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明けまして、おめでとうございます。今年も、よろしくお願いします。

Happy New Year!

It should be 2012 everywhere in the world right now, so wherever you are, I hope your 2012 is off to a great start.

良い年を！

Yes, it’s the middle of posting season and you’re likely here for updates on Yu Darvish and Norichika Aoki, but my interests stretch beyond baseball. And sometimes they stretch the content of this site… so here are a few articles on Japan I’ve come across in the last week. All are written in English.

• A trio of filmmakers has recently successfully raised funds to produce Hafu, a documentary about mixed race people in Japan. I am looking forward to seeing the results.
• Fueled by a strong Yen and a flat domestic economy, Japan Inc was acquisitive in 2011, spending $80bn to acquire foreign businesses.
• Found via Hacker News: a look inside Nintendo, circa 1989.
• I’ve been sitting on this last one, but back in September, Japan Times writer Ed Odeven started an extremely insightful site covering Japanese basketball. I’m only a passive basketball fan, but I found some interesting stuff on this site, most notably that Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf played in Kyoto a few years ago.

This is another one of those posts that I’ve been wanting to write for a while.

When the Tohoku Earthquake struck this spring, my family and I wanted to contribute in some small way to the relief and recovery effort. I’m a little too analytical to simply make a donation to the Red Cross and move on, so my wife and I did some research and found a handful of organizations to contribute to. Of the organizations we discovered, the one I find the most interesting is Architecture for Humanity.

In their own words, Architecture for Humanity is a “nonprofit design services firm founded in 1999. We are building a more sustainable future through the power of professional design.” I saw Architecture for Humanity as an organization that could contribute to resolving immediate rebuilding challenges, spur a little economic recovery, and leave long-term resources. They’re also a good match for my value system. Ideologically, I’m a firm believer in the value of building and creating things; practically speaking, they have a demonstrated track record of raising funds and establishing global partnerships, so I felt pretty confident that they could actually realize that value.

It’s been four months, and Architecture for Humanity’s website shows that progress has been made on the projects that have been initiated so far, and a summary of plans for other projects. I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of their plans in Japan turn out. It’s definitely a long-term endeavor that will require support over the next several months.

It took a big earthquake hitting close to home to inspire me to action, but hopefully it’s a lasting inspiration. If anyone out there is interested donating, Architecture for Humanity has my enthusiastic endorsement. Even if you can’t donate, I’d still recommend checking ‘em out. I wish I had known about this group after the earthquake in Haiti hit last year.

This is something I’ve always wanted to do — find a way to be more supportive of people learning Japanese. I occasionally get asked to translate things, but only rarely do those queries come from a Japanese learner.

So here’s a mini Japanese lesson, consisting of terms that are contextual to the offseason and hot stove league. Many of these terms won’t appear in your run-of-the-mill Japanese class, but you will find most of them on Nihongodict.com.

Obviously, this isn’t a comprehensive list. If anyone out there has any questions or any terms to add to the list, fire away in the comments.

A thread on one of my favorite social news sites about gladiators inspired me to read up on the subject in Wikipedia. There, I found this:

Gladiatorial games, usually linked with beast shows, spread throughout the Republic and beyond.^[45] Anti-corruption laws of 65 and 63 BCE attempted but signally failed to curb their political usefulness to sponsors.^[46] Following Caesar’s assassination and the civil war, Augustus assumed Imperial authority over the games, including munera, and formalised their provision as a civic and religious duty.^[47] His revision of sumptuary law capped private and public expenditure on munera – claiming to save the Roman elite from the bankruptcies they would otherwise suffer – and restricted their performance to the festivals of Saturnalia and Quinquatria.^[48] Henceforth, the ceiling cost for a praetor‘s “economical” but official munus of a maximum 120 gladiators was to be 25,000 denarii ($500,000). “Generous” Imperial ludi might cost no less than 180,000 denarii ($3.6 million).^[49][50] Throughout the Empire, the greatest and most celebrated games would now be identified with the state-sponsored Imperial cult, which furthered public recognition, respect and approval for the Emperor, his law, and his agents.^[51] Between 108 and 109 CE, Trajan celebrated his Dacian victories using a reported 10,000 gladiators (and 11,000 animals) over 123 days.^[52] The cost of gladiators and munera continued to spiral out of control. Legislation of 177 CE by Marcus Aurelius, which did little to stop it, was completely ignored by his son, Commodus.^[53]

Obviously the difference is that the gladiators were being purchased as slaves and not paid these amounts. But even 2000 years ago, we had sports budgets spinning out of control, and rules to curtail them which were subsequently ignored.

So just as I suspected/feared, the Blackhawks proved to be too much for the Sharks and advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals. I didn’t see the Hawks sweeping the Sharks though, and had Antti Niemi not played so well they probably wouldn’t have. I was hoping Montreal would take the Eastern Conference, but Chris Pronger has a way of getting to the Finals no matter where he is. So it should be a good series between Chicago and Philly, although I think the Blackhawks would have to be heavily favored.

That’s not why I’m here though. This is just a teaser to say that I’ll have some new content and an update to the data site coming up this week.

It’s playoff time. Has been for a couple weeks, in fact. One year ago today, I posted on the resurgent Chicago Blackhawks, pledging my support to my hometown team, who of course went on to lose in the conference finals to Detroit. My first loyalty as a hockey fan is to my current local team, the San Jose Sharks, but last year the decision to root for the Hawks was made for me when the Sharks flamed out in the first round.

This year is different. Both the Sharks and the Hawks handily won their first two playoff rounds and will meet in the Western Conference Finals. Does this put my loyalties to the test? Not really. I’m a Sharks fan. I live the Bay Area and have been following this team for years. And they’re a veteran team that’s been on the cusp of greatness for the last couple of years, and they’re just due. It’s a shame Jonathan Cheechoo is no longer around though.

Now having said that, I can’t help but be a little bit nervous about this series as a Sharks fan. The Blackhawks outplayed the Sharks pretty convincingly in the two teams’ four regular season meetings, and have a talented team with tremendous scoring depth. The Sharks actually have the more experienced, skilled top group (the “Gold Medal” line of Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley and Patrick Marleau), but they haven’t really gotten going in the playoffs until the last few games. It should be a good series.

I’m still gonna link to Here Come the Hawks though. You can get the mp3 of the regular version here and the instrumental here.