"Ken Yasumoto-Nicolson" <ken_nicolson@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:6afefaef.0401051614.65266978@posting.google.com...
> I was watching - or rather, the BYJW was watching - Who Wants to be a
> Millionaire at the weekend, and they had some top fortune teller on
> (obviously not good enough to have divined the answers beforehand, but
> that's another matter) who, shock horror, was actually going to give
> her prize money to charity, some one supporting kiddies' education in
> Africa!
>
> Well, after she bought some Edo-era black pottery tea cup she had her
> eye on, of course, she'd give the change to a good cause, if there was
> any left.
>
> My wife pointed out she already does consultations for up to 3 million
> yen a session, so she was just playing for a couple of days' salary,
> but even with remarkably easy questions she still failed on the last
> one.
>
> Over the holidays, I also watched the Woody Allen film "Small Time
> Crooks", where he and Tracey Ullman play two poor, unsophisticated
> people who gain far too much money, and fill their new penthouse flat
> with exceptionally gaudy, expensive tat in order to try to impress
> people. I was taken by how similar their portrayal of that situation
> was to the endless Japanese shows where we see inside rich people's
> homes and are supposed to be impressed by the price tags on the
> wall-to-wall shite they have piled up.
>

I switched off for the obaa-san - but I did watch Shinjo rank in a cool
million - though his feigning over the last answer was pretty bad,
especially for a professional sportsman.  It was fairly obvious that he
totally knew the answer when the question came up, the producers must have
told him to lay it on a bit so they'd at least be some tension to the
finale.  Noticed that he pocketed the money - but coming back from the
Majors and with a future move up north the guy could probably do with all
the money he can lay his hands on...for warm winter clothing.

I loved his comment about the main differences between the Majors and
pro-yakyu. Not sure if I understood the missus' translation 100% but I
believe he said: fundamental to yakyu is the role of the coach - all eyes
are on the coach and it's his performance rather than the players' that is
believed to determine games.  Contrasted with MLB where it is the players
who win games, the coach is secondary.  Nothing new there though - Jim
Allen's 'The Hot Corner' in the Daily Yomiuri has more or less been saying
the same thing since his first column.

I did like Shinjo's pencil!  Maybe that fortune teller should have borrowed
it.


-- 
jonathan
--
"Never give a gun to ducks"