3 weeks ago when when Bob and I arrived here, we had been on a plane for 12 hours, had traveled through the subways for 3 hours and were generally beat.

When we got to our boarding house, I for one, plopped my lugage down in my room and made a beeline for he head...only to be greeted by this connundrum...

Well....isn't that special....how do you...I mean...

                                          h e l p

Anyway....I found out rather late that our boarding house,Casa Nova does have a western style commode in the other mens room. However, this began my search for  less primitive toilets.

ALMOST IMEDIATELY...SUCCESS!

At Shakeys Pizza in Shibuya, there is this techno marvel...note that it is rather at the other extreme. All those buttons...the ones labeles with Kanji? They controll various extra functions....only one of which is "flush"...these include but are not limited to: a bidet, heater and making a "flush" sound ??? the location  ensures that large people such as myself can hit the butons with their thigh at an awkward moment.....

Now one might expect the Shinkansen, or bullet trains to be equiped with modern toilettes, perhaps even drifting into the realm of diminishing returns as the one above.....

....one would be wrong.

I did, however  find this behind the great Buddha of Kamakura....

...Buddah it seems, is wise...

 For those as confused by the first image as I was...Asahi. net has this barely helpful & NSFW diagram.

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We're coming down the river to kick your butt!



(Summer flees)

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....this chipmunk simply cannot be dramatic...

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  Eaglespeak posts a superb piece on a really neat and  innovative semisubmersible torpedo boat the USN designed during the Civil War.

 This is a warship I'd heard about but never gotten details on...the diagram is really neat and explains a lot!

Thank you Eaglespeak!

Note that as far as semisubmuribility, this vessel was actually predated by RSC Naugatuck, also briefely known as the E.A.Stevens. While not exactly stealthy, interservice rivalry absolutely demands  that she be mentioned.

Naugatuck (spelling?) was a test rig for the abortive 'Stevens Battery', a large ironclad begun in the 1850's. Due to design changes and navy skepticism, the vessel was under construction for more han a decade, and was never completed.

Naugatuck was intended to test two main features of the larger ship, semi-submuribility and an autoloading mechanism. The vessel could trim down awash to reduce her target and gain a bit of protection. She could also load her gun from a protected barbette below decks and shoot it at enemy targetswith minimal crew exposure.

The vessel was reasonably successful but as it as not intended to be more than a test bed, and because of the flakieness of the builder, the USN (which then had Galena, New Ironsides, and Monitor under construction) did not buy it.

The vessel was purchased by the Revenue Cutter Service, given extemporised armor and pressed into service in the civil war.

The vessel was in action on both revenue, and blockade duties and engaged the CSS Virginia (Merrimack) two days after her more famous engagement with USS Monitor and was in action against Confederate shore batteries at the battle of Dreweys Bluff, where her telescoping parrot rifle exploded. Despite this she handled the enemy fire far better than Galena.

In part because her propulsion plant was COTS and easy to maintain, Naugatuck served in the RCS until 1872.

I believe she was also the first RCS cutter that Michael Healy was assigned to.

Sadly, I have no design specs handy as I'm in Japan and information on the vessel seems sparse.

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 The Gulf of Mexico is very very hot right now.

 If this thing keeps on this course it could well hit quite hard where it hurts.

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  The Kyoto trip was delayed untill tomorrow in part because Bob (who feels he is not mentioned on the blog enough) wanted to rest his leg after having taken a fall in Kamakura, and in part because I needed to take care of some things at a bank. The latter took a LOT longer than anticipated because the directions that we got were missing cruicial datta points that had been replaced with bad data. (by we of course I mean Bob...who is scarcely ever mentioned on this blog, and me). After getting that sorted out, Bob and I went to Akibahara which was just two stops away by train.

At the station we were greeted by the usual entourage of french maids, catgirls, schoolgirls...or at least young ladies in school uniforms and nuns in dubious habits...all passing out flyers for some local biddness...

Now on the two previous visits to this station these young ladies did NOT want their picture taken and frankly I'm not going to press the issue, but today was a special treat as one of the young ladies was enthusiastically posing for photographs and not hiding her face in any way....

After that Bob suggested that we make use of my very limited Japanese to help him find an item that he (Bob) had been looking for. So we walked over to a store which, despite having ADULT TOY-STORE in front of it appeared to be a used electronics store.

 I asked Bob (did I mention I was with Bob?) what he was looking for and he replied...."Cat ears"

He then led me to the stairs in the back of the store ....stairs that lead to a whole different sort of store , one more in keeping with the sign outside...

Now I'm not exactly completely innocent with regards to this stuff, but this store sells....things...I mean...

EEWWWWW.....

This was a narrow crammped multifloor sex shop with fetishes roughly categorized by floor. Now in theory this is a place where healthy couples can get things to help tittilate and bring each other pleasure....but most floors seemed to involve equipment for rather more narcissistic fun.Even by the standards of such places this was a seedy, sketchy hole in the wall.

Literally, a hole in the wall in the back of an electronics store.

Anyway,

Bob is here in part on business and without the help of Bob I'd never have been able to swing this trip. I owe Bob big for a myriad of things over the years. He needs to get special order items for his store and evidently someone wanted cat ears....go figgure.

So looking both ways to ensure my entry into the den of shame was not observed. I marched into the dank place (after looking both ways yet again) and began crawling up the narrow staircase when I was startled by a loud noise behind me....ALL of the young ladies  from the station....they must work for this place because they ALL passed us on their way to what I assume was their dressing room...it must have been shift change time...of course they muttered and giggled about the two gaijin pervs...

grrrlz..

...saw us go into the perv store...

...laughed at us in said store... 

...and  me without a trenchcoat or  a fedora...

