ASICS

ASICS (アシックス, Ashikkusu) is a Japanese multi-national corporation athletic equipment company which produces footwear and sports equipment designed for a wide range of sports, generally in the upper price range. The name is an acronym for the Latin phrase anima sana in corpore sano which translates as "a healthy soul in a healthy body". In recent years their running shoes have often been ranked among the top performance footwear in the market. ASICS bought the outdoor brand Haglöfs on July 12, 2010, for SEK1,000,000,000 ($128.7 million).

History

ASICS Ltd. began as Onitsuka Co., Ltd on September 1, 1949. Its founder, Kihachiro Onitsuka, began manufacturing basketball shoes in his home town of Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Soon after the range of sports activities widened to a variety of Olympic styles used throughout the '50s, '60s and '70s by athletes worldwide. Onitsuka became particularly renowned for the Mexico 66 design, in which the distinctive crossed stripes, now synonymous with the company brand, were featured for the first time. In 1977, Onitsuka Tiger merged with GTO and JELENK to form ASICS Corporation. Despite the name change, a vintage range of ASICS shoes are still produced and sold internationally under the Onitsuka Tiger label.

The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking is the first solo album by Roger Waters released in 1984, the year after Waters announced his departure from Pink Floyd. The album was certified gold in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America in April 1995.

Concept history

The concept, as envisioned by Waters in 1977, rotated around a man's scattered thoughts during a road trip through California, focusing on his midlife crisis, and how he dreams of committing adultery with a hitchhiker he picks up along the way. Along the way he also faces other fears and paranoia, with all of these things taking place in real time in the early morning hours of 04:30:18 am to 05:12 am on an unspecified day.

In July 1977, Waters played some of the music demos of what he had pieced together, but he also played parts of another album he was preparing titled Bricks in the Wall to the rest of his bandmates in the group Pink Floyd. After a long debate, they decided that they preferred the concept of Bricks in the Wall instead, even though their manager at the time, Steve O'Rourke, thought that Pros and Cons was a better-sounding concept, and David Gilmour calling Pros and Cons stronger musically.