March 31, 2014

Simpsonized

Some say life is like a book. I say it’s more like a cartoon: the stuff of everyday life offers plenty of chances to laugh with abandon, while the remainder of the time we spend provokes a smirk or a knowing grin.
Anyhow, I recently commissioned a Rising Family® avatar after I became infected by the internet midnight purchasing bug. I paid for it, might as well share it!


Speaking of cutesy cartoon characters, Japan loves ‘em. Almost all towns, cities, organizations, even the police and military have their own adorable animated mascots.

Another other national proclivity – creating accidentally hilarious English words – combined with the mascot mania here and resulted in “Fukuppy”: a merging of the Japanese word for “good luck” and “happy” in English that got very, very lost in translation.
‘I’m Fukuppy, nice to meet you.”
This resulted in much insider-humor online sharing amongst the foreign community here in Japan last fall.

These two characters from the Kanagawa Prefectural police are just too cute to issue me a parking or speeding ticket…right?

 
It seems recruitment of young women went up when the Japanese Self-Defense Forces drew up these chic new “idols” for the armed forces.

As for me, I’m old school—I’ll stick with the Simpsons = "my weekends"
Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

March 12, 2014

Snapshots

Goodbye friends, we hardly knew ye
We said sayonara to two good friends this week--Ms. Highchair and Mr. Stroller, who assisted the Rising Daughters® through the baby, toddler and preschooler stages of their lives.

These two essential items helped our kids eat safely and experience the outside world. We’re grateful for their faithful service.
No nostalgia here folks, they were damn fine accessories which made our parenting easier. But we must move forward. After the years of hard use by Lady E. and ‘M’, recycling wasn’t an option, so we paid our respects and saw them off into retirement.

Japan stuff
Clooney hawks low-malt beer!

Saw this in a train station causeway in Tokyo. Nice to know my man George and I share the same brand. Yeah, right.

Movie poster of the Wolf of Wall Street and Kick-Ass.

I include this just because I still get a kick out of seeing the Japanese view of things. And I will never tire of the hyphenated, multipurpose word Kick-Ass.

And a bit of love for the Blue Oval

With many friends working for Ford, I forced the daughters to model for the Fiesta launch here in Japan when there was an outreach event at a local mall.

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