World cup 2

Last week Japan played Brazil and lost the game. Which means it couldn't make it to the final round. So as far as Japan is concerned, the world cup is over.
Word is that Japan may have to wait more than a decade before it gets another win at World Cups, given that Asia will likely be given fewer places at the next Cup because of its lackluster performance overall, with only one win by South Korea during the qualifying rounds. With fewer places allocated to Asia, and Australia slated to participate in the Asian group from the next time, it's certain that Japan will have a much harder time qualifying for future world cups.
It should be noted that the two Japanese TV stations that got the exclusive right to broadcast Japan’s three games denied allegations that they had negotiated with FIFA to make the games kick off at 3:00 PM local time, which coincides with the prime time in Japan. Of the 32 teams that participated in the qualifying rounds, 17 teams had games at 3:00 PM when it’s still quite hot, and only three of them, Japan, Serbia and Montenegro, and Togo, had two of their respective three qualifying games started at 3:00 PM. Coincidentally or not, the three teams all got eliminated after devastating defeats during the qualifying stage, and they got listed among the worst five teams of World Cup 2006 by a foreign newspaper.

Speaking of Brazil, I bought myself a CD from Brazil last month, Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Wave" though I don’t have a thing for this kind of “easy listening” and this is the first time that I listened to music of that sort. The reason I bought it was that I got to like the design of the CD quite a bit when I took a glance at it at Amazon com. Likewise, the reason the book titled “Argument culture,” which I’ve been reading in fits and starts for a couple of months now, is on the list “Reading” you see on the right side of this blog, which I had created on my own by tweaking the program a little bit, was also because the front cover of the book looked attractive. I usually choose books based on how appealing their front covers look to me.
The "Wave" is not so bad, though not as good as it appears to be.

World Cup

What I’ve been thinking the past two weeks is that blogging is definitely not something I feel like doing during the summer where I live. It’s too hot.

Another thing I was thinking was that I’d like to write in a very fragmented way to make my writing as disjointed as possible, rather than zeroing in on varied topics one at a time, which is what I believe people are supposed to do when blogging.

A secluded ramen shop

I came across a very secluded ramen shop alongside a huge river in Tokyo the other day.

It was a sunny day. As sunny as you can expect a day in June to be.

Bamboos are edible as sprouts, a delicacy we cherish so much in Japan.

Walking in the woods. The cat's eyes were glowing in the dark.

Eating lunch and drinking while looking at a backyard that's nearly as nice to watch and comforting as the ones prepared byMartha Stewart.

I've never seen a ramen shop this secluded before.

The good thing about the backyard is that the woman who's running the restaurant alone seems not to care about weeding it. That's exactly the way I want a backyard to be.