Linny-kun

Maybe you dudez know that a mag-lev train is being built that will someday connect Tokyo and Osaka. There is still a debate about whether the train should go through Kyoto or Nara. One proud citizen of Nara has taken it upon himself to... I don't know what he thinks he's doing really, but he wants the train to go through Nara.

He has constructed an amazing costume and calls himself Linny-kun (the train is known as "linear" in Japanese). For some reason he's still only an unofficial character.

ネットで話題の奈良市・非公認ゆるキャラ「リニー君」 “中の人”が明かす誕生秘話 #ゆるキャラ #地域 http://t.co/dLIL4c5E7v pic.twitter.com/VqNqm16Ql7

— クランクイン！ (@crank_in_net) September 21, 2015

It's hard not to get super pumped up when you see a maybe dead train man with a human body but no face for some reason. But Linny-kun goes the extra mile to get the kids excited.

奈良の非公認ゆるキャラ「リニー君」が新しすぎてついていけないと話題に！ http://t.co/B3x7M38Xii #ゆるキャラ #リニー君 pic.twitter.com/57auGc0ggk

— Wha2UP!? (@Wha2Up) August 27, 2015

I guess he gives any kid who wants one a "ride". He also gave an especially lucky soccer player one.

残り６試合、全勝すれば可能性は十分にある。そしてホームもあと３試合全て3000人目指そう。Ｊにむかってリニー君にライド・オン！！ pic.twitter.com/ew2m4WUjgR

— ファンタジスタ・シンジ (@shinji826) September 22, 2015

Oh, I said he doesn't have a face, but, I don't know, he has the face of death or whatever.

リニー君も登場！ 奈良クラブvs横河武蔵野FCは13時キックオフ！ pic.twitter.com/qSuX5p6MZh

— 奈良市　スポーツ振興課 (@naracity_sports) September 20, 2015

Recently he sported a nice, new, yellow outfit.

【みんなの経済新聞】 奈良市非公認キャラ「リニー君」大忙し　黄色のドクターリニー君も初登場 http://t.co/ELqjwg3ZJu #速報 pic.twitter.com/XaOcNfE15m

— ニュース速報 (@news_sokuhou) September 27, 2015

Apparently he wore this in Nara Park where tame deer roam. He said, "The deer run away from the white costume, but they're attracted to the yellow." What a wise man. When asked about how he felt about pushing his face repeatedly into the ground of a park covered in deer crap, he said, "I'm used to it."

Source: Nara Keizai Shimbun

Evil Genius Victimizes Cake Shops

Check out this goldmine.

An unemployed 45 year old woman was arrested in Itami, Hyogo under the suspicion that she committed fraud... the most delicious kind of fraud. Police say she called 1,200 stores, most of which were cake shops, and asked for a refund saying things like, "There's a hair in my cake."

They say she made around 7000 calls to stores in 30 different cities all over the country between February and July of this year. She also called directory assistance about 4,650 times because she doesn't know that the internet exists.

Of course we all fantasize about finding a hair in our food so we get a refund and then still eat the entire dish, but who, other than maybe some 1930s cartoon character, would think to lie about it?

One can safely assume that she's rolling in dough (wink, wink, bread dough that is... because she called bakeries and stuff). The police have already told the press that one bread shop gave her ¥1085, and she swindled another cake shop into coughing up ¥356. When you're getting those kind of pay days, you can't really blame her for breaking the law.

Source: Yomiuri Online

Kagoshima Governor Asks Why Girls Are Taught Trigonometry

Shouldn't we be helping lady brains
get even better at making cute food?

Yuichiro Ito, the governor of Kagoshima, asked, "What's the point of teaching high school girls about sines, cosines and tangents?" at a meeting with the prefectural board of education.

He later said, "I meant I've never used any of them. It was a slip of the tongue." I can totally relate to the guy. It's weird that I always talk about how women are lesser beings... Whoops! Another classic slip of the tongue. I meant I'm a lesser being, or whatever.


