w00kie’s ramblings

Today, while reading Candyland, Remka's blog about graphic design in Tokyo (careful, it's in French), I was introduced to the absolute best stop-motion video I've ever seen. It will melt your face with awesomeness:

Check out their website for more of the same and even a making-of.

Shamelessly stolen from Japan Probe, but it's too mind-blowing not to spread the word about it.

January sees its share of administrative tasks for the new year that just started. So I received some new forms from my office's executive assistant and as usual the English information sheet is of great help:

Special Tax Credit
Inform of special tax credit (deduction of housing loan) system like house loan etc. of residence tax. It comes to be able to deduct the amount of a special deduction like the house loan etc. that were not able to be deducted from the income tax is able to deduct from the residence tax in 2008 fiscal year.

Okay... As usual I'm going to stamp the paper with my hanko and give it back praying that I have not signed over my soul to the devil...

I just received the new Health Insurance Bulletin from my company and we have a new installment of my favorite healthy advice series about dental hygiene:

A tip about teeth
Winter is here.
Do your teeth feel sensitive when you bite into something cold?
It might be a gapalong the line between your teeth and gums.
This happens when you brush your teeth with a strong scrubbing motion from left to right.
Brushing this way can wear down your teeth.
Try visiting your dental clinic to ask which method of brushing is best suited to your teeth, before they become damaged.

Japanese people must really have weak dentitions, seeing as most of the toothbrushes you find in the stores here are softer than mohair, I really doubt you could damage your gums with that. Not as funny as the last one where they we're looking to cash in on any opportunity to remove my teeth...

In exactly 4 days I will officially become a fully local employee in my company. My salary will be in Japanese Yens, I will pay Japanese taxes, be under a Japanese pension plan (although I still retain an extra pension plan in France as a bonus) and be protected by a Japanese health insurance.

Although this will only start from Thursday 1st, I already began receiving the Health Insurance's newsletter which has an English version for us foreigners. This is where I found this little gem:

A tip about teeth
We are now in the autumn.
You see, I would like something nice to eat.
Is everything fine in your mouth?
If plaque or tartar has formed on your teeth, let's use this opportunity to remove them.

Remove what? Plaque or teeth? Poor grammar or barbaric oral surgery practices? I let you be the judge... Anyways, this does nothing for my fear of Japanese dentists...

Could someone explain me why I see so many cars in Japan with French or German license plates under the official Japanese plates?

I might understand that car maniacs who import the cars from Europe might keep the plates for style, but this is a Mazda Premacy with the wheel on the right!

What to do when you really want to snowboard in summer and you like stupid crazy activities? You find a place where they built a big-air jump on a hill with a pool under it.

The place is called S-Air and is located in 所沢 in southern Saitama. You can get there from Tokyo in around 45min by train and the full day pass + rental of everything will cost you 8,300¥ (or 7,000¥ for 2 1/2 hours).

This was really really scary and even though I probably never cleared 3m, it felt really high. I had never taken a real jump on a snowboard before, and I will probably never do it on snow now that I know how it feels: I had so many potentially-fatal-crashes in that pool, I'm scared for life now...

Here's this month's Japanese TV comedy craze. I see him on TV almost every night.

I have to admit it, I laughed my ass off the first time.

Shamelessly stolen from Japanprobe, I present you the latest hit on Japanese television, the commercials for the DVD release of 24 Season 6.

It's stuck in my head since last weekend, I love it! Check out the Japanprobe link for a translation of the lyrics.

On my way to Hiroshima, I flew on one of ANA's Pokemon colored 747.

I didn't get any toys though, I guess they don't give them out to bearded gaijins...