Weekend Update

Friday:
Two football matches. Germany beat Argentina. Italy beat Ukraine. These weren't huge surprises.

I was so exhausted by the time I finished watching the second match, I decided to lay down for about an hour. I had plans to go out with "the girls." I wasn't sure I could make it and I ended up not. I'm really disappointed in myself that I didn't. You see, my friend Sporty Spice is moving away. This was her last night out with her girlfriends. (She's actually getting on the plane to leave today.) I'll give Sporty Spice her own entry - she deserves it.

Saturday:
As Affable Olive established over on The Polyglot's blog, we watched two more football matches at my house on Saturday. Portugal beat England. I had a good cry along with Becks and John Terry. (It was sad that John Terry cried so much that Deco, a player from the Portugal team, had to console him - but I can't find a photo of that.) Oh and I stand by my opinion that England would not have lost if stoopid Rooney had not STOOD on the opposing player's family jewels. You can't do that.

Then France beat Brazil. I don't remember much about this game except that I really liked the French team by the end. Henry officially became Mr. Offsides during this match. And even I am sad that Zindane is retiring. He is definitely a starter in my fantasy football club. Horsenbuggy +10.

We rounded out Saturday evening with GSAM. My sister Super Mom loved the food, though she admitted that what I got was much better than hers. (She changed her mind at the last minute or I would have told her not to get what she got. Got it?) We watched "Bend it Like Beckham" in honor of England's ouster from the World Cup. The Olive girls spent the night with me.

Sunday:
Party fiasco. Sporty Spice's sister came over at like 7:30 to begin setting up for the Going Away party we had at my clubhouse. The access cards that I was promised would get me in to the clubhouse didn't work. Since I have the insider track, I was able to get in touch with the right people. We got in...3 hours later. We had virtually no time to make dips and do all the little things we needed to do. Somehow we pulled it off. Fiasco diverted.

Meeting.

Party. The party was a lot of fun. I wasn't totally surprised to find that I didn't know over half the people there - Sporty Spice knows lots of people. We mingled. We cried. We laughed. We listened to bad karaoke singing. We ate. A good time was had by all...except Kimi Stewart who was in physical pain.

Monday:
Service.

Movie. My sisters and I went to see "The Devil Wears Prada." It was funny. But it was even funnier to me because the evil lady was so much like a woman that used to work at my company. I seriously got shivers down my spine at one point because the similarity was so creepy.

Babies. I spent the rest of the time playing with the babies. They're awesome. I really hate it that they live so far away.

Tuesday:
Slept late. Ate lunch with Kimi Stewart. Watched my other favorite team get eliminated from the World Cup. Stupid Italy beat Germany 2 - 0. My only hope is France. They play Portugal today in the other Semi-Final game. Thankfully, I will get to see Germany play one more time on Satruday. They will play whoever loses today's match to determine 3rd place. (I don't know what I'll do if they end up playing France.)

I'm Caught Up

...until tomorrow.

I watched all my taped matches. Here's the quick lowdown:

Italy beat Austalia
Ukraine beat Switzerland (but we knew that)
Brazil beat Ghana
France beat Spain

Highlights:
Italy v Australia
Australia evidently has as much trouble as the US getting people interested in soccer. So having their team, affectionately dubbed the Socceroos, advance this far was very exciting for them. They and Ghana were the only two true underdogs left in the tournament. I was rooting for the Socceroos even though Italy was supposed to walk all over them.

Well, Italy did not dominate as was expected. Australia kept them to a 0 - 0 tie...until the last minute of stoppage time. In the last minutes of stoppage time, the ref called a foul on Australia from inside the Italy penalty box. Italy was granted a penalty kick. They scored. Australia didn't have enough time to recover.

The thing is, not many people think the ref made the right call. The play was not an obvious foul. But FIFA doesn't use video replay so there was no way to challege the call and the Socceroos lost. To top it off, the Italian who scored ran around sucking his thumb afterwards. I heard that was supposed to be a signal to his son, but it's an odd signal. I mean, when the kid is 14 I can hear the other Italian boys taunting him, "Wasn't your-a pappa the one who-a sucked his-a thumb at the World Cup?"

