Deborah Lansford comments

Oh, wow!!

...so that your last worldly desire will be an Ultraman temple block?

Well for THAT price, it could end up being your only worldly possession. (O.O)

However, we strongly endorse reading books that have actual words in them.

Youy're not the boss of me! reads unopened sculpture of a book

Heel proponents (IN THIS ARTICLE) de-codified:

"Hey, Japanese women! Remember how this painful thing was considered feminine? Do this new painful thing or you're ugly!"

Seriously. If you like heels, okay. If you wanna go through the pain and trouble, more power to you. But you can learn proper posture without high heels. Seems like folks in the article pretend like the way to solve Japan's bad posture is to wear heels when other countries (with a higher occurance of heels) also slouch or walk with a bad pace or what have you.

Ugh.

Shoot, what the heck is wrong with wanting a copy of your records? I worked at an orthopedic clinic in America and "I want a copy of my records" didn't always equal "I want a second opinion." Shoot, "I want a second opinion" didn't always mean "I hate you and your clinic please go die in a fire."

If someone wanted their records, we sent them to the records department because they were their records. Sometimes you gotta think and plan things. I also ran across patients who wanted a second opinion (and a glance in the appointment notes showed that the doctor actually gave their blessing for a different doctor they knew to make sure that treatment was the right call.) And a lot of these doctors were primadonnas! SMH.

don't agree with Trump on basically anything, but I do agree that monitoring all religious institutions is rational. All >religious organizations are just fraudulent con schemes, so should be monitored and taxed

My problem is that he didn't define what these "other places" would be. And it seems that as far as his view on religious institutions goes, mosques are the only places where you can find bad people. If he wants to keep surveillance on every place of worship, he would've said so. But as he only named mosques and etc (side note: I'm betting someone told him to add something in there besides mosques) it is concerning.

And he'll need a whole a special group of Plumbers to do it......

If I see John Leguizamo anywhere near the White House after I move back to the States, I'm swimming to Canada!

“We have to maybe check, respectfully, the mosques and we have to check other places because this is a problem that, >if we don’t solve it, it’s going to eat our country alive,” Trump said at a rally in Atlanta.

What "other places" could he possibly mean? Sounds more like "We have to maybe (LOL) check, snicker respectfully, the mosques. ......................... Oh, and, uh, etc places. Like bakeries. Next to mosques. And schools! ... Which are near mosques. And bus stops that are within viewing distance of mosques."

Seriously, he sounds more ridiculous for putting in "other places" without giving a single example, as his bias against Muslims is well-known.

I have to cover up my tattoos at work. (I work at a school in Japan.) I'm moving back to America soon, and I really badly want (on my last day) to wear a dress WITHOUT tights and show what I've had to hide for two years! X-D Along with telling the principal "See, the real reason I couldn't join everyone at the onsen that day was...."

I'm just still shocked that the parents were telling the truth.

I just thought the comments they included in the article were hilarious.

Tweeting about being in a spa when there's a paper trail that ties it to taxpayer only. Brilliant. "Chilling at a spa with taxpayer's money. #blessed #winning"

I have to admit, this had me nervous-laughing. Such a violent crime, but executed in a very atypical manner.

It really is amazing how bad some of the taxi driver are. I had to take taxi to destination in small town Japan. Had the address in Japanese, the phone number, and a web page >open on my phone showing the exact place, name , address etc. Still took the guy 15 minutes of studying old paper maps and several phone calls to dispatch before we started on our >epic journey (about 3000 yen trip). I mean, how hard is it with a GPS in your car? Punch in the phone number and go.

I hear ya! Tried to tell this taxi driver how to get somewhere, he takes the long way around and I was like "what the crap, dude?? I didn't say to turn there!" And then he "generously" takes 20 yen off of something that was still about 100 yen more than it was supposed to be. I've taken that route enough times to know what the price is supposed to be, and this was the second time he took the long way around (that I told him not to take) and got extra money from me.

Spaceballs did it first.

And I haven't heard about anyone coming forward to say that some kid threw rocks at them while they were on that mountain. Kinda hard to just take the parents' word for it with such glaring inconsistencies as changing their stories and (possibly?) no witnesses to corroborate their claim as to what preceeded the child going missing.

But again, gotta use qualifiers here. I just haven't heard of witnesses coming forward, and don't you think any witnesses (even those just claiming to be witnesses who were never there) would be perfect for journalists to interview?

and a sharing economy in which owning things like cars is seen as almost unhip.

Not sure who would think like this about the necessity of a car except for hipsters....

A fair point, Scrote. Not to mention the kid would've either had to have had stones with him and throw them from the car, or there would've had to have been wide places off the mountain road where one could stand and throw rocks. I'm not in Hokkaido, much less near that mountain, but I'm not entirely sure that mountain roads in Japan provide that opportunity.

Amazon Echo chief evangelist David Isbitski.

I hoped that was a typo, a glorious typo that accidentally satirized companies trying to (to borrow the phrase) preach the gospel of their product. That is his real title, and I now have a sad.

It's not the fact that the Eurpoean Middle Ages had European weapons. It's not the fact that many cowboys had guns. It's not the fact that a major plot device in Star Wars is STOPPING the planet-destroying weapon. No. It's all that Lego, while making toys emulating ideas which had weapons DARED TO INCLUDE THE WEAPONS!!!!! LEGO IS EVIL!!!!

"Trust your GP or nurse to prescribe antibiotics when you need them." As much as I like my GP here in Japan, he prescribes over a dozen doses of antibiotics every time I have a cold or severe allergies. I think that advice is better suited to other places.

Headline: Kid takes down 444 school websites. Article: "he turned out to be a little incompetent himself when it came to hacking."

I'm not saying this kid handled things maturely, but HOW IN THE WORLD IS ACHIEVING YOUR GOAL MORE THAN 400 TIMES OVER ONSIDERED INCOMPETENT? Lacking a solid plan, yes. Incompetent? Less so, in my opinion.

NHK story: I lived here in Japan for about 3 or 4 months when an NHK man came to the door. I kept telling him I don't even own a TV. He seemed surprised and was like "do you watch nothing?" and I told him I watch DVDs and YouTube on my laptop. I swear, I had to tell him I didn't own a TV about 5 times before he stopped. I was about to drag him inside and give him a forced tour to prove I didn't have a TV! A few months later, a lady came by. Also NHK. I told her I didn't own a TV. She was like, "Oh, okay. Have a nice day."

I'm surprised that the long history of hiragana and katakana seem as if they're treated like an afterthought. If something has been around since about the 5th century (and I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't start questioning it until Westerners arrived,) then it'll take a bit for noticable changes to occur to said thing.

Kishida: All your maritime expansion is kinda freaky. Can you maybe just chill? China: How about YOU chill? NOW THERE'S MORE ART(icles)!

Seems to me like it echoes the higher-ups shoe-horning in the old styles and old ways of thinking, instead of committing the "sin" of acknowledging that lots of people have different ideas now. "Everything and everyone in Japan is quiet and homogenous and simple because that's totally what we are. Yeah. Definitely." -- This committee via their choice.

Daito_Hak:

Totally reposting with your comment. A-freaking-men.

For those saying that a 19-year-old shouldn't be considered a minor, I think it's because the age where you're considered a real adult in Japan is 20.

I came to Japan in early August of '14, working at three schools, and that girl was a student at one of my schools. I'm glad I never met the "mother."