Scott Fujita, JA Superbowl Champion

No, that's not Fujita. Just FYI.

Congratulations to the Superbowl XLIV Champion New Orleans Saints.

I’m not much of a football fan, but even I can tell this was a great game and that the Saints deserve all the credit for the victory. Clean game with minimal penalties? Just two 1st downs resulting from penalties—check. No controversial calls? Only one review resulting in a great 2-point conversion—check. Game-changing trick play? Improbable on-side kick to start the 3rd quarter—check. Near-perfect quarterback play? Payton Manning (1st half) and Drew Breeze (2nd half)—double-check.

Breeze’s performance was 100% worthy of his MVP trophy. Great vision, poise, accuracy, and a cannon of an arm that threw some incredible thread-the-needle type completions. 32/39 completion rate? Seriously? And a great guy to boot, judging from his pre and post-game interviews. Can’t help but feel happy for the guy.

And for those of you who are blaming Manning today for the Colts’ loss… please. You’re telling me that a guy who goes 31/45 for 333 YDS with 1 TD and 1 INT is to blame? Granted the lone interception ultimately sealed the game for NO, but that’s not what caused the loss for Indy. He had 2 receivers drop potential TD passes and was held out of the game for 70 minutes (!) real-time b/c the defense couldn’t get the ball back. You can’t possibly blame the loss on Manning. The Saints earned it.

As for the title of this post, I was enlightened by Doug about the Saints’ co-captain, Scott Fujita—a 6-5, 250 lb linebacker with a Japanese last name (what?!)—and found out more about him through an article on ESPN The Magazine from a few months ago. It’s a great story. Here’s a little clip:

He opens a picture of his parents, reaches out to touch their faces on the screen. Given up by his birth mother when he was 6 weeks old, Scott was adopted by Helen and Rod Fujita and raised in Camarillo, Calif. Helen, a retired secretary, is white. Rod, a retired high school teacher and coach, is a thirdgeneration Japanese-American. He was born inside an Arizona internment camp during World War II.

Fujita opens more photos. There’s one of him holding hands with his wife and college sweetheart, Jaclyn, on Senior Day at Cal; this was a few months before the Chiefs took him in the fifth round of the 2002 draft. There’s another one of him playing Pee Wee football, the chubby-cheeked, blond-haired, green-eyed kid with the Japanese name on his jersey. There’s another of his paternal grandmother, Lillie, who once overheard him introducing himself like this: “Hi! I’m Scott. I’m 4. And I’m Japanese.”

“I swear I’m not delusional,” Fujita says, chuckling at the memory. “I know I don’t have a drop of Japanese blood in me. But what is race? It’s just a label. The way you’re raised, your family, the people you love—that means more than everything else.“

Could pass for a hapa, no?

Congrats to this Yonsei for his Superbowl Ring. Read the full article here.

RIP Howard Zinn

“It doesn’t take much thought about terrorism to realize that when somebody talks about a war on terrorism, they’re dealing with a contradiction in terms. How can you make war on terrorism, if war itself is terrorism?”

-Howard Zinn, 8/24/1922 – 1/27/2010

But if you work really hard and you’re kind…

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

-Conan O’Brien, 1/22/2010

For some reason, that particular quote from Conan tonight really resonated within me. R.I.P. The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien—I’ll miss Conan, but I’m sure we’ll see him again soon (after September).

And what a classy way to end the show. Way to take the high road, Conan. Full transcript of his final message after the jump.

The Holy Grail

I won’t call myself a collector (I hardly have a collection), but I’m definitely a shoe head when it comes to basketball kicks… This is my first (and possibly last) purely indulgent purchase of shoes, and I’m happy to say that I’m 100% satisfied.

For those of you not familiar with the history & status of these shoes as the Holy Grail of all Air Jordans, allow yourself to be educated over at Nicekicks.com.

Took some pictures below to share in my unboxing excitement (fellow shoe heads and tech geeks: you know what I’m talking about!)…

Air Jordan XI Retro “Space Jam”

Ahhhh I love the smell of new shoes!

H-O-R-S-E

It’s the type of shot you’d try pulling off during a game of HORSE—from behind the backboard. Usually we try from out of bounds, but on rare occasions, it can happen in-game.

