Blogs & Ecology

Blogger at Techtech to Tuzuru Nichijô Essay Book (テクテクとつづる日常エッセイブック) [jp] describes how, since the first week of November, Tokyo is already lit up for Christmas, everybody seems to walk faster, all the shops are already selling gifts and the big department stores are already displaying special dishes for the New Year. The blogger writes that it's almost as if, in this period of the year, someone has pushed down hard on the accelerator pedal, everything is moving so fast.

Yuko Shimonakamura at Yuko no Jinsei to Tigers [勇皇の人生とタイガース] comments with enthusiasm [jp] on the birth of a new baseball heroine, Eri Yoshida, the 16 y.o. high school student who will likely debut as a pitcher in the Kansai Independent League (関西独立リーグ) starting next spring and will play together with her male colleagues. Like many other bloggers [jp], Shimonakamura-san is forward to admiring the feats of the “new Yuki Mizuhara”, whose specialties include the “knuckleball” and the “underhand pitch”.

Noriyuki Okada at Silicon Valley wa Kyô mo Hareru (シリコンバレーは今日も晴れ) [jp] describes his experience taking the decision as a software-engineer to change his job despite being in the middle of an economically unstable period. He writes about how he thought carefully about his technical skills, asked for experts' opinion about what the market wants nowadays, and modified his resume in order to improve his chances in getting the position he applied for.

Id:sawabonroma, a Japanese writer living in Rome, describes her everyday life in the Italian capital at Roma no Heijitsu (ローマの平日). In a post on October 30th, she writes about a students demo against the education reform proposed by Minister of Education Gelmini. Millions of high school and university students, professors, researchers and school employees protested in the streets of Rome against the demolition of the public educational system, paralyzing the city center. Blaming the Japanese media, Sawabonroma points out how they gave more importance to the resulting traffic problems than to reasons for the demo.

The first of its kind, a Japanese blog called Sobolog (祖母ログ) [ literally “Grannylog”] crosses three generations, written by a nephew living in Tokyo in collaboration with her mother (who records the facts), presenting the daily life of her funky granny named Hide (82 y.o.) living in Gunma Prefecture. In this blog, the three Nagashima women share with the readers the granny's recipes, her travel accounts and her life in the countryside, uploading pictures nearly every day about Hide-san's bucolic living.

In a post entitled “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”, Yasai-ＤＸ２ posts a picture of three guys [ja] dressed up as Japanese anime character Haruhi Suzumiya. “Well, they have nice legs, no?” one commenter responds.

On October 10th, Itochu Corporation announced that it had paid close to one hundred billion yen in false transactions to Mongolian suppliers for construction machinery and materials. The company started business in 1999 purchasing heavy machinery from a Mongolian supplier and selling it to a local natural resources company, but within one year, when the resources company could not afford to pay, an employee at Itochu began falsifying the transactions in order to make it look as though business was expanding.

Comments from Japanese net users respond [ja] to an ad by U.S. presidential nominee Obama in which viewers are told to “put down the remote and go vote“. “Why Wii?” one asks. Another writes: “Anti-Japan policies before even becoming president?” And one person wonders: “Does Obama despise Japan?”

id:crystaline reports [ja] that she discovered a spam mail with the title: “It might seem unbelievable, but I am a chimpanzee”. The ‘chimp' explains: “At first, I thought I was a human. Like the other humans around me. However, I acquired knowledge, and realized that I was different. And I now know that I am a chimpanzee.” The email continues: “You and I are very similar: among chimpanzees, I myself am close to humans, and you are human but resemble a chimpanzee. This is a big part of the reason I was attracted to you.” The message ends with a link to a website where you can apparently chat with the chimpanzee on live video.

Blogger and comedian Hirokazu Fujii [藤井宏和] snaps a picture and catches an expression of surprise [ja].

id:inumash comments on news [ja] that three people heading a demo in Shibuya (Tokyo) on Oct. 26th with the intention of going to “see the home of PM Taro Aso” were arrested for not having notified police beforehand [ja]. The blogger points to an article by Amamiya Karin [雨宮処凛] [ja] in which someone from the freeter's labor union is quoted describing the demo organizers' objectives, which include demands for basic income and an end to cooperation with the U.S. in war.

id:y_arim describes [ja] meeting Japanese author Tatsuhiko Takimoto, known for his fictional work about hikikomori entitled Welcome to the N.H.K, at a bar in Akihabara. When they met, Takimoto declared that he had just recently discovered his “true self” — the person he was when he was in elementary school, at a time when he looked down on everybody, a tendency he eventually managed to suppress.

Blogger aiki_tachibana, in a post entitled “Don't call that ‘art'!” [ja], reacts to news about a controversial art performance in Hiroshima on Oct. 21st. According to reports [ja], a group of artists calling themselves “Chim←Pom” (チン←ポム) chartered a plane to fly through the sky and draw in smoke the characters for “poka” (ピカッ), meant to signify the atomic bombing. The work sparked a strong negative reaction with the public, and the leader of the group later apologized to A-bomb survivors.

Blogger id:ramyana posts a list [ja] of the top 100 bookmarked items on the Japanese bookmarking service Hatena Bookmarks [ja]. In first place, with 5370 bookmarks [ja], is a page explaining how to write a good graduation thesis [ja].

id:seshiapple picks up [ja] comments from a thread on Japanese bulletin board 2-Channel in which IT journalist Daisuke Tsuda asks 2-channelers: “The outlawing of [illegal] downloads is almost finalized, but do you have any questions?” As reported in an IT media article [ja] from Oct.