returning to my "old stomping grounds" for an afternoon

By now, regardless of where you live on this planet of ours, you've likely very well heard of 2 things over the past year:

1: the mega (& officially a full year old, as of today) success that Disney has had with a certain animated movie;

...& 2: an old dump of a building that sat almost completely disused up until about a year or so ago, aside from the occasional college basketball game/graduation/etc., before a serious influx of touring acts somehow found the joint at the same rate they did when MSG was being completely renovated...

...what do you get when you put those 2 together?

...you get Disney on Ice presents Frozen, produced by Feld Entertainment & presented further by Stonyfield Farms Yogurt, which I only didn't find out about until recently because they were very late hopping on the "Greek yogurt" bandwagon, & as a person not known for declining the occasional container of Greek yogurt (preferably Dannon OIKOS, but that's just me...), that repels me... it doesn't offend me, however!

As pictured above, obviously, the setup for Disney on Ice in a place like the Meadowlands doesn't look entirely dissimilar from that, save, obviously, for the ice surface replacing the stage... Other than that, however, the pitch-black curtains are hung in the 200s, allowing, among other things, for a makeshift "backstage" area for all the performers hustling in & out of everybody's view!

That was the obvious stuff, however; here, now, is some less obvious stuff:

You know where that video board was that morning/afternoon? Up in the ceiling, &, to make matters worse, it was up there the entire show, which, unlike the yogurt sponsorship, greatly offended my basketball/hockey fan self, having been in there for numerous NBA/NHL games up until 2010!

This is what that video board once looked like:

I don't think you people will be able to notice this, since my pic came out all blurry, but the previous pic (the Milwaukee Bucks entering the Meadowlands & rolling the then-lousy Nets) & the more recent pic (Disney on Ice) is the changed sponsorship from Pepsi to Coke...

There were also these shield-type things hanging about in between the ice & rafters, & they looked something like this:

As you can tell in that ridiculously cropped pre-show pic, they were simply displaying the show's logo then, but once the show actually started, they flipped between showing images of various "winter" objects, & either this part was actually true, or perhaps I was too busy looking up at those "shields" instead of down at ice level, but I remember them displaying some scenes from the movie itself to go along with the live action... Also featured in the pre-show were short introductions of each of the previous Disney animated (main) characters, along with remixes of some of their tunes, & also this timeless "groove":

...mind you, that wasn't actually the original Steve Winwood recording of that tune, but, unfortunately, the entire cast of the show "taking a stab" at that tune, &, at least to me, trying too hard to tie that in with the actual show...

Thankfully, once that was done, the show itself started, &, with that, came the answers to the few remaining ?'s I had, such as "will these people keep the movie soundtrack, &, more importantly to me, will they keep it in order?"

The answer to that 1st "?" ended up being a resounding "yes", but just to confirm that:

(...& thank **** that was indeed the case...)

The answer to the other "?", however, was "nope"... The early parts of the show were as we've all come to know from the film itself:

That makes sense & all, but to screw up the continuity between film & live just to enter the intermission on a rather predictable "high note" was what particularly got to me initially:

I get it... they didn't want to waste the "showstopper" by sticking it at any earlier point in the show instead of right before intermission... On 2nd thought, who am I kidding to think about anything but that being the case with the live show...

(at least the rest of the soundtrack was kept in its proper order...)

Here now is a recap of what I just mentioned, in no particular order:

1: thank **** the soundtrack was merely a recording of the movie itself-I don't think I could've lasted any longer than two minutes or so if I heard the actual live performers try (and most likely destroy) the soundtrack...

(this, x1,000,000...)

2: I get that 3D technology does amazing things, but I think the arena, as old as it is, could've done better than sparks filling in for the CGI ice effects so über present in the movie... Perhaps, considering the building's age, I dunno, blue lasers or something like that?

(that was actually the case-the arena literally used the exact opposite effects to stand in for "3D ice"...)

