Defiling Fame

(upbeat music)

But weird bunch of stories this week.

I don’t know why.

It is the beginning of summer vacation,

so I may or may not
have an episode next week.

It depends how busy it is around the house,

but I can tell you honestly
it is so frickin’ hot in Japan.

No one wants to go outside,
no one wants to do anything.

I think it’s going to
be very much a holiday

of everyone just staying inside
watching TV, doing nothing the entire time.

What, that’s just some information, just
to just, you know, the world as it goes.

Japan, it’s here, where is
where we’re here to talk about?

We’re here to talk about Japan.

Japan’s rice inventory has
dropped to 1.56 million tons in June.

Japan has a rice inventory,
it has a bunch of rice

that they keep, like in
warehouses they keep stock.

Weirdly the very first thing
I thought like rice is staple,

it’s important to have a lot of rice if
you’re going to live in a country like Japan.

Canada has the maple syrup, and
there was a big heist where they stole like

three or four tank or
trucks full of maple syrup,

and there’s a lot of
questions and thoughts

going when you hear
about that, like, why?

I think it was the main one.

20% less rice compared to last year.

So last year in June, they
had 20% more than the 1.

56 million tons that
they have right now.

If it declines any further,
there may be price hikes,

annual demand within
Japan for rice has dropped as

people’s diets have changed
and a shrinking population.

So you have less people, you’re going
to need less food to feed those people.

In a way, not a terrible thing.

There’s been an increase in
the price of bread and noodles,

so a lot of people are now
taking bread and noodles

out of their diets, which they may have
had more in before and eating more rice.

But that, in addition to tourists,

so it’s been a big tourism boom,
probably the last three months,

we’ve talked about tourism
tourism tourism, people coming,

the problems they caused,
the problems of local people,

all that kind of stuff has been happening
over and over and again in Japan.

They want to eat Japanese food.

You want to come to Japan?

Japan is famous for food.

I mean, it’s famous for a lot of
stuff, but food’s pretty high on that list.

If you’re going to make your top 10 list,

I’m going to guarantee
foods can be the top five.

That food’s going to include rice.

So this tourism boom is feeding
the amount of rice that gets eaten.

So right now, the
forecast is actually saying

that demand will increase, but
production’s going to go down.

So it’s this interesting problem,

because the population
isn’t going to be buying rice

because they’re changing
their diet, but they might start

buying rice again, but
there’s a shrinking population.

So it’s really confusing as to whether or
not Japan, the country, or Japanese people,

are going to be eating or
buying more rice, but they’re

going to need more rice if this
tourism boom keeps happening,

and all the problems that
come with the tourism boom.

So it’s like everything
has a double-edged sword.

Everything is just problematic, and that
seems to be what it’s like to just live.

There are drain grates.

So Japan, I live in a small town.

Small towns in Japan do not have
sidewalks, and it’s very off-putting.

You’re all told to do tangent right away.

Problem is, I walk to the train station.

It takes about 15 minutes.

I don’t complain about the
walk, the walk’s quite nice.

Good way to wake you up
in the morning, to be honest.

The roads are very small.

It’s a small town.

There are no sidewalks.

So I am walking on the side of
the road, almost in the gutter.

Gudders aren’t the same here.

They tend to be just
like, yeah, well, gutters,

but they’re covered
over with cement blocks,

and then every now
and then they’ll have a

great where the rain
can drain down into it.

Almost lost my words there.

I walk on those, and
because if I walk on the

road, the old people
who live in the area,

again, Japan, Grand
population, most people are old,

they’ve been driving those
roads for 50 years, let’s say.

They know those roads, and that’s true.

They’ll say like, I know this
road like the back of my hand.

They don’t know if someone’s
on the road that they’re driving.

So they drive like they know the road,

but they’re not actually
paying as close attention

to whether or not
someone is on the road.

So I almost get hit by a car regularly.

Like I would say once a month, I almost
get hit by a car if I’m not being careful.

I certainly have to be
more careful than the drivers

who are actually driving
around the roads with me.

They’re so small, it’s
very easy to get hit.

So that’s just give you
a sense of the setup

of the roads in a lot
of places in Japan.

Once you get into
the cities, it’s different,

but you get these towns, which is a
lot of Japan that suburbs and stuff.

No sidewalks has these like gutter
systems, and they have greats on top.

Now, I didn’t think about this,

but greats are made of metal and
people steal the greats to sell them.

There’s a city called Tuchiki,

and what they’ve done is the
local governments had enough.

They need to take
action, they need to do

something to stop
people stealing and great.

So they decided that the
best way to stop people stealing

these greats would be to
paint them white and red

so they were in sort
of a strawberry pattern.

It’s actually neat.

If you look at it on an angle, you can
see the strawberry really, really well.

They chose the strawberry
because Tuchiki in

this area is famous
for growing strawberries.

This is one of the things
about also living in Japan.

Every town has to be famous for something,

even though the fact that
no one’s ever heard of it

means it’s not actually
famous, but if you say,

oh, this is my town,
this is this town I visited,

it’s famous for is going to
be probably the next sense

of the Japanese person’s mouth
who’s talking to you about it.

What they actually mean is
that stuff is produced there.

It doesn’t actually
mean it’s famous for it.

So I’ve had that conversation I gave up.

There’s a lot of things that I realized

that I will not be changing
Japanese culture anytime soon.

So this town is famous for this thing.

As a statement, it defiles what fame means.

Defile is way too strong or weird.

But it’s like you’re actually demonstrating

that you’re not using
the word famous correctly.

And just saying it’s hot
when it’s hot out constantly.

I’ve given up on that.

And I really, you know,
some deep down inside

me, my body goes, no,
man, you can stop them.

They say, that’s it, that’s
me, that’s me, that’s me.

That’s me, it’s fucking constant.

