Island Go, frankiii's Goban & Womens' Basketball

Sunset on Oahu's Waikiki beach
If you visit this island and are in good shape, hike up Diamond Head.

Aloha mai e. If there's one state in the union that the ChiyoClan might love more than California, it's got to be Hawaii. If I hadn't picked-up go, I might still be strumming my guitar, trying to learn ki' ho-alu from brother Ozzie Kotani's books.

Image from Phlatphrog's gallery

I discovered that there's one island Go player who has created a notable online footprint and that's Phlatphrog. He's started a Hawaiian Go Wiki and has a photo gallery of a table set that he bought from the Go Gamestore.

We're hoping to visit the big island by Spring of 2007 (and we pray it might be sooner). ChiyoMama and ChiyoChan would go at the drop of a hat. If we're able to afford our next trip, maybe I'll take a moment to visit that Starbucks in the Kaneohe Bay Shopping Center for a quick game with the Kaneohe Go Club.


frankiii's goban arrives

Time to see what's in the box! frankiii sent me more pics but
I'll let him release them on his blog.
Photo courtesy of frankiii

frankiii's (aka saiclone) floor goban arrived and he'll probably be blogging a product report on his site soon. If you're considering a purchase, then I strongly suggest that you follow it. He has a few issues and he's sent an email to Yellow Mountain Imports. We'll see how they respond and what resolutions they offer.

Before I made my kaya table set purchase, I polled five eBay customers of YMI to get more details about their Go products and their purchase experiences. Of the five:

• All were satisfied with their purchases vis-a-vis the prices they paid.
• One reported that the leg of his floor goban was damaged but YMI sent him a replacement.
• One reported damage to the side of his floor goban but he had not contacted YMI.
• One alerted me in advance that the stones were less than 10mm in thickness. YMI has since amended most of its product descriptions.
• One felt that the stones were too cheap-looking relative to the quality of the floor goban and that he should instead get real slate and shell.
• One mentioned that the actual thickness of his 14cm goban was slightly less but that he was still happy with it.
  

frankiii reported breakage among his white Yunzi stones as well and he now has only 178 of these. I too have only 178 now as I discovered this evening that another one had cracked. YMI said on December 9th that they were sending me replacements and these have yet to arrive.

Peterium mentioned to me that current Yunzi stones are more fragile than older ones. He said that the older white stones had a creamier yellowish color. I'm only guessing but this could be because they might have used more amber in the old mix. Using less would probably make the stones weaker but also make them whiter.


In other news

It's late Fall and ChiyoChan and her friends are back into basketball. That's means I won't be playing Go on Monday nights.

Back in the Fall of 2002, I had created a website for ChiyoChan's basketball team so all the parents would have easy access to the practice schedule and be able to view the action photos I took during the games.

ChiyoChan's (center) first youth basketball team back in 2002.
Her best friend, GinnyChan is to the far left and they're
again in the same team for 2005.

Laurent Doche, editor for basquetebol.org in France (a site which specializes in women's basketball), discovered the team's website and ran a short feature article about "les futures stars de WNBA" (the future stars of the WNBA). Our local paper later found out about this and ran their own article about the team.

All this shows how the internet can bring a lot of attention to a small corner of the world.

Janet and Justin made this humor possible.

Last Sunday, we watched The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Everyone enjoyed it. It was a clearly lot easier to encapsulate this shorter book into the screenplay than it was for many of the later Potter books.

ChiyoChan's aunt in in the UK had introduced her to The Chronicles of Narnia years ago. ChiyoChan finds much of the tie-in merchandise quite ridiculous. "Who came up with the idea of Chronicles of Narnia lip balm, Dad?" she once asked me.