Kobe yesterday:

Jordan:

Bird:

And what the heck, how about some Josh Shipp:

Taiko Copycats

***UPDATE***

The president of Arashi Taiko has since contacted the current Kyodo Taiko members, and offered an apology while formally asking for permission to perform ‘Encore’. The video in question was also taken down from YouTube. I read the forwarded letter and it seemed sincere, and I thought it was a nice gesture (though, unfortunately, a bit after-the-fact). I hope the current members of Kyodo would be gracious enough to work something out with Arashi that leads to a positive relationship—maybe a joint practice or something if they can meet at next year’s Intercollegiate Taiko Conference.

***

…and I’m not talking about Emily’s mother-of-all-slaps to Craig’s face. This is about full-on Taiko Plagiarism.

Got an e-mail link from Yumi from Taikoproject [via Liz] to the following YouTube video of Oklahoma University’s Arashi Taiko performing their brand-new piece:

Problem is, some of us happen to be familiar with the tune… I mean veeeeerrrrrry familiar. As in this is “Encore,” which UCLA’s Kyodo Taiko composed back in 1997. As in my buddies Christine/Craig/Jason re-mixed this particular rendition. As in I was one of the first to perform the piece, back in ‘07:

The similarities are uncanny… er, blatantly obvious.

Part of me is amused/flattered that the OU kids liked it enough to copy it. Taiko’s about community, and I don’t mind sharing. It’s nice to see that taiko is spreading to places like Oklahoma.

Then again, another part of me is upset that they never did seek permission. I can see why my friends who co-wrote the piece are so pissed. To us, Encore isn’t just any song—it’s Kyodo’s signature song that’s been passed down from generation to generation, for over a decade.

Maybe they did give credit to “This group we found on YouTube” before performing at the “University of Oklahoma African Student Association ‘ROOTS’ talent show”… Who knows.

But if you’re gonna copy it, it wouldn’t hurt to try asking the owners of the song for permission first.

flattered

It’s going to be a long season…

…for UCLA Men’s Basketball.

Just watched the Bruins lose to cross-town community college Cal State Fullerton (ok, technically a state college, but not much difference) in 2OT. Two uninspiring overtime periods in which UCLA scored a combined total of 8 points.

Here’s how they scored in the 1st OT, which pretty much sums up the Bruins’ offensive production for the night:

missed 3, missed 3, missed 3, Mike Roll hits a 3, missed 3.

5-minute total: 3 points.

The Bruins shot a whopping 29 attempts from 3-point land, connecting on just FIVE. AGAINST A ZONE. Give me 29 3pt attempts from 30-feet out, and I’ll guarantee more than 5 makes. Good lord.

The fact that CSUF’s scoring was just as anemic doesn’t bode well as to the caliber of the opposition.

Senior forward and lone-returning starter Nikola Dragovic shot so horribly, he couldn’t have thrown a pea in the ocean. Jerime Anderson looked completely lost. Roll—the lone bright spot on offense with 17 points—missed on the front end of a crucial 1 and 1 at the end of regulation, which could have effectively sealed the game before the OTs ever happened.

If last night was a sign of things to come (actually, it already might as well be—they barely escaped their two preseason match ups against Concordia and Humboldt State), UCLA’s going to be in for a loooong season.

I miss Darren Collison & the gang.

UCLA fans are crying, like Ammo. Wish we had Afflalo to pick us back up...

New NBA Adidas Commercials

I’m more of a Nike guy when it comes to basketball shoes, but the latest ad campaign from Adidas is pretty cool. In fact, it was pretty awesome when they featured UCLA’s SAC gym for their 2008 commercials (I blogged about it before).

This first “group” video is pretty sick… the multi-layered player effect is so cool. Derrick Rose’s between-the-legs dunk? Ridiculous.

Nice T-Mac cameo w/ his new jersey #3. Haha.

I also found the Josh Smith vs Dwight Howard manikin to be pretty funny… sort of lame, but pretty funny.

Check out other versions w/ Rose, Chauncey Billups, Tim Duncan, Michael Beasley, etc…