Magicbell Brothers

Some friends of mine (Kay Amano and Masayuki Hisa) developed a series of cute videos designed to promote Los Angeles area businesses among Japanese-speaking television viewers. The five videos are called “Magicbell Brothers,” and follow the travails of two space alien hand puppets sent to earth and forced to visit and critique local restaurants and businesses. What could be more natural?

The series is sugoku kawaii (really cute), and has a very typical Japanese feeling. It’s not anime–it’s better!

Each video is filmed in Japanese with English subtitles. To see them all, click over to Magicbell’s corporate web site:

http://magicbell.tv/eng/magicbellBrothers.htm

日本語でもどうぞ。

http://magicbell.tv/jp/magicbellBrothers-J.htm

Scroll to the bottom of the page to view each of the past episodes.

Start Your Engines!

Metered on-ramps are common fare throughout the Los Angeles freeway system. The massive influx of cars onto the highways during the five or six hours-de-rush each day requires some method to even out the rolling population. And while the unidirectional stoplights make at least some attempt to alleviate the metal density on the freeway, they have the nasty habit of backing on-ramp traffic into local thoroughfares, with lines sometimes stretching all the way to residential driveways miles away.

To help reduce the congestion, some of the shorter on-ramps use a two-lane meter. Two lined paths lead from the arterial to the freeway, each harnessed with its own miniature red-light district. It’s a doubling-up pattern that is indigenous to the region, from the twice-is-nice method of increasing property taxes each time you buy and sell a house, to the buy-one-body-part-get-one-free plastic surgery coupons that show up each week in the mail.

The dual entry meters allow twice as many cars on the ramp, demonstrating that there is some wisdom to be had in the traffic engineering community. Sadly, it seems that this burst of inspiration depleted the entire store of wisdom. Instead of alternating the green signals between the lanes, the techs at CalTrans decided that the running the red/green pattern identically in both lanes would provide for optimal confusion patterns, meshing nicely with the overall traffic situation.

Still, there is a certain excitement provided by parallel entry that you just can’t get from the single-lane alternative. This was brought home to me recently as I tried to insert myself into the mayhem of I-405 at around 3:30 in the afternoon. The meter signals were in full swing, successfully queuing cars seven deep in each lane. At five seconds per cycle, it took just over a half-minute to reach to reach the border crossing, but I swear it was more like three minutes. The flow of freeway traffic was so close I could taste it. Mmm, with just a hint of diesel.

As I eased my car to the starting line and counted down the remaining seconds, a strange sensation crept over me, a feeling that at this moment and in this place, there was a battle to win. I glanced to my right, and saw a diminutive 40-something Asian woman gripping the steering wheel of a shiny black Sport Utility Vehicle, a transport with largess normally reserved for the young male demographic and a need to compensate for nature. She did not look directly at me, but a glint in her eye announced clearly: The Race Is On.

My eyes darted reflexively to the thick white stop-line, eagerly sizing up each car’s pole position. I eased forward a little and hugged the line. My windows were closed and the radio’s was playing a jaunty tune, but I could still catch the distinctive sound of an engine revving nearby. It had only been three seconds since I arrived at this coveted spot, but my transformation from geeky computer user to speed demon was nearly complete.

And it wasn’t just me who had changed. As I took another peripheral glance at the SUV, its formerly petite driver was now the Chinese twin sister of Mario Andretti, sporting a flame-resistant racing suit decked out with the signage of motor oil companies. The environment seemed different as well. What had been a five-lane freeway laden with thousands of drivers was now a high-performance racetrack with room for just one winner. The shortened palm tree to my left was still there, but its fronds, once green, now displayed a monochrome checkered pattern.

As the tension increased, the cars filling the freeway made room for this Mother of All Races, parking along both shoulders in waves like the parting Red Sea, as if Earl Scheib had found his true calling as Moses. Finally, the “One Car Per Green” light turned its destined color, and I slammed my foot on the accelerator. Oblivious to the world around me, I fixated on the speedometer–sounding it out as SPEED-o-meter in my mind. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. The raw power of my fuel-inefficient Nissan Pathfinder propelled me onward. “Eat my dust, hybrids!” I shouted to the NASCAR crowd.

Despite my amazing carbon emissions, Mrs. Chairman Mao was already hundreds of yards ahead of me, escaping rapidly into the distance. As my adrenaline subsided in parallel with the flow of gas through my faltering fuel pump, I cursed the octane gods for turning their backs on my car’s true potential. Another test of my on-ramp prowess come and gone, and there is little left for me but bitter tears. But don’t cry for me, Lee Iacocca. Tomorrow is another driving day, and there’s a triple-lane metered ramp about ten miles from here that I’ve been dying to try out.

Image Credits: Microsoft Office clipart collection