That’s right! 21 years ago on March 29th, something terrible happened! But at the same time I was born! So now that makes me 21!

I was going to write a huge post with my thoughts for the year blah blah blah, but I’m having a huge party so I will be too drunk to write anything. The truth is I actually wrote this post earlier on the 28th, then set my blog to post it on the 29th. So this message is coming from the past!

Anyway, thanks for all the support. I’m going to keep blogging through my year at Sophia, so stay tuned!

Sheffield University’s Japan Day was held on May 10th this year. Here’s the press release for the event.

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A Japanese doctor has apologised after saying that people should smoke themselves to an early death to save the country money on elderly care, according to his hospital.

“It is clear that medical costs will increase if non-smoking spreads,” the doctor said last week, according to Ida Hospital in Kawasaki City. “It’s better that people smoke a lot and die early.”

I’m sorry, but when I saw this (on Yahoo! News) I realised I pretty much had to make a blog post about it. Apparently at some big meeting of leading doctors in Japan, one of them busts out this golden gem, that the only way for Japan to relieve the stress of it’s shrinking population is to have everyone smoke themselves to death to stop them claiming a pension and so on.

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The trouble all started when a young female intern began to spend several hours each day with Kenji, testing his systems and loading new software routines. When it came time to leave one evening, however, Kenji refused to let her out of his lab enclosure and used his bulky mechanical body to block her exit and hug her repeatedly. The intern was only able to escape after she had frantically phoned two senior staff members to come and temporarily de-activate Kenji.

Yes, this is the story of Kenji, the robot who was programmed to love whatever it ’sees’, falling in love too deeply with some poor assistant. Apparently he wasn’t her type, she’s more into humans, so she cruelly had him shut down while she ran off. All he wanted was a hug, and maybe some batteries. :(

Apparently he was coded so that as he spent more time with people (and things), he’d ‘feel’ for them more and more, but I guess they did a classic movie ‘We forgot to set an upper limit!’ mistake and had him fall deeper and deeper in love until he went all Fatal Attraction on some hapless intern. Obviously, he’ll be sent to robot court. The problem with robot court, run by Judge. T. Erminator, is that he’s become so attached to banging his hammer that he’ll just sentence anyone, and poor Kenji will be melted down into tea trays and saucepans in no time.

But what we need to focus on is the positive; what possible use could Japan have for a stalker robot like Kenji? I’ve taken the liberty of suggesting four simple niches a robocreep could fill;

1. Use it to find your keys
Instead of letting your own little KenjiBot fall in love with someone (or something) you care about, why not have it fall in love with your keys, or glasses, or something you always lose? No longer would you wonder where you left your valuables, as there would be a giant calculator trying to flirt with it. Of course if it were your car keys you’d have to drive the robot with you everywhere just to shut him up about the damn things.

2. Use it to protect birds
Robot falls in love with cat. Cat spots birds, moves in for the kill. Silently he crosses the yard, with the stealth of… a cat. Just as he prepares to pounce, there comes a friendly voice of “GIVE ME A HUG!” and thus the birds can escape, the robot gets a hug and everyone is happy. Except the cat. But who cares, dogs are better anyway.

3. Show real stalkers how it feels
Planning to follow your favourite star or someone who doesn’t like you around? How about we send a half ton hunk of metal around to your house, to look through your rubbish and so forth? Yeah, not feeling so hot about stalking now, are you? Good. Ok robot, let’s go. What do you mean you don’t want to go? What do you mean you’ll never love again? You have a reset button!

4. To take over the world
Robots always talk over the world

There we go. Four quick and simple uses for Kenji, the creepiest robot ever invented. Hopefully robots never gain true sentience or I’m going to get in real trouble for this article. If you need me, I’ll be in my underground bunker.

It’s taken a while but finally the US got a president who seemed to offer a whole new look on foreign policy. Being able to post that was an incredibly exciting and refreshing feeling; for the first time in at least eight years, a lot of people felt the US had a president to be proud of, rather than one that should be sent back to primary school, but made to sit away from the other children so as not to distract them.

Obama’s not let us down, either. So far, so good. But what plenty of people are wondering will be ‘What are Obama’s plans for Japan?’ Historically, Japan and the US have had a very close economic and military link, one that has caused tension particularly on the Japanese side, especially with issues like the military bases, Okinawa and Article 9.

I’ve written up a few goals for Japan that I think we can realistically hope for. Please post your thoughts / other goals we might hope to see.

1. Less American forces in Japan

I’m jumping right in and tackling a hot-topic issue here. There are roughly 50,000 US troops in Japan, stationed all over the country with lots in Yokohama (near Tokyo) and Okinawa in particular. The bases in Okinawa are a big issue, because they simply take up so much space and as a result Okinawan culture has sort of been pushed aside by the Japanese government who were and still are desperate to catch up and mimic with the US, and the Americans who sadly only speak English in general.

So Obama how about we have less troops in Japan?! I know there’s a security reason, especially with North Korea being all aggressive and so on, but the continuous expansion of US military presence is simply too aggressive – people see it as a threat rather than a protector. My theory is Obama have up to half of the soldiers in Japan retrain as builders and bricklayers, and build a huuuuge bridge between Japan and Okinawa. Before September 2009, please. I want to go during my year but it’s too expensive.

2. Better Cultural Understanding

Too many times in Japan did I hear ‘You’re from England? Isn’t that in America?” or the like. I’d like to see a closer cultural link between the US and Japan, which would inevitably lead to closer links with Europe, Australia and so on. Making it easier for people to go on holiday to Japan, do exchanges there and vice versa would help everyone and stop the immigration madness we currently go through. Here in the UK universities offering Chinese are getting extra funding as it’s seen as a key subject, why not Japanese too?

Click for bigger! It's authenti...ok, it's not...

I think of these goals this is one of the more realistic ones, so come on! Reform that education system and get Japan, the US and everyone else all working together to help me learn these Kanji!

3. An Obama-Koizumi Dance Off

With Obama being as freaking cool as he is, and ex-PM Koizumi being a great dancer, how awesome would this be?! I reckon one round of ballroom, one round of Latin and a freestyle round. Who would your money be on?