3: fittingly, most of the cast was over in Manhattan, either performing in or simply watching this year's Macy*s parade...

(& will continue to be, if NBC gets its way with its planned full slate of holiday specials over the next month or so...)

4: despite the visual effect limitations, I think the building melded old-school looks with new-school entertainment almost seamlessly, particularly the constant presence of merchandise from the franchise, and the old three-quarters seating arrangement, with part of the far end of the upper level open, which, I think, would only be possible in older arenas such as that in the Meadowlands, which were all-seating without any obstructed view seats (Brooklyn...)!

I also indirectly challenged my philosophy to "fork over" a few of his ("deep philosophical") opinions sometime between now & the end of this fall semester, even though I originally issued him said challenge back in late August, even before this semester, never mind before he & the rest of them found out about my almost obsession with all things Frozen, which leads me to my next point, about the crowd, from my "U" e-mail account:

"...the only performance today ('cause turkey) of Disney on Ice presents Frozen, but my point isn't/wasn't that I was there; rather, it is/was the rest of the audience: largely younger kids, a few "stay at home dads" presumably getting dragged there by said kids, and a bunch of random adults (some with kids, others without) who presumably don't celebrate Thanksgiving, at least yet, and a few of my own opinions, having been exposed to the movie quite often over its first six months, even more in Japan, since it only premiered in Japanese at the very end of June (6/30)..."

...as such, most of the guys in the crowd, having been forcefully taken in by their kids who've probably already seen the movie more often than they've been out of state, or anything that infants/toddlers/etc. don't normally do before reaching a certain age, or another certain age (in which, I guess, watching Frozen so often is included), seemed to know more about what was going on than that bunch, although the show made rather effective use of its surroundings (mainly these corner platforms in both corners of ice level) to keep itself moving (literally)!

In all this hoopla, I don't seem to be the only person around here who's both (A) male & (B) of relative adult age to be so taken in by the show: Gig Siruno, 1 of the show's performance directors, who was (A) an Olympic gold medal figure skater & (B) a Disney on Ice cast member at various points in recent memory, was recently quoted on nj.com about the show's unique characteristics:

on the show's borderline "destiny" to end up in this position:

"The film was just meant, I mean, to be on ice," says Gig Siruno, 43, performance director for the show. Having skated for 28 years — he was a national figure-skating champion in the early '90s — as a cast member for Disney On Ice, he once played Aladdin and Mowgli from "The Jungle Book," characters from films based in decidedly warmer climes."

(on the show's visual effects):

"We can go anywhere from a light flurry to a full-blown blizzard," says Siruno, who hails from the not-so-temperate Minneapolis."

(on the film's backstory & the show's "interactivity"):

"He says the film, inspired by the 1844 Hans Christian Andersen tale "The Snow Queen," may be equipped with the kind of showstopping musical numbers that draw legions (you can certainly say that over & over again...), but, at its core, is "a story about family and sisters."

It's also a story that has kept eagle-eyed young fans on the edge of their seats, ensuring a fair amount of interactivity. 

"There's this moment where the villain is revealed," Siruno says. "The kids get so into it. To hear the booing, it's pretty incredible."" (mind you, I don't remember as much jeering of anybody or anything as I did of just plain astonishment at how everything went down, but I guess some people must have figured out who was who to that extent in earlier shows...)

Even the main cast member has been enthralled by the continued success of everything, courtesy of the same nj.com article:
""For me, I still, every time, feel like a little kid again, like at Disney World," says Becky Bereswill, the skater who plays Elsa, the princess who isolates herself, afraid she'll insta-freeze everything in sight. 

Bereswill, 24, a skater from Houston, was a "Let it Go" fan before she knew she'd be touring with Disney on Ice (it's her first year with the company). While running her first marathon, the former competitive skater listened to the song on repeat. She thinks the musical element is key to why Disney considers the movie to be one of its most successful animated features.