Source: Mainichi Shimbun

Also, mad props to @Mulboyne where I first saw the story.

Dong Chopped Off, Flushed Down Toilet

In what one can safely imagine is already being referred to as "the cockblocking of the century", Ikki Kotsugai (24) has been arrested for chopping off a 42-year-old lawyer's lower member and flushing it down a toilet. Many are saying it was a pretty dick move.

Kotsugai, a graduate student and former pro boxer, entered the victim's law office around 7:40pm on the 13th. He punched the victim in the face several times before prying his pants off and removing the dong with pruning shears. Then, in a move that truly took balls, Kotsugai carried the removed part to a public restroom on the same floor and flushed it down the toilet.

Kotsugai's wife works at the same law office. Police believe she may have had some sort of romantic involvement with the lawyer (or she could have been harassed, too), and the former pro boxer may have been coming for revenge.

Sources: Japan Today
              TBS

Unagi Cola

うなぎエキス入り！ 静岡発の「うなぎコーラ」が21日に発売 http://t.co/keyQnRODRB 　#うなぎコーラ　#うなぎ　#静岡　#グルメ　#ニュース pic.twitter.com/kIJ7pwVJKb

— RBB TODAY (@RBBTODAY) July 3, 2015

Kimura Drink will debut their new beverage Unagi Cola on July 21. Unagi means eel, so it's sort of a match made in heaven. No more chewing up eel and spitting into cola for me. The product will be sold in Shizuoka, a prefecture famous for its eel, in gift shops along the highway and such. It can also be ordered on Kimura Drink's website. The 240ml bottles will cost ¥200. If you order from the website, you'll be forced to order a case of 20 bottles for ¥4000.

The company actually designed an eel cola prototype 3 years ago, but the head of the company and others were very against selling the product because it wreaked of fish. We can thank some tenacious staff members who worked tirelessly to find the perfect amount of real eel extract to combine with cola that made it "easy to drink."

There are special days in Japan when people are supposed to eat eel. Recently, because people eat too much eel, the price has skyrocketed. Kimura Drink suggests drinking instead of eating eel for the event. I mean, baby birds essentially drink regurgitated fish and worms. Why not humans, too?

The company has made other "gift shop drinks" as well, like their green tea cider. They say in the future they would like to make new drinks for different regions. They're considering some sort of shrimp drink, for example. These truly are the end times.

Source: RBB Today

Handsome Gorilla in Nagoya Zoo

I wouldn't qualify this as actually being news or even a topic people are talking about, but some folks on the internet believe this gorilla at the Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya is very handsome. There's a little buzz on twitter and he even appeared on the local news.

This yummy hunk of man-gorilla meat is named Shabani. Some have compared him to themselves or other celebrities like soccer player Yoshito Okubo.

@masami_t_cnr サッカーの大久保嘉人選手がこんなツイートで話題になってますが砂川ゴリラの出番ですかね？ 最近ネットで話題のイケメンゴリラが人間のオレよりイケメンと聞いたから比べてみた。 完敗。。。 pic.twitter.com/p2soOg0kha

— きの (@kino__onik) May 22, 2015

So what do you say? Would you let this gorilla have his way with you?

Mochi Injures 5

This wants to murder you.

Of course every year people die from choking on mochi, or rice cakes, but now the treat is finding new ways to hunt human prey. At a festival in the South Village of Okayama, three women and two elementary school students were hit in the head by mochi and taken to the hospital.

According to the fire department (because apparently they're in charge of not only cats in trees, but mochi related head injuries as well) at 3:30pm an event was held where mochi was thrown from a stage into a crowd. This is a common event. Often the mochi has paper connected to it saying you won a prize. The fire department went on to explain that the mochi was round as well as pink and white. Good to know.

The festival organizers said they froze the mochi beforehand to prevent molding, and they admit that they may not have properly thawed the mochi.  They said, "We apologize that we injured people during an event that should have been fun. We will examine how to improve things like our preparation method." One would expect the investigation to take at least a few months. One solution could be to first touch the mochi to determine if it's as hard as a rock. If it is, you could ask yourself if you would like to be hit in the head with it. If not, think twice about throwing it at others.

