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he better each individual takes care of his or her health, the more beneficial it will be as state funds can be allocated for education and poverty eradication.

A scientist has invented angle-changing glasses for people suffering from a terrifying modern disease: terminal laziness. As a long-term sufferer, I would shed tears of happiness but it'€™s just too much effort.

Say you'€™re lying in bed and something worth looking at appears in your room. Perhaps your favorite TV show starts, or Megan Fox wanders into your bedroom and asks you if you think she looks good in her new string micro-bikini (this happens to me all the time).

In the past, you would have had to lift your head a several centimeters to take a look. What a pain. Now you simply slip on your Gorodey 2 angle-changing glasses from Sanco online store in Japan. They contain tiny periscopes so that your head stays completely flat on the pillow but at the same time you can see down past your feet in perfect focus.

'€œLooks okay, Megan, but let me see you in two dozen similar outfits before I give my final verdict. We don'€™t want to rush this.'€

There seems to be a whole industry making innovative eyewear in Japan. Consider the glasses which claim to give East Asians eyes like those of Westerners and South Asians. '€œIt'€™s a glasses frame with two wire loops sticking up,'€ said a reader named Hiroto, who sent me a link to it. The loop gently presses into the skin, giving Chinese, Japanese and Korean people a curved eyelid fold above the eyeball and below the eyebrow.

Does it work? Volunteers who tested it for Japanese website Rocketnews24 say that: a) You look really stupid wearing the glasses, and, b) As soon as you take the glasses off the crease disappears. Epic fail.

I phoned a doctor who said the difference is tiny: East Asian eyelids are 3 millimeters above the eyelashes, while Western and South Asian eyelids are 7 to 11 mm above the eyelashes.

I told Hiroto, a Buddhist, that there were fun ways he could achieve the same goal. 1) Commit some horrible sin so he will be reincarnated as a lower form of life, such as a Westerner or South Asian. 2) If having massive eyelids is really important, he could commit LOADS of horrible sins and get reincarnated as a chameleon.

 I once did a newspaper contest to find the strangest pop song lyric in this part of the world, and the winner was Single-Eyelid Girl by the China Dolls, a group from Thailand.

The song was about a girl who falls in love with a boy, but then discovers that he only likes double-eyelid girls (ie, girls with a fold below the eyebrow), while she was a single-eyelid girl. These are the lyrics: '€œThe boy at the table opposite us is here again today; look at his eyes, what amazing confidence. But I'€™ve heard that he only likes double-eyelid girls! With my single eyelid, I have no choice.'€

The song conjured up a vision of a Cyclops-like girl sitting in a restaurant with one huge eye in the middle of her forehead. I'€™ve never actually seen the lead singer of the China Dolls, so perhaps that IS what she looks like.

The writer is a columnist and journalist.