Switzerland v Ukraine
This was an interesting match ... or not. I was rooting for Ukraine. I usually like their ice skaters so it felt natural to root for them. 0 - 0 tie at the end of the match, yawn. Two 15 minute extra periods later, still a 0 - 0 tie. So after 2 hours of running around, it came down to a 5 penalty kick shoot-out.

The teams take turns kicking at the goal which is only defended by the opposing Keeper. Whoever scores the best out of five of those wins the match. Ukraine scored three goals, Switzerland scored none. How embarrassing for Switzerland.

Ghana v Brazil
Ghana's a gon-ah. Again, I decided to root for the underdog. All the experts said that Brazil is probably the best team in the world. They definitely have the best player in the world, Ronaldo
, "The Phenomenon." (Who is so phenomenal that he doesn't need two names and who is not so scary looking "in person" as in his FIFA photo.) But I had to go with the Cinderella team.

And really, Ghana put in a good showing. Evidently, they really look up to the Brazilian team. They looked a little nervous to be playing their heros at first, but then the settled down and played very well. Brazil honestly got some very fortunate breaks. Such as the Ghana Keeper playing in middle field. Seriously, two of the goals Brazil scored were virtually undefended. I don't know what the Keeper was thinking. Who knows how the match would have gone if he'd stayed in front of the goal?


France v Spain
Believe it or not, I was rooting for France. I knew nothing about either team until today. Before the game, the only thing I heard was that the Spanish coach made a racial slur against one of France's black players back in 2004. The coach was not apologetic about it. So I guess I was more anti-Spain's coach than anti-Spain.

But speaking of race, I was fairly shocked to see how many black players were on the French team. I didn't know France had a high black population. I mean, I know there are a lot of French speaking black people in the world. But I didn't think they actually came from France. Anyway...

Spain scored first on a PK (penalty kick). France went on to win 3 - 1. It was a really good game. This is an exciting time for the French team because one of their best players has announced that he's retiring after the Cup, Zidane. The big deal was that if he lost, this could be his last game ever.

Instead, France played really well and Zidane even scored the final goal in stoppage time.

The only other thing of note was that the black player who was slurred against back in 2004, Henry, was called offsides like a billion times. What was so funny was how surprised he always seemed. By the 47th time, I was like, "Stop looking surprised, you're the only one out in front of the ball."

Up Next

Friday
My Germany v Argentina (Argentina looks good, but Germany has the home team advantage)
Italy v Ukrain (Ukraine should be ready to say da svedanya)

Saturday
Beckham v Portugal (I'm worried that Portugal will win but really want England to triumph)
Brazil v France (You got me, but I'll be watching it live before Good Soup)

Quiz Time

Do you know enough to live in this country?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13442226/

I missed three, scoring 85%. Beat that!

Inappropriate Art

I was going to tell you about the Austalia v Italy match. But something funny just happened that I have to relay. (You just wait, you'll get your Socceroo update yet.)

I'm sitting in a meeting right this very second with three men. We're a conference room with a very controversial piece of art. It's a painting of a scene from some movie. It's painted from the viewpoint of a creepy person looking in on a glass house at a naked lady in her bedroom. Even though she's in the distance, there is no doubt that she's naked.

I have meetings in this room quite often. I actually have learned to ignnore the painting. But one of the guys in the meeting is a consultant from the company in Boston. My boss and I happened to sit so that he would have to face the painting. The other guy facing the painting is a guy in his 20s. He is a typical male living the single life. He sat down at the table and said, "I've never been in this room before." Then he did a cursory glance around the room. I was watching his face. He looked over the painting and then his eyes shot back to the naked lady. I could see the thoughts go through his head, "Did I just see what I think I saw? Yeah - naked lady. I'm going to use this room for every meeting from now on."

I should mention that we're also using this same guy's computer for the demo. The wallpaper image is of a museum downtown. Being a kinda artsy-fartsy kind of guy, he hid/blended an image of one of his favorite sculptures in one of the buildings. The sculpture? A naked dude.

