JJNN Tuesday: Entertainment - 09

Welcome again to JJNN for Tuesday September 30th, 2008. Today we will be talking about an entertaining Japanese park.

There are many forms of entertainment in this world. They range from things like thrill rides that work on your emotions (feeling the scare before the drop of a roller coaster or laughing because you find a comedian funny) to things that entertain you because they work on other people's emotions (the best example of this is schadenfreude: feeling joy in other people's suffering). Within that range lies the human ability to entertain ourselves by making fun of things that are obviously out of place.

There is a park in Himeji (in southern Japan) called Taiyou Park that falls within that last category of entertainment. I bet you are thinking "It's a park. How could anything really be out of place?" right? The answer is everything. The park was built to have a place where all the world heritage sites can be seen in the same place. That's right, it is only a 10 minute walk from the pyramids to Tiananmen Square. Just outside of Tiananmen Square stands a giant replica of a haniwa (an ancient Japanese form of earth-ware that is in the shape of a warrior). I guess pictures speak louder than words so I will just post a few pictures of this amazing park and give a brief explanation of each.


This is a Colombian God backed by those kooky inhabitants of Easter Island, the Moai.


From the pyramid you can see a lot of things. First, on the right you can see the back of the sphinx. In the middle you can see a tiny pyramid that is about 1.2 meters tall. In the back you can see Tiananmen Square and a couple of towers from a famous temple in China.

There are a lot more good examples, but there are too many to choose from. If this park were not so far away I would definitely go there. Nothing so entertaining in this world as climbing a 2 kilometer stretch of the Great Wall of China to see an ancient Japanese castle being built off in the distance.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 公園(こうえん). It is pronounced kouen and means park. I am so happy that there is a park near my house. I would go crazy if I had absolutely no connection with nature in my area.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Monday: Science - 09

Welcome again to JJNN for Monday September 29th, 2008. Today we will be talking about Japanese DNA.

Deoxyribonucleic acid. I love the way that it just rolls off the tongue. Sure it does not sound as cool as acetylsalicylic acid, but DNA is just a little bit more important in the grand scheme of things than aspirin.

DNA really is amazing. It is an extremely tiny nucleic acid, but it contains all the information that is used to make up what we are. It is the DNA that says that we grow up with two arms and two eyes. Thanks to DNA we are not a thousand armed cyclops (though if we all did grow up as thousand armed cyclopes we would think that thousand armed cyclopes were sexy). The basic shape of DNA is a double helix. You can see what it looks like below.



Notice that the two helixes are held to each with things that look like sticks. Those sticks are actually called nucleotides. I know that is a big word, but stick with me for the moment. There are only 4 different types of nucleotides: adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine. So far so good, right? These nucleotides are complicated chemicals. They can only be around the ones they really love. For example Adenine would never be caught dead going with guanine and cytosine. Adenine will only make a pair with thymine. The same goes for guanine and cytosine. These pairs are called base pairs. (Yes, there are some times when these rules don't actually get followed, but I don't want to get into that stuff).

This leads nicely into the news story. You can see the original story here. It seems that some Japanese scientists processed the DNA of about 7000 Japanese people and found out that the genetic makeup of Japanese people can be seen to come from two different places. Some of the DNA is like that found on the part of Asia that is closes to Japan and the other part is found to be like the DNA that comes from the native people of Okinawa (an island group to the south of Japan).

I guess DNA analysis isn't really needed to figure that out. It makes sense in the end really. The two groups spread out to the nearest island and they find each other. They are not all that different in appearance any way so they mate and leave ancestors on that island that have that unique mix of DNA. History is full of stories like these.

The doctor that is in charge of the project says that there are only two major differences between the two types of DNA: the genes for hair and the genes for ear wax (yes there are genes for ear wax). The people that have the Asian mainland DNA have stiff hair and produce ear wax that is not so wet. The opposite goes for the people with the DNA from Okinawa.

This type of research is always very interesting. It helps people find out where their race came from in the first place. There is always so much that we can learn from this type of research. But, there is always precautions that we have to take with this type of research as well. It might seem a little far fetched, but I can see people being turned down for jobs or being bullied in the future because of what kind of DNA they were born with. A good example might be a type of medical insurance that will not cover people with a certain type of DNA because they are more susceptible to a certain type of disease. We have to be careful not to let something like that happen.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is デオキシリボ核酸(でおきしりぼかくさん). It is pronounced deokishiribo kakusan and means DNA. I am always a bit wary of acids that don't burn things.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Sunday: Leftovers - 09

Welcome again to JJNN for Sunday September 28th, 2008. Today we will be talking about a Japanese bird.

