The end of the rainy season

Finally the Japan Meteorological Agency announced the end of the rainy season in Tokyo. It was very long rainy season this year.

And finally summer has come. There are many kind of festivals in summer, especially fireworks displays!! I love them! There has been a festival in my neighborhood last weekend. Hooray!

But I hate too muggy, too humid Japanese summer. Have a patient for about one and a half month.

The first encounter with bad taste curry

I went to a family restaurant and ordered beef curry today. But it tasted bad! I can't believe that CURRY is taste bad! It was for the first time to eat tasteless curry for me!

In Japan, EVERYONE likes curry. Japanese curry is much different from authentic Indian curry and Japanese curry is Japanese dish in a sense.

One of the Japanese children's most favorite foods is curry.
Typical dish cooked at camp is curry.
Dish kids cook for the first time is curry.

And anyone can cook curry deliciously.

So I was very very surprised that I ate that curry... It was like spicy beef stroganoff with much ketchup, I haven't eaten such a dish though.

Aflac Duck

I got an Aflac's mascot yesterday. If you put its tummy, the duck sings theme song of Aflac TV commercial.

Let's think carefully---. Money is important---.
Aflac, Aflac, Afla--c!

<-- It doesn't look like a duck?

Waste of time

Suddenly, I couldn't send mails from my PC address to my cell phone address today. There was no problem till yesterday though. I set my PC mail system to transfer its mails to my cell phone so I could read mails I received anywhere at any time. But no mail was sent to my cell phone today! Too bad and inconvenience!

I was trying to make many kind of investigations into the cause of it. And then I called a support center of cell phone. An operator indicated some operations but I have done all of them before calling. After that, I mailed support centers of both PC mail and cell phone. I struggled against this problem for about 4 hours without having a meal!

During I write this article, my cell phone is receiving many mails one after another. Wow! It was fixed!

Hmm... It was definitely due to server of cell phone mail. Boo... I wanted to go to bed early because of lack of sleep. BOO---!

My cell phone is keeping receiving trapped mails now.

The deterioration of a situation in Lebanon

Israel's attack against Shiite Muslim militant groups "Hizbollah" based in South Lebanon, is intensifying. Many unrelated civilians including children were killed. Terrible.

Finally, Israel bombed the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and 4 Ceasefire Monitoring Committee Personnel, an Austrian, a Canadian, a Chinese and a Finish, were killed.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan accused Israel of obvious intentional attack in his statement.

I can't mention deeply Arab-Israeli dispute because there are many immeasurable issues and deep history and it's hard for me to understand that.
But I can criticize the U.S. The reason that the U.S. always side with Israel sucks big time. As is well known, there are many many Jewish voters in the U.S. If anyone is against Israel's behavior, he (or she) can't be elected, can't be president.

My bad listening comprehension #4

Title of today's English dialogue I study was "Shipment". I heard a word "customs decoration form" in the dialogue. decoration??

Yes, right word is "Customs declaration form".

I'm seldom able to catch pronunciation of "la" in this case. Whew...

My bad listening comprehension #3
My bad listening comprehension #2
My bad listening comprehension #1

Doyo no Ushi day

It's the Doyo no Ushi day (the day of the ox in midsummer) today. I don't know the origin of it. It is Japanese traditional day and we eat broiled eel at the day. It is said that eel is good for prevention of summer weariness. It's the wisdom of the people of the past.

I ate it today of course. Eel is not reasonable food though...

<-- Today's my supper, broiled eel on rice.

My English conversation skill is still poor.

I talked with foreigners in English after a long interval. Hmm...

My English show no improvement at all!!