Oh the ignominy

Anyway after some false starts ("Cat ear fetish...not on those floors...but there are THINGS for sale") a " Sumemasen, nekomimi onegaishimasu?" and a bit of pantomime got the ears...just one pair....confirming that this was a special order.

As we left, I just had  to know....

"Bob" I asked (Bob is the fellow I came to Japan with...but never mention on this blog....in case you were wondering) "I've got to know....WHO at the store ordered the cat ears?"

Bob...Oh they're for you.

Me: "Doowha?"

Bob: So you can give them to Steven Den Beste

Me: naneeewhowha?

Bob: "I read your blog....he asked for a catgirl maid....send him this and a set of instructions `Just add girl..and maid outfit`"

Me: "You are serious?"

Bob: "Sure....just mention me on your blog OK?"

Me: (expletives deleted)

True story

Stephen..some assembly is required.

And now for something we hope you'll really like.....

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1 I'm sure he'll be absolutely thrilled, thrilled I say.

Posted by: Will at Wed Aug 15 11:42:48 2007 (SOx9v)

2 Oooo!! Those are very beautiful.

Posted by: Marina at Wed Aug 15 13:33:23 2007 (z3dTy)

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The trip is going great, though I'm having some issues with uploading pictures.

I head for Kyoto/ Nara tomorrow.

I spent most of last night (Tokyo night/ Virginia day) trying, apparantly in vain, to clear up an issue with my tuition assistance and find out about my grandmothers condition as she was rushed to the doctor. (she's OK)

So I was on the internet a bit last night and as I make my train reservations I feel I should post something here.

A few completely unrelated things caught my eye that I have no time to comment meaningfully on here.  

There is a facinating and scary post on creepy obsessive Munchausens and other vermin over at Colleen Doran's blog.

Hitchens has an interesting and typically merciless piece on the "real war". I've a few minor quibbles regards the difference between Alquaeda and their franchisees but thats a post for later.

Over at Volokh Conspiracy Ilya Somin looks at the iconography and reality of Che' and the teflon that seems to coat his sucsessors.

Dr. Helen looks at  self defense and the limits of nonviolence and links to a news story of women that just wouldn' be robbed.....and in a related story...you go girls. (Both via Instapundit)

Via Jerry Pournelle. Freeman Dyson shares thoughts on global warming and the importance of heritics. Pournelle himself has a great letters page today.

Finally, these two stories are causing me a bit of unease...

Oh dear...

This is also worrisome...

Back in a day or two...

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No photo can do justice to this imposing monument, though the people in the picture can give some idea of the scale.

Originally built in 1252 AD by the sculptors Ono-Goroen and Tanji-Hisatomo this huge statue was originally housed in a massive temple. The temple was washed away in a tsunami in 1498 but the big Buddha was unfazed. Eearthquakes did not bring down the engineering marvel, but the great quake of 1923 dammaged its platform. That was repaired in 1925. Unlike many monuments, which sometime have the quality of George Washingtons axe, this is the real deal...it is as it was built....sans temple.

For 20 yen, you can go inside the thing too.The ladder to the head is now closed to the public, but it is cool to stand in the belly of the Buddha heat notwithstanding.

I never found an explanation for these Big Buddha Birkenstocks...

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Primary provider of pamphelets for parody produces Potterphobic piece of poo.

I don't think there ARE ouiga boards in Harry Potter....

Oh well, a quick perusal through the tubes of these here internets turned up a couple of...er...related images.

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I'm still bumbling about Japan.

I'm on a really tight budget but between the rail pass and cheap eats all is looking good.  Internet access is limited but that is a healthy thing as this video demonstrates.....

More trip pics to follow... in a day or two and a general return to normalcy after the 22nd.

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....evidence of the threat is everywhere.

I shudder....

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....is the catgirl maid, which I have seen no less than seven of, six going to and fro in various train stations, and one (unsurprisingly) in Akibahara. As I was sure some of my readers would have an intellectual interest in such culturally relevant things, I naturally tried to take pictures.  I discovered that they have the amazing ability to completely elude my camera...the only related photo I have gotten thus far is of an effete catboy waiter and a random maid.  

Lots of photos coming, but I'm on dial-up right now and leaving for Hiroshima in two hours. I'll most likely be offline for a day or 2.

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...not  01.

I hope this information is as useful to you as it would have been to me a bit  earlier.

Also, over here you need a special international phone to use an international phone card. This is generally not a problem as the bright green international phones are fairly ubiquitous and anywhere a tourist is likely to be.

By contrast I was awakened  by a rooster this morning.

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Dear God what a mess......

Just seeing this on the news in Japanese....what the hell?

It doesnt look like terrorism...structural failure perhaps....a LOT needs to be done regards this nations decaying infrastructure....but , I am too tired to do anything but pray for the victims. 

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I have dial-up web access. Posting will be VERY light but will occour. I`ve been up over 50 hours and must sleep. A Typhoon is hitting just to the south of me. 19 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. 

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Very light posting is imminent as I hop on the plane in 10 hours.

I may post some from Japan but frankly I'm going to be trying to do lots of actually cool stuff that doesn't involve computers or my normal Walter Mitty lifestyle.

As per the advice of the UNSTOPPABLE Stephen Den Beste
I'm shutting off comments for at least a few days to thwart the spamacons.

I'll be back in 22 days.

I want to thank everyone for the input and reading this little blog.




more...

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Encyclopedia Astronautica has had another update. This time Mark Wade has added several pages on the Lenticular spacecraft designs the US was working on in the late '50s and early '60s

Cool!

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Wow...

Don't go roaming with the i-Phone.

I'm glad I'm not rich...or I'd be broke.

HT: Jerry Pournelle

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