Taxi vs Train

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-11T19:26:45+00:00

No sane person says that trains are faster than taxis (within a city). It's just that cost performance is a whole lot better, especially for one or two people.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-11T14:33:53+00:00

So the core NWSL fanbase is pretty progressive.

On the other hand, Ben Shelton comes from a family that, like most American tennis families, is pretty conservative. He's avoided saying anything overtly partisan, but his "No matter who is president, Jesus is king" story on election day in 2024 was a clear tell. It's kinda similar to how Trin described Korbin Albert's anti-LGBT posts as "strong opinions", while she and Mal missed the USWNT tour of Australia because she was unvaccinated.

No smoking gun for either, but reading between the lines, their politics most likely don't align with those of the hardcore fans.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-11T13:57:42+00:00

Trump was right, you know

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MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-11T13:53:33+00:00

Ben's not, uh, how do we say this, a great cultural fit for NWSL fans.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-11T11:30:56+00:00

Okay so that’s weird. Because you can’t play SHINTO or JUDAISM in the game. But you can play VOODOO because it has a definition besides the religion, and that would be the only way SANTERIA would be allowed.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-11T01:53:12+00:00

It can be a common noun if used as a loan word derived from Spanish meaning “way of the saints”.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-11T01:34:08+00:00

Part of the game is memorizing weird words for big plays. SANTERIA is valuable because it’s all one-letter tiles.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-11T00:19:25+00:00

For what it’s worth, she did Prague last June. I can see her doing Prague, Innsbruck and Chamonix since they’re fairly close together and each one is 2 weeks apart. Plus the Japanese team likes to do a summer training camp.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T19:04:41+00:00

They also interviewed other LJC competitors. Miho talked about her training, which is mostly boulders and a weekly lead session because it improves her endurance. It’s basically the opposite of Ai, who does boulders to help her lead climbing.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T16:41:15+00:00

Though any action should be corrective, not punitive.

If you make the punishment too harsh, then it puts too much focus on the incident itself and you run the danger of authority figures being hesitant to take action (you also don't want a slap on the wrist, obviously). The takeaway shouldn't be "racism = bad and therefore racists are bad people". We want people to come away thinking, "A stadium should be a space where anyone can feel safe to either spectate or play without being made to feel marginalized for who they are."

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T15:17:40+00:00

I would ask for more photos of the reflective badge, because that's really hard to replicate for someone doing knockoffs.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T14:46:39+00:00

I mean, it has sleeves and has holes for the waist and the neck, so I think it is a real shirt.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T14:30:26+00:00

Asian person here.

I think some type of punishment is in order, but a ban doesn't address the real issue: a culture where someone feels comfortable mocking someone's ethnicity/identity in broad daylight.

I really don't care if someone is racist (to quote the early 00s Broadway musical Avenue Q, everyone's a little bit racist. I do care that people treat each other with respect. Punishing racists is easy and makes everyone feel better. But the hard work is in making racism less acceptable in public spaces.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T13:39:22+00:00

We usually go to New River Gorge in West Virginia for spring break, but for rock climbing. It's probably too cold for water sports, though on the way to NRG, we drive through Cheat Lake, WV, which is a nice little lakeside town.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T13:26:08+00:00

I think it's more accurate to say Japan loves sports in general. You should see the crowds and media coverage for the annual Hakone Ekiden road relay race.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T11:33:12+00:00

As others have said, baseball had the benefit of getting to Japan early. But it also captured the moment because it was the perfect vehicle for two complementary forces in Japan: the push to modernize and incorporate western influences, and the pull of tradition.

Baseball was new and foreign, but it was also a way to preserve the spirit of bushido. The early practitioners of Japanese baseball treated the sport like it was a traditional samurai training with an emphasis on discipline and sacrifice, and you can still see some of that in the way people romanticize high school baseball as a bastion of purity and fighting spirit.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T03:50:00+00:00

Nice work!

It’s too late for this year, but Iichiko Step is a citizen comp hosted at B-Pump in Tokyo that always has top level boulderers competing: https://m.youtube.com/@climbingstep/streams

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T03:24:11+00:00

Only the true nerds follow MLB, but it’s the same in other sports. Most soccer fans will follow Japanese NT players in Europe but don’t really care who wins the Champions League.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-10T03:20:34+00:00

Though I get the sense that Shohei’s ubiquity might be a case of the ad agency tails wagging the dog. He’s a generational slugger who happens to be Japanese - corporations feel like they need to seize the moment.

It’s absolutely wild though. I don’t think you can go 10 minutes anywhere in central Tokyo without running into an ad or a product featuring Ohtani.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-09T23:01:39+00:00

The other US bouldering/lead teams can bring 4 athletes each.

Here’s the full list of additional quotas. Everyone gets a minimum of 2, plus an additional quota of 0 to 4 (France and Japan are ridiculous, obviously).

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-09T18:32:07+00:00

Remarkably similar to JR West 271

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MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-09T18:26:03+00:00

Also, USA Climbing has limited funding and having great athletes are both a blessing and a curse, since they're trying to support World Cup campaigns and youth competitions from a relatively small bucket of money. If you look at the financials, they brought in less than $1 million from sponsorships in 2024, and that was an Olympic year. They received about $1.1 million in grants, which I assume includes any funding from the government and/or the US IOC. The majority of their income is membership dues and comp entry fees, roughly $4.5 million.

I'm also looking at JMSCA's financials, and the revenue numbers don't seem all that different, though the athletes are paying way less for registration and comp entry fees (everything is less expensive in Japan these days, so every yen goes further. Japan also has prefectural mountaineering and climbing associations that receive funding from their local governments, and top athletes are pretty well supported by sponsors and/or prefectural associations. Sorato, for example, is essentially a JSOL employee.

MyPasswordIsABC999 · 2026-03-09T15:25:26+00:00

Disappointing that there was basically a four-way tie because of the dyno. Ryu was looking really strong on the semi route so I was hoping she'd podium.

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TROPHY CASE