Magma spa

~~~ Today is the Marine day.

Bedrock spa is becoming popular in Japan now. But I heard "Magma spa" today. It seems that the magma spa's benefits are bit different from the bedrock spa's one. I didn't think I wanted to go the bedrock spa but I'm a bit interested in the magma spa. I checked it on the Internet. Hmm... It's not so expensive. But I don't like taking a sauna... I wonder it's similar to the sauna. I think I will try it sometime.

I need an iPod?

I listen English-learning CD every day on my OLD CD Walkman. I got it about 15 years ago. It is very durable, I don't see any person who has such an old equipment recently though. Haha. It doesn't matter for me because I use it only for listening the English-learning CD, it's a bit heavy though. But recently it has poor audio. Hmm... I wonder it's time I bought new equipment.

My cell phone is Vodafone, and SoftBank Corp. bought Vodafone in Japan. Where have I heard that SoftBank announced they would release the cell phone with iPod function in collaboration with Apple Inc? I'm not a heavy user of cell phone and I must use iPod only for learning English even if I buy it. So it's good for me to have one equipment that has both functions, cell phone and iPod, rather than having two separate equipment.

But there is no announcement of that on SoftBank and Vodafone websites, I checked their press release back numbers though. Did I dream??
My TOO big equipment

Blonde hair turns brown as kids get older?

I like babies and toddlers very much. I sometimes see blogs that parents put on their kid's photos. They are ve--ry cute!

There is a thing I wonder. Although both father and mother have dark brown hair, their kid's hair is blonde. Why? It is not uncommon? I don't know about it, because I was born and grew up in Japan so most people around me have black hair. (There are many people who color their hairs though.)

I wonder if blond hair is recessive heredity like blood type O. Or it turns brown sometime?

Oops! my futon is...

Although it's rainy season, it was sunny day (and terrible muggy day as ever) today. So I *aired out my futons and went to a neighborhood restaurant to have a breakfast.

I had a breakfast, read a newspaper and studyed English at the restaurant, then I went back my place. On my way home, it was getting cloudy, and it started sprinkling a little. Oh, I leave the futons putting out on the veranda. I thought I must have hurried back. And then, it began to rain shower. Shoot!

It was pelting down with thunder and lightning for about an hour. And then, it is sunny again now. The weather forecast didn't mention the showers. Boo...

-------------------------------------------
* airing out futons
Most Japanese air out their futons sometimes. People who don't do that are... for example dirty men who live alone...

Finding a new coffee shop

It's TOO muggy. I already can't wait for autumn.

I found a new coffee shop I had never seen the other day. It's "Seattle's Best Coffee". There are many (too many) coffee shops from other countries, such as Starbucks, Excelsior Caffe etc. But I saw it for the first time so I tried to enter the shop. Although it's coffee shop, there were some kinds of tea. I prefer tea to coffee so I liked it. But according to the website of the Seattle's Best Coffee, there are only 4 in Tokyo, there are 207 Starbucks though. What a pity.

Movie: The Da Vinci Code

I went to see the movie, The Da Vinci Code today.

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thedavincicode

Hmm... It mostly stuck closely to the original, it means it scratched the surface of the story. The original is more complicated and deeper. For example, there are deep stories about Silas, but I think people who don't read the original think of him as a mere lunatic. But it can't be helped. It's difficult to condense such an original into about 2 hours.

Did you read the original and watch the movie? There was one thing that was MUCH different from the original. To be more exact, the thing was different from MY IMAGE.
When I read the original, I though Lt. Collet who was Captain Fache's subordinates was still young, late 20s or early 30s. But!! I was very very surprised because he was a middle-aged man in the movie. What!! He looked like even older than Captain Fache.

Is it Ron Howard's image?

My general comment on the 2006 World Cup

The World Cup has finished. I really enjoyed it, I often blame soccer though. I knew many foreign players I hadn't know, so I intend to take note of European soccer more than ever.
Most articles in this blog these days were about the World Cup. It is the last article about it, maybe. Thank you for entertaining me with nice playing.

I tried to choose MY AWARDs.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Best Player Award _/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Klose (Ger_FW) and Lampard (Eng_MF)

Their positioning was very good and they were good passers. (Although Klose is a FW.) And they seldom overbalance even if opposition player hits them. Lampard couldn't play so well this World Cup, but it's enough for me to know his ability.

