“We are a group of professionals,” said Alan Poindexter, a NASA commander, during a visit to Tokyo, when asked about the consequences if astronauts boldly went where no others have been.

“We treat each other with respect and we have a great working relationship. Personal relationships are not … an issue,” said a serious-faced Mr Poindexter. “We don’t have them and we won’t.”

Mr Poindexter and his six crew members, including the first Japanese mother in space Naoko Yamazaki, were in Tokyo to talk about their two-week resupply mission to the International Space Station.

The April voyage broke new ground by putting four women in orbit for the first time, with three female crew joining one woman already on the station.

Sexual intercourse in space may appear out of bounds, but astronauts have been known to succumb to earthly passions.

In 2007 former NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak allegedly wore adult diapers when driving hundreds of miles across the United States without bathroom breaks to confront a suspected rival in a romance with a fellow astronaut.

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) — They are young, earn little and spend little, and take a keen interest in fashion and personal appearance — meet the “herbivore men” of Japan.

Author and pop culture columnist Maki Fukasawa coined the term in 2006 in a series of articles on marketing to a younger generation of Japanese men. She used it to describe some men who she said were changing the country’s ideas about just what is — and isn’t — masculine.

“In Japan, sex is translated as ‘relationship in flesh,’” she said, “so I named those boys ‘herbivorous boys’ since they are not interested in flesh.”

Typically, “herbivore men” are in their 20s and 30s, and believe that friendship without sex can exist between men and women, Fukasawa said.

The term has become a buzzword in Japan. Many people in Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood were familiar with “herbivore men” — and had opinions about them.

Shigeyuki Nagayama said such men were not eager to find girlfriends and tend to be clumsy in love, and he admitted he seemed to fit the mold himself.

“My father always asks me if I got a girlfriend. He tells me I’m no good because I can’t get a girlfriend.”

Midori Saida, a 24-year-old woman sporting oversized aviators and her dyed brown hair in long ringlets, said “herbivore men” were “flaky and weak.”

“We like manly men,” she said. “We are not interested in those boys — at all.”

Takahito Kaji, 21, said he has been told he is “totally herbivorous.”

“Herbivorous boys are fragile, do not have a stocky body — skinny.”

Fukasawa said Japanese men from the baby boomer generation were typically aggressive and proactive when it came to romance and sex. But as a result of growing up during Japan’s troubled economy in the 1990s, their children’s generation was not as assertive and goal-oriented. Their outlook came, in part, from seeing their fathers’ model of masculinity falter even as Japanese women gained more lifestyle options.

Former CNN intern Junichiro Hori, a self-described herbivore, said the idea goes beyond looks and attitudes toward sex.

“Some guys still try to be manly and try to be like strong and stuff, but you know personally I’m not afraid to show my vulnerability because being vulnerable or being sensitive is not a weakness.”

Older generations of Japanese men are not happy about the changes. At a bar frequented by businessmen after work, one man said: “You need to be carnivorous when you make decisions in your life. You should be proactive, not passive.”

Fukasawa said the group does not care so much about making money — a quality tied to the fact that there are fewer jobs available during the current global economic recession.

Japan’s economy recently saw its largest-ever recorded contraction and has shrunk for four straight quarters. Blue chip companies Sony, Panasonic, Toyota and Nissan all reported losses in May, and most are forecasting the same for the current fiscal year. Though still low by international standards, Japan’s reported 5 percent unemployment is the highest since 2003.

Hori agreed economics has played a role. When he finished university, “a lot of my friends were trying to work for a big company that pays well and I wasn’t interested in that. I am kind of struggling financially and my father is not very happy about it,” he said.

Fukasawa estimated some 20 percent of men are what she would call “herbivorous” and said their attitudes were influencing others. Indeed, she said, it was a return to the norm for Japanese men, rather than a departure.

“It was after World War II and the post-war economic growth that Japanese men gained the reputation as a sex animal through the competition with the West. Looking back beyond that time, older literature talks a lot about men with the kind of character we see in the herbivorous boys.”

Will these men simply grow out of this? Fukasawa said it was anyone’s guess.

Some of them may, but Japan’s image of masculinity is nonetheless changing.

“The men in dark suits are changing, too,” she said. “Today’s young people in dark suits are different from the baby boomers in dark suits. They are evolving, too.”

A Japanese gamer has discovered the solution to that perennial problem – girls don’t like geeks. He’s married a character in his favourite Nintendo DS game.

Japanese gamer marries DS characterLove Plus is described as a dating simulation game. Players do their best to attract and then keep one of three women.

The player, identified only by the username Sal9000, fell for Nene Anegasaki – but felt compelled by love to take the relationship one stage further.

Last weekend he married his virtual girlfriend at a Tokyo technology festival, with a real priest officiating – although the wedding is apparently not legally binding.

The bride managed to say “I do” bang on cue, and they shared a kiss. There’s no sign of the bride’s family, though – perhaps they don’t approve?

(Ed note: I don’t think I wanna marry a video game character, but I wouldn’t mind a lil’ private foursome with Pico, Chico, and Coco)

OSAKA — A 23-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of skateboarding on a pathway with heavy pedestrian traffic in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, despite repeated warnings by the police, investigators said Wednesday.

Yuki Tokuine, a part-time worker in Sakai, was held for allegedly skateboarding and violating a traffic law on the night of Oct 22 and 23. Neighbors have complained of noise and safety hazards from scores of people skateboarding from evening to dawn on that pathway, which links a subway station and a railway station.

At the Final Fantasy XIII premiere event at the Tokyo Science Museum Square made a number of announcements, most notably the game’s December 17th, 2009 release date in Japan. Additionally, Sony exec Kaz Hirai announced that upon the game’s release Sony will be releasing a PS3 Slim bundle with the game, though pricing is yet to be announced.

Japanese company Suntory (think Pepsi in the U.S.) also announced a special FFXIII drink tie-in, in the form of the Final Fantasy XIII Elixir, which is scheduled to launch this winter in Japan. The Elixir was served at the premiere event, and from what we could tell it has a strawberry-like flavor, and definitely has quite a lot of alcohol in it.

