Jon versus The Chikan (or why yelled at a Japanese person in English before throwing him off the train)
Last week I played the part of a confused and then horrified observer. I was on my way to work, riding the always overcrowded Saikyo line, when a nervous and (frankly) gross looking man got on the train. He seemed to be with his girlfriend, a man-ish looking woman dressed all in white with a knee-length frilly skirt. During the train ride I was sure some funny business was going on, but I wasn't sure what to make of it. At first they seemed to be together, but I had a nagging feeling they were not. Read more [...]
Things I've learned in Japan: combover
Things I’ve learned in Japan: “Barcode” is Japanese-English for “combover.
日本で習ったの物：バーコードは英語で「combover」。
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Dear Japan, Thank you for Homo Sausage
I’m a fairly juvenile person, but this is nearly to o juvenile for me. Japan has really done it this time. It almost seems too ridiculous to be an accident. Convenience stores like Seven-Eleven stock a snack called Homo Sausage. Come on!
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Alcohol, Monkeys, and British Accents
It is very interesting to see the parallels between us humans and our distant relatives. We have a pretty big ego when it comes to our evolution out of the wild and onto main street. It is in moments like these that we can remember how far we haven’t come and that parts of us are bound to nature.
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My iPod Touch has a bad sense of direction
The iPod Touch has had some weird glitches and bugs, but this one pops up for me often. It seems that sometimes the iPod Touch get's confused about whether it is horizontal or vertical. Instead of choosing one it tries to hedge the bet by taking a little from column A and a little from column B. If you shake it or just leave it alone for a while it'll figure things out and get back to normal eventually. Read more [...]
Travel by (local) train for cheap in Japan
There's a little known ticket in Japan called the Seishun Juhachi kippu (literally "Youth 18 ticket"). While it was originally conceived as a ticket for the young people, nowadays it's used by anyone and everyone who likes traveling on the cheap. The ticket costs ¥ 11,500 and is good for five (consecutive or non-consecutive) days of travel. That means you only pay ¥2,300 a day!
You just show the person at the ticket gates, get it stamped the first time you use it, and you're traveling for next Read more [...]
Paywalls and Crowdsourcing
I saw this in the NYTimes recently:
The Lede is tracking reports of the damage and the tsunami warnings. Are you in an affected area? What are you seeing? Send your photos to pix@nyt.com
What's interesting to me is that they are basically asking people to work for the NYTimes for free. This isn't a new idea, it actually already has a name, it's called crowdsourcing.
What makes it interesting is this:
Taking a step that has tempted and terrified much of the newspaper industry, The New York Times Read more [...]
Using the JP (Japan Post) to Send Money
If you want to send money from Japan you can use the post office. The JP (Japan Post) used to be the best deal in town. Nowadays there are other ways that are just as good. Short of setting up an account with CitiBank (which is marginally better), it'll be pretty much the same no matter where you send money from.
Below you find the important pages from the JP booklet. You can send money in two ways.
One way is to send a money order to an address, this is the most annoying way because you have to Read more [...]
How American movies change when they are exported
Translation has always been interesting to me. It is interesting to me how something like a movies are translated. Even before making it to the theater the movie can be changed dramatically through translation. The name of the movie can reshape the expectation and focus of the movie for example. While not lingual, the movie poster can also be “translated” for a different audience.
Meryl Streep's It’s Complicated is an example of those two things happening at once. The result is that the Read more [...]
Of Foreclosed Homes and Yachts
Sometimes juxtaposition is all the world needs to explain itself.