The bird of the prefecture that I live in is called the Japanese crested ibis. It is known for living on a large island that is part of my prefecture called Sado. The only problem with that is that all of the wild ibis in Japan got whipped out back in 2003. There are birds that are growing up in protected places so the bird does not totally disappear, but it is endangered and on the brink of extinction. Now there are a total of 122 of these birds that live in Japan.

So, what does this bird look like? Before I show you a picture prepare yourself. It is an ugly bird. You ready? Here we go.



Nice, huh? So, why am I talking about this bird? Well, there is actually some good news on the ibis front. You can see this news here. Last Friday on Sado Island 10 birds were released in the wild. This is the first time this bird has been in the skies over Sado in about 27 years.

This is a good thing. Any time when an animal that was on the brink of extinction (or in this case, it was actually extinct in Japan) is brought back to the wild. The group that released the 10 birds wants to release another 50 of them by 2015. Years from now the skies of Sado might look like they did before humans messed up the bird population.

From the picture it is a little hard to tell how big this birds actually are. They are very very big. The video below shows the birds and a big dog. They are just as big if not bigger.



Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 朱鷺(とき). It is pronounced toki and means Japanese crested ibis. It is good to hear that the birds are back. I hope they can stay in the wild with no problems.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Saturday: Pseudoscience - 08

Welcome again to JJNN for Saturday September 27th, 2008. Today we will be talking about a Japanese lake monster.

Almost every culture that lives near water has to deal with some sort of creature that lives within the depths of the water. Weather it be a deep river, a lake or the ocean there are almost always Gods or monsters associated with the body of water at some point in its history. Wether it be the famous Loch Ness monster or Champ who lives in Lake Champlain in New York. Other examples are Whitey, the monster that lives in the White river in Arkansas, or the Kraken that is said to live in the ocean.

Large body of water, even if it is shallow and can't really support large animals, is said to have one of these monsters. The one thing that connects these monsters is that the bodies of water that support the animals are murky. If the water is murky you can't see what is just below the surface so any disturbance on the surface could very well be a monster. Sure, those ripples could be made by a large school of fish that are looking for something to eat (something that happens everywhere in nature) or it could be some sort of undiscovered or forgotten anima: AKA a lake monster (something that is extremely rare).

Like everywhere else in the world lake monsters are not rare in Japan. They have special monsters called Kappa that are said to live in almost every river in Japan (though no one has ever actually filmed or taken a picture of one). Also, in some lakes, there are lake monsters.

In one lake in Kagoshima prefecture called Lake Ikeda there is suppose to be a lake monster. This lake monster is called Isshii. It is suppose to be named after Nessie. Below you can see a picture of Lake Ikeda fronted with a sign that is suppose to show what Isshii looks like.



Well, apparently Isshii was not only named after Nessie, but the statue was also made to look like the statues of Nessie. The basic story of Isshii started in 1961. Apparently someone saw a hump coming out of the water and it was estimated that the length of the creature that had that hump was from 10 to 20 meters (about 32 to 64 feet) long. Later it was said to be sighted in 1978 and 1991.

What could this thing be? Well I doubt it looks anything like that statue, because no one has ever seen its head. The best way to figure out what the creature might be is to look at what animals we know live in the lake. A lot of fish live in the lake, but the best known of these can be seen below.



That is a huge eel. Like it says in the picture it measures to 170cm (about 5 and a half feet) in length. Probably the most likely explanation for Isshii is one of these eels coming to the surface and swimming around looking for food. The way the eel moves can be described as a hump coming out of the water if you can't actually see the eel (black eel on dark colored water). It is basically case closed in my book, but what do you guys think?

Thanks to Isshii the number of people that go to Lake Ikeda has gone up a lot. Thanks to the monster and the way town uses it to draw people in, the town around the lake is booming. I guess pseudoscience can be used for good, but I would rather not see it at all to tell you the truth.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 鰻(うなぎ). It is pronounced unagi and means eel. Unagi refers to fresh water eels while anago is Japanese for salt water eels. Both taste good though!

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Friday: Technology - 09

Welcome again to JJNN for Friday September 26th, 2008. Today we will be talking about a new Japanese robot.

There are a lot of robots made in Japan. There are robots that do everything from putting cars together to dancing traditional dances. Sure, the ones that put the cars together actually do something that is useful, but even the ones that do things like dance teach the engineers that make the robots a lot about how to make new types of robots. Even the most useless robot can end up being useful.

The newest of the robots that does not really seem useful is called Seiko-chan. This robot can do something I could never do, it can ride a unicycle. I never really wished I could ride a unicycle, but now I don't want to loose to a robot. Maybe I should learn. You can see this new robot in the video below.



Like it says in the video, the robot has advanced sensors and a balance system. It is by trying to advance those sensors and systems as well as making the robot better in general that the robot industry in Japan jumps forward compared to the robot industry in other countries.

