DIRTY DEEDS
Bit of a mad week.
Blood was shed.
Only ended up in the ER once though.
The Perthlings are very friendly.
Even the ones whose hands are covered in blood and handcuffed to wheelchairs.
We are making plans for Johnny to get over to the UK which should be a lot of fun.
Also trying to work out what we should do once we get home. We may be going into business for ourselves if we can finalise some of the mad ideas we have.
Johnny introduces me to people as a thong salesman.
We fly to the Gold Coast tomorrow and are in Tokyo four or five days later. We may extend our time in Japan a little if we can. Four days is not a large window and we almost killed ourselves in Hong Kong.
There wasn't any reason why I should hurry back was there?
Mike is blogging to: noise
posted by Sizemore at 2/28/2004 08:54:00 am
0 comments
I watched Battle Royale II last night in Japanese and with no subtitles.
It still blew me away.
I'll rewatch it again in the next few days (I have a new copy now with English subtitles) and probably rave about it some more then.
Let me just mention the opening.
The survivors of the first movie now run a terrorist cell and pull a 9-11 style attack.
Just about ever tall building in the city comes down in the film's first minute.
This may be the first movie to use 9-11 in such a way. It was released in Japan last year, still has no UK release date (as far as I know) and there are no plans to release it in the US because of the opening sequence.
The premise is simple (maybe not quite as good as the original). A new classfull of kids are 'recruited' into the survival programme but this time to fight the terrorists. There is a fun retake of the Saving Private Ryan beach landings but this time with teenagers. And exploding collars.
Takeshi Kitano pops up in some flashbacks (his daughter is leading the assault on the terrorist kids' hideout) but his shoes are mostly filled by one of the leads from 
Now don't forget to clean the keyboard after you've finished...
And you can also find me by searching for 
I now have a month's supply of Mexico pics to sort out. Maybe I'll save that for the LONG flight starting tomorrow evening.
We leave on a Sunday and arrive on a Tuesday.
I always knew we'd have time travel in the 21st century but no one warned me it was going to suck.
Mike is blogging to: Run DMC
And speaking of the dead...
If you haven't got a girlfriend it is NOT going to please you to learn that even corpses are getting more action than you are:
"A 35-year-old Frenchwoman became both bride and widow when she married her dead boyfriend, in an exchange of vows that required authorisation from the French president.
The ceremony was performed at Nice City Hall on the French Riviera.
The deceased groom, a former policeman identified as Eric, was not present at the ceremony. He was killed by a drunk driver in September 2002.
Demichel told LCI television she was fully aware that "it could seem shocking to marry someone who is dead", but said that her fiance's absence from her life had not dimmed her feelings for him.
According to French law, a marriage between a living person and a dead person can take place as long as preliminary civic formalities have been completed that show the couple had planned to marry. Before the ceremony can take place, it must be approved by the French president."
Mike is blogging to: a Mexican dance version of Motorhead's Ace of Spades
Five passengers and a LOT of turbulence.
It didn't help that I was reading a book detailing what happens to the human body during blunt trauma injuries...
Mike is blogging to: nothing
Getting old is cool.
I am hoping all this sun is making me look more like Clint Eastwood's neck before he had it ironed.
Mike is blogging to: oh forget it
Take a group of men from the northern Finnish town of Oulu - population 100,000 - dress them in dark suits with black ties made from the inner tubes of car tyres.
Next, send them out on to the ice floes of the frozen Baltic and get them to shout - in choral unison - at a stranded 10,000-ton ice breaking vessel, and you have got something called Mieskuoro Huutajat.
Otherwise known as the shouting men of Finland, it is more than a bunch of Finns getting things off their chests by upping their decibels.
It is a new art form, and it is taking parts of the world by arctic storm.
Audiences in France, Iceland, Britain and Japan - to name but a few - have already been either entranced or baffled by the choristers of Oulu.
In fact, the choir has grown so successful that one of the screaming Finns, Mika Ronkainen, has just directed a film about them.
"It is like a normal choir", he says.
The compositions are carefully planned - but we do not sing, we scream in unison.
"People seem to like our collective yelling and even pay to hear us. The Finnish national anthem is especially popular".
Mieskuoro Huutajat (Men's Choir Shouters) was formed in 1987 in Oulu, by a group of young men who confess they had nothing better to do.
The idea was to dress about 20 men in distinctive black attire, white shirts and black rubber ties, and train them to shout some of the most beloved songs in Finland.
Since its formation, the choir has toured Europe several times, in addition to the former Soviet Union, the US and Japan.
Its latest venture is taking place on the artic pack ice where the choir - dressed like penguins - has been performing before the crew of an ice-bound ship.
"It is always something the choir has wanted to do", says Mr Ronkainen, "because such antics create a form of absurdity which we find works the best."
Mike is blogging to: nothing that you want to hear
