A Whole Load of Offtopicness
I watched China win both team gymnastics gold medals. While one was fully expected (the men would have had to flop spectacularly to not win), the other was a bit more nail-biting, characterised by Americans, Chinese and Russians flopping off the beam and falling on their bums. Overage or underage, baby teeth or not, China won it on the day. I’m avoiding all American press on the subject for the next few weeks, all they do is complain about the age issue and it’s irritating -_-
I remember being asked for ID in the UK when I wanted to buy a lighter to light the candles on a birthday cake:
White-haired lady: You’re 16? Show me some ID!
Me: I’m 19, you old fart.
She still wouldn’t sell me the lighter. Even now, I get questions about high school despite being 24 years of age *shrug*
PS I still hope Nastya Liukin wins AA gold! She’s just so graceful, and her uneven bars routine is awesome…I’m not sure what sort of image I’m portraying by raving about female gymnastics. At least I’m not a guy, or I might be accused of being a loli-loving-leotard-fetish-pedo.
Hungarian weightlifter Janos Baranyai’s dislocated elbow made me wince. It’s sticking in the opposite direction 0_o;;
Moving onto some relevant stuff,
Yahagi Sayuri has been lined up to replace Fukuen Misato in GA-REI-zero- as Izumi Mami. It’s only a supporting role, so I don’t think the change will be noticed much.
16-year old Yuki Aoi (Murasaki in kure-nai) is headed down a seiyuu career path after switching agencies from Breath to Pro-Fit. Pro-Fit was only established in 2003 and has few recognisable names on their roster – only Shiraishi Minoru and maybe Ochiai Yurika would be familiar to the casual seiyuu fan. Oh well, I hope PF will build on her good early work and not let her fall by the wayside…
Kitamura Eri will be celebrating her 21st birthday on 16th August. Which also happens to be my brother’s wedding day, and I doubt I’ll be around to wish KitaEri a happy birthday on that day itself so er…Happy Birthday (in advance) KitaEri!! The pic above is from joint celebrations with a bunch of seiyuu (clockwise from top left: KitaEri, Hirota Shion, Ohara Momoko, Inoue Marina, Asumi Kana & Matsuzaki Rei) which included karaoke, bowling and a birthday cake. Asumin turned 25 on August 12, so belated happy b’day to her too.
There were quite a few anime theme songs/seiyuu stuff released last week, here’s those that charted within the top 100:
8 13,564 Shiny GATE Nakagawa Shoko
12 8,548 BLACK DIAMOND Mizuki Nana (Shugo Chara something or the other)
17 7,378 Ame Agari no Hana yo Sake Chihara Minori
23 5,800 Manatsu no Spica Ono Daisuke
37 3,707 Nagareboshi Record marble
46 2,779 Gomen ne Kugimiya Rie (Zero no Tsukaima 3 ED)
62 1,902 Hades:The bloody rage Yosei Teikoku
83 1,195 Hatch Shiraishi Ryoko
100 878 Fly Away THYME (Mahou Tsukai yada yada OP)
LOL at BLACK DIAMOND outselling almost everything else.
And back to being off topic:
My job involves reading a lot of newspapers, hence I stumble across a lot of news pieces every single day that make for good office water cooler conversations, mostly weird and/or lewd stuff – my usual mindset I guess…
So how did you get that thing up your butthole again?
And how did you get that stuck down there?
Warning: Do not stare at that Shugo Chara cosplayer.
How many dumb blonde cheerleaders fit into a lift? Answer here.
Drink and furniture do not mix.
I’m off to watch some fencing. At least you can’t see any missing teeth or underdeveloped boobs there.
The underage thing is less about “Those Asians are so tiny! Surely they must be underage!” and more about “Here is a video of them competing in the U-15 championship last year. And here is a video of them giving an interview afterward where they are introduced as ‘14 year olds He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan’”.