Seiko-chan is suppose to be the cousin of an earlier robot invention named Seisaku-kun. This robot rides around on a bike. Like Seiko-chan he keeps balanced and moves according to advanced sensors. You can see what he can do down below.



I don't think I could get up a slope that steep on my bike.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 一輪車(いちりんしゃ). It is pronounced ichirinsha and means unicycle. To become an elementary school teacher in Japan you have to know how to ride a unicycle. It is on the test to become a teacher.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Thursday: Culture - 10

Welcome again to JJNN for Thursday September 25th, 2008. Today we will be talking about yet another fall tradition in Japan.

There is nothing that most Japanese people like better than looking at nature. Sure, a lot of them never actually take the time to leave the city and venture out into the country side to actually see the nature first hand, but at least they can see it on TV. During this time of year a lot of Japanese people love to travel around the country and see the colorful fall leaves.

I have to agree. The fall colors are extremely beautiful. Japan is a very long country so people can enjoy the fall colors for over a month. There are even special maps that people can see at travel agents that show the best time to go to certain areas of Japan to see the best fall colors. An example of one of those maps from a few years ago can be seen below.



You can see that the earliest time that people can really see the fall colors is October 20th way up north in Hokkaido. The latest is around November 30th way down south. Of course it is going to be different in different places. This does not take mountains and valleys into account really. Well, now that we know when to look, let's see what we actually see. You can a leaf viewing video below.



Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 紅葉(もみじ). It is pronounced momiji and means leaves changing colors or Japanese maple. Two years ago around this time I went up to Aomori around this time of year. The leaves were really beautiful.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Wednesday: Games - 08

Welcome again to JJNN for Wednesday September 24th, 2008. Today we will be talking about a new game that I would love to play.

To tell the truth, there are no new games that really do anything for me anymore. They all seem to tell the same story with the same flat graphics. Sure, I would still call myself a gamer, but I guess I am more of a classic gamer now. I like the games from the old days when the story came before the graphics.

Now, I am not saying that all games with good graphics automatically have bad story lines, though that seems to be the trend. I am excited to say I think I might have found a game that has both great graphics and what looks like a great story line. The name of the game is The Last Remnant. You can see the article here.

The article doesn't actually say a whole lot, but it does go into a little detail about the battle system. It seems that every character have things called arts. There are 3 basic types of arts: Fighting Arts (really should be called Martial Arts...), Mystic Arts, and Item Arts. They are really self-explanatory. The Fighting Arts are for attacks, the Mystic Arts are for magic and the Item Arts are used for items. The picture below is an example of a Mystic Art called Assault Acid.



Sounds like most old tried and true game systems to me. The thing that gets me is the health gauge up at the top of the screen. I really want to see how they balance the Allies vs. Enemies system to make it fully playable. It seems like it might unbalance a game like this one, but they might have thrown something into the system to bring the balance back. Below you can see a game trailer, enjoy.



Looks good to me. It will be released (almost) all around the world on on the Xbox the 20th of November. It will be released later for the PS3. The price in Japan will be just a little over 8000 yen. A bit steep, but I think that it might be worth it.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 攻撃(こうげき). It is pronounced kougeki and means attack. Some of the Fighting Arts in this game look nice.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Tuesday: Entertainment - 08

Welcome again to JJNN for Tuesday September 23rd, 2008. Today we will be talking about a man all the girls love.

Every year around this time of year the Japanese magazine "an an" puts out an issue that rates famous people in categories like "The most huggable man" or "The most sexy man". Before the article is put out they release the categories and over 10000 people vote on who goes where. According to this article the winner for "The most loved man" is Kimura Takuya.

This is no surprise really because Japanese woman love Kimura Takuya (Kimutaku for short). He is like a mini-God for them. Not only did he win "The most loved man" award this year, but he has for the past 15 years! Along with this 15th victory in that category he also got first place in "The man I would like to get hugged by," "The man I would love to have for a lover," "The most sexy man," and "The man with the most fashion sense." For those of you have have never heard of Kimutaku and don't know what he looks like, what do you think this guy looks like? I just want to know what kind of image you get about a guy that gets first place in all of those categories. You can see a picture of this guy below.



Personally I don't see what all the hype is about, but I am not looking at the guy though they eyes of a Japanese woman. Kimutaku is part of a Japanese music group called SMAP. They are mighty famous in Japan. Almost everyone knows just about all of the songs put out by SMAP. Below you can see one of their more popular songs.



Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 好き(すき). It is pronounced suki and means love. I think those awards are rigged.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Monday: Science - 08

Welcome again to JJNN for Monday September 22nd, 2008. Today we will be talking about a comet.

