Shirihoudai

NTT DoCoMo posts its first operating profit in 3 years!  With all the competition in Japan I suppose this is a great accomplishment.  Anyhoo, this gives me an opportunity to show some cool cell phones:

DoCoMo kid’s phones:

(image from docomo site)

Sleek and sexy FOMA series:

(image from docomo site)

but the latest secret technology being developed is this model:

Original story here on Forbes.com.

Original USA Today story here.

California’s happy cows make the best cheese, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Japan is paranoid about Mad Cow and US beef. 

Japanese officials said Wednesday that a spinal column was found in a U.S. beef shipment in violation of a trade accord that prohibits parts believed to pose a risk of mad cow disease.

…

The meat was in storage since August and was intended for fast-food chain Yoshinoya D&C, which uses U.S. beef for its popular beef bowl dish, said a Ministry of Health spokesman who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to media.

I’ll take extra spine in my gyu-don please. . .

This is how you remove the spine:

(picture via Harris News)

yummy.

Bwahahahahaha.  I love it. To the designer of this room, great job! Looks like someone reading up on a bunch of asian stereotypes got a little too full and exploded a mosaic of asian crap. Lets analyze this room, shall we?

Click on the tv spots to see the different tv commercials in multi languages. I challenge you to find the one that is different.
Finally, click on the bag of food for a real surprise. Korean and Vietnamese burritos!!! mmm mmm good!

Call me a glutton for punishment but it was FREE COFFEE DAY at Charbucks, so I had to visit and try out their newest blend (to combat McDonald’s coffee which kicks their ass), Pikes Peak.  I get there at 4:00 pm. . .

“sorry, the free coffee was only at 9am!”

damn them!

“but we give out samples all the time for any coffee”

ok, they are forgiven.  I get my little paper cup, the kind that you pee in at the doctor’s office filled with coffee.

“this coffee is ground and brewed every 30 minutes. . . blah blah blah. . .” 

I ask if it is a lighter roast. . .

“it’s in between a light and a dark roast.  people who like dark roasts will enjoy it and people who want a smoother taste will also love it. . . blah blah blah”

I take my coffee, while my fingers are burning, put in a little half and half and sip it. . .

and the verdict is. . .

ASS!

Yes, Charbucks coffee roasted every 30 minutes still tastes like Charbucks coffee.  If you love that freshly burnt taste to your brew, then go out and get yourself a free sample!  Which brings me to my newest idea. . . since they give out sample cups, and there is a Starbucks on every corner:

1.  Buy yourself a thermos

2.  Go to nearest Starbucks and get a sample of coffee

3.  Pour sample into thermos

4.  Drive to next Starbucks

5.  Repeat steps 2 through 4 until thermos is full

6. (optional) give coffee to your worst enemy.

Do this at various times of the day until they start to recognize you.

Went through the Charbucks drive thru with a friend and got to witness the “barista” in action making my latte. 

1.  push the button to magically make espresso.  Where is the art?  The measuring of the fresh coffee beans?  The tamping down of the grinds?  Not at this Starchucks, obviously.

2.  dump the milk in the cup.  Yes, DUMP the milk in.  Not gently stir in the steamed milk.   I don’t even think the milk was steamed, at least I didn’t observe her steaming the milk.  She just left the metal cup full of milk sitting there under the steaming wand and hurriedly dumped in the warm milk (wasn’t even steaming) into my cup.  Some clumpy yogurt mess was seen falling into my white and green cup.

3.  put the lid on while gabbing with her other barista buddies.

4.  hand off cup to dude at the drive thru window to give to me.  What a great experience and do I feel special!

At least the person’s experience in the van in front of us must have been special.  They even tipped the drive thru guy.  Yes, there is a plastic container stuck to the window for tips!  Tips for what??!!  Doing their job?  So I was thinking either they haven’t been watching the news, or they believe the news that their tip money will go to the pseudo-baristas serving up their coffee.  

btw, this Charbucksis located somewhere in Irvine, CA.

Look out below!

Photo courtesy of slate.com
Yes, just add more insult to injury. You can raise my gas prices (oh, i have many thoughts on that), raise the cost of milk and eggs and the necessities in life, even raise the cost of a hot dog at Weinerschnitzel! But make it harder to travel to Japan?? Now you’ve gone too far!

