TanakaTaro comments

That West Midlands Brum or the American one?

This was published in BCCJ Acumen, so it will be the (original) West Midlands one.

Great win for Palace which makes in four wins in a row and a perfect start under Pardew. Palace vs. Man Utd in the final and a chance to avenge 1990 perhaps?

@ebisen

I recommend Hitachino Nest White Ale. As the name suggests, it's a Belgian-style white ale rather than a German-style weizen. They are both made from wheat though, so are very similar. You can pick it up from upmarket import supermarkets like seijoishi.

If you want something easier to find, then Ginga Kogen makes a canned wheat beer that you cam find in convenience stores. It's a blue can with reindeer on it.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, of course.

All those ex-pats driving on an IDL, take note! Once you register as resident you must Apply, and take a written and driving test. Any one know the time allowed to make this conversion? used to be 1 year, but might be 90 days..

http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/foreign/kokusai_m/pdf/koku1eng.pdf

It's supposed to be one year after arrival in Japan. You can't extend it by leaving and re-entering. Some people have been told that you can't use an IDL if you already have a Alien Registration card. I'd be safe and get the license as soon as possible.

Also, not all ex-pats will have to take a written and practical test. I'm from the UK and got my license a couple of weeks ago. All I had to do was fill out some forms, get my British license officially translated and take an eye-test. Only cost me 4000 yen - a LOT less than the possible fine for not doing so. Canadians and people from most European countries can also get licenses here fairly easily.

Self checkout at the supermarket just requires me to touch "YES" if I am of legal age, and the liquor store doesn't ask anything at all.

That's exactly what the ID process at convenience stores is like. Either something flashes on screen saying you need to be over 18 and the staff member presses a button to confirm, or you need to press it yourself. There's actually no proof of age required at all.

I had to press the button when I bought a non-alcoholic beer one time. Tasted like carbonated wheat-flavoured water - not great.

Uphill with hard wheels - they certainly weren't making it easy for themselves!

If anyone's interested in this kind of thing, my friend Takashi went from Hokkaido to Okinawa by skateboard. Google "Takashi's great journey" to see the video.

@papigiulio

Kappa-zushi and Kura-zushi both have the shinkansen system in most of their Osaka restaurants I think.

Anyway, I think Japanese need to be careful of the abbreviations they use more than anything.

Definitely! I'm guessing you know the abbreviation for "First Kitchen"? 「ファッキン」

the device doesn’t allow for multitasking

What's he talking about? Multi-tasking has been possible on the iPhone for a while now.

Only 4000? That's far more than most good 2 hour service eat and drink places here, and almost twice as much as many high class places for two hours.

It's a joke on the fact that the Japanese and English meanings of "free drink" are very different. Don't take it literally. Also Kitashinchi is a very expensive area.

My mother-in-law got so "pissed" about having to put up with her husband's bad aim that she had a urinal installed.

I agree with Bruce. If the second amendment is taken away, what next? Are they going to take away the third amendment too?! Then there would be British troops quartering in people's homes all over the US!!! Anyone who says these rights are outdated is deluded!

Pissed?? I still can't believe Brits say this to mean they are wasted, tanked, drunk.

I heard "pissed" or "pissed-up" comes from the Australian slang word "piss", meaning a bad brew. Being "pissed" certainly makes you piss more. The British English for angry is "pissed off", so there is no confusion. There are also some colourful expressions that come from the term, such as "he couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery."

Expressions that annoy me would include Americanisms such as "I did it on accident." I think this came from people mishearing "an accident".

On purpose <--> by mistake, by accident.

Base4funk

if they don't have a gun, they can use, for example: a Baseball bat or a knife or a chainsaw or a Hammer and if you are a skilled person, you can inflict very quickly serious damage on people wielding ANY of these tools.

I think you are missing the point. You can do serious damage with a baseball bat, but when was the last time you heard of someone committing mass-murder with a baseball bat? In just this case we are talking about 26 fatalities. Can you really see that happening with any of the other weapons you mentioned?

Cats are not scared of shiny things. How would they drink water otherwise? Other people have suggested that cats don't want to defecate near to fresh water, but this water bottle thing has been well and truly debunked.

