Archive for December, 2006

Dec
13

It’s not your fault, Kimi

Posted by on Wednesday, 13 December, 2006

Softbank are running yet another brilliant ad right now. This time, it’s an ad for the new gold plan which entitles free calls between Softbank users weekdays beteen 1 and 9 PM.

Summarized translatiion:

Girl 1: Ok, call me later, before nine.
Girl 2: Yeah, I’ll call your cellphone, until nine, right.
Girl 3: We’ll call you too, Kimi.
Kimi : No, no, you don’t have to bother calling me, it costs money!
Girl 2: Oh right, you don’t use Softbank.
Kimi: Sorry!
Girl 2: No, no, it’s not like it’s your fault or anything.
Girl 3: Yeah, don’t worry about it, really!

This is my new favorite. It almost beats my old favorite one, the commercial which started the Yosogai hype

Dec
13

What disillusions Japanese women?

Posted by on Wednesday, 13 December, 2006

Oshibori
Japanese fashion website Kirei-Navi asked their readers (mainly female, for obvious reasons) what disillusions them about Japanese men, and the results were obvious to amusing:

1. Having an arrogant attitude towards the staff of a restaurant
2. Wants to split the bill exactly down to 10-yen level
3. Panics when seeing a spider or cockroach
4. Cleaning your teeth openly with a toothpick after eating
5. Having an office desk littered with toy figurines
6. Wearing a T-shirt with print on it which can be seen through the dress shirt
7. Being lousy at parking a car
8. Dresses well in a suit at the office, but regular clothing is terrible
9. Frantically plays cell phone games on the train
10.Wiping your face with the oshibori (wet towel) given at a restaurant
11.Cannot connect Audio/Video equipment; bad at using a computer
12.Having a wallet filled to the breadth with old receipts and useless cards
13.Fixing your hair using the subway train’s window as a mirror
14.Wearing white socks with a nice business suit
15.Using lots of pictures and icons in phone mails
16.Awful handwriting – makes for unreadble notes and whiteboard writing
17.Typing abnormally fast and loud on the keyboard
18.Collecting large amounts of discount coupons and point cards
19.Preference for “womenly” sweet drinks like Kahlua Milk

I actually agree with most of these, even I find some of them upsetting. There is an incredible amount of men in this country that wears white sports socks with a suit. What is up with that? Can’t you see it looks terrible? On the other hand, what is wrong with fixing your hair in the subway window? I mean, it must be better than bringing a hand mirror along with you in your briefcase and using THAT! Oh, and if any of you have problem no 6, the solution is to wear it inside out – then usually the print will not show through! 😉

(Original ranking in Japanese; Thanks to Mari for the link: Watashi to Tokyo – hope you don’t mind I re-translated the original text.)

Dec
07

There are people on the other side!

Posted by on Thursday, 7 December, 2006

People on the other side
The sign above has intrigued me ever since I started working at my current job. It is posted on the door to the stairwell, and since I do quite a lot of running up and down between our floors I see it at least 2-3 times a day.

Here’s the thing… I’ve NEVER seen these people that supposedly are on the other side! I always open the door veeeery carefully to not bump into the “people that are on the other side” but I always fail to see anyone. They must hide as soon as they hear me approaching! Maybe they have supernatural hearing abilities… Next time I’ll walk like a ninja to the door and roundkick it open – if that doesn’t surprise these mystery people, then I give up! I’ll start using the elevator, cause it is just too creepy….

Dec
04

Expand your reading

Posted by on Monday, 4 December, 2006

Recently I have found myself bored with my regular blog reading – I don’t know why, but I’ve found myself getting bored by blogs I used to read fervently before.

So, while casually browsing the latest stuff to come through the RSS feeds on my Netvibes page, I found a link to the following:

Best Blogs of 2006 that You (Maybe) Aren’t Reading (via: Waxy.org)

That is an extremly high recommended list of interesting blogs you may or (probably) may not be reading right now. I for one was not reading any of them regularly, and had only heard about a handful.

And yes, this is yet another fairly unrelated post on this blog which has fallen victim of my recent increased workload and lack of inspiration…. Sorry, I hope that maybe by reading some of these blogs I, too, might rediscover my inspiration to rekindle the activity of my blog again…

Dec
01

Bill Watkins is my new hero

Posted by on Friday, 1 December, 2006

Bill Watkins (CEO of Seagate) just became my new hero. I just read the Fortune interview with him over at CNNMoney.com and some of his comments are already classics to live by:

You never ask board members what they think. You tell them what you’re going to do.

CEOs who whine about Sarbanes Oxley don’t belong in their jobs. Come on guys, get over it.

and the best one of them all:

Let’s face it, we’re not changing the world. We’re building a product that helps people buy more crap – and watch porn.

I agree especially with the Sarbanes Oxley quote, as it affects my daily work. People who complain about it have missed the big picture. I might come back to this issue in a separate post, because there is a lot of stuff to be said about it!

(via Valleywag)