i think i figured out why i enjoy the places i vacation to so much. When on vacation i walk everywhere. When you walk you are more likely to interact with other people. At home we drive everywhere just to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible but that also means we don't interact very much.
Entertaining things always happen when i'm just walking around. Tonight i needed to go to two places in the local strip mall at opposite ends. i parked near one and just walked to the other. On the way back to my car two girls stopped me. One said, in a very thick eastern block european accent, "do you have fire"?
This was great on so many levels. First, when walking around people usually just ask me if i have drugs. i'm not quite sure why but i guess i must look like i'm always carrying. This was a refreshing change.
Second, in a way this was a girl asking me if i had a light... in her own trying to communicate in a strange foreign language kind of way. It made me think of a teenage me trying to flirt with ice cream shop girls in Germany knowing about three words in German. It's my birthday and i'm feeling old so this short memory jaunt to younger times made me feel good.
Lastly, "do you have fire"? This is sooo much cooler than asking for a light. Such a beautiful direct translation. Primal. To the point. i may just start smoking something so i can ask people if they have fire. Or maybe i'll just carry around fireworks in my pockets everywhere i go, ask people if they have fire, then light one up and give them a show. Yeah, that sounds like the way to go.
Thank you former soviet union.
May 22, 2008
May 21, 2008
Red Devils
CONGRATULATIONS MANCHESTER UNITED!
Manchester United have won the Premier League and the Champions League rounding out an impressive season. They clearly deserved this win as nerve-racking as it was. The whole team played strong on the less than ideal field conditions.
To quickly shut down Chelsea fans, Chelsea should have been down two players by the end of the first half due to red cards that should have been handed out. A cleats-up slide tackle into Ronald in the first quarter of the game should have been one and Makelele should have been sent out with a series of yellows on at least 3 other occasions. i was waiting for Teves to stomp him into the ground. J. Cole broke up a Man U push by sitting on the top of the 18 until the game stopped faking injury only to jump up as soon as the trainers made it out, reminiscent of an Italian World Cup performance. Drogba? Look, you hit someone - you get a red card. He was right in front of two refs, he should have known better. He also may have beat out Ronaldinho as the ugliest soccer player in the world to tie on a pair of boots. Don't even get me going about Ballack.
i do sympathize with Terry though. He is a good player and a true gentleman of the sport. His amazing block took away what should have been Manchester's 3rd goal in the first half. Field conditions also came into play with his mis-taken penalty shot. If Ronaldo wasn't hot-shotting it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Even the announcer called his stutter-step before he even placed the ball.
The conditions truely were sub-par as both teams were sliding all over the place and many were nursing pulls and strains. New turf flown in earlier in the week? No time was left for it to root properly and at times it looked like whole sections slid like carpet runners under falling players. Add on rain and midnight in Moscow temperatures and things were probably even too skwooshy for Spongebob.
Manchester deserved this win. They had a majority of the possession, they had double the successful passes, and more importantly, they played like gentleman against a dirty team. Seeing Giggs calm the team back into solid play after his substitution in was impressive. Van der Sar played very well (with some help from his best friends the posts) and Carrick was amazing. With strong coverage Ronaldo and Rooney still found room to set plays up and Scholes, bloody and all still came through with the set-up. Fernando and the back line held Drogba tight.
Boy did they look happy, but i think Sir Alex had the widest smile of all. i can't wait until next fall.
Manchester United have won the Premier League and the Champions League rounding out an impressive season. They clearly deserved this win as nerve-racking as it was. The whole team played strong on the less than ideal field conditions.To quickly shut down Chelsea fans, Chelsea should have been down two players by the end of the first half due to red cards that should have been handed out. A cleats-up slide tackle into Ronald in the first quarter of the game should have been one and Makelele should have been sent out with a series of yellows on at least 3 other occasions. i was waiting for Teves to stomp him into the ground. J. Cole broke up a Man U push by sitting on the top of the 18 until the game stopped faking injury only to jump up as soon as the trainers made it out, reminiscent of an Italian World Cup performance. Drogba? Look, you hit someone - you get a red card. He was right in front of two refs, he should have known better. He also may have beat out Ronaldinho as the ugliest soccer player in the world to tie on a pair of boots. Don't even get me going about Ballack.
i do sympathize with Terry though. He is a good player and a true gentleman of the sport. His amazing block took away what should have been Manchester's 3rd goal in the first half. Field conditions also came into play with his mis-taken penalty shot. If Ronaldo wasn't hot-shotting it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Even the announcer called his stutter-step before he even placed the ball.
The conditions truely were sub-par as both teams were sliding all over the place and many were nursing pulls and strains. New turf flown in earlier in the week? No time was left for it to root properly and at times it looked like whole sections slid like carpet runners under falling players. Add on rain and midnight in Moscow temperatures and things were probably even too skwooshy for Spongebob.
