Ippoippo

“Akira” is getting the live-action big screen treatment courtesy of Leonardo DiCaprio

Why, what is the point? Nothing against DiCaprio, I just can’t see why this needs to be turned into a live-action film.
It may well turn out to be OK, but it certainly won’t be a revelation of a film.

Meanwhile in China

Ahh, good old football rivals… looks like it was a bad-tempered game with China-Japan. (Japan won 0-1… woohoo).

For once, we had good weather on Bank (Public) Holiday weekend. Fantastic.

Saturday was spent down in Cardiff Bay. Yuko and I were not overly impressed to be honest. The Millennium Centre is quite an impressive piece of architecture, and there happened to be a small market on there… but that was it really. The rest just seemed to be over-priced restaurants.

Sunday and Monday was spent back at my folks place, where we enjoyed a rather big BBQ with the parents and sister, bro-in-law and niece.

Soon, the World Cup is upon us… and Bogue found this rather amusing little video about “Football/Soccer vs Rugby”

Soccer

Well, later tonight (tomorrow morning at 01:00 to be pedantic), Australia play Italy in the Football (Soccer) World Cup. Atmosphere in Melbourne should be electric. Yuko and I feel a little tired, so the plan to go down Federation Square has been put off. But, we’ll stay up for the game, and if Australia win, we’ll immediatly head outside to soak up some atmosphere!

That’s screwed up

You do have to wonder about the state of Japan at the moment. Mind you, I guess all countries have their problems. Aussie will have plenty of water problems in the future. Britain will disintegrate into a seething mess of racial disharmony! Aren’t I a cheerful chap

Interesting, from a boring work point of view

Well, as far as my line of work is concerned, this was a VERY interesting story.

The cult of Mac

Looks like Yuko has given me permission to get a Mac. We’ll probably get it just before we leave Australia (that way, I can get the tax deducted). May have to get one of these bad boys with a 7200rpm HDD and 2Gb drive. So… anyone want to buy a 3 year old Compaq Laptop (40Gb, 1Gb RAM, UK spec)?

(Just in case any readers haven’t seen it, read here, and maybe you will understand the sarcastic comment).

Well, it seems that commercial whaling may be coming back. News stories here, and here. Its a very emotive subject. From what I understand, many people in Japan (your normal person on the street) probably doesn’t mind if they don’t eat whale or not. At the moment, it seems like some Nationalists in Japan are pursuing this issue, using the justification (and let’s face it, it is a valid justification when you think about it) that other countries should not be telling a sovereign country (Japan) what to it. Mind you, I’m not convinced by some of their other arguments. For example:

“Whale is abundant,” he says. “The number of fish is falling while the number of whales is rising. Surely the rapid increase in the whale population influences the level of the fish stocks? We need to know more about it.”

Hmmm, nothing to do with the fact that the Japanese fleet is over-fishing to meet it’s own huge fish appetite!

Its a tough one. I personally think that Whales should not be hunted, but I still see that my view is an emotional one.

Talking of seabourne food!

Yuko and I went out on Saturday and ended up having some food at “Tomodachi” in Melbourne Central. Hmmmm, at the risk of sounding like a Japanese food snob, we were seriously unimpressed! In fact, sometimes, the odd plate of sushi on the roller (it was a 回転寿司 or kaiten zushi place) tasted distinctly off. Urghhh. Anyway, we thought “F**k it” and went that evening to a somewhat expensive, but very nice Japanese place, where they had some great sashimi. Yummy

Sporting Weekend

It’s been a pretty sporting weekend. Yuko and I watched New Zealand vs Ireland in rugby. The Irish put up a bit of a fight, so it was an OK game. Shame that Wales and England didn’t play that well! (Well, maybe I’m being a bit too nice to England there… it was amusing to see the Aussies stuff them! Ahhh, that’s a bit more Welsh-like for me )

Of course, yesterday was some more soccer for Australia and Japan. Japan managed to hold on for a draw against Croatia. Australia lost (not suprisingly) to Brazil. Anyway, the 0-0 game with Japan has made that group kind of interesting. It’s certainly given the Australians a chance to get through… but also if all kinds of wierd things happen (which they won’t) Japan can still qualify to the next round.

Yuko and I didn’t bother staying up for that game, but we may do so for the final one. Not sure yet.

On Friday, I also managed to soak up some Aussie culture. Yep, I went off to see an Aussie Rules Football game. Our partner company here invited a couple of people (including me) to one of their corperate boxes at the Telstra Dome to watch St. Kilda vs Adelaide. Adelaide stuffed St. Kilda! Considering Victoria (the Oz State of) invented AFL, their teams don’t seem to be doing very well at the moment.