Yamanashi

From 2019. I watched the episode through; there is an episode 2 and maybe a third. Overall, enjoyable; I'll probably watch the other episodes. She has the classic BBC snark down pat; condescending, but she treats her subjects with more respect than most Western journalists on such shows. The Sumo segment was about University Sumo; can girls one day win an Olympic medal? Not asked: can boys one day win an Olympic Medal?

I would say "Yes", but Akinomaki told us not to clutter the thread with extraneous discussion ... D'oh!

I'm very impressed. Since it's much like his vignettes for the NHK, I wonder if they were his idea in the first place. He is hitting a lot of the right notes in his productions so far.

A friend from Grad School told me he once interviewed for a job with the Central Intelligence Agency. When they asked him what foreign languages he knew, he said "Latin." The response: "What are you going to be, 'Our Man in the Vatican'?" I imagine knowing all those Latin cases might help with Italian, which kept a good number of them (according to my son, who thought "learning Italian will be just like learning Spanish").

Raised in California, so some Spanish (more Mexican than Castilian), French in school and from family; as a lark in High School. a friend and I tried to learn Afrikaans from Radio South Africa ("ek bestel see krief!") When I retire from my job I will finally learn more than a little Japanese so I can sing J-Pop songs while playing acoustic guitar (finger-picking style) which I will also learn.

When I was young in America, baseball season was a holy thing. At the end of the World Series in October, there was a vast void of time before the beginning of the season in April. People would mark the number of weeks until Spring training in late February. Coaches and players spread out across the country, speaking at local meetings or sports conventions, and in winter trades between teams would cause frenetic conversations among the baseball fanatics (this was known as the Hot Stove League). If there was no news during this period, people would get a little loopy and engage in bitter verbal battles about trivia. I've felt that way about Sumo over the last year. The traffic gets so low on the Forum between basho that I try to log off every night so I don't get caught being the only one signed in. It has gotten worse over the last six months . I now think it may be the lack of jungyo between basho; having something going on and seeing the sekitori having fun and meeting the people is something I've really missed during the two-year you-know-what. Maybe we can expect more jungyo from here on out. Sorry for the ramble, but I jusr realized I'm watching a bunch of skinny doofuses jumping on a sumo wrestler (and doing 100 m in a swimming pool in a canoe against an Olympic swimmer.)

The stakes are too high! Besides ... https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f08663d7-8a06-49cb-89f4-c031d94412c7

He started at Ms15TD, so didn't have to fight his way up. 8 basho to stick in Juryo, 4 more to stay in Makuuchi. 15 more basho to reach his pinnacle at M5, then the decline through Juryo and now in Makushita. 45% winning rate in Makuuchi, 48% in Juryo. He's got enough basho for a coaching job, but what does he bring to the table?

Did anyone else catch this tidbit? About six months ago, NHK decided that all Japanese names on NHK World will use the Japanese form, so Hiro Morita became Morita Hiroshi. Now on his own channel, he's back to Hiro Morita.

Thanks to the Glorious Workers Revolution, Russians and Volga Germans and Poles and Koreans ... are part of the ethnic potpourri in Kazakhstan. Miraculously, since the 1990's many non-Kazakh populations are emigrating to places like Germany, Poland, Korea, etc. Because they never formed a cohesive culture, the ethnic association can be important in figuring out what kind of wrestling they do.

Well, that writes on END OF FILE on the whole "Ichinojo never smiles" meme.

This past month Kazakhstan won a World Championship in the 300m Womens Steeplechase. The winner, Norah Jeruto, was one of four women from Kenya who changed citizenship from Kenya to Kazakhstan three years ago. There are so many quality runners in Kenya, and such a relative lack of money for pro athletes, that many athletes work out an emigration deal with other countries.

Interesting! The first thing that caught my eye was the ~50% reduction in rikishi at Isegahama and Sadogatake over the last five years.

Well, to be fair, the year was 2010. You're right about the second image.

Many thanks. I like to think that somewhere, in a place far from here, some vaudeville comedian is tipping his cigar and saying "nice work, kid."

I disagree. It's like Mother's Day – if it were every day, even the most devoted child would start to resent the old bag. I like Font Day the way it is: six days a year in the middle of odd-numbered months. And, I don't want to know which day, just like I don't want to know what's in the wrapped presents.

So, will they call his wife Lady Gagamaru? [Thanks, thanks very much ... available for weddings and bar mitzvot.]

Maybe he could add that tidbit in when suggesting that he be contracted to do their English Sumo commentary ... uh, never mind.

Re: Taka Twins vs. "Shrek" Takagenji was 8-2 vs Yago, Takanofuji 1-0. So, good performance against the real Shrek.

Ichinojo has A yusho for the first time! Who's next? (No, not him).

You're my choice for videos. I can't believe how fast you can come up with quality edited videos in such a short time, and on a shoestring. Also, Font Day ends over my dead body.

@Gaijingai, some of the folks on the Forum think you're a bot. Even I knew that wasn't Osunaarashi. Apparently, speed doesn't always beat size either, as the MMA fighter found out.

The schedulers have never heard of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_Königsberg

He has the cool, affable look of a man who already owns a kabu.

I have commented on his "alternate locutions" several times. They are sometimes irritating, but I wouldn't get rid of him over it. In many sports broadcasts there is an "anchor" ( a person with a Journalism degree) who does the straight reporting, and a "color commentator" (usually an ex-athlete) who puts the "color" or interest into the broadcast. It's my understanding that Sumo broadcasts had that system in the past, but now they have a single commentator (for NHK World), and the one announcer has to wear both hats. To my ears, Murray is more anchor than color, Hiroshi is more color, and Ross splits it down the middle.