Little League World Series ’10

Japan has become a powerhouse in the sport of baseball.

In the American MLB there are many Japan star players such as Ichiro and Hideki Matsui, the Japan team was the world champions in both the 2008 and 2009 “World Baseball Classic” games (which, unlike the so-called “Baseball World Series”, is a real international baseball championship), and tonight (4:00 AM Japan Standard Time (JST)) Japan will play in the final game of the 2010 Little League World Series.

Just like the World Baseball Classic, the “Little League World Series” is an international championship match for the best baseball teams of boys up to age thirteen.

The “Little League World Series” is held every August in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, USA since it was started in the late 1940s. At first, only American teams played, but in the ’60s it became an international event.
The Japan team took the championship the first two years that the series became open to other countries, and has held the championship a total of six times so far (only America and China were champion more times).

The Tokyo Little League won their game against Taiwan yesterday and tonight they will represent Japan in the final match of the 2010 Little League World Series against the Hawaiian team (who are representing America).

After the game tonight* (it will be nighttime in Japan, but 3PM in America where they’ll be playing), either Japan or America will be the 2010 World Little League Baseball champions and the other team will be second place.
A great job by both!

Shiritori Round Two

「しりとり」 (“Shiritori“) is a Japanese word game.

The rules are pretty simple.
To play, the first player would say any (Japanese) noun. It can be any word as long as it doesn’t end with the 「ん」 (“n“) character.
– The next person says any Japanese word that begins with the same character that the previous word ended with.
– And the next player does likewise.
– The game ends when a player loses by either saying a word that has already been used or saying a word that ends with the 「ん」 (“n“) character (because no word in the Japanese language begins with 「ん」).
– When a word end with a character with 濁点 (「゛」) or 半濁点 (「゜」), the next player can use the character with or without it (ie: If a player’s word ends with 「ば」 or 「ぱ」, the next player’s word can start with either that character or simply 「は」).

An example of how the game would go:
「タコ」(“Tako“)→「コアラ」(“Koala)→「ライオン」(Laion (lion))　(The player who said 「ライオン」 (lion) would lose because you can’t choose a word that ends with 「ん」(「ン」).)

Actually, I had written a post a Japanese games, including this one, about a year ago (click here to see it).

In that earlier post, we played Shiritori in the comments section.
It was popular with visitors to my blog, and it was fun.

So, let’s try “round two”!

I’ll start with the first word…「たまご」(tamago (egg)).

Anyone can play. Write the next word (that must begin with 「ご」(“go”)) in the comments section of this post.
Usually this game is played only usuing Japanese words…but we’ll play using both Japanese and English.

Just remember, you can’t use a word that ends with 「ん」(“n”), and you can’t repeat a word that’s already been used.

Big America game

I mentioned in an earlier post (click here to read it) that McDonalds in Japan is currently offering fours burgers (one-at-a-time) collectively known as “Big America“.

The burger that they’re currently selling is called the “Texas Burger” (my oldest daughter and I tried one each. I thought it was mediocre…my daughter hated it).

Well, even if you’re not in Japan and can’t try these burgers…you can visit the McDonalds Japan website and try the “Big America Burgers” game.
Since the current burger is the “Texas Burger“, the current game on their site is the “Texas Burger Game” (next month, when they begin offering the “New York Burger“, I’m sure the game on their site will change, too).

"Texas Burger Game"

To play this game, you click “Start” and then point your mouse on all of the burgers, fries and drinks that appear and click your mouse to “lasso” them in.
When the game ends, you are given between one to five “sheriff stars” depending on how much food you lassoed.

Click here to try the McDonalds Japan “Big Texas Burger Game“…and then tell me in this post’s comment section how many “stars” you got.

I tried the game once and only got two stars.

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Also, if you visit the post I wrote last year about the upcoming Karate Kid remake starring Jackie Chan, you’ll notice that I recently updated the post and added a video of the movie’s official trailer.

Click here to see it.

Brain Test

I found a Japanese website that has IQ-type games.
These games give you ten – fifteen problems and then tells you the equivalent age of your “brain age” (rather than an IQ).
The “ideal age” is twenty-years old, according to the site.

On the first test, you click “START” and then after a three second countdown a set of numbers will flash on the screen:

In the example above, the numbers 3, 9, 8 appear.

Then the numbers will quickly be replaced by blank circles:

The goal is to click the blank circles in the same order that the numbers appeared in, from lowest to highest (so in this example, first you’d click the circle where “3” was, then the one that had “8” and finally the circle that had the “9”.

In the bottom of the screen, in the lower left-hand corner, it tell how many problems are remain in the game.
In the lower right-hand corner, there are two numbers…the first one is the number of questions you answered correctly and the other is how many you missed.

At the end of the game, it will tell you “the age of your brain”. As I mentioned above, 20 years old is best.

Click here to try this game.

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In Test 2, about fifteen math problems will appear. But, rather than tell what the sum is, you have to choose the missing “+”, “-“, “X”, or “÷” to make each problem correct.

In the example above, the correct choice would be the plus sign (“+”) because 11 + 2 = 13.

At the end, your “brain age” is calculated on both the number of correct answers as well as how quickly you answered the questions.

Click here to take this test.

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Test 3 can be taken in a number of different languages including Japanese or English because you need to read the names of the colors shown.

I prefer to play this game in Japanese but there’s a choice of ten different languages, so you can choose whichever is easier for you before you click the “START” button.

After you choose your language preference and click “START”, a name of a color will be shown in large letters. And the letters will be in one color or another.
And below that word, the names of six colors will be written in various colors.

The idea is to notice the color that the word at the top is written in (regardless of what color it says), and click the name of that color from the six choices below (regardless of what color those letters are).

In this example, 「みどり」 is shown but it’s printed in red, so you’d click 「あか」.

Or, in English…

It says “White” at the top but the letters are red, so you’d click “red” from the list at the bottom.

Click here to play this game.

So, after you finish tell me in the comments what your “brain age” is according to each test. (On test one I scored a brain age of “39 years old”, on test two I got “51”, and on test three it said my brain age is “29 years old”. That averages to 39.6 years old. I am 40 years old, so…)

パチンコ

I’ve written an earlier post (click here to read it), Japan has many types of 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machines.

If you want to know about what 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) is, you can read my earlier posts that I wrote about it.
(click here and here).

「パチンコ」 (pachinko) is often called “Japanese pinball”…and like pinball machines, 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machines are decorated with pictures of famous people or characters.

In Japan, there are Spiderman, JAWS, Marilyn Monroe, 「ウルトラマン」 (Ultraman), and 「七人の侍」 ( The Seven Samurai) 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machines.

That’s just an example. There are many others.
There’s even a 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machine for the Japanese pop singer 「倖田來未」 (Koda Kumi):

(Click here to see the Koda Kumi Pachinko website).

As I mentioned in the earlier post I mentioned above (click here to read it), there are also KISS and Star Wars 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machines:

(Click here to see the KISS Pachinko website.)

(Click here to see the Star Wars Pachinko website.)

Now there’s a new 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machine. And it’s also decorated with images from American pop-culture.
It’s the Bon-Jovi 「パチンコ」 (pachinko) machine. It plays some songs by the band and has cartoon images in their likeness.

(Click here to visit the Bon Jovi Pachinko website).