I'm surrounded by images of nekkid people!

A Pox on You, Polyglot!

Working during the day is really putting a cramp in my World Cup watching. But hey, I have two VCRs, right? I set my VCR to tape from 11 - 6 on ESPN yesterday so that I could catch the two matches (Australia v Italy and Ukraine v Switzerland). I was sure to tell my coworkers not to mention the results to me all day. (Most of them didn't even know that the World Cup was happening.)

Since my sister Super Mom is in town, I spent my afternoon over at Mama's. I wasn't able to just sit down and watch the two matches after getting home. Well, there was no problem at my mother's house - nobody there gives a flying kick about soccer.

I did leave a little early to get home by 8 so I could at least watch one match. I started to watch the second match since it was later on the tape. But then I realized that the commentators would talk about the earlier match during that game. So if I really wanted to remain unspoiled, I would have to watch them in order. So I watched the Australia v Italy match. (The Socceroos were ROBBED! But that's for another post.)

Today I came back in to the office telling people not to talk about the second match. Again, my coworkers had fun acting like they were going to spoil me. Then at lunch the Ghana v Brazil match was in the 73 minute. I positioned myself so that I couldn't see it and covered my ears when the guys talked about the match. I made it out of the restaurant without knowing who won. I had done it. I was completely unspoiled for two unseen matches.

Then I got back to the office and checked The Polyglot's blog.

My eyes! My eyes! I feel violated.

One last thing...

You've gotta check out this Dutch player's last name. It's crazy.

Beckham Beats Ecuador

England 1, Ecuador 0.
I probably should have known this, but England's national anthem is "God Save the Queen." (Well, I did know that.) What I had forgotten was that it is set to the same music as "My Country Tis of Thee." When it began playing, I was like "Land of the Pilgrim's pride"? That's weird. Oh yeah, duh.

It was not quite as exciting to watch The Great Beckham play as I'd hoped it would be. Evidently, he's not so much a great football player as he is a phenomenal kicker. Beckham can put the ball where ever he wants when ever he wants. This is what it means to "Bend it like Beckham." I am very proud to say that I witnessed this mighty bending skill today on my second day of football watching.

The experts weren't too sure who was going to win going into the game. It was in the low 90's in Germany today, so England was expected to wither in the heat during the second half. Ecuador had to face playing in Germany's "heavy air" since many of them are used to playing high in the Andes. (Though at least two of them play in Qatar - a tad hotter than Germany.) In contrast, it was 70 degrees in London today.

Again, one team seemed to outshoot the other. This time it was England making all the goal attempts. The only one that found the "back of the net" (don't I sound like a real football fan?) was a free kick from Beckham. He kicked over the wall (of guys) and made the ball drop just into the corner of the goal. The Ecuadorian Kepper was nowhere near the correct spot to catch it. Becks was just a little happy about it.

Not long after this shot, Beckham found a nice little spot in the middle of the field and heaved up his lunch. The match continued around him. ABC replayed the moment a couple of times. It was nice and initmate - just Beckham and 2 billion people.

England advances to play the winner of today's second game, which is ...

Portugal 1, The Netherlands 0.
So again, I had to decide who to root for. I sided with Holland because I flew through there on my way to and from Moscow. No better reason, right? And their fans seemed so happy, all decked out in orange.

Well, that happiness did NOT extend to the field. 4 players got red carded. And I found out that these red carded players can not play for the next round of the World Cup. If their team advances to the next level, they can come back in. I also learned that a player does have to get a red card if they already have a yellow card. And the yellow cards from one game stay with the player through this round. (The next round being the semi-finals.) But the good news is that one of Portugal's best players, guy a named Deco, was red carded. England won't have to face him.

But wow, you should have seen how crazy this match was. Players were fouling each other all over the place. There were yellow and red cards flying all over the place, a record setting 16 in all. The ref looked like he didn't know what was going on. Guys would flagrantly foul each other and then their teammates would come up and head butt another opponent. It was dirty. Thankfully the fans didn't get in on the action. The commentators seemed to think that this ref wouldn't make it to the next round. I wonder how he'd feel about getting his very own red card?

