It’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up. Just like that we’re fully back to our regularly scheduled programming. I’ve gotta say, I missed this, but I’m also glad that I wasn’t here to write about Tampa Bay’s 11-game losing streak or the elimination of both Florida teams from playoff contention. You were spared my regular season woes (and the sobbing that would go with it), but now you’ve gotta endure my complaining about postseason results. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The greatest sign I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world.”] [/caption] This was one of the days I was most looking forward to on the trip. The Hanshin Tigers may not have the raw popularity of the Yomiuri Giants, but they’ve definitely got the most rabid fanbase in the entire country. Beyond that, Koshien Stadium is said to be the “soul of Japanese baseball,” most likely because, beyond the already crazy Tigers that play there, everything from college games to the high school championships are housed within Koshien. It’s a storied stadium most often compared to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park here in the States. ...

Deep from the trenches, it’s time for your Monday video feature: Embedded Reporter. And were back to the ER after a long time So long, in fact, that I missed the final episode of the Persona 4 Endurance Run. It was a good run and I absolutely loved the series. I can’t wait to see what the Giant Bomb folks do to follow up on this. Farewell Charlie Tunoku. Get Persona 4! ...

Wow, it’s been a long while since I’ve written one of these. I hope you guys haven’t forgotten about this. How about a quick recap to get us all up to speed. Dan is a small boy who wears a purple robe. His father, Pankraz, is a big strong man who is on the search for Dan’s mother. One day, while on a job bodyguarding Prince Harry, Pankraz is brutally murdered while protecting Dan and Harry. The kids are sold into slavery and don’t escape for ten years. Harry falls in love with Maria and leaves Dan. After Harry leaves, Dan starts searching for the legendary Zenithian gear to fight off an ancient evil. Along the way, he meets Debora and gets married. Debora becomes pregnant and gives birth to the twins David and Rebeca, but she is kidnapped shortly thereafter. Dan goes off to save her, but both he and Debora are turned into statues and sold to different families. Eight years later, Dan’s twin children finally find him and undo the curse before setting off to finish finding the Zenithian equipment and eventually find their mother. ...

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. Wow, what a long Game Overview hiatus! Did you guys miss it? I didn’t adequately gather this week’s news for GO, so instead I’m going to focus on one thing and one game: the recently announced Scavenge Mode for Left 4 Dead 2 (come on now, did you really think I could talk about any other game after that long break?) ...

Folks, from here on out, the SITB (that’s Super Ichiban Travel Blog for the uninitiated) will be shifted to a Tuesday/Thursday(/maybe Saturday) schedule (there are really only nine or so posts left, including this one) so that the blog can return to its regularly scheduled programming on MWF. The MLB playoffs have started and here I am still talking about my time in Japan. I need to be covering this! You’ll recall that I wrote daily posts about the playoffs last year. Neither the Marlins nor the Rays made it this year, but that won’t necessarily keep me from adding in extra coverage as I see fit. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Today’s post brought to you by Coca-Cola (Not really! Please don’t sue me!)”] [/caption] Ok, so I’m being a little dramatic in the title, but with David gone and most of the day occupied by riding bullet trains across Japan, the day was definitely on the dull side. [caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“375” caption=“The thrilling remains of a lunch eaten on an exciting train ride to Fukuoka.”] [/caption] ...

Eric came up with an idea to write parallel reviews of the same video game to see how similar our reviews came out. You can see his at Eric’s Binary World 2.0 Tetris is…" video gaming distilled to its core" [caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“350” caption=“The most fun a person can have playing Tetris is completing this drop”] [/caption] A Tetris Review (In Four Lines) ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“375” caption=“Good riddance! I mean…I’ll miss you!”] [/caption] The day opened with some sadness. David, who had already missed a week’s worth of school, had to finally head home. In fact, most of the tour was going home unless they paid to go to Tokyo Disney Sea or had other plans in Japan to attend to and once that was done, we’d be down to eight, including myself, who were going on to see the rest of the teams of Japan. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The famous and super-busy scramble crosswalk at Shibuya.”] [/caption] Here we are on the last (full) day of the Main Tour. It would be the last day that Dave and I were together in Japan, so we decided to hit up all our Tokyo loose ends. That mostly meant wandering around getting the last of our souvenirs and checking out some of the famous districts within Tokyo. ...