And I know it’s hot because I’m in the
fucking same weather as you are, okay.

You can see how annoyed, how quickly I get.

I think it’s ’cause I come from Canada.

And if you walked out of the snow, out
of the minus 20 degrees snow in Canada,

and then you’re like,
hey, it’s cold outside.

Everyone would think, you’re a moron.

Because yeah, we know it’s cold.

It’s freaking minus 20 degrees outside.

Anyways, the painted
strawberries on these

grates that are along
the side of the road.

So I was like, how bad is this problem?

Well, in 2022, there were 25
great stolen in six different cases.

So just six different cases of theft

where in those six thefts,
25 greats were stolen.

In 2023, there were 25
cases where 40 greats were

stolen and so far into
like up to June in 2024,

there have been 11 cases
already with 23 greats stolen.

So this is actually a problem.

This is a really regular problem.

So the problem is if
these grates go missing,

that means when I
personally am walking along

the side of this road,
and I step in one of those,

I’m gonna fall into that
little area underneath,

the drain underneath,
and I could hurt my foot,

I could hurt my shin, I could
fall over, I could break a leg.

Cars also have to, when two cars go along
together, one has to get out of the way.

They probably both
have to get out of the way

because the roads are
that small sometimes.

This means that one of
the cars driving to the side,

the wheel could then go
down there, damage the car.

So this is actually a significant
and very real safety issue.

They decided that painting
the grates would make

them unfit to be sold,
which, in his new Japan,

has adopted a bit of a
philosophy of giving advice

to criminals or helping
criminals out in that.

I shouldn’t, but it’s
because I go into the

criminal mind when I
start doing these stories.

And my first thought is, would it?

So it’s a metal grade, and
you’re selling the metal,

which I assume is going to be
melted down to make something else.

So the metal itself has value.

So they’ve painted the metal, how
hard is it to strip the paint off metal?

And I was like, you
could use like a sand

blaster and have it done
in a couple of seconds.

Like I’m sure you could sand
blast that paint off really quick.

You could just melt it down.

I’m sure the impurities of the paint

would be minuscule compared
to the actual quality of the iron

or whatever they’re using
the steel of these grates.

So the value doesn’t seem
to have actually changed.

So like the fact that it’s been painted
might make it just more appealing,

you would be able to
tell where it came from.

Like, oh, this is one
of these tochi grates.

I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Like I don’t know if it’s a
higher quality or lower quality.

You might be more likely to get caught

because like we can tell
this great has been stolen.

Is something that
police could lay on you if

you had one of those
greats in your possession.

But when they said
it makes it unfit to be

sold, I was like, I
don’t think that’s true.

And then I did try to transfer my thought
process over to the buyer of the great.

And he’s like buying stolen grates,
but he didn’t know they were stolen.

I mean, that seems almost impossible.

And then he’s like, hey, wait a minute.

This great has a strawberry painted on it.

You’ve been stealing
these, not making them

yourself at home and
then selling them to us.

And there’s a logical fault in the
statement from the local government.

But I hope it works.

I don’t want these like small
municipalities to have to pay for grates.

I’m sure they’re stupidly expensive.

When you look at anything that’s along the
streets, they’re always crazy expensive.

Like street lights, intersection
lights, they are all crazy expensive.

You go look up the prices in your city

or in cities around the
world, millions of dollars

for just a very small
area of just lighting.

And then these automatic
lights and the systems

and stuff are all
crazy, crazy, expensive.

Just thinking that, you know, maybe
if I’m going to be talking to your thing,

I don’t want to know,
start slurring and whatnot.

I should actually have done
podcasts while intoxicated in the past.

And it had entertaining results.

And I don’t think you’d want
to listen to that every time.

But it has been funny when it’s happened.

I want theme music.

I want– I want like
a– the Ninja Ninja Pips.

Like a quiz show.

Oh, I’ll see like my theme music.

Well, no, no, I can’t have
an individual guest music.

Because then I would
have– I guess I could.

I couldn’t make it.

That’s– the problem with music
in me is I don’t have the talent.

That’s why I have to pay
people to make music that I like.

I mean, no offense.

No offense.

No, no, I haven’t taken any yet.

I know.

But if you were to
just, like, just snatch a

son down from the
interwebs to put it on here,

I don’t think anyone is coming
to check you’re copyright.

Oh, it’s not– that’s
actually not the problem.

It’s the automated systems.

They catch it.

So like, I actually do stay
away from copyrighted music

and stuff, because I’m
doing that movie channel.

And it gets doomed regularly.

And I have to then send it
a letter to, I guess, YouTube.

I think it actually goes to
them, the copyright holder,

to say, like, this is– because
I’m doing reaction videos,

because I’ve transformed it, and
I have to do like fair use and stuff.

I do that like every second or third video.

Like, the automatic system is amazing.

Really, it catching stuff.

Are you talking computers?

Yeah, so, like, it’s not like
any person’s coming for me.

The algorithm is just waiting for you.

OK, anyway, so the quiz.

Dada, dada, dada, dada,
dada, that’s McDonald’s.

McDonald’s is going to come for me.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

Oh, that’s quite good.

I’ll take that.

So this is summertime in Japan.

It’s very hot.

That’s where it’s there.

Maybe the important– so
Japanese schools often have pools

and they’ll have swimming
classes, so all the kids can swim.

It’s part of gym class.

Oh, god.

You know that.

Oh, god, no.

What do you mean, you’re art?

What do you mean, oh, god, no.

We haven’t even started yet.

But school and swimming pools and a quiz.

Yeah, no, because the quiz
is always some horrible stuff.

So the premise now is, how
can I make the premise sound

innocent, knowing that
it’s going to be awful?

Two girls were four minutes
late for swimming class.

Now, you’ve had students
who are late for class.

You’ve been late for class yourself?