"It's a dream come true, for sure," she says of her part. As Bereswill skates during the big ballad portion, she likes to hear the crowd chime in, especially since audience participation wasn't always a part of competitive skating.

"I love hearing thousands of little voices singing along," she says. "It's really beautiful.""

What I'm about to mention next might seem incredibly "cheesy"/weird/etc. to you, but it doesn't seem like that to me! As different as marathons & school semesters might seem on the surface, deep down inside, they're actually very similar, at least to the 2 of us, & perhaps to some of you people, even... As of 6 months ago, even, I had nothing certain to look forward to, since my 1st Japan trip had yet to start, & knowing my luck with seriously considered Japan trips in the past (like that, previously prior to March 2011, & now), I was in fear the whole time leading up to that trip about another natural disaster pushing my "debut" over there back even further, & now, with my GPA in just enough of a position to be able to return there, just based on that, I've found myself entering the same "holding pattern", at least based on the informal definition of that short phrase, & I'm looking to erase as much of that "pattern" as possible within these next few weeks! 

chapter 4: returning to Japan, only to get "busted" immediately, and a Colombian incursion

     The task force hadn't so much as traveled from Juárez to Tokyo via El Paso when they got ambushed and cornered deep inside a locked-down Narita Airport, which, fittingly, and unfortunately for them, was just far enough away from downtown that they couldn't hope to escape even if they wanted to. The perpetrators of the impromptu lockdown were not yakuza members, but rather, they were more Mexican drug cartel agents, infiltrating Japanese cities if only to turn them into "wastelands", since they had just about run each other out of Mexico over the course of many years. The main man leading the drug cartel group inside Narita, however, was not a Mexican: it was the man who unexpectedly addressed the force in Juárez: Yamiguchi-gumi kumicho ("Godfather"), Kenichi Shinoda! Shinoda's first words to them inside Narita were initially words of "welcome", as any syndicate leader would probably be wont to do, but soon turned boastful:
          "Hello there, men who allegedly fight organizations... I understand that you arrived here expecting to find many of my own men, but, as you can tell, the drug cartels have decided to "pinch-hit" for them for the foreseeable future, so I hope you enjoy fighting this new yakuza of my creation, composed of battle-toughened drug cartel fighters!"
     He then addressed Giunta and Scangalore directly:
          "You only think you're so tough... I'll have you know that before I purged my original clan of corrupt jerks, I was still planning on implementing some of the cartels' ideas..."
     Hannelman felt compelled to respond in Spanish to interrupt Shinoda's monologue, so he did:
          "Vayate de aqui con tu ******... Supongo que tu organización tiene las capacidades de infiltrar varias ciudades y infligir dolor y sufrimiento masivo, pero nosotros no te dejáremos progresar con tus planes muy siniestros!"
     Shinoda responded in kind:
          "Who do you think I am-Alberto Fujimori? We might hold people hostage now and then, but we don't shut down whole countries and governments to seize control of any of our territory!"
          "Con tu ignorancia sobre esta tema, creo que estarías mejor servido en ser un alcaide de prisión, con tus métodos de torturar a la gente extraña!"
          "You never got understood me, did you? I proclaimed my innocence in ransacking cities, not innocence in surrendering to enemies!"
     Hannelman soon changed to a language that everybody in the JR terminal, Narita Airport Station, could understand:
          "That's what you might think, but that's why we're here-to end whatever "streak" you're too busy laying claim to right now instead of actually testing our abilities!"
     He also preemptively silenced Giunta before he could back himself into a verbal corner:
          "...and quit talkin', Giunta, before you get even more opponents on you and the rest of us 'cause you're too busy talkin' smack to this yakuza guy!"
     Giunta fired back at Hannelman's sudden order almost immediately:
          "Why you tellin' me to shush when we got this crazy Japanese gangsta all up in our faces right here, lookin' to bust our ***** in his way to controllin' all of this here island?"
     In any normal situation, said confrontation would most likely settle down rather soon, leaving any physical battles to a future meeting. While this confrontation was happening, however, there was a caravan of drug cartel men, obeying Shinoda's orders, fast approaching the Marunouchi district of Tokyo, about an hour away from the standoff between the Yamaguchi-gumi clan leader and the task force. Among the men planning the infiltration of Marunouchi was a man from another drug cartel: Timoleón Jimenez, leader of the Colombian paramilitary group FARC, who was under even tighter orders from Shinoda, considering his status as a drug cartel "leader". Little did Timoleón know, though, that the General of his country's Policía Nacional, Rodolfo Palomino, was boarding a plane from Lima, Perú, first to arrest him, and then join in the battle against the Mexican drug cartel-controlled yakuza! Before he boarded the plane, however, he spoke with a reporter for América Noticias in Lima to outline his role in the operations against the FARC leader and the new yakuza:
          "Para que nuestra operación triunfa, tenemos que navegar cuidadosamente, por que estamos luchando contra dos fuerzas criminales, no solamente uno... La así-llamada 'yakuza', y sus secuaces con los carteles Mexicanos..."
     For General Palomino's planned cornering of Timoleón's group to work, however, he would have to fly into Haneda Airport closer to downtown Tokyo, which would put him at risk of getting cut off by some of the Mexicans. That was easier said than done, however, being that a huge force of Tokyo Metropolitan Police men were heavily guarding Haneda Airport to counter the takeover of Narita Airport by Shinoda, who had his units guarding stretches of all the major highways between Haneda and Narita, particularly the Marunouchi district, since the cartel men were planning on "breaking and entering" into various bank headquarters buildings throughout Tokyo's equivalent to the Manhattan Financial District. They had their plan, but did they have their success? Only time would be able to tell that aspect of the fight...