It's notable that they don't do soccer's typical bad things most players often do. Top players of top players are superior on not only playing but also mentality.



_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ New Face Award _/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Lahm (Ger_DF)

He is still young, 22 years old. And he is 170 cm tall, very small. (Actually He and I stand at even height. Haha. I'm tall as a Japanese woman.) But he ran and ran a---nd ran all around the pitch and made a lot contribution to the team that was the 3rd place.

When I saw his playing, I always wondered why his cheeks went red and its shapes were triangle.




_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Coach Award _/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Australia's coach Hiddink

He is really a good coach. At the 1998 France, his team Netherlands placed in the top 4. It's no wonder because Netherlands is on of soccer superpowers. But he placed in the top 4 again at the head of Korea at the 2002 World Cup! His ability as a coach was called "Hiddink's magic" at the time.
This time, I thought Australia was very good team. Unfortunately they were defeated by Italy but they played very well and I thought they would win the game against Italy. Italy won the cup. I think it represents how great Australia team.



_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Best Team Award _/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Germany

I was cheering for England and Ukraine, especially England. There were many talented players in England team.
But I choose Germany team for this award.
There are many young players, and both young and experienced players did well together. Prior evaluation of them wasn't good but they placed the 3rd. They were growing in the World Cup and became a good team.



_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Special Award _/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Japanese chief referee Kamikawa

Referees are also tournament system like games. Only good referees can be in charge of next game. Kamikawa refereed just one game at the last World Cup. This time, he refereed 3 games including the 3rd-place match with a Japanese assistant referee Hiroshima, result of Japanese soccer team was terrible though. We are proud of them. In fact, Kamikawa's judge was very good!
I didn't know referees also could get medals. They got bronze medals as with Germany.



_/_/_/_/_/_/ Nice-looking Award _/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Friedrich (Ger_DF)

My friend said she wasn't interested in the 2006 World Cup so much but she watch games. Especially she checked cool guys. Oh---! I forgot to do it because I was watching games with fascination. I might have missed out on any cool guys?






~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's it for the Awards of MY CHOICE. By the way, real awards are followings.

Golden Ball Award ==> Zidane (Fra_MF)

Golden Shoe Award ==> Klose (Ger_FW) 5 goals

Best Young Player Award ==> Podolski (Ger_FW)
(Qualification is all players born on or after 1 January 1985.)

Les Bleus vs. Azzurri -- the World Cup final game

France vs. Italy. Italy won by a shoot-out.
Astonishing result. Zidane was sent off for an off-the-ball incident in which Materazzi was butted in the chest. The game was Zidane's last game as a professional though...

Person of the match I choose is Gattuso. If you see his gutsy playing, you can understand why his nickname is "Ringhio". It means a mad dog's growl. Haha. His contribution to the team in this World Cup was very great.
But surprisingly, he seems to be a funny and facetious guy. After the game, Italy's players were cavorting of course. But those of them were too funny! I thought it was "the merry Italian"! And the most humorous person was Gattuso. I liked his character.

It is becoming a hot topic what Materazzi said to Zidane. There is a lot of speculation. A media of Brazil that read it using lipreading said that he called Zidane's sister a whore. The Associated Press and Britain newspaper Guardian said that he called Zidane a terrorist. BBC said it was insult to Zidane's mother. A French TV station said it was insult to Zidane himself who is an Algerian immigrant child. I can't believe! Of course, Zidane's behavior was very bad but if it is true, shame of you, Materazzi. Many soccer players, especially Portugal and Italy, fight the game with "words", not playing. I often say I don't like both of teams because they often do typical bad things of soccer, dirty plays, simulations, complaining to judges too much... But I came so close to liking Italy team because they did very very well in the final game. But Materazzi made me lose this feeling. He is terrible as a player, no, as a human. But it seems that no Italian blames him and he is a hero in Italy. It's hard to believe. And most terrible thing is that such a behavior goes unmentioned in the soccer world.


Merrymaking Italian!

The Germanic spirit -- the World Cup the 3rd-place match

Germany vs. Portugal.

