Tokyo Shrine Blesses Computers from BSoDs

Leave it to Japan to continually live up to their own charming stereotypes. At the Kanda-Myojin Shinto shrine in Tokyo—a temple otherwise like any other—visitors can bring their computers to be blessed for protection from problems like malware and BSoDs. Not-so-coincidentally, the temple is very closely situated to Tokyo’s famed tech mecca Akihabara and offers these microchip-like talismans:

Apparently the move to bless computers was less a tourist trap than a natural progression of their visitors. Those who frequented Akihabara also frequented the temple. And therefore, those who frequented the temple also needed a lot of help with the tech in their life.

But are such faiths so strange? I, for one, sleep better knowing that Steve Jobs blessed my MacBook Pro in a bath of oil and frankincense before shipping it from China, just for me.