That’s probably, what kind of punishments

I basically teachers
like don’t do it again?

Yeah, that’s four minutes.

People are late sometimes.

If it’s not a regular occurrence, you just

tell them, please be careful
about the about your time

management in future,
and you keep it pushing.

Yep, good.

No, that’s very reasonable response.

OK, so you know that’s not how this went.

So the students were four
minutes late for swimming class.

This teacher said, like, what happened?

And the student says, it took
a long time to walk to the pool.

So the pool is about 50
meters away from the school.

But I’m assuming they have to, like,
change and go through things and so on.

So I don’t really know this,
the layout of the school.

What do you think the
punishment of the students was?

What do you think?

How do you think the
teacher punished the students?

So here are your four choices.

A, they had to swim laps
until failure, until exhaustion.

B, they had to stand on the
side of the pool on the sun.

C, the teacher insulted the
student’s appearance in a bathing suit.

Or D, the teacher made all the
students walk back to the school

and back again in the hot
sun to, like, check the time.

So again, now as you change
it, please ask questions.

I don’t want to get– I don’t
want to make a assumption.

So I’m going to ask, is the
teacher a man or a woman?

It was not disclosed, but it
seems like it was a woman.

OK.

Because I read it in
Japanese, and the Japanese

is technically gender
neutral when they use sun.

So it’s hard to– Is
this a new teacher?

I don’t think so.

I think this was a fairly
experienced teacher.

I actually think the teachers
who do the shitty stuff

are the experienced teachers, because
they feel like they can get away with it.

I think a new teacher
would be more careful.

Like, they might punish the student,

but they might be like, I
don’t want to get fired today.

Yeah, they would do the thing to extreme,

because the old school
teachers are the whole watch.

Yeah, all the stories, the
punishment stories and stuff,

has always been like
these old school teachers

have been doing it
forever, which I assume

means they’ve been
abusing children forever.

Or yeah, they’ve been getting
more and more bold with their abuse.

Yeah, my Japanese is so bad.

My camera just went out focused.

That’s all right, that’s all right.

No, I can’t use the video if
the camera is not in focus.

Come on, come back.

Come back.

It sounds like a backwater’s
place, so they’re old-fashioned.

It’s a small town.

It is not a big city, yeah.

Thanks, Sue.

So I’m going to– old-fashioned people
are kind of hardcore compared to– Yep.

So I’m going to, I’m
going to recheck to be.

You’re going to reject standing the sun.

That’s super hardcore.

No, it’s not.

OK.

I mean, you’re from Canada, right?

I’m from Canada.

Yeah, you think the sun is hardcore.

That’s not hardcore.

No, no, no, that’s just a sun.

So in Canada, we don’t worry
about the sun as much as the cold.

So all the– yeah, I remember in middle
school, I went to Emily Carr Middle School.

You don’t know who Emily Carr is.

She’s a very famous Canadian artist.

And we had to recess where
we would have to go outside

for like 40 minutes or
something on an hour.

And it would be like minus 20 regularly.

That’s child abuse.

Yeah, but they were
like, no, you’re Canadian.

Go outside and play.

And we did.

It was– like, now that I think about it,
I’m like, you can’t send kids out in that.

But yeah, every day.

February, February, where I lived almost
every single day was minus 10 would be warm.

Minus 2015, 20 would be normal.

So a cold day, minus 25.

Then then– OK, well then, I think

we can’t understand each other because
like, maybe– yeah, you’re extreme cold.

You know, it’s bare.

It’s livable to you.

I am from the heatwork
experience right now.

This is my home heat.

Jesus Christ, man.

I can send aside this
heat all day long, literally.

I might be unhappy,
but I’d be like, you know,

I didn’t play games with
you outside in a seat.

I’m unhappy, but yeah.

So standing, standing
beside a pool, our country.

No, they’ll be fine.

They’ll be fine.

I’ll be fine, OK.

That’s not enough.

All right.

Oh, women are hateful.

OK.

That’s a statement.

Old women are hateful.

I get a book quotes in that.

That’ll make a t-shirt.

We’ll make a t– we’ll have a– we
need to use Japan merch coming out.

Old women are hateful.

Old women are hateful.

They are though.

So they wouldn’t sell–
they wouldn’t sell younger,

pressure, you know, percure,
you know, women’s appearance.

So I’m going to keep staying there.

Body shaming is so normalized in Japan.

So much so.

Did I tell you about– did I
tell you about my elevator ride?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We’re the old man.

She’s like, I got it.

Old man literally touched
my belly and called me fat.

And I was so close to
punching me in the face.

Hey.

Like, I mean, your own medication now.

Yeah, man.

That’s rough.

Rolling by, rolling by, it’s home.

One brick wrapped in a towel.

It’s embarrassing on fire.

Wow.

I mean, if you didn’t
see it, I didn’t see it.

You planned it out.

I mean, I have years of paying to me.

Call me hateful.

How about that?

I’ll take it.

There’s another t-shirt.

That’s the back.

The front is old women are hateful.

And the back is Tommy’s hateful.

I don’t buy that today.

That’s a good shirt, actually.

So yeah, the old ladies would insult you.

Welcome back and forth in
the hot heat to understand time.

But also, that’s the same thing.

It’s standing in the heat.

D is out.

So you’re between A and C now?

Yes.

Swimming laps into the exhaustion.

And then teachers solstice appears.

A is so reasonable.

Like, like, if you’re a hardcore teacher,
he’s like, you know, you’re always late.

So I’m going to make
you fucking learn today.

You swim laps until you’re fucking
tired and you fucking understand.

That is that while extreme is reasonable.

And you had a swimming pool.

So like, you know, it all pans out.

I think that is the most sensible one.

Our red laps is being
swimming laps or running laps.

It’s the same thing.

So that’s too reasonable.

