services that you can buy in Japan...

An article I came across in the newspaper this morning. Thought you might like to know what kind of things you can do over here.. Seems like you can make money from anything these days..

Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006 "We can do everything" By MARK SCHREIBER
Spa! (Oct. 31)

With a nationwide crackdown in force on drunken driving this autumn, the word daiko, meaning a substitute, is suddenly back in vogue. Unten daiko are the companies you can call to keep you from crawling behind the wheel if you've had so much sake you can barely stand up. For charges starting from 1,500 yen for the first 2 km (with a 20 percent surcharge after 2 a.m.), they'll dispatch a sober individual to drive you home.
These, Spa! reports, are just one of a number of similar substitute enterprises. You can hire a daiko to stand in a long queue to purchase your admission ticket to a major event (charge: 3,000 yen and up); to walk your dog (1,500 yen for the first 30 minutes); and place bids at Web auctions that frequently run into the wee hours (the fee based on a percentage of your purchase).
There are even substitute shoppers who can find you the best bargains at the Akihabara electronics district.
Considering the potential pitfalls in getting into, or out of, an emotional relationship, it's not surprising then that substitute services have sprung up of late to serve would-be lovers. A nanpa daiko service will, for 3,000 yen an hour, try to pick up a girl for you; skilled scribes, available via the Internet, will compose messages so elegant as to cause your lady love to swoon with passion (2,625 yen per 400-character page); and date planners (1,500 yen and up) will advise you on a course that meets her tastes and your budget.
Considerably more expensive, at 50,000 yen to 100,000 yen per job, is the "confessor substitute" service (kokuhaku daiko). Similar to a private investigation agency, this outfit will approach the person you specify by assuming the role of a concerned listener.
"About 70 percent of our clients are men in their 30s," says Satoko Yoshii, operator of an outfit called Ginko Consulting. "These fellows might have had their eye on a girl for as long as six years, and then decided it's time to break the ice and approach them."
Is she living with someone? Does she, God forbid, prefer women over men? To extract this information, Ms. Yoshii's operatives will try to get them to volunteer what you want to know.
If the female target works as a waitress in a coffee shop, for example, the operative will become a customer and try to win her trust.
"All of a sudden she might say, 'By the way, I'm a friend of Mr. So-and-so (the client). Can I ask you about him?' " Yoshii explains. "Then since it's just two girls swapping notes about a guy, the woman won't suspect anything.
"This is a much more reliable way of finding out what the man wants to know than confronting her and asking about her past," she asserts.
Ginko Consulting says it draws the line at some requests.
"Once a client requested one of our operatives to approach his lady friend in a threatening manner so he could 'rescue' her," Yoshii tells Spa! "That's a crime, so naturally we refused."
"In this day and age, you can't conduct a romance without assistance," Yoshii smiles. "The business is there, and just keeps growing and growing."