TOKYO — Police on Tuesday sent prosecutors papers on an alleged case of child prostitution involving a 14-year-old boy in Kanagawa Prefecture who paid 60,000 yen to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met on an online dating site. The boy, a third grader at a Tokyo junior high school, paid out of the more than 100,000 yen he had saved in cash allowances from his parents, Kanagawa police said.

They sent local prosecutors documents on the boy’s ‘‘indecent act’’ in a railway station toilet in Sagamihara on March 1, when the girl was a 13-year-old first grader at a junior high school. Police quoted the boy as saying that he carried out the act because he ‘‘had money and was interested in sex.’’ He enticed the girl by portraying himself as an 18-year-old in a message posted from a personal computer at his home.

TOKYO (AP) – Her uniform looks good, with striped scarf and blue cap in perfect order, but railway employee Mitsue Endo has one thing to do before she faces the masses—pass the smile test.

Endo, who works at hectic Shinagawa Station in central Tokyo for Keihin Express Railway Co., sits in front of a laptop computer with a digital camera mounted on top. At first she is a bit grim-faced, and the verdict from the company’s smile-rating software is instant and candid.

“Smile: 0″ pops up on the screen.

She breaks into a broad grin and the computer responds cheerfully, giving her a score of 70.

The company has installed the system to help employees check their smiles before heading out to face customers. The test is optional, but at major stations like Shinagawa, the 250,000 riders who pass through per day can be rushed and agitated, and a happy face can go a long way.

“Smiling helps our interaction with the passengers. I think the atmosphere becomes more relaxing with a smile,” says Endo, whose job includes helping lost customers find their way and dealing with ticketing mishaps.

Keihin uses the software at 15 of its 72 stations, concentrating on the busier locations.

Taichi Takahashi, who works in public relations at the train operator, says it gives employees a chance to examine themselves before they go to work.

“I don’t think that we have had much opportunity to stare at our faces that close and for that long to check our facial expressions until now,” he said.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Many women taking the crowded train in Tokyo opt for women-only carriages during the rush hour to avoid gropers.

Now, for fear of being accused of groping, some are asking for carriages reserved for men as well.

Ten shareholders of Seibu Holdings, which runs trains in the Tokyo area, have petitioned for carriages reserved for men.

“There have been many cases of groping, as well as false charges of groping, on Seibu Railway,” the shareholders said in a notice seeking a vote at the company’s annual meeting next Wednesday.

“While measures against groping, such as setting women-only carriages, have been effective to a certain extent, no measures have been taken against false charges of groping… In the spirit of gender-equality, a male-only carriage must be introduced.”

False accusations of groping were highlighted when Japan’s Supreme Court overturned in April the conviction of a professor for groping a girl on a Tokyo train.

Judges pointed out a need to be careful in such cases when the accuser was the only source of evidence, media said.

But the shareholder request for men’s carriages may not be implemented, as Seibu’s board of directors opposes the idea.

“The reality is that we have few requests from Seibu Railway users for setting up male-only carriages,” the board said in its reply to the shareholder request.

In Tokyo, around 2,000 people were arrested for groping in 2007, data from the police showed. Many crowded train lines, including Seibu lines, designate a carriage just for women during the rush hour.

Director of “Up,” Pete Docter, auditioned 400 boys in a nationwide casting call for the part. Jordan Nagai, who is Japanese American showed up to an audition with his brother, who was actually the one auditioning.

Docter realized Nagai behaved and spoke non-stop like Russell and chose him for the part. Docter encouraged Nagai to act physically as well as vocally when recording the role, lifting him upside down and tickling him for the scene where Russell encounters Kevin.

Asian Americans have positively noted Pixar’s first casting of an Asian lead character, in contrast to the common practice of casting non-Asians in Asian parts.

“Up” is in theatres nationwide in both 2D and Disney Digital 3D and made an estimated 68.2 million dollars opening weekend.

(Ed note: I saw it on Saturday and give it an overwelming A+)

TOKYO (AFP) — A pop star with ageing Japanese boy band SMAP was arrested for public indecency, police said, amid reports he was naked, drunk and acting erratically in a central Tokyo park.

Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, 34, was arrested early in the morning near the Roppongi nightclub district after a local resident alerted police, a police spokesman said.

Television stations reported the arrest by flashing bulletins usually reserved for earthquakes and other major events, while television helicopters filmed the park from the air after sunrise.

Public broadcaster NHK placed a breaking news headline over its live footage of a parliamentary session on Japan’s measures to fight Somali pirates.

“What’s wrong with being naked?” Kusanagi reportedly yelled at a police officer who approached him.

The incident infuriated Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama, whose ministry has featured Kusanagi in its campaign to promote the 2011 start of nationwide terrestrial digital broadcasting.

“If the report is true, I’m immensely angry… I’ll drop him off everything related to terrestrial digital broadcasting,” he told reporters. “I’ll never forgive him.”
Boy band SMAP gained fame from the early 1990s and became hugely popular in Japan and elsewhere in Asia with a string of chart-topping hits.

Its members have used their fame to get roles in television dramas and movies, and Kusanagi has starred in films and featured in many commercials.

In South Korea, he is better known as “Cho Nan Kang” and liked for his good command of the Korean language.

SMAP, one of many successful pop groups formed by Japanese talent agency Johnny and Associates, is an acronym for “Sports Music Assemble People.”

Having practically every other theme of maid or cosplay café, Akiba now receives a shota café, called “Cafe B’s Prince”, where comely young boys serve the (male or female) patron enthusiastically with squeaks of “ welcome home, onii-chan!”

For those without a little brother to salivate over, this may be the answer.

The café offers food and drink, as well as a periodical “amusement time” (involving live performances). The “little brothers” are ladies cosplaying young boys.

The company says: “The café uses characters of the type often seen in dating sims, a child-faced ‘shota’ character wearing shorts and speaking with a high-pitched voice. As there are many who interested in this sort of character, we thought ‘wouldn’t it be good to entertain these patrons?’, and with the idea that ‘shota=little brother’, we created the café.”

The café operates from 11:00am to 10:00pm, but due to its special nature is only being opened periodically, with the opening currently set at once every few months.

Official website (in Japanese)

(Ed note: Oh Japan, you never cease to make me lol. Of course, I’d go even though they were girls and not boys. Still, I don’t necessarily equate shota to “little brother” probably because I don’t have any brothers.)

