Nippon ham getting swine flu?!

Yes, you may call it coincidence or a twist of fate, I call it REVENGE!
This is awesome!

the greatest game ever made!

let me tell you how happy i am... actually, words can't capture how I'm feeling right now. the greatest game ever made, プロ野球チームであそぼう (let's play with a pro baseball team), is up and running! it wasn't until last night that i tried it out. i had tried it on the old Aquos and gave up because the lag made the game intolerable to play. the timing in the game, particularly when batting, is incredibly important. with the new Aquos i figured it would be the same story, however it wasn't. last night, just for fun, i plugged it in and i was off! i love this game so much. I've spent more hours playing this game than any other game in my life. 1st, most baseball games are like the real thing, slow paced. プロ isn't. you can play a normal game in about half the time of something like MLB 2K. there are no replays, cut scenes are few and quick, and the pitcher throws right away. the ball travels quickly and fielding is responsive and because throws and what not aren't canned animations (like every other baseball is) the defensive action is fluid and engaging. one of the best things about the game (and another thing that drives me nuts about 'normal' baseball game) is the camera angles. when batting, the angle is the typical umpire's view but you can also see the catcher's mitt and hand. however, where プロ shines is the defensive camera angles. unlike other games, which just pan out and give you an overhead view of the field making fielding the most boring part of every game, プロ puts you in the action by putting the camera right behind the fielder. if there's a hot shot down the 3rd base line, the camera jumps behind the 3rd baseman and you must react quickly. like real baseball. on a crushed home run the camera goes behind the outfielder as you watch helpless. it's awesome! the only baseball game I've ever played that made fielding exciting. there are so many good things about this game, the fluidity, the pace, the commentary, the atmosphere etc., the single best thing about the game, and only possible on the dreamcast is the pitching/hitting mechanic. when pitching, you look at the VMU to select your pitch then select your location. it's beautiful, it's simple. when playing against a human opponent it's perfect. they can't see where you're aiming! when hitting, after the pitch, the VMU tells all kinds of useful information; pitch location, swing location, swing timing, and power. power is decided by timing. you have to hold down the right trigger to ready your swing just before the pitcher comes forward in his delivery and release to swing as the ball comes in the zone. the better you time the pitcher, the more power you generate. once you figure out a pitcher's timing, you'll be spraying the ball all over the yard. some pitchers have hitches in their delivery that make them really hard to time, just like real baseball. timing. all though the game is now 9 years old, I've never played a better baseball game, and probably another game that I've been so attached to. it's dated graphically, i mean, all the players don't have arms or necks or legs (and that's why it's so fluid) and it's limited to exhibition games, a tournament and a single season mode, but it's perfect. it came out before the exodus of Japanese players to the U.S. so Ichiro (イチロー), and Matsui (松井(both of them, Kazuo and Hideki)) and Shinjo (新庄), and Matsuzaka (松坂) and Sasaki (佐々木) are all in the game along with the best team of all time, the Kintetsu Buffaloes (近鉄バファローズ)! if you can get it, get it!

an April/May punch to the face of info!

