The Appeal of Japanese Schoolgirls

Can someone please explain to me the logic behind the lyrics of Japanese pop songs? Walk into any karaoke bar, order a Japanese video CD, and marvel in the total ridiculousness of the songs unfolding in front of you. 

If you're lucky you might see some translation running at the bottom of your screen, but seriously you can't take those words very seriously. Honestly you'd think the translation office had a fresh delivery of weed coming in when they were recording this song. I mean: girls are singing about their boyfriends, but also about their desire to make their homework? And are comparing their houses with a penguin in the local zoo? The logic is all over the place. No, actually it's completely lost. 

I guess the saving grace of these video clips are the Japanese schoolgirls, who are smiling all over the screen MTV-style. That almost takes away your attention from the song. Catholic schoolgirls have got nothing on a tough girl from Tokyo.  

Typical behaviours

• We expect flexibility when it suits us.
• Escalation is based on the premise that people respond to their bosses; if that's not the case, it's about as useful as pissing into the wind.
• People usually refrain from estimating a job accurately, not because they cannot predict the future, but because they don't want to give others a stick to hit them with.
  

Ten things you probably didn't know about me

• I still watch old cartoons from the 1980s. And each time I do, I wonder why.
• I don't swim in open water. I don't have a swimming diploma, and have not learned anything beyond a butterfly stroke.
• My hidden ambition is to be able to order food in at least ten languages. Right now I'm up to eight.
• I know Feng Shui.
• I have a better than average feeling for rhythm, which helps me lots in ballroom, latin and salsa.
• I never ask a person's heritage from the get-go. This forces me to judge a person based on my interaction with him, rather than his race.
• I'm a great fan of long showers.
• I'm a slow eater.
• I'm an uber-consumer and a shopaholic lite. I know my brands and am very brand loyal. I hate it when the stuff I want or need isn't sold.
• I would enjoy to make it to a level of obnoxiousness that wherever I come into a room, The Rock's entrance theme plays.
  

What if there was a bomb scare in the Arena

• It would be the cheapest IKEA commercial of all time
• "The Killers" would be the worst act to play a concert at that moment
  
• Someone really doesn't agree with Marco van Basten
• The way the news kept repeating that shops were targets, makes me think the economic downturn really didn't kill off enough businesses on its own
• It would be the cheapest IKEA commercial of all time
  

Just ask dad

In this economy companies are throwing their arms up in the air and waving the white flag. Some start panicking, others start deliberating what to do until the whole thing blows over. A few companies are legitimately in trouble and have to take drastic measures, such as closing shop or firing half the workforce. Others are busy pushing their failed leadership out the door with hefty sums of money.

All companies are looking for someone to bail them out. The government seems to have to step in, as a father figure who helps out a child. It assumes the father has money to give in the first place, and luckily our government is able to do that.

At first you are just happy you've been helped out of hot water, but at some point in the future - again, when the whole thing has blown over - you have to wonder where the money came from. Or worse still, what the fine print was.

I'm still expecting that my taxes are going to double sometime next year. If not next year, then at least by 2012 we're going to have hyperinflation or something similar. By then all your savings just becomes imaginary.

Hopefully dad will still be around to lend a hand.