I wrote them off at halftime. Down 3-0. AC Milan was walking all over Liverpool. They scored very early, then just pushed and pushed until two more goals buried the Reds and I was going to finish off my glass of wine and head home. Good thing my wine glass was ridiculously full because the second half revealed a Liverpool team that was so determined that it got one goal, another soon thereafter, and a third thanks to a Milan player’s somewhat questionable knocking of the Liverpool captain. 3-3 at full time. Thirty more minutes of scrambling. The players looked absolutely knackered. They had nothing left – the hustle, the focus, it was all gone. That’s an interesting state to see professional footballers in – to watch them deteriorate into mere jelly, wandering aimlessly and kicking at half-strength. And the match goes to penalties. Milan misses. Liverpool gets one in. Milan’s gets stopped by the goalkeeper. Liverpool gets one in. Milan gets one in. Liverpool misses. Milan gets one in. Liverpool gets one in. Milan’s gets stopped by the goalkeeper and Liverpool are European Cup Champions.
Champions League is my favourite to watch. It takes the top teams from countries all over Europe and lets them knock each other out of the tournament. It happens throughout the regular season, so the teams go in waves – when they’re hot in the league, they might be cold in Europe. The differences in the styles of play are most interesting – and similar to the genaralised assumptions about the countries themselves.
My heart can’t stop smiling for these guys. I am such a cheeseball anyway, but seeing the Liverpool captain lift the cup with red and white confetti flying around him, a look of bewilderment on his face, no smile to be seen - !!! Fah-klempt. And now, watching the parade through Liverpool on TV, thousands of fans behind the bus filled with their heroes, it just reminds me of all the good in sport, the love and passion and faith and intensity that goes into not just supporting a team, but feeling a team, living a team – that is truly magic.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Friday, May 13, 2005
Fifteen Minutes
http://www.tangodiva.com
"Diva Visionaries" - erm, kind of cool and kind of strange...
"Diva Visionaries" - erm, kind of cool and kind of strange...
Sunday, May 8, 2005
the zen of the iPod
Happy mother's day, mom.
It's old news to the rest of the world, but shiny new iPods have landed in our social circle. I have iPod envy, though I do love Thor and would never cheat on him. And it got me thinking again about how life-changing this small white hard drive can be. I have been embarrassingly stopped on the street by randoms telling me I have a great voice. (Yes, Slovenes understand sarcasm.) I've also had people stopping me on the street to say 'prosim?' which essentially means 'what the hell did you say to me, you crazy foreigner?'. (That's me rapping.) But I can't help it; Thor is in a groove with me. On any given day I will be walking to work/pilates class/the pub/aimlessly and get in a mood, then Thor psychically (is that a word?) pops on a song that fits seamlessly into my head. Does this happen to other iPodders? Do other people walk a few blocks out of their way just to hear a song finish up, only to hear the starting bars of the next tune and find yet another route to their destination? Does ownership automatically turn a person into a geek who checks the number of times a song has been played, changes the five-star system on a monthly basis, creates new playlists just for Monday mornings or holiday weekends or random afternoons in a car?
And in the spirt of the ridiculous U2 iPod, here's some others:
http://www.liebography.com/ipod.htm
So now there's a new 60G, a new shuffle, and two 20Gs in L-jub. And my dad is still loving his mini. And I still have a strange email relationship with random iPod owners in the greater Chicago area thanks to Kevin.
It's a bit out of date, but the jist of it is all there:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1114925,00.html
Right, on to other things. Another shortened week was made even shorter thanks to a Friday in Nova Gorica for my boss' leaving do (one of two). Slovenes love their barbecues, and we spent hours eating and drinking wine and nasty homemade liquor and I was knackered when I came home, just in time to change for a friend's birthday dinner. Which evolved into hanging out at a bar, then closing bars dance-a-thons until (get this) SEVEN in the morning. Carys, the birthday girl, her boyfriend Greg, and me. All of us over 30, weathered, and should know better. Who cares. Sometimes you just gotta dance.
Wigan is in the Premiership now. This is interesting as my buddy Jason took Wigan to the European Championship in Championship Manager while we were flatmates in Lisbon and we thought this quite funny as Wigan wouldn't ever be in the Premiership. This is likely irrelevant to anyone other than myself and a few others.
What am I going to do with a full work week? How depressing.
It's old news to the rest of the world, but shiny new iPods have landed in our social circle. I have iPod envy, though I do love Thor and would never cheat on him. And it got me thinking again about how life-changing this small white hard drive can be. I have been embarrassingly stopped on the street by randoms telling me I have a great voice. (Yes, Slovenes understand sarcasm.) I've also had people stopping me on the street to say 'prosim?' which essentially means 'what the hell did you say to me, you crazy foreigner?'. (That's me rapping.) But I can't help it; Thor is in a groove with me. On any given day I will be walking to work/pilates class/the pub/aimlessly and get in a mood, then Thor psychically (is that a word?) pops on a song that fits seamlessly into my head. Does this happen to other iPodders? Do other people walk a few blocks out of their way just to hear a song finish up, only to hear the starting bars of the next tune and find yet another route to their destination? Does ownership automatically turn a person into a geek who checks the number of times a song has been played, changes the five-star system on a monthly basis, creates new playlists just for Monday mornings or holiday weekends or random afternoons in a car?
