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Tomita Furniture Designs

Fairfaxx — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:00:00 -0500

Banknote Handkerchiefs Make You Feel Cooler and Richer

Steve Levenstein — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:34:57 -0500

: Banknote Handkerchiefs Make You Feel Cooler and RicherWiped out in the market? Wipe up that cold sweat with replica 10,000 yen banknotes!

Super Potato Interior Design

Fairfaxx — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:00:00 -0500

: Super Potato Interior Design

The life of shoes in Japan

KenYN — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:14:44 -0500

: The life of shoes in Japan

The slightly mysterious title for this post introduces a short survey from iShare that looks at shoe purchase and disposal.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of June 2009 566 mobile phone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire, 53.5% of the sample were male, 37.6% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 32.0% in their forties.

I most often buy my shoes from 歩人館, hojinkan, a national chain of shoe shops that deals only in ASICS shoes. The designs are sensible rather than trendy, but the shoes are good and solid and last a long time.

Research results Q1: When choosing footwear, which of the following are important? (Sample size=566, multiple answer) All Male
N=303 Female
N=263 Feel when wearing 76.9% 70.0% 84.8% Price 69.8% 66.3% 73.8% Design 67.0% 59.1% 76.0% Easy to walk in 59.5% 51.8% 68.4% Goes with clothes I have 24.0% 14.9% 34.6% Material 21.4% 17.8% 25.5% Heel height 19.6% 1.3% 40.7% Other 2.1% 2.6% 1.5% Q2: Where do you most often buy footwear? (Sample size=566) All Male
N=303 Female
N=263 Shoe shop (multiple brands) 69.8% 71.0% 68.4% Shoe shop (single brand) 11.5% 11.6% 11.4% Clothes, accessory shop 8.5% 7.9% 9.1% Internet shop 6.2% 5.9% 6.5% Mail order 0.9% 0.0% 1.9% Other 3.2% 3.6% 2.7% Q3: How long do you keep wearing an item of footwear? (Until you get rid of them by throwing away, selling, or passing to someone) (Sample size=566) All Male
N=303 Female
N=263 Until they get tatty 50.7% 50.8% 50.6% Until they fall apart 23.7% 26.1% 20.9% Until I get bored with them 11.8% 8.3% 16.0% Until I buy the next pair 9.4% 11.2% 7.2% Until the design goes out of fashion 1.4% 0.7% 2.3% Don’t get rid of them 3.0% 3.0% 3.0% Q4: What do you most often do with your old footwear? (Sample size=566) All Male
N=303 Female
N=263 Throw them away 94.9% 94.7% 95.1% Sell them 1.1% 0.7% 1.5% Give them away 1.1% 1.7% 0.4% Keep them 3.0% 3.0% 3.0%

Mumbai Marathon on Sea Link , Registerations Open

risingsunofnihon — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:58:20 -0500

: Mumbai Marathon on Sea Link , Registerations Open

The Mumbai marathon registerations are opened from 9th July and will close on August 18th (or as soon as running places are filled, whichever is earlier).
The Mumbai Marathon is an international race event which is held annually in January. This event was first staged in the year 2004.

Event website: http://scmm.indiatimes.com/

Registrations Open. For Online Registration click here.

The categories are

Full Marathon (42.195 km),

Half Marathon (21.097 km),

Dream Run (6 km),

Senior Citizens’ Run (4.3 km)

and the Wheelchair Event (2.5 km)

There is also news to the effect that 2010 Mumbai marathon route may use the newly inaugurated over the sea link between Worli and Bandra.

The prize money for the fastest runners in Men’s and Women’s category are $31,000 each, with an additional $2,250 being awarded to the fastest Indian citizen (men and women) in the Full and Half Marathon categories.
If you are looking at participating in th Mumbai marathon on Jan 17th, 2010, register yourself on July 9th, because, there is going to be a que for registrations, and the 42K and 21K seats are expected to exhaust fast..

Note: Entry fees raised to Rs 500/- (including cost of disposable championchip).

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England vs Australia , 1st Test , Live Streaming, Ashes 2009, Live Streaming , Live Cricket Scores, Eng vs Aus

risingsunofnihon — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:21:16 -0500

: England vs Australia , 1st Test , Live Streaming, Ashes 2009, Live Streaming , Live Cricket Scores, Eng vs Aus

Watch Live Streaming of the 1st Ashes cricket test between Australia vs England which will begin at Cardiff, from July 8-12, 2009. Start time 11.00 am (10.00 GMT)

The home side England has a new Ashes captain in Andrew Strauss and two match-winners in Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff. wheras None of current Australia’s fast bowlers have played a Test in England .

In a total of 300 Ashes Tests Australia have won in 121 whereas England have won 95 of them.

On the rankings front this is a battle between No. 1 and No. 5 reams, but for Australia and England it is much more than that. Australia must win this series to keep the No. 1 ICC Test rating.

1. Option 1 for live streaming -

2. Option 2 for live streaming -

3. Option 3 for live streaming -

England (possible) 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Ravi Bopara, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Matt Prior (wk), 7 Andrew Flintoff, 8 Stuart Broad, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 James Anderson, 11 Graham Onions.

Australia (possible) 1 Simon Katich, 2 Phillip Hughes, 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Michael Hussey, 5 Michael Clarke, 6 Marcus North, 7 Brad Haddin (wk), 8 Mitchell Johnson, 9 Nathan Hauritz, 10 Stuart Clark, 11 Peter Siddle.

Pitch and conditions

Ricky Ponting expects the pitch to have some moisture at the begining, providing “slow-ish seam and trampoline” bounce, but he believes it will turn.

