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Cracked.com recently posted 

5 Things Nobody Tells You About Living in Japan
Speaking as someone who lived in Japan for 8 years, I thought I might be qualified to comment on some of his points.

#5. Everything Is Frightfully Low-Tech
-Ah, yes and no on this one.  With the examples he cites, yes definitely.  As he says, the older generation in Japan is a bit technophobic, and they are the ones in charge of the city hall and the businesses.
And do not even get me started on those stupid ATM machines which closed down at the same time as the bank.  They were the bane of every foreigner who lived in Japan.  How we hated that inconvenience.
      But in other ways Japan can be very high tech.  For example when I first arrived in 2001, the cell-phones that every common Japanese teenager had were light years ahead of anything being sold in the US at the time.  (Although I think with Apple and the iphone that gap has now closed.)


#4. The Houses Have No Heat
-Oh, so true.  So very very true.
And for the hazards of kerosene heaters the author mentions--just see this post here.
Not to mention the bad smells from kerosene.

#3. The Hospitals Close On Weekends and Evenings
 -I think the emergency rooms are still open on the weekends.  Although prepare to spend the whole day waiting.


#2. You Will Always Be an Outsider
-True.


#1. The Country Really Isn't That Weird
 -True.  Average day to day life can get quite boring after a while actually.

Other Links:

In the category of: completely random things I found while surfing on the Internet

George Orwell:  In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse
I had no idea about this Wodehouse/Nazi controversy before I came across Orwell's article, but Orwell's writing really pulls you into it.   It's just a really interesting article to read even if you don't know anything.

From the Phnom Penh Post: More Toilets Needed  (This actually is a bit of a serious problem in Phnom Penh--a city with serious hygiene problems.)

 Whisky Prajer's twitter  alerts me to a post of his I missed back in 2005, but should give a good laugh to us Dutch--The Mennonite / NeoCalvinist Drinking Game - An Idea Whose Time Has Come!

and via Phil-- On Charles Schulz's quiet integration of Peanuts and the racism of Dennis the Menace