Stride Gum Hard Case

Boss Man: Ok, guys, we're introducing a new hard case with more than twice as many pieces of gum inside. Any ideas on how we can move some units?

Employee 1: ...ah...move units...?

Boss Man: Yes, basically can you think of a way to make this product appealing so people want to purchase it.

Employee 1: Oh, right...Well, maybe we start with some sort of an ape man...

Employee 2: Why do you have an ape man in everyone of your pitches?

Boss Man: Hear him out.

Employee 1: Well, maybe he eats a piece of gum...

Boss Man: Brilliant.

Employee 1: And then he transforms into a man with a huge head of hair that... is shaped like a giant pack of gum.

Boss Man: I'm not often moved to tears, but...

Employee 2: I don't really get it. Is the hair like hanging off the side of his head or what?

Employee 1: He's floating in space you idiot!

Boss Man: What's with the negative attitude, Employee 2? And another thing, your breath smells like horse crap!

Employee 2: It's Sam, and I've already said several times that there appears to be quite a bit of some sort of animal feces smeared in the carpet of this room.

Employee 1: (In a very comical voice) "It's the carpet, not all that horse crap I ate for lunch." (Returning to his normal speaking voice) Ah, ever heard of a toothbrush?

Boss Man: (Chuckles) OMG, Employee 1, you've just earned yourself a raise.

Employee 1: Thank you so much, Boss Man.

End scene

Mie Tourism

Mie, a prefecture in central Japan, only has a couple true tourist spots. There's Ise Shrine and the pilgrimage trail to the shrine, Kumano Kodo, and that's about it. Perhaps the race track in Suzuka sometimes draws tourists, but other areas have trouble getting visitors. For example, why would anyone want to go to Yokkaichi?

1. There's a Santa love hotel near the station.
2. You can try to discover where that strange smell is coming from.
3. ...

A bit of a problem if you're working on the Mie tourist board, isn't it? Luckily, some genius assigned mascots to each area of Mie:

Most of the mascots are a type of food made in a certain area. "Wait, they have tomatoes there? Cancel are honeymoon in Thailand!" I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

Momoiro Clover Z Q-tips

Have you ever been annoyed that you can't support your favorite band through your choice of cotton swabs? Well, Momoiro Clover Z is changing all of that. You can buy a 5 pack for ¥500 with a color representing each member. Which of the girls will you choose first to clean out your ears. And who will have have the honor of being stuck up your constipated baby's anus? That's for you to decide!

Labor Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 23)

Today, Saturday, was Labor Thanksgiving Day (勤労感謝の日) in Japan. Before the end of WWII, the holiday was a harvest festival known as Niiname-sai. Then, at the urging of the U.S. (at least according to the Japanese Wikipedia page), the holiday was changed to Labor Thanksgiving Day (apparently with the idea being to combine the two American holidays of Labor Day and Thanksgiving into one). Now it's just a public holiday, and other than not having to work, little is done to celebrate the day. This year the holiday fell on a Saturday. Some companies require employees to work on Saturdays, so those employees were given the day off, but basically everyone else gets screwed out of a national holiday. What a great way to celebrate all the hard labor the citizens are doing, by letting them have Saturday off. On a side note, when a holiday falls on a Sunday, people are given Monday off.

Lotteria Merry Xmas

While people in America are wasting their time thinking about what to prepare for Thanksgiving, the Japanese are festively making reservations to eat fast food fried chicken on Christmas Eve. Most restaurants ask that you place your order buy the end of November. I know a lot of readers out there are too busy to look at advertisements themselves, so I've decided to place this unpaid advertisement on The Gaybot Times as a service to you. Lotteria has changed their menu slightly this year. They are still offering boneless chicken and juicy chicken pieces, but the french toast has been replaced by raisin danishes (a very risky move), and the pigs in a blanket have been replaced by ebi-dogs (think stick docks but with ebi instead of hot dogs. Also, ebi means shrimp). It appears Lotteria is taking a step backwards this year, though the 2 packets of Heinz Ketchup is a nice touch. Will one of Lotteria's competitors offer a more scrumptious menu? Check back soon to see if I remember to write about that!

JA Bank

You know how a squirrel's life depends on its ability to save food for the winter, right? Well that's why a giant squirrel is the perfect mascot for opening a savings account. JA Bank has made several squirrel based ads (the one above is the best in my opinion). Each ad ends with the slogan, "This winter save money at JA." Now you understand why 12 giant squirrels are dancing on the moon. Maybe you want to check out some other ads that make sense:



Too cute for you? Try another version:

There are 19 of these if you hunger for more.

Sheena Ringo - Netsuai Hakkaku Chu

Ringo Sheena is already a pretty strange musician, but her latest song and video are a new brand of weird for her. She teamed up with Yasutaka Tanaka of Capsule (also the guy who writes Perfume's and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's songs). The song sounds much more like Capsule than Ringo Sheena, and Ringo, who normally doesn't dance, busts out some moves I'll for sure be making part of my repertoire.

I haven't figured out a good translation for the title, but it literally means, "detecting passionate love." In the video, the paparazzi (or something) kill Ringo, and then another Ringo (the lover of the first Ringo?) murders a bunch of people. The highlight comes at 2:50 when she throws 2 ninja stars that make 4 slices across some dude's face. Also, there are 6 Ringos dancing and singing. Enjoy.

$25,000 Stolen from Widow

Visual approximation of woman.

A farm working woman (65) in Chikusei, Ibaraki experienced a wacky, unlucky series of events. First, her husband died (that's not funny). In Japan, people give large gifts of money to the family of the deceased when attending funerals. This woman did what we'd all do: put the ¥2,500,000 (about $25,000) she received in a paper bag and put it in a coin locker at the funeral home when she attended her husband's funeral. Then she made a couple common mistakes (I think we've all had this experience).

1. She forgot to lock the locker.
2. She forgot that she'd put $25,000 in the locker.

It seems that the fact she'd placed the money in the locker on the morning of the 10th slipped her mind until the evening of the 15th. On the morning of the 16th she called the funeral home... and some monster had stolen the money! What an unlucky lady! What's next? Is she going to smell bad because she forgot not to smear rat droppings in her hair? Stay tuned!

Source: Yomiuri Online

Pizzana Review

Japanese Food Review #74

 I'm what you might call a "human that enjoys pizza." So under normal circumstances I would be excited to hear that Meiji has developed a pizza snack using a new technology. The problem is that this technology is call "sauce in snack," and the sauce on the cover appears to be strawberry jam. I asked Girlbot how she thought they'd be. She said that they would be better than you would think (this seems to be a strange thing to say when I ask you what you think it will taste like). She predicted a 6. Thankfully, the actual snack did not match the image on the bag.

It looked and tasted more like soggy bread.

Ratings: 
Gaybot: 2 The actual flavor was fine, but "sauce in snack" is as gross as you would expect.
Girlbot: 3 They were worse than she was expecting. She thought the outside cracker should have been harder.
Overall: 2.5

No need to try these, dear readers.

Ice Cream

Will: I was just thinking about how cool that is that the "messenger of happiness" is also the symbol of ice cream.
Bill: Wait, I thought it was the angel.
Will: Um, same difference noodle brain. (audible chuckle) What is your brain made of noodles or something?
Bill: Come on, you know it's not!
Will: Hmm, I'm kind of hungry for spaghetti... Oh hey! Maybe I should cut open your head and eat your brains cause it's probably spaghetti or something!
Bill: I will murder you with a wrench!

End Scene