TokyoXtreme comments

So aspartame is considered a "healthy" alternative?

Next time I'm about to get off a train, and a 60-ish year-old gramma tries to shove me aside to get on a moment earlier, I'm going to beat her face in with an umbrella and give her a broken nose. She was acting unmannerly, so she deserves it, right? I can do this with confidence, knowing that I would receive the same light sentence as the woman in the article.

As usual, the article lacks crucial details. Talking on the phone while on the train is simply not a big deal AT ALL. The only thing bothersome about phone is the RINGTONES, which are way too loud, an essentially the domain of grandma and grandpa. Don't know why old people never turn their ringers off; I guess they can't feel vibrations. How can anyone claim to be bothered by keitai conversation, when there are non-stop, redundant announcements by a recording, and the conductor himself, who repeats WHAT WAS JUST SAID, only much more loudly and in a nasally drone. They are almost SCREAMING the announcements. THAT is what makes train-riding hell for me. Keitai conversation is usually FAR quieter than normal train conversation, and at least it is human conversation... not pointless announcement-babying. If someone growled at me for talking on the phone, I'd tell him off too. And if he punched me, that would be me turning into Michael Douglas in "Falling Down".

Why aren't they smiling!?

I always thought hanami was weirdly and awkwardly translated as "cherry blossom viewing", when it feels far more naturally described as "looking at flowers" or simply "hanami" as a native Japanese concept. Like, "Let's go do hanami tomorrow afternoon." Flower-VIEWING? C'mon.

Israeli airports actually have an incredibly secure and efficient system based on "behavioral profiling". Apparently there has not been a successful attack on their airlines in many years, yet American security refuses to overhaul their system to match.

If the 19 y.o. "man" is a minor, then shouldn't he be designated "a 19 y.o. boy"? It's especially applicable in this situation. Probably was a high school dropout. Wonder where the dead child's biological dad is, and how he feels about this news.

Lookin good to me, playas.

Hatoyama added, "Join me, and we can end this destructive conflict."

Do you suppose they tally the bombers' lives in the number of people killed?

"Train wreck! Train wreck! Got your train wreck here." That's what you hear on the corners, from the guys pushing their illegal stimulant product.

Wonder what the street name is for "illegal stimulants". Perhaps the exchange goes "hey man, you lookin' for something?" and the buyer goes, "you got any of those, you know, illegal stimulants?" and the dealer goes, "oh you mean, DRUG?"

Or how about some "diminished reality" glasses that digitally erase all the annoying flashing lights, sirens, loanshark advertisements, etc from a user's field of vision? We're talking some real heaven-on-earth technology right now.

How about portable noise cancellers that create a 2-meter bubble that surrounds the user in an envelope of silent bliss? Perfect for train stations, Shibuya streets, and department store escalators!

More sloppy reporting, and I don't know who to blame. The article is attributed only to "news reports". In this article, the only timely item that makes the 2007 incident relevant to 2010 is the fact that "it was learned" just recently. Who learned about it? How did the details come to light? What is the captain's NAME? I can't even believe this is real news.

By "analyze" he means "disappear". Here come some mysterious suicides.

Why doesn't the article tell any specific information, forcing us to assume so much? Har to believe such a story came from a real newspaper.

How about spending the development money on suicide prevention programs, and save some of the 30,000 people that kill themselves every year in Japan. That number is far higher than the number of people who've died in bomb attacks on Japanese trains, which is zero.

And I met "its", not "it's". The dumb iPhone auto-correct feature got me there.

So what is a police notebook, what information does it contain, was the officer negligent in it's theft, and what makes the theft of a police notebook newsworthy? I would have answered at least one of these BASIC questions when I was a student writing news articles for my university newspaper. May I apply for an editorial job?

Why can't she just be like everybody else and sit quietly? It's impolite and selfish to monopolize the entire classroom's attention. Seriously though, why do the windows even open wide enough to allow ledge access? My junior high didn't even have a second floor, and yet the windows still didn't open enough for even a small child to climb in or out. Suicide attempts should alert parents and teachers that there's a problem, but there needs to be a course of action that leads to a solution, beyond those silly posters that feature 19 y.o. models posing with a fist limply raised to her breast saying "don't kill yourself".

That's why it's "old media", and that's why it's disappearing; voyeuristic death isn't the turn-on that dinosaur journalists always assumed it was.

HFCS is not used in Japan, because there is no economic advantage to using it over real sugar, which is highly taxed in the USA (whereas corn is subsidized). It's cheaper to use HFCS over sugar in the USA, and that's why it's in everything. Not sure if it was invented in Japan, but the Japanese corn industry isn't huge, so I'm guessing Japan doesn't use HFCS at all.

If anyone wonders why obesity in Japan is lower than the USA, it's almost entirely due to the predominance of high fructose corn syrup that's found in almost every single processed food that requires a sweetner. HFCS simply does not exist in any food produced in Japan, it is an entirely American phenomenon. The arrival of HFCS in the American food supply corresponds directly with the spike in American obesity in the 1970s. Thai food and French food kick the swimming-in-MSG offerings of Japanese food anytime.

Is there no consideration to the dumbing down of Japanese society through an imposed "arrested development" that occurs from obnoxiously perpetual announcements and admonishments from train cars, escalators, and so forth -- mindless warnings to hold onto the rail or not to forget your umbrella -- that systematically hypnotized people into not thinking for themselves as a matter of habit? Unsurprising that there exists a copy/paste phenomenon; all people living on Japan are subject to this invasion of mind. Thank you for very much shopping at Marui today, and please be very careful to hold onto the handrail when riding the escalator. It never ends.

I am the recent owner of an iPhone, and I was frankly stunned by its lack of simple features common to every other phone I've ever seen. Can't even make simple folders to sort your inbox, nor your contact list! Contacts can be sorted through a dodgy syncing process, but a user can't even make the slightest modifications away from a PC. Unbelievable. I've only had my iPhone for days, and am regretting leaving docomo. Be ye warned! And the privacy options suck too. I'll never buy another apple product.

If the dad disappears from the kid's life and buries himself in office "work" or Thai prostitutes, then mom will undoubtedly raise the boy to know nothing of manliness. Carnivore / herbivore... please leave the English to English speakers.

I bet the battle sequences take four or five times as long as similar battles on the Super Nintendo / Super Famicom versions. Probably littered with dumb voice acting and unskippable cutscenes. It's the unskippable cutscenes in particular that forced me to abandon FFX (and the series in general) about halfway through the game. If anyone's played FFX, then probably you will remember a sequence where some flying twerp attacks you on a mountain and turns your party into zombies. That was when I said "enough".

Incidentally, there is indeed a TOILET in JR Minami-Senju　station.

Accenture should go under for having such a wack name. How could anyone take such a company seriously? What a bunch of idiots.