MellsBells’ Neighbors

etc.

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:31:49 -0700

If you who read Japanese, maybe you read this blog (I have a link to her on the right). Written by a girl you might call a hooker, who's worked in various different types of brothels, etc. And she blogs about it! Most recently she worked in an image club where you play a role (school girl, office lady, blah blah blah). She likes her job, and she works hard at it.

She's also married. She was told she was barren so she went back to work, but now she's pregnant! So of course she quit. Good news. おめでとう (congratulations).

Sometimes I wonder if being a hostess is more intrusive to your life than working for a "soap land" or "health" (I don't know what these things are called in English, basically working at a brothel or working as a call girl). Because you show up, you do your work, then you leave. Who knows?

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Become a Vox Fan on Facebook

nobody@vox.com(Team Vox) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:25:50 -0700

Facebook

Gimme a V! Gimme an O! Gimme an X! What's that spell? VOX!

What better way to tell the world how much you love Vox than to announce it on Facebook? That's right: Vox now has an official Facebook page! Become a fan of Vox.com on Facebook and let your friends know what you really care about: staying connected with friends and family through blog posts, photos, videos and comments.

Once you're a fan, you can also add photos and videos to the page, write on the wall, and connect with other Voxers in ways you may not have previously. Plus, it's a great opportunity to let people know about your Vox blog, or start discussion topics. To become a fan, just visit the official Vox.com Facebook page and click the "Become a Fan" button in the upper right hand corner.

Once you've joined, why not post a response to the current discussion topic? Just post a link (and a brief description, if you'd like) to what you consider one of your all-time best Vox posts.

What are you waiting for? Become a Vox.com fan on Facebook today!

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IndyMac, two sides

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:08:59 -0700

So yet another section of the economic pyramid has crumbled. IndyMac went bust.

One of my mother's girlfriends had her life savings in there. She's Japanese, and she used to be married to an American man. They bought a condo in LA, and sold it and split the profit when they divorced. She got half a million, put it all in IndyMac, and went back to Tokyo a few years ago.

Now she's in a panic and calling my mother, asking her to translate everything and tell her what's going on. Her English isn't that bad, she's just hoping against hope that my mother will tell her something she wants to hear. She might have lost a huge chunk of her life's savings. Here's something I learned from all this, spread your money out and don't have more in one account than is FDIC insured (but this doesn't apply to me because I don't have any money, haha!).

The next day I walked past my father who's sitting at his computer, and he suddenly makes a really happy sound. When IndyMac went bust, he bought a bunch of cheap shares, by the end of the day the stock had more than doubled and he had made over 1,000bucks.

Does the word ironic apply here?

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a conversation between friends

nobody@vox.com(molls) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:50 -0700

At Glow Fest last night as we were about to leave, Ed was looking off into the distance. After saying his name a few times, he turned around and this is what went down:

Me: What are you doing?
Ed: Have you ever seen Ruby in Paradise? It stars Ashley Judd and it's from 1993.
Me: No?
Ed: Well, it's a really good movie and there's this scene were Ashley Judd's character is staring out of a window and the breeze is hitting her face and she's really thankful for everything she has. I was just trying to create that moment for myself.

And THAT is the cutest thing I've ever heard in my life.

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Caroline Pover Sucks

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:08:52 -0700

Japan can be a lonely place for foreign women sometimes.

Wouldn't it be great if there was some supportive organization where frustrated foreign women could go for support?

I know of one organization that you should definitely stay away from. It's called Being A Broad, and it's run by Caroline Pover. Reasons to steer clear include the following:

- She doesn't pay or severely under pays her employees
- She thinks she's above labor laws and doesn't pay overtime, doesn't honor severance pay, and has lots of illegal clauses in her employment contracts
- She claims to have "connections" at the immigration department and at the police department, and also claims to have influence over all of the professional foreign community in Tokyo. All of these things are not true, but that doesn't stop her from using these so-called "connections" to threaten her employees with.
- She outright lies about the distribution and readership of the Weekender* magazine. If you care to check on this, ask her for actual proof of readership and distribution. She won't be able to provide it.
- She's a shameless self promoter. She's connected her name to certain tragedies that have hit foreign women living in Japan, getting publicity and possibly profits in the process.
- She uses her publications to get free things. Free meals, free vacations, free products. In fact on more than one occasion she has caused problems with other foreign-run businesses when she was not given free access to their services.
- Her "Broad Minded Business" (Japan's foremost job and career network for women -- her words) claims to reach an extensive network of highly qualified women. It doesn't. And they haven't had a new listing on their site in six months. And the guy who works on it doesn't get paid.
- Here are some ventures she's been involved with that have gone down in flames.
Go Girls. This was a private English tutor service specifically for women wanting to study from female teachers. The investors had to walk away after she demanded more and more money.
Being A Broad the magazine. She lied to advertisers about the quality, distribution, and online availability of the content, didn't pay the first editor and barely had a qualified staff working on it, and it didn't last.
The Number One Shimbun magazine. When she failed to make any money off of publishing the magazine (because she fired all her staff and pushed her existing staff too far), she went crazy on the owners of the magazine until they decided to cut their losses (and their ties to her) for good.
Being A Broad the book. This was her original claim to fame. It's a thick resource book for foreign women living in Japan, but she couldn't find a publisher for it and had to publish it herself. She claims it's a best seller, but again, ask her for proof and numbers and she won't be able to provide any. Actually it was the best selling English language book in the Tower Records foreign books section in Shibuya for one week I think. And it was never updated. She tried to get an intern to update it for no pay, but that didn't work out.

etc.