Source: Yomiuri Online

Bones Found in Toilet

We all need to mourn in our own way.

I think when you first visit a foreign country, you are fascinated in the ways it's different. But the longer you stay there, the more you realize the similarities far outnumber the differences. We're all just humans at the end of the day.

Today I saw a story that really brought this home for me. I, like most people, grew up hearing my father's plan for his funeral multiple times a year. It was a little silly, and he admitted it wouldn't really happen, but it still brought joy into the old man's heart. The plan was to be cremated and flushed down a public toilet while his closest friends pissed on his remains. Well, it warms my heart to report that there must have been a Japanese version of my father out there.

You see, what appears to be a large amount of cremated human bones was found in a supermarket's toilet in Tokyo on the 23rd. No other details were released, but I think we can safely assume that two or three elderly men urinated all over their dear friend and then ran for the exit upon realizing that bones don't easily flush down toilets. You're in a better place, Japanese dad.

Source: Yomiuri Online

Teacher Buries Kittens Alive

Some parents argue that cats should not be murdered/tortured by teachers.

A male high school teacher in Chiba was arrested for burying five kittens alive on school property. The teacher, in his 30s, had three male students assist in digging the hole. Later, by himself, he buried the kittens, which appeared to be no older than 5 days old.

In his statement he said, "I buried them without thinking of the consequences. I didn't think about what the students would think. I'm very sorry." In his defense, it is always difficult to guess how other humans feel about burying things alive, especially when those humans are in a younger age group. The world changes so fast!

Sources: Yomiuri Online, asahi.com

Lucky Koala Poop Paper

A visual approximation of the scientist who
 came up with the with this super fun idea.

Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya had a really good way to attract visitors today: mix up dried koala poop with milk cartons and make some paper with a koala picture.

Okay, that sounds a little silly, but they also wrote, "certainly pass," on it, so it's not that crazy. The promotion was aimed at students who will be taking exams this spring. Many of them buy lucky charms at temples and shrines before tests. It stands to reason that a little poop couldn't hurt. The idea was that koalas don't fall (from trees), and in Japanese the same verb is used for fall and fail a test. Also, the word for poop is "unchi" and the word for luck is "un." That's why you sometimes see lucky poop. Also, koalas are always intoxicated, so it's probably a way to tell students that it's cool to steal a little bit of your dad's whiskey every now and again. You can see a picture of the paper on the link below.

Source: Chunichi Shimbun Online

2 Male Hyenas Refuse to Make Offspring

Fun ice cream cones or gay zoo propaganda?

I've heard of doggy style, but forcing two male hyenas to have sex in a cage style? That's not a style, is it? Well, apparently at Sapporo's Maruyama Zoo it is. The zoo announced on the 25th that the two hyenas they've been making breed together since 2010 are both male. The hyenas were never seen "banging" and, in fact, were constantly fighting when put together. One can assume that the local zoo scientists didn't find this odd because female humans often hit and bite them when they attempt to copulate.

The hyenas were a gift from Sapporo's South Korean sister city, Daejeon. It's a typical sister thing to do, tricking you into trying to make male animals have sex together. Man, it looks like the two countries are even after that whole first half of the 20th century prank Japan pulled on Korea.

It might not be that simple, however. All the zoo scientists claim that this wasn't a "wicked" prank and that it is difficult to distinguish between male and female hyenas. The zoo had to put the two to sleep to make sure. I guess the female's clitoris is bigger than the male penis. This means that South Korea may still be looking to do some other awesome prank in the near future.

Source: Doshin Web

Cat Killer Caught

Has Hitler the cat gained the ability to control feeble-minded humans?

Earlier this summer it became apparent that a cat serial killer was on the loose in the Ota Ward of Tokyo. Police were finding many dead cats and cat food laced with poison. It reminded me of when Johnnie Walker killed all those cats to make a flute out of their souls and almost reported the story, but I realized no one would know what I'm talking about. Also, it's not a very uplifting story and adds no value to your life.