At last check the exchange rate was around 98 yen per dollar. sigh. . . guess that means future trips to Japan will have to be put on hold. On the bright side, that could mean more cute Japanese girls visiting here in the States!

Japan has decided to beat France and the United Kingdom (both who have similar proposals)
to become the first country to ban file sharers from the internet.

Oddly the agreement to do so has not come from the Japanese Government, but from Japan’s four
internet service provider organizations after pressure (not surprisingly) from the record and movie industries.
According to Torrent Freak, the agreement would see copyright holders tracking down file-sharers on the Internet
using “special detection software” and then notifying ISPs of alleged infringers. File sharers will initially receive
a warning for a first offense, then be disconnected for subsequent offenses, eventually be disconnected from the internet
permanently (it wasn’t clear whether the agreement is a three strikes proposal).

The process will formally commence in April and will primarily target users of Winny, the most popular file sharing network in Japan.

Original story here at Tech Crunch

Damn, guess its time to look for a new hentai source. . . .

I’ll take an extra-hot-venti-soy-double-shot-espresso-caramel-macchiato-no-foam please. . .

[Begin rant] In an ideal world, that drink wouldn’t exist. Unfortunately, it does. Welcome to Starbucks! The pusher of the $4 coffee (upwards of $5 if you get it all pimped out like some sugar/caffeine addicts). With it’s green, black and white cozy surroundings, just seeing those colors will draw you in for your much needed caffeine fix - hmm, just noticed that this site shares those theme colors as well. Note to self: change the colors of this site. But why do so many people like Starbucks? If you asked them, they probably couldn’t give you an answer. But I have my theories. . . .

There is a Starbucks on every corner of every intersection of the world. I do not use the word “every” very often in stating a fact, but in this case it is 110% true, maybe even 200% if you count Taiwan. It was their plan to take over the world, one street corner at a time.

Step 1: Oversaturate the market until the consumer only sees the green, black and white cups of steaming brew. Remember that Tom and Jerry episode where they tape open Tom’s eyes and force him to watch propaganda on tv to brainwash him? It’s kind of like that.

Step 2: Slowly warp the roasting process that you learned from the folks at Seattle’s Best Coffee and start serving inferior coffee to the customer.

Step 3: Introduce $3 lattes (This is the only drink I order from Charbucks, by the way).

Step 4: Profit!

Step 5: Buy out your competition. I can still find my SBC coffee at Border’s bookstores, so take that!

This plan was genius! I’ll explain. Before Starbucks, most people had 2 options for coffee: regular or decaf. Since most people don’t drink decaf, that leaves just the regular cup of joe. Here is the great part of their plan. Serve inferior coffee, in this case, make it taste burnt. Put up little signs in your store that advertise your latest $4 espresso based drink. Double genius now that I think about it - get them on the espresso kick addiction as well. Since their espresso + milk creations are much milder in taste than their coffee, anything alive will be drawn to it rather than having to gulp down the bitter and bile brew. Empower the customer into thinking they can have their coffee their way (perfect) - of course the customer is paying more for their drink, but they don’t care as long as it’s the way they (so they believe) like it.

Soon everyone who needs a pick me up in the morning will be flowing into your store. Introduce drink after drink. . .fraps for the kids to get their caffeine addiction going early, even serve fake green and chai tea drinks for the anti-coffee tea drinking hippies. Go international and sell your inferior brand of coffee everywhere since most countries’ coffee tastes like ass in the first place. There was a time when people laughed at the $5 cup of coffee (no refills) in Japan. Don’t seem to hear that anymore.

Interesting (unresearched) fact: 90% of Jamaica Blue coffee is exported to Japan. Somehow I never found a shop that served it!

Starbucks stock has fallen in recent months and they re-hired their original CEO to correct things. Still, their dominance over the coffee market is still strong as ever. As long as the coffee drinker remains lazy and needs their quick fix located right around the corner, Starbucks will live on.

[end rant]

Now something good to say about Starbucks - the shop in Shibuya, Tokyo

Although the coffee only comes in one size, you get great views of the wackiest intersection in the city. Green light, cars crossing.

Red light, people crossing!

Just one of many wonderful sights from the barstool seat that is near the window on the second floor:

And another just so you don’t think i’m lying:

This video makes me even more proud to drive my Pathfinder.

Funny videos