Germany is in a pinch! The Deutschen Fussball-Bundes announced that DF Mertesacker wouldn't show up for the game. He is injured and has left from the team for surgery. Oh... Moreover DF Friedrich also has an injured knee so his appearance is doubtful. Oh, 2 defenders...
And Klose is injured too. He said that he want to play but if he can't make a contribution to the team even if he plays there would be nothing he can do except give up.
Furthermore!! Germany's coach Klismann said that he makes Ballack absent. Oh, my goodness! I'm concerned about this situation... Germany team! Show us your Germanic spirit!

By the way, Japanese often use the word "the Germanic spirit" when talking about Germany. Do people in other countries often use it as well?

Klinsmann also announced that GK Kahn is in the starting lineup.

It's time that game started. I will come back to this article after the game. See you later.

------------------------------ after the game ------------------------------

The game was a clean sweep for Germany, 3 - 1. So Klinsmann could afford to send young players who hadn't play yet in this World Cup to the pitch from the second half.

Person of the match I choose is Schweinsteiger. He is still 21 years old. 9 players out of 23 in Germany team are 20 - 23 years old young players. Especially DFs. 4 players out of 9 are under 23. (Of which 3 are over 190cm in height. Very ta--ll!) This World Cup was very good experience for them.

By the way, a chief referee and one of assistant referees of this game were Japanese. I think the chief referee Kamikawa judged rightly. Cristiano Ronaldo often fell down in a very artificial way as ever, but the referee saw through his artifice and was never deceived. What a nice judge!

Congratulations on the 3rd place!

One article wrritten by one soccer journalist

I often wrote about bad side of soccer and some teams do those things very often. I found the article similar to my opinion. It was written by a British soccer journalist living in Japan. I extract passages from it. (I translate it so there must be many strange English in spite of the article in a newspaper. Sorry.)

===========================================
Show us "Beautiful Portugal" at the end

In the Portugal team, there are players who have brilliant talents, especially Cristiano Ronaldo. But there are also players who mirror the bad part of modern soccer, yes, one of them is Cristiano Ronaldo. When this young winger comes back to the Man U, he will be treated harshly by even fans of Man U. It is due to his role in Rooney's direct red. The revulsion against him is very strong and he was booed by even fans of France in the semifinal game.
His play is speedy and he is good at controlling the ball, but he can't quit playing foul. He falls down in a very artificial way and always aims for chance of FK, PK and cards against opposition players.
----- *snip* ----
If Portugal team concentrates on showing every good parts of soccer, it's fun to see their games. But they often do gamesmanship and spend a lot of time misleading a judge rather than playing. Especially they have a pronounced tendency to do that at being wining.
Figo also should serve as a model for young players in the world, instead of pretending to be injured or repeating complaining a judge. I guess I'm not only one who rejoiced at seeing that Figo's header went wide of the goal in the semifinal game.
----- *snip* ----
Portugal has one more game that is the 3rd-place match.
----- *snip* ----
Taking this opportunity, I think Portugal and Germany have a duty to entertain people in the world. I hear the word "the beautiful game" many times in the World Cup, but it is not so beautiful so far. There are few people who remembered which team won the 3rd-place match. The game is not expected for big things.
So I think both of teams have role to enjoy playing with smile and show fun like things soccer usually creates in the world. Or I wonder this hope is too high even in the 3rd-place match.
===========================================

Whew... It was too hard for me to translate it...

Oh, my favorite views are...

I live near the skyscraper in Shinjuku. I also grew up around here. So I like skyscraper views very much. When I come back from trip and see the view, I am relieved.

I can see the view at all around my neighborhood. Some of them that are my favorite are disappearing.





There are 2 highways around my place. There has been construction at one of them. Oh, no! New highway interrupts my favorite views of skyscraper! Shock! Boo------!!

The right photo was my most favorite view. The skyscraper visible from between 2 buildings. Especially night view was beautiful. But this view is mostly disappearing...

the Wimbledon tennis championships vs. the Soccer World Cup

The Wimbledon tennis championships is being held now. It is one of the biggest tennis tournaments, isn't it?

Hmm... Which game are British grooving to?

Tanabata day

Today, 7th July is "Tanabata" day. It is the day Altair and Vega meet at the Milky Way once a year. In our tradition, we (mainly kids) write our wishes on different colors of "tanzaku" and put it on bamboo leaves.

