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Costco Amagasaki Branch
Long, long escalator at Costco Amagasaki.
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Kuidaore
Famous Osaka landmark with clown mascot. Nuff said.
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Nepalese Rock Salt
T was importing this rock salt from Nepal, but stopped after receiving the first shipment. Somehow I understand why without asking.
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Vaio U3 & Wordtank G50
Adam bought a Canon Wordtank G50 in Nipponbashi today. Much more compact than past models and dwarfed by my U3 micronote.
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Free E-books: The Baen Free Library
If you like (mostly science) fiction, you should definitely check out the Baen Free Library. On the home page you will find a mission statement by the head “librarian,” Eric Flint, who explains why the books in the library, even though most of them are also available in paper form, are made available for free download. After ordering several paid subscriptions in order to read sequels to books I found in the free library, I can say that I agree with Mr. Flint’s reasoning 100%. I greatly admire what these people are doing. Over the past couple years I’ve read every book available for download in the Free Library (I…
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Fishing Awaji Shima
The gokai, AKA bloodworm, is a nasty looking worm that looks pretty threatening. In addition to its abundance of legs and segments, it has a vein running the length of its translucent body that pulses blood down from head to tail. Its mouth looks like the Predator’s, and when you touch it the worm will whip around and try and bite you. It only took me three days to work up the courage to pick up the whole worm without using pliers. Actually, I guess it doesn’t really hurt if they bite you but it looks like it does. So what can you catch around here, along the coast where…
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N. Mancer Returns
William Gibson is blogging again: http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp
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Starbucks Clone
It was bound to happen, right? I mean, many successful chains and brands have to put up with people ripping off their designs or ideas. In-N-Out was ripped by Volks in Japan (which doesn’t even serve anything you can get at In-N-Out), Dr. Pepper has Mr. Pibb, Dr. Grip pens were copied by PHD, but the mother of these has to be The Original Tommy’s World Famous Hamburgers. I wish we had taken photos, but when I was 10 years old, Kohei, my dad, and I took a survey of the Los Angeles area looking for Tommy’s knockoff restaraunts, and what we saw was a wealth of not-so-subtle immitation: Tommie’s,…
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i left my hairy beast
Damn, this is the funniest thing I’ve seen all week: Absolutely hilarious eBay ad for motorcycle helmet (First seen at Gen’s blog, but the eBay page he linked to got taken down.)
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Well Done
Back in January, in this post, I wrote about Japan’s de facto online price comparison site, kakaku.com. Much like Buy.com and other American equivalents, kakaku is constantly expanding their listings – from all manner of new and used electronics to insurance plans, hotel rates, and sports equipment. Even so, I was surprised to visit their page for the first time in quite a while this morning and find their newest listing: Funeral services. Link: http://www.kakaku.com/sougi/ I’ll translate the instructions for you: STEP 1: Select desired funeral plan and region. Plans available are Cremation Only (I assume there’s a further choice of Regular or Extra Crispy), Family and Relatives, Standard (40…
