Blimey, Kichijoji is #1 once you take the outlying cities into account. That would explain why my rent is so expensive.

Futakotamagawa (#2) . You don't want to live here..there...I mean. Nothing there. Don't go there. Lots of construction, no restaurants. No river nearby. Lots of country folk. Wouldn't go to Nikotama if I were you.

I've never hated Spector. Quite the contrary, he's someone to look up to, and I've got enough in common with the guy that if I loathed him, I'd be indirectly loathing myself. (Jewish American, exchange program at Jouchi [Sophia] University, and obviously an interest in Japan) I think why a lot of foreigners in Japan dislike "the others" on TV is because they are secretly jealous. There is a condescension associated with TV appearances, but as Mr. Spector himself once put it, "A lot of times the foreigners on TV, models and what-not, are compared to pandas. They use that term here--pandas-- because they're cuddly, you can go and have fun with them, and throw a marshmallow and that's about it. And you don't get involved any more deeper than that. But...since I'm making half a million dollars a year, I'm very happy to be a panda. I'd be a much lower animal. I'd be like a sloth, or something, or a hedgehog, you know, for that money. So it doesn't bother me at all." I'm not going to try and fool myself - I'd be a panda for half a million dollars a year, too.

Blimey, those are a bit tough. :( Off topic, but is there any significance to the "7:10" in the title of your site?

I'm moving from a neighborhood quite close to Jiyugaoka (#1) to a neighborhood in between Shimokita and Yoyogi-Uehara (#s 13 and 16, respectively). Guess I'm moving down the ladder :(

What about the guy who was homeless for three weeks when he was in junior high school? Just three weeks and they make a book and movie out of it, and he's a celebrity now. The guy in the airport must be planning to write about his experience or something, but he wouldn't admit that yet.

I have no idea what the guy is up to. From the article it appears that he does not even know what he is doing.

I guess they are trying to make McDonalds look cool and not just kids stuff..or something like that.

In Nikkei, they said this beer shampoo fulfills everyone's secret dream. When I saw it, I was wondering what their next product is going to be. ;)

The photos in this post are great!

Good for him, but I'm with Deas on the jaw dropping!

Those are awesome numbers Danny's getting, and good for him! He picked his niche and mastered it. :cool:

Just not to dishearten anyone, it's relatively easy to sell manga through Amazon when you have a blog that talks about manga! The mind boggles on how much he makes selling these dodgy figurines.

Obviously he has mental issues. Too bad even his own Embassy won't assist him. Maybe family in Japan to go get him? If he's joking, if it's PR for some future thing, then he has my disapproval for such a stunt.

Ok. I'm shutting down. ;-(

:: jaw drops ::

And he said this is just from his Japanese-language Amazon account. (for the Japanese half of his site) AND he isn't even counting his Google Adsense numbers! Gee whiz.

The first column is page views (I would guess) so that's from 661 thousand page views... Still, getting 3 yen per page from Amazon alone is pretty nice numbers, especially when you've got 2 million uniques per month, and lots of other ad space - I count $6,000 per month in fixed ads on his home page alone right now...

There was a similar case two years ago when a police sergeant drove to work drunk, arriving at the police station in his pajamas and sandals. I wrote about it here: http://www.longcountdown.com/2006/09/24/pajama-wearing-drink-driving-policeman-fired/

Takes one to know one.

I don't know what they're called, but you put them in your boots to make them stand up and not crease, kind of like stuffing your shoes with newspaper.

And here's that follow-up post: http://aaron.madlon-kay.com/blog/2008/11/22/romanizing-japanese-addresses/

Great question. I do full rōmaji for addresses. I'll add a post about that.

Wait for the first sudden rainshower and the notebooks (and the staff too?) get fried... Under cover would be OK, but what about people who burn easily? No amount of Factor 32 would prevent me getting cooked on a 9 to 5 in the sun. And let's not discuss bird poo in your keyboard. And health and safety-wise, there's a limit to office temperatures, and on a 5 degree day I don't fancy trying to type in gloves.

Not feeling any hate for Spector, or most of the other foreigners who show up as regular tarento on TV here. Yeah, some can be really annoying, but I have to admire a guy like Spector for what he's accomplished languagewise and in terms of carving out a niche for himself and exhibiting the staying power necessary to last in a business that chews most up and spits them out.