I'm back! i know i haven't been gone, i mean i put up a bunch of pics of sorts and shouted out about America's racism, but it's time to get down to what's gone down for me since the incident last month.
after getting out of the hospital i had some sweet meatloaf for the 1st time in ages!and then a crazy window washer outside my classroom:a picture from that bad ass curry shop in hatanodai (旗の台) i mentioned in 'the happening...' post:stuff is taaaaaste! mornin's insisted on going there like 3 times since we stumbled upon it the 1st time. it's cool, it's scrumpin good(soon)! i mentioned in that same post that I'd be going to my 1st baseball game of the season. i did. and I've been to 3 others since. I've had a rough year. 4 games, 4 L's... the only saving grace was the Frontale game mornin, meltin and i rocked during golden week, 4-1 beat down! back to the 1st game. mornin, melvis, his lady (we'll call her K2) and i headed to Y-town for a baystars x tigers throw down. didn't turn out for the good guys (sorry deuce!) all because of our starting pitcher, Fukuhara (福原), going too long. F'n new manager, Mayumi (真弓), has made a bunch of bad calls so far this season. It was pretty cool because somebody wrote "しね" on the Giant's mascot! Ha!Ha!
Don't forget to get yourself some Tigers P.C.P.2nd game i went to was for round-face's wedding party. it was good times, first time I've sat home side at jingu (神宮) in about 3 years, and 1st time I've ever rocked my Aoki (青木) jersey. another loss at the hands of B-stars... I'm for sure a much bigger B-stars fan, but since it was round-face's day, it was still a let down (again, sorry deuce!). i did hear some great news that day that I'm not sure if it's cool to post here now, but good news! congrats round-face! get your katsup here!
onto golden week... i had 9 days off, and the 1st was spent watching Frontale whoop Kyoto with a massive 2nd half performance! I expected more from a team that's all about the "Hardcore Naked!"my boys! (they had a big 3-2 comeback 2 days ago over 1st place, and hated rivals, the Urawa Reds, in Urawa! their 1st home loss of the year! Forza Kawasaki!)　before the season opener melvis, mornin and i had our pic taken for a game day program but we couldn't go to the game that it was for because it was a Wednesday. luckily, mornin found a back issue at the 2nd game and POW! there we were:Too bad the reporter messed up and said that we were from Kawasaki city, Ota-ward (川崎市大田区)... It's actually Tokyo (東京). Which we told her.
tight! right? for the next couple days mornin and i just hung out, watched some TV and that was about it, it was good times.
next, i found some Jesus Body, just read it, and be amused:melvis and i tried a mini-T.O.C. with dude? and melvis failed! next time bro! mornin and i next headed out for a game up in Saitama (埼玉), her 1st trip to the stadium since it had a dome put on it. i wanted to get one of the new Lions jersey and it is sweet! but we were there to cheer on our Golden Eagles!Stupid lady in the bottom walked to much, otherwise the pan-o-rama woulda been a bit better... another loss... next couple days dude? and i rocked another mini-T.O.C. and mornin and i just chilled some more. to wind up golden week, mornin and i went over to Jingu for a Tigers x Swallows game in a (at times) driving rain. another loss... so to quantify my record on the year is 1-1-4... my next scheduled game isn't until June 3rd up in Sapporo, our fightin Hiroshima Carp taking on the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. hope i can get another win on the board!
most recent action was Mr. infidel's going away party. he's heading back to the U.S. to hit up law school, go on boy! the party was intense, some dancing, some capoeira, and a ton of drinking! as far as i can remember, my final count was: 3 tall boys of beer, 2 tall boy chu-his, 3 cups of beer, 2 cups of something called 'reggae punch', 3 cups of vodka and some juice and a shot of tequila... it was a wicked night. gonna miss Mr. infidel, but i know in a few years i'll have a lawyer who'll hopefully hook me up pro bono! bu-ya!

What may be vol. 42!?

I actually recorded a "show" today! I talked about my mostly boring month of March, my probably busy month of April, the games that I've been playing, and I called out Apoc D! By the way, I didn't listen to this, so I could be guilty of exactly what I called him out for...

WBrC in Cincinnati!

anyone? anyone? the WBC is all over. didn't know? you don't live in Japan. it was ridiculous. people all around the country, people who couldn't care less about baseball the other 51 weeks of the year were geeked for the WBC. it was pretty exciting. one thing that was funny, and apoc touched on this a bit on his show, was that students were pretty surprised when i told them that Americans don't care about it. i was asked by nearly every student (especially after the U.S. lost) who i was rooting for in the Japan x U.S. game. i told them that i was rooting for Japan because i like the players better, and because i think it's more important for Japanese people. Americans don't care. i also thought that it was a good thing that the U.S. lost because (i hope) it will embarrass them and (hopefully) make them take it more seriously next time. i think that if the U.S. had won either of the 1st 2 WBCs we would keep sending out the same tired old slobs like we did in basketball. until we got embarrassed and then got serious. hopefully, we'll get serious next time...
anyway, MLB is more important. let's see, over 130 years of history vs. 3...

