The shadows. All I see are shadows.
I don't know if I can bear this concept of World Cup chat every day. You forget that there are games like Angola-Portugal where the good team stops playing to win by 17 goals and starts playing not to lose because it would be so embarassing to lose to Angola. That is the down side of soccer.
On the up side, I am now being marketed to. I have reconnected as I do every four years with JVC as a manufacturer...or is it Toshiba. They pour masses of cash into these TV ad campaigns and I never, er, buy anything by them. Thanks for coming out. Best ads so far are by Heineken, especially Dad on the porch favouring the son who brought the green bottles: "But I brought beer, too, Dad" "Did you son? Did you really?".
Best game today is going to be US v. Czech Republic. Both could be in the semi-finals: #5 v. #2 in the world. I'd check if there was a higher ranked pre-lim game but that would take effort. As each of these teams play Italy, too, this is must be considered Group of Death.TM except that that is so 1994 so I think we should call it the Group of DooomTM with three "o"s.
And what is it with the shadow patterns on the field? I would find it odd as a player trying to judge the ball in flight. It really bugs me watching it. Like day-to-day gas price fluctuation. That bugs the hell out of me, too. How do you say "day-to-day gas price fluctuation" in German?
Comments
cm - June 12, 2006 8:35 AM
"day-to-day"? Try minute-to-minute. I left work for my walk on Friday and gas was 105. Twenty minutes later it was 99. Imagine if the price of milk changed between the time you took it out of the fridge and got to the cash register?
Alan - June 12, 2006 8:37 AM
I think I'd be out six pennies...or ahead six pennies. Do you know how many pennies I have around the house?
Flea - June 12, 2006 9:11 AM
The shadows on the field at Frankfurt make a joke of the place. I imagine they spent a catastrophic fortune to build it too.
Flea - June 12, 2006 9:11 AM
PS - I realize that is a different stadium pictured above. I have so far only seen the England/Paraguay match...
Mike - June 12, 2006 9:18 AM
Yes, I hated the stadium in Frankfurt. The camera was too far back as well (but couldn't they have zoomed in a little more?). And another example above? Yeesh, you know what they say about German football stadium roof design...
gr - June 12, 2006 9:36 AM
God I'm beat this morning....must be Monday or something. Time to stop wasting time here and go DO something, but first, the sports world is not all World Cup. Has anyone noticed that other cup, the Stanley? No? Me either. And what a weird weekend for the Red Sox. What's up with that?
Think I'll start with laundry or something, can't do too much damage there.
Alan - June 12, 2006 9:51 AM
Keep in mind I am a bloated hack soccer player but I am a bloated hack soccer player who likes to kick long crosses and I can only imagine these spider webs on the pitch would be amazingly distracting, not to mention the running in and out of shadow through out the afternoon games. I think that photo above is from where today's game between the US and Czechia will be held but I am dependent on the professionalism of the BBC staff whose works of art I poach.
cm - June 12, 2006 11:56 AM
My father is actually watching the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in his life.
Ah, gr, one must be careful in the laundry room, too. I have the pink socks to prove it.
Flea - June 12, 2006 12:57 PM
Hey, I'm doing laundry today also!!
Alan - June 12, 2006 1:04 PM
I am quite surprised some days by the directions in which the comments flow. This blog really should be called something like <i>Connie's Mid-morning Coffee Clatch</i>.
gr - June 12, 2006 2:26 PM
I know Alan, some of us just plain don't get it: you're the leader, and we should follow along. I for one am I serial wanderer, always willing to distract.
Flea, baking soda is my secret. Always dump some in with the soap. cm, I will take your advice in hand. I don't like pink socks much, I have many pairs of argyle. Snappy!
My energy level and brain fog results from this cloud that has sat overhead for the last (it seems like) 20 years. Do you people above Lake Ontario have this thing lately? We had to put the heat on yesterday, it was so damn cold and wet.
cm, I have thought deeply about your comment saying you don't feel old. I don't really either, but it is like this. Having recently moved to a college town, it doesn't seem like everbody is a teenager, everybody actually is! And they are so different. Aliens. And they have energy, low clouds or not.
Flea - June 12, 2006 2:52 PM
I was looking at the Vice Dos and Don'ts and, amongst other things, they suggested I was not fooling anyone with my number 1 buzzcut "millennium combover" and that for the over 30s it was bars and never clubs (the dancing kind not the proper smoking/dinner/newspaper reading kind). Well, sucks boo to that.
gr: Baking soda? Not certain how this would interact with my Zero Woolite detergent for darks.
Alan - June 12, 2006 2:53 PM
Are you in a deep funk of depression now that the USA got trashed by tiny Czechia? The Czechs all looks a foot taller. It was like orcs versus ents. Nutty.
Alan - June 12, 2006 2:54 PM
Oddly, there was a little man in the bar where I took luncheon who looked exactly like the Good Soldier Svejk.
cm - June 12, 2006 3:00 PM
And in comes another serial wanderer...my head is in a fog because I'm suffering from either allergies or a summer cold and can barely think. I've lost my voice as well, which is going to make singing along at the Horseshoe tomorrow night very difficult.
Laundry: I put Borax in these days but am wondering how to avoid inhaling the dust, as directed on the package, when mashing the lumps to get it to pour out of the box.
Age: Most of my staff are in the late-20s/early-30s range. Although my manager made a point of telling them I was older than I look, I don't think they realized how much older (40 is mere weeks away). Ah, the benefit of clean living. (Ok, so no, not clean living, good genes.)
gr - June 12, 2006 3:16 PM
Flea, I kid you not. baking soda is magic: use it to scrub the toilet, into the laundry, down your drain for sweet pipes, and if you have an upset tummy, into a glass of water. cm-I too just turned 40. All my friends look like grandaddies and I have been carded 3 times in the last month. The biggest surprise was hitting 40 with all my hair, which no man in my family has managed for generations. As Ian Drury said 'hit me with your rhythm stick', no not that one, 'sex and drugs and rock and roll is very good for me'. Well. There you go.
Alan, I could say 'who gives a crap?' about US losing to the Czechs, but I am sure that the guys on the US team, their coach and family are all bummed. NPR this morning did a special on why nobody here seems to notice or care about US soccer. The funniest part was when they quoted various congressmen and senators as calling soccer 'socialist' or even, gasp, 'communist'. (you can't make this stuff up)
Lastly: GO EDMONTON! Carolina shouldn't even be allowed to have a team.
T-Bo - June 12, 2006 4:50 PM
Czech Republic 3, U.S. 0.
To quote Harpo Marx, at the end of a telegram in which he invited Alexander Woolcott to dinner: I may vomit. That, or mercilessly tease a co-worker, who pridefully noted the other day that his two gainfully-employed sons were getting up at 2 a.m. to watch one of the U.S's Cup games. I'm still waiting for soccer to take over as this country's favorite sport. If someone told me I could live until it happened, I would worry....about how well I'd be functioning when I was 306.