Here’s an interesting look with iShare at driving, looking in particular at poor driving habits.
Demographics
Between the 4th and 7th of January 2010 495 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.4% of the sample were male, 33.5% in their twenties, 31.9% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.
In Q2SQ1 the issue of “paper drivers” is highlighted – paper drivers is a Japanese expression (it’s actually the English words that are used) that indicates people who are qualified on paper but never actually do much if any driving. I’m probably borderline paper myself as my driving is limited to renting a car just a handful of times every year.
In Q2SQ2, I wonder if we can assume that the 25% who drive to the speed limit are regular speeders? On empty motorways I might occasionally wander one or two kilometres per hour over the limit, but on busy urban highways and surface streets I do usually run just a little bit under the limit and I certainly do always maintain my distance from the car in front. Read the rest of this entry »
With Windows 7 just two months old, this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into home computers, looking in particular at Windows 7, found over 10% of users had already adopted it.
Demographics
Between the 14th and 19th of January 2010 1,087 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private intenet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.8% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.
I run Windows Vista on my desktop and Windows XP on my netbook, but I have no intention of upgrading either the netbook as it probably doesn’t have the horsepower to make much difference, or the desktop as we need the Ultimate pack to support a separate language for each user. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a bit of a curious survey from iShare, looking at various aspects of dreaming.
Demographics
Between the 10th and 15th of December 2009 571 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% of the sample were male, 32.4% in their twenties, 29.2% in their thirties, and 38.4% in their forties.
I’m not really sure if I dream in colour or black and white. I don’t really see many dreams these days, but I cannot really picture how I could tell what colour my dream was. Is this just me?
Oh, and “Do you dream in colour?” is a song I liked from Bill Nelson:
Between the 20th and 26th of November 2009 484 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.7% were male, 33.3% in their twenties, 32.2% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.
One that I was suprised and disappointed didn’t have a category of its own was calling your wife “mother”. Many Japanese seem to adopt this as soon as they have a kid, so I’d have liked to have had concrete data on this.
The most popular kinds of mildly-embarrassing nicknames were adding “-tan” or “-nyan” after names.
We don’t bother with suffixes or nicknames in this house, and adding “-chan” after names usually indicates a request for something is coming soon… Read the rest of this entry »
It feels like ages since I’ve had the opportunity to flog you tat feature high quality wares from Strapya, so I make no apologies for littering this post with affiliate links, but please follow them anyway as Strapya do sell some strange stuff… Anyway, the survey in question was from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com and looked at the matter of mobile phone accessories, looking at straps in particular.
Demographics
On the 5th of January 2010 800 mobile phone users completed a mobile phone internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.
I’ve not recently changed any straps on my mobile, but mostly due to neither my wife nor I upgrading phones.
I don’t know why I keep promoting Strapya as I make almost zero money out of it, just a few dollars a month or so… Read the rest of this entry »
On the 19th of November 2009 1,166 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.9% of the sample were female, 13.4% in their teens, 20.6% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 23.2% in their forties, 8.3% in their fifties, and 6.3% aged sixty or older.
I’ve not heard of the vast majority of the ones below! Kanten has been popular for a few years, as it has zero calories but a lot of texture, so works well for padding out the volume of food. The morning banana diet has also been big the last couple of years, especially after a rather large opera singer lost a good bit of weight on it – eat one or two or three bananas first thing with warm water, wait half an hour and then have a normal breakfast. Eat your usual food, but if you get peckish during the day, have another banana.
Bah humbug! To get you into the Christmas spirit, or to give you something to grumble about this festive season, according to a survey from iShare into Santa Claus many (far too many!) Japanese teach their kids about Santa.
Demographics
Between the 3rd and 8th of December 2009 541 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.6% of the sample were male, 31.6% in their twenties, 31.4% in their thirties, and 37.0% in their forties.
Regarding Q3SQ1, I think I became aware due to a combination of playground talk and discovering Santa’s present stash hidden in a cupboard. I wouldn’t want to teach my kids about Santa and would probably try to combine the event with the existing Japanese tradition of Otoshi-dama, presents of cash at the New Year. I’m not sure about Q3SQ2 – do Japanese parents regularly dress up to hand out the gifts to kids? My parents always sneaked in when we were asleep, and I always imagined that was standard behaviour.