Some peeps saying what they think of her here (skip to the comments section at the bottom).

There's more, but I'm tired. You get the point.

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sit your ass down, you're about to see some steppin'

nobody@vox.com(molls) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:53:40 -0700

Irvine Lambda Lil Sis Step 2K5

I have to tell you guys about a passion of mine.

I enjoy watching videos of college step teams. Usually it's sorority groups, as I do believe that that is some sort of Greek Life tradition.

It is a secret dream of mine to be on a step team. Ed and I actually both share this dream and have considered starting a step team. In all honesty, I don't think that either of us have the attention span or energy to do what these girls do pretty flawlessly and I definitely know I don't have the rhythm. Still, those bitches are tight. They make me want to be less rhythmically challenged.

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treating myself

nobody@vox.com(molls) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:38:50 -0700

Big-pink

Today I gave into my desires and I purchased this vagina costume. I've been wanting it for a long time but couldn't think of a good excuse to get it, other than the fact that it would make me one of the most fresh to the death bitches in the city of Los Angeles.

Last night, while brainstoming after drinking Absinthe on the way to Glow Fest, I came up with the perfect idea. Starting next week, I will be reporting exclusively from the inside of a felt vagina.

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the felines

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:48:05 -0700

This is Osamu. He's only 12 years old, but I think he's dying. He's lost a lot of weight, his fur has lost its glossiness, and he throws up almost every day. When I pick him up he feels like paper. But he's still got the handsomest little face, and he's as friendly as he's always been. He's colored like baked bread and his little head always smells like sunshine. He lives at my mother's house, and I miss him.

Samkins

This is Nori. She lives with Sam at my mother's house. She's chubby and stubby and even though she's only two years younger than samsonite, she still acts like a little baby.

Norinori

This one is Seiji. He belongs to my little sister and he lives in my dad's house right now. He's a young man, he's rough and tough and loves to attack things.

Seijikat

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(-)...

nobody@vox.com(Workaholic Hostess) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:11:22 -0700

I thought I might miss the club and the girls and just being a hostess in general. But I don't. Just thinking about working again kind of makes me feel tired and nauseous. It's tough working a job where you have to deal with rejection all the time. And it's tough when it's YOU that's getting rejected. How attractive you are and stuff.

So now I wear no makeup, barely brush my hair, and my eyebrows are free and wild. And I haven't had any alcohol. It's awesome.

*****

My mother was staying at my twin sister's apartment, and she cooked a big meal last night and we invited Kosuke and Yuka over. But today my dad was really upset because he wasn't invited. "I'm actually kind of appalled," he said. "I mean your mother didn't even want to see me, and I wasn't even invited to dinner, and you didn't bring me back any leftovers."

I didn't know what to say. Besides the obvious, which is "well you guys are divorced."

I probably should have brought some leftovers over though. Oops.

*****

I caused a minor incident this morning when a fix it guy in the parking area downstairs asked me how my toilet seat was and offered to come in and replace it. He seemed like a nice, trustworthy guy, but I hadn't heard anything about a fix it guy coming over with a toilet seat, so I told him sorry. Nobody told me about anyone coming to replace the toilet seat, so no.

Then I find out that my dad had in fact complained to the landlord about the toilet seat, and that this man (who's name I later found out was Alberto) knows my dad and my twin sister and is really friendly and nice. He had in fact come all the way out to our apartment with toilet seats on a saturday morning, and I had insulted him to his face by rudely telling him to basically fuck off (he probably thought I was my twin sister).

My dad was a little annoyed. I apologized to Alberto later, and now we have a new toilet seat.

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favorite photos of the week

nobody@vox.com(molls) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 11:28:44 -0700

This is the inside of my purse. This photo was taken by Mel and Alexis or MELEXIS at Birds on Monday. Once word got out that my purse was full of matches and loose change, I had people handing me fist fulls of change. That was pretty dope. I can totes do all my laundry now.

I love Hyde's expression in this picture. It looks like she's singing an 80s rock ballad, but I believe that she was excitedly talking about how "No Diggity" by Blackstreet is her mother's favorite song. Mrs. Hyde is far more hip than I expected her to be, and I expected her to be a pretty hip lady. Alexis' shirt is awesome, too.

There was some fun foliage being back lit by the blue and purple and red lights in the street outside of Broadway Bar downtown. I snapped a few pictures of it, but this is my favorite. It seemed like an urban sunset to me, even though the sun had set hours before we even left the house.

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MellsBells’ Neighbors

etc.

Become a Vox Fan on Facebook

IndyMac, two sides

a conversation between friends

Caroline Pover Sucks

sit your ass down, you're about to see some steppin'

treating myself

the felines

(*-*)...

favorite photos of the week

(-)...