imomofo comments

Sucks that I cannot change my style of unkempt hair and permanent stubble, I'm not Caucasian, some Asians have follicle troubles as well. I haven't paid for a haircut for 23 years, I let my nose hair grow till they become part of my pathetic unmustachey stubble, my sideburns are not even and I never ever never comb my hair. I'm married with kids now, but the aforementioned look of a treeplanter who doesn't own a proper shaving kit hadn't prevented me from having a less than mundane love life while I was living in Jp when I was younger. Conversely, it's the pretty boys with their go sen yen hair cut and little brother confidence problem that seem not to be able to muster up the courage to ask the girl of their dreams out even when they're all spruced up like '21st century peacocks', well, more like peas, than like cocks, I suppose...

Found On Road Dead, Fix Or Repair Daily, that's what Ford stands for. Japanese people, please, take the advice of us N. Americans who have had to live with shoddy quality of car companies that needed to be bailed out cause their cars are just one word away from what you dump into a toilet. Stay away, believe me and you'll thank me later. Well, unless, you're considering to buy a Dodge pickup truckup, of course, those things are almost indestructible, but then again, you don't really need those in Japan. Get bicycles, people, when the world run out of gas, you can still pedal out of there.

France is leading the way on this? That's a first.... But I think world sympathy is gonna go to Gadafi, doesn't matter what he done or which devil's reincarnation he is. Just another classic case of NATO and American bullying. I say if NATO and the states got ballz, go take on China. You know they'll get their butts so whooped.....

I normally would care about royal weddings as much as I care about celebrity gossip. Zip all. But Prince William and Princess Kate look like they're in love and the world needs more moments like this. I do really hope their marriage work out better than Charles' and Diana's, I really hope so. Congratulations and best wishes to William and Kate and may the future bring you happiness and lots of kids.

If marijuana becomes legal, the first people to protest it would be the growers. We work with industrial hemp(oil, fabric and hopefully building material). It's the one plant that can be used for almost anything and everything. I just hate it when people compare it to alcohol, heroine or other hard drugs. Marijuana is less addictive than say, your favorite brand of potato chips, and I do not see what the hysteria against mj is about. People who are spitting vitriol against a plant they are not educated on sounds like xenophobic rednecks saying all black people are criminals when they never even been close to a black person.

Does anybody know the main mineral contents in Tamagawa Onsen waters?

This reminds me of China in 03 during SARS. Beijing and Guangzhou were hit hard. Those who made it out to south and west were shunned when they presented their id's at guesthouses and some hotels. We had a few month old baby at the time, we took in some friends from Beijing cause they had nowhere else to go and we had room and everybody was asking us if we weren't afraid to catch SARS. And SARS is almost undetectable unless you're sick and running a fever(that's why all the airports/train stations/bus stations put in digital thermometers afterwards), yet we took the risk. And radiation is detectable if you got a Geiger counter, so I don't see why people are freaking out. Ask for that hotel staff who refused the JCB cards, I don't even think it's true, and above all the comment that Japan has been reduced to radioactive wasteland and it's economy is in shambles, I couldn't even imagine a level headed person uttering those words if they've actually seen footage of what happened on Mar 11. Totally sensationalist article aimed at readers who look to expand their world view alongside their National Enquirer, FOX news or the Sun.

Nuclear power is about greed, pure and simple. The energy companies want to sell you subsidized energy which btw itself is a relic of the Cold War. What are the uses of spend uranium rods? Absolutely zip all except to give us a problem for the next thousand years or so. I cannot believe all the short sighted fools who still think nuke power is still a viable option for us. NO, IT"S NOT. If you think it is, I'll like to buy you a one way ticket to Fukushima, if you nuke advocates still want nuke power, contact me, and I'll buy you a ticket to close to FK and you can stay there with your SAFE radiation alongside the survivors of the earthquake/tsunami. People in Japan, especially those afraid of the dark like conbini stores and pachinko parlors need to tone down their usage as well as regular folks. You don't really need warmed toilet seats. Last time I checked, your bum turning a tad cold on the throne hasn't killed anybody. And a few less lights on the streets of the big cities is not gonna cause anybody to get lost between say, Shibuya station and the shopping malls directly across. I could go on and on and on, but I know some of your nuclear trolls would try to flame me. But let's not do that, let me buy you a ticket to Fukushima from anywhere in the world, I'm serious, any takers. Btw, I do have ways to make sure you stay there when you get there, so no jokes here even though it's the Fool's day.

Moderator: Please tone down your rhetoric and refrain from calling anyone fools. It reflects badly on yourself.

