Tuesday, December 1, 2009

WEIRD NEWS FROM JAPAN

A Tokyo rail passenger company, Keihin, installed a face-scanning machine for employees reporting to work. This feed back machine tells them if they are smiling broadly enough to present a good impression.

Doncha just love those plastic smiles at stores that hire greeters? Or store clerks you don't know who give the big smile, use your name and ask company directed plastic questions like: "How may I help you? Or: "May I help you find something today?"
I know, I'm cynical and old fashioned.

But get this:
Lonely Japanese men have latched onto a thriving new collectible, girlfriend dolls. Yup, that's right. Some men obsessively collect these kind of lumpy pillow dolls with a face painted on them, like a girlfriend. They take them out on romantic dates and everything. (These are not the hard core otaku that are anatomically correct dolls for lonely men to use for sex.) One guy claims: "She has really changed my life." He named his favorite doll Nemutan. I guess he introduces her to his friends.
Another lonely "2D" (so called for preferring relationships with two-dimensionals) said he would like to marry a real, 3-D woman, but laments, "How can someone who carries this doll around get married?"

Maybe leaving it home would help? You think?
This information was in the New York Times.

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