along with my Donor Card permitting my organs to be used for science when the time comes, i'd like a second card permitting my skull to be used as a bong. I'll never have a lasting legacy artistically or politically, so the thought of my grinning bones sitting on someone's shelf for years after i'm gone is, well... pretty awesome.

I was wondering what the deal with Oyster cards was... do you have to show ID to get one in the first place? I wouldn't like that much.

they sound a lot like the Suica or Pasmo cards we use in Tokyo (Suica cards have been around for many years now). You can pay for them in cash, and while they do ask you for your name and address, it's only to return it to you should you lose it. Meaning, it's not compulsory to enter your name and address to obtain one. I have about five of them, only one of which has a name attached to it (they're for friends when they visit me here).

destroying the RFID in your passport just seems like a good way to bring down more hassle upon yourself at the airport. if you're that worried about it, use one of those special sleeves (yes, a Doritos packet will do fine too... they just tend to be greasier and are rarely the right size).

the weed certainly isn't helping me write a witty response to this post... in fact, i've already forgotten what it was about.

does the design of that mouse remind anyone else of an eletric chair?
... or am i just having flashbacks from a previous life?

that looks quite similar to my room right now... and i don't even have a T-shirt rug. must tidy up more often.

i believe you've just violated a Wendy's patent with those square burgers.

This will really limit the audience for this book. Few people other than anime/manga fans will give it a first glance. Sorry, that's the reality of the marketplace

luckily, the market of anime/manga fans is growing by the minute.

matthew has a lot of patience. i only hope he turns his talents to 3D in future; i'd like to see what he can do.

lucky they don't use mimeograph machines in elementary schools these days.

i got sent home early once for drawing on my arms (ok, and many of the other arms in my first grade class too) with a sharpie. i'm pretty sure we all enjoyed the smell too. And that was 1979. If only they'd handed out suspensions back then... i'd feel a lot more badass than I do now.

But without adequate storage space under the staircase, where are you supposed to put all your unwanted children?

@Frankie:

lol

@Takuan:

what a great article, thanks. i looked up SAIC on wikipedia, too. i love how almost every aspect of the company seems designed to look as innocuous as possible, from the office-park style HQ to the dorky logo.

and that's the reason i have to hand over my toothpaste at every checkpoint? ffs.

man, wait til they see what i can do with this bottle of diet coke and a few mentos.

and i still have a bunch of dark green pens from the 80s that were supposed to make CDs sound better. i'm selling them cheap, if anyone wants one. or some. or all of them.

this must be the first mass teenage gathering in the last 5 years to have produced no photos or youtube vids. links anyone?

anyone? ... really, there's nothing from the whole event? wow. something tells me none of this really happened.

nice to see Mugabe has finally figured out a way to feed his country.

screw you all, i remember when this song was playing on our screens for real. it was neither good nor bad in the 80s... just like now, really.

@Pukebazooka:

yeah, but once you subtract all the UK stories about Australia that involve someone being attacked by some kind of animal or a UFO sighting, or a UFO sighting by a kangaroo, etc, the result is virtually zero.

ah, i finally got it. sorry, i'm a bit slow here.
but i'd still like a goatse chaser after watching it again.

excuse me while i smash my head against this brick wall until every single last residual memory of that video is gone.

i met this guy once who had a swastika tattooed on one cheek and a star of david on the other. he had a few tears as well, smelled of urine and would have been completely insane even if he'd ever been sober, so to be honest i never asked him the reason. clearly a guy with some conflicts.

Jeff, isn't that what Podiobooks is doing already? Most (if not all) of their writers are unsigned, and offering their work as donationware to test their popularity. A lot of them are narrated by the authors with their own equipment, and the general quality is pretty good.

oh and thanks to boingboing for putting me onto Starship Sofa as well, i followed the link you posted last time and now I'm an addict. Tony is a great guy with the kind of knowledge and passion i dream of having.