chapter 3: smacking down the "La Línea" cartel, and a sudden Asian pivot

     When the remaining members of the multinational crime-fighting team took care of all the administrative matters necessary to cross the Mexican border, they immediately headed for the epicenter of Mexican drug crime: Ciudad Juárez. There, they just as immediately encountered one of Mexico's most notorious drug lords covertly smuggling more contraband into and out of the city: Servando Gómez Martinez, known as "La Tuta" ("The Teacher/Tutor") or "El Profe" ("The Professor"), making the trip from the former Aztec territory Michoacán to Juárez to plug the numerous holes left by anti-drug raid after anti-drug raid. There were another other drug lord making his presence felt before he got left as one of the "más buscados de Mexico" ("Mexico's most wanted"): Nazario Moreno González, also of the Michoacán cartel, the "Knights Templar". Unfortunately for Martinez, his getting left alone in charge of the Knights presented logistical challenges as well as the more obvious challenges of keeping other cartels going by "proxy", despite not always being on the greatest of terms with their leadership. Finding little, if any, resistance along the BRT and Public Bus systems, the team met Martinez outside an abandoned country club in the "Campestre" — the downtown neighborhood once loaded full of country clubs, only to see them empty out one by one due to the cartels' crossfire over the years. They spotted him just about to leave for the studios of XEPM-TV, home to the city's Televisa affiliate. Indeed, that was where four of the five men, minus Giunta, ended up, but not before the station got removed from the airwaves in dramatic fashion, as the station was in the middle of a news special on the city's slow recovery from all the drug violence when the beginning of the fight killed its signal:
          "Con los recientes avances contra el narcotráfico aquí en Juárez, nosotros aquí en TuCanal queremos agradecer a nuestras comunidades por su vigilancia en contra de los líderes del crimen organizado en los últimos meses-...
     The report only reached that far before a slide went up with the station's simplistic logo-just a "word mark", as those are referred to in television, and a slide reading "DIFICULTADES TÉCNICAS"-"TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES". Scangalore was the first of the task force members to notice Martinez almost singlehandedly sabotaging the signal, and he commented rather bluntly on the unfolding television signal sabotage:
          "What'cha coin' tryin' to kill this station's signal so prematurely like that instead of lettin' yourself battle out of that corner ya just put yourself in like a real man?"
     Martinez pretended to ignore Scangalore's little taunt, but what he couldn't ignore was Hannelman's presence in the TuCanal control room, commanding just as much of a presence simply by his Spanish fluency as Scangalore's toned body build overshadowed everybody else in the suddenly-evacuated newsroom. It was Yobito-san, however, who spoke up next:
          "Why must you corrupted souls always destroy other peoples' livelihoods through such effective organized crime? Why can't you just accept that you live among these people instead of trying to take them down little by little?"
     Finally feeling brave and bold enough to speak out himself, Martinez decided to crack a joke at the expense of Yobito-san, particularly his yakuza days, hoping that he wouldn't be the man in the room to escalate the simmering conflict any further:
          "En las palabras inmortales del Rey Juan Carlos de España, "¿Por qué no te callas?" Tú posiblemente crees que yo simplemente voy a rendir en lugar de continuar esta batalla solo... Pero, en la ausencia de mis compadres narcotraficantes, tú puedes ver con tus propios ojos que yo estoy dispuesto a cumplir con mi mission de restaurar nuestras días gloriosos aquí en Juárez, también en mi base, Michoacán, y en este país entero! Con tú historia de cometer crímenes mas destructivas contra tu gente, pero también contra infraestructura en su ciudad capital, tú no tienes ninguna posición de hablar en contra de nuestras actividades!" 
     Yobito-san, suddenly taken aback by the perceived slight on his past, attempted to counter Martinez's insult, only to get interrupted in Spanish by Hannelman: 
          "Oye, Señor ******, tu nos puedes acorralar, pero no nos puedes romper nuestros espíritus... Todos tus compañeros del narcotráfico ya están encerrados por los restos de sus vidas! Por qué no lo puedes aceptar a sus destinos? Por qué tienes que continuar torturando a todas estas ciudades por tu sustento?"
     That was the end of all the back-and-forth arguing-from there, it was all "fisticuffs", with Yobito-san, the subject of Martinez's insult, retreated outside the newsroom while Hannelman and especially Scangalore pummeled Martinez into submission. Once they did him in, inflicting massive blunt force trauma upon him and leaving his fainted body in the restroom in the hallway separating the control room from the newsroom. Giunta, hearing the commotion in the studios, finally caught up to the rest of the men, asking whether or not he missed anything "spectacular":
          "So, what'd I miss wit' y'all knockin' dat drug dude out cold?"
          Scangalore, pointing to Martinez's collapsed body: "Ya missed this..."
     As soon as Giunta found out about the two men knocking Martinez back into the previous decade, Hannelman and Yobito-san suddenly relayed urgent information coming from somewhere near Osaka, Japan, where they originally met expecting to only have to hunt down Martinez, the remaining "most wanted" Mexican drug lord, through a broken radio transmission with a signal constantly breaking in and out from interference: 
          "This... Shinoda-san... Yamaguchi-gumi... We want you back... Yobito-san, before we find you... the same way... ended the Mexican drug lord's life... return at once... we will track your team... all reaches of the planet... the agent intent on destroying our organization (Hannelman)... the inner-city thug (Giunta, who jumped slightly when he heard himself being called such)... the Mafia man (Scangalore, who defiantly grunted instead of acting surprised)... all of you men..."
          Yobito-san, rendered almost speechless: "How have they managed to find our position here, much less my presence here with all of you?"
          "Whatever the case may be, we might as well return to Japan and find out what all of them are up to before they find us and follow through on their threats..."
          "Do dat mean we 'bout to return to dat place wit' all da lights and stuff, and dose slot machine places wit' da little pinballs?"
          "Scangalore, shut that guy up before he blathers on even more..."
          "Will do..." slaps Giunta across his face
     Determined to fight off the other criminal syndicate threatening their lives, the four men took the same path out of the city as they took to find it in the first place, via the BRT and Public Bus systems, and crossed the Mexican border back into El Paso, Texas to head back to Osaka via Los Angeles to start their newest fight, against the biggest yakuza clans, which would become either a defining moment for law enforcement, or a major blow to public safety worldwide, given the expansionist policies of most of the yakuza clans in recent years...

