Some Directions to Other Tubes

Spurrned on by Kori's comment about this post, Katie, the highly astute observer of all things sexy, alerted me to this blog post over at Salon and the subsequent article it linked to.
I can't say I'm all that surprised by this. I mean, sex can be used to sell anything, and I don't see why tutoring would be all that different. Now, while we don't have our own personal stylists, most of the people I know who work for my company are quite attrarctive. I imagine that this can only help business.

Boing Boing, one of the most educational sites on the interweb, had two bits on Japan today, the first being a rogue's gallery of business that exclude foreigners. I've yet to actually see any signs that prohibit gaikokojin, but I imagine that for every one business that has an official sign or policy of discrimination, there are probably several others which will make their excuses or simply use rudeness to get foreigners away.
But, I've encountered none of that personally. My students are pretty much all "Wow, America!" and such, and most places have been quite accomadating to my deficient language abilities. So, no trouble for me.
I do find it quite hilarious that many of the establishments that bar foreigners have obviously foreign-inspired names- for instance a white guy got barred from a place called "Santa Monica" in Kurashiki. That's like barring Asian people from a place called Sakura.

The second link from Boing Boing, significantly less xenophobic, is a photogallery of intergenerational Japanese people, an interesting bit of visual optimism in a country with an immense generation gap.

Obvious lip synchs are pretty damn funny. I read an interesting article in Slate about Japanese pop music and iTunes, and I think that I've got to really learn more about the music scene here.

Do you like ninjas? Do you like kittens? Of course you do. Here's a song that features both.

Lastly, a pretty sweet looking shark was recently found off the coast of Japan and transfered to the Awashima Marnine Park, where it unfortunately died soon afterward. But there it is, photographed alive- thrashing and swirling like some real-life aquatic dragon. Pure undiluted awesome.