Tina Fey talking about Hillary Clinton

Found this at The Lipstick Page Forums Blog. An excellent piece by Tina Fey regarding people's opposition to Hillary Clinton.

coin laundry AKA laundromats

Two cool things about Japanese laundromats (usually called コインランドリー coin laundry):

* Hot water (my washing machine only uses cold water as far as I can tell. There's only one water inlet...

* A 30 second fast rinse option - clean the machine before you use it! That is so cool. If detergent and hot water gets used here that'd be even cooler, but I don't know if that's the case. Anyway, a little more sanitary than your regular laundromat.

Non sequitur: there was a sign saying something to the effect that "Pet washing is prohibited." I assume they mean pet clothing and blankets, etc., but it could be construed to mean the pet itself. Maybe that's only possible in my literal thinking. They had a different sign specifically rejecting the washing of pet blankets and such.

Japanese Certification （日本語検定）

There's a new Japanese exam called 日本語検定 (nihongo kentei; Japanese Certification). Their 3rd exam will be given this June. The site only appears to be in Japanese, so I guess it's targeted for native speakers and their parents (perhaps mostly their parents), unlike the Japanese Language Proficiency Test and the BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test.

smacky glam

Mischa Barton is featured in a Japanese magazine as an example of "Smacky Glam." I don't know what "Smacky Glam" is, but I don't think I want to look that way.

社会人になってから vs. "entering the working world"

It's common to say "社会人になってから"(sha-kai jin ni natte kara) in Japanese, which roughly translates into "entering the working world" although the more literal meaning would probably be "becoming a (productive) member of society." "Productive" being commonly used in the English phrase, and probably is implied in the Japanese one.

I don't know of many English-speaking people who talk about when they became a productive member of society, though. It's more "when I graduated from college" or "when I started working." In the IT world in Japan, it doesn't seem uncommon to graduate from 2-year technical schools and go right to work. Lots of people seem to go to 4-year colleges, but still.

Snow!

I forgot to take pictures, but Tokyo was hit with the most snow I've ever seen here. Trains were delayed and most were pretty empty, as were the shops and streets.

clips of Japanese culture

Jero, African American Enka singer

Japanese parking champions: parking is hard work!