A PC game that allows players to gang rape virtual women – and then force them to have an abortion – has been banned from Amazon.

In Rapelay, gamers direct a character to sexually assault a mother and her two young daughters at an underground station, before raping any of a selection female characters.

The game was intended for release just in Japan, but was on offer to British buyers through Amazon Marketplace, the section of the online store’s website open to third-party sellers.

But Amazon has now withdrawn the game after complaints from users, deeming it to be inappropriate. “We determined that we did not want to be selling this particular item,” a spokeswoman said.

Rapelay was developed by the Japanese production house Illusion, which makes a number of sexually violent games for the domestic market. Their other titles include “Battle Raper” and “Artificial Girl”.

A spokesman for the company said: “We believe there is no problem with the software, which has cleared the domestic ratings of an ethics watchdog body.”

Keith Vaz, the Labour MP for Leicester East who has previously spoken out against computer games that promote violence, condemned the game.

“It is intolerable that anyone would purchase a game that simulates the criminal offence of rape,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.

Rapelay, which was released in 2006, encourages players to force the virtual woman they rape to have an abortion. If they are allowed to give birth the woman throws the player’s character under a train, according to reviews of the game. It also has a feature allowing several players to team up against individual women.

In a reflection of the nation’s growing obsession with escaping reality, more than 1,000 people have signed an on-line petition to present to the government to establish a law permitting marriage to comic characters.

Comic books known as “manga”, animated “anime” films and on-line virtual reality games have become increasingly popular in Japan, with fictitious characters frequently elevated to celebrity status.

Among the most high profile of manga fans is the current prime minister Taro Aso, who recently complained he had not had time to read any comic books since taking office last month.

The on-line campaign for cartoon marriages was masterminded by Taichi Takashita who claimed he was motivated to pursue the unusual change in law because he felt more at ease in the “two dimensional world” than reality.

“I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world,” he wrote.

“However, that seems impossible with present-day technology. Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorise marriage with a two-dimensional character?” A growing number of Japanese “otaku” geeks are spending an increasing amount of time escaping the social challenges of modern-day life by seeking refuge in the “virtual” two-dimensional reality of manga, anime and on-line games.

The new campaign was launched only days after a woman was jailed in Japan after “killing” her virtual husband after he suddenly divorced her as part of a popular interactive internet game.

Weeks earlier, police charged another woman who posted an on-line message plotting to kill her parents after they told her to clear up her several thousand-strong manga collection in their home.

While single sex marriage is not permitted in Japan, the popularity of the cartoon-human unions was instantly apparent this week as more than 1,000 were enlisted to the campaign.

Among them, one supporter wrote: “For a long time I have only been able to fall in love with two-dimensional people and currently I have someone I really love.
“Even if she is fictional, it is still loving someone. I would like to have legal approval for this system at any cost.”

Another Friday night out was nothing special. I’ve actually cut back on my going out by like 66% since money is always kind of an issue. Still, it was nice to see several of my friends even if they weren’t named Kaze or Tatsuo. Actually Tat is in Japan. He has a brother who’s ill and things aren’t looking good again. So he made an emergency trip overseas. That had to have cost him a great deal of cash since it was spur of the moment.

I hope that like a similar trip last year, this will only just be a minor bump in the road for his brother and that all will turn out if not well, at least more comfortably.

As for me, like I said, nothing really all that special. I enjoyed talking with DJ Rick Walsh for a song or two. Now that I know exactly what he’s doing up there having done some of it myself, it’s alot more interesting to watch. He does his transitions with such smooth execution. It’s fabulous.

Speaking of Ricks, there is another Rick that I see there often. I paw and smooch with him quite often. I’m fond of the older guy even though he keeps saying things like “old enough to be your father.” He’s a lean, androgynous type with a real character in that he wears these totally revealing outfits. I like him, and we keep talking like something’s gonna give eventually, but nothing has yet.

Nothing special.

The season premiere of the summer replacement reality/game show “I Survived a Japanese Game Show” was Tuesday night at 9 and boy was I surprised at what it turned out to be. Unlike MXC (which is basically Takishi’s Castle remixed, and what is basically remodeled Wipeout airing on ABC as well) this is so much better.

Standard rules apply of course. Cast of characters, some annoying, some rude, some old, some young, some sexy, whatever are all put in a home and they compete in games in order to win prizes or not be eliminated.

The twist of it all happening in some kind of meta Japanese game show is just crazy and so very welcome.

I’ll miss that Kid Nation isn’t back for a second season over on CBS, but this is absolutely must watch for any Japanophile.

>> I had a dream last night that at the nightclub I was being toyed with by this Asian couple. The seme noted I was checking out his uke and because he was the evil type, he demanded his uke service me. In the process, the uke got a huge gash on his back rubbing up against an exposed piece of metal or something in the tight confines of the back room or booth or something. While I’m putting pressure on the guy’s wound asking for someone to call 911, the seme punches me in the face knocking me out thinking that I’d done him harm. It was rather anime-like to be sure.

>> I keep losing my PRO status in Wii Bowling in the Heretic League. I keep bouncing around 1000 and it’s frustrating. The game is already hard enough playing left handed with right handed settings. Not to mention the fact the Wii box is about 4 feet to the right of the television really screwing up your orientation.

>> Finally for now, didn’t get to see Elf yesterday. We called off our going to WETbar since it was going to be 25 dollars. Tonight is DJ Phil B. from San Fran. It starts early (9pm) and Kaze and Tat will be there. Hopefully it’ll be a good time. I could use some fun rather than going through the motions.

TOKYO – She is big-busted, petite, very friendly, and she runs on batteries.

A Japanese firm has produced a 38 cm (15 inch) tall robotic girlfriend that kisses on command, to go on sale in September for around US$175, with a target market of lonely adult men.

Using her infrared sensors and battery power, the diminutive damsel named “EMA” puckers up for nearby human heads, entering what designers call its “love mode”.

“Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that’s sweet and interactive,” said Minako Sakanoue, a spokeswoman for the maker, Sega Toys.

“She’s very lovable and though she’s not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend.”

