Secret Santa, and Hana Yori Dango 2

Well, today we had our Secret Santa party over at Justin and Colleen's house. And for the second year in a row I ended up in a cyclical present chain... last year I got Heidi and Heidi got me, and this year I got Colleen and Colleen got me. And in more fun, both of us got baseball-related stuff for each other, though I feel bad because she got me two books (the big one on uniform numbers, and a baseball Sudoku book) and a Mariners gift certificate... I got her a funny Mariners mug glass that has LEDs in the bottom and if you press a button it'll flash colored lights when you move it around, and I also got her a cute Mariners puppy beanie baby thing (both in the thought of "cool things you'd never get for yourself"). Presents are hard. I think people were mostly happy with the things they received though. The rest of the hanging out was good too. There was ham for dinner and lots of snacks and stuff, and people playing pool, and several little children inspiring games such as throwing a ton of sticky rubber insects and caterpillars up so they'd stick to the ceiling. It's weird remembering that Chris and George live here now, and that Jarrett is leaving in a few days and all.

I came home and noticed that I had finished getting the first episode of Hana Yori Dango season 2 -- the dorama, that is, I've never seen the anime or manga -- so despite that I should be working on more productive things, I put in laundry and watched the episode. It was almost two hours long, and I'm impressed with the amount of footage they shot in NYC. Basically, they essentially treated this like real life had gone on since the last season, which aired in fall 2005 -- so Domyouji left for NYC at the end of 2005, the F4 guys graduated in 2006, and now it's winter 2007 and Makino is a senior at Eitoku (I think). Stuff happens, but I don't really want to ruin it for anyone who might watch it and doesn't already know the plot. If you missed season 1, you can read the um.. summary, I guess.. that I wrote of it a year ago here.

All the usual suspects are back from last season (though I'm wondering if Matsushima Nanako, who plays Tsubaki-oneechan, is pregnant), and I really do think that Hanazawa Rui is Oguri Shun's best role ever, and he's still so good in it. Ikuta Toma, last seen as a geek in Akihabara@DEEP, comes in to play the part of Junpei, and he also does a pretty great job of it. (Does Junpei actually have any role in this AFTER this episode, though, I wonder?) The thing that killed me through the whole episode was the English being used, though. Matsumoto Jun (Domyouji) probably has the best out of any of them, and Inoue Mao's (Makino) command of the language is awful, but perfectly so for her role, if that makes any sense. The other thing about the episode was that it had a lot of flashbacks... A LOT OF THEM. I guess that's to bring people up to speed if they didn't see Season 1. Also, I noticed that the lady who plays Makino's crazy mother is the same lady who played Kunimi's mother in H2, which suddenly makes a LOT of sense.

The opening theme is Yet Another Random Catchy But Shallow Arashi Song that I've already forgotten, but I'm sure will grow on me by the end of the series. Sometimes I wonder if it basically says in the Johnny's contract, "Any dorama with an actor from Johnny's Jimusho must feature an opening or closing song written by the band that actor is in", because it sure seems to follow.

Anyway, I watched it unsubbed, because I really wanted to see it and am too impatient to wait for subbers to get to it. I'm sure that anyone who likes Hanadan will like this season, though I predict it's basically going to be another long annoying season of Makino and Domyouji yelling and screaming and fighting with each other until they realize they're in love again, and some combination of Rui, this new character Shigeru, and maybe Junpei? as the obstacles. And of course, as always, I can't help but wonder why the hell Makino DOESN'T just give up on that asshat Domyouji and run off with Rui...

More reasons I love Japanese Baseball

When Carl and I went to Nara, one of the funniest parts of the day was watching people at Todaiji try to fit themselves through the "nose hole" in the pillar by the Daibutsu (gigantic Buddha).

Well, Kazuo Fukumori, the closer for the Rakuten Golden Eagles and a damn fine pitcher, apparently has no qualms about looking silly trying to fit too, even putting that in his blog. Hee.

And um, if you want to see the funniest interview that has ever been done in the history of all Sports Illustrated, you must check out the Q&A with Kei Igawa. I'm sure something got lost in translation in the interview, because there's no way in hell he's naturally this deadpan hilarious.