BONUS: with the return of the MLB vs. Japan offseason series, here are both leagues'/shall I say, countries' rosters for the exhibition games to be held "across the pond" this & next week:
MLB:

Team Japan, A.K.A. "Samurai Blue":

now that we've reached November 2014...

...I have an article for you people, not from anything of mine, but rather from 2 authors, Dave Buckingham & Julian Sefton-Green, focused on studying the Pokémon series & its overall impact on world pop culture:

"We are being studied. That is a simple fact. Pokémon and its fan base have been discussed in everything from seminal works on convergence culture to understanding children’s media consumption. Throughout media studies, various groups have studied Pokémon fans to grasp how our base has adapted to the large amount of data found within the franchise. Yet in the nearly twenty years of being studied, fans have rarely done the opposite and used media studies tools for their own benefit.

In many ways, Pokémon fans have an advantage over many other fan groups. Our franchise focuses on the infinite power of knowledge. We don’t just collect Pokémon; we collect Pokémon data. Like a living Pokédex, each one of us soaks up as much knowledge as we can, and when that knowledge becomes too much for one person, we turn to communal storage such as Bulbapedia. To be a Pokémon fan is to be immersed in a culture that requires discipline, study, and teamwork to try and be the very best. That we have so much fun while gathering that knowledge only proves the resilience and abilities this franchise has to offer.

So let’s turn the tables a bit and use one media studies theory to help us in our struggle: media archaeology. This field attempts to understand media through its technology rather than its content, or rather to process content through the lens of media specificity. For example, let’s say we wanted to study the North American release of Pokémon Red.

Traditional media studies, or game studies in particular, might tell us to look at the video game itself. That could include studying the audiovisual content of the game, its plot or story, game mechanics such as battle, or the significance of trade in a cultural context. Those are all very fine points of study. Unfortunately, they are also very limited. How can we study why the audiovisuals looked and sounded as they did if we don’t consider the limitations of the Game Boy? Can we truly understand battle if we don’t take a peek at how data structures influence a Pokémon’s strength? How can we study trade in a vacuum without considering the hardware dependencies of a Link Cable? If we only care about the game, emulation would be close enough to a video game so as to examine the experience, but we are not just studying a game. We are studying a media object that exists in a very specific technological framework. Through the use of media archaeology, we look at the whole picture rather than one part, and we gain a richer grasp of what that picture is.

One major advantage to media archaeology as a process of study is that it gives us a chance to look at one of the more infuriating or challenging (depending on how you look at it) aspects of core series Pokémon games: versions. On the surface, versions don’t appear too complicated, seeing as the series generally follows a similar release model. Each generation of core series games begins with a pair of games, generally identical other than a few alterations, followed by a third solitary version with additional tweaks. Sometimes, a paired set of remakes from a previous generation is released, as well. There are exceptions such as Generation V. For most of the franchise’s history, games have been released first in Japan, followed by South Korea (when included), moving to North America, and finally in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.

In reality, the connections between versions are much more complicated, and media archaeology gives us the tools to understand alterations to the code itself. This gives fans the ability to understand the games in entirely new ways, and nowhere is this more apparent than in remakes. If we took Game Freak and Nintendo at face value, we might assume that Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen are remakes of Pocket Monsters Red and Green. By using media archaeology and digging into the code, we discover that the remakes are actually remakes of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire with the older audiovisual content painted on top of the newer game engine. Media archaeology gives us the tools to peek under the mainframe of versions and remakes and truly grasp why they work.