I’ll be out myself for an evening on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day after work, but we’ll be trying to avoid the Christmas menus! My wife’s off to the dentist, in fact, this Christmas Day! Read the rest of this entry »
It’s coming up to the New Year, and one of the traditional television events is NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen, or the Red and White Song Contest, where a team of male singers and male-fronted groups compete against the female side in an excuse to highlight the popular music of the year, both pops and the traditional Enka form. There’s usually about twenty to thirty acts per side and the whole affair starts around 7 pm and continues until just before midnight. However, this year the satellite channel BS11 is showing the Anison Kohaku 2009, Red and White Animation Song 2009 at the same time, so iShare decided to conduct a survey into New Year song contest viewing plans.
Demographics
Between the 27th of November and the 2nd of December 2009 515 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.4% of the sample were male, 31.5% in their twenties, 33.0% in their thirties, and 35.5% in their forties.
I’ll probably end up watching about half of NHK’s Kohaku. One interesting feature this year is the appearance of Yutaka Oe, a young Enka singer infatuated with the legendary Saburo Kitajima, and who got his break through Sanma’s Karakuri Television, where he often appears bumbling his way through his singing career. One line I remember was when he got taken out for dinner with people from his record label; they went to a Chinese and were served a whole roast chicken, whereupon he asked the waiter in all innocence if it was a small dog.
I can compare his career to Susan Boyle’s, as there was a lot of talk in her case that she had some form of learning difficulty and there has been many feeling she has been exploited. However, in Yutaka Oe’s case, when he was a child he was involved in a traffic accident, suffered brain damage and missed much of his schooling, yet even his illiteracy has been the butt of jokes.
Here’s a YouTube video of him in action, but as embedding is disabled, please follow this link.
He’s throwing the opening ball at a baseball match, but he wore his right-handed glove instead of his left, which explains his first pitch.. Read the rest of this entry »
One great feature of many Japanese supermarkets and department store food floors is that they often have tasting corners, the subject of a recent survey from iShare.
Demographics
Between the 26th of November and the 1st of December 2009 542 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.5% of the sample were male, 30.3% in their twenties, 33.6% in their thrities, and 36.2% in their forties.
Whenever there’s free sweets, cake or fruit I’m always sure to grab a bite or two, and will occasionally partake of other free samples. One always hears stories about people effectively having full meals by circulating around the free sample locations, but I’ve never tried it for myself. A lot of the posh department stores also have alcohol tasting corners – I wonder if it’s possible to drink enough to get drunk? I’ll have to try one day…
I have zero interest in brand bags, and fortunately my wife grew out of her habit long before we met, but looking at this recent survey from iShare into second-hand, pawned and rental brand bags I see there are still a lot of addicts out there!
Demographics
Between the 19th and 25th of November 2009 502 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 33.5% in their twenties, 33.5% in their thirties, and 33.1% in their forties.
It’s quite amazing to see that just about one third of the younger Japanese female population has bought a brand bag and another fifth have had one bought for them, but then again when out and about at the weekend it does seem like half the girls are carrying an LV tote… Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s an interesting look with iShare at driving, looking in particular at poor driving habits.
With Windows 7 just two months old, this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into 
Here’s a bit of a curious survey from iShare, looking at various aspects of 
It feels like ages since I’ve 
Feeling all bloated after New Year and looking to shed a few kilos? This recent ranking survey from goo Ranking looked at 
Bah humbug! To get you into the Christmas spirit, or to give you something to grumble about this festive season, according to a survey from iShare into 
It’s coming up to the New Year, and one of the traditional television events is NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen, or the Red and White Song Contest, where a team of male singers and male-fronted groups compete against the female side in an excuse to highlight the popular music of the year, both pops and the traditional Enka form. There’s usually about twenty to thirty acts per side and the whole affair starts around 7 pm and continues until just before midnight. However, this year the satellite channel BS11 is showing the Anison Kohaku 2009, Red and White Animation Song 2009 at the same time, so iShare decided to conduct a survey into 
One great feature of many Japanese supermarkets and department store food floors is that they often have 
I have zero interest in brand bags, and fortunately my wife grew out of her habit long before we met, but looking at this recent survey from iShare into 
Subscribe to feed