99 year old grandma, video game pro!

99 year old Umeji Narisawa plays her favorite videogame while her family watches
Way to go, Grandma!

So cool!  Umeji Narisawa of Sendai, Japan, 99 years young, plays her favorite videogame, “Bomberman”, like she has every day for 26 years!  In Japanese, videogames are called “famicon” (ファミコン), which is Japanese shorthand for “family computer”, because it’s the computer that the rest of the family plays with, as opposed to the all-business PC (personal computer, pasocon, パソコン).

Narisawa-sama first started playing the game after she saw her grandchildren having so much fun, so she tried it herself.  Now, she plays about two hours every day, and she says it keeps her mind sharp and her fingers nimble enough to be able to thread a needle (see the video link, don’t worry about not understanding the Japanese, just watch the faces and hear the audience reaction).  She has played so much, she can easily beat the game, getting to level 50 sometimes twice a day.

Now, if you do the math, she’s 99 now, and she started playing 26 years ago, so that means she was 73 when she started!  She’s proof that you don’t have to stop trying new things, just because you think you’re “too old.”  It’s just a state of mind, and if you keep a young mind, you won’t really get old!

Here’s the video:


bombergran [jprobe] by peakfloods

Wheel Ballet

This is really awesome, I haven’t seen anyone do this before. He’s definitely got skills.

wheel number from E and M-P on Vimeo.

It’s true, “Everything’s better with Muppets”…

From an artist called “Spray” (whose real name is Jenny McLaren) and a guy called Ricardo Autobahn comes this tribute in music and video to that happy troupe called “The Muppets.”

90 year old WWII vet tells a touching story from the war…

WWII veteran Jack Leroy Tueller tells a story of one night in France after D-Day. He was an Army Air Corps pilot who was spending his first night there, while a German sniper kept shooting at him and the others at the makeshift airstrip. He was a trumpet player who carried his trumpet with him all through the war, and still has it and plays it to this day. He played “Lili Marlene” in order to persuade the sniper to stop firing. Watch these all the way through.

The power of music, indeed.

Back in DC…

Brother and I are back in DC now, jetlagged and going to sleep for many hours.

Last post from Japan…

Well, getting to the hotel in Narita was painful, not because of the trip, but by what happened at the station.  Continue reading “Last post from Japan…”

Asakusa, Akihabara, and a couple of boats to Odaiba

Sunday morning, getting ready to check out of the Tokyo hotel, on the final leg to the US.  Continue reading “Asakusa, Akihabara, and a couple of boats to Odaiba”

Made it to Tokyo!

Well, we started the day off in rainy Yokohama, without much plan except to check out of the hotel and kill some time before going to Tokyo to check into the next hotel… Continue reading “Made it to Tokyo!”