Dodgeball.

I witnessed in real time yesterday the news of Steve Irwin's death race through the net. I happen to be in the office with nothing to do, waiting for a meeting to start. My first notice came by email, and then within a minute it was on The Drudge Report, then Wikinews, then Google News, then everywhere. The information didn't travel fast because the news was particularly earth-shattering nor because it was particularly surprising (considering his line of work). In fact, I would suggest this is an example of how fast I expect all modern news to travel. It might seem unrealistic on my part or that I have a death-wish to die by information overload, but to me it all seems very natural.

I don't think I have blogged about this yet but it really brought a big smile to my face the other day. For the past two weeks all grades in Shikaoi Sho Gakko having been participating is a Dodgeball Tournament during the morning recess. (Every grade in a Japanese Elementary school is already split by the home room teacher into two fair teams; red and white. Grades 1-3 played in one tier and the older kids in the other.) As chance would have it, I caught only lower tiered games, which, I can assure the reader, was more comedy than sport. I remember in particular a brutal take out by the third graders because a whole group of second graders were busy dancing distractedly in the back of the court. Unfair perhaps, unleashing the grade three's killer instincts on ambivalent and harmless grade two's, but one has to admit the second graders played with spirit. Some of the second graders' play was especially creative; their aim being so awful they often hit unsuspecting people they hadn't been aiming for. When the games ended with no injures I gave a sigh of relief.