What do you think about when you hear the word "comet"? For me it will always be Halley's Comet. I remember way back in 1986 when we could last see Halley's comet. Seeing that up in the sky was one of things that helped to spark my interest in nature and science.

Besides Halley's comet, there are a lot of comets out there. It is estimated that there over 3000 of them in our system. So, what exactly is a comet? Well basically it is a big dirty snowball that just happens to be in outer space. It is a lot of ice and rocks packed together and revolving around the sun. The thing that makes comets different from meteors is the fact that when the comets get close to the sun they have a coma, or tail. The tail is made from the sun vaporizing the comet's ice.

An interesting fact about a comet's tail is that it is always behind the comet. Sometimes the tale is in front of the comet. This is because the fact that the light from the sun pushes the gas from the comet away from it. This is probably a little hard to visualize because you never feel any pressure or force from the light of the sun, but in the vacuum of space the effect is huge. You can see this effect in an instrument/toy called a radiometer. You can see a video of one below.



So, what is all this about comets? Well this all comes from a news story that you can see here. It seems that two Japanese men named Itagaki and Kaneda saw a comet that has not been seen in over 100 years. The name of the comet 205P/Giacobini after its discoverer Michel Giacobini. Giacobini discovered the comet in 1896, but it was not seen on the way out of the solar system. Now that they have found the comet again we can track it and find out when it is going to make close passes with the Earth. That is a good thing.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 彗星(すいせい). It is pronounced suisei and means comet. The next time Halley's comet shows up it will be 2061. Hmmm... I wonder if there will be any other ones in the mean time because that is a long wait.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Sunday: Leftovers - 08

Welcome again to JJNN for Sunday September 21st, 2008. Today we will be talking about ecologically minded power companies.

Well, first thing is first I guess. The one or two people that actually read my blog probably noticed that I didn't post anything yesterday. I was a little busy and I decided to take a break from pseudoscience for this week. Worry not, though, because it will be back next week in full force.

Today I found a nice technological article about solar power being used by big Japanese electric companies. You can see the original article here. I am so happy that these electric companies have finally gotten onto the ball about this.

I did a little post about solar power back in the beginning of July, but I never did say anything about how solar power works. So, before I actually get into the new story, I want to talk about what makes solar power work. There are actually a couple of different types of solar power. One form uses the a lot of curved mirrors to focus the light from the sun onto a tower. The water in that tower is made to boil because of the concentrated heat from the sun and that steam moves a turbine which makes electricity. That type of solar power is not what I am referring to though. I am talking about the solar power obtained by solar panels (also called photovoltaic cells).

Solar panels work though what is called the photoelectric effect. Basically what happens is some lights hits the surface of a material (it does not have to be a metal or a semi-conductor) and an electron is released from that material. Why are the electrons released? Well think of it this way; electrons are held in place in the material by an attraction to its positively charged nuclear core. If something comes in that is stronger than its attraction to it's core, it will be knocked away and be free to leave the material. The attraction between the electron and the core can be expressed in the form of an energy, but so can light (some types of light are more energetic than others). So this means if the light has more energy than the electron's connection to its core the light will knock the electron free.

That all happens for only one atom, but solar cells are made up of billions of atoms. This means that if light with enough energy is coming in a lot of electrons are leaving their atoms. These electrons are made to flow and like magic we have energy from a solar cell. Scientists are working hard to find new materials in which the electron is not bound strongly to its nuclear core. When these materials are found the effectiveness of solar panels will go up and they will produce more electricity.

Now, with that out of the way, I can talk about the news story. Two of the biggest energy providers in Japan, Tokyo Denryoku and Kansai Denryoku, made a promise that they will be using solar power to power about 40000 homes a year by 2020. This is a huge change in their normal practices of using fossil fuels to create electricity. They say they are converting 30 places into solar power factories and plan on producing about 40000 kilowatt hours a year. According to their sources this will keep about 70000 tons of CO2 out of the air.

But, wait, there's more. Not only are they making the solar power plants, but they decided that they should be riding around in electric cars. They are going to buy 10000 new solar powered cars along with other types of electric cars. This will make up just about a third of their fleet when they do get the cars. Every little bit helps. You can see one of these electric cars below.



Ugly is not the word I am looking for, but it's close.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 電気(でんき). It is pronounced denki and means electricity. I wonder why a lot of people never think to put solar panels on their roofs? Sure they cost some money to install, but they pay back a lot in the long run.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Friday: Technology - 08

Welcome again to JJNN for Friday September 19th, 2008. Today we will be talking about elevators that have the right stuff.

Ever want to go into space but don't want to deal with all the forces caused by rockets? Well according to this article, you may be able to do that yet. A team of people in Japan are proposing that we build an elevator into space. Yep, you read that right. An elevator where someone can literally say "The next stop is Earth orbit."

