Conflicted viewing

As most of the world knows, FIFA's World Cup started on Friday.

Aside from a 1994 World Cup t-shirt I received as a gift, I recall that when I first remember hearing about the World Cup in 2002.  I was in Newfoundland at the time and was relatively upset to hear people who otherwise seemed to have no interest in soccer/football acting as though this was an event they cared about.  I couldn't understand how something that I basically hadn't ever heard of could be used as an excuse to cancel classes at university or motivate departments to book lecture halls for mass viewings.  Just about everything associated with the World Cup seemed implausible and upsetting.

In 2006 just as the next World Cup was getting underway my parents began hosting a Brazilian grad student for the summer.  Not surprisingly, she was interested in watching the World Cup - or at least those games in which Brazil was playing.

My recollection is that my parents didn't have cable or maybe they didn't have a functional TV - in any event, it was decided that World Cup viewing would happen at the house in which I was staying at the time (and that just happens to be adjacent to my parents' house).  As I didn't have all that much furniture we were able to arrange everything in the living room to maximize our comfort while watching Brazil's games.

Of course, it didn't take all that long for Neil and I to enjoy watching the games and start rooting for Brazil.

Somehow in this midst of this increasingly intense World Cup experience a English friend without cable called out of the blue and asked if he could bring his Canadian-born kids over to watch England play for the first time.  Within a matter of minutes they were in place for the game.

We were then drawn into the World Cup experience in a way I could never have expected even a week or two before.  All of a sudden I began to see why even people who otherwise aren't particularly soccer fans might enjoy following the event.

By the time 2010 rolled around I was living with Neil and Rebecca in Halifax and most of the games were easily streamable.  Instead of studying for then still-unscheduled comps (in my defense, I likely didn't even have a reading list by the time the event started) along with Neil (and sometimes Rebecca and Jeannette) I watched many more games than was likely healthy.  I was fully hooked on the experience and even more convinced that of all of the non-annual international sporting events it was the best.

It's so clearly the best because it happens only once every four years.  Or to put it differently, not so frequently that its appearance isn't noteworthy or that you're still burned out from all of the soccer you watched last time around.  On top of that, and very much in contrast to the Olympics (Summer or Winter), by including only one sport it is almost possible for an dedicated individual to watch every game.  And even if you don't watch every game there are few enough games that it is quite easy to keep up with the developments occurring in those games you don't watch.  Of course it's also nice that even though soccer is played world-wide only a limited number of the best teams qualify for each World Cup.  And even better is that when you live in a place like Canada that isn't likely to qualify this means that you (and also the networks covering the event) can focus on good games rather than distracting national allegiances.

Of course as enjoyable as the World Cup is as casual viewer, it's not entirely without its issues.  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver did a great job of introducing a variety of these significant issues in a recent episode.



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So, eight years after Neil and I first began watching World Cup coverage Neil opted out because of dissatisfaction with the organization behind the event.  I, on the other hand, am also disappointed with the organizing body - but obviously not to the extent that I have decided to skip the event.  Instead, Jeannette have taken advantage of several cancellations this weekend to watch as much of the coverage as possible.

A Few Quick Notes 439

-As mentioned in the last post, today has been quite rainy and overcast thus far. To make matters worse, there has even been some suggestion that we may be in for thunder and lightening later today. Sounds like fun.

-We had our third Ultimate game of the season last night. Like our game last week, we were beaten pretty easily. Actually, we were really trounced in last night's game. I still don't know what happened, or how we lost so badly, but it almost seemed as though we barely even got a chance to touch the disc.

-On Thursday we went to a stand-up show at our local Yuk Yuk's comedy club. While the headliner wasn't my favourite, the show was generally quite enjoyable.

-Apparently the Canadian navy is in the midst of celebrating its 100th anniversary. Because of these celebrations quite a number of foreign naval vessels (and their sailors) are in port. This has meant that for the past number of days the place has been infested with foreign sailors, many of whom appear to be in their early twenties. One of the strange upside of this seems to be that some of the bars showing World Cup soccer matches seem to have more nationals for many of the matches than they might otherwise have had. Yesterday while walking down Spring Garden as the England-Germany match was about to start I heard what must have been a few dozen British sailors singing in one of the local sports bars (though I presume this rather jubilant mood was brought to a rather sudden halt due to both the English team's goal deficit and because of bad officiating).

-I should get going, I have to head to school to drop a few things (including library books) off.