It’s the– OK, C, insult
to the students’ parents.

She went hard.

Incorrect.

It was D, the teacher made all 40 students
walk to the school and back barefoot

and 21 students ended up
having burns on their feet.

Oh, I’m sorry.

I don’t think you mentioned that all
the other kids were impacted by this.

I don’t know.

I said all the kids had to walk.

I did say that.

I didn’t say the burn part.

That’s a bit of a giveaway.

It’s too many people.

Yeah, all the– so the
teachers– these two

kids show up late, four
minutes late for class.

And the teachers like, all you guys suck.

Get out of the pool.

I don’t know if they’re in the pool yet.

But let’s say get out of the pool.

Walk back to the school and walk
back here and see if it takes four minutes.

And so they made all
them– but they’re all barefoot.

And it’s probably tarmac.

It’s probably black, like
parking lot or something.

Half the students, at
least half the students,

had burns on their feet
by the end of this process.

And had to go like the school nurse.

The next day, a parent called to school
saying, like, why is my child’s foot burned?

And I’m not even one of
the kids who was late, right?

So the kid who didn’t do
anything has burned feet.

The school pulled the wheel, make
sure there’s not a reoccurrence.

But I actually hate that one
because if you get in trouble

for making kids walk back and
forth, you’re not going to do it again.

So it’s already not going to reoccur.

You’re going to find some
new and creative weight

to punish them next time
because you’re an asshole.

The teacher apologized, but
has not– I don’t know, man.

I would have made the
teacher walk the same path.

On a hot day, take your
shoes off, walk with them.

I would post live the
fucking teacher accidentally.

Yeah, this is it.

Like, I don’t get what’s going
on in your brain at that point.

I guess it’s just like,
what are you thinking?

It’s like they don’t understand.

It’s 34, 35 degrees outside.

And the parking lot is black.

So it is like literally the hottest thing.

So I have– I walked Dave.

I got to think about
like, oh, he’s essentially

barefoot on the road if
we’re walking on the road.

No, it’s– if some of
the kids are in the pool,

there would be, you
know, soft and tender.

And yeah, no, like, moisturized
and ready to give you a burn.

Extra ready for the birds.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So I was never punished that badly.

I think, again, this is sort
of the weird extremities

of Japan, come to light in these news
stories that people don’t know about that.

With all the polite culture and stuff,

there is this like
underlying strictness that is

just off the chain with
some of these teachers.

And it’s like, god damn.

56% of 17 to 19-year-olds have
no interest in the imperial family.

That’s kind of the headline.

And in my head, I was like, 56%.

Seems kind of low.

I can’t imagine 17 to 19-year-olds care
at all about the royal family in any bit.

So they did a survey.

And they did a survey and
there were 1,000 respondents.

And they did this survey because the
voting age in Japan has been lowered.

It’s gone from 20 to 18.

And this means the opinions
of 18, 19, 20-year-olds

is now sort of more
important because they

can vote and influence elections
and whatnot if they get out and vote.

So what they care about is
something we need to know.

I actually think it’d be important
to know what everyone cares

about, but that’s an
opinion for another day.

One of the questions was, do
you care about the imperial family?

And it was, yes, somewhat,
yes, somewhat, no and no.

So the actual numbers were 9.8% said
yes, which again, seems very high to me.

Oh, sorry.

34.5% said somewhat, yes,
which if they had a completely

neutral option, that’s
where mine would be like,

I don’t not care like
if they do something

interesting, I’d be
interested in hearing about it.

But on an average day, I do not think about
the imperial family or any royal family.

I do come from Canada where
they don’t have a royal family,

but we do have the queen
on our money or used to.

I don’t know.

I think changing to the
king, I can’t believe they are.

Southern momentary lapse of thought, as I
think about something completely different.

28.8% said somewhat no and 26.9% said no.

And that became, and that
came to 55.7% said they have little

to no interest in the
imperial family, which is,

again, I thought going to
be a much bigger number.

I was thinking 70, 80% would say no.

And then the somewhat
no’s would be like 10% and then

everyone left over was
going to be on the yes side.

They followed up with another
question to the people who said no.

And they said, how could we increase
your interest in the imperial family?

And then I, again, first
question for me was, why?

Like, why do I need to care
about the imperial family?

Why is the imperial family important?

Prove them as being
important to me in some way.

And I will then show interest.

It doesn’t go the other way.

Like what can we make them do
to make you interested in them?

No, they have to do something interesting.

And then I’ll be interested in them.

48.1% of those respondents.

So this is again, 50%
of the previous survey.

So now we’re down to like
500 people said, I don’t know.

Perfect answer.

How can you make the imperial
family more interesting to me?

I don’t know because that’s
not my problem and I don’t care.

27.1% said, have a member of the royal
family close to my age, post on social media.

I was like, OK, I mean, that’s, again,

they could do TikTok challenges
and have the royal family.

But again, they were
actually very specific.

Have someone close to my age.

So I don’t want to see the emperor
doing TikTok dance challenges.

I want to see a team, a late team
doing TikTok dance challenges,

who just happens to be a
member of the royal family,

which I’m actually betting
they’re not allowed to do.

26% said the royal couple
could post on social media.

So maybe they do want to see the
emperor doing TikTok dance as I don’t know.

That’s a lot of people already.

I found it very, very weird
because I personally, at this point,

I think I’ve said it before,
you just get rid of them.

They don’t do anything.

There’s no benefit.

I understand that it’s a
nice idea, but it’s antiquated.

And I have no desire to follow up on it.

When he ate your old was arrested,
and he was arrested for shooting a BB gun

at people waiting at
a nearby train station.

So he basically had an apartment building,

an apartment building
overlooked a train line,

and he could see the train station
so people standing on the platform.

The platform was about 40
meters away from his balcony.