You might ask yourself, who cares about all these connections when we can spend our time playing Pokémon? Surprisingly, as fans we can learn a lot from these sorts of examinations. By having a better grasp of version connections, we can exploit inter-generational trade more easily, ensuring we are able to catch ‘em all. By looking at data structures influenced by platform specificity, we can take advantage of glitches to build a more powerful team of Pokémon and defeat our enemies in battle. Perhaps most importantly, as fans we can truly comprehend Pokémon not as Game Freak or Nintendo want us to comprehend them, but instead on our own terms. We can control our knowledge of these games in ways we never could before. I propose that we take a journey together. In this series of articles, I will examine each generation of Pokémon core series versions. Examining data structures, system requirements, trade restrictions, and localization will give us a deeper view into Pokémon. In particular, we’ll focus heavily on remakes. Finally, we can use what we’ve learned to think about how the upcoming remakes might turn out, and how future core series franchise games might be organized with the upcoming release of the New Nintendo 3DS.

So, what do you say?

"'You teach me and I’ll teach you.'""

Speaking of Japanese culture, I e-mailed 5 different people from my university yesterday about my prospects of returning there, this time with Temple University down in Philadelphia (Español alert!):

"Si no has fijado sobre mis notas todavía este semestre, bueno, creo que vas a estar mas que feliz cuando te actualizo sobre mis notas y mis chances de regresar a Japón...

filosofía: 89%, con un examen que todavía esta por llegar en que estoy más seguro que nunca... 

negocios internacionales: 88%

ley de negocios: 80%

elementos de negocios: 74%, con 2 notas mas que todavía están por llegar, en que también tengo un montón de confianza

Voy a ignorar mi clase de historia (Europea) en este hipotético, por que creo que mi clase ha obtenido "El Gran Imitador del Coronel de K.F.C. Harland Sanders" por un "profesor" ahi! Eso quiere decir que no hemos hecho casi nada en esa clase...

Teniendo en cuenta las otras clases, menos el de historia (Europea), creo que yo voy a estar en posición de regresar a Japón, por lo menos durante las vacaciones de invierno, con la Navidad y el Año Nuevo... La primavera, sin embargo, va a ser otra prueba total de mi perseverancia... Ya lo siento, y todavía no hemos llegado al mes de Diciembre... Eso es para otro momento, aunque tal vez es el mínimo promedio de 2.5 de Temple Japón que esta inflando mi esperanza solo un poquito mas de lo que debería ser... Sin embargo, terminar este semestre con 2 notas de 4,0 y 2 de 3,algo debe empujar mi promedio "por la superior", como se dicen en las ligas profesionales!"

translation:

"If you haven't yet checked out my approximate grades this semester, well, I think now you'll be more than pleased when you get updated on my grades & my chances for returning to Japan...

philosophy: that's actually changed slightly since then, & I'd much rather not go through the details of how that grading system works, since it's barely November, not quite December!

international business: 88%, with nothing major recently

business law: 80%, also with no major changes recently

"elements of business" (just for the record, I despise that class name... I'd much rather call it something like "general business" instead, since that was what I got used to throughout high school!): 74%, with 2 more grades, a hypothetical "marketing plan" & a presentation based on this simulation of a virtual "camera industry" (again, the "camera industry" in that simulation is 100% fake, hence the quote marks...) that I'm quite confident in...

I'll ignore my European history class in this scenario, since I think my class got "The World's Greatest K.F.C. Colonel Harland Sanders Impersonator©®™" for a "professor" there! That is to say, we've done next to nothing in that class...

Keeping everything else in mind, minus the Euro history, I think I'll be in more than just a position to return to Japan, at least throughout winter break, with Christmas & New Year's... The spring semester, however, will be another total test of my perseverance, I think... I can already sense that starting, & we haven't even reached the month of December yet... That's for another time, though, considering perhaps it's the minimum 2.5 overall G.P.A. from Temple Japan that's over inflating my hopes ever so slightly... However, finishing this semester with 2 grades of almost 4.0 & 2 of 3.something should push my G.P.A. "over the top", as is said in "the big leagues"!

