Wednesday February 15, 2012

ThonTaddeo's past comments

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    ThonTaddeo

    Blame the airlines -- some of them are still taking the same oil surcharges as they were in the summer when oil cost three times what it is now. The current level (under $50 per barrel) is in line with pre-Peak-Oil-scare norms, and there should be no surcharge at all. Shame on the airlines for not reacting to falling prices sooner. Now they have a chance to lock in these unexpectedly cheap prices for several years to come; I hope they take it.

    Posted in: Travel pinched by global financial crisis

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    ThonTaddeo

    Hiko, I just managed to get a 3M yen home renovation loan from Mitsubishi UFJ after being rejected by six or seven other banks previously. Supposedly, the branches that were run by Mitsubishi prior to their merger with UFJ are more accepting of foreigners than the ex-UFJ branches are.

    I'll be getting a credit card with this loan when I open the required bank account, though I don't know what my credit limit will be once the loan is finished.

    And MUFJ, to their credit, lent me the money to be repaid over three years despite my visa being up for renewal next year. No other bank would consider lending any money past that date, despite the fact that I'm a [i]seishain[/i] whose visa has been successfully renewed several times before.

    Posted in: Try to get a credit card in Japan

  • 0

    ThonTaddeo

    "Were personal feelings sapping her concentration?"

    Personal feelings of hatred for the nosy, pesky, insipid media who seem to think that if they're interested in someone, that person loses all rights to privacy.

    Ai and Kei should tell these ridiculous paparazzi to drop dead.

    Posted in: Tabloids focus on Ai-chan's love life

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    ThonTaddeo

    Gogogo, it's not really possible to bike on the streets if there are too many cars parked on the side of the road -- you'll be ducking out from behnid them all the time and won't be able to see the road in front of you. On streets without parked cars, I agree, cycling on the edge of the road is best.

    People love to talk about how uncluttered and safe the streets would be if there were no bicycles, but the real problem is automobiles and how society always puts them first. Imagine streets without cars taking up all that space!

    Cycling is healthy, cheap, and, in the nation where the Kyoto Protocol was born, as environmentally-aware as you can get. I'd love to see more car-free, bicycle-oriented streets. Get those giant automobiles out of the way and it would leave plenty of room for cyclists and pedestrians both.

    Posted in: Cyclists using phones to be fined up to Y50,000

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    ThonTaddeo

    “OMFG,” one wrote, meaning “Oh, my God.”

    That tricky English language with its silent Fs!

    Posted in: Florida teen commits suicide with live web audience

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    ThonTaddeo

    I'm confused -- the two cups seem to be of equal size. If this bra is based on the scales of Japanese justice, shouldn't the cup representing "guilt" be about 99 times the size of the minuscule "innocence" cup?

    Posted in: Jury bra

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    ThonTaddeo

    Nessie, you might want to invest in a folding bicycle that you can then bring into the building with you. Lighter ones only weigh about 10 kg, and provided you have some storage space in your office and don't mind folding it and unfolding it over and over, it could be a good investment.

    Posted in: Ishihara rebukes countries over climate change stance

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    ThonTaddeo

    that blow-hard has a lot of nerve. tokyo is hotter than hades in the summer and he does nothing to curb it. heat-island effect. has he heard of that? and more and more and more highways and cars go into tokyo every day. i bet you dollars to donuts he does not use public transportation.

    I completely agree -- why are there no rooftop gardens? Why is "Cool Biz" forcing us to endure 28-degree indoor temperatures in the summer while they still use heating like crazy in the winter? ("Warm Biz" should be about 15-16 degrees if there were any justice!)

    Ever look into restrictions on house construction? These days, all new houses have to have access to roads wide enough for an automobile to drive on. If you're rebuilding on a property that only has a thin alleyway, you've got to give up some of your land for roads. They're making things easier for automobiles -- this should be the exact opposite!

    Consider also that the fines for parking one's bicycle in restricted areas continue to increase. They should be making it easier to commute by bicycle, not harder! Bicycles should be society's favorite vehicle: they take up very little space on the roads compared to cars; zero pollution; they keep riders fit (and thus less strain on health care); etc., etc., but the government has it in for cyclists. (Just don't ride one past a koban too many times!)

    If Ishihara really cared about climate change, he'd start by making his own city a more ecological place to live.

    Posted in: Ishihara rebukes countries over climate change stance

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    ThonTaddeo

    Black Flag, I like the idea given that there's either going to be human beings or a recording telling people how to use the escalator.

    Humans at least can be interacted with, and you can actually inform them that you know where the handrails are, etc., and that peace and quiet would suit you just fine. Try doing that with the ubiquitous talking escalators and elevators that are in every Japanese building and station.

    Posted in: Escalator girls

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    ThonTaddeo

    If it's one of the most popular flavors, why is it only being released for a limited time?

    I've never understood this tendency to limit sales of otherwise non-season-dependent, processed foods to certain times of the year.

    The least they could do is announce the day that they're gong to stop producing it, so that the people who come to like it (they are hoping to create such people, aren't they?) can stock up before it disappears from the shelves.