So I’m assuming that’s
not an angle and stuff.

He was arrested.

There were, uh, he hit at
least two or three people.

Uh, there was someone
who got hit in the

shoulder and then
someone got hit in the leg.

They said there were no injuries.

I bet it’s stung, but again,
yes, at the end of the day.

It’s not like they have to
go to the hospital or anything.

It doesn’t seem like
anyone got hit in the head.

So I don’t know if he was going for
headshots or it was just really bad shot.

80 BBs were discovered on
the platform over two days.

So either a lot of people didn’t
report it or maybe didn’t even notice,

because maybe he got hit
and just thought it was like a

bug or something and then
just didn’t notice what happened.

These couldn’t have been that powerful.

I got, when I was a little
kid, I was like nine or 10.

I was walking, it was like evening.

I was walking with my
friend and then this guy was

just standing in a field
and we were over playing.

I don’t know, we’re doing our little
kids, probably just walking in a circle.

And then as we started to
leave, I heard something and then I

got hit in the back of the ear
and it was BB gun and it hurt.

Like my ear was swollen, I was crying,
my parents called the police and stuff.

There wasn’t much they could
do, we never heard about it again.

So I mean, that’s not a
great resolution of that story.

There was no CSI
investigation into the great BB

murder of this place in
Ontario when I was a kid.

But this means multiple people
have gotten hit and not reported at all.

So it couldn’t have been
the same level of sort

of power of my
experience when I was a kid.

Or maybe they’re wearing
like clothes and stuff and it

hit the clothes and just
didn’t have any real impact.

The police, of course, figured it out.
It’s not hard to figure out.

Okay. There’s someone, someone
shooting BB guns, let’s look

up in the other direction of
where the BBs were coming from.

What do we see? Oh, hey, there’s
a building with a bunch of balconies.

Let’s go start doing a little
canvassing there or maybe they

did a little stake out and they
actually saw the guy shoot some.

They actually would have been interested
in that part. How did they catch this guy?

Did they do a stake out for the BB?

Oh, man, I just, again, I kind
of come with a cool nickname.

BB King, that wasn’t bad.
That’s not good, but it’s not bad.

When they arrested him,
they went of course, search his

house and they found eight
airsoft guns and confiscated them.

So he was obviously some sort
of collector. He enjoyed airsoft.

He enjoyed these kind of guns.
He enjoyed, you know, BB guns.

Couldn’t, couldn’t control
himself. So this is one of those

things like if this continues,
if this is sort of sparks off,

these things sort of come in
trends. So if I now get like three,

four, five more stories of people
shooting other people with BB guns,

even if they’re like
non-lethal, I could see Japan

just like, okay, we’re going
to do a BB gun control.

Again, I don’t know what I’ve said. In the time
I’ve been doing the indigenous Japan, there’s

a couple of things that have become sort of
controlled that weren’t controlled before.

Crossbows was the one
that sticks out the most.

The crossbows were not a
controlled weapon system thing.

And then there were like two
or three murders over a couple

of months or attempted
murders and then they became a

controlled thing. Now you
have to be licensed and stuff.

Japan doesn’t mess around like
if you do attempted murders or

attempt to hurt other
people with stuff, they already

have like knives and stuff.
They’re already controlled.

If I’m carrying around a knife
and I don’t have a reason for

carrying right a knife, I can be
arrested for carrying that knife.

So this is one of the thing tourists
who come to Japan, I used to carry a

pocket knife. You just carry a Swiss
Army knife with me wherever I went.

Primarily for the screwdriver,
but if I now get caught and I

don’t actually have a reason
for carrying that Swiss Army knife,

you can technically be arrested
for that. There’s supposed to be a

size limit on the blade, but they
don’t actually take that seriously.

They’ll hold you for the
full like 20 days just to

cause your life a lot of
problems. When he was arrested,

he was asked why he did
this and he said to the police,

“I wanted to shoot people
and see their reaction.

” The reaction couldn’t
have been that big because no

one seems to have been
significantly injured enough to

like go to the
hospital or report this.

A lot of people don’t seem
to have reported it at all.

So the reaction couldn’t have
been that big, so was it worth

getting arrested for? And he
got all his guns confiscated and I

Gonna go ahead and bet
those were expensive guns.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

7 Foot Vandal

We’ll check it out y’all.

We got what you need.

We’re all living in
apartments, condos, vans.

Well, dude, even you can have a studio.

The studio in a box.

Yes, we can help you with that
right here at Blind Knowledge.

We work on your budget and
we figure out your measurements.

We’ll get you the best
sound for the best price.

Let me know.

877-237-1143 or at Blind Knowledge.com.

Yup.

It’s got a lot of updates.

Before I actually do that, we
have just started my summer break.

The kids around summer
break for like a month.

My work is me two weeks off.

So next week, this is the first day.

So I was able to record today
because basically nothing’s happened yet.

We haven’t organized anything yet.

But next week, I don’t
know if I’m going to get

an episode out or I
might get one out later.

I’m going to try.

I don’t know.

It’s a holiday and I don’t
feel obligated to entertain you.

That’s just the straight-up truth.

Now if I can entertain
you, I would love to do that.

The reality is, am I not?

Anyways, two weeks from now,
there will be a regular episode.

It will be back on.

It will be all awesome.

I’ve actually just inadvertently
implied that the holiday episode

I record will not be awesome,
but I’m sure it will be fine.

So let’s get to some updates.

I’m just letting you
know that maybe your

free entertainment may
not be available next week.

It may be.

Maybe if you pray
hard enough to the right

God, I will have enough
time to do the thing.

And then record it for you.

Now I don’t want to start.

I want to berate you in a
weird way to the point where

you now feel obligated
to pray to some annoying…

You’ve been playing Assassin’s
Creed Valhalla, so I think Odin.

