I guess track marks won't necessarily mean you're heroin addict anymore...

There was many a morning when I would down cups of coffee after a rough night like an athlete drinks Gatorade following a dehydrating run and joked that it would be so much easier if they could just hook me up to an IV and give me a slow drip of coffee throughout the day.  Leave it up to the Japanese to get close.

Tenteki10 in Tokyo, Japan may be the first in the latest fad of "health bars" where you can order up your own selection of IV cocktail to provide a nice pick me up for the day.  From Japan Today:

Ten options with different effects and five courses consisting of these options are available. The basic price is 2,000 yen, and customers can request an option or course menu, for an additional charge.

“Many people daily suffer from exhaustion, insomnia and backaches on a daily basis because they don’t take proper care of themselves,” says a doctor at Tenteki10. “They try supplements, home remedies or cheap energy injections. Some of these ailments cannot be healed that way and could possibly develop into more serious illnesses, including depression.”

I'm not sure getting supplements injected straight into the bloodstream is that much better than taking the old fashioned oral route and letting your body absorb it, but I guess in this fast-paced world, every second counts.  That, or people really like needles--OUCH!

Who knew that "oh so clean feeling" could be SO GOOD?

Super Mario Bros. - The greatest video game ever?

Apparently, the existence of Super Mario Bros. 2 is the stuff of legend. After the success of Nintendo's break out game for the NES gaming console, the designer of Super Mario Bros., Shigeru Miyamoto, came up with a sequel much harder than the first. His sequel, however, either looked too much like the original game or was too difficult, and an alternate sequel game was eventually released for the American market instead. The American version is generally forgotten, but the legend of the real sequel game lived on.

Recently, this mythic version was released for play in the United States on the Nintendo Wii 20 years after the original game was released. Entitled Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, it almost seems to solidfy Miyamoto's stature as a true artist based on this review by Slate:

In most games, you trust that the designer is guiding you, through the usual signposts and landmarks, in the direction that you ought to go. In the Real Super Mario Bros. 2, you have no such faith. Here, Miyamoto is not God but the devil. Maybe he really was depressed while making it—I kept wanting to ask him, Why have you forsaken me? The online reviewer who sizes up the game as "a giant puzzle and practical joke" isn't far off.

That sadistic torment, however, is central to the game's appeal. Unlike most game designers, who make sequels that are identical to their predecessors, only with better graphics, Miyamoto used the Real Super Mario Bros. 2 to do something new and dangerous, turning his original and beloved game on its head. Once you accept that mushrooms and warp zones can be punishments rather than rewards, you start to question the nature of the game and to ponder strategic gambits you would never have considered while playing the original Super Mario Bros. Upon discovering the Warp Zone to World 1, I contemplated letting the clock on Level 3-1 expire—a tactic that would have caused Mario to lose a life but would have allowed him to stay on the third level.

Perhaps there is some reason to all of that Japanese quirkiness after all.

Just gotta hope your would-be assailant doesn't get thirsty midway during the chase...

Some designer in Japan created these disguises to help potential crime victims allude muggers. Somehow, this vending machine costume fits under some flap in a woman's skirt, so she can simply pull it out and cover herself to hide if she's being chased. I suppose in a darkly lit city environment, this might work. Might be an easy way to make some cash, too. I've lost many a dollar bill on Coke machines that ate my money. Hmmm.

Probably tastes good with Spam...

From those wacky inventors in Japan: Bread in a can--'nuff said.

How do you say "HC? Physics!" in Japanese?

Admit it--you're bobbing your head, too...

If you haven't given Spoon's latest a listen, here's a catchy video featuring their song, "Don't You Evah" from their album Ga Ga Ga Ga...uh...Ga Ga...um...one, two, three...how many Ga's are there again?

Ah, I could watch Japanese videos all day long:



(via Pop Candy)

Monkey walking bulldogs with Japanese commentary = video gold...

I thought this video from Japan Probe was a hoot. They always have similar shows like this or some Asian soap opera playing on the big TV when the wife and I go out for Korean food every week. I can't understand a word, but they always seem to put a smile on my face:

I know this is supposed to be relaxing, but for some reason I just feel like Bugs Bunny...

I really need to plan a vacation to Japan one of these days just to take in all the wacky stuff they've got over there. Here's a spa where you can bathe in your favorite beverage including red wine and sake. Talk about setting yourself up for a major hangover. Please, no peeing in these baths. Alas, the ramen bath is a limited engagement that ends in September.

Respect the c@ck...

Is it considered child molestation when you make a little girl rub a big phallus?



Actually, this was a report in Japan of the Kanamara Matsuri (Festival of the Steel Phallus), an annual fertility festival. Legend has it that a demon hid inside the vagina of a young girl in the town of Kawasaki and basically bit off men's penises until a local blacksmith forged a steel phallus which broke the teeth of the demon and ran it out of town. The story somehow stemmed from the spread of syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases some 400 years ago with the iron phallus becoming a shrine for prostitutes to ask for protection. Today, childless couples also come to the shrine in hopes of becoming fertile.