye - in particular:

both sides will work towards a mutually amicable resolution.

...which, in reality, means that the person who is deemed to be wrong, with or without compelling evidence, will have to pay a large amount of money. Knock an iPod-wearing, email-writing high school student off his/her bike on the way to work in the morning and be prepared to part with a few million yen. This is, of course, assuming you don't kill them with your car.

This article isn't as bad as the 'J people don't blow their nose on the train' Lonely Planet rubbish I read before I came to Japan 15 year ago, but it is overly romanticised fluff.

The Tonumas also have a 9-year-old son who was placed in a child welfare center in 2004 after being abused by his parents, police said.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 9 year old son placed in a welfare centre means we can add abuse of a new baby in 2004 to abandonment of three other babies over the years. These people are truly the scum of the earth. I object to my taxes being used to feed them in prison.

@lucabrasi, @soldave I'd give you both 10 thumbs up a piece for those comments if I could.

My son turned 2 last week, and he is going to get an extra big hug from me when I get home tonight. I can't help thinking that there's no place left in society, including prison, for this 26 year old 'man'.

@philly Couldn't agree more on the toilet seat. It's the only comfort when the paper-thin walls of my house offer no insulation. Mornings would be quite the trial without it.

Must have been a scary era when these dinosaures roamed the earth.

Yup. Very important to keep the cave door locked at all times in those days.

@David You didn't know about this guy?

http://anpanman.jp/sekai/friends/snr_tacos.html

@Ossan. I hope Brazil will get some coverage closer to its time, but this is, after all, Japan Today. I'm sure there'll be at least a trickle of Tokyo Olympics news for the next seven years.

@Probie is absolutely right. It isn't pronounced 'foo-koo'. Fukushima is not ふうくうしま.

@The Chronic

The elderly need some bootie too!

Much as I agree with you, the image is a bit disturbing.

The tickets for the Budokan are 12,000yen for 'S' seat and 11,000 for 'A'. I've seen Clapton five times and he never fails to put on a great show.

@MIrai I agree completely with you. Completely victimless crime. I wish I could be that much of an entrepreneur.

It would seem that getting away with this kind of scam in Japan is like shooting fish in a barrel. My MIL nearly fell for a scam like this and she sees her son every day of the week. Well done that bank employee for questioning the withdrawal.

It's been pointed out before by JT posters, but isn't Tepco's mishandling of the plant slipping into the territory of criminal negligence?

Might give these a go because headphones don't survive my Bear Grylls-style exercise pursuits for long. The price is also not so high as to cause distress if I discover they're no good.

Hmmm… Pretty girls tumbling about in slow motion while squirting foam. You think anyone would watch that?

Yes. I'm all about bikini-clad girls and squirting.

Oh no. If only kids were as indestructible as they think they are. A terrible thing for the girl's friend to live with as well.

People in my office were lining up at the window to take photos yesterday. I think the pot of gold was somewhere near Ochanomizu.

“The difference between fiction and reality,” he once said, “is that fiction has to make sense.”

Nicely said. And very true.

The Hunt for Red October was a standout novel of all the Clancys I have read. It was also one of the rare stories that Hollywood did justice to. 66 is still so young...such a shame.

I assume that I will be 3% worse off. If I were a voter, I'd be pestering my local MP for the government to cut unnecessary costs in order that this tax hike will have the desired effect, rather than simply fund more concrete river beds or other ridiculous public works projects designed to create employment.

She's missing the point that most people - smokers or otherwise - in big cities, especially Tokyo, don't care what other people think. As a small example, a young, bouffant hair type held up everyone on my train platform this morning because he was plucking his eyebrows. I'd like to see him and others like him get a not so cute 'dekopin' with the end of an umbrella.

I'm inclined to believe that the culture of fear that rules in most large companies here was primarily responsible for derailment. If the driver had unilaterally decided to follow the speed limit, therefore making the train late, he would probably have been looking at bullying from an idiot manager, a transfer to a dire JR job in a dark corner somewhere in Japan, with or without a paycut, or a Hello Work queue.

I wonder when Mr.Abe last got one of those from his wife? I'm assuming the wives have 'history'.

@gavoz

Phones have become smart,or have people become dumb?

Both. People have forgotten what their parents taught them when they were little. My 2 year old looks behind when he's walking or running, and constantly bumps into things as he turns around. He'll get the hang of it soon enough, but I really hope he won't forget these lessons and go the way of the tunnel-visioned drones I see outside every day.

It's not that I'm 'doubtful' about my prospects with my current company, I know for sure that there aren't any. The only way to receive training and progress to positions of responsibility is to be hired straight out of university and hang around until you're old enough. Given the limitations, I am now looking for something else, which I think is a real shame given the relationships I have built up over the years. Robert Walters, よろしくお願いします。

With the amount of times I've told my kids not to do stuff like this in supermarkets, it'll be no wonder if their pent-up stress causes them to snap in the future and go on a poking and squishing rampage. I'd better go and pick up some bubble wrap to try and curb the urges.

@TheDevilsAssistant

Meat Packs and bread.....RIP

Laughed out loud in the office at that. Best post of the month so far.

The region is popular with Japanese tourists.

The region was popular with Japanese tourists. Terrible waste of life.

...because the break and accelerator pedals are so close together in an automatic car. Besides, how fast was she going to be able to do that and not avoid correcting her mistake?! Or was she stuggling to convert that last kanji in her email with one hand? Driving ban please.