A New Shelving Unit: As Good as Being Present

A few days ago Neil and Rebecca realized that they needed more storage space. After a brief search and period of contemplation, they settled on a shelving unit that is on sale this week at Canadian Tire.

This morning Neil and I made our way over to the local Canadian Tire to pick one up. Amazingly the shopping experience was relatively quick and painless (I wasn't paying).

Not to long ago we brought the shelving unit back to our apartment. After a few minutes of dilly-dallying (meaning until the end of the Germany-Serbia World Cup game) we started to unpack the the shelving unit. At this point I thought that our readers would really probably like to follow along with the assembly process through a session of live-blogging, so here we are. Check back to follow our progress.

10:35 - Neil and Rebecca's bedroom has been rearranged so that he assembly of the shelving unit can take place on site. We have also pulled all of the parts of the shelving unit out of the box and placed them at various points around the perimeter of the room or in the adjacent hallway. My sense is that right now Neil is counting the hinges and screws to make sure that we have everything before we start.

10:37 - I am now busy live blogging while Neil continues his preparations. If he doesn't hurry up I may end up just taking a nap.

10:40 - I am now back in the room. We just discussed how best to cover this momentous event - we agreed live-blogging would be better than a time-lapse as we missed the key unboxing phase of the process.



10:52 - The assembly process has now started in earnest. We have attached two pieces to one another and are about to attach the third.

11:01 - We now have 5 pieces completely or partially attached to one another. We also have started streaming the US-Slovenia World Cup game via CBC.ca.

11:20 - Things are starting to take shape now, both sides have been added. That being said, we are still a ways away from being done. In other news, it seems that the US are now down 0-1 to Slovenia.

11:28 - We just popped the top on. I think we will soon need to flip the unit over to add the structural cardboard to the back.

11:40 - Neil is now putting the nails into the structural cardboard on the back of the unit. We will need to pound in about 40 nails in total. I guess once we are done with this step we will have to flip it over again and then add the front doors and a few more shelves. I guess if I am hopeful and optimistic I might suggest that the end is in sight.

11:44 - Slovenia just scored a second goal, really putting the US in a tough spot. Oh, and Neil is still pounding away at the structural cardboard nails.

12:13 - The doors have been attached and the unit is now upright, though not quite in position. Hopefully the door hinges won't require much adjustment as I think that it won't be particularly straightforward to adjust these doors.

12:18 - Neil is now in the midst of attaching the unit to the wall to take advantage of the included fall arrest system.

12:20 - Neil is emitting some strange grunting sounds during the fall arrest construction process. Pretty graphic if you ask me.

12:22 - The handles are now on the doors.

12:29 - We just adjusted the doors, which was a little uncomfortable and unpleasant but not too bad.

12:33 - I think that we are basically done, though eventually a few more shelves will be inserted. I think that this likely won't be done until Rebecca returns and can be consulted on shelf arrangement and what exactly will be placed on the shelves. So I guess that is the end of this live-blogging experience.



Here is the unit in its almost final form.

A Few Quick Notes 89

-Today is a beautiful day in Montreal, our first in a while. While I was initially concerned that the day might be cool and overcast, my fears were clearly misplaced. Today seems like a perfect day for me to ride either my bike or my unicycle for exercise purposes.

Unfortunately, Environment Canada is not acknowledging the clear and sunny skies, and goes further to suggest that we will be back to rain and snow by tomorrow.

-My Roll Up the Rim record is now 3/38. It seems that other stores still have the special cups, even though the McGill Tim Horton’s has been out of them for weeks.

-Another project was due today, this one for Collection Development. I am now down to two, one on Friday and one on Monday. Friday’s project still requires a fair bit of work.

-Nithum took me for $10.00 the other night on coin flips. I started betting each series of bet by betting a penny, then doubling my bet until I won. I was doing relatively well, or winning a penny on each series, until I ran into a particularly long string of tosses that went against me. After making, and losing, a bet for $5.12 I pulled out, not wagering $10.24 in an attempt to win a penny. In the end Nithum gave me my money back (except for two quarters). Once again, I have had my great system beaten by the fact that I don’t have infinitely deep pockets (something that I did say was needed for my system to work).

-The GSLIS party on Saturday night went well. As far as I know most people in attendance had a good time. It was nice to attend a party and know so many people. As far as I was concerned, the main downside was that I was not able to speak to a few people that I had hoped to. I was glad that it wasn’t a dud, because if that had been the case I likely would take heat for it at work.

