News You Can Bruise for 2006 December 22

I'd known for a long time about the artificial beach theme park in Japan. I've been to an artificial beach myself (though not such an opulent one), so I didn't think there was anything especially odd about it until immediately after waking up this morning, when I realized that Japan is an island chain and they've already got more beach than they know what to do with. It's like having a Vegas casino where the theme is "desert and gila monsters".

Indeed, according to this random weblog entry the artificial beach is right next to a real beach. I guess that makes sense logistically but it takes us into the territory of a Vegas casino whose theme is "ripping off the other casinos on the Strip". Which undermines my point, because that would be the most awesome casino ever.