Here are a couple of shots:
That's gonna leave a mark
Oof
Get up, you faker

I also learned that while the match clock technically doesn't stop for any reason, lost time is accounted for in the end. At the end of each half, they add back an unspecified number of minutes to account for the time spent giving out cards, throwing players out, breaking up fights and getting injured players off the field. In the previous three games I'd watched, I'd seen them add between 2 and 3 minutes. They added over 6 minutes to the end of the second half because so much time was used up with silly antics.

Hello, my name is Horse N. Buggy. I think I'm addicted to soccer.

Not So "Swede" Sixteen*

* Admits to totally stealing the name of this post from the ABC Sports broadcast.

OK, so I'm not a sports fan. But the biggest thing in sports right now is the Football World Cup. Look, if this news has filtered to down to me - a single American woman - then it REALLY is a big deal. How can I ignore it? Especially on a Saturday when I have a little bit of time to sit around and watch the world's most popular sport.

I watched Germany play Sweden. I began watching knowing that soccer games usually aren't high scoring. I thought I probably wouldn't make it through the whole thing, but I'd give it a whirl. Boy, did I really not know a THING about football! So here's what I learned about the game:

1. Time Outs are for pansy American sports. The football match (it's not really called a game) only stops for medical emergencies - men lying on the ground. Otherwise, a match consists of 90 minutes (94 minutes in the game I watched) of non-stop running up and down a long field. If the coach wants to direct his players, he just stands up and yells from his place on the sideline. If a player loses a shoe, he has to put it on while his team keeps playing. He better be able to lace up quick like. Ultimately this means that the match will not really go over-time. That's part of what I hate about American sports. You never know how long a game will last.

2. If a player is ejected from a match, the team can't replace him. I have heard of hockey players being put into the penalty box so that their team has to play without them for a few minutes, but this seems harsh. The match begins with 11 players on each team. The refs have yellow and red cards. I'm not sure when a player gets a red card, I thought it was after racking up a certain number of yellow cards, but that doesn't seem to be indicated in the "Laws of the Game." Regardless, a red carded player is ejected and can't be replaced. So if a team has one red carded player (as Sweden did), they are then playing with only 10 on the field. I think they can get down to as few as 7 players and keep the game going. Can you imagine American Football playing by similar rules? No way. Pansies.

3. Once a player leaves the match through substitution, he can't come back in. OK, so baseball has the same rule. This was surprising to me, since the game seems to play like American football or basketball. But it was not completely foreign to me.

4. Goalies are not called goalies, they're called Keepers, as in Goal Keepers. As a stoopid American, I have been using the wrong terminology my whole life.

On to notes about the actual match...
I wasn't sure who to root for. Here are the completely girlie reasonings that went through my head:

I had a lot of Swedish friends when I lived in Russia. So I could root for Sweden (1). But I have one current German friend now. So I could root for Germany (1). I usually think Swedes are better looking, but there are lots of hotties on this German (2) team. Sweden's uniforms are uglier than Germany's (3). English is descended from German, so while I can't speak either language, I feel a little more kinship to the German (4) team linguistically. Germany (5) scored before I had made up my mind and everyone likes to root for a winner.

So with 5 - 1 reasons to root for Germany, I decided to go Deutch.

Sweden has a phenominal Keeper. He seemed to be the only player on the Swedish team taking his job seriously. The rest of the Swedish team would sit back and let the Germans kick from anywhere on field. If it had not been for the glorious blocks (saves) of the Swedish Keeper (who was significantly better than the German Keeper), Germany would have blown Sweden out of the water. As it was, he was only able to hold them to 2 goals.

Germany scored their only two goals within the first 12 minutes of the game, but the rest of the match was still interesting to watch. Both goals were scored by the same youngun - Podolski. He was so happy. ABC got a great shot of him sliding across the field on his knees, screaming after he scored the second goal. It was easily the "cover" shot for a newspaper. This shot, but from seen from the front so you saw his whole face and body with some of the field behind him.