EMA, which stands for Eternal Maiden Actualisation, can also hand out business cards, sing and dance, with Sega hoping to sell 10,000 in the first year.

Japan, home to almost half the world’s 800,000 industrial robots, envisions a $10-billion market for artificial intelligence in a decade.

TOKYO – Japanese youngsters are getting so addicted to Internet-linking cell phones that the government is starting a program warning parents and schools to limit their use among children.

The government is worried about how elementary and junior high school students are getting sucked into cyberspace crimes, spending long hours exchanging mobile e-mail and suffering other negative effects of cell phone overuse, Masaharu Kuba, a government official overseeing the initiative, said Tuesday.

“Japanese parents are giving cell phones to their children without giving it enough thought,” he said. “In Japan, cell phones have become an expensive toy.”

The recommendations have been submitted from an education reform panel to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s administration, and were approved this week.

The panel is also asking Japanese makers to develop cell phones with only the talking function, and GPS, or global positioning system, a satellite-navigation feature that can help ensure a child’s safety.

About a third of Japanese sixth graders have cell phones, while 60 percent of ninth graders have them, according to the education ministry.

Most mobile phones in Japan are sophisticated gadgets offering high-speed Internet access called 3G, for “third-generation.”

But the panel said better filtering programming is needed for Internet access to protect children.

Some youngsters are spending hours at night on e-mail with their friends. One fad is “the 30 minute rule,” in which a child who doesn’t respond to e-mail within half an hour gets targeted and picked on by other schoolmates.

Other youngsters have become victims of Internet crimes. In one case, children sent in their own snapshots to a Web site and then ended up getting threatened for money, Kuba said.

Cell phones tend to be more personal tools than personal computers. Parents find that what their children are doing with them are increasingly difficult to monitor, Kuba said.

Some Japanese children commute long distances by trains and buses to schools and cram-schools and parents rely on cell phones to keep in touch with their children.

Parents typically pay about 4,000 yen ($39) a month for cell phone fees per child.

Japan boasts a relatively low crime rate compared to other industrialized nations, but some people are concerned that the Internet could be exploited for serious crimes.

TOKYO (AP) – A Japanese farmer who committed suicide by drinking pesticide vomited the poison at a hospital before he died, releasing toxic fumes that sickened more than 50 people, the hospital said Thursday.

Doctors were trying to pump the 34-year-old man’s stomach when he threw up, spraying his rescuers with chloropicrin, causing 54 doctors, nurses and patients to develop breathing problems and eye sores.

Ten of them were hospitalized themselves, and 90 hospital personnel had to be called in to help with the emergency Wednesday night, said Tomoko Nagao, spokeswoman for the Red Cross Kumamoto Hospital in southern Japan.

The most severely injured was a 72-year-old pneumonia patient, whose condition worsened after exposure to the fumes, Nagao said. The hospital’s emergency ward was closed and firefighters called in to decontaminate it.

The doctors were not wearing protective gear and were unprepared because the paramedics who brought the farmer to the hospital had not identified the pesticide, said a local police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of protocol.

The incident came amid a string of suicides in Japan by people mixing household chemicals to create lethal fumes. Many bystanders in recent months have been sickened by fumes that escaped into adjoining rooms, apartments or homes.

Seishi Takamura, a doctor who treated the farmer, said he could not stop coughing after inhaling the fumes, which smelled like chlorine, Kyodo News agency reported.

Chloropicrin is a highly volatile pesticide with a pungent odor that can cause breathing difficulties and sometimes death when inhaled in large amounts.

Of the many happy campers at the record-demolishing (and economy-confounding) Sotheby’s auction last night, Takashi Murakami may have been the happiest. Drawing stares from art-world veterans — one told us she’d never seen an artist show up to watch his own work on the block — the Japanese Pop maestro sat in the back of the room with a serene smile as My Lonesome Cowboy, his larger-than-life sculpture of a boy waving an ejaculate lasso, brought in $15.2 million — quintupling the artist’s previous record at auction. (The signature piece, an edition of which is currently on view at the artist’s Brooklyn Museum show, was sold by his former dealer Marianne Boesky.) “Oh, it’s not surprising,” Murakami said as he huddled with his Paris dealer, Emmanuel Perrotin, after the auction. Pretty gratifying, though? “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “Basically.”

Another contented observer of the auction, albeit from the astral plane, was Robert Rauschenberg. Two days after the artist’s death at 82, his painting Overdrive did, as speculated, set a record, bringing in $14.6 million. (All Sotheby’s figures include their commission, which is about 10 percent atop the winning bid.) The big winner of the night, however, was Francis Bacon, whose triptych set a new record for the artist when it went to a phone bidder for a staggering $86.3 million. (“Be brave,” auctioneer Tobias Meyer had exhorted the buyers calling in, presumably from oversees. “Look at the Euros.”)

There were some surprises at the sale, however. Most notably, a massive Rothko failed to draw a single bidder. (Sotheby’s, which devoted a full eight pages to the work in the night’s catalogue, had forecast it would earn more than $35 million.) “We’ve seen an inevitable moving towards bigger and bigger,” Nick Lawrence, the Freight + Volume gallerist, said. “When will it get to where the center cannot hold?” But on a night that drew out many of the major players, it appeared that the center was holding just fine for the time being. “At first I wondered whether the famous irrational exuberance might be at work,” said writer Anthony Haden-Guest, who is working on a book about the history of the thrumming market. “But no, it started real strong, though it molted a bit towards the end. I think it’s certainly remarkable.”

Shinji (and that IS his real name, I checked) did show up last night. Looking very good with a fresh hair buzz and wearing two shirts. Not that it did him any good. Because after two drinks we were headed back into the rest of the nightclub where a dress code was enforced.

Shirtless, we danced and had a good time. We have a very obvious chemistry together that was made all the more apparent in our visit to the dark room. Unlike last time, there wasn’t talking, there was action.

You know me, I DO kiss and tell and he is a delight to make out with. With such great parity, he kisses so nicely. And I was quite happy to be all up against him, though did not take it farther than that. (Well I started to but, he said nuh-uh and I respected that.)

But then something very strange and difficult to understand happened. He told me to go away. I hadn’t said or done anything suddenly wrong, unusual, or offensive. So I really didn’t get it. Still, I did leave him alone.