So, how does this all work? Well first thing is first. You need top floor for the elevator. Scientists decided that for everything to remained balanced they would have to string the cable from a satellite that is in geosynchronous Earth orbit (i.e. always over the same spot on the earth no matter what). This satellite will be about 36000 km (22000 miles) from the surface of the Earth. The top of the elevator cable itself will be attached to another small satellite that which will be at a distance 1/4 the distance between the Earth and the moon, or about 100000 km (62000 miles). You can see the proposed idea below.



Now let's think about this for a second. The elevator idea is fine if it gets off the ground, but the elevator cable itself is going to be 100000 km long right? If that's made out of iron that will be extremely heavy, right? There is no way that they could string up that much iron. That is why this team is proposing using something called carbon nanotubes.

Carbon nanotubes are just cool, and they are just what you probably think they are. They are extremely small tubes that are made out of carbon atoms. These tubes can be used to transport stuff and they are good conductors of heat, but the important thing is that they are extremely strong and much lighter than steel. You can see a picture of what one of these tubes would look like below.



Now that we know how we might be able to build the elevator, that leaves the question of why we would build it in the first place. Well, first thing is first, an elevator to space is just plain kick ass. But, I am sure that is not on their proposal. The real reason is that if you use an elevator to get into space they cost of bring heavy things like rockets into space is about 1/100 of the cost we have to pay now. It takes a lot of money to get away from the gravity of Earth. Sure it will cost a lot of money to build, but in the long run it will be worth it.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 宇宙(うちゅう). It is pronounced uchuu and means outer space. Maybe I am one step closer to my dream about getting to go to outer space.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Thursday: Culture - 09

Welcome again to JJNN for Thursday September 18th, 2008. Today we will be talking about going to hot springs in Japan.

I am so happy that it is starting to get cool in the mornings and evenings. This is really my favorite time of year. A little hot during the day, but not too cold at night. Perfect really.

This time of year is (for me) the start of the hot spring season. There is nothing better than laying naked in a hot bath when the air around you is chilly. Especially if you had to go on a long hike to actually reach the hot spring. Also, if you can, drinking while taking a hot bath is great.

There are a couple of steps that you have to take to take a bath in a hot spring in Japan. The first one is probably the easiest one: finding a hot spring. Hot springs pop up like weeds in most places. Once you find your hot spring you take off your shoes and put them in a shoe locker. Take the key from the shoe locker to the front desk and pay for your hot spring experience.

At this point the person at the front desk will take your shoe locker key and give you a wrist band. The wrist band will have a number on it and a key hidden in it. You have to find your way to the changing area appropriate for your sex. Don't follow the colors because this could get you in trouble. Sometimes blue is on the female's door. Just watch to see who goes into what side.

After you get to the changing room find the locker that has the same number as the one on your wrist band. Use the key to open the locker. Get undressed and throw all your clothes into the locker. Use the smaller towel that the hot spring staff provides you with to hide what God gave you and lock up the locker.

Now it is time to get wet. Before you actually job into the hot spring you have to get clean. Yeah. I know it doesn't really make sense. You are going to the hot springs to get clean, but you have to get clean before you get in. This is because if you clean yourself with a shower before you enter the hot springs the water will remain clean longer. Plus, this is the way Japanese people take showers as well (they keep the same bath water for the whole family).

Now that you are clean it is time to get into the hot spring! At most of the hot spring places there are both inside and outside baths. Both of them are relaxing, but I think the outside ones are much better. Like I said before the cold air and the hot water is great. I love it when it is snowing while I am in the hot water. Plus, if you find a place with a good view, it makes the experience all the better. Watch the clip below and just think about being in one of those baths.



Depending on the hot spring you may get a robe to wear after you dry off and leave the baths. You can put it on and wander around the hot spring building. After you are done that you can get changed into your street clothes, hand in the towels and get your shoe box keep back. It always feels good to leave with that warm hot spring aura wrapped about my body.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 温泉(おんせん). It is pronounced onsen and means hot spring. I think maybe I will go to an onsen some time this weekend. It will be fun.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Wednesday: Games - 07

Welcome again to JJNN for Wednesday September 17th, 2008. Today we will be talking about baseball.

Do any of you watch or play baseball? I grew up in a family that routed for the Yankees, except for my sister whole later came to her senses and started routing for the Yankees as well. I never really played a lot of baseball. I did enjoy trying to hit the fast ball with the little wooden stick, but I was never really good at the game.

The rules for baseball in Japan are the same as they are all around the world. Japan has two different baseball leagues: the central league and the pacific league. Both of the leagues only have 6 teams in them. Here is a list of the teams.

Central League:
Yomiuri Giants, Tokyo Yakult Swallows, Yokohama BayStars, Chunichi Dragons, Hanshin Tigers, and Hiroshima Toyo Carps.