For some completely unknown reason, the Swedish fans were doing the Tomahawk Chop. I have no idea what it was about, but it looked just like the famous (to me, at least) Braves' fans arm motion. I half-expected them to begin singing the war chant too. But none of their chopping could keep their team in the tournament.

Next match? Mexico vs. Argentina. Supposed to be two really good teams. So far they are tied 1 - 1, and it's almost the end of the first half.

My only real regret is that my first soccer game didn't include TEH Becks. But it looks like England is playing tomorrow morning. I will tune in ... or tape it. I can't count my football experience as complete until I've seen Mr. Posh Spice play.

A-tisket A-tasket

A-tisket a-tasket
A green and yellow basket
I wrote a letter to my love
And on the way I dropped it

I dropped it, I dropped it
Yes, on the way I dropped it
A little girlie picked it up
And took it to the market

She was truckin' on down the avenue
Without a single thing to do
She was peck, peck, peckin' all around
When she spied it on the ground

A-tisket a-tasket
She took my yellow basket
And if she doesn't bring it back
I think that I shall die

Odd little ditty, that. But very apropos to what happened to me on the way to work yesterday. I was zooming down the highway when there was suddenly a little traffic jam in an odd place. There is never traffic in this particular place. I quickly saw the problem - two GINORMOUS baskets were sitting in the road. People had to swerve to get around them. Being the quick thinker that I am, I pulled out my camera phone and snapped a pic for you. (I'm always thinkin' about y'all.)



Now what on earth could be kept in those baskets? Can you tell that it is as wide as my car is tall? Just after I passed this basket, a lady in a minivan pulled up behind it and got out of her car. I don't know if she was going to try to move it off to the side or shove it in her car to take it home. Perhaps she was thinking, "That'll hold my husband's laundry!"

I also think it's awesome-riffic that my Strongbad static cling can be seen in this shot. Surely he could think of a use for a basket that large...

A Pivotal Point

I got my hair cut the night before the District Convention. The guy who cut it was weird. I like to use Great Clips. The first time I went in there, a man cut my hair and I ended up not really liking it. Maybe I didn't express what I wanted very well, but he seemed to just ignore me and cut it the way he wanted to. The next time I went in, I really didn't want to get that same man. Thankfully I got a lady who did a fairly good job. I was pleased with the results.

This time, I wanted to get the same lady but I didn't see her. The guy who either owns or manages the place took my "reservation." (Not that Great Clips has reservations, but they greet you when you walk in and put you in line in the computer.) He told me that my lady wasn't available. I'd waited until the LAST minute, so I was stuck with whomever I got. He said some things that he thought were clever. They weren't. I didn't understand what he was trying to say or why he thought he was so witty. (I guess I know how people feel when they meet me.)

Finally, Mr. Thinks He's So Clever was the one to cut my hair. Great. But at least it wasn't the other guy. Mr. Clever turned out to not be so bad. We still had a communication problem, but he knew what to do with my hair. He was blunt about my flaws - what I needed to hide and how to do so. He did go a little overboard telling me how lovely my hair is - I don't think it's anything special. Most importantly, he showed me a few tricks to add body to my hair. This is something that would keep me up at night if I let stuff like that rob me of sleep. I HATE flat hair. He was able to convince me that I don't have to live with flat hair (or at least I can make the best of it).

Mr. Clever cut a "pivot point" into my hair. I'm having the flip-top installed next time - free access to my brain for one and all. So...yeah, I don't know what a pivot point is but I know that I've gotten a lot (and I mean a LOT) of compliments on it. I don't know that I'm styling it the way he did, but it's better than it was before. And best best best of all, the dude knows how to cut my bangs! I'm a freak about my bangs. They have to be just right or they annoy me to no end.

