Monday, January 28, 2008

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

For a mere $90,000, finally, we will be able to purchase a rocket pack that actually works. As in, a little pack you wear on your back like a backpack that contains rockets and fuel and can make you fly a bit. It will be available in May of this year, not right now. Thunderbolt Aerosystems has placed its new ThunderPack Revision-2, Generation-2 (R1G2) on the market so, as you can imagine, I’m just quickly dry cleaning my old spandex super hero outfit so I can take on the identity of a super hero and fly about the city. Apparently, the rocket pack keeps you in the air for like 37 seconds so flying to work is really sort of more like bounding along as though you’re some kind of freaked out international airline rabbit but still, at least I can now arrive through the roof of a museum when there’s a benefit. That’s sort of always been my dream and I’m really excited about getting myself a new personality that will remain a secret to all but those who know. Which might be more people than I originally anticipated. [source]

A 26 year old teacher at a Tokyo school was arrested on Monday for making a group of boys undress at knifepoint and stealing their underpants, Kyodo news agency reported and look, it’s all very mean and horrifying that those kids were forced to do that. BUT, in defense of the teacher, can I just say that I’m pretty sure boy underpants that have been freshly worn fetch a pretty penny in Japan. The Japanese have a comic strip called “Rape Man” for Christ’s sake. Maybe it was just a lesson in teaching kids what they’re worth economically. The teacher is also suspected of taking a mobile phone from one of the boys and making nuisance calls to his home afterwards, Kyodo said. In light of that, I would warrant that this teacher is a genius and totally worth giving a raise to. Who could ask for more in a teacher than relentless, knife point sexual abuse and phone call harassment of young students? Not me! [source]



Lovelorn staff at a Japanese marketing company can take paid time off after a bad break-up with a partner, with more "heartache leave" on offer as they get older. The company is run by six women so that sort of makes sense. Women make time for things like that whereas men who run companies will look at their broken hearted employees and abusively yell at them to channel their sadness into energy that will make the company profit. That’s really how gender politics works. There’s no middle ground and I think that’s why some people don’t enjoy office work as much as they say they do. It’s either that or the fact that most jobs in offices really are just glorified data entry. So, in short, the Japanese are sometimes quirky and I like that. Yeah, that’s totally what this story is about. [source]

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