September 2008
11 posts
JPY5mn to spend on a cellphone? Wait for December. →
Via Keitai Watch comes news that Vertu, Nokia’s luxury cellphone brand, is to launch in Japan in December. The bottom line is three models, in stainless steel (JPY1.6 mn), yellow gold (JPY4.5 mn) and white gold (JPY5 mn).
I suppose there are people with that kind of cash hiding in the cracks in their sofas in any economic climate, but it doesn’t sit well with my old-fashioned sense of...
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We tire of your attentions, Mr. Michelin →
After the success of its Tokyo guide, Michelin is apparently doing the groundwork for a Kyoto version. They’re not having much luck. A feature of Kyoto’s leisure industry that rapidly becomes apparent when you scratch the surface is that a significant number of the high-end restaurants and ryokan won’t let you in without an introduction from an existing customer; combined with...
JAF, not JFK →
Was curious to see what the acronyms in this article about last night’s Hanshin game meant. Given the amount of glowing prose devoted to pitcher Scott Atchison, who was up fourth after three previous teammates got beaten to a pulp and rescued the Tigers from an impending pummeling with some very tight, controlled pitching, I started wondering if the article’s writer was comparing him...
Toshimi Matsuda →
Matsuda-san is a photographer I ran into by chance last night in a local place I hang out at. I didn’t get a card from him but was interested in his photos (he showed me a copy of his collection, Between the Lights), which focus on black-and-white shots taken at twilight or nighttime in remote locations like the east coast of Scotland.
His site requests no reposting of photos so I’ll...
Heartbreak riders →
The young leader of a motorcycle gang uses the phrase 失恋暴走 to describe a 20-bike zigzag through Kochi the other night to commemorate a romantic breakup. I’m not sure if he coined it or it’s an accepted phenomenon among motorbike gangs to get 20 of your mates out for a buzz when you break up with your girlfriend. But I love the phrase; it smacks of the yankii obsession with kanji, of...
Thank [deity of choice] for flat-rate data →
Softbank Mobile’s customer account website does, if not by design, put the frighteners on you at first glance. The account usage page shows just raw data with no discounts factored in; hence, my usage since about August 26 amounts (due in large part to data) to about JPY160,000. Thankfully the all-you-can-eat data plan knocks that back to about JPY6,000; but it’s a hell of a shock the...
Not like you →
Outgoing PM Fukuda’s sharp (for him) rebuke to a journalist at his valedictory press conference has the usual corners of the Japanese web ablaze. 2channeru has threads dedicated to it, blog posts abound, and Google has tens of thousands of related hits. All well and good.
What didn’t click with me at first was what the exchange really meant. The reporter used the word ひとごと to describe...