I'm so lost for words. 2 year olds don't tidy up. You tidy up after them. Maybe this guy's father did this to him when he was younger, who knows? But still, it's no excuse. Where's the father? What's with all these single mothers nowadays? Is there no home/sex/life education in Japanese schools? People(guys especially) should understand how easy it is to get pregnant or get somebody pregnant and how much of a challenge it is actually to raise a kid or 3. It's not something you give up cause it's cutting into your time or cramping your style. I think one of the best ways that we can move forward with this is make every couple who thinks about having a kid babysit or relative's kid or kids for a minimum of 300 hours to get some experience and really see if they're cut out for the job. For the most mundane jobs, you need a cv and proof of experience, I don't see why the simple job of raising our next generation be any less demanding. And mothers, don't leave your kid with some dude you just picked off the streets. They're just looking to get laid and some free food, not be the father/caregiver of the kid of the guy who's left you behind.

Not only Obama not have Congress' approval, even Harper joined in the fray without consulting Parliament first. Hey, Canada, wouldn't our money be better spent elsewhere, such as the war on weed? I don't care about the US intervening, it's their job as world police, but Canada trying to play with the big boys is laughable. Yeah, send in the last dozen or so again CF18 that are not yet falling out of the sky to potentially get shot down, are the Libyans gonna compensate us for that if it happens? I doubt it. Why not send the $20 mil or so to run such an op to the quake/tsunami victims in Japan? That would have been more heroic and noble. Before I get flamed that we're doing the right thing, protecting civilian, yadayada just remember how tiny our military is even compared to Singapore or Denmark, so our forces should be for DEFENSE only. We just absolutely cannot afford such trivial expenses, not in this tough economy.

Wild ganja parties? ORLY? Where?

Avatar won best foreign film? Why? Because they felt sorry for the Na'vi? Might as well have picked Iron Man 2. Did they even screen 'The King's Speech'? If these people are movie critics, we all are too, and probably will pick better movies. On a side note, my wife watched Confessions and she said it's sick and twisted. Still haven't watched it myself yet.

Not a fan of the SS, but good on them. Whaling is so 18th century. Go back to a 5000 year old Japanese culture. Grow hemp. You need oil? You got oil. You need food? You got food. You need fiber? You got fiber. Stops hanging on to excuses of culture and tradition, they just don't cut it anymore. Unsustainable, unenvironmental and just simply uncool. One day, scientists find a way to hook into the brain of a whale, and find out all along they knew the secrets to space travel, cure for cancer, world peace and we'll be like, wtf had we been doing? Just saying, you never know.....

I'm not Japanese and I haven't napped since I was a toddler. But in Jp, somehow, even with a full night's sleep I find myself nodding off while on the train, waiting the car being filled up by overeager attendants, waiting for the wife to get ready to go out etc. Somehow it stops once I moved to China, even though the Chinese take plenty of naps too after too many late nights of mahjong and baijiu.

No.2 is still the first loser. In China, building ghost cities and infrastructure contribute to the GDP. How many new cities are being built in Japan? None? China's infrastructure is likely to grow for the next little while, hence it's GDP too. As for Japan being more expensive than China, take a look at property values. I can get a pretty decent house in Kyushu for about 100g usd, here in countryside China, that amount of money will buy me a bigger flat. And in China, when you by property, you don't own it, nobody in China does, the government owns all the land. Education in China is sparkly propaganda at best, but an increasing number of post secondary students are choosing to finish their education in developed countries. Japanese have creativity and sense of perfection, the Chinese have neither of these qualities. I'm not bashing Chinese, I'm an overseas Chinese living in China myself and understand the culture and people quite well after 13 years of being here. And no, the poor are not happy unlike some previous poster mentioned. Having to slave most of your life for minimal pay does not mean 'fire in the stomach', it's just the need for survival. The rich here, well, they're like most rich in other places, as long as they're making money, they couldn't give a flying eff about the social condition of their country. The rich knows that China is not stable, at most 10 years, the Chinese economy is gonna tank and with that taking the whole government with it. I'm not preaching revolution, it's just that over the last couple hundred years, it seems to be the normal way for change to come to China. I wish China the best as it basks in it's glory for the next little bit till things fall apart. Old Chinese proverb; The 3 kingdoms once disunited will strive to be united and once united, sh!t will hit the fan and things will fall apart, again.

When is the waterproof, shockproof TS3 coming out? The TS2 had some good reviews so I think I'm gonna switch over from Canon, unless Canon comes out with a better waterproof, shockproof offering before the TS3.

