I'm not sure if this venture is going to pan out.

"Young men these days grew up with character goods. That generation feels no embarrassment about wearing Hello Kitty."

You probably wanna be pretty damn sure about that before you jump into anything too costly. While we do have a lot in common, though, I wouldn't presume to say that I have an intimate knowledge of the Japanese male's mindset. So maybe this will work but I just get a feeling it won't. Even with as strong as my feminine side is I can't see myself wearing anything Hello Kitty, and if I won't do it then you're pretty much fucked. Hell, I don't even have any Hello Kitty merchandise at this point (although there are supposed to be some Hello Kitty-themed Pinkys coming out next year). I mean how exactly do you get Hello Kitty to appeal to guys who want to have sex with chicks?

According to the Associated Press, the iconic mouth-less cat will be given a "more rugged, cool look to appeal to men in their teens and early 20s" for the first time.

You've gotta wonder what the omnipresent Sanrio has up their sleeve to accomplish that makeover. Then you realize that any such endeavor can only turn out adorable and then I think we're back to where we started.

Honestly the only way I can see to market this to guys is so that they have something in common with girls who are into Hello Kitty, but that's probably a creepy route to go (as evidenced by the fact that I thought of it).

There are two types of internet t-shirt stores out there: ones that are clever and ones that just think they're clever. While some were lame I found some of the shirts at Busted Tees to be pretty funny, so I'll let them sit on the "clever" pile. I was particularly fond of soccer.

While we're on the subject of toys, or whatever, here's Cracked's list of The 5 Least Surprising Toy Recalls of All Time.

Okay, so this may officially be the dirtiest thing I've ever seen:


What is that, aside from yet another figure of a young anime girl in a provocative pose? If you didn't look closely enough, look at that box down beneath her, uh, box... Between her knees. It's a pencil sharpener. Look, as usual I'm not passing judgment here on the Japanese since we share a lot of fetishes/mental issues. When I "complain" that it's "dirty" that complaint comes with a good dose of amusement and laughter. But I do recognize that it's messed up, at least to people who don't have the issues that we do. I mean, as if the pose isn't bad enough, she's got her hand on her little ass, almost... Nevermind.

Considering the series that she comes from, Kodomo no Jikan (Child's Time), the toy, errr, office supply, whatever, is actually pretty appropriate. Both the anime and manga are pretty dirty. The series revolves around Rin, featured in the above shown pencil sharpener, a precocious girl who has the hots for her third-grade homeroom teacher and tortures him in all sorts of naughty ways. Yes, third-grade. I don't know how exactly the Japanese school system works but the character is like 9 years old. Some of you are shocked, and some of you know that's just par for the course with Japan. Anyway the show/comic is not outright porn, but again, it's dirty. You know, in a cute sort of way. Which makes it even dirtier.

It is fairly entertaining, though, and not just because I'm a pervert; I've watched a couple of the episodes of the TV show and read translations of some of the manga. While the basic premise is the whole naughty lil schoolgirl thing, there actually is story, character development, and depth to the series, or at least there was with as far as I got in the manga. The manga was created by a woman, which I also find interesting because at first blush you'd expect for something like this to be created by a man as a simple pedo fantasy.

You won't be able to buy the manga at any point soon here in the States (at least not in English) after the American distributor for the title pussed out and pulled it all thanks to a shitstorm kicked up by the blowhard who writes the "Hey, Answerman!" column on Anime News Network.

Probably without having seen a single page of the manga this moron and a bunch of other moral grand-standers in forums started this huge controversy over the title, calling it "lolicon" and "virtual child porn" and blah blah blah. For anyone unfamiliar with lolicon, here's a quick primer. True, balls-out lolicon manga and anime involves the showing of genitals, sex, all that fun stuff. With kids. So yeah, it's messed up, but it's fucking cartoons. Maybe a bad choice of words there, but you know what I'm getting at.

At this point I should probably go full disclosure and point out that I haven't seen a whole lot of real lolicon stuff. Yeah, I really need to edit this site's header to just reflect that I merely have a lolita complex but I'm not a collector of that genre. 'Cause, you know, that makes me seem like a more balanced individual. Okay so I did that and now I'm a normal person fit for polite society.

Anyway we can sit down and have a discussion about lolicon and its merits or lack thereof, but what was really stupid about this whole thing is that Kodomo no Jikan is not kiddie porn and it is not lolicon. Again, I would know that because I've actually read enough of it to get a feel for just how naughty it is. At most it's a bit worse than a lot of stuff that's already on the shelves and considered "mainstream." It's dirty, but it's not that dirty. Maybe too dirty for Puritan America, but of course Puritan America is stupid.

There are a whole lot of d-bags on eBay. The worst of them I simply refer to as "soulless cocksuckers on eBay." Take this item, for instance. For anyone like me who played with real Transformers in the 80s, it is plain as day that the toy shown there is far from a "re-issue". Upon inspecting the packaging though, I am almost tempted to buy it:


Why am I tempted to pick up that gem? Isn't it obvious? It's because he is HUGE EXTREMELY. In fact he is so HUGE EXTREMELY that it says so on the package twice. You don't fuck with that.

Here's a couple of Jesus tidbits for ya. First up are these retarded people.

"We're good Christian people."

With all due respect to Mr. Clemens, suppose you were a good Christian person. And suppose you were an idiot. But I repeat myself. Seriously, is there any wonder that us elitists mock your beliefs by calling them superstitions? Furthermore, if those people are giving up their phone numbers with 666 prefixes, can I have one of them? How fucking sweet would that be?

Then there's this next article. I could go on and on about it but really I'd just be repeating myself and as you all know I have a strict policy against that. All I will say is you get what you pay for.

And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Florida, area...

Okay, I do have to comment on that, because the fact that that woman is an accountant is pretty hilarious. Stay the fuck away from my 1040, lady.