England Captain Andrew Strauss said it looked like a good pitch, but one that would not offer much pace or bounce. “There will be a little bit in it for everyone,” he said, “and that’s the sort of wicket we were hoping to see.”

The weather has been a bit unpredictable at Cardiff, with rain and sun fighting for attention, and more wet conditions are predicted for the end of the week.

Quotes

“We know the type of cricket we need to play to win this series and we’ve got good ideas as to the type Australia are going to play too. We have to keep nice and calm and controlled.”
Andrew Strauss

“Their side reads pretty good and I think if you matched both sides up on paper it would be pretty hard to pick the winner.”
Ricky Ponting

Tags: ashes 2009 live score, ashes live score, cricket scores, eng vs aus, england vs australia cricket 2009

Advertisement Japanese: Awesome School Poster

claytonian — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:53:43 -0500

: Advertisement Japanese: Awesome School PosterAlright, here is the first of a series of posts I hope to do where we will tackle the Japanese in advertisements I spot about town. But I have a feeling we won't see one like this first one again, a poster for a girl's school in my town. Click to zoom in--this is an iphone-taken picture, and the resolution was surprisingly large.

Ad Breakdown:
Top left verical line, 第三十三回 :
"33rd time". 第 is the "rd" (or "th" or "nd") in numbers, called ordinals. 回 refers to repetitions of an event.

Top left big characters 鈴懸祭:
The name of a cultural festival held by the school. I don't know how it's pronounced, but I'm guessing suzuka-sai, from 鈴懸の木 (Plane Tree or Tree of Hippocrates, which interestingly enough has festival associated with it in Greece), one of which stands in the courtyard of the school.

The flag, 熊谷女子高校:
"Kumagaya [my town] girls high school", called 熊女 (bear girl) for short. Hey, now the character rampaging about and holding the flag makes sense!

The right vertical text埼玉県立+aforementioned 熊谷女子高校:
the second part you can see translated above, but the first part means "Saitama prefectural" (立 is the postfix that adds "al" to words like 市立 (municipal) and 町立 (townal, only that ain't a word in English so we say "established by the town").

Area below the bear with an umbrella, 熊姫:
"Bear-princess". A play of the school's nickname.

Area right below that, 乙女の道は一本道:
"The path of the maiden doth not deviate". I took some liberty with 一本道 (straight path). It seems like this is a famous saying (or a variation of one, that one being 女の道は一本道), so I poetry-fied it. I won't even get into the implications of how 女の道 can mean red-light district too, because our bear princesses are pure! If you don't believe it, they'll claw your eyes out.

The leftovers are just dates, so no need to go into them.　All kinds of interesting things in this poster eh? Not to mention the art. I hope you enjoy this series, because I must admit I'm happy with all I learned this time around.

Kinchan no Kasoh Taisho entries are entertaining

japansugoi — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:00:53 -0500

: Kinchan no Kasoh Taisho entries are entertainingStill by far, the most entertaining Japanese TV airing today is Kinchan no Kasoh Taisho 欽ちゃんの仮装大賞きんちゃんのかそうたいしょう. This amazing competition showcases the most imaginative and creative minds and...

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The Emperor's English Teacher

claytonian — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:47:36 -0500

: The Emperor's English TeacherFrom the vaults:
Click To Enlarge/Read the J Article

学習院中等科 (Gakushuuin-chuutouka, an long-standing middle school) in Tokyo-- This old photo shows the current Japanese emperor, Akihito (emperors don't have last names in Japan), on the far left, beaming a smile, and his English/Western Thought tutor, Elizabeth Vining, who is conduction some sort of spelling competition.
I looked up Mrs. Vining and found out that she taught the then prince for four years, and was the only foreign guest at his wedding. She was probably one of only a handful of native English speaking teachers in Japan at the time.
It is said that Mrs. Vining had a strong effect on the young Akihito, who she called Jimmy instead of the more formal "crown prince" title he at first wanted, instilling in him a sense of independence and courage to break with tradition. Long before she died in 1999, she wrote a book about her time with the prince, entitled Windows for the Crown Prince, and another, Return To Japan. Looks like they've been out of print for a while, but I hope to pick up a used copy.
--
Bonus info about emperor names:

While they don't seem to have a family name, the imperial family can be referred to as 皇族 (kōzoku, from the kanji emperor+family).

While it's okay for us to refer Akihito by his name in English, in Japanese they always have to call him 陛下 (his majesty) or 天皇 (emperor). In the linked article, they referred to his then princely-self as 明仁さま (lord Akihitio). I think calling him Jimmy is reserved for Mrs. Vining ;-)

Emperors get new names when they die that supersede the old ones. Lately, the convention is to rename emperors after the era that they lived in, which happens to start and end with their lives. Just remember that Akihito will become Emperor Heisei after his death.

天皇 translates to emperor in English, but is only used to refer to Japanese royalty, not other kings or emperors. Incidentally, Japan is the only country in the world with a living emperor.

Mobile Advertising

Shibuya246 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:02:59 -0500

: Mobile Advertising

Creating some interest with his Vitamin Water charged bike

Looks like after seeing the electronic billboards, the trucks with advertising on them, and occasionally small car/bike advertising, we now have a new player in the on the road / off the road adverting area.

Vitamin Water had this guy pushing his specially modified bike through Shibuya promoting their product. From the number of stares he was getting it appears the form of advertising was working at least for its novelty factor.

Not sure whether he rides this or just keeps pushing it

Here is the product being advertised. You have probably seen this in your local supermarket or convenience store.

What other strange forms of advertising have you seen in Japan on the roads / footpaths ?