Hello again, from the wild, woolly land of Japan, where you really can dry your body off of with one of those little towels after getting out of the hot springs.
My wife and I continue to enjoy “Ally, My Love” in Japanese on NHK on Sunday nights. It leads to some interesting discussions on the differences between Japan and America. In Japan, for example, there is no jury system at all — if you’re brought before a court, your fate is determined by either one or three judges, who sit in a triangle shape like Cylons. I shudder to think that potentially hardened, cynical judges would be judging my fate (it might account for the 99%+ conviction rate in Japanese courts), but Chiharu said she’d prefer being judged by experienced judges to the randomness of a jury of people who weren’t experts in law at all.
As the new year progresses, various statistics about the 1999 are becoming available. The number of people who died in 1999 in car accidents was 9005, a very low number and partially the result of a program by the Japanese police to keep the number below 10, 000. Gunma Prefecture, where we live, has the highest per-capita number of automobiles, but we avoided the honor of having the highest number of traffic deaths last year. The winner was Hokkaido, where 532 people were killed in car crashes.
Tonight’s update is filled with interesting, diverse items. First, we’ve got a volley of “one shot” magazines, posted at the top of magazine page 2. These are single issues we’ve gotten in at J-List, some dating back to 14 years ago! Next, for fans of our new high-end S&M/fetish photobook page, we’ve got several new items, including a very nice “Traditional Bondage in Japan” photobook item that looks very nice. There are new magazines as well, including the new issue of Milky Dolls, and many back-in-stock photobooks
J-List sells unique snack treats from Japan, including everything from the original Pocky to Wata-Pachi (cola-flavored cotton candy with pop rocks in them), Wata-Gum (a similar concept, cotton candy that turns to gum in your mouth), as well as some really unique Pokemon snack items, which of course come with collectible stickers, toys and other items inside them. We’ve lowered the prices on some of our cases, so check out what we’ve got.
Remember, if you try to access the J-List secure order page and get an error from your browser saying that the secure certificate has expired, it’s just the Y2K Browser Bug. Upgrade to a newer version of Netscape or Internet Explorer to fix the error. (For Mac users, the IE fix is at http://www.microsoft.com/mac/download/en/other_EN.asp).