    Posted in: Green apple Fanta

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    ThonTaddeo

    I'd much rather have a well-dressed, well-mannered human being superfluously pointing the way to an escalator than have to listen to the cacophony of recorded voices that seem to be implemented on every unmanned escalator these days. Ever get on an escalator when it's othewise totally quiet? Every ten seconds or so, you're subjected to adminitions to keep your feet off the yelow lines, and if you have children, make sure that they hold the handrail. And then this repeats again and again. Folks, if you ened to be instructed on how to stand on a walkway without even moving, maybe the adult world is too much for you. Stay at home, telecommute using your computer, and order in pizza or something.

    Posted in: Escalator girls

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    ThonTaddeo

    I don't think anyone should get serious about the WBC. It's nothing more than a vehicle for jingoistic nationalism, something the world needs less of these days.

    How about a "Real World Series" contesting the champion teams from the US, Japan, Korea, the Dominican, Cuba, Taiwan, etc. from 2008? That would be a lot of fun to watch, and the teams would be real "teams", who've been playing together for a whole season, not groups of all-stars thrown together because they happen to have the same colored passports.

    Posted in: Ichiro urges Japan to get serious about WBC

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    ThonTaddeo

    Do you sell between then and Jan 21 09(date of his inauguration) and keep 85 percent of the profit or do you, as Joe 'Sock Em' Biden asks us, be a patriot, suck it up, hold til after Jan 21 09 and settle for keeping 70 percent of your profit?

    Alinsky, you foolishly assume that people are making profits when they sell. The way the market is going, we'll all be declaring capital losses! ^^;

    Posted in: McCain suspends campaigning over financial crisis; Obama rejects call for debate delay

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    ThonTaddeo

    This 24-hour-shift nonsense isn't good for the public either.

    If you were being questioned randomly on the street by a police officer, would the knowledge that the officer questioning you hadn't slept in 23 hours make you feel safer, or less safe?

    Posted in: On-duty officer apparently shoots himself at Tokyo police station

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    ThonTaddeo

    Triple888, I agree. There's a reason why Google is so wildly popular -- a nice, clean, quick, no-frills main page that doesn't take forever to load or mess with your browser in any way.

    Posted in: Yahoo starts web page makeover

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    ThonTaddeo

    Luddite, I imagine that these prices were written a few months ago when a pound was close enough to $2.00 US/Canadian. Actually, when I first read the headline, I thought it was going to be touting the sudden return-to-reasonableness of the GBP, which is now in the $1.70s for the first time in several years. Nice to know that the British Museum is free -- that's one place I could spend hours in every day and never get bored.

    Posted in: Bargain Britain? If you know where to look

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    ThonTaddeo

    Nessie, I think it's the other way around; supposedly ANA has a minimum height (because you need to be able to reach the overhead bins and such), but I don't think there's a maximum.

    How tall is Saori Takizawa? Please let her be about 175 cm!

    Article Unavailable

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    ThonTaddeo

    Why does Ms Sakai not adopt as artist's name a truly Ainu name ?

    Freespeech, she already has a perfectly-good real Ainu name -- "Mina" means "laugh" or "smile" in Ainu.

    She herself may have waited until age 16 to discover her bicultural-ness, but her parents certainly wanted to make her aware of it when they named her.

    Posted in: Ainu rise up from the margins of Japanese society

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    ThonTaddeo

    Mindyou, the English lad was right to argue with you -- only in Norway and Sweden is the ridiculously-long 10-kilometer "mil" in use.

    Just about everywhere else, the "normal" mile is 1609.344 meters, or 5280 feet, which is quite close to the original Roman distance of 5000 feet.

    If the Englishman started telling you that it was 1000 ri (里) from Tokyo to Osaka, would you argue with him? A Japanese ri is close to 4 km, but not in China.

    Posted in: Ex-Yankees, Marines Irabu arrested for alleged assault

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    ThonTaddeo

    Chamberlain's "Things Japanese" -- the 1904 edition is indeed one of the better ones -- is a must-read for anyone eith even the slightest interest in Meiji-era Japan.

    This is just the beginning, once you start getting interested in Chamberlain's works. He was the first person to give the Okinawan language any kind of serious study, publishing a grammar of it ("Essay in Aid of a Grammar of the Luchuan Language") with the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1895 which is (unfortunately, I suppose) still the best English-language introduction to Okinawan even after over 110 years. His discussion of the Okinawan people anc their culture, published by the Geographical Journal of Gerat Britain and Ireland in 1895, is also well worth a read. He even wrote philosophical works in French in his old age.

    Tuttle also reprinted this edition in the 1970s, and you can still find it in used bookstores from time to time.

    Given that this book has been deemed worthy of a new reprint, perhaps the "pimply bloggers" derided by C. B. Liddell are already among a new generation of Japanophiles discovering this excellent work. It should be on every exchange student and expat's bookshelf.

    Posted in: Things Japanese: Being Notes on Various Subjects Connected with Japan

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