Odin might be the guy before.

I’ve always been a big fan of Thor, both
the original version and the MCU version.

God, Chris Hemsworth’s body.

I know it’s all fake
because he’s he’s Jack

downstairs, but I’m damn
with that man takes his shirt off.

I respond and I’m a heterosexual male.

Still kind of respond to that in a
positive way if you know what I’m saying.

Alright, so I actually do the podcast now.

That wasn’t too much of a distraction.

I got to put on updates,
which I’m pretty happy about.

Last week, I talked about barbinheimer.

So that was the hashtag
that they came out

because Barbie and the
Oppenheimer movie are

coming out the same day and everyone’s
like, “Oh, we’ll make a double feature.

It’s so quirky and
ironic because one’s

super light comedy fun movie, the
other one’s very heavy and serious.”

I created the barbinheimer hashtag.

Now, Barbie is coming out in Japan.

Oppenheimer currently is not
slated to be released in Japan.

The Warner Brothers Japanese account issued
an apology for the barbinheimer hashtag as

it being relatively, you know, instant, not
instant seer, insensitive to, you know, the

historical reality of
what’s happened in Japan.

The Internet being the Internet, Internet
citizens were not super happy about that.

Internet people are always classy.

Let’s put it that way.

I spent a lot of time on the Internet,
stream, video games, do podcasts.

I spent a lot of time on
the Internet just for fun.

Yeah, I’ve run across some of
the joyous aspects of the Internet.

Always classy, always fair, always honest.

So in retaliation to
the lack of apology from

the American Barbie account, that’s
very specific is what they’re doing.

Because the Japanese account apologized
and they said, “That’s not good enough.

The American Barbie account is still
not acknowledging that this is insensitive.

It’s still not acknowledging
how gross this is.”

So because what they
were doing, if you go

in search barbinheimer,
you will find Barbie.

The one I found the first one,
which I did actually think was

pretty solid, was Barbie with
her hair as a mushroom cloud.

Okay, and it’s all pink.

The Internet was like, “Japanese” and
it was like, “We could play this game too.”

So they started shopping?

I guess shipping might
not be the right word.

I was about to say photo
shopping, which is the right word.

But then I thought maybe they’re
shipping to use some younger parlance.

9/11 images in Barbie
pink or with Barbie

overlaid or things like that, creating
their own memes in retaliation.

I don’t know how I feel about that.

I didn’t care about
barbinheimer because, sure,

whatever, people are putting
two disparate things together.

Whatever.

I didn’t take it too seriously,
but again, I’m not Japanese.

I mean, people are also like,
“You gotta be able to talk about it.”

But again, I guess it
is for them, it’s serious.

My feelings on it, I’m
torn, is what I’m saying.

I find the 9/11 memes they’ve made in
portace, but at the same time I find the whole

barbinheimer thing in
sort of in portace as well.

I do understand the marketing of it.

Those people jumping on, like,
“Hey, this memes happened.

It’s promoting both our films.

Let’s get on that.”.

I get why that happened.

I guess I just live in a real
world where gross things happen

and you kind of just let it go so
you can move on, move past it.

Not so for Japanese people in this case.

Not, I don’t want these people to
say that this is Japanese people.

They don’t represent all of Japan.

Most people in Japan
probably don’t even

know this is going on because
it is very much an Internet thing.

I talked previously about a YouTuber who
was playing essentially a visual novel, a

Stein’s Gate visual
novel and he spoiled the

ending and they sued
him because they’re saying

that this is giving away
the ending of a story.

Therefore people are
going to be less likely

to pay for that story
in the future if you

spoiled the ending
because people the whole

point of doing one of these
things is to get to the ending.

He wants two years in prison plus
like a million years or something.

And they said that
he must be punished

severely to prevent the
decline of the content industry.

The verdict came out yesterday,
but hasn’t been announced yet.

I was looking for it this morning.

It being August 8th as I recorded this.

So the verdict was supposed
to be brought down August 7th.

I don’t think he’s going
to get two years in prison.

But I could see a hefty fine.

Prosecutors being
prosecutors, they always ask

for massive, massive punishments
and they’re going to get less than that.

I think that’s kind of the strategy.

But yeah, it is
interesting that this visual

novel has had such an impact because to
me visual novels are really small things.

But again, it’s a whole industry in Japan.

People pay a lot of money for these things.

So ruining it for other people,
you’re ruining it for the company.

They’re going to take you to
court and I think they’re going to win.

So this was a very interesting development.

Over the last, it’s probably
like five, six months.

Sushi terrorism has been an ongoing theme.

There was the kid and he drank
from the soy sauce bottle directly.

So he licked it and stuff.

Then you put it back.

Other people use that
disgusting that went viral.

His friend recorded it
put it on the Internet.

Now these were just kids.

They were doing dumb stuff and recording
it and putting it on the Internet.

There was some other
kids who were licking and

touching the Sushi that was
going by on the conveyor belt.

Sushi, the conveyor
belt Sushi company is

saying like we had to change
our entire system because of this.

Our stocks dropped billions of yen.

This has cost us so much money.

We’re suing the kid.

They wanted they were suing
the family because he’s underage.

So they actually have to
sue the mom for 67 million yen.

I can guarantee that this person does not
have 67 million yen just in liquid assets,

they were able to spend on the fact
that his son licked a soy sauce container.

They have reached a settlement but
released no details, which is killing me.

Because I think what’s
happened is the company,

Sushi, they wanted
to make a lot of noise.

They wanted to make
sure everyone knows that

if you do this and we
catch you, we’re going

to come after you and they
took it all the way to the limit.

Then they said, look,
we don’t actually want

to ruin this lady’s
life for the fact that

her son, a teenager,
is just a bit of an idiot.