Anyway, they caught the killer. If you want to read a real English write up, here's the Asahi Shimbun's one.

Some highlights from around the web:

*The police found the 33-year-old killer around 2:30am in a parking lot choking and slamming a cat into the ground. The police used this clue to deduce that this man might kill cats.

*The police then questioned him about the 45 dead cats they had found during the summer. He replied that he'd killed more than 45. This was the second hint that he may have been the killer.

*The police checked his bicycle basket and found 4 dead cats. It was looking more and more like the police had likely found their man. By the way, that brings the total to 50 known dead cats.

*The man said he'd mixed anti-freeze and farm chemicals with cat food. The police had their man!!!

*The man said he killed the cats to get stress out (this is a new strategy I'd never heard of), and because he was angry that his neighbors were feeding stray cats. He wanted to reduce the number of strays.

*The man claims to be a cat lover. Later the police checked his house and found his pet cat that seemed to be well cared for.

*The man is named Shinya Kuboki and is a computer programmer. So far there has been no mention of him claiming to be Johnnie Walker or the magic flute.

Other Sources:
Yomiuri Online
Nikkan-Gendai

Robot Dog Hospital Closed!!!

If you don't understand Japanese, you can probably skip watching this video. The videos starts by showing us a 62-year-old woman playing with her robot dog, Hokuto. She talks about how Hokuto is a member of the family and how, when she's out, she thinks about "the child" waiting for her at home. But this video is not about mentally ill robot dog lovers. It's about how the "clinic" for the AIBO robot has closed down.

When people bought these pets ten years ago, they thought their friend would be with them forever (mostly because they have no concept of what forever means). Now, Hokuto has a bum leg and there is no doctor for him. They also show a man with an AIBO that suffers from battery problems and can only stay awake a few minutes at a time. He recalls that his junior-high-aged daughter said she wanted to take the dog with her when she got married. He still hopes to make this childish dream (that the daughter likely no longer cares about) come true.

Luckily, some other crazy people have opened a shop where they try to repair these robot dogs using old parts of other dead robot dogs. The owner says that he understands why the original maker's hospital closed down, noting that there's no real profit in the business. He's doing this simply to "give people a member of their family back."

Hey Dudez

I guess I took a month off again. Also, I guess I'll try to continue publishing articles for this important source of information.

I've been pretty busy. For example, I packed a bag for a trip to the in-laws. I was assuming that I only had three pairs of shorts that aren't pajamas/swimsuits/gym shorts. Turns out two of them have sizable holes in the butt. You truly learn something new everyday.

Anyway, it's Obon in Japan. All the ghosts are visiting their old homes this week. I've been advised not to go swimming. Apparently the ghosts are friendly, but it's just too tempting to drown someone when you get the chance (even us living can relate, right guyz?).

I think that's all the information you'll need for today. And just like that, the Times is back!!!!

Kodomoroid

Well, It looks like the robots are just about ready to take over the world. Japanese scientists have developed Kodomoroid (meaning kid-roid). It's supposed to look like a ten-year-old girl and is designed to read the news. Basically it's just a moving mannequin that uses some crappy voice technology. It has been reported that the voice can be changed, and you can even choose a man's voice. A ten-year-old robot girl with a man's voice? Maybe a little too erotic for the news if you ask me. The scientists also produced Otonaroid (or adult-roid). Look at her use her nimble hands.


Just a few modifications and she could be an unstoppable terminator.

Playground Equipment Update

The thing above is in Chikusa park. This reporter has heard from multiple sources that both the tubes on the sides and the blue structure itself were hallow at one point. It had always been assumed that the choice to fill in the equipment had been made because it had been too dangerous for small children. But is that all there is to the story??? Recently, a small boy was overheard saying that it was filled in because cats had been living inside of it. I believe the Gaybot Times is the first news agency to break this story.