He left the place without my knowing. And of course, I just was slowly simmering. While I don’t know him very well yet here in the early stages of whatever this is, I still was peeved enough to call him at 3 after the place closed. I mean, I know I don’t own him or nothing, but I thought I deserved some kind of explanation. He answered, surprisingly, sleepily sounding. He said that he liked me and I liked him and that he went home. I told him I didn’t understand why he told me to go away and he didn’t answer it really.

Maybe he wanted to enjoy the company with some of the others in the dark room and didn’t want me to see. A kind of weird chivalry?

Regardless, I told him goodnight. I should have said that I wanted to see him again, but I was still confused and burned. We’ll have to see how this thing goes.

EDIT: After thinking about it today, I’ve decided that I probably was overthinking about it. LOL. Ironic isn’t it? The things I do know is that I don’t know him that well but the time that I have spent with him, he’s not played any games, given me any stories that didn’t make any sense, or whatever. I think it was the right call to call him and ask him what was up, but I am definitely not wanting to be overbearing. I’ll give him a call tomorrow and see if I can get to hang out with him again this weekend. After all, he did go when invited last night, “even if there is rain or storms”, we made out so so nicely, and “You like me and I like you.”

I met a boy last night. A rare sort, you see, because he’s Japanese. There are only two other Japanese gay boys in this city that go out that I know. Tatsuo and Jun.

I couldn’t quite hear the name he gave me other than his Americanized name. Terry. Heh. But it could be Shinjiichi. I know it sounded quite a bit like Shinji in there somewhere.

He seemed to be into me. We sat in the corner of the back bar at Heretic for a couple of hours. And he always came back after saying, “I’ll be right back” which is a good thing.

He’s new to the city. 3 weeks.

Very fun to talk to. Lots of laughing, and real interest going back and forth. Towards the end of the night, I was trying to get him to come back on Wednesday. I explained the shirtlessness rule and he professed his shyness. Yet when we passed by the dark room, he seemed highly curious. I explained that part of the place and he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the corner. Sadly (or perhaps for the best) we didn’t do anything but talk back there.

I got his number, and after he said he had to leave, I asked if he wanted me to walk him to the front. (We were all the way in the back of the large nightclub) He said yes and at the door I kissed him just to the side of his mouth.

He told me that I should call him to see about us seeing each other on Wednesday night.

I’m trying not to get too giddy about this, but holyhell that’s fucking awesome.

You know, I’m fairly certain that the Yaoi BL PC market is doing much more amazing things than this DS back massage mini-game. But hey, watch and enjoy anyway right?

I received an email from someone named Pico earlier today.
It was in Japanese and my friend Tatsuo wasn’t home, so I ran it through an online translator with mixed results.

I wonder what it could mean?

(Update: From the tag-board, Rei Ray: From what I can -kinda- get, it’s an invitation for a play-date. I’m only learning kindergarten level Japanese though. :x I’ll ask my Vinny-Kun ’bout it. x3

TOKYO – A Japanese man was arrested for trespassing this week after turning up at a high school dressed in a girl’s uniform and a long wig, local police said.

Thirty-nine-year-old Tetsunori Nanpei told police he had bought the uniform over the Internet and put it on to take a stroll near the school in Saitama, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, the daily Asahi Shimbun said.

When students standing outside the gates started to scream at the sight of him, he dashed inside the school grounds, hoping to blend in with the crowds of teenagers, the paper said.

They also screamed, forcing the man to flee, losing his wig in the process. A school clerk pursued him and stopped him at a nearby riverbank, the paper said.

Police confirmed the arrest of the man in school uniform and wig but declined to give further details.

The vacant Macy’s department store at Gwinnett Place mall will be transformed into a giant Asian ethnic shopping destination, developer George Thorndyke announced Wednesday.

Korean retailer Mega Mart will lease the 240,000-square-foot space, at Pleasant Hill Road and I-85 in Duluth, for its first U.S. store, according to Thorndyke.

The plan does not affect the existing Macy’s, which occupies space that formerly housed a Rich’s department store.

The store’s 75,000-square-foot first floor will serve as a grocery. The second floor will offer clothing, housewares and other department store-type goods, while the third floor will have a food court and event facility.

The move accelerates a trend of Asian-themed businesses in the Gwinnett Place area, including the Gwinnett International Farmers Market and other grocers, chasing an increasing number of affluent Asians and Asian Americans living in Gwinnett County.

Thorndyke said the store will also seek to cater to non-Asian customers, with products labeled in English and with English-speaking employees.

By the time the store opens in the spring of 2009, the former Macy’s will have been vacant for nearly five years.

“We’re excited about this, the mall’s excited, the tenants out there are excited,” Thorndyke said.

TOKYO – A teenager who posed as a wealthy playboy and went on a spending spree at a Japanese area nightclub has been arrested after trying to skip out on his bill.

Authorities say that over the course of six hours Wednesday night the 16 year old boy ordered two bottles of Dom Perignon champagne as well as 60 glasses of whiskey, beer and cocktails.

Police say when it was time to pay the bill, which had ballooned to $3,490, the boy told the staff he had no money.

A police spokesman says staff at the club were shocked to learn the boy’s age because he seemed mature and experienced when ordering drinks and talking with hostesses.

The spokesman says the teen was dressed in casual clothes, but obviously successfully gave staff the impression of a rich young man.

Alcohol consumption is prohibited for those under 20 in Japan.

If you’re younger than 35, you’ll probably live long enough to put David Levy’s prediction to the test. Levy says that by 2050 we’ll be creating robots so lifelike, so imbued with human-seeming intelligence and emotions, as to be nearly indistinguishable from real people. And we’ll have sex with these robots. Some of us will even marry them. And it will all be good.

Levy lays out his vision of a Brave New Carnal World in Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, which, despite its extended riffs on sex toys through the ages, is a snigger-free book. Levy’s no Al Goldstein. Rather he’s a 62-year-old British chess master turned artificial-intelligence expert persuaded that robot sex can brighten the lives of many, many unhappy people. “Great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7,” he writes on the final page of the book. What’s not to like?

