Oh, Yeah...

I totally forgot to mention something in yesterday's blog post. Specifically, the reason I was at ひげ (the aforementioned bar with who's owner is the guy with the beard).

Last Monday night, Australia faced Japan in the world soccer finals. It's Australia's first time making it to the finals in 32 years, and Thomas and Matt started talking shit with everyone in the dorm about how Australia was gonna kick Japan's ass a month before the day. They didn't want to actually be in the dorm for it (just not in the mood, I think), so they and I went to ひげ to watch the game there while getting drunk.

Fairly early in the game, Japan scored a goal. Soccer is like a 90-minute game, and it wasn't until minute 86 that Australia got a goal, so Japan was leading 1-0 for the bulk of the game. Then boom, boom, boom -- I dunno why it went over 90 minutes, but in under 6 minutes Australia slaughtered Japan with an ending score of 3-1.

Ouch.

The Japanese players on TV looked so depressed, man, as did the news anchors. They got off the soccer game right quick, too. It was bad. And like, Thomas and Matt were like, "WOO! WE WON!" for a few minutes, then stopped and went, "O.o We won. Man, Thomas's roommate is gonna be so depressed." Said roommate, whose name I forget, is a huge soccer nut. He bought a special offical Japan jersey to support the team, even. To be really cliche:

- Walking into a bar to find the bartender asleep with his face plowed in the table: 0 Yen (Approximately $0 US -- bet you would never have guessed)
- Bottle of scrumptious Japanese alcohol to share with your friends: 3,000 Yen (Approximately $27 US)
- Official Japanese Soccer Jersey 23,000 Yen (Approximately $200 US)
- The following picture: Priceless (Approximately... wait...)



Left is Thomas, middle his roommate, right is Matt. Thomas had the shirt he's wearing sent up from Australia to poke fun at the soccer junkies here. Matt always wears the garish yellow jacket. (I know I don't really have room to talk with my bright pants, but the jacket really is garish.) It's funny, because the Aussies would have been happy with a tie... the massacre at the end there was just rude.

Anyway, moving on. I bought FFVII Dirge of Cerberus for the PS2 about 6 weeks ago, but then my free time took a vacation, so I didn't start playing it until a couple of days ago. What I have seen of the story so far has been kind of interesting -- more of Vincent's backstory plus some generic "Oh noes! Shinra remnants again!" stuff. I'm not actually too far, as I suck at action/shooting kinds of games, and this is one. It's not a completely hardcore shooter, mind, or I would be totally screwed, as it uses PS2 controller. There are controls for keyboard and mouse, too, but I don't want to unhook my mouse from my computer to hook it to the PS2, and even if I did, I would want a trackball.

Anyway, FFVII stuff completely aside, the game itself is fun and decent, with me liking the control scheme except for the camera controls. That's not surprising, as camera controls is almost always a flaw in console games, so whatever. If we plug the FFVII-related stuff back in, they do an excellent job of making Vincent look epic/like a badass, and making you feel epic. "Was that a point blank rocket? Two? And an exploding barrel? Oh, I still have over 400 hit points. Potion!" Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that Barret and Cid are clearly shown in the pre-start-screen movie, the only FFVII PC's I have encountered so far are Cait Sith and Yuffie. At least I got to play as Cait Sith for a bit.

Also, the Japanese apparently can't pronounce Cerberus. We pronounce it with a soft C sound. The Japanese? Keruberosu. This gave me an idea that, unfortunately, resulted in the crappiest photoshop job I have ever done because I don't have time to do it properly. I suppose I could have put in a wee bit more effort, but I figured if I was gonna half-ass it, I may as well no-ass it, as it would still get the point across.



Not that that is anything like how the Japanese would pronounce Care Bears, but hey.

In drama club, we have one more day to use the stage before the play opens. The day the play opens, we don't get to use the stage. So... the first day's performance (Performances? I still don't have a clue whether we are doing one or two per day. What a mess.) is going to be in the large classroom we have been using for rehearsal in the other school. And I thought we were badly off with three lights and no spot before. Shoot me now.

Realizations of the Period

1) If an English speaker were going to shorten Cinderella to a nickname, it would likely be something like Cindy. Cinderella is pretty easy to say, though, so we're not likely to do that. It's harder to say in Japanese pronunciation, though, because the beginning of her name doesn't roll off the tongue. シンデレラ [Shinderera]. So she's been dubbed デレラ [Derera].