Anyone can see that it’s laughable to claim these tiny tots are all under 16, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it now. It’s the fact that Karolyi & co keep harping on about ‘half-people’ (which half is that? the top or the bottom?) and ‘babies’, and keep blaming ‘psychological warfare’ for not winning gold that is irritating me. Stop shooting your mouth off Martha/Bela, you’re just pissed off that the US authorities won’t let you use babies too >_< Even your athletes (Shawn Johnson <3) are more mature than you -_-
Anyhoo, with the new scoring system gymnastics is more like watching robots trying to pack in as many tricks as possible in a routine without a thought for grace or artistry. Maybe we should get rid of all sports that require judging (bye-bye diving & sync swimming) for the next olympics and stick squash in instead ^^;
Why the hell am I ranting about gymnastics again?
Interesting comments about the gymnastics. I’m not saying I know one way or the other, nor am I doubting that China might cheat, too, but it is pretty sickening to hear the Americans bitching so much so soon after Marion Jones finally admitted to the steroids that everyone but the American press knew she was taking all along. “Oh, we didn’t win. They must have cheated.” Americans are not usually whiners, and it doesn’t suit them.
If there is evidence like jp mentions, it’s a different matter, but I can’t help but feel a breath of ignorant prejudice blowing when people in the US press think Chinese should look as old as Caucasians. Oh well, I know someone Chinese who couldn’t tell Americans apart when she first arrived in the US.
By the way, I once had my own elbow dislocated backwards like that. Highly scary for a six-year-old, but at that age it healed fast.
Happy Birthday, KitaEri.
The American press likes to make controversy about e v e r y t h i n g! I mean, just let the girls do their thing.
The female Chinese gymnasts did not do so well in Athens 2004. While they looked as young as these girls, no one complained about their ages…
And Oana Ban, one of the Romanian gymnasts in Athens 2004, was tiny and looked like a kid, while she’s actually older than most of her teammates.
Such whining from US media will just shame the US athelets. Geez
From the couch incident: “Police refused to comment.” is now my favourite comment XD
Wow, that was some scary sight, the elbow got twisted…
And, Inoue Marina so cuteeee~ I actually read KitaEri’s blog and Marina also blog one of the pict too…
Nice issue~
oh gosh j1m0ne!!!!! im sry this comment is totally off topic but… Why isnt there anymore posts about the latest kyouran anime and radio shows?!! the latest was like may or june! x(( i really really really Really Really REALLY hope that u would post more on stuff about kyouran kazoku nikki!! me=kyouran addict (ah, and a little abt tomatsu haruka wouldnt hurt xDD) and last but not least, HEY!! a GREEEAT seiyuu blog u have there!!
Aha ha ha ha!
Oh you!
You’re going to kill me one of these days.
Sigh!
Looks like it’s time to get the female gymnastics in HD to watch the p’ownage!
>extratax
Oh god, I’m so behind on all things Kyoran and I’m up to my eyeballs with work at the moment I barely have the will to play catch up. I hope to do so…eventually :/
Evidence or not, I’m just as sick of hearing of the age thing, and I’m American. Does being 2 years younger in any way give these gymnasts an advantage? If anything, I’d think it’s a disadvantage because they don’t have as much strength as someone 2+ years older than them. If they are underage, then take this up as a different dispute on process, administration, reviewing eligibility rules. But there’s no question that the best gymnasts won that night. Now the Chinese gymnast’s falling on her knees on vault, and still scoring higher than the American who landed hers is another story…
In any case, not all Americans have the “Us vs. Them” mentality. I’m just as aware of the anti-Chinese bias the media has.
“She still wouldn’t sell me the lighter. Even now, I get questions about high school despite being 24 years of age *shrug*”
does that make you a loli-fake-jailbait?…
“I’m not sure what sort of image I’m portraying by raving about female gymnastics. At least I’m not a guy, or I might be accused of being a loli-loving-leotard-fetish-pedo.”
but you are a loli-loving-leotard-fetish-pedobear who happens to be female… kidding
(I didn’t read them all, some of the links don’t work anymore anyways)
God. I am trying so hard not to crack up in my office.