Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
“Yes. It’s time to get that unlimited download Internet plan.” Too bad this new venture, announced yesterday by Google, is only available in India. Bollywood movies are a lot of cheesy, musical melodramatic fun, and now though Google’s new YouTube Box Office, Indian movie fans will be able to stream the latest Bollywood hits in HD though their personal computers and internet-connected televisions. The downside is that YouTube Box Office is officially sponsored by Intel, which means movie viewers will have to endure short, 15-second ads every ten minutes or so during the course of an average two-hour-long movie. Still, it would be nice to view new flicks like Endhiran comfortably at home without having to rent the DVD, or buy a pirated copy. (CNNGo – Streaming Bollywood) Information about Endhiran is available on IMDb: Android Bollywood.
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“Now more than a year old, the two integrated resorts in Singapore have exceeded all expectations and turned the nation into Asia’s second global gaming superpower.” Talk about fast. There are two casinos in Singapore, in operation for just over a year, and already they are on the verge of generating combined revenues that will surpass those of American gambling mecca Las Vegas. Is Vegas getting slow, or old, or both? In 2006, the Chinese city of Macau, with over three dozen casinos, surpassed Las Vegas to become the world’s largest gaming destination in terms of revenue. According to research, partly conducted by the Royal Bank of Scotland, gambling revenues this year in Singapore will exceed those in Las Vegas by about $200 million. We’re not sure if it should be a point of national pride, at least in America, to be the best at getting folks to indulge in a vice such as gambling; but it is one area in which it is getting harder to honestly say “We’re Number One.” (Jakarta Globe – Singapore Gambles and Wins)
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“For Ms. Graham, there’s a silver lining: somewhere, there’s surely a book or movie deal to emerge from this.” To those of us not native to, or long-term residents of, Japan, geishas and their role in Japanese society remain rather mysterious. They are not prostitutes, but what exactly do they do? For Australian Fiona Graham, the practical solution to answering questions about the geisha was to become one. In fact, she became the only officially recognized foreign geisha in Japan’s history. But that achievement may have just been stripped away from her. Due to her recent insistence on being allowed to operate independently of the geisha house which mentored her. Ms. Graham has been ejected from the Asakusa (Tokyo) Geisha Society. Seems one of the inviolate rules of Japanese geisha culture is that only Japanese citizens are allowed to operate independently once they have completed a certain level of training. For the Australian, there seems to be no way around this rule, and the rift between her and the Association is causing a growing amount of controversy in the geisha world and beyond. (Wall Street Journal Japan RealTime – Australian Geisha Controversy)
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“One incident this past January resulted in the death of one of the bus drivers. The driver was killed after being dragged off by one of the park’s tigers in an attempt to check the bus’s engine.” If you happen to be in Harbin, China, and find yourself at the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park with, say, about $300 burning a hole in your pocket, you can arrange to watch live tigers hunt, kill and eat a live cow. No, this isn’t the kind of spectacle most of us would consider seeking out whilst on a presumably well-deserved, relaxing vacation. But it seems to be a hit with tourists, and the park is getting credit for being one of the largest and most successful tiger preservation facilities in the world. On the other hand, though, the park is being criticized for exploiting the tigers to some degree by making their feeding habits a bit of a spectacle. And a dangerous one at that, as the introductory quote above clearly indicates. (TIME Newsfeed – Tygers, Tygers Eating Right)
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“Slowly, they have begun repairing the damage inflicted when the tsunami flooded the first floor to the ceiling.” Teruo and Katsuko Kano call the life they had before the March 11th tsunami a small one. They had friendly neighbors to whom they often said hello, and had the time and pride retired folks often have to clean their modest home and enjoy the beautiful countryside where they had lived in the Motoyoshi community of for 42 years. The disaster changed all that, but did not destroy the possibility that the Kanos can reclaim the lives they had before. For the past month, they have gone back to their home, which miraculously survived the tsunami, and have begun rebuilding and refurbishing it to make it habitable again. Building materials are scarce now, but they have time. Time enough to complete a big task to regain a “small life”. (MSNBC World Blog – Big Task, Small Life)
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