Recent Adventures - Kahma

This past weekend, Mike, Chloe, and I took a little field trip to Kahma. Kahma is our local home-improvement store. It's a little bit like Home Dep*t or L*we's, with a splash of Meij*r or W*al-Mart mixed in. Pretty cool. Fair warning - there are no Chloe pics in this post, as I was carrying both the camera and her. Too bad, too, since watching her watch the puppies is pretty cute.

It's beetle season in Japan! I haven't seen these things in nature yet, thank all that is good in this world, but they're in stores everywhere. I don't know if it's the size of the living quarters here or the fact that a dog or cat will set you back a good $2,000, but these nasty little - no, BIG - beetles appear to be an extremely popular pet here in Japan. As you can see, at 880 yen (less than $8), they're a good buy. And if your parents won't let you get the real thing, you can get the action figures, or the lunchbox, or the notebook, or pretty much anything else you could dream of with these cute little buggies on them. Yuck.

Mike wants one, you can tell. He's not allowed, though. No way, no how. The inflatable guy on the endcap might be permissible, but I don't think he's for sale.

Here's a close-up. See, now don't you want one, too? I know Keegan does. Just think what would happen if you put this guy in the silverware drawer! Bwahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!

This next photo is one you'll want to zoom in on. It's a tennis-racket-shaped electric flyswatter. Seriously. We didn't get it, but I think we should have. You just swing the racket and BZZZZZAP! end of bug. Sugoye!

And last but not least, we have the burglar rocks. As near as I can tell, you spread these rocks around your vulnerable areas and they make so much noise that they act as a burglar alarm. I stepped on them. They are pretty noisy. I think there might be an application around the Christmas tree, here.

Here's a close-up of the poster. Based on my superior understanding of the Japanese language, I can tell you that various varieties of the rock will yield between 67 and 102 decibals in burglar-thwarting volume, and that when said burglar hears the noise he will become terrified, drop your belongings, and flee. This is why Japan is such a safety country.