Plenty of Nothing

Pavilion #2

Iwate Prefecture Football Supremacy

Nearly every corporate body in Japan has a mascot or 2D spokesperson. FC Ganju Iwate has Nao Washihina. Nao is a popular girls' name in Japan, but it is also the brandname of a Spanish manufacturer of porcelain figurines, and the name of a French robot, so the connotations line up if not the copyrights. Washihina suggests "paper doll".

Today Grulla Morioka take on FC Ganju Iwate for the Iwate Prefecture championship and a place in the Emperor's Cup Round One. Ganju are currently top of the Tohoku League Division 1, and to go by their motto, "Dream of the J!!" they plan to be Grulla's crosstown rivals in J3 before too long.

Meanwhile in Scotland, Allan Moore, former Greenock Morton manager, has been hired by Arbroath FC.

[Grulla win 3 - 0.]

Blog Versus App

This graph generated by Google Trends might explain why your blog readership is down. Sometime in 2012 the word blog was surpassed by the word app in news headlines. People are on their smart phones using their apps, and not reading blogs.

Crowns of Baekje

These gold diadems from the burial mound of the sixth-century King Muryeong of Baekje were worn on the sides of the head and are probably the best-looking royal headgear in the history of the world. To me they say, "I am your monarch, and my mind is on fire." Korean National Treasure # 154. Source.

Conrad's Pessimism

    Consciously or unconsciously, men are proud of their firmness, steadfastness of purpose, directness of aim. They go straight towards their desire, to the accomplishment of virtue -- sometimes of crime -- in an uplifting persuasion of their firmness. They walk the road of life, the road fenced in by their tastes, prejudices, disdains or enthusiasms, generally honest, invariably stupid, and are proud of never losing their way. If they do stop, it is to look for a moment over the hedges that make them safe, to look at the misty valleys, at the distant peaks, at cliffs and morasses, at the dark forests and the hazy plains where other human beings grope their days painfully away, stumbling over the bones of the wise, over the unburied remains of their predecessors who died alone, in gloom or in sunshine, halfway from anywhere. The man of purpose does not understand, and goes on, full of contempt. He never loses his way. He knows where he is going and what he wants. Travelling on, he achieves great length without any breadth, and battered, besmirched, and weary, he touches the goal at last; he grasps the reward of his perseverance, of his virtue, of his healthy optimism: an untruthful tombstone over a dark and soon forgotten grave.

Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands, Complete Edition, page 197.

Italia and Germania

Italia and Germania (1828) by Friedrich Overbeck, in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich. This is such a manga.

Navigational Marker

Pavilion #1

Morioka Castle

Morioka Castle. Source.

Grulla Morioka entertain the Japanese Under 22 team. [Grulla win 3 - 1.]

The Japanese national team play Colombia on Tuesday in their final Group C game. If Japan beat Colombia, and Greece beat Ivory Coast, and Japan end up with a better goal difference than Greece, Japan will advance. [Colombia 4, Japan 1. Japan are out. Colombia go on the meet Uruguay.]

Succulents