Ippoippo

Beer

JapanSugoi.com reported on the introduction of chocolate beer to Japan (by a Japanese brewer). Good stuff. We’ve got some here in the UK too, and Yuko is rather fond of it.
However, it seems the Japanese haven’t stopped there yet. We have Milk Beer too!

Rugby

The 6 Nations starts up this weekend, with Wales playing (favourites for the championship) Ireland on Sunday, in Cardiff. Yuko and myself will probably head down into town to soak up some of the atmosphere and good banter that goes on between the Irish and Welsh fans.
We couldn’t get tickets for this game… but Yuko and I are certainly planning on watching Wales vs Japan in the World Cup game that’s played in Cardiff later this year. I doubt though that Japan will be fielding this guy in the team. Good on the fella though!

GW and PO Update

Japundit.com reported on the rather warmer than normal winter this year in Japan (kinda like the UK). Global Warming? Well, we don’t know 100% that it is, but the odds are pretty high in my humble opinion.
Meanwhile, is Venezuela preparing for Peak Oil? They seems to be learning a lot from the Cubans anyway (who ‘felt Peak Oil’ a long time ago due to political reasons rather than geological ones).

… and finally, otaku go mad again in Japan

This time it’s over the release of Windows Vista.
These launch day events in Japan are nuts.

This story over at MDN’s WaiWai just showed how similar Japan and the UK can be sometimes.
Basically, it seems that the trains in our countries can make us quite grumpy. In Japan, because of the SERIOUS overcrowding (and gropers if you are a woman). In the UK, the late running of the trains.

However, it seems both countries have lots of people who just get annoyed seeing women doing their make-up on the train. (There was a whole bunch of letters sent to Metro Newspaper (the free paper given out at train stations) about the same subject)

Me, well, can’t see what’s wrong with it per-say. I’m sure these women could find the time to do it at home, BUT when I see a lady applying their makeup, I find it amusing rather than filling me with RAGE! Ho-hum.

Seems the Japanese ones have been updated a bit now. There’s some new ones. I quite like the Japanese version of Virus (called Security).

Japan News

It’s always kinda worrying to see how much control those old farts in the Japanese government have over the national broadcaster. In this case, politicians allegedly pressured NHK to change the content of a programme about Japan’s Sex Slavery during WW2.

Another one those old fart politicians made a bit of idiot of himself. Labor and Welfare Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa refered to women as ‘birth-giving machines’. PM Abe was not happy with him for that.

When I was in Japan, the Maid cafe pretty muuch took off. Now it seems, the women in Japan want some of the action (much like the introduction of Host clubs, after having Hostess Clubs for years and years). Now, we have ‘Butler cafes’!

Geekness

A little while back, I reported that they’d starting localising some of the Apple “Get a Mac” adverts, even going as far as having different actors in the Japanese edition.
Well, it seems us Brits are now honoured enough to have our own editions, featuring Mitchell and Webb (Loved watching their show, Peep Show whenever I was flying around with Virgin Atlantic).
The ads include Tentacle, Office at Home, Restarting, Virus, Trust Mac, and Pie Chart. Many of them appear to be refilmed versions of the U.S. ads with the exception of Tentacle and Office at Home which appear to be U.K. specific. Pie Chart though is quite cool though, with some very British English being thrown around.
Reading on one of the Mac forums, a lot of the (US)Americans don’t seem to like the British ones. The British forum posters seem to be split 50/50 about which is best. Me, well, once again PC is the funiest character I reckon. I would love to see what they would do with a British Version of “Network”, the one with the Japanese Camera in it

Hungry for Oil

Caroline Lucas (Green Party MEP) has written in to the Guardian’s online site with quite an interesting article.

Dwindling oil stocks could cause the UK to be vulnerable to food shortages for the first time since the second world war.

It was interesting to read this, along with some stuff in the Sunday Times. This weekend, Yuko and I did a large chunk of our weekly shop from the local Farm Shop. All pretty simple food, lots of fresh vegetables etc etc, along with a cracking piece of lamb leg. We had that last night. MUCH, MUCH better than the food in the supermarket, and a lot cheaper to get the basics. All locally grown in (and certainly UK grown) so less Carbon Footprint. Great stuff. Yuko and I will probably do most of our shopping there, only using Sainsbury’s for some other bulk items (such as beans etc) and the local Japanese & Korean place (yeah, I know that stuff has been shipped in from Japan and has a HUGE carbon footprint, but this is our little luxury ). I still love my Japanese food.
Now, anyway, back to the Times. There was a story in there comparing shoping habits from 2004 and 2006. It seems that the supermarkets, convienience stores and the like have lost out, with street markets, farmers markets and farm shops gaining. Good stuff. Things are changing, slowly. But it will be for the best in the long run.