泣きピタ！

There is a website by the Japanese company “Benesse” called 「たまひよweb」 (“Tamahiyo web“) based on their 「たまごクラブ」 (“Tamago Club“) magazine for pregnant women and their 「ひよこクラブ」 (“Hiyoko Club“) magazine for new mothers.

「たまごクラブ」 (means "Egg Club") magazine for pregnant mothers.

「ひよこクラブ」 (means "Chick Club") for new mothers of babies.

Their 「たまひよweb」 (“Tamahiyo web“) website has a new feature called 「泣きピタ！コンテスト」 (“Nakipita!  Contest“)…which means basically “Suddenly Stopped Crying! Contest”.

On this site people upload videos of their baby crying and then suddenly stopping because the baby was distracted by something else…often the baby resumes crying as soon as the distraction is gone, and then stops again when distracted again.
And then visitors to the site vote for their favorite one.

It’s cute.
My kids sometimes did the same thing when they were babies.

Here’s one of the videos from the site:

Click here to see the site. On the site you can click the pictures of a clip from the different videos to watch one…and you can vote for the ones you like by clicking the round, pink button on the right-side of the video.

You can also see the current “Top 3” listed on the site.

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Unrelated, but do you know 吉田えり (Eri Yoshida)?

She’s only eighteen years old. But she’s a baseball pitcher with an unusual style…she’s a “sidearm knuckleball” pitcher.

There are few male pitchers that throw this style, let alone female ones.

She has recently been signed to play professional baseball in the U.S. for the minor league team the “Chico Outlaws“.She was playing pro baseball in Japan for the Japanese minor league team the “Kobe 9 Cruise” before getting signed by the American team.

This makes her only the second women to ever play pro baseball in America…and the first women ever to play pro baseball in two different countries.

(You can click here if you want to read more about her story on the the “Chico Outlaws” website.)

Sporting event news

Did you watch the 2010 Olympics women’s figure skating event?

It was probably the biggest event of these Olympics in both Japan and Korea.

Japan’s best skater 19 year-old Mao Asada competed against Korea’s star Kim Yu-na, who is also 19 years old.

Of course, both Japan and Korea were sure that the skater from their country would win the gold medal for this event.

In the end though, Korean Kim Yu-na won the gold and Japan’s Mao Asada won silver. Canadian Joannie Rochette got the bronze medal.

Asada Mao is in the black dress.

Mao Asada tried her best and she did two “triple axel” jumps. It’s her signature jump and she is the only current women’s skater in the world who can do that particular jump.
She executed the triple axels perfectly, but she tripped up and almost fell at another point during her rountine and it cost her points.

Mao Asada skating in the 2010 Olympics women's figure skating event.

The 2010 Olympics will be over tomorrow. Japan currently has a total of four medals from these games…two silver and two bronze.
It looks like Japan won’t be taking any gold from these games.

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Also, tomorrow is the day of the annual “Tokyo Marathon“.

32,000 people will running 42 km through the streets of Tokyo.

This year a friend of mine will be running in the marathon.
ガンバレヒデキさん！ (Good luck, Hideki!)

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And the pitcher from the Japanese baseball team, the Chunichi Dragons, Maximo Nelson (from the Dominican Republic) was arrested yesterday for bringing a bullet in his luggage in the airport in Okinawa (where he was going for his team’s spring training).

Japan is very strict with it’s drug and firearms laws.

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Speaking of Okinawa, there was a very big earthquake in Okinawa this morning.
Hopefully everyone is OK.

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Different subject, but I finally admitted that my eyesight isn’t what it used to be and got eyeglasses yesterday.
So, now, for the first time, I wear glasses for reading.

I can’t deny that I’m getting older. 😦