Doing and Playing are Two Very Different Things

"Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda

I know way too many people who play all the time. Of course, like anyone else, I like playing too. But there comes a time when we must all "do" and not "play."


I suppose, in this example, my use of the word, "play" could also be used interchangeably with "pose." There are far too many poseurs around.

People think they understand the difference between "do" and "play." But allow me to explain the big difference here.

I learned a great lesson about not "playing" when I was a student. In High School, I was president of the Science Club. I don't really remember how I got that title, it's just that a Biology teacher thought my grades were good enough and the other geeks decided that they'd vote me in as president.


Being president of the Science Club was sort of fun, I guess.


As president of the Science Club, I was King Geek. In Science classes and Biology, I didn't have to attend classes like the other kids did. I was the guy who assisted the Science instructor with handing out Petri dishes and feeding the pets in the Science Department.


I also learned that the cutest girls in my school were basically stupid in Biology so they were nice to me so that I would tell them the answers to test questions. I thought that this would translate to me being popular outside of Science class but I was totally wrong on that front.


While the classes were going on, I'd get to sit in the back room and do "experiments." Mr. Holts, my biology instructor allowed me to do any sort of experiments that I wanted to. I grew plants, did experiments with bacteria and learned all sorts of things about feeding and breeding animals and fish.


I learned stuff like most lizards won't eat food when they are in captivity so you have to force feed them. I also learned that mice are so freaked out by snakes that if you put a mouse in a snakes cage or terrarium, often times the mouse will freeze up and just sit there in fear.


Well, back to the difference between "do" and "play"....


One day, I was bored out of my wits as I sat in the back room at the Science department. There, I spied a cockroach and some silverfish. I captured them as I intended to use them for lizard or fish food... As I was searching for a container to put them in, I spotted a large glass beaker and, to my surprise, a bottle of Hydrochloric acid.

That gave me an idea... The devil horns slowly creeped up on the sides of my head.


I put the insects in the large beaker and saw that they could not climb up the sides. They were trapped. I then pulled up a chair and took an eyedropper and squeezed out a drop of acid and dropped it into the beaker.


The cockroaches and silverfish would run as mightily as they could towards the top of the beaker trying to get out. But run as hard as they may, they would give up and slowly slide back down the sides of the glass until their tails hit the acid at which time they'd take off again, full speed, up the sides of the glass.


They did this over and over. 


To make a lame o excuse for my deliberately torturing some of god's creatures, I found it interesting how and why the insects seemed to run as hard as they could up the glass but then "get tired," give up and slide back down. I mean, insects don't have muscles! How can they get tired.


Well, as a twisted little high school brat (and president of the Science Club) I got my jollies torturing these insects (I was probably laughing like a mad scientist too) when a big hand slapped right down on my shoulder. It was Mr. Holts. He said to me,


"Mister Rogers! You have so much talent and ability but you waste it. Do you know what your problem is? Your problem is that you don't want to "do" science; you want to "play" science. There is a big difference."


He was right. I have never forgotten that moment. 


I think about that and I can see his face whenever I see people doing crappy work. Or people whose primary concern at work (mostly middle management people) having the protection of their position as the number one priority over the success of the project. I can also hear his words whenever I feel that I am not doing my best and letting other people down.


Life is too short for us to waste it on dead end efforts. In my thinking, there is no such thing as a dead-end job. A job is a dead-end if you make it that way. If you view it as a opportunity, then how can it be a dead-end if you use it to motivate yourself for bigger and better things? 


Never sell yourself short.


Remember to always do and not play.

Birds and Fish Dying in Mass? It Happened in Japan Before...

Recently there have been many news stories about birds and fish and other animals dying in mass. This has happened in Japan before. This is an article about this experience in Japan that I blogged about way back in 2004. It might have scary ramifications for today.

Minamata: Real Life Horror Show

by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers
by Mike Rogers

Minamata is a very small fishing and farming town in Kumamoto, on Kyushu island in southern Japan. A beautiful place, graced by a gem-like harbor and a rushing river, Minamata does not seem to be the scene of a tragedy. Today, most young Japanese people are unfamiliar with what happened here so many years ago. But, just like Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Minamata is world-famous for a different kind of manmade catastrophe.