What wishes do you write?

Hospitalization of the manager of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks Oh

Sadaharu Oh takes a leave of absence from his post as manager of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks to have stomach surgery. Many people are surprised. It's in the middle of the pennant race now. He must have many regrets. He led Japan to the championship in the World Baseball Classic in March and won. He might get more and more tired.

The Fukuoka Softbank Hawks got the first place in the Pacific League pennant for the second consecutive year, but they missed league title by playoff. (The Pacific League playoff system is really hogwash!) So they definitely want to win.

I think Oh is well-known in the U.S. too. He is the home run king in the world. He compiled 868 homeruns.

Cute kids in the World Cop

Players enter the stadium with kids hand in hand. This role is very honor for kids and they must be very happy. They stand by world's top players. (Probably competition is very keen.)

Sometimes I find very small kids among them. Very small. How old are they? It seems that they don't understand why they are there. Haha. Probably people who are proud and happy are their parents and other families. But a few years later, those small kids might realize they were in wonderful place.

Germany's players and kids

France's elegant plays -- the World Cup semifinals 2

France vs. Portugal. Score was only France's one goal and it was PK. I'm glad that France won but I feel sorry for a Portugal's player who gave France PK. He must be depressed very much.

Person of the match I choose is... France's defense. (It's not a person this time.) France's defense is excellent, wonderful, perfect!! Italy's defense called Catenaccio is very famous but it seems be the defense by force. But France's defense is very systematic and even elegance.

When Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo kept a ball, he always drew boos from the crowd. According to a newspaper, it may be due to his behavior on red card of England's Rooney. I also felt bad to see that he ran to a judge (very fast!) and took the lead in complaining although he wasn't a party in charge. Of course most stupid person at the time was Rooney though.

I found the nicknames of Portugal's Deco. He has three nicknames and "Deco" is one of them. Another is "Magico" its meaning is "magician". And "Japones". Its meaning is "Japanese". Why? Does he look like a Japanese? Hmm... Maybe.

Taepodong

During I watched the World Cup, Germany vs. Italy, North Korea launched missiles. So topic of it covers most part of news.

At first, media didn't have much information about it but most news programs were taking much time for it. Stupid. They had no accurate information so they just talked with invited critics about hypothetically speaking hours upon hours. And critics say nothing but ubiquitous things as ever. It was very boring. It is same situation as election reporting. I think those are self-satisfaction of media and journalists. Please carry the correct things accurately, and COMPACTLY.

North Korea launched 7 missiles. What is their objective? I heard that the launch for the 1st missile was almost same time as the launch for the space shuttle Discovery. Hmm... I wonder it represents something?

Host nation Germany dissipates -- the World Cup semifinals 1

Germany vs. Italy. Extra game again. I wanted Germany to win but... Almost. 0 - 0 continued but Italy got a goal at the 119-minutes! In a minute. And Italy got a goal again soon.

Person of the match I choose is Grosso. I think his goal was greater that Del Piero. When he scored a goal, he looked REALLY HAPPY. He was almost crying.

Germany did well but they seemed to be tired. After England and Ukraine I cheered for were defeated, I hoped that the semifinal was Germany vs. France, and Germany won the cup. Like I said before, I don't like soccer of Italy and Portugal. They play dirty pool. I wrote that there was no sportsmanship in soccer. Dirty plays, simulations, complaining to judge too much... They sometimes keep having a ball and don't give it opposing team in spite of the opposing team's ball. What a childish behavior! Portugal's Deco did it although he is one of the top players, so he didn't come into the next game. Italy and Portugal are teams that do those behaviors so very often.

The game France vs. Portugal will start soon. Good luck for France!

Men's crying remains me my days as a player.

Two of four quarterfinals games were decided in penalty shootout... Showdown by penalty shootout is very cruel.

Players fight for 90 minutes, and for 30 minutes extra game. They tough it out, and then penalty shootout. Defeat by penalty shootout gives much stronger shock. Many players cried.


Beckham of England gave away 7 minutes into the second half as injury, and he was crying in the bench. As for I wrote before, I was a handball player when I was a student. I have experience that I watched our game from the bench as injury so I know so well how he feels.

