With The Pumped Up Kicks
We’re taking this to the end of the month. You’ve got to love this song. And better yet learn it on your guitar. Let’s begin.
The Good Yankee
The Yankees are in town hopefully getting a beatdown. Last week, I spent the weekend with a yankee, Shinagawa-kun, the eponymous antagonist in Yankee-kun To Megane-chan. I watched all ten episodes of last year’s j-drama. My MacBook Pro was hot with all the torrenting and watching of mkv files on VLC. I had a blast.
Yankee-kun To Megane-chan actually was one of the first manga I read in scanlation. It was around the time I learned to love School Rumble. It too has a yankee, the lovelorn Harima Kenji, and I thought he was hilarious, so I went looking for other manga of that ilk. It needs a delinquent and a silly love interest when you plug those into a reference you get Shinagawa Daichi in Yankee-kun To Megane Chan. It also had the funniest girl in manga, Adachi Hana, the megane. I only read a few chapters before I got sick of the scanlation so I never finished it, but it premised has me hooked. I keep hoping for the manga to be brought to the US, but I doubt it. Twenty-three chapter manga about school days don’t stand a chance of being accepted in the US. Just ask School Rumble (O, Kodansha, will you give us the final 4 chapters!)
I really like to know what happens because what I read had me hooked. The premise of the manga is that the delinquent, Shinagawa-kun, the yankee, is dragged into a happy school life by Adachi Hana, the class representative, the worst student, and eventual the student council president. She drags him kicking and screaming into school life. The kicker here is that she too was a yankee the most toughest one in junior high, Hurricane Ada! She’s hellbent on changing her past and she sees Shinagawa as a project to mold into a passable member of school society. The manga was filled with hilarity as she forced him to do good. I wish I could complete it as the story, from reading wikipedia, sounds even more fun. With a cover like this, I couldn’t pass up this manga.
So last week, I found out that they did a J-Drama of the manga last year. I don’t think they did an anime, but a live action show would be the next best thing to getting close to completing the story. I’ll tell you right now that I am a sucker for girls in glasses. That’s why I found Riisa Naka as Adachi Hana so adorable. She nails the part and I was hooked. I immediately started downloading all ten episodes and watched them back-to-back-to-back over several nights. I had fun.
So expect me to rehash this short series here on this blog. I know no one reads anything I recommend, but you have got to watch this show.
Postponed
I would’ve been at the early game of today’s scheduled Yankee-Oriole tilt, but Hurricane Irene caused today’s games to be cancelled. Unlike Joe Gerardi, I’m okay with it. It was a makeup game for another rained out game from April so another week or two doesn’t make a difference. I’m not gonna whine about it. I can wait. Maybe another 14 years.
You have to wait for those baseballs to come flying your way. Maybe you’ll have some light hitting middle infielder taking his cuts, then you’ll have the heavy bomber. You stand close to the wall for the ground rule double, then you back up, way back for the bombs. You’ve got to position right. Catch that ball!
Link of the Day [8.27.11]
I finally get my Yamanaka Sawako nendoroid, and she comes in petit version with a magazine written in Japanese.
It’s like an early birthday present!
http://www.goodsmile.info/product/en/3267/Monthly+Anime+Style+-+Issue+5.html
Call For the Ball
You’ve got to want it. If you’re standing on the wall, call for the ball. Look at a player, call his name, throw your hands up, and yell, “Throw me a ball!” It don’t matter what team. It don’t matter what player. Do it. Call for the ball.
The nephew was shy. He couldn’t even ask Guthrie for a ball. Me? I just yelled, “Hey, Blue Jay throw me a ball!” I had no idea his name. I had no idea his number which was unfortunate as I would usually call them by that — “Hey, 57! Throw me one.”
Sometimes they’ll throw you one. It’s happened. It’ll happen again. Thanks, Nick!
The Truth is 8 Bit
I miss Scully.
Early Gate Time
Last time at Camden Yards, I took my nephew to batting practice. This was for a Blue Jays game. We waited for Jose Bautista to “hit it here” and he did deliver…
Thank You Steve Jobs
I don't know what to say.You've made a fine company.Thank you.May the road rise with you on your next adventure.Best wishes.
This Needs Ghosts
In the morning before the ground shook, I was reading Micheal Chabon’s Maps And Legends and came upon his intro to Casting the Runes, an anthology of M.R. James ghost stories. Chabon celebrates the short story “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad!” as M.R. James’ greatest ghost story. He also laments that the ghost story has fallen out of favor with writers.
I concur. There’s something satisfying about a well crafted ghost stories. A well written ghost story sends shivers up your spine and is a joy to read. You’re frightened and elated and that’s a good feeling.
What I liked about Chabon’s essay was that he went touched upon a few things I noticed about ghost stories — things I felt I should write about too. Here’s where I write about them.
Chabon talked about the first person perspective of most ghosts stories. They are mostly told by a narrator describing ghastly things he has seen or has heard about from a reliable source. Chabon talked about the truthiness of the ghost story accounts. The narrator’s account from a first person perspective — can you trust ’em? Or that they seem almost true. Chabon talked about how they were told on cold winter nights around camp fires. That’s the best time for ghost stories. And they are told, spoken, enough to scare you.
I, too, love the first person perspective of the ghost story. “I don’t believe in the supernatural, but….” They always open like that and you get hooked. I don’t believe in the supernatural but I love the chills I get from reading them. I love ’em in the winter. The darkness. The cold. Under the covers. The darkness. All are conducive to being frightened.
It’s almost fall and the day’s are getting longer. It’s almost time for a good ghost story. “I don’t believe in the supernatural…”
5.9
I'm sure you've already heard about the earthquake on the East Coast. I was down in the basement lab and thought it was just construction until the floor began to quake. Then my stomach felt funny .Everyone was looking at each other on the first shake. Then we got up and left immediately on the continuous second shake. Just a very eventful day.I survived!