What is your most favorite pastime in the bathroom? A lot of us enjoy bathroom singing, I presume. Acoustic of small, tiled cubicle could be comparable almost to a professional echo chamber's, and your humming of sentimental oldies sounds incredibly great to your ears even though it's off-tune, off-rythmed and off-everything in bare reality.

Your Mobile Ojisan loves to read in the bathtub. He spends hours after hours in hot scaling tub, and loses himself in the world of books. Only problem: Books are not made hotsteam-proof. After a prolonged bathroom reading, they usually bloat up to thrice the original size.

Sanyo waterproof television LVT-WD40. It works soundly even after "water torture" of Guantanamo standard.

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In colder parts of Asia, people always have been relying on traditional (or rustic, antiquidated, reactionary, anachronistic, old-fashioned...) heating devices. For example, in northern China, Kang (炕) is still being widely used. Whole families sleep on the earthen platform, Kang, heated by open fire from beneath.

Chinese Kang in action. Husband is busy starting fire, while his old lady is still shivering.

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You think wire-controlled gears are very much anachronistic in this age of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and WiMAX, along with the infrared beam? True. Wires are vanishing from left to right, around your home and office. But your Mobile Ojisan is a diehard reactionary. He feels a perversive affection to this bygone mode of technology.

The first-ever air-to-air missile was guided by wires. In 1944, the production of the German Ruhrstahl X-4 missile was started, and tests were continued until the end of the war in Europe. X-4 was controlled electrically (not much electronics at that time!) through two strands of thin wires with 6km length each. The pilot controlled its flight from the carrier aircraft by moving a simple joystick.

The grandpa of all air-to-air missiles, the World War II. German Ruhrstahl/Kramer X-4. Control wires were coiled in the two pods on the plywood wings.

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Another typical case of substance abuse in a Japanese family. A stale tragicomedy rather.

She was a young (36) hard-working mother of six, always hardpressed for money and time to keep her large family afloat somehow. Trouble started when her eldest daughter (15) turned out to be an addict, firmly hooked on the stuff.
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Our favorite Akihabara has been swept away by that inevitable trend of the century, globalism. Akiba globalism shows rather a quiet face to everybody, though. No noisy anti-globalism riot. No opposition of depressed local small-holders. Simply more and more overseas visitors come rushing in cheerfully, and flooding the Akiba high street, "Chuo Dori".

These days, even your Mobile Ojisan feels a bit alienated sometimes when he wanders around and along the Chuo Dori. Almost all fellow Akiba cruisers are chatting in Chinese, Korean and every shade and kinds of English... no local language is heard at all, except spoken by shop attendants.

Promotional poster and CD of Akihabara. Promotional drive or not, overseas shoppers are rushing into Akiba in droves. Girl in French-maid costume being the undisputed representative of New Akihabara

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