My Biggest Fan

So after the game against Secom I met the sponsors of IBM (besides the company itself) who had turned up for the big game at the national stadium (Chichibunomiya).  Those guys aside, I also met my biggest fan - click here to see.

My second biggest fan was this girl and her parents, along with her friends.

The youngster was practically thrown at me as we were leaving.

The woman on the right is the wife of one of our props, an exceptionally nice guy (as seems to be the case with the tight five in any team) who writes his own blog about food in Japan.  Occasionally he writes about boxing, but seeing as boxing is a dying art and food will never be so, there's a lot more to write about in the world of cakes than the ring.

Purely as an academic exercise as to how often and how much he writes, here is his blog:

http://ameblo.jp/shimoyaman2009/

It's incredible how much he writes.  Of course I can't tell you how good the content is or if his foodie credentials are up to snuff, but I assume through sheer force of volume, he has at least figured a few things out about noodles.

As another purely academic exercise (although this one involves some pictures) here is the blog I stole the picture of me from:

http://ameblo.jp/emifit/entry-11944727753.html

I include this because it has a number of pictures of the team, and the stadium, and from a neutral perspective it might be interesting to see the scale of the place and some other faces in the team - to gain a context for IBM rugby and the league we play in.

It's also my intention to write a review of the recent books I've finished.  The lack of sleep decimates critical thinking, but does wonders for working through backlogs of books.

To try and trigger a google search, here are the names of the books I've recently gone through:

The Hobbit

(The) Silmarillion

Ancillary Justice

Revelation Space

London Falling

So as per my usual timetable, those reviews will be up this time next year.