Who knew hand-shadow puppetry could be so modern? Super liquid-awesomely cool. Whatever you may think of the Volkswagen cars (or how well-made or not the cars actually are), the coomercials of VW have always been a cut above.

Nothing quite beats Japanese instant noodles for convenience and quicky, low-brow culinary delight. But if you thought ramen was the only kind of noodle fare available in the just-add-water instant variety, then you need to try another popular Japanese pasta dish called yaki-soba. A saucier, more flavorful and sometimes spicy type of ramen that is served and eaten sans soup broth. It's super oishii, as the Japanese would say when tasting something delicious. The best-known brand of instant yaki-soba is probably U.F.O. BRAND, produced by the Nissin corporation, the same folks who brought us Cup Ramen. Mmm, mmm, yum, good!

Wow! Like this is a shocker. Everybody could see this coming from a million light years away. Yup, kidzzz, Actress, singer, celebutante Lindsay Lohan has official checked into rehab for alcoholism in West hollywood. Looks like Paris Hilton has lost one of her best frenemies of all time. Now, if only there was a rehab program available for pop singers who like to party pantyless and flash their va-jay-jay all about town (yes, we mean you, Britney Spears!).

Over on the Global Graphica website, we've got a whole bunch of new images showing graf, street art and mor from Osaka, Japan. The graf in the picture above is in a fenced-off area in the Kita-Horie neighborhood of Osaka. (Photo Courtesy of Global Graphica / Ivan Corsa Photo. All rights reserved.)

Studio Voice is a Japanese magazine devoted to design and style. The monthly mag is a must-read for Japanese designers and has something of a cult readership among global design creatives working in advertising, interactive media, the graphic arts and fashion. Though we can't read all the Japanese articles, flipping through the pages and absorbing the gorgeous graphics and layouts is enough to tell us Studio Voice is quality.

Respek!

Love the voiceover tag at the end -- "... it's thin, it's light ... Pocky!!!"

It's here .... it's finally here. Well, almost. The much talked- and speculated-about Apple iPhone was announced at MacWorld by Steve Jobs during his keynote speech. Wow! Wow! Wow! It's a stunner of design. The new phone will be like a video iPod, cell phone and small computer/PDA all rolled up into one. The first phone will be available from Cingular in June. Now, the question is how much of what we're being shown is a reality in terms of what will actually be a functional phone. And will it be buggy? Will it be durable? Nobody is getting a chance to give the device a full test battering yet. We'll have to wait and see. But for now ... yes, we're in love.

On this trip to Japan, we loaded up our Apple iPod with MP3s from some old albums by Boredoms, the quintessential Osaka noise group and probably the one that is the best known outside Japan. "Chocolate Synthesizer," from way back in 1994 is our favorite of that era, with 1992's "Pop Tatari" a close second. We are also revisiting the albums "Super Roots 6" and "Super Ae." But like the group, our tastes and sonic interests have shifted over the years, and it is Boredoms' sparser, less spasmodic output of subseuqent years, such as "Vision Creation New Sun" (2000) and "Seadrum / House of Sun" (2005), that has captivated out attention. Last year, music critic Sasha Frere-Jones wrote an excellent profile of the band in the New Yorker magazine.

"The Adventure of Oden-kun" is a childish anime series targeted toward adults watching late-night Japanese television. Even if you don't understand Japanese, the show is intriguing in its droll, surreal premise. In the cartoon, various ingredients -- tofu, eggs, radishes, and so on -- used in a tradional wintertime stew called oden come to life as anthropomorphic characters inhabiting an "oden world" and embarking on myriad mini adventures, kind of like the way Sponge Bob and his pals do in their fantastic undersea world. Except the ingredients in oden are food afterall and eventually will get eaten by customers. That's when things really get interesting.

Hope everybody had a great winter break and a happy New Year! All the best to ya' in 2007! The new year sees Air Massive in Osaka, Japan for a couple of weeks. Here 2007 is celebrated as the "Year of the Boar" in accordance with the adopted Chinese zodiac calendar. Look for postings on Japanese pop culture in the coming weeks. The picture above is of an annual New Year's fire ritual at Hozenji Temple in Osaka. (Photo courtesy of Global Graphica / Ivan Corsa Photo. All rights reserved.)

In his recent New Yorker magazine article titled "Coke Is It," Sasha Frere-Jones puts in another stellar pop music piece. This time he looks at hip-hop artists Young Jeezy and the duo Clipse. Young Jeezy and Clipse repesent the epitome of so-called "cocaine rap," a style of hip-hop lyricism that's focused on the cocaine culture. Both artists claim real-life experience dealing coke. From the sounds of it, the Bolivian marching powder is still a big part of their lifestyles. According to Jones, while coke has always been around in the music business, it's now making something a comeback.

A woman in Pakistan can't openly talk about sexual taboos on television for fear of being socially ostracized, but a man dressed as a woman talking openly about sexual taboos on Pakistani TV can. And he's very popular. That man is Ali Saleem, who under the pseudonym Begum Nawazish Ali interviews celebrities on his weekly show “Late Night Show With Begum Nawazish Ali." As the Times points out, the Ali's act and its popularity reflect "two Pakistans," one which is urban and the other rural; one that is more "Westernized" and one more fundamentally Islamic.