‘OH MY GOD! They killed ASIMO!’

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A bot by any other name
Is this the end of the line for Asimo, Japan’s famed robot?
Agence France-Presse | July 01, 2018
…Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported that the Japanese carmaker had terminated Asimo and dissolved the team making one of the world’s most famous humanoid robots.
More…

Japanese ‘turtleneck’ phobia

“東京上野クリニック かっこいいダンスCM タートルネックボーイ”
Tokyo Ueno Clinic’s cool dance commercial, Turtleneck Boy (aka the “BYE BYE DANCE” for ℱoreskin removal)

The Japanese lyrics of the commercial are:

♫~バーイ、バーイ、グッバーイ！タートルネックボーイ！
自信がなかった過去から、自分にサヨナラ
新しい人生が、パッと再開、きみに会いたい！
ひとつウエノ男になれ！♪
♫~Bye, bye, goodbye! Turtleneck Boy!
From the past that I did not have confidence, my goodbye
A new life wants to restart, I want to meet you!
And become a Ueno-Man!♪

The Rest-of-the-Story…
Japanese guys (and their mothers) have a serious “turtleneck” phobia. There are many medical places like Tokyo Ueno Clinic that offering to help guys loose their turtleneck (prepuces, ℱoreskins, or whatever). Called a hokei (“covered stalk”)—a glans completely covered by a ℱoreskin—Japanese often think they have “phimosis” where the ℱoreskin is bound up by tissue and cannot be physically retracted. For 99.9% of the time, it’s just psychosomatic wackiness.

Most Japanese men’s magazines and manga have advertisements for phimosis treatments like “Bye-bye—Turtleneck-Boy” New Japanese mothers are instructed on how to repeatedly “retract” the ℱoreskin of their young boys so they will not suffer the horrors genital binding and phimosis-induced trauma.

Read more at the 3Yen of 9/21/2014 and at the Japan Times report, “The long and short of it — Male circumcision in Japan
sad-wieners

My ‘secret’ gaden

Ah, my old “home.”
Rikugien Garden, which is arguably central Tokyo’s best, is constantly used by the Foreign Ministry to give foreign VIPs a taste of traditional landscaping aesthetics. And, it even has small teahouses that can be reserved quite reasonably. http://teien.tokyo-park.or.jp/en/rikugien/

More at: http://news.3yen.com/2018-01-28/tokyos-secret-garden-rikugien/

Ninja Newman

Important reminder that, being dead, Paul Newman does not personally approve the graphic design choices for his salad dressing bottles. @jesticide January 17, 2018

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Actually, Ninja Newman really does approve the graphic design choices for his salad dressing bottles.

In case you were wondering what the big deal is, Newman’s “ninja” outfit and hachimaki/headband have Chinese dragons embroidered and his back-worn, dual katana/swords are all sorts of tacky. Basically, the label is an embarrassment at best and to many (but not me) cultural misappropriation.