Just like Christians, there are all kinds of Muslims. I grew up in a moderately Islamic country in SE Asia and those people are some of the most laid back Muslims I've ever met. Only thing they don't allow in their country is alcohol and pork, so yeah, sadly, no bacon. Here in China, the Hui or Muslims, most of them don't look different from your average Chinese bad driver. And the Uighurs, Muslims from Xinjiang look Turkish. Muslims in India look no different from their Hindu neighbours, except for the women in burqa. I believe the radical Muslims are like 1% or less of the entire Islamic community of more than a billion. The radicals are just doing a good job at grabbing headlines. This is no defense for the extremist Muslims who believe mass murder is ok if the victims are infidels(and often not). Humans are good at one thing if nothing else, killing. It's just not a Islam thing. People just need a group to spite at. But be careful, never know who's next. I see you Mennonites hiding in the corner trying not to get picked.

How can these people do this to a 3 year old kid? I'm strict with my children, but this is not right. Spend more time with your kid. Our 2 boys by the time they were 3 fully understand that they have their own toys and other stuff are off limits unless they ask first. And of course they still break our stuff, but it's normal for kids to break stuff, heck, I still do it all the time myself. As for kids getting in your way, they just want to check out what you're doing and try to imitate. Monkey see, monkey do. Not trying to sound harsh here, but the 45 year old deserve to be tied up for 20 days to a rock and just have his diapers changed and see how he feels about it.

Good to know, do they have an online version? In English?

How busy are the train track in Nikko? I've been there once and don't think I even saw a train track. If I have to guess, this is not an accident.

Yeah, right, I bet it'll only be China good news and nothing about the famine and droughts that's going on here at the moment. Their reporters should come out here to the hinterlands of China where I live and truly see what's going on instead of reporting what luxury brands city Chinese are into now. They should report on the amount of everyday nonsense and stupidity that goes on in China because of their crappy education and lack of common sense. Anybody with 2 brain cells to rub together here can set up a factory making cheap stuff while ripping off their workers to get rich and buy houses and imported luxuries while more than half their countrymen/women live in abject poverty. This is not a rant against China. I just tell it as it is without the pretty propaganda.

That's one more reason my kids are not growing up in jp. I'm sure what doesn't kill you will make you stronger, but this......

No health, no wealth.

Aerosmith is still around. High school memories, I'm getting old....

I think the only truth here is the neatness thing. The messiest people I've ever lived with(not including my wife) are all female. I've lived in basements with 4 guys and I've shared bigger houses with an all girl crew and I got to say guys get the dishes done more regularly and the rug stays cleaner longer. It's not just Japanese girls, it's across all races and cultures. Mind you, these are single girls I'm talking about, not married or moms.

The time, the time....darn. Isn't that just too much of a coincidence? Was buddy in a hurry? Maybe to get somewhere so he can start hitting his ozzie? Or were there friends waiting for him? Dude, you have to make it here for 4:20, and buddy realized he spent too much time playing with the iPads at the Apple store cause he was all zoned out and had to rush. Man, in some provinces of some countries I would not mention here, but I'm sure at that particular time, even the cops are taking a tea break.

To the people taking this opportunity to bash China just because it's Chinese news, I got to say you people got class and probably would do fine as a SS guard back in WW2 in Austwitz gassing the state's enemies or information extractor at Abu Ghraib. Victims of disasters are the same everywhere. Instead of expressing sympathy and condolensces to the people who perished, you took the time to bash the 'skill' of Chinese construction. For the 'mericans(which the majority of us on here are), this is akin to foreigners pointing out how shoddy the WTC towers construction were the day it collapsed. Sympathy and generosity goes a long ways, people. You just never know when you're are going to be needy enough to be on the receiving end yourself, yeah, even you anonymous brave armchair internet commentator hiding behind your screen handle and proxy servers.

Looking at the pic again, the guy with the camera in the front row look really really happy.

People, this is stupid. It's a waste of a Saturday, instead, do it on a Monday or midweek and tell your boss it's for a patriotic thing. Free day off, everybody wins. What with that pic of Liu, btw? It's like going to a protest against Walmart and you have a 'Sony Sucks' sign. Cohesiveness, people, you got to stick to a topic else it's just confusing.

I think China should have it's version of the Nobel and give out to awards to people who expose the lies and manipulations of the US and other western governments, like the dude who runs whatreallyhappened.com and give recognition to people ignored by the MSM like Indian rights activists or inner city volunteers which would highlight the scum and decay going on in Western societies. Just saying. With all this China bashing because people are so blinded by the msm and just because people are just so freaking stoopid that they actually think CNN and Faux is the news, wtf....