badmigraine's past comments

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  badmigraineJun. 14, 2013 - 10:10AM JST

  You have to get a guest code before coming here? Talk about user-unfriendly. By this you've excluded 98% of the users you target because hardly anybody is going to remember to get or bring the code. Why not just make it free and open? What's the reason for implementing this stuff so strangely and punishingly?

  Posted in: Free Wi-Fi for tourists to become available at 11 JR West stations

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  badmigraineJun. 10, 2013 - 12:31PM JST

  I once stayed in a job over one year longer than I should have, due to incapacitating horror of the soubetsu-kai, nijikai and karaoke that awaited me at the end. I actually considered making up a story about hospitalization or a relative's demise, to get out of it.

  Posted in: Japanese women share their complaints about karaoke with men

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  badmigraineJun. 02, 2013 - 09:10AM JST

  You can make a fair evaluation of the nutritional quality of a food by the characteristics of the stool it produces. By this measure, these particular foods seem bad.

  Posted in: How healthy is food at fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Mos Burger, Lotteria, First Kitchen and so on? Do you think there is anything nutritious on their menus?

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  badmigraineMay. 31, 2013 - 09:06AM JST

  Actually, adding currency manipulation prohibitions to the TPP could be a good way to hasten its demise. Few potential signatories want to see such prohibitions spelled out in a new treaty, and the US pushing that is like the pot calling the kettle black.

  Posted in: Lawmakers press Obama to include currency rules in TPP trade deal

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  badmigraineMay. 21, 2013 - 04:36PM JST

  If trains can start with things and people sticking out of the doors, then that is the problem. Not strollers.

  You can solicit opinions for banning or regulating almost any kind of behavior, person, activity or item seen on public transport...including drunks, dogs, strollers, putting on makeup, large backpacks, men, foreigners, smelly people, etc. You will always find some people to support that.

  However, none of this changes the fact that it's risible, even absurd, to expect parents bringing strollers to public transportation to take out the baby, fold the stroller, then carry all the luggage/diapers/milk/personal items, the baby and the stroller on and off the bus or train. That is effectively a ban on people who need public transport as much or more than anybody else.

  Posted in: Transport ministry to unify rules for baby strollers on buses, trains

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  badmigraineMay. 17, 2013 - 09:08AM JST

  It just gets worse and worse. So much money, so little creativity.

  Posted in: Sony to release 'Angry Birds' film in 2016

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  badmigraineMay. 16, 2013 - 10:41AM JST

  The omnipresent nasal, grating, tone-deaf, irritating voice stops me from perceiving much else about most Japanese female pop singing. Every once in awhile I check back to see what's there, and it's just this same old neighborhood karaoke-box whining...going on 30 years now. Japanese voices need a better paradigm.

  Posted in: Pamyu invasion

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  badmigraineMay. 15, 2013 - 11:20AM JST

  This kind of drill reminds me of how railroad station staff do that funny pointing thing to show they are actually looking in this direction or that. SAFETY ASSURED.

  Posted in: No matter what, we'll never allow terrorists to break into the plant.

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  badmigraineMay. 07, 2013 - 02:53PM JST

  I would like to be a script consultant on this one. I have some good ideas about gangs of vicious booted Gals, ingenious traps made of EV batteries primed to enter thermal runaway, and a final twist where TEPCO is actually run by Hans Gruber's Japanese ex-wife, played of course by Lucy Liu, who is not Japanese.

  Posted in: Next 'Die Hard' movie rumored to be set in Tokyo

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  badmigraineApr. 25, 2013 - 04:13PM JST

  Perhaps he means he's done so many, he doesn't recall these particular instances. Sort of like asking "remember that beer we drank in Roppongi that time?"

  Posted in: School flasher identified by semen left at scene

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  badmigraineApr. 24, 2013 - 03:35PM JST

  More hysterical thinking about Apple and what it "needs" to do. People have such a personal relationship with the brand, even if they dislike it, that they hold Apple to a mystical, irrational standard. And the tech business press presents Apple like gossip sites present Kim Kardashian. Meanwhile, Apple is going gangbusters and will continue that way for many years at least. Let's face it: your company should be so lucky as to have $9.5bn quarterly profit, a slight dip after nearly a decade of quarterly increases, half of which happened during the most terrible of all worldwide economic crashes and not yet finished, and the huge cash pile that Apple has, and taking advantage of today's absurdly low interest rates to borrow cash buy back $100M of its own shares at a cheap price now that the hedge fund manipulation and stock market games have brought that price back around where it was when Steve Jobs was last at the helm. I'd say a management buyout down the road is a possibility.

  Posted in: Apple's profit falls for first time in nearly a decade

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  badmigraineApr. 22, 2013 - 09:24AM JST

  I find Cool Ranch Doritos to be irresistible. I eat most of the bag until I feel sort of sick, then put it aside. Five minutes later I open it again and even pour the crumbs into my mouth. Then I'm not hungry for dinner so skip it. Around 10 pm, ravenous for more Doritos. Sound familiar?