Pacific League:
Hokkaido Nippon-ham Fighters, Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, Saitama Seibu Lions, Chiba Lotte Marines, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks

The Yomiuri Giants are like the American Yankees. They were known for winning the championship a lot in the past, but haven't really been doing anything lately. The strange things about these teams is that almost all of the team names have the names of companies in them. The teams are really not teams for an area, but are teams for companies.

There are a lot of things that are the same between baseball in America and baseball in Japan, but one of the differences is how the fans act and cheer for their team. Most American baseball fans just sit back and cheer their own team on in the way they see fit. Sure some fights might break out every so often when they beer is flowing, but it is a very nice way to cheer for your team. On the other hand you can see the Japanese way to cheer for their team below.



Yep, the chant and the dance are all made up and all the fans just perform the dance. It is a little creepy for me to see thousands of people all doing the same dance and chanting the same thing. One word comes to mind: cult. But, that is what works in this country, The fans of the team buy little megaphones and the like and have a good time cheering on their team. All the best to them

I know some of you are reading this and thinking that baseball is a sport and not a game. Well, I guess you are right about that. So, let me just add this classic baseball video game to the end to make all right with the world.



Does that make you feel better?

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 野球(やきゅう). It is pronounced yakyuu and means baseball. Literally translated it means field ball. That could be any sport really.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Tuesday: Entertainment - 07

Welcome again to JJNN for Tuesday September 16th, 2008. Today we will be talking about Japanese comedy.

For me there is nothing more entertaining on TV than Japanese comedy. Sure some of it can be over the top and a bit wacky, but that is exactly what makes it get to watch. The comedy show that I watch on Tuesday nights is called Lincoln. I have no idea what it is named after a president of the United States, but I don't think the people that made the show know either.

The show features a bunch of Japanese comedians doing wacky things for no real reason. The two hosts of the show are Matsumoto Hitoshi and Hamada Masatoshi. Those names are a bit of a mouth full even in Japan so people usually just call them Matsumoto and Hama-chan.

I love watching the antics of Down Town. They are older than most of the other comedians that are still working today so they get a lot of fear and respect. Hama-chan always likes to smack around the younger comedians a little. They do have a bit of a cruel streak, but they are truly fun to watch. The picture below shows Matsumoto on the left and Hama-chan on the right.



One of the most popular things they do is the special where they can't laugh at anything. If they do end up laughing (and they usually do) someone comes out to measure out some sort of punishment for them. You can see an version of this below. Enjoy.



They do a lot more than this, but I do love to watch this kind of stuff. Yes, I know it is a little bit low brow, but there is nothing wrong with be a little low brow every so often.

There is a lot more I could tell you about Down Town but I will save that for the time that I am going to talk about their show called Down Town DX. For now if you think you like their brand of humor, give them a look up on youtube. It makes for an entertaining day.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is お笑い(おわらい). It is pronounced owarai and means to comedian or comedy. The comedy range in Japan goes from wacky to crazy, but never ask a Japanese person to understand sarcasm. That is something they will never really understand.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

jjnn monday: Science - 07

Welcome again to JJNN for Monday September 15th, 2008. Today we will be talking about the moon.

During this time of year in Japan everyone is looking up into the sky. They are looking to see the wonderful full moon that is up there at the moment. This time of year is called juugo no hi and it is the traditional start of fall in the old Japanese lunar calendar.

I love the moon. I used to go out at night and just lay down in my yard and look up at it and the rest of the sky for hours. Of course August was the best time to look at the moon because you could also see the perseids meteor shower at the same time.

Since we are on the subject of the moon here are a few random facts about the moon. The moon is about 380000 km from the earth. This is one light second so when we look up at the moon we are actually seeing as it was a second ago. Some evil alien race could be destroying the moon now and we would not even know it for another second. The name of the moon came from germanic word meaning month. We only actually see one side of the moon. This is because the moon's rotation was slowed and finally locked a long time ago. The far side of the moon is a lot more boring than the side that faces us because it is almost all white. If that side of the moon ended up facing us, we would not have grown up with any man in the moon (or in the case of the Japanese a rabbit that lives on the moon and makes mochi).

Any way, this leads to this article about the moon. Tokyo's science center known as the mirai-kan decided to hang up a copy of the moon so that everyone could see it even in the middle of the day. That's a great idea I thought. The made their 6.5 meter diameter moon out of 3000 panels of diodes. You can see a picture of it below.



They dimmed the diodes or made them brighter so they fit the NASA images of the moon. I would like to see this up close but today was the last day that it was on display. Maybe next year if they bring it out again.

I will leave you with this moon related clip.



Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 月(つき). It is pronounced tsuki and means to moon. You know I never could see a man in the moon. My pareidolia switch must be broken.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Sunday: Leftovers - 07

Welcome again to JJNN for Sunday September 14th, 2008. Today we will be talking about a dancing festival that takes place in Niigata.

Every year around this time of year in Niigata city (close to where I live) there is a dancing festival. The name of that festival is the Niigata sou-odori. In the festival dancers from all across Niigata come to give performances. This year there are 255 dance groups with over 12000 people dancing. The festival started yesterday and will go until tomorrow.

So, what kind of dancing can you see there? Anything from traditional dancing to hip hop and everything in between. Below you can see a picture of one of groups in more traditional costume.



Here is a compilation of what some of the dances look like. Most of these are more traditional.



The festival as it is now is based on a 300 year old festival called the Niigata Geta Sou-odori. In the original festival people would dance with geta (Japanese wooden shoes), lanterns and umbrellas. Seven years ago they decided to revive the festival in the way it is now. You can see an example of the dancing with wooden shoes below.



I can hardly dance with normal shoes on, so I personally think that is amazing.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 踊る(おどる). It is pronounced odoru and means to dance. I think that the only dance that I can actually dance is the chicken dance...

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Saturday: Pseudoscience - 07

Welcome again to JJNN for Saturday September 13th, 2008. Today we will be talking about cold readings and physics.

A few years ago in Japan in Niigata and I suppose in Tokyo there was a psychic reading boom. Almost all young (20s and 30s) ladies would go out every weekend, or more often, to get a psychic reading. The psychics here are just like those in every other country around the world. The supposedly tell you about your future about everything from your job to romance.

Personally I can see myself going to a cheap psychic for a little entertainment value. The cheap ones cost less than movies (here at least) and give you a nice topic for conversation at work the next day. The problem I see with psychics is when people actually start to believe in them. They start to believe and soon enough almost all of the money they earn goes directly to the psychic. That is when it crosses the line from light hearted entertainment to being a scam.

Why am I saying psychics are entertainment and not a means of getting serious information about the future, or about a dead loved one? Well, that's because there is no such thing as real psychics. Simple as that. All psychics do is a combination of detective work and acting. This is called cold reading. The psychic (I will call them that even though they have no "psychic" powers) trains themselves to get a lot of information from a person with a look and by asking leading questions or making leading statements. Watch the psychic below and see if you can spot the cold reading.



The first thing he said "Old lady, but with black hair." he said because he knew that any one in the audience would know an old lady and the chance of an old lady having black hair is not that low. Notice when he was saying that names he says a lot of them at once. This is called shot gunning. If you say enough names you are bound to get one right. A lot of psychics don't go that far and just say a letter. He than gives a lot of statements. He looks at the reactions from the people he is giving readings to and changes his statements accordingly. He is not actually saying anything, the people in the audience are saying everything for him.

This next clips is an explanation of cold reading by Orson Welles. This is one of my favorite clips.



So, any way, psychics may be good entertainment, but don't start believing them. Remember to look at things a little skeptically.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 超能力者(ちょうのうりょくしゃ). It is pronounced chou-nouryoku-sha and means psychic. The chou part means over and above and nouryoku means powers. So in Japanese a psychic is a person that has powers over and above normal people. That makes sense I guess.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

PS: This is the 100th post for JJNN yay!

JJNN Friday: Technology - 07

Welcome again to JJNN for Friday September 12th, 2008. Today we will be talking about suica and pasmo.

When I lived up north I used to travel on trains a whole lot. During the peak it would be about twice a day. Trains are used a lot more for commuting to work in this country than in America. The thing I hated about using the train was buying the ticket. I always went to different places so I always had to buy tickets of different prices. That means I would have to look up at a map like the one below and try to figure out how much money I was suppose to put in the ticket machine.



That is no easy task if you are in a hurry. I have been close to missing many a train because I was trying to figure out just how much the ticket was suppose to cost. Sure, you can buy the cheapest ticket and pay the difference at the stop you get off the train, but that is just a pain in the arse.

Way back in 1998 a company called Sky Rail Services decided to put make their train pass a little more high tech, They made their pass into an IC card, more widely known as a smart card. An IC card is a card that has a little integrated circuit on it. The integrated circuit contains some numbers. This is the user's unique ID. When the card is placed on the reader the card transmits the numbers over to the reader, The reader than sends those numbers to the central processing system. That system makes a note of what station you get on the train. When you use the card to get off the train it makes a note of that also and looks up the price of traveling between those two stations. It than deducts that money from that amount of money that you got stored on your card. Simple, fast and efficient.

JR (Japan Railways: the biggest train company in Japan) decided that it was not to be left in the technological dust. So, in 2001 JR released suica, which is another IC train pass. You can see a picture of a suica card below.