About fifty years ago, strange things began to happen in Minamata. At first, unable to understand what was happening to them, the local people were afraid to talk.

Some of the townspeople began experiencing delirium, blackouts, and numbness of their arms and legs. Soon, some of them became partially or completely blind while others experienced slurred speech. Others were thought to have become insane when, unable to control the movements of their appendages, they shouted at random. Those afflicted were rumored to be possessed by the devil when they could not control their facial muscles and their contorted expression made them look like "monsters." Local doctors were dumb-founded by the epidemic outbreak.

The sinister symptoms began to afflict the animals of Minamata. Cats and dogs began to exhibit inexplicable behavior. Townspeople reported that cats were "committing suicide." Some cats chased their tails for days on end until they dropped from exhaustion. Dogs disappeared and were found dead days later. Even more shocking, afflicted birds began falling from the skies.

In 1932 the small town of Minamata boasted only one large factory which was owned by a company called the "Chisso Corporation." In Japanese the word "chisso" means nitrogen. The Chisso Corporation was in the fertilizer business.

For hundreds of years, the townspeople of Minamata had lived primitive lives as fishers and farmers. Minamatans were glad when, in 1901, the Chisso Corporation set up a plant. Employment became abundant. By 1932, the Chisso plant had become very large. Since the Chisso Corporation was not involved with munitions manufacturing, they were spared bombing during the war and confiscation by the allies after the end of World War Two. By 1950 Chisso had become one of the leading businesses in Japan. Hand-in-hand, the Japanese government worked with companies like the Chisso Corporation in order to provide much needed jobs to a post war Japan. Chisso became so successful that it expanded into other chemical manufacturing.

By 1953, the strange plague had directly affected almost one-half of all the people in the small town of Minamata. People who came down with this bizarre disease were treated like lepers. Because no one knew if the disease were contagious, society shunned the sufferers.

Minamata babies began to be born with grotesque deformities and massive brain damage. Minamata fishermen began to catch two and three headed fish. At this point the government and the Chisso Corporation became alarmed.

A mother shows her deformed child ultimate love and sacrifice

The Agricultural Ministry of Japan — financed by the Chisso Corporation — ordered research into the causes of the freakish sickness that was attacking the people and killing the wildlife.

In 1956, Dr. Hajime Hosokawa was assigned to study the case. Dr. Hosokawa was an honest man, and even though he was paid by and worked at the Chisso Corporation Hospital, he reported, "an unclarified disease of the central nervous system has broken out in Minamata." Hosokawa's report pointed to chemical dumping by Chisso. The Chisso Corporation didn't like this news at all and "removed" Dr. Hosokawa. So as to not alarm the populace, Chisso and the Japanese government covered-up Dr. Hosokawa's findings. Chisso continued with their business in Minamata Bay.

By 1958, the cover-up was well under-way while the disease gained momentum. At this time, the Chisso Corporation tried to hide the problems by moving their business to nearby Minamata River. But after a few months, people near the river began to experience the symptoms of the strange disease.

By now, people were beginning to panic. The government of Kumamoto decided that they had to act. But instead of forcing the Chisso Corporation to suspend operations, the Kumamoto government made it illegal for the Minamata fishermen to sell locally caught fish. You read right. The Kumamoto authorities did not make it illegal for people to catch and eat local fish, they made it illegal for the local fishermen to sell their catch on the open market. The new law caused the Minamata area economy to suffer anew. Since Minamatans no longer had the money to purchase foodstuffs, they were forced to eat more locally caught fish.

By 1968, the problem had grown to crisis proportions. The Chisso Corporation began acting like the mafia by forcing people to accept hush money in return for signing contracts that absolved the Chisso Corporation from liability for damages. The Minamatans were ignorant of the law. Their livelihood and their families were destroyed. What else could they do but accept Chisso's "hush money" and keep their mouths shut.

In 1969, a voluntary general citizens' group was formed to support the victims of the disease. The People's Congress for the Minamata Disease, joined with a group of lawyers and, using the testimony of Dr. Hosokawa from his death-bed, sued the Japanese government and the Chisso Corporation for damages related to what the lawyers termed "Minamata Disease." It will never be fully known how many people actually suffered from this disease — some estimates have the number in the tens of thousands — but as of today, only 3,000 people have been compensated.

