age doesn't matter in true love?

Consider the following situation:

A 25-year-old guy and a 13-year-old girl run away from home because the girl's parents oppose their "relationship". Hello? Someone beats a little common sense into this guy. Couple arrive in Tokyo where cops are in place waiting to end their little journey. Only time will tell if these two are for real or the guy deserves some serious jail time.

Man convicted of abduction for running away with 13-year-old girlfriend

A man who ran away to Tokyo with his 13-year-old girlfriend last year has been convicted of abduction.

The Tokyo District Court has sentenced 25-year-old Atsushi Tominaga to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, for abduction of a minor.

"The girl was still young and didn't have the ability to make sound judgments. His actions adversely affected her education. The defendant is guilty, even though the girl agreed to go with him," Judge Yoichi Omura said as he handed down the ruling.

The judge explained that the term was suspended because Tominaga had not taken the girl against her will.

Tominaga took the girl from her home in August last year after her parents opposed their relationship, according to the ruling, before taking her on a 16-day trip around Kobe and Shinjuku-ku in Tokyo.

Mainichi Daily

gaijinhood

My gaijinhood is somewhat different from your run-of-the-mill westerner, because I ain't one. I'm an in-between. Nonetheless I did commit some typical foreigner's assholeness overall. I remember having had to remind myself to blink the first few weeks. I thought my little world was THE Japan experience. Now fast forward to 5 years later, boy was I wrong!

Here is a great quote:

Less than three weeks after I moved to Japan, I was invited to hanami with a bunch of my wife’s co-workers. She was a McEnglish drone, I confess, so that meant we were with a bunch of Brits, Yanks, Canucks, Aussies, and the odd Kiwi. It started to rain after a couple of hours, at which point we shuffled off towards an izakaya. As we hit the edge of the park, a totally pissed Brit passing by shouted…

“OY! That’s right, fuck off, you lot, this is MY Japan!”

Read the Seven Stages of the Gaijinhood

Jero the enka singer

Jero, a 3/4 American and 1/4 Japanese, is the first black enka (演歌) singer that made it to the main stream by releasing his debut single Umiyuki　(海雪) this past month. It's getting good reviews on amazon japan.

He's making frequent appearances on daytime TV and music shows as of late, which give him a lot of exposure beyond the usual gaijin attention. He's a decent singer and with his unique hip-hop fashion style he may very well be here to stay.

Another interesting fact is that the lyrics are written by Uzaki Ryouto (宇崎竜童), who also wrote the majority of Yamaguchi Momoe's (山口百恵) biggest hits in the 70s and 80s.

Street clothes + Enka = sure, why not? I'm rooting for him.



Guy has a blog: blog.goo.ne.jp/jeroenka

railgun reality

US Navy's test fire of a railgun on Jan 31st, 2008

A railgun is a form of gun that converts electrical energy (rather than the more conventional chemical energy from an explosive propellant) into projectile kinetic energy. It is not to be confused with a coilgun (Gauss gun). Rail guns use magnetic force to drive a projectile. Unlike gas pressure guns, rail guns are not limited by the speed of sound in a compressed gas, so they are capable of accelerating projectiles to extremely high speeds. wiki

In layman's terms, it's a big-ass gun that:

• doesn't rely on explosives to eject the "bullet"
• uses a magnetic field that pushes the bullet out perpendicularly
• hits target up to 230 miles (370 km), or 10x the distance the biggest gun currently can (livescience)
• reaches Mach 7 and ignites plasma in the air along its projectile
• strikes and destroys targets with sheer speed, without any need for explosion

courtesy: howstuffworks

A youtube comment hits bullseye on how it should be used - to propel a small rocket into space. A bigger gun is not what we need right now since weapon supremacy alone doesn't win wars anymore. I understand that guns will continually become bigger and researches for advance military means will always get the first nod of OK. But I hope they'll also consider an alternative use. Imagine a relatively cheap way to get a sizable payload all the way up there into and beyond earth's orbit.
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Asteroid 2007 TU24 Passes the Earth

Asteroid 2007 TU24 Passes the Earth

Credit:
Green Bank Radio Telescope,
Arecibo Radio Telescope

Explanation:
Asteroid 2007 TU24 passed by the Earth yesterday, posing no danger. The space rock, estimated to be about 250 meters across, coasted by just outside the orbit of Earth's Moon. The passing was not very unusual -- small rocks strike Earth daily, and in 2003 a rock the size of a bus passed inside the orbit of the Moon, being detected only after passing. TU24 was notable partly because it was so large. Were TU24 to have struck land, it might have caused a magnitude seven earthquake and left a city-sized crater. A perhaps larger danger would have occurred were TU24 to have struck the ocean and raised a large tsunami. This radar image was taken two days ago. The Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico broadcast radar that was reflected by the asteroid and then recorded by the Byrd Radio Telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia. The resulting image shows TU24 to have an oblong and irregular shape. TU24 was discovered only three months ago, indicating that other potentially hazardous asteroids might lurk in our Solar System currently undetected. Objects like TU24 are hard to detect because they are so faint and move so fast. Humanity's ability to scan the sky to detect, catalog, and analyze such objects has increased notably in recent years.

nasa.gov

single most exciting moment in driving

Gigi Galli + perfect entry speed + opposite lock + feathered throttle = one dreamy corner, even with the handbrake pulled.

in go(o)d company

Prof. Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996),
Prof. Stephen Hawking (1942 - ),
and Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - )
sit down together in this 1988 interview discussing the then-known universe. Not too much is different scientifically - we've learned a lot more but the big picture remains unchanged. Today Sagan is no longer with us. Clarke has one foot in the grave. Hawking is the one that looks half decent. Who would have thought?

I admire and respect these brilliant men, their vision and achievements on science and their effects on our way of perceiving the future. We need to have their equals in this generation.

GOD, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING ELSE
download your video torrent there


A clip on youtube from the video:

easy absentee ballot

The US of A is a fucked-up country, so let's take responsibility.
Voter Registration on declareyourself.com

--== absentee ballot ==--

There are no more excuses for expats to say it's too time consuming. So easy a 5-year-old child can do it. Register to have your say (absentee ballot on General Election) on one of these sites:

Republican
Republicansabroad.com

Democrats (also vote at Primary online)
Votefromabroad.org

Non-partisan
Absentee Voting Assistance

--== general information ==--

2008 US Presidential Election timeline:
(Primary, Caucus, and General Election dates)
U.S._presidential_election,_2008#Timeline

Candidates in a nutshell:

source: politicalcompass.org

rare snow

We don't really get much snow in this part of Japan - once or twice in these three years. It started snowing a couple of nights ago, stopped, and picked up again this afternoon. Overall air temperatures have crept just above zero degree centigrade (~32F) after an overnight of subzero single-digits.

It looks like the kind of snow that I'm used to seeing on the East Coast - fluffy and a bit wet. I don't think we'll see more than a few centimeters of accumulation, judging from the ground not being cold enough for it to stick around for long.

I had a close call slow-speed skid (almost brushed oncoming traffic and a lamp post) in my car on my way home the night sleet fell, resulting in a set of spanking new tires (Bridgestone Playz for those who are into car parts) much needed since the initial purchase. It's mostly my fault but nonetheless a learning experience with my rear wheel drive roadster. I feel like we're growing to know each other a little more every step of the way. All in all a good ride with predictable behaviors.

In other news, I had my 31st birthday a few days ago. Yeah 31! Tell me about it. With our baby on his/her way and things falling into places this feels like my second, third, or fourth chance on life. Need I say more?