although there were several (most) games that were unwatchable blowouts (there are fewer "called" games in little league!), there were also a few really good, classic games. the 2 best games would have to have been the 2nd match up of Holland and the Dominican Republic. a great game with great drama. also i gotta say the title game between Japan and Korea was one of the most exciting games I've ever seen. that being said, there need to be some changes... 1st: the double elimination format is stupid, at least for the entire tournament. what's wrong with a round robin format for the 1st couple rounds? it's good enough for the world cup. I'd also like to see Japan play someone other than Korea (5 times!) and Cuba. they were in the same groups as 2 teams they never played (Taiwan and Mexico). there's been talk of expanding the number of teams for the next WBC with play-in round(s) and i am down with this! why are there only 3 countries from the Caribbean? and one from South America? finally, don't ever again put 2nd round games in Dolphins Stadium! it's a freakin football stadium! it's built to hold 80,000 people and when you have a game between 2 teams from different countries in a country that doesn't care about the WBC to begin with, 78,000 empty seats doesn't look good on TV. how about letting another country hold the 2nd round? or how about all of it? at least keep the games in baseball stadiums...
by the way, no games were actually played in Cincinnati.

Mexico's uniforms and Korean pitcher's heads wreaking havoc on advertisers everywhere...

i just thought this was funny...

Manny man!

Oh yeah! Did you hear? Manny finally signed with my Dodgers! Wahoooooo! I love Manny! He's suck a dick, but he's also the best right handed hitter (along with Edgar) in the past 40 years. I do sometimes wish he was a little bit more "role modelly" but I love his fun natured play style.He's a hitter and only a hitter, but with the way he hits, that's enough. I always knew he would be back with the Dodgers, but I must admit that I was a little worried... just a bit...

While I'm at it, Hooooooooouuuuuushhhhhhh! TJ Houshmanzhada (or something like that... actually, it appears to be TJ Houshmanzada. Damn I was close) has signed with the Hawks! Welcome to town! Over the past few years the Seahawks have become a heaping pile of receivers from all around the league, and last year we were plagued by injuries, I heard on one of the podcasts I was listening to yesterday, maybe 7 injuries for the receiving core last year... I'm happy to have Housh back in the great PacNW! This does beg the question about Crabtree, the Texas Tech Uber-menche, freak of nature that many experts had going to the Hawks with the 4th overall pick in the NFL draft... he woulda be nice to have... are we still gonna take him? I'm thinking that with the acquisition of Houshman, we might end up trading the pick to avoid paying top 5 rates for a college kid... T.O.'s on the market... he's a cancer, but he's a damn fine receiver...

Photos procured from Google

splat!

my knee still hurts, i got sick again, and i don't know if fable 2 has an ending... on the bright side i've almost recovered from my cold! and next saturday i'll be at the frontale game with mornin and melvis! i'm psyched! this time of year is pretty boring. football ended and soccer and baseball haven't started yet. we've got hockey and basketball, but without the sonics i don't care too much about either of those until the playoffs. college b-ball until march madness. selection sunday is in 2 weeks! and the dawgs clinched at least a share of the pack 10 championship! i have been watching Japan's warm-up games for the WBC, but they are pretty boring. the real thing will be more interesting but nothing compares to actually being out at the stadium, watching a game with a smuggled beer or 7. other than that, life's been pretty average. just lots of working. i need a vacation i think...
Good news! There's gonna be a sequel for Red Dead Revolver coming out this year (Fall) called "Red Dead Redemption." I'm looking forward to that. The first one was pretty good, pretty original idea at the time and pretty decent game play. I hope the sequel ends up being just as good.

some roarin good news!