After the game, England players were crying and Beckham comforted them. I also know how they feel. When I played handball, our target was the top 8. At the game of a tournament, we were defeated by 1 point, just one point. (In handball game, total score usually is over 10 at least, not like soccer.) If we won the game, we could be the top 8. We couldn't stop crying.

Fortunately, we placed in the top 8 at the our last tournament. Of course we were so happy, but I remember we didn't talk at all on a bus home. Probably we felt totally drained of energy because of achieving our target. Haha.

Now, I wonder how England players are feeling. I hope they will show their good playing soon.

The king Brazil went away. -- the World Cup quarter finals 4

Brazil vs. France. Likeliest Brazil left from the World Cup. It was said that this World Cup became Ronaldinho's one, but he couldn't perform brilliantly.

Person of the match I choose is Ribery. I know everyone thinks Zidane was best. Yes, playing of Zidane and Henry came to the fore. But Ribery ran and ran, and made a lot contribution.

Top 4 was decided. Germany, Italy, Portugal and France. The teams I cheered for, England and Ukraine have been eliminated...
So I hope Germany win the cup. I have a good feeling toward team of Germany. The final game is... Germany vs. France? Because I don't like teams of Italy and Portygal so much.

the draining duel again -- the World Cup quarter finals 3

The World Cup showed an exciting game again. The game was a cliff-hanger.

England vs. Portugal. Both of teams fought on to the end for 120 minutes and there were no goal, so penalty shootout again... and then England lost... I'm too shock for words. Even the penalty shootout was dramatic. England players were crying.

Person of the match I choose is... I can't think about it now because of despondentness.

Probably this game will be handed down as a historic game.

England leaves from the World Cup this time. That's really a shame, and a shock...
Bye bye England

England players stand with arms around shoulders during the penalty shootout
Beckham gave away as injury, Rooney was ejected for red card, so both of them aren't in the picture.

My six sense

My friend started to work for a university as an assistant professor in April. Generally members of laboratories put their pages on laboratories web site so I checked his site before but he hadn't put it yet.

The other day, somehow I checked it again. No special reason. Just casually. I found his page and told him it. He said he put it just 3 days ago. Oh! Feeling in my bones? Haha.

I often have such experiences. So I believe my six sense. For example, when people tell a lie, I sometimes know it's a lie. I don't know why and there are no grounds. But I know. I don't tell anyone though. When I was a university student, my friends, a guy and a girl went steady but they kept it secret. But I knew that. There was also no reason. Just I thought and I was sure.

My six sense was more sensitive when I was a kid. This ability is getting lower and lower as I get older. Come to think of it, I was far ahead of others in my studies when I was a kid. Just listening in classes, I got a perfect score on every test. Many friends went to cram school. But I didn't study even at home, I just listened classes. Even if every other student answered the question wrong on the test, I aced the test. When I think back, my parents should have done something to develop my ability. Haha.

And then, unfortunately I am a mere mediocrity now.

Ukraine lost the game. -- the World Cup quarter finals 2

The game Ukraine vs. Italy, Ukraine I cheered for lost the game. That's a shame but most people thought Italy would win.

Italian soccer is known for their solid defense called Catenaccio. Yes, their defense was really impregnable wall. They perfectly prevented Shevchenko from his playing as a world number one striker.

Person of the match I choose is Cannavaro of Italy. He is an excellent defender. He and goalkeeper Buffon are key persons of Catenaccio.

I want to say to Ukraine that they did well in spite of their first appearance in the World Cup.

After the draining duel -- the World Cup quarter finals 1

At the World Cup, the top 8 were decided and the first game of them started today.

The first game Germany vs. Argentina has finished just now. It was very good and exciting game. The game was sent to the extra time but it wasn't decided, and then Germany won by the penalty shootout. In this game, I cheered for Germany, but I felt very sorry for Argentina when the player who missed his penalty kick was crying. Both of teams played great and tough game. The penalty shootout is cruel way to decide a winner.

I like watching sports. But I always have heartache when I see losers.

Person of the match I choose is Lehmann of Germany. He made many great saves. I can understand that he took over the regular position of the goalkeeper from Kahn.

It's 3:20 am in Japan now. Midnight. But the game of Ukraine I cheer for will start soon, at 4:00 am. I can't sleep yet.