MaisonBisson.com » japan

The World’s Greenest Roller Coaster

Casey Bisson — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:28:23 +0000

This pedal-powered roller coaster is Washuzan Highland Park’s Skycycle in Okayama prefecture, Japan It appears that the only CO2 emissions are the huffing and puffing of riders peddling to the top. The park does have three traditionally powered steel coasters (the Ultra, Star Jet, and Chupy).

A Nation Marketing Itself

Casey Bisson — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:28:28 +0000

Japan’s The Ministry of Foreign Affairs English-language Web Japan is a bottomless trove of in-flight magazine-quality stories like ANTIBACTERIAL EPIDEMIC and J-culture-hyping love-fests like Honoring The World’s Manga Artists.

If American propaganda efforts are this bad, why do foreign governments even bother blocking them?

GEN H-4 Personal Helicopter

Casey Bisson — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 14:40:00 +0000

It’s nearing the end of 2005 and we still don’t have any flying cars like we were promised, but the GEN H-4 personal helicopter looks promising (and dangerous). Here it is in the air, and I might be crazy, but it looks to be controlled by weight-shift (even more photos).

OhGizmo says it sells for about $31,000. Gizmodo claims it drives its counter-rotating rotors with an eight-horsepower, 125cc engine. And Odd things from Japan wonders if “this is the nearest thing on Earth to ‘Takekoputa.’”

tags: air, aircraft, aviation, flying car, flying cars, gen h-4, helicopter, horsepower, japan, odd, personal aircraft, personal helicopter, rotors, transportation, ultralight, weight shift

Video Bulb and Zakka Shop NYC

Casey Bisson — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 11:48:00 +0000

The Video Bulb is a “lipstick-sized tube” that plugs in to your TV’s RCA jack and plays Bitman videos.

GadgetMadness explains what Bitman is:

Bitman is the creation of Japanese Art Performer “Meiwa Denki” and was an 8-bit electronic stick figure who would dance, pose, etc.

The VideoBulb sounds interesting enough, but I think I could get into the reseller as much as the GadgetMadness writer did:

I went to Zakka Shop & Space the last time I was in NYC, and literally wanted everything in the store. Once you step inside it feels like you have traveled through a dimension warp into a store that might exist in the anime Appleseed or Lain…they even have Japanese vending machines! If you are in NYC it is definitely worth stopping by.

Back to the Bitman Video Bulb, the author imagines the following:

“Hello, Best Buy?”

“Yes?”

“There is a dancing person on my TV. The sound is normal, but no matter what channel I put it on I see a dancing guy.”

“Um, what? Is this a joke?”

“No, I’m serious!”

tags: bitman, bitman video bulb, bitman videobulb, gadget, gadget shop, japan, new york, new york city, nyc, video bulb, video-bulb, videobulb, zakka shop & space, zakka, zakka shop

60 Years Later

Casey Bisson — Sun, 07 Aug 2005 12:00:14 +0000

In what was to be the final act of World War II in the Pacific, the United States made the first and only use of nuclear power as a weapon in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th (US dates), 1945.

George Weller of the Chicago Daily News snuck in to Nagasaki in early September 1945 and became the first American journalist to see the destruction. His stories were censored, and official sources maintained control of news about the bombings and the aftermath for many years.

Mainichi Daily News has a pair of photo galleries of Hiroshima bomb damage and how the city remembers the bomb today.

tags: 60th anniversary, atomic, atomic bombing, bomb, bombing, bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, bombing of japan, destruction, hiroshima, hiroshima and nagasaki, hiroshima bombing, japan, nagasaki, nagasaki bombing, nuclear, nuclear bomb, nuclear power, nuke, pacific war, second world war, united states, war, world war II

More Japanese Ice Cream

Casey Bisson — Wed, 30 Jun 2004 13:24:01 +0000

I got all excited about some unappealing Japanese ice cream flavors when I found the story in Mainichi Daily News a while ago. I thought the lineup of fish, octopus, squid, ox tongue, sweet potato, fried eggplant, crab, corn, rice, wasabi, shrimp, eel, noodle, chicken wing, miso, and cactus flavored ice cream had everything pretty well covered, but now MDN has done it again. They’ve put up a new gallery of 21 flavors of ice cream you’re unlikely to find in the US:

abalone, cactus, flavor, flavors, goat, ice cream, ice cream flavors, iceream, japan, japanese, mainichi daily news, mdn, oyster, sea water, seaweed, shark, shark fin, water ice, whale, yummy

Japanese Ice Cream…Novelties?

Casey Bisson — Sun, 16 May 2004 23:35:07 +0000

Fish, octopus, squid, ox tongue, sweet potato, fried eggplant, crab, corn, rice, wasabi, shrimp, eel, noodle, chicken wing, miso, and cactus. Those may not sound like appetizing ice cream flavors, but it’s what they’ve got.

tags: chicken wing, eel, flavor, flavors, fried eggplant, ice cream, ice cream flavors, icecream, japan, japanese, miso, octopus, squid, sweet potato, wasabi, yummy