And in the spirt of the ridiculous U2 iPod, here's some others:
http://www.liebography.com/ipod.htm
So now there's a new 60G, a new shuffle, and two 20Gs in L-jub. And my dad is still loving his mini. And I still have a strange email relationship with random iPod owners in the greater Chicago area thanks to Kevin.
It's a bit out of date, but the jist of it is all there:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1114925,00.html
Right, on to other things. Another shortened week was made even shorter thanks to a Friday in Nova Gorica for my boss' leaving do (one of two). Slovenes love their barbecues, and we spent hours eating and drinking wine and nasty homemade liquor and I was knackered when I came home, just in time to change for a friend's birthday dinner. Which evolved into hanging out at a bar, then closing bars dance-a-thons until (get this) SEVEN in the morning. Carys, the birthday girl, her boyfriend Greg, and me. All of us over 30, weathered, and should know better. Who cares. Sometimes you just gotta dance.
Wigan is in the Premiership now. This is interesting as my buddy Jason took Wigan to the European Championship in Championship Manager while we were flatmates in Lisbon and we thought this quite funny as Wigan wouldn't ever be in the Premiership. This is likely irrelevant to anyone other than myself and a few others.
What am I going to do with a full work week? How depressing.
Sunday, May 1, 2005
Labour Day
It was only a paint pellet gun, but I frighteningly found that even the most anti-voilence of creatures feels like a bad-ass when wearing a one-piece camouflage jumpsuit, wearing a Darth Vader mask and carrying a weapon. I hid behind a fence-type structure for the first couple of games of "last man standing". I didn't want to get myself hurt. Then we all took a break, drank half a beer, and got back out there. That's when I found myself actually finding a strategy...if I go there, quickly, I'll have a better shot at him; if I'm quiet, he won't hear me; tag-team ambushing...?!? Could I actually be a soldier if more than paint were involved? Loved it, absolutely loved it.
I do adore the European holiday scheme. We had a public holiday last Wednesday in Slovenia (which I spent sipping beers by the river in the sunshine...) and we also have tomorrow off, and everyone at my office took the Thursday and Friday off so I flew solo at work for two days. If I'd had my act together this would have been a great weekend to go off someplace wonderful. Instead, it was Discover Slovenia Weekend, which will commence tomorrow morning for a hike on an alpine lake.
Predjama Castle is a fantastic piece of work. The castle is literally built into the rocks and caves behind it - rock walls serve as hallways and dripping, cold, dark caves served as torture chambers and rooms for servants. It's a fascinating jumble of dark passageways and creepy nooks and crannies, and one of those places where it's easy to imagine living inside. Its history is varied but the most colourful story is from 1483, when Erasmus Lueger owned the castle. He had pissed off the Austrian king so was barred from leaving the castle or receiving anything (the king was trying to starve him to death). Of course as the castle is full of natural cave passageways, one led from the castle to the outside. Erasmus taunted the guards outside by dropping fresh fruit and food on them to confuse them; eventually one of his own betrayed him. One evening, while answering nature’s (ahem) call, the servant waved a white flag outside the toilet and Erasmus was killed by a cannonball. What a way to go.
Taken from Croatia, looking back at Slovenia. The odd part is that this is an unmanned Schengen border. The little white sign to the left says something like “satellite-guarded border” and that’s it. Interesting.
This is taken in a gorgeous hilltop Croatian village called Groznjan. It’s an artists’ colony with loads of tiny galleries filled with ceramics, textiles, paintings and such in wonderfully vibrant colours. The landscape was so lush, hills rolling into the Adriatic in the distance – very obvious why its inspiring to creative-types.
And it all ends tomorrow…sigh…
I do adore the European holiday scheme. We had a public holiday last Wednesday in Slovenia (which I spent sipping beers by the river in the sunshine...) and we also have tomorrow off, and everyone at my office took the Thursday and Friday off so I flew solo at work for two days. If I'd had my act together this would have been a great weekend to go off someplace wonderful. Instead, it was Discover Slovenia Weekend, which will commence tomorrow morning for a hike on an alpine lake.
Predjama Castle is a fantastic piece of work. The castle is literally built into the rocks and caves behind it - rock walls serve as hallways and dripping, cold, dark caves served as torture chambers and rooms for servants. It's a fascinating jumble of dark passageways and creepy nooks and crannies, and one of those places where it's easy to imagine living inside. Its history is varied but the most colourful story is from 1483, when Erasmus Lueger owned the castle. He had pissed off the Austrian king so was barred from leaving the castle or receiving anything (the king was trying to starve him to death). Of course as the castle is full of natural cave passageways, one led from the castle to the outside. Erasmus taunted the guards outside by dropping fresh fruit and food on them to confuse them; eventually one of his own betrayed him. One evening, while answering nature’s (ahem) call, the servant waved a white flag outside the toilet and Erasmus was killed by a cannonball. What a way to go.
Taken from Croatia, looking back at Slovenia. The odd part is that this is an unmanned Schengen border. The little white sign to the left says something like “satellite-guarded border” and that’s it. Interesting.
This is taken in a gorgeous hilltop Croatian village called Groznjan. It’s an artists’ colony with loads of tiny galleries filled with ceramics, textiles, paintings and such in wonderfully vibrant colours. The landscape was so lush, hills rolling into the Adriatic in the distance – very obvious why its inspiring to creative-types.
And it all ends tomorrow…sigh…
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