It should be noted that the small boy spent most of the rest of the time talking about how intelligent a certain ant was for choosing a path that he wouldn't fall from. A little girl pointed out that the ant wouldn't fall from any of the paths and the boy replied by telling her how intelligent the ant was.

Still, this is a pretty big story for us.

Cherry Head Politician

Did you guyz see this picture of a politician wearing a giant cherry on his head? The man is the lieutenant governor of Yamagata prefecture and he was speaking at the city hall in Sendai. The purpose of the meeting was to plan for the "World Conference on Disaster Reduction" which will be held next year in Sendai (a city itself ravaged by the earthquake and tsunami of 2011).

So why was he wearing a cherry on his head? The most obvious answer is he was pointing out that attempting to avoid disasters is futile. After a few more trips around the sun we will all be dead, and it won't be many more trips around before no one remembers who you were. None of this means anything. Why do we wear ties, sit up straight, and pretend we are doing something meaningful? Look,  you can wear a cherry on your head. It doesn't matter. When you look at the big picture, nothing will change from what we do here. No one will remember even that a crazy man was wearing a cherry. What are we doing? I have a ton of whiskey in my car. Who's with me?

No, wait, kind of the opposite. He's just an idiot trying to appeal to cherry farmers in his home prefecture.

Source: Yomiuri Online

Embarrassing Drunk Moment

This guy isn't all that drunk, I guess.

Everybody has one of those stories where they drank a bit too much in front of their co-workers and did something embarrassing. Maybe you spilled a margarita your crouch and everyone now calls you "Marga-pee-pee-pants" (a witty play on words). Or maybe your tongue got a little too loose and you revealed your love of Mein Kampf and now everyone calls you, "that horrible neo-Nazi guy we're trying to get fired." Well guess what? A man in Karatsu, Saga has it even worse than you.

A public employee in his 50s went drinking with his co-workers and then planned to take a 9:38 train home. Apparently he had done some serious drinking in between the time work ended and 9:00, because he was so drunk that he didn't get on the train! Can you imagine the razzing he'd get at the office the next day! But wait, there's more.

At some point he fell on the tracks and an out-of-service train ran him over. Oh, also he doesn't remember this. Actually, he doesn't remember anything until almost six hours later. At around 4:10 am he woke, saw that his left leg had been severed at the knee, and called for an ambulance. I'm sure there were a lot of fun jokes about how he can't handle his sake around the office! A lot of hop to it comments and stuff.

Source: Asahi Shimbun Online

ALT Teaches Students about His Naked Body

He probably meant to show the kids a cool pic of himself like this.

  A Philipino ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) "accidentally" showed 35 of his 8th grade students a nude photo of himself. It seems he hooked his personal computer up to a projector in front of the room, but he forgot what everyone learns on the first day of teacher school..."Remember to close all the windows with photos of your naked body before showing the students that stupid movie or whatever." I guess he noticed the students reacted and was able to erase the image after about ten seconds. He apologized, but for some reason he still lost his job. Just another case of the Japanese not understanding foreign cultures.

Source: Yomiuri Online

Teacher Walks Home in Sneakers...and Nothing Else

Take your clothes off, you fool!

I think this story could be considered a Christmas miracle of sorts. A temporary teacher (that probably means he was hired for a year or less while a full time teacher is on maternity leave or something) was arrested for walking down the road near his home around 2:00 AM wearing nothing but sneakers. Wait, check that... He was also wearing a backpack full of his clothes. The man had a perfectly logical explanation. You see, he had just attended his school's year end party. In Japan, these parties usually involve binge drinking. Apparently this teacher had partaken a little too much in the festivities. So that explains it, right? Just some drunk guy... but no! It seems this teacher had a very good reason for walking in the nude. He told officers that he removed his clothes to sober up. I knew there was a reason I'm always dropping my pants at bars! Let this Christmas miracle be remembered henceforth. I mean, first it was the birth of our lord, and now the discovery of how to sober up quickly. When I think of how many job interviews I ruined just because I didn't know this simple trick! Anyway, I guess getting sober is still against the law in Japan.