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Saitama Seibu Lions are going to change their uniforms if you haven't heard! Sweeeeeet! Let's take a look at what they have been rockin recently:
The uniform on the right in this picture is basically what they had been wearing for many years prior to the most recent incarnation:
And last year they brought out some really nice throwbacks, the Nishitesu Lions uniforms from when they were back in Kyushu:
And finally, the newly introduced, nod to the throwbacks, uniform that the team will be going with starting next year!

Summer `08 vol. 1 (vol. 26!) beer!

feast on my hairy tomatoes! 1st episode of the summer `08 season is in the books! Just news!
by the way, I accidentaly called out Dale Ellis, I`m sorry for that Dale, you`re a good guy! I meant Nate McMillan, eat it Cap`n Mac!

the sweet smell of victory!

On Sunday mornin and I headed over to Jingu Stadium for our 3rd game of the season, 2nd T-gres game of the season, and 1st victory! We arrived at the stadium at about 3:45 and proceeded to head to the end of the line... keep in mind, the game did not start until 6:20... we walked, and walked, and walked... finally, we got in line about a half a mile from the stadium! Ridiculous!In this picture you can't even see the stadium, you can see a large fence in the background which is the back side of a driving range, and the stadium is on the other side of the range... and the line winds... ridiculous! So, no more unreserved seats for Tigers games unless the reserved seats are all sold out...

So, on the way in to the stadium, I saw a bunch of flags that said "New Jingu, New Swallows". "New Swallows" I understood because they lost several players in the off-season, but I didn't know that Jingu was "new'. Jingu is my favorite stadium in the Tokyo area because it's small, it's old, and it's a great place to see a game, very nice sight lines, great atmosphere, so what's new? Well, 1st, and most important, they replaced the astro turf with brand new field turf! That is very good news! About time! Why they didn't go for grass, I'm not sure, it would have been the better choice, since it's an outdoor stadium, but of course, it's more expensive, so the field turf is OK I guess. What else is new? Well, let me tell you! Not much. They also added new video screens in center field (it seems), and behind home. I think the one in center is new, I could be wrong, but it seems a bunch clearer and bigger than it used to be. The screen behind home is for sure new because now it shows what is on the big board in center instead of just displaying the score. Aside from those changes, the only other thing that seems to be different is that there are some new concourse shops. I'll give the renovation an B. I think the field change was great, they kept the basic feel of the stadium the same, with some minor improvements, the only thing that could have been better would be grass!

fure~! fure~! fure~! fure~!

So as I said, I went down to Yokohama on Friday to take in my first Tigers game of the season and luckily we had a break in the weather and it was a really nice day. I went down very early and hopped in line about 4 hours before the game and there were already probably more than 100 people in line ahead of me. Tigers fans are something else. I was able to get some nice pictures of the tulips around the stadium before the game, here!
Here's where I waited in line...it rained the day before and the ground was still pretty muddy, so I stood for about 2 hours...
Here's the line behind me. This was about 1 hour before the gates opened.
We lost, and Kanemoto waited until the next day to get his 2000th hit... A bit disappointing, but, still fun to be out at the game!

ahhhh, spring...

Well, well, well, the weather is warming up, the flowers are blooming, you know what that means? BASEBALL! Last week, on Wednesday, Myself and my homies (mornin, meltin faces, deuce, and kangaroo Jimmy) headed down to Yokohama stadium near Kannai to take in our first game of the new season, soooo stoked! I mentioned on the show there was a lot of drinking involved, and we lost, but what an incredible feeling... being back at the ballpark. It's so natural, it's so... so... great. I love being out at the stadium. So, I talked about most of it in the podcast probably, but I wanted to share some pictures...Here's my boys chillin down at Yamashita Koen (yeah, that's the name I couldn't come up with during the show, thanks meltin faces!)

Here they are from a little further back.

Pre-game Yokohama stadium, about 2 hours before the game, empty.

Rockin!

I love the expression on the lady behind them! Comedy Bronze!

Game Time!