  Posted in: The 5 most popular snacks in Japan

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  badmigraineApr. 22, 2013 - 09:11AM JST

  The puncturing of women's tires is textbook Freudian sublimation.

  Posted in: Businessman suspected of slashing up to 1,000 tires in effort to meet women

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  badmigraineApr. 18, 2013 - 10:50AM JST

  What is the American "homeland"?

  Posted in: Terror strikes anew in American homeland

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  badmigraineApr. 16, 2013 - 04:41PM JST

  Actually, Mr. Donut and Dunkin' Donuts were founded by brothers. Dunkin' Donuts was acquired by Allied-Lyons in 1989, then days later, bought Mr. Donut. At that point, Mr. Donut was a subsidiary of Dunkin' Donuts.

  My memory gets fuzzy but I think Duskin acquired all Japan Mr. Donuts and Dunkin' Donuts, then gradually renamed the Dunkin' ones to Mr. Donut. I actually remember getting coffee at a Tokyo ダンキン in the mid-90s.

  I wonder if the Duskin purchase also involved a lockout on using the "Dunkin' Donuts" name in Japan. It seems doubtful that Dunkin' will come back here, though it sure would be nice, along with Winchells and Tim Horton. I do like some Timbits with my kawfee.

  Posted in: Mister Donut Japan to change product ingredients for first time in 42 years

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  badmigraineApr. 16, 2013 - 02:00PM JST

  I find Mr. Donuts to be not bad, but more like puffy bread with wax frosting than the heavier, sweeter donuts that Americans enjoy. Only one of their donuts is like what you'd get "back home": the cruller that Maria so rightly praises. Krispy Kreme is a typical US-style donut. This is what cops and kids get every day in the US. That explains a lot, no?

  Posted in: Mister Donut Japan to change product ingredients for first time in 42 years

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  badmigraineApr. 12, 2013 - 11:37AM JST

  There's no need to pay MS or Apple for office programs or suites. You can use the free OfficeLibre suite, which does most everything MS Office does. It's available for Mac, Windows and Linux. If I had a small business, I'd use this...it's free and works with most any file format. It's excellent,, fully-featured, robust and mature.

  But if your work requires sharing and collaboration on complex Excel spreadsheets, or Word documents with complex formatting or change history, then you will find glitches from time to time unless you use the real MS products. Alternate programs aren't reliable enough for mission-critical work. They can make you look bad, and waste the time of other people.

  This actually happened to me last Tuesday, when I lost formatting and change history in a docx file that many hands had touched in Japanese and English with change history, comment balloons, notes, multicolored highlighting and fonts. That kind of document is the norm in my big company. So I still have to run Office on my Windows machine at home.

  Posted in: PC sales plunge as Windows 8 flops

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  badmigraineApr. 12, 2013 - 09:23AM JST

  What's amazing is that betas of Win 8 had a "use Windows 7" mode where you could just go back to that interface. Then MS removed that in the final version! That was a crazy pigheaded mistake. Why would you punish your legacy users that way? It shows a kind of contempt for customers and legacy.

  The good news is you can download the free "Classic Shell" utility which allows you to choose XP, Vista or 7 style. Or pay a pittance for the even-better solutions by the clever people at Stardock.

  I would guess this option to use Win 7 mode will re-appear in a future update due to complaints and pressure from enterprise users, and the fair number of complaints and negative reviews from switchers.

  Another interesting thing: if you have a Windows 8 license, you automatically get downgrade rights. You can download a free ISO image of Windows 7 SP 1, install it, then call MS at the number shown on the activation screen to explain that you're exercising your downgrade rights, prove your Windows 8 license, and they'll give you a free, one-time activation key from Microsoft. Just Google "Windows 7 ISO image" for the official links. You can also visit Microsoft's site and search for "downgrade rights" for more explanation.

  A word of warning though: Windows 8 uses the UEFI boot system, not MBPT like previous Windows versions. You'll have to make some BIOS changes before downgrading. Better to check your maker's support or forum site for a simple how-to on this.

  Posted in: PC sales plunge as Windows 8 flops

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  badmigraineApr. 05, 2013 - 04:27PM JST

  Kennedy, Bush, Clinton. That's automatic American royalty. Same story in Hollywood, where certain actors and their children and relatives appear over and over again. I suppose it's always been that way.

  Posted in: I thought it was an April Fool’s joke when I first heard about it. Our economic and national security are based on goodwill toward Japan. I have nothing against Caroline Kennedy becoming ambassador to, say, Barbados. But Japan is too important for somebody with no experience.

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  badmigraineApr. 05, 2013 - 10:32AM JST

  Sounds bogus, but assuming it's true, that ring would get lost really fast. It's hard enough to find a huge remote control sometimes. People want things to get easier, not crufted up with more parts like a stylus or 3D glasses or a magic ring that one person has to wear. Now imagine you have kids. There will be fighting over the ring, the baby puts it in her mouth, or the harried parent forgets to take it off when washing dishes. No thank you!

  Posted in: 60-inch Apple iTV to launch this year