World Cup

It's that time again when every 4 years the soccer/football fans of Earth go insane as the World Cup champion is decided. We are led to believe that every nation on the planet explodes with hope and fever when this tournament is played all nations bt the greatest one of them all; the United States of America.
Reason has it that there's just something about the American psyche that can't get a grip of the beautiful game or Joga Bonito as the Brazilians call it, maybe it's too boring or the whole off sides rule confuses to many folks. Sure there are some Americans who like and even love the sport but they all seem to be a bit out there, a bit liberal and often talk about their health food diet too much. It has almost become American not to like the sport on the principle that the rest of the world adores the game, just another stance to push everybody else away as we insist everybody need us and do as we say (except China).
I see it as propaganda though; I mean we can get into American Gladiators we can get into anything, right? One idea I can agree with is that it's very hard for bookies to put out a point spread for games which are generally concluded with a 2-1 score (and that's an exciting game) so the gambling aspect that many Americans use to make sports more . . . "interesting" The other point would be the difficulty in placement of television commercials, there's only one scheduled break at half time and the rest is continuous with virtually no timed stops. that you can fit an advert into. With modern technology adds can be ran across the screen at any time which is very annoying but more and more common. So the connection would be the lack of big money to be made and that is what we are about as a country isn't it? Making a buck, because as we all know, "Greed for lack of a better word is good" So if we can make Soccer a more lucrative game for US we can have every rabid sports fan in America live for the World Cup, stay up to strange hours as live games are telecast from South Africa! MAybe I'm wrong about this, maybe if their was more violence like in Hockey or Football we would tune in; do we need more Zidane!
My personal feeling about the game is that there needs to be less flopping and the off sides rule should be dropped.

Bare Chested Ambition

I have tried to diet a little throughout my life, the main things would be to lay off the donuts before I go to sleep and drink light beer if I drink beer at all. Once I thought I’d give Atkins a try but after becoming spaced out and cranky I began devour a baguette with no quarter. I consider eating vegetarian once in a while but really I enjoy the omnivorous diet greatly.
More than dieting I have attempted to get in shape through light weights and running; I haven’t been to a gym in over a year. At my best I was running 5 miles every other day and doing a bunch of upper body work which rewarded me with more energy, less man boob and some definition in my triceps. I did feel better about myself which in the end is what you’re supposed to want.





The truth of the matter is I want a body not unlike Tyler Durden’s sinewy and glistening body in Fight Club and if that’s too much I’ll settle for Scott Weiland’s yoga and heroin physique. No, I have no intention of shooting up but I have done the yoga and it kicked my butt. A little while ago I had found myself in a situation where food wasn’t part of my budget and my waist size shrank to a place it was when I was about 21 and while I was the envy of a couple of my friends I felt weird about the whole thing. I’m not a drastic guy and so I don’t think I’ll be doing anything drastic to get a body that I want, most likely I’ll just think about it a lot and wonder what if . . .
Frankly I don’t have time to get awesome but maybe I’ll give up all that couch potato time to pursue a more athletic cut to my jib.

"culture" vs. "pop" culture vs value

What matters vs. what do I like vs old school entertainment that supposedly hold more weight than more modern forms. I can't lie that I try to absorb all this stuff because I'm not interesting but the things I am exposed to make me seem interesting . . . isn't that true for everybody? Isn't that from "High Fidelity"?
A friend was teasing me that I had no culture but I argued that I'd been to symphonies, I'd been to The Nutcracker, I'd been exposed to famous works of art, she argued that I would still be happier at a rock concert. I didn't respond or retort, why waste my breath with words that can't back up actions, after all I'm just a man not the son of the sun king.
I'm not exactly sure if there should be a difference between any of these things because they all made money, they all convey some sort of information, they all make people happy or feel something and maybe a grand opera tells the same story as an Aerosmith song. So there's Andy Worhal who was like some flake who said simple cocktail observations and did some art because there wasn't anything easier to do. While doing this he invented something for people with nothing substantial but not before getting art critics to go for his schtick. I actually don't know if any of that is correct but it sounds about right.
Is classic art important beyond asthetics? Personally I feel that if it can tell a good story with something interesting to say. The Greek plays or poems are a good example of this as is the next versions of those in the form of Shakespear . . . now we have Stephen king.

Have I mentioned that I have this odd hunger for sugar cereal lately? I just want to chow down on some sugar pops. I don't know why but there it is. Steak and eggs also sounds really fork licking good too!

I guess none of this matters because it can all come down to generational themes and technology. We are humans and have a lot of free time which most of us choose not to do anything important with so we need to use up that time with entertainment and leisure activities . . . so even sport gets thrown into the mix here. Athletics are important because it can represent what we are physically capable of even if we need performance enhancers. I don't know what the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians used to make themselves better in competition but certainly there was a modern idea of cheating going on.
You know classic books have more references to their times than you might expect, making them essentially pop items before the term was what it was. I like a book that can capture a time without being obsessed with it or being so much a product of it's time it doesn't transcend it.

"What's a transom, Bob"