Manchester deserved this win. They had a majority of the possession, they had double the successful passes, and more importantly, they played like gentleman against a dirty team. Seeing Giggs calm the team back into solid play after his substitution in was impressive. Van der Sar played very well (with some help from his best friends the posts) and Carrick was amazing. With strong coverage Ronaldo and Rooney still found room to set plays up and Scholes, bloody and all still came through with the set-up. Fernando and the back line held Drogba tight.
Boy did they look happy, but i think Sir Alex had the widest smile of all. i can't wait until next fall.
May 18, 2008
Not So Young Goodman Brown
This week i will hit the olde "double 3's" and like with all anniversaries of me breaking my mum's tail bone i get thinking. Thinking too much probably. This year i find myself understanding many of those who have inspired me a little bit more than i have in the past.
i don't have heroes but there are a great number of people who i feel have inspired me. Most of them are artists on some level. Of them, most seem to have gotten lost somewhere along the way in their adult lives, sometimes leading to their early demise, other times leading them to obscurity in their later years.
What happened? i now believe it comes from being an aging idealist. As a young idealist you see things around you and realize that they could (and should) be better. As a young idealist you've got a lot of piss & vinegar and more importantly, you've got a lot of life ahead of you. You talk the talk, you walk the walk, you fight the fight, and you believe that things can (and will) get better.
Somewhere along the way, the young idealist loses the "young" and is left just an idealist. As time passes some things may improve. In fact, the idealist may have even helped in bringing about some of those improvements. Unfortunately, the idealist still sees all that could be improved, all that can be improved, all that could be, and all that should be, and wonders why aren't these things happening.
Humans frequently see their lives as moving towards the day when they cease to respirate. They see that as the deadline for all that is to happen. In adulthood you start realizing that there is less and less time ahead of you. Less time to do all those things you wanted to do. Despite this, the list of things you would like to do seems to grow longer everyday.
In youth we are lead to believe that once you are an adult you will have more control. More control over your life and more control over the world around you and how things are done. The older you get the more you realize that it's just a fluidly shifting scenario where there is little net change. You gain control over some aspects of your life yet lose control over other aspects.
Things change far too slowly for the idealist and as that made-up deadline creeps closer every day patience decreases proportionately. The question comes up: how to deal with this? How does one deal with the disappointment? Do you trudge on or stop trying? Do you lose faith? Do you drink it away? Do you retract back into your own little world?
No matter what, the idealist cannot carry on the same way indefinitely. At some point things change. Sometimes the answers you are looking for don't exist. How do you make peace with what you learn as you get older?
i think i now understand those idealists a bit better now. i understand their latter works. i understand why some of them got lost along the way. They've become a bit more real to me.
i keep thinking of the Red Hot Chili Pepper's lyric "the best that I can ever be is just like you a human being". All too frequently people get disappointed when they realize that their heroes are really just human beings. i'm starting to think that someday, just maybe, some of my inspirations may become heroes. i hope i can continue to learn from what they have done. i hope i can become a little more human.
i don't have heroes but there are a great number of people who i feel have inspired me. Most of them are artists on some level. Of them, most seem to have gotten lost somewhere along the way in their adult lives, sometimes leading to their early demise, other times leading them to obscurity in their later years.
What happened? i now believe it comes from being an aging idealist. As a young idealist you see things around you and realize that they could (and should) be better. As a young idealist you've got a lot of piss & vinegar and more importantly, you've got a lot of life ahead of you. You talk the talk, you walk the walk, you fight the fight, and you believe that things can (and will) get better.
Somewhere along the way, the young idealist loses the "young" and is left just an idealist. As time passes some things may improve. In fact, the idealist may have even helped in bringing about some of those improvements. Unfortunately, the idealist still sees all that could be improved, all that can be improved, all that could be, and all that should be, and wonders why aren't these things happening.
Humans frequently see their lives as moving towards the day when they cease to respirate. They see that as the deadline for all that is to happen. In adulthood you start realizing that there is less and less time ahead of you. Less time to do all those things you wanted to do. Despite this, the list of things you would like to do seems to grow longer everyday.
In youth we are lead to believe that once you are an adult you will have more control. More control over your life and more control over the world around you and how things are done. The older you get the more you realize that it's just a fluidly shifting scenario where there is little net change. You gain control over some aspects of your life yet lose control over other aspects.
Things change far too slowly for the idealist and as that made-up deadline creeps closer every day patience decreases proportionately. The question comes up: how to deal with this? How does one deal with the disappointment? Do you trudge on or stop trying? Do you lose faith? Do you drink it away? Do you retract back into your own little world?
No matter what, the idealist cannot carry on the same way indefinitely. At some point things change. Sometimes the answers you are looking for don't exist. How do you make peace with what you learn as you get older?
i think i now understand those idealists a bit better now. i understand their latter works. i understand why some of them got lost along the way. They've become a bit more real to me.
i keep thinking of the Red Hot Chili Pepper's lyric "the best that I can ever be is just like you a human being". All too frequently people get disappointed when they realize that their heroes are really just human beings. i'm starting to think that someday, just maybe, some of my inspirations may become heroes. i hope i can continue to learn from what they have done. i hope i can become a little more human.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)