In 2007 another company put out a cared called pasmo. It is exactly the same as suica, but it was designed to be used on train systems that did not belong to JR. But, as it is now, it if you are in Tokyo you can use either suica or pasmo on all the trains and buses.

So this is old news, right? Yep. But, I found a new news story about using suica and pasmo on the buses. You can see the news story here.

Now that these IC card systems are on the buses as well as the trains a couple of problems have cropped up. About 60000 problems. As I explained above, the system has to tell the central processing system where and when you used your card. Sometimes on buses there is a data error when sending the card's information. This data error causes a buzzer to go off on the bus. When the drivers hear the buzzer most of them thought it was OK to reset the IC card system, but it turns out that in 60000 of those cases the data error occurs after the information has been sent to the central processing system. This means that they money for the ride is taken out of your account once before the reset and once after the reset. It may not be a lot of money but multiply that by 60000 and you get 11,000,000 yen. That is a lot of money that suica and pasmo should not have.

The companies are now training the drivers on what to do in case of data errors. They are also setting up a place people can go if they think they lost money. I will leave you with a bunch of commercials that show you all the things you can do with suica.



Notice that you can buy things at stores with it and even have it on your cell phone. What a great time we live in.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 電車(でんしゃ). It is pronounced densha and means train. I miss traveling by train every day. I guess there is more freedom with a car, but there is more to see when you travel to a place by train.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Thursday: Culture - 08

Welcome again to JJNN for Thursday September 11th, 2008. Today we will be taking about a food that is eaten in the fall in Japan.

I am so happy that it is getting cooler. Of course the fact that the temperature is going down means that it is getting into fall, but it also means something else in Japan. It means that it is time for yaki-imo! I love yaki-imo. It is a great hot treat on a long cold night.

So what is yaki-imo? Well it is just basically baked sweet potatoes. They either cook them on a grill or in a hole or even on hot rocks. Some times you can see families gather together fallen leaves in their yard so they can cook the sweet potatoes on the burning leaves. Yaki-imo is extremely simple to make and so good to eat. Here is a picture of some yaki-imo.



Looks good right? Well there is only one problem with yaki-imo. Well, besides the high calorie problem. It is the fact that these potatoes are sold off the back of trucks. That would normally be a good thing because you don't have to go all the way to a store to buy them, right? Well, I guess it is good, but these trucks have to do something to get every one's attention and let everyone know that they are in the area. Well, they do that with loudspeakers. Just check out the clip below.



This one actually starts to play music, but a lot of them don't (thank a deity for that one). They basically drive around the residential districts and yell over the loud speakers about how great and tasty their potatoes are. I don't know about you, but the more I hear that yelling the less I want to buy a potato and the more I want to throw a brick at the truck.

Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 芋(いも). It is pronounced imo and means potato. Being from Maine, I am legally under a binding contract to tell you to buy Maine potatoes. Boycott Idaho! (Just kidding!)

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.

JJNN Wednesday: Games - 06

Welcome again to JJNN for Wednesday September 10th, 2008. Today we will be taking about my favorite game of all time.

I think everyone out there, even the people that hardly ever play video games, has a game that is special to them. A game that they call their favorite. What is that game for all of you? For me, that game is Chrono Trigger. It was the first game that I was totally absorbed into. I loved the graphics (at the time) and the way it played. I spent hours and hours on that game leveling up so that I could get every ending. Even to this day I still want to go out and buy the old system and get the old cartage and play it once again.

Fortunately for me, I don't have to go that far. It turns out that I don't have to go as far as buying the old system. According to this source and this source Nintendo is putting Chrono Trigger out on the DS this winter! Yay! I think I found my Christmas present to myself.

Here are a few pictures from the new remake:




Looks a lot like the original, right? Even after 13 years it still looks good. The only difference is in the first picture. The brackets around the characters and the two bars below them. The reason for those are the fact that the game is going to be played with the DS's touch screen (though it can be played the classic way as well) and the new fighting system that the game is going to use.

According to the second source Chrono Trigger is going to be using ATB ver.2 as its battle system. ATB stands for Active Time Battle. It is the same type of system that is used in some of the final fantasy games. It means that the time keeps flowing throughout the battle. Time does not stop to let you make choices. Look at the picture below.



The bottom blue bar is the ATB bar. When that bar gets full the character can make an action. When 2 or 3 characters are ready they can perform combos with each other to inflict more damage. This is like the original game.

The game looks good so far and I can't wait for it to come out. Here is the teaser trailer. Enjoy.



Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 懐かしい(なつかしい). It is pronounced natsukashii and means something like a thing from your past that brings back memories. There are a lot of words in Japanese that are just hard to translate into one or two English words.

That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.