-I will be busing tomorrow and Friday night at Thomson House. I keep deluding myself into thinking that I might somehow be able to bring busing to a new level. People might start having guest busers, and people would visit bars to have their tables bused by a particular person. In some weird way I think that this might work, but only if the person had the right personality.

A Few Quick Notes 54

-Another cold day in Montreal today. When I woke up it was almost -20, nearing -30 with the wind chill. This is actually the first day that I have noticed frost on my window. For the next few days it is supposed to be below zero but not quite this cold.

-Yesterday was they day of my first intramural soccer game. We pulled out the win, though only because the other team defaulted. We then played a pick-up game with the two refs filling in on the other team. Though we lost the pick-up it was generally a pretty good experience. Possibly the best thing is that we learned that one of our players is pretty good in net, something I am not. I guess we will have to wait and see how our first real game goes.

-Yesterday while at the grocery store I decided to by a trans-fat laced raspberry pie. In addition to the pie I had normal purchases (frozen green beans, frozen concentrated orange juice, etc.) and a dozen bottles of beer.

When it came time to carry all of these items home I realized that I had a bit of a problem. I had to find a way to keep the pie relatively level and manage to carry a few bags as well as a dozen beer.

The solution I came to would be to cradle the beer in my arms and rest the pie on top. The remaining bags were then in my right hand. At times I drew my right hand up to assist with the cradling. This process quickly wore me out. Just as I was reaching home I was at the end of my limit.

Fortunately, another group was entering my building at the same time as I so they were able to hold several doors for me. I then had the pleasure of dealing with making my way up to the fourth floor. This was somewhat awkward as the groceries and beer were in front of me, just where my legs where each time they took a new stair. Without too many problems I made it to the top.

Possibly with my first step onto flat ground the pie slid from the box of beer and landed upside down on the floor, I was somewhat disheartened. All this effort to keep the pie in good shape, just to drop it 15 feet from my door. I proceeded to my apartment and put all of my groceries down and then went back to check on the pie, expecting the worst.

As I flipped the pie over I learned that it hadn’t really been damaged all that much. None of the filling was any more exposed than it had been before. In some ways this kind of worried me about the quality and nature of my pie. I think that in I would normally expect a pie drop from four feet to take a bit of a beating, not look the same as before it was dropped. Maybe that is what trans-fats can do for a pie, because this one certainly has a lot of those.

-Another comment about the pie was that as I was examining it I looked at the best before date. It indicated that the pie would be best before January 21. I thought to myself this would be plenty of time, literally days away. It was not until I returned home and started to unpack my groceries did I realize I had purchased this pie about 6 hours before its expiry date. Good job.

-There was a pretty long article on Stephane Dion in the Focus section of the Globe and Mail yesterday. Hopefully I will get a chance to read about it in the next few days.

-We had a staff meeting yesterday at Thomson House. Hopefully some of the suggestions I made, as well as those of other staff members, will be acted upon to help increase business. It seems that one major problem is the administrative structure of the PGSS council, it appears to be unwilling to properly delegate authority to regular staff and management.

Soccer

Several days or weeks ago I mentioned that I would be playing on an intramural soccer team with other individuals from my school. Today we had our first “practice.”

What I had imagined to be getting together to kick the ball around in the gym turned out to be having our “team” join a revolving game in which the losing side switches out. Once we eventually figured things out and assessed our troops (we only had 4 of the needed 6 to play) we put our name on the list of challenging teams. It should also be noted that many of the individuals present clearly play regularly and well.

After about twenty minutes it became our turn to play. Unfortunately just moments before our turn came our captain decided to do a quick two laps around the field. As he was making the first turn we were in place on the field.

Almost instantly the game began and as goalkeeper I was quickly under fire. With a groping slide/dive I managed to stop the first shot and bring my team honour. Our team was able to get the ball down to the other end but it was quick to come back.

The second shot was not as nice to me as the first. Without even coming close to stopping the ball it entered the net. The rest of the game was pretty much like this. The ball would be put in play and then we would lose possession and be scored on. The only difference is that on the last shot I managed to tip the ball into my own net.

As we were coming off the field our captain returned from his two laps and couldn’t quite figure out how it was over already, but it was.

On improvement that I can already spot is my attitude. I don’t think that me thinking that we suck is really helping us. While I don’t know that I will be able to delude myself in thinking that we are the best team I might be able to keep the negative thoughts to a minimum. This might be hard when I consider that one of our players doesn’t have sneakers and will be playing in dress shoes.

Our first game is next Saturday. I will let you know how it goes.