@scuba sm:

"I never, ever got a good ending in a CYOA book. I always died, no matter what I tried to do."

little did you realize the valuable lesson in life you were getting there...

the second video of this song on YT is even better (if 'better' is actually the right word to use). go la pequena prohibida!

i never set out to be a book thief. but In the past, when a bookstore employee picked me out of the crowd to leave my bag at the counter while other people were allowed to carry theirs, i'd sometimes steal a book on general principle.

damn, now i can't get this song out of my head...

Have to catch an early train
Got to be to work by nine
And if I had an air-o-plane
I still couldn't make it on time

the soldiers seem to be, um, really enjoying themselves with that egg.

I wouldn't be surprised if they'd made it clunky on purpose, in the hope you'd read just enough to get hooked, then give up and head to amazon to buy the print version. Tor has a much better idea with their multiple-format free ebooks: i might still give up and get the print version in the end, but at least I'll bother to try reading it in the first place.

grow up guys: this is Boingboing, not Slashdot.

@Downpressor:

Just curious how many of the previous posters live in Tokyo and or have ever been on Center Gai in other than a Gee Wilikers tourist context? My bet is zero but of course I could be wrong.

yep, you're wrong. i've lived here for years and i've walked the streets of shibuya hundreds of times. it's seedy as hell, yeah, but it still feels 50x safer than the equivalent in any western city i've lived in. loitering teenagers and touts don't bother me. people who verbally or physically threaten me, bother me.

we've found something else that crosses all national & cultural boundaries: overweight middle aged man + armband/badge/uniform + minor authority = instant bully.
oh well. yet another reason not to go to Shibuya anymore.

i'm about to show my woeful biological ignorance with my next words, but are corals and sea anenomes considered plants or animals?

it was initially a much longer and more poetic name, but the Swedish registry was using the same disemvowelling technology employed by boingboing today.

watching a TV station signoff and the screen turning to snow will always remind me of Poltergeist. *shudder* thank god for infomercials, i say.

i'm still amazed at the number of public toilets here in Tokyo with nothing separating the urinals from full view of the street, train station or park. nothing says "pee shy" like having a thousand commuters off all ages & genders walking past, right next to you.

oh damn... that was one of my favorite parts of TO too. used to walk past there every day on the way to work.

one important Thing I Have Learned In My Life So Far: bananas don't smell so good after a week in the open.

if they made me wear a dorky uniform and drive in that Toytown golf kart, i'd probably be a bully too. especially if i were fat and stupid like that cop.

Can someone please do one for Germany and Austria now? because i'm not 100% sure what the differences are either. i bet i know one name that'd be in the center section, though...

i thought it was rather awesome myself.

that's nothing compared to what happened when Long Horses got their tails tangled together :)

frankly, i'm disappointed this practice died out. it would've given me something to look forward to in my old age.

@ployntabs:

you're reading boingboing and you don't know what DRM means?
wow.

whenever i video chat with my 3 year old niece on skype i marvel that this will be something she takes for granted later on.

makes me want to make a list of things my generation takes for granted, eg: "TV has always been in color"...

*sigh*

oh damn... i followed all the links here, which led to other links, and now i have a collection of more SF podcasts than i'll ever be able to listen to. i really hope science invents a cure for sleep soon.

oh man, i'm so behind the times... i only saw my first "fail" pic yesterday (or at least i only noticed it consciously for the first time yesterday). i've been laughing ever since.

he sounds about as stable and well adjusted as most volunteer local radio DJs i've known. no-one ever burned down the station though, which in retrospect is probably a shame.

but if your own playlist is that important to you, well, that's why god invented podcasting.

i agree with rocknrico -- i thought the red on those stars were blood spatters at first. they certainly would be if i'd tried to make them.

I've been working this shift for about 20 years, and I've been held up about 12 or 13 times

holy crap! ok yeah, point taken. i don't think i've ever heard of a convenience store getting knocked over in Japan.

i remember being in Canada & thinking it was insane not to use anything larger than a $20 (especially when i had to pay my $800 a month rent in cash). here in Japan i've used 10,000 yen bills (about USD$94) for purchases as low as a dollar for years now, in large stores and small, and i've never had a single refusal or complaint.

if it's so easy for the Japanese to accept high value bills, why is it so difficult for everyone else? or is that a stupid question?

now, for the rest of my life, every time i hear someone use the word 'subtext'...

could i have one that delivers a small buzz instead of a 1500 volt shock? it could be... you know... fun.

wow, happy birthday guys.
i never read the 'zine but i've definitely been reading boingboing online since 2000. i feel old now...

so who wrote that first post, and what became of Prospect?