“Chess” and “sex” aren’t words that normally share the same sentence, but in Levy’s case, the one led to the other. A keen chessman since boyhood, by the time he got to St. Andrews University he played at the international level. At the university he got interested in computers and the challenge of programming machines to play chess. Eventually he earned international recognition for his work on chess-playing computers and natural-language software, and in the mid ’90s headed a team that won the Loebner Prize, widely regarded as the world championship of conversational software. Today he owns a firm that develops electronic hand-held brain games.

Designing computers that talk like humans naturally led to the larger question of how humans interact with robots, which are nothing more than computers with arms and legs and a head. The Japanese have taken the lead in developing “partner robots,” machines that, for example, might do household tasks for elderly people. But if you could invent a robot that serves cocktails, could you not invent a robot that would make a superior bedmate?

It sounds like a mighty tall order. A machine with skin that feels like ours? With our physical dexterity? And, most important, with a mind like ours – imperfectly rational, sometimes emotionally intelligent, sometimes emotionally dumb?

“I think it’s a reasonable assumption,” Levy said in a telephone interview from his home in London. He lays out his case in a voice that’s calm, rational, almost flat, more geeky than goatish.

“If one looks at the advances in technology in the last, say, 40 or 50 years, they’ve been immense, and the more we learn about the science and the technology, the quicker it will be to discover even more within that science.”

Smart money never bets against technological advances, but it helps if you stack the deck. “The automaton simulates man when man has been defined in an automaton’s way,” literary critic Hugh Kenner wrote. Is that what Levy does?

“I take a pragmatic point of view,” he said, “partly because in my original field, computer chess, that was how the problem was solved.” Not by making machines that thought like chess masters but by making machines that beat chess masters. Similarly, Levy thinks, robots need only “simulate” human intelligence and emotions “to the point that they are absolutely convincing.” If you can’t tell whether the thing is man or machine, what difference does it make? You’ll treat it as if it were alive. The rest is philosophical hairsplitting.

So who will avail themselves of 21st-century sexbots?

Sad cases, for one, people so physically unattractive or anti-social or isolated or emotionally crippled that they have trouble finding human romance. People who love their computers more than their fellows. Hey, they’re out there already.

“They’re lonely; they’re miserable,” Levy said. “I think society will be a much better place when they have an alternative that satisfies them without doing any harm to other people.”

Add in those who have a satisfying sexual relationship but are simply curious and somewhere between 20 percent and 50 percent of the population will experience man-machine mating at least occasionally, Levy predicts.

He respects the fact that plenty of people, out of moral or religious conviction, will contemplate this with horror.

“But by and large,” he said, “it will be very good for society, very beneficial, and I think that will be the majority view within a relatively short space of time.”

Sexbots may put prostitutes out of business, he notes.

Near the end of the book Levy alludes to a set of vexing questions. If robots become utterly humanlike, must we not treat them as more than machines? So if you marry a robot, can it inherit your estate? If you catch it boffing the mail carrier, can you toss it out with heavy trash? If your robot pops your neighbor in the mouth, who does your neighbor sue?

Levy admits he doesn’t know the answers.

“There are lot of questions here that need a great deal of discussion and consideration from people who are much wiser than I am in the field of ethics, philosophy and law. Clearly the law makers and the lawyers are going to have a field day debating these issues.”

He expects the impetus for creating sexbots to come from the sex-toy industry rather than, say, MIT. Already a Japanese sex-doll manufacturer has announced plans to market a doll with electronics in it, and Levy has read that Japanese companies are working to produce sex robots for people living in outlying fishing villages.

“I think the Japanese are probably working on this more than one would realize from the little that’s been published so far,” he said.

Levy has been amazed at the publicity the Love and Sex With Robots has generated since its release last month. He’s done a dozen radio interviews and a TV interview. Howard Stern raved about the book. So far, no hate mail.

Would Levy himself have sex with a robot? He doesn’t have to ponder the question.

“If there was a robot of the sort I describe in the book, I would certainly want to experience using it for sex, and I wouldn’t regard it as anything untoward,” he said. “I would do it out of curiosity. Not that I have a need for a new sex partner. I’m happily married.”

And the wife would be OK with this?

“Yes, yes, and if she wanted to try one I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I would regard it as genuine scientific curiosity.”

New Years Eve is one of the only nights of the year where the non-professional party people try to have a good time. I’m all for sharing the love (and the dance floor) with them, but some of you bitches need to know when to say when about three cocktails before you fall into me. And I’m talking about actual girls. Seriously! You’re coming into our gay nightclubs, all fine and well, but don’t make complete asses of yourself. You’re pissing me off!

On a more positive note: Kaze and Tatsuo’s hospitality was so wonderful. I felt very loved while spending our third New Years Eve together as friends. I ventured to their home, which is very lovely. We watched part of the Japan 4 hour annual New Years Eve concert. Tat gave me more Japanese candy! Yum yum yum.

WETbar is where pretty much all of the girls taking spills with their drinks in hand took place. But it was also where we rung in the actual New Year. Who would have thought this time last year Britney Spears would have had made such a disgraceful fall only to be reclaimed as a diva the pretty boys all love singing and dancing to?

I didn’t win any of the cash money drop, but then again, I wasn’t really trying. And I wasn’t dancing so much either. This was because there really wasn’t much space to do anything other than perhaps survey the carnage.

A jaunt over to The Body Shop afterwards was filled with ALOT more fun than usual. While I’ve discussed at length how the after-hours club has simply not lived up to any expectations, last night they really put on a barn burner. Sure, it was mostly filled with the sketchiest of the bunch (partly because another after-hours party at Center Stage was shut down by the po-po), but it was the most fun I’d had there in a while. And perhaps for the first time, The Body Shop felt like a real club.

Today I’ve spent mostly resting. It was a really long final day of 2007, but I’m glad to say that I survived a particularly troublesome year.

I’ve also been slowly chipping away at editing down my winning entry for NaNoWriMo written back in November. It’s a novel called “Later, Skater” and I’m really fond of it. Editing isn’t a easy chore to say the least, but I really feel good about this project and hope it will be successful.

Glad to have each and every one of you to start off this new year. 2008 could end up being one of the most dramatic in the world we live in, but one thing will remain constant: Pixiesticks.org will still stand tall as one of the best places for yaoi and shota.

