football
Death, Undeath, and Football
Not Dead
The book club is not deceased. It came back to life the week I went missing from the internet. It’s certainly not what I would call fighting fit, but I guess there’s a shred of hope. Also, I’m lagging behind and better try to catch up.
Still Dead
My desktop, however, has not managed a similar resurrection. That accounts for most of the disruptions to my everyday life. Take, for example, the long-since dusty photo feature at the top of the main page here.
I have also taken to listening to music off of Youtube on my crappy notebook speakers. That’s the double whammy of losing your desktop and your earphones at one go.
Picky
I have to start picking my subjects. Hmm. I’m thinking about doing a minor, but I’m not too convinced about that because it involves something of a gamble since I’m not sure how well I’ll do in those, and it also involves doing a couple of extra subjects. We’ll see.
Contentious Sports
Oh I watched the World Cup finals. It was in fact the only full match of the 2010 World Cup that I watched. I thought it was a poor game and a terrible advertisement for football. Too little football and too much of histrionics.
I also disagree with what most of the press (and football legends) have been saying in that the Dutch were rough and totally anti-football. Sure, there were a number of bad tackles but I chalk that down to nerves. The anti-football claims are especially irksome because, if anything, the Dutch attacked as much as if not more than the Spanish. It was a reasonably positive performance, to be fair.
On the other hand, the Spanish team disgusted me sometimes. Well, not the team as a whole, but I wasn’t convinced about a number of the fouls they were awarded. I was also surprised to see Iniesta still on the pitch because I remember retaliation being a red-card offence. Most of all, Busquets’s constant complaining and provoking seemed to characterise the darker side of a mentally manipulative Spanish team.
But that’s the way football is. It’s so easy to have an opinion and so easy to pick a side. Perhaps the most objective thing that can be said about the match is that it was a poor one and we should all just forget about it as soon as possible.
Quote
“I don’t think that people accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make sense out of it.”
David Lynch.
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Meetings, footie, miscellany.
Meetings + Writing
Today begins a series of meet-ups over the course of the next two or three days. I’m looking forward just to not working. I’m in the final stretch and I really need to take my mind off of it. In a sense, I don’t want to mess up the last bits and have to do them from scratch a second time.
It’s mostly eating and walking around, though I think I may have to keep my eye open and do a bit of shopping. I’m not very sure how it’s all going to work out, but I’m sure that’s not actually a big problem. It’ll work out!
Meanwhile, as I stitch up this first draft, I’ve got to get to emailing to see where my first project is.
FYP
I also have to start picking my final-year project. I’ve printed the list out and narrowed it down slightly, but only very slightly, and greater narrowing-down must take place shortly.
Music
Recent things on my jukebox: Radiohead’s Hail To The Thief., Bowie’s Hunky Dory, Arcadi Volodos playing Liszt, Sonic Youth’s The Destroyed Room, Buddy Guy’s Skin Deep, and Coltrane’s Blue Train.
Book Club
Book club appears to be on its last legs.
World Cup
No, I don’t usually talk about sports here, but this World Cup appears to be turning into a farce of some sort. The refereeing appears to be horrible; the playacting is in its full glory; BZZZZZZZZ; the goal count is pretty low; many teams appear to be playing some kind of anti-football; and then there’s this French mess as well as discontent in the English camp. The surprise results are sort of nice, but that’s about it.
Admittedly, the sport is too big to suffer too heavily from this, but you have to wonder if any of this is going to be on FIFA’s meeting agendas. And even then, there’s no guarantee that anything is going to be happen. The sport has had the opportunity to improve refereeing and has flatly declined the use of more referees and new technologies. Governing bodies also don’t seem too interested in dealing with playacting. And the inflated egos of players in the past ten years will only worsen with the power shift towards them.
It’s a sport that I love watching, but certainly an embarrassing one at times.
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Link Rojak!
It’s been a while since I did one of these.
Christopher Uminga renders your superheroes in his adorable fashion. [via WildAmmo.com]
Oh I suppose it’s been a couple of days now, but happy birthday, The Empire Strikes Back! [via Wikipedia]
“i am merely giving you your problem” [via pictures for sad children]
Why is Middlesex University philosophy department closing? [via The Guardian]
Vernon Lott makes a documentary on Bad Writing. [via The Book Bench]
The Singapore navy is testing a remote-controlled, mine-hunting vessel. Go, Singapore! [via PhysOrg]
On A High Wind In Jamaica. [via The Millions]
Inter Milan (and Jose Mourinho) win the Champions League. [via ESPNsoccernet]
Marco Benevento has a new album, and here’s a nice article about it. [via Hidden Track]
Dinner plates with useful graphs about global food consumption. (Including fresh water consumption.) [via Josh Spear]
All right, that’s it for today. Have an excellent Monday, everyone!
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Wednesday already?
So Many Things
To do! So many obligations, so much homework and so many presentations! It doesn’t help that I’m in a sore need of sleep. I think this is the closest I’ve ever come to experiencing ‘crunch time’ in my university life so far. It’s not exactly horrible, and in a way it’s nice to be stressed once in a while, but I can’t say that I’ll ask for a second helping any time soon.
The three weeks (or so) ahead are going to be a little tricky. I’m sure we’ll pull it off somehow, and even if we don’t it’ll have to sort itself out. And before you know it, it’ll be exam season.
I felt somewhat feverish yesterday. I think it’s probably the lack of sleep. I’ll try not to work too much tonight and hopefully catch a bit of sleep. Tomorrow’s a long day, so I hope I don’t burn out too soon.
Magic And Ronaldo
Now this… I found quite hilarious.
A few weeks backs we reported that a voodoo priest named Pepe had been hired to use his black-magic to injure £80 million Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo, who is now sidelined for a month with an ankle injury, and the crocked forward has now become the centre of a magical war.
A Portuguese wizard, named Fernando Nogueira, had a crack at healing his countryman last week but with Ronaldo still sidelined it seems he failed to dispel the magic of Pepe, who has since responded to Nogueira’s challenge by saying he will cast a spell that will end the World Player of the Year’s career.
But all is not lost for our hero as a group of Peruvian Shamans decided to ride to Ronaldo’s rescue and gathered outside the Spanish Embassy in Lima this week to perform a cleansing ritual, involving a bizarre combination of swords and maracas, to lift the curse.
Goodness knows if any of it worked but following a clinical examination and MRI scan Real Madrid’s medical report revealed that “the minimum estimated [recovery] time is three to four weeks”.
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