Purr-fect station chief brings passengers back

TOKYO - A money-losing Japanese train company has found the purr-fect pet mascot to draw crowds and bring back business — tabby Tama.

All the 9-year-old female cat does is sit by the entrance of Kishi Station in western Japan, wearing a black uniform cap and posing for photos for the tourists who are now flocking in droves from across the nation.

Tama has been doing such a good job of raising revenue for the troubled Kishikawa train line that she was recently promoted to "super-station-master."

"She never complains, even though passengers touch her all over the place. She is an amazing cat. She has patience and charisma," Wakayama Electric Railway Co. spokeswoman Yoshiko Yamaki told The Associated Press Monday. "She is the perfect station master."

Appointing a cat to turn around fortunes makes cultural sense in Japan, where cats are considered good luck and are believed to bring in business.

People are snatching up novelty goods — postcards, erasers, notebooks and pins — decorated with Tama's photos. There's even a special 1,365 yen ($13) book of photos of Tama called, "Diary of Tama, the Station Master."

The Kishikawa line had been losing $4.9 million a year as passenger numbers fell steadily to as low as about 5,000 a day, or some 1.9 million a year.

After Tama's appointment last year passengers have been gradually returning, recently rising 10 percent to about 2.1 million a year.

In December Tama was rewarded with bonus pay — all in cat food.

I have no doubt the trains run on time at this particular station. The station master comes out and sucks out the souls of any conductor unlucky enough to be late.

It's probably just a sad sign of our times that cats are put into managerial positions. Seeing as they're willing to work for cat food (and the opportunity to further to forces of darkness), more companies are likely to follow suit in catsourcing their labor. If you thought that calling customer service is a nightmare now because of call centers in India, just wait a few months and see what happens when it's staffed by lolcats.

I am sort of curious what the next level of promotion is for Tama. I mean, there's station master and then super station master. What's next? I'm betting it'll be happy lucky super sparkle station master. They'll probably also allocate it one magical transformation per day and the ability to wield a 5-foot long sword.

I think I want to borrow someone's cat. I'm not quite sure how you would usually go about something like that. It's not exactly like going next door and asking if you could have a cup of sugar or borrow a ladder. Still, I think it's absolutely vital that I manage to acquire myself a cat and a giant roll of masking tape. I ran across this video last night and I'm really anxious to give it a try.



You've just gotta love the japanese. They come up with some of the most interesting things. I'm curious to find out if you wrap the cat's entire body with tape, does it implode.

Alrighty. One more video from japanese tv.



All I can say is those must be some really good cookies or the japanese have some out of control fetish for baked goods. On a sidenote, the first guy in white runs really strangely. It's like he's trying to haul ass while moving as little of his upper body as he can manage. It's sorta creepy really.

A while back (I have no idea at the moment how long) I posted an entry with some links to a Japanese game show with a reoccuring bit dubbed 'Silent Library'. The basic premise is it's like drawing straws and the short one brings suffering. In that way, it's a lot like most japanese game shows and why I find them so incredibly amusing. As George Takei said in that one Simpsons episode, 'Our game shows are a little different than your own. Your shows reward knowledge. Ours punish ignorance!' The added bonus is that it's supposedly taking place in a library and all the contestants are supposed to minimize the amount of noise they make. I found it to be hilarious at the time and over the past few days I've been searching around on youtube for other japanese gameshow clips and ran across it again. I thought I'd compile the files in a new entry since some of the links have now expired and I can actually embed videos.







Man, I wish we could have shows like this on american tv. I mean, WTF? How come television stations in Japan can humiliate and cause mental, emotional, and physical suffering to their contestants and not worry about lawsuits while tv stations here shit bricks for fear of something like this? I mean, it's not even like they're subjecting the kids to hilarious torture or something....though it might cause me to actually watch the show if they were. If you can't abuse and humilate people on tv, where can you do it? It's time to pass some fairly draconian laws to limit lawsuits so I can watch people suffer in a humorous fashion in English.

On a sidenote, maybe it was inevitable but some people have gotten together to do their own amateur version of Silent Library. I stumbled over one of the videos on youtube while looking for the original and thought I'd link it here. I haven't taken a look at it yet, but I'm all for college students making fools of themselves. It's sweet like a baby's tears.

I've got some really kickass video clips this time around.

What if the Dark Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail was really Darth Vader?

Now, this is something I know that my friends and I argued about in highschool. Which side would exactly win if it were the Enterprise vs a Star Destroyer? This is fantastic video where someone has spliced together old star trek episodes with star wars footage to make a pretty good amalgamation.

More japanese hilarity again. Toilet go up the hole. I can't believe a show like this dosen't get its ass sued multiple times per episode. Can you imagine if they set something like this up in the US somewhere? It'd be like am ambulance chaser's wet dream.

This clip is almost enough to make me come to the conclusion I should be watching the Maury Povich show. It's a show about a girl with a Phobia of Pickles. I swear you couldn't make this whacky shit up. It's even more entertaining than Maury's last gimmick which I think was named something like 'Yo, that ain't cho baby'. Freud would have a field day with this one.