So stick around and Happy New Year.

The cute cuddly white cat from Japan’s Sanrio Co., usually seen on toys and jewelry for girls and young women, will soon don T-shirts, bags, watches and other products targeting young men, company spokesman Kazuo Tohmatsu said Friday.

“We think Hello Kitty is accepted by young men as a design statement in fashion,” he said.

The feline for-men products will go on sale in Japan next month, and will be sold soon in the U.S. and other Asian nations, according to Sanrio.

The usual bubble-headed shape of Hello Kitty was slightly changed for a more rugged, cool look to appeal to men in their teens and early 20s.

For example, a picture of the cat on a $36 black T-shirt has the words, “hello kitty,” instead of the usual dots for the eyes and nose.

Hello Kitty is one of mascot-obsessed Japan’s biggest “character” hits, decorating everything from a humble eraser to a $48,000 diamond necklace.

The planned products mark the first time Sanrio is developing Hello Kitty items especially for males, Tohmatsu said.

But Sanrio had tried a “limited edition” collaboration in men’s clothing with designers in Tokyo’s chic Harajuku section earlier this year, and they proved popular, he said.

“Young men these days grew up with character goods,” said Tohmatsu. “That generation feels no embarrassment about wearing Hello Kitty.”

DJ Gomi was spinning to a mostly empty WETbar last night. There were light crowd all over due to the traveling before the holiday. But even the rain couldn’t dampen the fun I had hanging out with an overly chatty DJ Kaze and Tatsuo. They truly are some of the best friends I only get to see in the nightlife.

Except on New Years Eve this may change.

For the first time, I believe I’m going to be going to their house earlier in the evening in preperation for a club going oddessy that I have never attempted before in my life. 12 straight, or rather, not so straight, hours of party! WETbar 10pm-3am, Bodyshop 3am-7am, Heretic 7am-noon. Can we do it? Is it insane? The likely answers are yes and yes.

But back to Gomi. The extremely attractive DJ who got his roots basically from Junior Vasquez wasn’t the powerhouse that I thought he was going to be. Of course, a DJ typically needs to feed off what the crowd gives them and well all I could manage was to melt into a pile of transfixed goo looking up at the cutie in the booth.

I saw “I Am Legend” at 1am on Friday morning with Colin at Atlantic Station. We enjoyed some of my Japanese candy I got from my secret stalker over on the message boards over on HSX. Mmmm. Green tea Melty Kisses.

As for the movie, well, it’s pretty epic. Will Smith as the last man on earth after a virus comes and causes everyone else to become zombie/vampire type things is a great remake concept from “Omega Man” or “Last Man on Earth.”

But it’s not without problems.

Parts are really dull. Many don’t like the ending — though I didn’t have a problem with it other than maybe it was rushed. And the creature effects aren’t exactly great in my opinion.

That didn’t stop it from becoming the highest December grossing movie ever. Yeah, Lord of the Ring fanboys, that’s right… Poor Mr. Frodo.

Here are the estimates for the box office in North America from this weekend:

1. “I Am Legend,” $76.5 million.

2. “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” $45 million.

3. “The Golden Compass,” $9 million.

4. “Enchanted,” $6 million.

5. “No Country for Old Men,” $3 million.

6. “The Perfect Holiday,” $2.97 million.

7. “Fred Claus,” $2.3 million.

8. “This Christmas,” $2.3 million.

9. “Atonement,” $1.85 million.

10. “August Rush,” $1.8 million.

Greying Japan has a new weapon to scare people into saving for their retirement — an exploding piggy bank.

The “Savings Bomb,” which goes on sale in Japan next week, “explodes” and scatters coins if users fail to save for a long time, toy manufacturer TOMY Co Ltd said Thursday.

The battery-powered toy — designed as a cartoon-style, ball-shaped black bomb with a skull and crossbones logo — lights up, makes a noise, shakes violently and scatters coins if it is not topped up for a long time.

“Users must pick up and collect the scattered coins and reflect on their laziness,” the Japanese company said.

Japan has the world’s oldest population and one of the lowest birthrates, raising fears of a future demographic crisis with a smaller pool of workers financially supporting a growing number of elderly.

Police raided the headquarters of a secretive, female-dominated cult yesterday after one of its followers was beaten to death, allegedly for failing to carry out a group ritual properly.

Detectives believe that about ten followers of the Kigenkai cult subjected Motoko Okuno, 63, to an hour-long ordeal of kicks and punches, and there are fears that the cult may have carried out more violent attacks in the past.

Four hundred police officers raided several of the sect’s premises and hauled in for questioning more than 20 of its leaders – all women. Several of those led away from the cult’s compound were teenagers.

Detective initially suspected Ms Okuno’s husband, daughters and son-in-law, who all said that the violence was the result of persistent family quarrels. But when they discovered that the family were all members of the sect, they began to focus their investigation on the cult itself.

One of the cult’s many rules is that when a person becomes a devotee, their whole family must join and it is believed that Ms Okuno, who owned a sushi restaurant, was coerced into the sect. Police further suspect that Ms Okuno was attacked at one of the cult’s properties, which include an elaborate Shinto-style shrine. Her husband, 35, remains under suspicion and has been rearrested for destroying evidence.

The public image of religious sects in Japan has been forever coloured by the atrocities of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which was responsible for releasing sarin gas on the Tokyo underground in 1995. The gas killed 12 people and injured 3,800, and Shoko Asahara, the cult’s leader, awaits the death penalty for masterminding the attacks.

Another Japanese cult known for displaying bizarre behaviour is the Panawave Laboratory, whose devotees expected Armageddon in May 2003 and draped trees and river banks in white sheets to protect themselves from it.

The Kigenkai cult, whose main office is in the northwestern prefecture of Nagano, is thought to have about 300 followers across Japan and has been active for more than 35 years. For the past decade, it has been officially registered with the Ministry of Education as a religious institution. But what began life as a relatively straightforward group of fortune-tellers has, say critics, evolved in a stranger direction.