Every teenager is,
I was, might still be

sometimes, but I absolutely
was a bit of a dick and

an asshole in a dummy when
I was like 16, 17 years old.

The boy admitted
responsibility and they

have reached a reasonable
agreement, is what they’ve said.

I do want to know what the
reasonable agreement is, but because

he’s underage, I bet no
details are going to be released.

But I’m betting they got
to pace enough money

that it hurts the family, but
doesn’t ruin them completely.

Or there’s a payment
plan or something like that.

They’re not going to
take all 67 million yet.

This was just a show to stop other
people from doing the same thing.

I think.

And I think that’s
actually a fair thing to do

because Sushi does, they
got lawyers on retainer.

They can do this forever.

They can try, if she tried to
fight back, they could ruin her life.

Not being reasonable, normal human beings.

They decided not to
go that far, but they

still want to get the
message out there that

if this happens again,
we will go that far.

Try to think is a very
fair thing to be able to do.

It’s got to add on.

I’m actually quite happy
Sushi Rho didn’t fuck him.

They could have.

And you think of corporate people.

I think this is again a
Western image of corporate

people just being like absolute
bastards, ruining people’s lives were fun.

In Japan, yeah, they’ll go far,
but I think the level is different.

The attitude is different
and people are people still.

Like I’m sure there are
massive corporate assholes.

We actually have some other stories
going on that I didn’t actually write down.

There’s a car company
and they killed all the

trees outside of their
car dealership because

they were basically the trees were
obstructing your ability to see the cars.

Of course, all that’s illegal.

And then they got pulled up on getting in
trouble for scamming and lying and stuff.

That’s pretty standard
car dealership stuff.

It’s a bit shady as far
as an industry goes.

It has a reputation for a reason.

But I would say the
average executive maybe

is dumb in the way executives
are, but is not a complete asshole.

From what I’ve seen on the
Internet, I don’t know these people.

I don’t run in those circles.

I know that the president of JAL for the
last like 10 years has not taken a salary.

He literally said, I’ve made enough money.

I can survive for the rest of my life.

I will not take a salary.

I just want to make this business
the best business it can be.

You’ll support the workers and stuff.

So all the money he
would have made went

back into the company
into the employees and stuff.

And I thought, man, that’s awesome.

That is a completely
different form of corporate

thinking, which I can
get on board with.

And I guess maybe that’s also not
called, I don’t know which is more common.

Although Sushi Do in
this case didn’t go out

of their way to destroy a family just
because a kid was being a fucking idiot.

They did want to get a message
out, which I think they did successfully.

I’m going to have to
run my transition sound

again because I have
to get to the next story.

World Heritage Sites being
vandalized, is that like an Internet trend?

So we had the guy
vandalized the call of CO.

And then we had a kid named
Justin vandalized a temple in Japan.

And now I’ve read about two
more instances at the call of CO.

And the call of CO once, you
can get five years in prison for that.

Well, one of the most
famous temples, super

famous because I know
the name of the temple.

That’s how famous it is.

Not like I’m like a temple fan.

Toadaiji Temple was
vandalized with a picture

of a fairly poorly rendered cat, believed
to be scratched into a door by a finger.

Now, this is wood that is
literally thousands of years old.

So pushing your finger into
it is going to leave a Mark.

You don’t even have to use a nail.

Justin that little shit before, he actually
used his nail to scratch his name in.

Now I do want to give us some
credit to the vandal this time.

They didn’t write their name.

Actually, one of the
previous episodes I

was like, what you
should do is you’re going

to vandalize something
is don’t write your name.

Someone else’s name and then they’ll
be like, hey, Chuck, the beef chest.

Did you vandalize this?

I’m like, well, no, that says Brad Pitt.

So Brad Pitt must have been
here vandalizing it, not me.

So they drew a cat.

So unless a cat did
it, no, here’s the thing.

The height of the cat had like where
they did it was about 180 centimeters.

So I’m going to say,
let’s say someone who’s

slightly under six foot lifted
their arm up and drew a cat.

That’s how they got to 180 centimeters.

So the best we could say is this is someone
who is approximately six feet or so.

Because either they’re
six feet and they were

drawing at eye level
or they were less than

six feet and they were
drawing a little bit of

bum or they were like seven
feet and drawing but elite them.

Woo.

So we could have a seven
foot vandal on our hands.

They’re not doing the
CSI stuff where they’re

taking footprints and
then calculating by

the impression of the footprint and
how heavy the person isn’t stuff like that.

But it seems like
because of those initial

reports, it’s now in the
mindset of people visiting

these places and it’s
being, it’s like a thing.

But the fines for this are hardcore.

So like again, the ones
in Italy, five years in

prison, a couple million
dollars or whatever.

I actually think it was like
a few hundred thousand

dollars, but a few
hundred thousand dollars.

I don’t have that.

I can’t pay that.

No one’s in the Japan.

It’s the same.

It’s like millions of yen
and possible jail time.

Absolutely not worth doing.

Like again, I want, if
I’m going to do a crime,

I want them to be a benefit
for me and my legacy is not it.

Like I want money.

If I’m going to commit a
crime, it’s going to be for money.

It’s not going to be so
that I become famous

because that kind of
fame isn’t what I need.

I need money.

I should have started
dropping in like ways

you could donate money
to you right after that.

I need money and then do the donation.

That actually would make sense.

Still not doing it.

I’m not going to come out here and beg.

Look, okay.

So you want to support the
engineers Japan, tell other

people to listen to it, get
other people to download it.

The rate review thing that actually
helps with algorithms and stuff.

I would love that.

I’m not even going to ask for that.

All I want is people who
are interested in it to listen.

And if you really, really want to make
me happy, send me questions and stuff.

So I have more things
to I can gain Gauge with.

So I can follow up on
stories or answer questions

about being in Japan or
my opinions or whatnot.

