I got my new bankbook today, and it’s covered with Disney characters. This kind of branding used to strike me as strange, but with all the financial scandals going on these days, I suppose Micky Mouse and Goofy are indeed perfect representations of Japanese Banks.
I’ve lived a sheltered life. I always thought that “putting on my dancing shoes” was some kind of metaphor. I now not only know that there really is such a thing as dancing shoes, but I am the proud owner of my very own pair.
The spins in salsa were getting a bit too difficult to do in street shoes, so I decided more appropriate footwear was in order. The main problem here in Japan (other than finding a pair consisting of two lefts) was fitting my size-eleven feet.
I headed to a huge four-story dance emporium in Shibuya that claimed on the phone to stock my size. Two things struck me about the place. First, I was probably the only straight male to have set foot in the store this month. Second, the place was pure “Capitalism at Work.”
While I stood there with the female clerks staring at my feet and the male shoppers staring at my ass, I was amazed at how much money people were spending on dance accessories. Some of these people were dropping hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
Teaching people to dance is one thing, but the real money is made in selling them a whole lifestyle.
Young Japanese ladies are being pampered at the new ear-cleaning boutiques that are opening up around Tokyo. (I’ve been in Tokyo so long, that didn’t even strike me as strange.) The full ear-cleaning takes an hour, and according to my friend “It’s better than sex!”
I’m sure it’s nice, but my friend really needs to get herself a better boyfriend.
I just finished reading Blink, an interesting little book about how we tend to make split second judgments and how those judgments tend to be surprisingly accurate. It seems that we assume tall people are the leaders.
The book cites Malcolm Gladwell’s research on the height of Fortune 500 CEOs. It seems the average male CEO is 6′ tall while the average American is a scant 5′9″. It gets even more interesting as people get taller. A full 58% of the CEOs ore over 6′ and 30% of them are over 6′ 2″. In the general population these numbers are 14.5% and 3.9%, respectively.
Interesting stuff. All together now…
I don’t want no short people ’round … don’t want no short people ’round me.
“There is no way that praying with nuns is gonna cause you asthma.” And then I prayed. And I said, “Lord, what’s wrong with her?” I just prayed silently. And the Lord said, “Ask about her sex life.”
— Pat Robertson
Really. I swear! I can’t make up stuff this good. You can read the full transcript here.