And so what better vehicle for her to capitalize on her appeal among the geek demographic than an advertisement for a video game? Earlier this year, Japanese game development firm Banpresto released Super Robo Taisen W for the Nintendo DS and gave Shocotan the starring role in a pair of TV commercials, which are conveniently available for your viewing pleasure in a single video linked below:

[AVI, 2.2MB]
YouTube

Anyone else a little disappointed that she didn’t put the DS in her mouth?

To those looking for some hot cat-in-mouth action, I invite you to check out the clip of Shokotan appearing on the Pochitama program here [AVI, 17.8MB] or here [YouTube]. (I must warn you: it’s pretty dull until about the two-minute mark.)

Now, let the pussy-eating jokes begin. . .

No longer must people duck and dart in fear whilst carrying around their bananas. Made of seemingly indestructible polyester cloth, the Banana Case provides impenetrable protection against any sort of danger imaginable: household pests, natural disasters, IEDs, wild animals including blood-thirsty hybrid species cultivated by rogue geneticists, wheelchair-bound limbless homeless men with laser beams shooting out of their gaping, toothless maws, and even the occasional occurrence of being left in the backseat of a car on a hot afternoon.

The Sanrio Banana Case is not only eco-friendly compared to other alternatives, but it also comes in two eye-searingly cute designs guaranteed to make fine additions to any arsenal of adorability.

I swear, what a great, great, amazingly marvelous product! The only thing that could possibly be any more incredibly awesome would be if bananas could somehow be genetically engineered to grow in their own protective coverings that could somehow be removed or “peeled” before eating. . . but such a thing is surely so outrageously inconceivable that it enters the far-out realm of science fiction!

Okay, not really. In truth, my month of March was a nonstop pleasure cruise of marital bliss; for you see, Judy came to visit! While I toiled away my days at work, Judy took walks around the neighborhood and enjoyed the fine early spring weather; she unpacked most of the remaining boxes that I had lazily left undisturbed since their arrival from Tokyo; she organized and decorated our apartment; and she even crocheted an entire blanket! Evenings and weekends were spent out exploring California, shopping for furniture and making plans for her greatly anticipated move down here. The time we were together was nothing short of magical, with every moment filled with laughter and smiles (*pukebarfretchcheesiness*). For one month, life was beautiful; but then, as abruptly as she had arrived, Judy was gone. The sun retreated back behind the dark clouds, the garden became overrun with weeds and an endless torrent of melancholy metaphors spewed forth from betwixt my buttocks.

I miss my wife.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll be seeing her again for quite some time. Mere days after Judy left, I received a notice from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services informing me that our petition for a K-3 visa had been denied “due to abandonment.” Apparently, a request for further evidence had supposedly been sent to me in November, but I never received it. Curiously, the USCIS website never indicated that a request for evidence had been sent out (I had been checking on the status of the case on a nearly daily basis since October), so I had no way of knowing that a request had been sent and thus I didn’t respond to the request that I didn’t receive and didn’t know had been sent until I received a notice stating that my failure to respond had resulted in the petition being denied. Phone calls to the USCIS proved fruitless and a desperate appeal for assistance to my local congressman’s office appears likely to reach an equally unsuccessful conclusion. Fortunately, our I-130 petition is still pending and has been progressing slowly-but-steadily, so I have some remaining hope of someday being able to get settled with my wife and move forward with our lives together in this country.

Although this situation has been maddeningly frustrating, at the same time, I can’t seem to help but feel that my own relatively petty troubles are hardly comparable to the no-doubt far worse pain and misery being experienced by others elsewhere at this very moment. While I’m getting my panties in a bunch over the evidently limitless incompetence of the US government bureaucracy, people in Iraq are being blown up, people in the US are being gunned down and countless others all over the globe are suffering from whatever other unimaginable acts of violence, cruelty and injustice we humans seem to take great pleasure in inflicting upon one another.

So it goes.

Back to the teenagers, though. The fact that they seemed to be consciously attempting to direct their exhalations into the faces of passers-by was abhorrent enough; however, when I saw each of them proceed one by one to flick their butts onto the street, I could only thing of one thing:

That’s right, Japan Tobacco’s beautiful Smoking Manners campaign! And guess what? They’ve added 30 new ads to their website! The focus of these latest additions seems to be the importance of carrying portable ashtrays and the admonitions against littering in general. Somewhat mundane subject matter, perhaps, but their playful designs and esoteric charm definitely shine through.

Click here to go to the Smoking Manners gallery (the new entries are on the second page).

The formula of Soramimi Hour begins with viewers submitting examples of songs by non-Japanese artists with lyrics that sound like words or phrases in Japanese. Short music videos—often no more than mere seconds in length—depicting the “misheard” Japanese lyrics are created and viewed on air by the hosts, after which Tamori awards prizes for the entries based on his assessment of their quality (in ranking order, the possible prizes are a hand towel, ear pick, t-shirt or jacket). The result of this process is nothing short of outright hilarity.

Strangely enough, despite having lived in Japan for five years, it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that I first learned of this highly entertaining television gem. It wasn’t like I had a glamorous social life that kept me out and about until the wee hours every Friday night (8 o’clock at Gusto, anyone? Drink bar’s on me!); yet, somehow, to my utter shame, I managed to be completely out of the loop.

Fortunately, there are dozens of Soramimi Hour clips available for viewing on YouTube, so I encourage anyone who might possibly be as lame as I am to have never heard of it before to surf over there and search for ’soramimi’ and/or ‘空耳’ and get ready to laugh. Some Japanese ability would definitely be an asset, but for many of the videos, the visual images alone are enough to summon a guffaw or two.

For those so lazy that even searching YouTube is out of the question, I’ve linked below a sampling of clips that I happened to find particularly amusing (yes, my sense of humor resides firmly in the gutter). Enjoy!