Cosplay is weird enough when it’s just geeks in homemade Stormtrooper costumes. But these photos of “Simpsons” cosplay bypass Weirdville and head straight into Creepy Town. Rather than settle for making a costume, they recreate specific screencaps, and the combination of low-fi effects with precise detail is an unsettling juxtaposition. Or maybe it’s the ping-pong ball eyes. Or the way Sideshow Bob looks like a slaughtered funhouse mannequin.

There aren’t too many details on this at Reddit or SplitSider, but I think I’m going to blame Japan for this, or maybe Korea. A while back, someone complained about my Japanese stereotypes of tentacle porn and panty vending machines and groping schoolgirls on the subway — I think he said something about Japan having efficient trains and very small trees and whatnot. Well, this cosplay cancels all the good stuff out. This is almost as bad as the “Simpsons” live-action porn.

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The Miss Universe pageant airs tonight on NBC, live from Sao Paulo, and every contestant has a short little video where they answer stupid questions like “Do you believe in life on other planets?” It’s an unremarkable concept, but Miss Japan absolutely knocks it out of the park (video below). Of course, I’m a sucker for racist stereotypes, so I laughed when she said, “No rimit.” But that takes nothing away from the fact that she answers every question like she just smoked a bowl and is waiting for the microwave to finish cooking her Hot Pockets. She’s got an excellent chance of winning tonight, as long as the talent competition is restricted to getting high and watching Akira.

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“Saturday Night Live” has one of my favorite opening credits sequences on TV: it’s shot in such a stylized way that I’m always like, “Wow, New York looks so cool, I wish I lived there” even though I ALREADY LIVE IN NEW YORK. Well, the Japanese version of “SNL” debuted this month, and the opening credits sequence is exactly the same but with Japanese people in a Japanese city. It’s got everything I want in it, minus a Hello Kitty factory and Japanese businessman looking at tentacle porn on a crowded subway. More from Axiom:

The show will air monthly and is sticking to the live feed performance style which is a relatively new angle in contrast to the heavily edited variety shows popular in Japan.

As for the first episode, the sets and feel are very much akin to that of its American counterpart. However, the heavy influence of Japanese Konto style slap-stick comedy has replaced the more character focused, sketches that any viewer of the original show might be used to.

Anyway, the real reason I wanted to share the opening credits is because the announcer kicks it off by saying, “Ah-Satahday Night Rive-ah!”, which is funny because…. Hmm. Is there a way I can end that sentence without sounding racist?

Besides all the death and destruction and radiation poisoning, the Japanese tsunami has also had a deleterious effect on the content here at Warming Glow: it changed my attitude toward Japan. For the last several weeks, I’ve had to feel sympathy for human beings, instead of my preferred course of enjoying Japanese television for its video clips of monkey knife fights and fetishized school girls.

This Japanese TV clip is a small step to getting us back in the right direction. In it, the owner of a Shiba Inu controls the volume of the dog’s bark with different commands. It sounds kind of boring, because you’re like, “Well if it’s in Japanese how am I supposed to tell what the commands are?” Believe me, you’ll know. And if you’re like me, you’ll also giggle like a little girl. A carefree little girl who’s never had to deal with a tsunami.

Bonus Asian dog of the day: CORGI.

[video via BuzzFeed]

Before I delve into today’s TV news, I want to acknowledge the tsunami in the room: a massive earthquake rocked Japan late last night, devastating the coastal city of Sendai and triggering a tsunami that swept away cars, boats, houses, and other large objects that generally shouldn’t be swept away. News reports stated that the quake measured an 8.9 on the Richter scale, but Internet commenters dismissed that, saying “Whatever, it’s barely a 6.” Out of respect for the victims of this tragedy, I ask that all Godzilla jokes be postponed until tomorrow. Or at least this afternoon.

In order to give this some semblance of a TV angle, I’ve embedded a couple videos of news coverage below. The first is from Al-Jazeera’s English branch, and it has some jaw-dropping images of water sweeping over the land and the fires that erupted in the quake’s aftermath. The second video is from CNN, which has provided altogether lousy coverage but got a great eyewitness account from Matt Alt, an American who’s lived in Japan for the last eight years. Alt is actually the author of a book called Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide, which — I’m sorry to say — would have dovetailed awesomely into a Godzilla joke. Alas.

Anyway, my best wishes go to the people of Japan and the rescue workers tasked with subduing the crisis, and my apologies to readers who look to Warming Glow as an impenetrable bubble that protects them from the grim reality of world news. I’ll get back to the business of Charlie Sheen and corgis post-haste.

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