N0w Bl0ggin' fr0m the Pacific

I've been going to my local video store a lot recently but not to rent movies.
I've been renting music CDs. That's right. You can rent CDs in Japan- full albums, singles, new ones, old ones. It's freaking great. Depending on how new the CD is the price goes from ¥300 (almost $3) down. Most people, including myself, take the CD home and rip it onto whatever music player we use, which is usually some time of iPod. I then back it up. Boom. I figure the music companies must know how the customers are using their products. I don't think it's stealing. Am I wrong?

I went to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo the other day and was surprised to see 2 long lines of Brazilians in front of the 1st security gate. The line was 1/2 a block long. A friend of mine who works for a travel agency here that specializes in packages to Brazil once told me about these lines. She was right. In front of the 2nd security gate (the actual entrance to the building inside the fence) there was yet another long line of Brazilians. They were waiting patiently. I felt bad for them cuz my line was much shorter.

If you want to go to Brazil from Japan you don't have many choices. Almost all of the flights go through the U.S., which requires most foreign travelers to have a transit visa if their plane lands on U.S. soil. It's not cheap either. There is a very large population of Brazilians and Japanese-Brazilians living and working in Japan. They need a transit visa to Brazil if they want to go home, which reqires some kind of interview in English. Imagine if you had to go to a foreign embassy to get an expensive visa and have an interview in a language you don't speak just so that you could land in that country while your plane refuelled. That would really suck.