Your questions and
comments are easily the most

motivating factor to doing an
engineer’s Japan and see me.

So if you want to support the
podcast, don’t send me money.

I mean, send me money, but don’t
send me money by a see me B T shirt.

That would be all right.

Because then you get
something out of it too.

But send me stuff that I can talk about
or react to or we can have an interaction.

That to me is the peak.

You can go to speak pipe.com/chocolateweefchest
and leave a voicemail, which I can

then drop into the episode
and then use as a segment.

So now that I’ve said that,
we’re going to move on.

This is maybe my pre
holiday begging for interaction.

Just a bit sad, isn’t it?

I’m so lonely.

16, 99% of people in their
30s and 40s never watch

Vtubers, which to me is
a surprisingly low number.

I actually would have thought hardly
anyone in their 30s and 40s never

watches Vtubers just because
Vtubers became a thing fairly recently.

So I would assume older
people aren’t aware of them.

It’s not like they hate them or something.

I consider doing this podcast as a
VTuber, but I just didn’t have anything

set up and by the time I started doing
video on Twitch and stuff, there was no

point and going through
another process to set it up.

Although I still think a
VTuber, a super cute anime girl

and me not changing my voice
at all would have been funny.

And then every time I say
that, people get this like shitty.

I had to lose been done before.

You want a list of things
that have been done before?

It’s fucking everything, man.

The only thing I can claim to be completely
original was Montana, L.D.A.B.L.O.

The audio podcast
choose your own adventure.

And the only thing, the only reason I think
that was original is because I may have

just been the first person to
organize it and put it together.

And it was a huge pain in the ass.

I have tentatively started working on
a second one, which hopefully would be

better, but sitting down and just writing
for hours and hours and hours is pretty.

Pretty hard to find that time in my life.

But that is probably, and then
even then, people will like, you know,

choose your own adventures
have been done before.

Adult ones that are supposed to
be funny have been done before.

It’s like, if you actually went by
things that have been done before,

there would be no reason to do anything.

And let’s face it, Montana, L.D.A.B.L.O.

It’s fucking better than
all the other ones anyways.

All right.

No, no, I’m not going to, I was going to
do this sound again and restart the story.

I’m not going to do that.

I’m just going to keep going.

I’m going to power through.

Okay, so people in their 30s
and 40s, one to two times a week,

13% watch V2 or three to four times
a week, four percent, every day, 14%.

It’s more men than women.

I think that’s just
generally on the Internet,

you tend to find more
men doing dumb shit.

watching V2 versus isn’t dumb.

It’s fine.

V2 versus are great.

That’s it.

I just, I actually
thought 69% they’re like,

whoa, it’s, it’s,
that’s not a surprise.

I thought it would have
been the 80s or 90s.

Because again, just older
people, not that in tune

with what’s going on on
the Internet and the stuff.

A 14 year old Turkish boy was arrested for

throwing a smoke bomb at security guards.

And what he said was, uh,
okay, so let’s give it a story.

He claims that he had been scolded before
with his friend, oh, but not his friend.

So his friends and him were
sitting outside this building.

They were playing loud
music and smoking cigarettes.

He’s 14 years old.

So he’s not supposed to be doing that.

Uh, and then he came and then a security
guy came out and scolded him specifically,

but not his friends, but
he claimed was discriminate.

discrimination.

So he said, don’t
discriminate against foreigners.

I’ll blow you up and then
through a smoke bomb.

And if I can give you a list of things
you should not do, smoking is number one,

uh, being playing loud
music in public is not great.

But I guess I’d give a pass on that
because there’s no law against it.

Claiming discrimination is possible, but
you’re not going to improve your case.

by throwing a smoke bomb at someone right
after saying don’t discriminate against me.

I’ll blow you up.

I’ll blow you up is a threat of
violence, which again is illegal.

So he’s committed multiple crimes.

Now he’s 14 again.

He’s underage.

He’s not going to be
going to jail or anything.

But he was arrested for our favorite
crime, forcible obstruction of business.

All right.

This is, I don’t know if
this is Saturn at 10 years

in a row, the demand for
rice has dropped in Japan.

It is 100,000 tons down to 6.81 million
tons of rice needed or wanted this year.

It’s the lowest since they
started keeping track in 1996.

It’s weird that they only
started keeping track in 1996.

I don’t know why that was one of
the bits to suck out on me in this story.

In 1996, they started keeping
track of how much rice they eat.

I think that would
have been like ancient

times, how many barrels
or bushels or whatever.

I don’t know how rice is measured.

Grains of rice, I guess just wait.

Tons of rice.

People eat.

Like it’s sort of one of those things.

It’s a staple of the country.

The Ministry of Agriculture
is encouraging farmers

to switch to other crops like soybeans or
wheat because they are more in demand.

So I’m wondering this is partially because
of the population of decline in Japan.

So it’s representative of
there being less people overall.

It is also partially demonstrating a
change in dietary wants or needs.

So people generally are eating less rice.

I would like to see a breakdown.

This didn’t give me enough information.

I would be really interested in
what the breakdown of that is.

Is it because there
are just less people and

therefore less people
eating rice or is it because

there are more people eating other
diets than just a rice-based diet.

Like is keto taken off in Japan?

I kind of looked at that a
little bit but didn’t find anything.

particularly demonstrable of what’s
actually happening with the diets in Japan.

But it’s a weird thing to see.

You think of Japan, you
think of Asia, you think of rice.

And Japan is a country
just eating less rice overall.

It’s very interesting.

That’s it.

I’m going to go eat some rice now.

I don’t know.
I’ll try to pop up the country.

I, again, just at the end, I want
to make sure everyone knows.

It’s summer holiday.

I’m going to try to get an episode
out next week if I have time.

It might be late.

It might not happen at all.

So I’ll see you in two
weeks worst-case scenario.