Residents of Komoro, the town nearest to the group’s headquarters, take a dim view of its activities, which include making votive offerings to the local river by hurling fruit, vegetables and fried food into it. The group is notorious for its methods of extracting “donations” from followers: it has been known to sell ordinary pebbles as so-called “spiritual stones” for about £1,200 each.

The cult also offers a mineral elixir called “kigensui”, which, it says, cures diseases such as cancer. The bottles, which sell for about several hundred pounds, are thought to contain little more than normal water. Soaks in a full bath of the supposedly magical liquid are also available for a price, and many members take them because cult rules forbid them from visiting mainstream doctors.

The cult’s religious convictions are based loosely on Shintoism, the traditional animist belief system of Japan that makes deities out of trees, waterfalls and other natural phenomena.

10. There is going to be a new yaoi convention. Calling itself Yaoi Jamboree, it will be held in Pheniox, Arizona in June. The details are really kinda sketchy right now, but the official website for it is right here. One of the companies that are putting that thing on is Everything Yaoi.

09. Speaking of new companies putting out yaoi product. Iris Print had a really sweet looking booth. Check out what they have to offer in the more light shounen-ai department at BoysLove Books. I do like their “Likes Boys” shirt very much.

08. Continuing on the yaoi theme: The 7th Annual Yaoi After Dark panel was much improved over the previous year. Pulling in probably its most huge and diverse crowd yet, the three hour long fiesta seemed tighter which is a very good thing when we’re talking about cock and ass. Features included the usual yaoi paddling, a rundown of what’s upcoming in manga, The Dating Game, a trivia game, a short preview of the video No Money, and Lainey speaking of just how much has changed over the 7 years in the fandom. Unfortunately, shota is still not allowed to be discussed.

07. One of the things that I absolutely haaaaaaated about the panel didn’t have to do with Lainey at all. (So hopefully that means I can be spared any wrath this time around.) While there weren’t any horrible fanfics this year, instead preceeding Yaoi After Dark was some bastardization of American Idol. Changing the words to songs to make them “Yaoi” versions is certainly my idea of Yaoi Hell, to be sure. It’s safe to say that if Simon was there, he’d have bent them all over a chair and fucked the shit out of them for such a horrible idea. He’s sooo seme, you know.

06. Greg Ayres is the shittiest DJ on the face of the earth. Now, I don’t know this to be a fact persay, but that’s pretty much what every. single. person. who walked by the table where I was hanging out with Fang and Nemo had to say.

05. In alot of ways, Anime Weekend Atlanta is simply Really Expensive Babysitting. I’m sure their staff would agree, considering overwelmingly many people went to the convention and didn’t view a single frame of anime.

04. Video game freaks really should invest in getting their own convention. While most conventions have some video game stuff going on, there is absolutely no more room for you at AWA. Not that I mind you being there. It’s just overwelmingly obvious that you’re multiplying and AWA doesn’t seem to want to make proper accomidations for what you love.

03. Lainey broached a subject I hoped I wouldn’t have to hear for another couple of weeks. She talked about she was “getting too old.” But, fortunately she also mentioned she’d do it until they had to wheelchair her into the panel, so that’s good. I’m turning 29 next month and while I certainly started to get the feeling I was one of the older people in the room, the love for the yaoi is just too strong to let go!

02. Pixiesticks.org fans are the BEST FANS EVER! I know I may come across initially as chilly, but I swear it’s actually that I’m lost in a sea of just stuff going on around me all the time. I love fans of the site. And I loved getting to meet some of you at the convention. You make me extremely glad I came.

01. As it was last year, Bishounen artists Fang and Nemo were my favorite thing at Anime Weekend Atlanta. Despite seeing them on New Years, I still am so saddened I only see these two typically once a year. While we keep promising that will change, I wholeheartly adore both of them. They make me feel very happy. (In my pants.)

TOKYO (AP) – Japan sizzled through its hottest day on record Thursday as a heat wave claimed at least nine lives and threatened power supplies strained by a recent earthquake, authorities and media reports said.

The mercury hit 105.6 degrees in the western city of Tajimi in the afternoon, breaking a previous national record of 105.4 degrees set in the Meteorological Agency said.

In the Hachioji region of Tokyo, temperatures reached 101.7 degrees, breaking the previous record of 101.3 degrees for August.

Nine people died from heatstroke, including an 84-year-old man and a teenage boy who had been taken to hospital two days ago in Tokyo, Kyodo News agency reported. Three others died from heatstroke Wednesday, it said. Many were hospitalized.

Tokyo Electrical Power Co. warned of a power shortage as people turned up air conditioners.

The company has been firing up old thermal power stations and buying electricity from rivals after a strong earthquake in mid-July ravaged its largest nuclear power reactor, reducing its electricity output by more than 10 percent.

Across the country, vacationers sought refuge indoors at the height of the summer holidays.

Rail tracks were bent out of shape in the sun, and authorities struggled to deal with fire alarms set off by rising temperatures, according to news reports.

Japan is launching its first study into so-called “Net cafe refugees,” young people who live in all-night lounges and are feared to become a new class of working poor, an official said Wednesday.

Japan’s omnipresent net cafes — equipped with sofas, drinks, computers and comic books — are designed for businessmen who want to slack off for a few hours or for commuters who missed their last trains home.

But Japan has been alarmed by growing reports of young day labourers who are staying in round-the-clock cafes rather than renting and living in apartments.

In the first nationwide study, the government is questioning operators and customers at 3,000 Internet cafes nationwide, said a labour ministry official in charge of employment security.

“Inquiries are being made in cooperation with non-profit organisations to find out their rough number and what their lives are like,” said the official, who declined to be named.

A five-hour stay at an Internet cafe in Tokyo costs about 3,000 yen (25 dollars) with a meal served. Showers are available at 200 yen for 30 minutes and underwear is on sale.

The emergence of such “refugees” has set off alarm bells in a society which used to boast of equality but is now feared to be experiencing a wider rich-poor gap.

Sleeping in net cafes can be problematic “in terms of employment security, hygiene and development of job ability,” said the labour ministry official.

Findings of the investigation are expected to be publicised later this year and used to hammer out assistance measures.

Japan’s opposition, which won a landmark election victory last month, has accused the government of encouraging the rich-poor gap through free-market reforms meant to revive the economy after recession in the 1990s.