Apparently this group of people must suffer from terminal boredom. I can't even imagine what would possess a person to use stop motion photography and a buncha volunteers in order to create Human Pong.

My fucking God. This is the stupidest idea I have seen in ages. Here's a video game that's controlled by urination. As if some people's aim weren't bad enough at urinals. Can you imagine the mess that something like this would create? I can just imagine some diehard gamers guzzling water by the gallon so they can 'recharge' and try to beat the high score.

WooT! This gives me some hope that maybe one day the dream of Bonzai Kitty can actually be achieved. Chances are it'd just be used as a way to evolve the satanic cat army. Someone should have just used a giant cork after it had climbed in.

Japan is proud home of Christ's tomb

Follow the winding path up into the forest and there, sure enough, is a simple mound with a large wooden cross labelled as the grave of Jesus. Nearby is a tomb commemorating Isukiri, Christ’s brother, adorned with a plastic poinsettia Christmas wreath.

For two millennia the farming village of Shingo claims to have protected a tradition that Jesus spent most of his life in Japan. The village is the home of Sajiro Sawaguchi, a man in his eighties who claims to be a direct descendant of Jesus and whose family has always owned the land in which it is said that Christ is buried.

Mr Sawaguchi emerged as Jesus’s heir only in 1935, when a priest in Ibaraki discovered a document in ancient Japanese purporting to be Christ’s will. This document supposedly identifies Shingo as the location of the tombs of Jesus and Isukiri. The claim is widely believed. About 40,000 Japanese visit the site every year. Two years ago it was presented with a plaque by Jerusalem, and next Sunday it will host the annual Christ festival of traditional Japanese dance.

According to the account in the Christ Museum next to the tombs, Christ arrived in Japan at the age of 21 and learnt Japanese before returning to Judaea 12 years later to engage in his mission and preach about the “holy land of Japan”. The official Shingo history is that Jesus’s place on the Cross was “casually” taken by his brother, leaving Christ free to return to Japan. On his return he fell in love with Miyuko, a local girl, and lived happily with his family among the rice fields until dying aged 106.

Norihide Nagano, the straight-faced curator of the tombs, says that the theory that the grave does contain the remains of Jesus is supported by several pieces of evidence. There is the local tradition, dating back hundreds of years, of drawing a charcoal cross on babies’ heads; and ancient kimonos made in the area incorporated a Star of David.

The upkeep of the site is paid for out of the profits of a local yoghurt factory, and Mr Nagano agrees that The Da Vinci Code will probably boost Shingo’s coffers. The village shop is already doing a roaring trade in Christ-branded saké. “Did you enjoy the museum?” asks Mr Nagano. “If you did, I recommend you go to Ishikawa district. They have the tomb of Moses there.”

Jesus was apparently a more well-traveled guy than we give him credit for. Not only was he hopping around the middle east and then later frolicing with the Indians according to Mormons, but here we have a claim he visited Japan. I'm sorta curious how this actually fits into the timeline, though as some have pointed out there is a large chunk of Jesus's life that's pretty much left blank by the bible. Sure, most people assume he was going around building a ministry or otherwise earning his keep, but I guess it's feasable in a bizzaro-world sort of twist that he was really off in Japan supping on sake.

Everyone loves Christ brand Sake. So good, you'll come back from the dead for a taste. And remember, if you like Christ Sake, you'll love Moses Sushi Rolls. Avalaible just down the street in Ishikawa for a limited time only.

Not only is japanese tv just more entertaining in general, it seems to find a way to bring you hilarity without the need for high priced sets or fiddily writers. All you need is an outrageous premise and then a bunch of people willing to endure pain and humiliation. It's like the next level of reality tv shows. It's gold, I tell ya. Gold.

Here's the premise. A buncha guys go to a library (obviously one that's been staged) and then engage drawing straws where the person who picks the short stick (so to speak) has to suffer some torturous or otherwise unpleasant event. The goal is obviously not to make any noise since they are, after all, in a library.

I watched the third one first and laughed myself silly. While that probaly dosen't say much for my sense of humor, I think it's justifiable in this case.

Silent Library 1 (part I)
Silent Library 1 (part II)


Silent Library 2 (part I)
Silent Library 2 (part II)


Silent Library 3

I can pretty much guarentee you that I wouldn't have found this the least bit interesting if it had been in english and on the cooking network or something.

Japanese TV. One of the last bastions of pure insanity. I think they should just port these shows over to the US without even attempting to subtitle or translate them. Somehow, it's more entertaining if you have absolutely no clue what they're saying.

Girl vs Polar Bear

Girls vs Giant Black Man

Girls vs Giant Lizard

Girls vs The Ring

Girls vs Stuffed Cock

Girls vs Hard-o Gay Man

Girls vs The Animal Kingdom (Not work safe. Not sanity safe either)

Girls vs Girls Slapfight!

Scary Music Video

Scary Music Video II

Japanese vs Arnold Schwarzenegger