There was also this horoscope:

"You are singularly focused on planning your next big adventure, and the truth is that your wishes might manifest in ways you don't expect. But success remains elusive unless you're willing to tend to every little detail. Unfortunately, this prerequisite could be problematic today, for you're not in the mood to deal with minor matters. Nevertheless, put those blinders on and do what is necessary so you can make your dreams come true."

Safe to say, I've leaned more & more on those recently, particularly with Japan-related matters... If this is true, & I must use "blinders" to put myself closer to a position to return there, then so be it...

Speaking of "Español", in other news, there's an NHL club looking to broadcast games not in French, as most of the Canadian clubs in that league have done throughout their respective histories, but in Spanish instead, all as part of an "outreach effort"... Yes, people; the Florida Panthers, much maligned for their attendance struggles in recent years, already broadcast 1 game in Spanish last week against the Arizona Coyotes, as evidenced by these very soccer-esque calls courtesy of ESPN Deportes Radio 1210 in Miami:

That was the game-tying goal; here's the game-winning goal shortly after that: 

As it turns out, both the play-by-play & commentator guys have had some experience in Spanish-language broadcasting down there: 

"The Florida Panthers announced today that the team has partnered with 1210 AM ESPN Deportes in Miami and ESPN Deportes 760 AM in West Palm Beach and will air three Florida Panthers radio broadcasts in Spanish during the 2014-2015 season.

“We are excited to work with 1210 AM ESPN Deportes and ESPN Deportes 760 AM on the return of Florida Panthers Spanish-language radio broadcasts,” said Panthers CEO & President Rory A. Babich. “These radio broadcasts will help to continue to grow and enhance our brand and the game with our Hispanic fan base in the tri-county area.”

The first Spanish-language radio broadcast will take place on October 30, when the Panthers celebrate Hispanic Heritage Night and host the Arizona Coyotes (7:30 p.m.). The Panthers will also air Spanish-language radio broadcasts on January 15, when the Cats host the Colorado Avalanche (7:30 p.m.) and on March 21 against the Boston Bruins (7 p.m.).

Arley Londono, who served as the Panthers' original Spanish-language broadcaster (1993-1996), will handle the play-by-play duties, while Octavio Sequera will serve as the color analyst and host. 

Florida’s roster features the first Cuban-American National Hockey League player, goaltender Al Montoya, who was signed as a free agent on July 1. Montoya will also be featured on weekly radio shows on 1210 AM ESPN Deportes and ESPN Deportes 760 AM.

The broadcast can also be streamed at www.1210espndeportes.com and the 1210 Deportes Mobile App."

This isn't mentioned there, but Octavio Sequera, the color commentator for the 1st of those 3 broadcasts so far, & scheduled to work the other 2, in January against Colorado, & in March against Boston, is a veteran baseball "beat writer" down there, with the Florida-turned-Miami Marlins, so it's not as if he hasn't had any experience broadcasting sports...

You might be wondering what French-language broadcasting has to do with all this... 

That (the French language) already has a long-established history in the NHL, though... What I'd like to witness, in the event the other 2 upcoming Spanish-language Florida Panthers radio broadcasts are successful (granted the rather small sample size of people in & around Miami, as well as everybody aware of those events before the fact), is an expansion of that language in hockey media down here, especially considering the large Hispanic/Latino populations everywhere in most of the NHL teams' markets... Heck, around here, we've got 4 NHL teams separated by about 200-some miles, & yet, neither the Rangers nor the Islanders, particularly the Islanders, took advantage of our local ESPN Radio affiliate (1050 AM, how I still miss your English-language days...) switching its multiple Marconi Award (for the radio industry) local English-language broadcasting lineup to 98.7 FM, & making its AM frequency another ESPN Deportes Radio station!

Stay tuned later this week for my personal thoughts & recollections on the new 1 World Trade, as well as the original Twin Towers' legacy, upon the opening of the new W.T.C. earlier this week!