Stuart Brown, a physician and clinical researcher who founded the National Institute for Play, describes Norbert Rosing’s striking images of a wild polar bear playing with sled dogs.

awesome pictures, ive found a link to the higher res photo slideshow 

Some people fucking love noodles, but did you know some also love fucking noodles?

Hajimemashte, Cup Nude! You look very much like instant food favourite Cup Noodle, but cost around seven bucks! Here’s why…

Cup Nude is an “adult toy” you can purchase in a naughty book shop in Akihabara…

yes, so fucked up, i got to get one just to have blog material

The peel off lid really throws down the gauntlet. The label, in first-person prose, extols the virtues of this “Onna Hole” and challenges the user to last more than 3 minutes when using it (which, by an amazing coincidence, is about the same time it takes to prepare a hot, steaming…oh, forget it). Also, don’t put it in the microwave or “use it too much” you wild beast!

The satisfying sensations come from noodle-like tentacles inside the cup. Apparently, it feels “like thousands of worms”! Yum! I mean…gross!

Sweet dreams are made of these <_< : a pink lump with fake shrimp bits...

Don’t forget the “flavor packet”, full of soothing “Gently Acid lotion.”

Stone Toad: where was the lobster crane game btw?The one i took a pic of was in shitamachi,just across from the arakawa river where you can throw rocks and cans at the tokyo prison.

so heres a little sight seeing tour….

This place is seemingly populated only by small children and old people. Home to a temple where the bodies of dead cats litter the rock gardens when the earth and moon get out of whack. The whole place just dern feels funny. Hard to capture in pictures, especially when the flash on the camera doesn’t work…

Whole area looks like it’s been left out in the rain in a bad way. Here’s the local offices of the Asahi Shimbun. Scared to see what the paperboys looks like…

Miles of ancient oden and candy shops run by old men watching black and white Panasonic TV sets. Bags of ume rock for 150 yen.

One side of the block is home to what looks like a ramen place that uses red acryllic paint for soup base.

the Knit Room was unfortunately closed. Fuck it.

When you think of Tokyo, think Blade Runner…

The Ichikawa conbini. Not a chain, but it sure looks familiar. Note the hours of operation. Open from 7 to 11. Convenience Kita-senju style, OK.

Plastic food on display at the Cafe Mazui from sometime just after the Edo era. Note terrifying “Black Rice.”

The local hot spot near the station. Note: there is not a single videogame arcade machine in there…. inside that arcade you feel like in north korea..

bam..lobster machine

And then you get brutally attacked by Roppongi. Someone there asked me what Les Girls means…

Over the years coders have gotten a bad reputation for being socially awkward, shy people who pick time in front of a computer screen over socializing and healthy relationships.

The Killer Quiz pits photos of coders and serial killers against one another and asks you to guess, based on appearance, if the person in the photo is a programming language creator or serial killer. It’s a tad creepy, but a fun way to test just how pervasive our geek stereotypes are.

From character goods maker JUN Planning comes a series of mammary-shaped plush toys known as Funwari Milk-chan (”Fluffy Milk”) and friends. According to the official Funwari Milk-chan website, these mildly naughty plushies are modeled after the palm-sized inhabitants of Milk Village, a quiet southern hamlet the size of Tokyo Dome.

Each character has a distinct personality and background. Funwari Milk-chan (pictured above, center) is easygoing. Despite her dream of growing large, she remains small. She loves collagen, and napping is her favorite pastime. Can Milk-san (top left) is a celebrity entertainer, always aglitter. She has an American boyfriend and loves going to beauty salons. Ganguro Milk-chan (bottom left), despite being a gyaru with a pierced nipple, is mature and level-headed. She spends all her time practicing para-para dance, and she enjoys purikura. Peach Milk-chan (top right), a spider-hating fashionista who is scary when angry, is well-informed and into anything lowbrow. Milko-chan (bottom right) is still a baby — but a genius. She loves to invent things, and her pacifier apparently holds the secret to her smarts.

The inhabitants of Milk Village speak the Milk language, a tongue understood by all living creatures. While the size of the population is unknown, it is known that the milk-chans tend to live together as couples and raise families in milk houses, where they enjoy a variety of TV shows, including those produced by humans. Milk Village is built on forested land created long ago by an ancient volcanic eruption of Mt. Milk. The mountain is regarded as the symbol of the village.

Milk Village also enjoys four distinct seasons. In spring, everyone likes to eat dango (skewered rice dumplings) and gaze at cherry blossoms. In summer, they enjoy the beach. In autumn, they eat dango and gaze at the moon. In winter, it is customary to hole up with family in snow caves and eat mochi rice cake.

Funwari Milk Chan plushies sell for about 1,000 yen ($9) each…..

Tits

Anyone who’s travelled by train will know that the rail companies appear to run a competition among themselves to declare the most implausible-sounding reason for delaying or cancelling trains.

In recent years, it’s ranged from “leaves on the line”, to “snow on the line”, to “the wrong kind of rain”(?) The most frequent excuse that come crackling over the public address system was “The train on platform 1 has been delayed due to the late arrival of an incoming train”. Nobody ever really got to the bottom of that one, as it seemed to be saying the train was going to be late because it was already late.

All that’s been beaten into a cocked hat by the operator of Nagasaki trains on Friday morning.

Trains there were delayed for three quarters of an hour because of a tortoise stuck in a track switch.

At about 10 a.m. on Friday, a limited express train bound for Nagasaki from Hakata made an emergency stop at Yue Station on the Nagasaki Line in Isahaya in response to a red signal light.

The railway traffic control center later found that a switch at the station was not functioning properly, preventing the signal to turn to green.

When track maintenance staff examined the switch, they found the animal trapped inside and removed it. No word though on whether it survived the trauma.

via