NOT Lovin' It: Japanese add Sleaze to fast food

It appears McDonald's Japan has retired age-old Ronald McDonald and hired McHotties for its new ad campaign. Promoting its Tomato McGrande, McDonald's Japan has enlisted two far younger versions of Ronald McDonald and dressed them in stylish, new Ronald McDuds. It's unclear whether the campaign will make its way to the States mainly because The Ronald McDonald House would then have to be referred to as The Hottie McDonald's House. Classic Japan, as Donald Richie once said, 'the most prurient culture in the world."

"In the Japanese TV commercial," notes Britain's Guardian newspaper, "the foxy female version, with shoulder-length straight auburn hair in place of Ronald's frizzy mop, smolders at the camera in a flowing yellow dress, and later a red and white striped bikini with thigh-length leggings and red high heels."

"The customers are calling her the female Ronald but that was not our intention," said campaign creator, Hidekazu Sato, known by his nickname Kazoo, through a translator. "We devised the costume and took the red and white stripes and the yellow, which were recognized and converted them into a stylish dress. ..

Illinois-based McDonald's, founded in 1955 by Ray Kroc, reportedly has had a grilling relationship with Japan since its debut in 1971.

According to the Times, when faced with accusations that hamburgers were inimical to the country's diet, Den Fujita, the first McDonald's Japan president, declared: "The reason Japanese people are so short and have yellow skins is because they have eaten nothing but fish and rice for 2,000 years. If we eat McDonald’s hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years we will become taller, our skin become white and our hair blond."

Look at me!

Men and Women. I found this image very interesting. Note how the men are solitary, individualized, and with attention on something. Two elderly men are waiting for the train on their day out. It's not clear if they are together or not. . The younger man is reading a newspaper.

Now note the contrast with the women. They are in a group, wearing fashionable clothes, the latest fashion in fact, standing in front of a huge, larger than life advertisement for a magazine which pushes fashion, clothes and cosmetics with an emphasis on the smutty (hard to tell from this picture).

What really caught my eye and the reason I took the picture was the fact that the women appeared attracted to this larger than life image of beauty and sexiness, as if they were in the same group, and instinctually knowing anyone looking at that large image of beautful women, would no doubt see them too.

TO THE MOON, PRINCESS! TO THE MOON!

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan launched its first lunar probe on Friday, nicknamed Kaguya after a fairy-tale princess, in the latest move in a new race with China, India and the United States to explore the moon.

The rocket carrying the three-metric ton orbiter took off into blue skies, leaving a huge trail of vapor over the tiny island of Tanegashima, about 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo, at 10:31 a.m. (9:31 p.m. EDT) as it headed out over the Pacific Ocean.

The long-delayed lunar explorer separated from the rocket in skies near Chile about 45 minutes after lift off. It is to orbit the Earth twice and then travel 380,000 km (237,500 miles) to the moon.

"Kaguya separated from the rocket smoothly," the space agency's launch commentator said in a live broadcast of the launch on the Japanese space agency's Web site (www.jaxa.jp).

"Now the satellites are flying on their own. This is the first step and I am really impressed," said Tatsuaki Okada, a scientist involved in the project.

Japanese scientists say the 55 billion yen ($479 million) Selenological and Engineering Explorer, or SELENE, is the world's most technically complex mission to the moon since the U.S. Apollo program decades ago.

"If we succeed in this program, we will be able to prove that Japan has the technology," Okada said.

The mission consists of a main orbiter and two baby satellites equipped with 14 observation instruments designed to examine surface terrain, gravity and other features for clues on the origin and evolution of the moon.

The rocket itself was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has said it hopes to send astronauts to the moon by 2025, although Japan has not yet attempted manned space flight.

SELENE also carries a high-definition television camera to shoot the Earth "rising" from the Moon's horizon, footage of which will be sent back to Earth. SELENE will orbit the moon for about a year until it runs out of fuel.