WARNING!

Jet Thrust Nozzle is the official name of Those Hovercrafts’s new grindcore band.

Tell Us Your Woes

We’re starting an advice column and need your help.

Do you need some advice? Would you like an objective observer to shed some light on a problem? Do you need someone to weigh in on a long-standing debate? Or do you just need some corroboration that, yes, your coworker is a huge jerk? Send your questions, statements and/or rants to thosehovercrafts@gmail.com or leave them in the comments!

Driving Directions To Shanghai

If you look up driving directions from Tokyo, Japan to Shanghai, China on Googlemaps, you get a guide, written in Han and Kanji, of which roads to take and of when, on them, to turn left and right. Step number 48, however, is slightly different. The directions tell you to “Jet ski across the Pacific Ocean” for 783 km (about 486 miles).

The jet ski trip leg of this journey starts out at a campground on the Shimo-Koshiki Island. There don’t seem to be any jet ski rental shacks there, though; you’ll have to bring your own. That island and the five others of the Koshikijima chain were divided into a series of 14 villages until they merged with other towns on the larger Kyushu island to form the city of Satsumasendai back in 2004.  It’s still a relatively empty island and pictures on the internet show the mountains butting right up against the surf. The vistas are gorgeous.

Jet Skis

We’re going to guide content on this blog with specific themes. Not everything will relate to the theme, and not every piece about the theme will appear within the designated theme time period. But when we see a funny car or think that galoshes are weird-looking, we’ll try to use that feeling to inspire a series of creations. Every few weeks or so we’ll bring up a new one.

First up: jet skis.

The term jet ski is actually a brand name for the machines made by Kawasaki, but it works just fine as a genericized trademark and is much prettier and more alluring than personal watercraft. So, jet ski it is.