@squashy:

no, there wasn't. but there were a grammar error above :)

and on a different note: there's no need for that sign to explain the asterisk. everyone knows that * means "whatever this sign says is actually bollocks"

those VIZ ads were real??

damn, i would have tried it. But i always thought they were a joke.

40 cigarettes for one coffee... hmm, seems like they studied the office workers in my local Excelsior Caffe to arrive at that figure. i smell better coming out of a bar at 3AM than i do after lunch in that place.

made with 80% premium grade mouse meat.

i used to get annoyed at the mountains of menus i got in my box each day here in tokyo, but then i started ordering the food and realized it was quite tasty, quick, and reasonably priced. these days i get excited when i find a new menu in my mailbox because it's something new to try.

if you think the hoax is so obvious, crash-san, you've obviously never been to Harajuku.

i think i'm a lone voice on both boingboing and japundit for this, but i happen to think they're insanely cool.

it still doesn't creep me out as much as the eye in Pioneeer's latest ad -- every time i see it, i want to gag:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/HomeEntertainment/PlasmaTVs+Monitors

there was a pretty interesting translation of "Other People's Money" into New Zealandish on Escape Pod a couple of weeks ago.

by far, my favorite thing about that story is the ANN graphic.

i wonder what the babies would look like (and if it'd be safe to eat them).

ooh hoo hoo, aren't we so f*cking superior that we're already familiar with something on boingboing... ooh yes it's not the third season you wanker, we're already up to the fourth... you twats, what hairstyle do you wear when you're jerking off in front of the mirror, eh?

(sorry sebflyte & morris, no offence intended, just wanted to try getting into the Brooker spirit myself there ;)

that's why i far prefer the company of zen buddhists. rather than being insulted, the zen master just points to a turd on the ground and says "that turd is the Buddha"... before pushing me in the mud and running away giggling, leaving me thoroughly confused but feeling more enlightened somehow.

i just wish RU Sirius would get back to producing his rather excellent podcasts (RU Sirius Radio Show and Neofiles). they were once the highlights of my week, but they've vanished without a trace and i feel empty for it.

at some point in the future, any contact with a police officer will simply begin with a tasing. once you're on the ground, cuffed and compliant, he/she will start speaking to you about the issue at hand.

the police spokesperson in the CBS report looked pretty uncomfortable about all this, though. i'd be surprised if there wasn't a large compensation payout (settled out of court) coming soon.

couldn't agree more. we really need to see more of this kind of behavior here in japan. perhaps empty bottles of pocari sweat would make better cop-pelters than beer bottles, though. i don't like seeing injuries no matter who sustains them.

it seems far more like a 'turkey sybian' than a turkey cannon.

driving a different vehicle every day doesn't have a greater impact than driving the same one every day. it's still just one guy in one car. and leno probably takes much better care of his engines than most people, too.

"I once saw a girl who didn't know anyone was looking take one of those Mentholatum lip balms they have here and run it all over her face and neck, trying to get some relief. I wanted to run home and just give her my reserve tube of smuggled medicine."

you should have done it. it could have been the start of something beautiful!

it means they moderated the stuff they didn't like from your post. so it's not deleted, just really difficult to read.

kinda reminds me of the TV show "Ow My Balls!!" from Idiocracy

that's very cute... but i'm afraid that, for the crime of entering my house as a rodent, the punishment is death.

the voiceovers were gone in the 1992 Director's Cut, weren't they?

but damn you Ridley, you sold me the Director's Cut as your Original Vision; the way things Should Have Been. now you tell me that this is the real one? why should I believe you? are you going to George Lucas me and re-release this every few years as the real version?

*rrrrrrriiiiipp*

hey Joel, it's good to have you back in my bookmarks again... i stopped reading gizmodo about a week after you left; i missed your regular take on the whole gadget world. glad you're a boingboinger now.