Well, there you have it, that was the game, there are many more good pictures from that day, you might see some in later posts... doesn't it just scream SPRING!? Well, if not, how about a look at a some cherry blossoms? These were taken along the Meguro river in G-town!

So spring has sprung (lame) and the cherry blossoms have come and are on their way out, but baseball will be with us for 7 more months baby! This friday I'm heading back to Yokohama for my first Tigers game of the season, with another game (at Jingu) on the 20th, stoked!

6 months lost... post #1: "Play balls!"

Here's a post I wrote way back when (maybe may?) but never put up. I'm putting it up now because if I wait to put pictures with it, it might never show up. So, pictures will come later, enjoy!


Hey hey hey! So it's that time of year again, the smell of the grass, the crack of the bat, and the drinking of the beer. It's a great thing. Over here the baseball season starts slightly before the start of the season back home, and so this year I got out to my first game on April 1st. This season started in Yokohama, at Yokohama stadium with a game between the Yokohama Baystars, and the Yomiuri Giants. The day began with a trip to a penis festival in Kawasaki (that'll be saved for another post) and ended up with a blowout. The Giants put a beating on the Baystars 10-1, with Yokohama's 1 run coming late in the game, while several of our companions were on the way home with someone who had a bit too much to drink in the scorching hot sun. Seems that baseball + beer + heat seems to spell disaster fairly regularly.

Two days later I headed deeper into Tokyo to Jinju Stadium to root on my Hanshin Tigers against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. It was a real exciting game with spats of rain, a grandslam by Kanemoto (on his B-day), Esteban Yan's Japanese debut, and a free hamburger (given to me by a fellow Tigers supporter) all rolled into a 4-3 Tiger's win. This sweet game was the home opener for the Swallows, however it was far from a sell-out and heavily populated by Tigers fans. Roughly 2/3rds of the crowd was Tigers fans. It was great.

April 7th came around and it was off to Urawa up in Saitama to take in my first J-league game. I must say I'm not the biggest soccer fan, however I have been to a World Cup match, for the experience mostly. I am a fan of the Urawa Red Diamonds (known more commonly as the Urawa Reds), mostly because my favorite Japanese player plays for them. The stadium, Saitama Stadium 2002, which is also the Japanese National Team's stadium of choice, is a bit far from me, but it was worth the trip. Reds fans are super! hunbun and I got there close to 2 hours before kickoff, and all of the seats in the super fans section were already taken, so we ended up sitting just to the left (our left) of them. I'd say that they were just about as exciting as the game itself which ended in a 2-1 comeback victory over Jubilo Iwate. Thrilling victory really.

To wrap up the month of April, Deuce and his lady and I headed back to Yokohama Stadium, this time for a game between the Baystars, and the Chunichi Dragons who were in 1st place at the time. The game was really good, the Baystars were able to come away with a 5-4 victory, the key was that the Dragons' big bopper, Tyrone Woods, struck out 4 times, most of them with men on base. Suck it Woods! The day ended with a trip to good ol' An An, scrumptious!

Osaka suckaz!

So last week I went out to Osaka and visited Dude? for a few days. It was good times. The best part was visiting Koshien Stadium and playing a round of "beer an inning." We both made it through the 9 beers that we smuggled into the stadium (in addition to some beer that an old guy in front of us bought for us, and about 5 or so tall boys that we finished off before the game too) I was real drunk, but as for dude? he ended up super dehydrated with some unfortunate results. But all-n-all it was a good trip, drank some beer, played some Xbox 360, traded some music, and went to some place called "bikuri donkey," which means (for some reason) "surprise donkey." Yeah, and the place looked like a pile of garbage that landed on top of a Family Mart, as dude? said. pics'll be up on Flickr tomorrow. Anyway, it's a hamburger steak restaurant, which, for some reason is a popular food here... It was ok, but too expensive. But it was good, first time out of Tokyo since I arrived, and it was really nice to get out of here, and not so good to come back...