Melon Kinenbi managed to go out with a decent bang, with two final albums and a concert DVD, and three of the four members quickly started off on new careers. Quirky re-signed with Up-Front, Psycho picked up some decent acting jobs, and Bambi signed with a new record company and is working with a vocal coach.

All Smoky said was that she was retiring from show business, but now the news is out: marriage.

[Update: Psycho has a new single as well, currently available for cellphone streaming in Japan. Title is “Kill my caddy”, so she’s keeping the WTF alive and well]

Something I found on Google Earth:

Usually, if none of the informational layers in GE has something, you can find a nearby picture in the Panoramio layer that will give you a clue, but there’s nothing nearby. A Street View camera on a nearby highway caught it, though, so I knew what sort of thing it had to be.

Not that I really had to work that hard. Opening the area in Google Maps revealed a clear label on a nearby building, for anyone who can read Japanese…

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When life hands you scattered plots of land…

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Perhaps the greatest sin of the Hello!Project costume designers is that their young victims graduate with no awareness of their handicap. This has led to many post-H!P fashion disasters, of which this is not atypical.

Maki Goto, despite cutting all ties with H!P and signing with a much better record company, remains scarred by her long association with the agency. Take, for instance, the recent promo pic for her web site:

I am delighted to report, however, that she seems to have found at least a partial solution to the problem, now that it has come to her attention (NSFW):

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Ubuntu Magazine in Japan has decided that penguins are the wrong mascot for the market, and replaced them with junior idols. This month’s centerfold is 12.

[and, yes, I’m using “centerfold” loosely; the photos themselves are wholesome and innocent (more so than you’d expect from the generally quite creepy U-15 market), it’s just the placement that’s new. They’ve launched a new bi-monthly Linux magazine where one of the main attractions is pictures of young girls.]

“No offense, ma’am, but when does the pretty girl in the kimono come back on stage?”

Happened to wander through San Francisco’s Japantown today, and found something nice in the mall. Not for sale.

I wish to state that I am intensely jealous of my sister at the moment:

From: Nellie Greely
Date: May 24, 2010
Subject: Tokyo.....

Found out today that I have to go there on Saturday for work...

I sent her a pop-out map, the excellent (and out-of-print) Little Tokyo Subway Guidebook, Not Just a Good Food Guide: Tokyo, Fodor’s Tokyo, a Japanese phrasebook, a Suica card (the penguin on the card was a nice bonus), and some pocket change.

It’s a short trip, and mostly business, but she’s got two free days, so I made sure she was loaded for bear.

I also emailed her the following picture to print out and carry into grocery and convenience stores:

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