“A fish, a barrel, a smoking gun.”

— Glenn Reynolds, on fisking Howard Dean

Dear Amazon,


I’m a bit puzzled at the moment. Usually CD releases in Japan are even more overpriced when they’re imports.

New Younha album on Amazon Japan: 1,013 yen (~$12.75), labeled as “import from US”, release date July 10.

New Younha album on Amazon US: $21.11, labeled as “import”, release date July 10, free shipping.

New Younha album on Yesasia.com: $14.99, import, release date July 6, free international shipping.

Oh, wait:

iTunes US: $10.99, release date July 3.

“never mind, I’m good”

Must. Buy. Tiny Marika.


Captain Marika Nendoroid in October.

Marika Nendoroid

(via the never-safe-for-work Sankaku Complex)

I will never understand Japanese snack foods


Mini Asparagus-shaped Black Sesame Biscuits

Okay, I think I'm set for a while


All these years, I didn’t know they sold it in <a href=”this size:

Simichrome polish 8.82oz can

[Update: and for the serious user, 1000 gram can.]

You have to be really smart to do something this stupid...


Another own-goal from the Obama campaign.

Got a birthday, anniversary, or wedding coming up?

Let your friends know how important this election is to you—register with Obama 2012, and ask for a donation in lieu of a gift. It’s a great way to support the President on your big day. Plus, it’s a gift that we can all appreciate—and goes a lot further than a gravy bowl.

I’d file it as “humor”, but this is an official statement from the campaign site, which henceforth shall be known as Clowncar 2012.

Dear Girls Generation Costume Designers,


You’ve been in Japan too long, and apparently you’ve even been hanging out in the Hello!Project Wardrobe Dungeon. Please go back to Korea for a while to escape the evil influences that led you to strap feather dusters to Hyoyeon’s hips. And speaking of shape-distortion, did you really put Sooyoung in jodhpurs and fun-fur shoulder pads? And, and, … look, just flee while you still can.

"The next few updates may be a bit irregular"


Outsider resumes with a bit of understatement. :-)

Fun with machine translation


Dear Google Translate, the adjective いけ好かない can be translated as disagreeable, disgusting, nasty, or creepy. I think you’ll find that there are very few contexts where it would be correct to translate it as “dicksplash”.

Google Translate Fail

“Need a clue, take a clue,
 got a clue, leave a clue”