The noise canceling ramen fork

by Jack Brummet



A new Japanese device: the "noise canceling ramen fork." The $130 OTOHIKO fork from Nissin—for noisy ramen slurpers—doesn't really cancel noise. When it detects a slurp, it plays a wave-crashing sound on your phone which theoretically drowns out the slurping sound. [I thought ramen slurping was socially OK?]

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Fall seven times and stand up eight

Fall seven times and stand up eight. 

— Japanese Proverb

The fake town that hid Seattle's Boeing plant No. 2 from the Japanese during World War II

By Jack Brummet, Seattle history ed.

After Pearl Harbor, Boeing Plant No. 2 in Seattle (where B 17 bombers were built) was put under heavy camouflage to prevent a Japanese aircraft attack. The roof of the huge plant was covered with fake houses, streets, and trees. No Japanese planes came anywhere near the factory (my Mom was a riveter there before she enlisted). The plant is under the darker area in the center of the above photograph. The middle shot shows employees (allegedly, but they seem like models/actors) hanging out on the roof, and a view of the roof from street level.

A closer view of the 35-acre roof of Boeing Plant 2, with homes built of canvas, trees and shrubs made of board and mesh, and streets of oil and dirt:

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The Japanese Monster?

We don't know what the provenance of this image is (Tineye returned no matches), but we like it.  

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Digital Art: Incoming Japanese Prime Minister and First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama and Yukio Hatoyama

click to enlarge

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Alien Lore No. 156 (in a collector's series) - Japanese first lady abducted by aliens

click to enlarge the first gal

Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of Japan's Prime Minister-elect, Yukio Hatoyama, is into macrobiotics, was divorced, was once an actress, and often wears clothes she creates herself. She was also a dancer in Japan's fabled all-female Takarazuka theatrical group (an elite, hugely loved troupe that produces schmaltzy versions of U.S. theatrical and movie productions).

62-year-old Miyuki Hatoyama says she knew Tom Cruise in a former incarnation (he was Japanese), She says if they meet, "I believe he'd get it if I said to him, 'Long time no see'," she told an interviewer recently. Oh, and she was also once abducted by aliens. I love this woman!!!

In her book, "Very Strange Things I've Encountered" she writes that was abducted by aliens while she slept one night 20 years. Naturally, this has vaulted her onto front pages and gossip columns.


click to enlarge the first couple

"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," she explains in the tome she published last year. "It was a very beautiful place, and it was very green."

Her previous husband, told her it was just a dream. She says the soon to be Prime Minister, however, would say, 'Oh, that's great'," she wrote.

Mister and Mrs. Hatoyama met in the United States. She worked in a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, and he was in grad. school at Stanford University. Miyuki was still married. "The average man chooses his mate from among unmarried women," Hatoyama boasted years later. "I chose mine from among all women."

They say Hatoyama adores his wacky wife. Why wouldn't he?? "I feel relieved when I get home," he says. "She is like an energy refuelling base."
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