Check the video for cats being pretty indifferent about water bottles, mirrors and CDs: http://www.japanprobe.com/2010/11/05/plastic-water-bottles-vs-cats/

Sadly, the details will be the first to melt away and within a minute all you'll have in your drink is "ice balls".

At 9cm x 9cm (3.5 square inches) you're going to need a pretty big glass.

I believe it's called the "Union Jack"... just "Union" makes it sound like an American flag.

Actually, Union Flag is the correct name for the flag. Many people say that it should only be called the Union Jack when it is hanging from the jackstaff of a boat. Of course no one cares about that so the names are used interchangeably.

I find it kinda funny that the picture leading the article shows Himeji Castle (correct me if I'm wrong), but it's not mentioned as a great place for hanami.

You're correct. I was just about to say the same thing. If the other places in the list are so great, why not show pictures of them?

@Zichi It was restored in 1997! Still looks good from the outside though. Plum blossoms are in full bloom now.

Poor sportsmanship if you ask me.

Bicultural has already explained the goal difference rule. I'd just like to add that continuing to try even when you have a big lead is actually good sportsmanship as you are showing respect to your opposition. Bad sportsmanship would be just show-boating and trying tricks to embarrass them.

5) prepare to lose alot of money using the shinkansen ( high speed rail )

That might be true if it wasn't for the JR rail pass. Unlimited travel for the cost of a trip from Osaka to Tokyo.

The "http://" is missing on all those links so they all attempt to link internally. Might want to fix that!

But nearly everyone I know has moved on to Facebook and rarely post anything on Mixi any more.

Same here. About three years ago, when people met me for the first time they would occasionally ask me if I used Mixi. Now they just whip out their iPhones and add me on Facebook right away.

The annoying thing for me about mixi is that if you want to register for the developer api, you need to go through the whole phone registration AGAIN. With Facebook and Twitter you can just grab the code and widgets without registering at all.

I agree with y3chome, this guy obviously hasn't been following his main competitor very closely. Facebook is supposed to be for keeping in touch with friends. When you get a friend request it tells you not to add the person if you don't know them in real life.

This is perhaps due to the fact that everything a (Facebook) user puts up there is tied up in one place. On the other hand, Mixi offers more private and closed connections, letting the user choose the visibility of his posts and use the service on different levels

Actually, Facebook allows that too.

Mods: "every day" in this sense is two words. "Everyday" is an adjective.

Seems like a small mistake compared to using the completely unnatural (wasei-eigo) "image character".

Actress Yuki Amami, 44, is the new face of Kose's skincare brand, Grandaine Luxage Astamax.

Ah, that's better.

They've had these pictures on cigarette packets for a while now in England. I guess smokers just learnt to ignore them after a while.

I'm surprised no one has pointed out that Lotteria launched EXACTLY the same burger last year. Search google for "Lotteria Tower Cheeseburger" and you'll see that all of the results are from May 2010.

Last year it was just a standard cheeseburger that you could add extra patties for about 100 yen each up to a maximum of 10. If you went for 10 they discounted it to 990 yen if I remember correctly. So not only is the Lotteria marketing department rehashing old ideas, but they are also upping the price!

Lowest price and not Aeroflot. Strangely the cheapest airline seems to be different every time I fly. Emirates was probably the best so far, but usually cost twice as much as other airlines.

Decentralizing government functions is a great idea for an earthquake-prone nation. But why wouldn't Osaka or any other Japanese city be just as at-risk as Tokyo?

While Osaka is also at risk, it's far enough away that no one earthquake would be able to take out both cities. Also the big fear at the moment is about a Tokai quake which could completely take out Tokyo. That's the risk that Hashimoto is referring to.

Yes, my wife certainly did, as she was around 8 months pregnant when the earthquake happened. (She has since given birth to a healthy baby). I don't know if it was because of the commercials, but she had no problems having people give up their seats for her.

She must have been lucky. My friend was on crutches with a badly broken leg but no one would give up a priority seat for him. They just kept playing on their nintendo ds. He even had his crutches knocked out from under him by people rushing to get seats.

Is it seriously mini-dv format? Using tapes and standard definition (not HD)?

Seems a bit strange when the HD GoPro camera has already been on the market for ages and can be mounted to just about anything, not just bikes. Guess we'll only see this being marketed in Japan.