For all of you who are following the sumo tournament via my IM messages (which is probably nobody, actually…never mind, I’m going to start again.)
Well, as many of you know, I am a big fan of Sumo. For all you inbreds out there who just think sumo is a bunch of fat naked guys grabbing at each other: you’re wrong. Sumo is a sport of great talent and agility. Every match is epic. Anyway, right now we have the Spring Tokyo Basho going on, one of the six Sumo tournaments held every year. The tournament will last for 15 days and each wrestler has to wrestler once a day. Asashoryu is a Yokozuna, the highest ranking Sumo class. He rules. He’s from Mongolia and takes no crap from nobody. He says, basically, No one tells Asashoryu who Asashoryu needs to respect expect Asashoryu. Going into this tournament (and for the first five or six bouts) he had the fourth longest winning streak in the sport. The last time he had lost was in Kyushu. Well, these things can’t last forever and he finally lost on Friday (or Thursday, but I think it was Friday.)
Asashoryu’s one loss was handed to him by none other than Hokutoriki. Hokutoriki had been having a darned good run this time around and was undefeated until today, when he basically missed the jump at the beginning of his bout and Wakanosato more or less had his way with him.
Takamisakari is a cartoon of a man. He just makes me angry. His presence in the sport is a joke. Anyway, he wrestled Asashoryu yesterday, and surprise, surprise got run into the ground. I was a little worried because after Asashoryu ran him into the ground, Asashoryu was limping. He was okay though. As far as Takamisakari goes, I just want to put my arm around him and say, “Dude, give it up.” He is also on this dumb commercial selling spices for rice. Someone needs to give him the ol' pipe wrench to the knee. Why does that vicious underhanded crap only happen in figure skating?
Pipe smoking is, unfortunately, one of the best things in the world. I now enjoy it once a month, but if it didn’t cause mouth, lung, and/or throat cancer, let’s just say I’d be smoking now.
After having been a fan of their live show for years, I finally got the Denali record. It's good. Since they broke up, I will have to console myself with the recorded version of these songs, but really, it just can't compare to the show. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful, but a Denali show, the Fireside Bowl in the sweltering press of summer? Really, can anything else compare?
Finally, I fell asleep on the train next to a girl. When I opened my eyes, the bench had cleared and we were the only two people sitting there, right next to each other. In Japan, this sort of intimate thing can just happen by chance, right there on the train. It doesn't bother me.