newest obsession: sleepybear!

ok ok, apparently his name in japanese is : Rilakkuma or if i could rename him i'd callhim Killa' Kuma. oh okay okay my japanese is about as good as my spanish... so we're going with sleepybear. the japanese apparently translate the above name i can't pronounce as "relax bear." i mean look at the little dude. (dude on left, not right) he's just chillin'. just lampin' round the crib. ain't no thing. So I was in marchand de legumes on elizabeth street (which sidenote is a french name for a chain of japanese tchotchky stores that sell stuff licensed from an italian wanna be pokey named Rody to sesame street's the Count. don't ask. i dunno. i just love it.) , with Aska last week & was buying my 2nd sleepybear tchotchky & so i ask Aska, "what's up w. this sleepy bear? what does this say in Japanese?" Aska told me something along the lines of "it just says he's lazy & lays around all day." obviously i needed to buy said notepad of this lazy bear just laying around w. his little chicken friend chillin. i looked up my newest little obsession & got this: Rilakkuma (リラックマ, literally a combination of the Japanese words for relax and bear; also called Relaxuma and Rirakkuma) is a Japanese character produced by the San-X company. He is a brown bear who lives in the house of an office lady (OL) named Kaoru. Rilakkuma, true to his name, enjoys relaxing so much to the point that he despises standing up and is often depicted as lying down while sleeping, watching television, listening to music, relaxing in a bath, or eating his favorite foods (which include omelettes, dumplings, pancakes, and pudding). There are sometimes obstacles which stand in his way of relaxing--most notably Korilakkuma, a smaller, younger and mischievous white bear, and Kiiroi Tori, a yellow chicken which often tries to pester Rilakkuma. Curiously, Rilakkuma chooses to be a kigurumi, meaning the Rilakkuma often seen in picture books and the like is actually a costumed character; however, supposedly the animal that is underneath the costume looks similar. you know you're big time when you get a wikipedia listing i will buy swedish fish for the first person to translate this for me. my translation is little chicken dude came over to say sup to sleepybear & finds him getting large on cookies which leads to splitting his little bear suit. oh & sleepybear is like so not on the basketball team. terrible aim. not bad eh?