
Look closely at the photos. I saw this slightly bizarre story over at Asahi. A Japanese company is apparently pioneering a new technique for demolishing high rise buildings, one floor at a time, starting from the bottom floor, whilst the structure remains standing. Asahi likens it to darumaotoshi. Details follow. Read the rest of this entry »

I am really not keen on resurrecting her foul yet shrewd antics, but seeing this over at Akibablog, I can’t help but post. Not content with being arrested, the self proclaimed 22 year old sexy idol 沢本あすか/Asuka Sawamoto (30) has launched a new raunchy DVD of herself, titled as you can see “Sexy Spiral” – perhaps “Downward Spiral” would be more fitting. This has gone on sale in variety of Akiba locations, to be followed in a few days by a general release, according to the unfortunate witnesses.
I have liberally translated the well laid on description given for your delectation/revulsion: “Erotic idol Asuka Sawamoto is let loose in this radical non-nude erotic movie! The ultra close up crotch shots are a must see. A prim and proper little lady does this and that in situations sure to stir you up and get you going with the most alluring shots, totaling 70 minutes. In that slender frame lurks a captivating presence, the very limits of what can be put in an Image DVD”. Relief here and here.

Spotted on Akibablog – more shots of the drill quality English you could be learning therein, along with an interview with the Marine involved who warns that using some of that language could get you killed. The text above says “Paki☆Stan?”. Very droll. The exemplar of the “dress up woeful English textbooks with anime characters so it becomes less excruciatingly tedious for unmotivated learners” genre is of course Moetan, who now has abandoned all pretense of helping people improve their English, not that those books were not famously bad.

Mainichi reports that the resourceful if notorious Akihabara self-publicist Mrs Wide Open (30), or 沢本あすか/Asuka Sawamoto as she likes to call herself, has finally been arrested for creating a public nuisance. I can only hope that with this the endless stream of sordid photographs will cease, and we can return to ogling fine art instead. Alternatively, try her new DVD.

Remembered seeing a mention of such a thing over at Danny Choo’s a while back, but didn’t think much would come of it (excuse the pun). However, my eye was caught by this in an Akiba adult department store – and how accommodating it looks! Not a user, or an American, so unfortunately I can’t comment on whether it is truly sufficient for American use, although the flattery probably also extends to Europeans.
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This demonic robo is sure to terrify adults and children alike, and certainly makes me glad that the predominant robot aesthetic is of giant armoured killing machines and sultry temptroids, at least outside of companies trying to market hospital bots in place of Filipino nurses. And the price? A mere ¥450,000 (about $1,000,000 if current trends continue). Better to content yourself with a robot that can’t talk, but does perform reasonably well at oppressing animals.

Having explained a little about how great Rikaichan is, I’d like to introduce an excellent tool for many of the instances where Rikaichan is unusable: StarDict. This open source and cross platform dictionary software functions similarly to Rikaichan, but is not bound to a browser, being stand alone software.
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There are a few dictionary tools no student of Japanese should be without. The first amongst these is the by now quite well known Rikaichan, a dictionary extension for Firefox which, when activated, displays an inflection sensitive dictionary entry popup on mouseover of Japanese text. The original site based Rikai is now basically defunct, but deserves credit for implementing the idea.
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I had another look around Yodobashi Camera’s flagship megastore in Akihabara recently. It certainly has a excellent selection, and the store itself is very nice, but pricewise it is beaten heartily by Amazon, and any serious seller with Kakaku.com or Rakuten (although these two really require a Japanese bank account to get the best deals).
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