SOME BOOZE WITH YOUR BIRD?
A new Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Tokyo comes complete with a fully stocked bar called KFC Route 25, in honor of the highway that runs past the original Sanders Café in Kentucky. Whisky, tequila, vodka, rum all available… Name your poison.
The Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto Prefecture-along with some help from a nutty professor from Osaka University-has come up with a 600-gram human-shaped pillow called a “Hugvie” that allows cellphone users to “feel closer” to the people they are talking to. You insert your phone in the pillow’s head and conversations will cause the Hugvie’s heart to beat. Really.
A government survey has revealed that one out of every four Japanese adults has thought of offing him/herself, “with young people more prone to such thoughts than others.” A round of Hugvies, please.
Researchers at the Shibaura Institute of Technology (we don’t even want to speculate on the acronym for this one) figure that some 40 or so dams in Japan sit above confirmed active fault lines.
Meanwhile, a network of more than 150 earthquake and water pressure detectors is in the plans for the sea off Japan’s east coast. The National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention says the devices will help “to more quickly and accurately predict tsunami.”
A Mainichi survey found that more than 2,000 bridges in at least 107 local municipalities in Japan have never been inspected, mostly due to “financial difficulties.”
stats
25 Percent of Tokyo’s foreigners who left Japan temporarily following 3/11, according to a Tokyo Metropolitan Government survey
56 Percent who did not leave Tokyo
5 Percent who moved to other places in Japan
75 Percent of foreigners who relied on TV broadcasts for their post-March 11 info
37 Percent who got their information from the internet]
7 Percent who used newspapers to keep up-to-date after the disasters
APARTMENTS OF DOOM
A 23-year-old nurse was found stabbed to death in a friend’s apartment in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture. The friend said he was out with work buddies at the time.
The skeleton of a 45-year-old man who died more than two years ago was found in a Saitama apartment when the owner of the unit went to check on him… Probably wondering why the rent was so late.
With up to 14,000 people dying annually in the bathtub-more than three times the number killed in traffic accidents in 2011-the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will conduct research on bathtub fatalities. At least they left nice, clean corpses…
Two men in their 60s were arrested for murder after the dead body of another sexagenarian was found dumped in the mountains near Kobe. A financial dispute was apparently the root of the problem, as it so often is in these cases.
Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko played a little tennis at the Imperial Palace on April 30. It marked the first time the 78-year-old Emperor played the sport since having heart bypass surgery in February.
A bus accident in Gunma Prefecture that claimed the lives of seven people and left another 39 injured was being attributed to “cutthroat competition in the bus industry and the resulting overwork among drivers.” The driver apparently dozed off on the overnight trip to Tokyo Disneyland.
Isn’t Funny And Is Cheap
And Wrong
Swims Home?
S Korean forced laborers during Japan’s colonial rule win 1st legal victory
National May. 26, 2012 – 06:50AM JST
South Korea’s government was urged Friday to show support for victims of Japan’s colonial role, following a landmark legal ruling that Japanese companies should compensate conscripted Korean workers.The calls came after the Supreme Court overturned earlier rulings that nine conscripted laborers or their relatives were not entitled to damages from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel for unpaid wages and suffering.
The Supreme Court sent the cases back to the high courts for retrial, sparking calls for the South Korean government to push Japan into taking responsibility for past actions.