Consider the babies that were born deformed or brain-damaged. Imagine the people who died or whose lives were ruined by an unknown disease. Minamata disease is one from which there is no possibility of recovery. It is a disease for which there is no cure. And today, that disease is known as Methyl Mercury poisoning.

For mankind there would be more cases to follow: Three Mile Island, Love Canal, Chernobyl, and Bhopal — to name a few. But people should not forget that the world's very first large scale man-made environmental disaster was covered-up by the government which was elected to protect its citizens — a disaster called Minamata.

This article edited by Elizabeth Gyllensvard

• This article originally appeared in Lew Rockwell in 2004 

Making Money from Free Cellphone games? How?

Here's an interesting article from the Mainichi. I've wondered about this....

How do firms make so much money from free cell phone games?

Despite Japan's continued recession, companies that offer free cell phone game platforms like Mobage and Gree -- are raking in tens of billions of yen annually. If the games can be played for free, where is all the money coming from?

At the Roppongi headquarters of Gree Inc., employees in their 20s and 30s tap away at the several hundred computers lined up in the huge office.

"I'm always thinking about what might make people want to fish," says a 27-year-old male employee on the development team for Gree's leading product, a fishing game called Tsuri Suta. He stares at his computer screen.

Making money from a free online fishing game called "Tsuri"? But how? Aha! Fishing supplies? Really?

With Tsuri, for example, players are free to participate in fishing events with other players, but fishing poles can become so worn out that they break. The user is then given the opportunity to continue using the free pole, or select a more user-friendly pole for 100 yen or more. Among the available tools are 1,000-yen poles with lures that enable players to catch big fish, and the "ultimate" pole at 2,000 yen.

Computer games that charge players for additional tools existed before cell phone games appeared on the scene, however. So what's the difference?

I decided to experiment with cell phone games for about three weeks. At first, I couldn't understand what about them drew people in. But as I made friends and exchanged short letters on the way, I found myself looking into my phone during my commute to work.

"Put simply, it's just a way to pass the time," says a 27-year-old man in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward who began gaming on Mobage Town three years ago and has continued to play during breaks at work. Indeed, the convenience is what DeNA says characterizes their product.

"It's a new form of entertainment that can be used in those 'in-between' times," says a DeNA publicist.

The article goes on to state that 5 ~ 10% of players will pay for extra tools. That's a great conversion rate!

Now you know how they make money with "Free" games!

Tokyo's Famous Fish Market, Tsukiji, Closed to Tourists Dec. 1 ~ Jan. 22

If you plan on going to the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo this year, I suggest you get over there in the next two weeks. It will close from Dec. 1.

Tuna's the size of a sofa

The Japan Times Reports:

Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market will shut out sightseers from its popular tuna auction area from Dec. 1 to Jan. 22 to ensure sales can be conducted smoothly, market officials said. The auction area at the Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market will be off-limits to sightseers around the New Year's holidays for the third straight year. The measure was introduced in 2008 because activities such as flash photography by tourists disturbed tuna middlemen and because the area will be particularly crowded around New Year's due to an upsurge in tuna transactions. 







Read More. 

Woman From Ventura Hooks Monster Fish

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers
Yes, yes, I know. This blog is about PR, advertising and (viral) marketing in Japan using new Social Media like Twitter, Facebook, Mixi, blogs, vlogs, and Pick...

But, for your momentary pleasure, let me indulge myself (and hopefully you too) into a momentary escape from the hustle and bustle of today's fast paced life to give you a short break.

Look at this! A woman from my hometown of Ventura California hooked and landed a 380 pound (172 kilogram) halibut! Look at the size of this fish!!!

Incredible fish story!

Wow! What a fish. Seriously though, I wonder how many years it takes a fish to get to be this size? I think, and I'm not joking, that I must have hooked one if its brothers or sisters way back when I was fishing in Pt. Hueneme near Ventura back in the early 80's.

I hooked this massive halibut then and almost had him reeled in when he broke my line. We could see the halibut right by the shore and it was at least a meter and a half long (about 4 or 5 feet)...

But, of course, I lost it.

Congrats to this fine fisherwoman and thanks for the wonderful break.

Now, get back to work!   

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