So, this post isn't very funny. Sorry about that. I did think it was pretty funny when less than 48 hours after kissing up to me and telling me what fabulous hair I have, Mr. Clever called me a "Stupid B!tch." I was pulling in to the Chick-fil-A to get breakfast before the convention on Saturday morning. This parking lot is annoying because when you turn in, you have to immediately turn again. You can only do it safely at, like, 2 mph - which no one does. I see people almost have head-on collisions in that parking lot all the time. So anyway, this time I was the moron who whipped into the lot too fast. But it was 7:00 on a Saturday morning, how busy could it be? Just busy enough for me to barely miss hitting Mr. Clever - who was screaming at the top of his lungs at the moron (that'd be me) whipping into the lot too fast. Take a chill pill, dude. I didn't hit you. You look stoopid yelling inside your car.

Odd Things About Boston

Lots of odd things in Boston. For now, I'll just post this one sign (that I saw in many areas):

What the heck does that mean? Actually, I get what it means, but why do I need to be warned about it? Thickly Settled. Not a nice connotation.

Gone and Gone

I came home from Boston to find all Roomie's stuff cleared out of the garage (and his room), his key on the countertop and a note thanking me for letting him live there. I guess I can't call him Roomie anymore. He needs a new name - Xoomie? I'll See Him As Much Now As When He Lived With Me? Him We Don't Speak Of? You decide.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Boston here I come! I just did my big 5 minute presentation to the Ps and VPs and C_Os of the company. I'm changing clothes and heading to the airport. See you losers later!

Links Links and More Links

So it's a lot easier to just throw up a bunch of links to other sites that I want you to see than to write witty entries. I'm taking the easy road today.

1. Here is a link to a fairly disturbing video (though completely facinating) of a Giant Centipede attacking, killing and eating a mouse. Not recommended for animal lovers.

2. Here is a link to my Google Notebook. This is a cool little application that I can use to capture stuff I like while I'm surfing the web. It's a virtual scrapbook. I will probably set up a permanent link to it from this blog.

3. I should have more links, but I don't.

Hekhsher from The Polyglot!

The Polyglot wanted me to inform everyone that he'll be kvelling in the front row at the showing of this film at the Atlanta Film Festival.

Link fixed although the new page doesn't have as much fun info about the film. I really wish the other site weren't so stoopid.

Blog Snobbery

Attention! I will now be adhering to the policies outlined in the following article. (After all, I am famous enough that I inspired a reader to begin his own blog!)

http://arapehlivanian.com/2006/05/22/blog-snobbery-101/

Busy times ahead

I wanted to warn y'all right now that I got busy times a-coming. This week I'm in training for three days - offsite. Then I've got the District Convention this weekend. Next week, I'm heading out of town for more (really offsite) training. I'll be near Boston, so I'm also going to spend the weekend up there. Never been to Boston, should be fun-ish.

So if you don't hear from me much, don't get worried. I will hopefully have stuff to write about after the weekend in Boston.

Sock Juggling

I went to the Open House for the Spanish class that was held at my Hall yesterday. It was very entertaining. One of the exercises the students had to do in order to learn repetitive things like numbers (uno, dos, tres, quatro...) was to juggle socks. They demonstrated this lost art to a fairly packed house. It was quite funny. Another bizarre activity they had to do - bounce a balloon off their elbow while reciting the books of the Bible in Spanish.

I guess the idea is to get their minds off the translating and get them to just "know" the answers. Interesting concept, especially since I've been doing something kinda similar completely on my own.

I play Sudoku all the time. In my mind, I say the numbers (1-9) to make sure I'm getting them all in the right places. A little over a month ago, I switched to saying the numbers in Russian in my head. Sock juggling? Too uncool for me. I got it covered with Sudoku.

I'm Cracking Myself Up

Trust me, you never want to watch "The Princess Bride" with me. My mother was annoyed out of her skull the last time she tried to do so. And if my Mama can't love me while I'm watching that movie, no one can.

Why do I bring this up? Because I'm sitting in my office with my bedroom TV around the corner playing TPB on AMC. I'm saying every line I can remember along with the movie, which is about every 4th one (except in really good passages). I can't help but giggle the whole time at the ridiculousness of me sitting in my room by myself, reciting lines along with the TV. But dang! This is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. And there are so many opportunities in life to quote it.

"Good night, Wesley. Good work. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."