First things first: You’re going to watch this game. You have to watch this game. Even if you haven’t watched a minute of this World Cup, even if you’ve never watched a minute of soccer in your life, even if you think watching a minute of soccer is a waste of a minute, you’re going to watch this game. You’re going to watch it because everyone else is. You’re going to watch it because a Sunday afternoon with friends and beer is only made better by watching strangers run around, developing allegiances to those strangers whose names you’d...
Continue reading...July 2014
I’m Sorry Ronaldo, Klose’s For Real: World Cup Recap and Netherlands-Argentina Preview
/taps mic I’m Sorry Ronaldo! Klose’s for reeeeaaaal! Never meant to make your country cry, Die Mannshaft won it sieben-eins. The US conceded six goals in four games. Costa Rica gave up two in five. Germany has let four in over six. Reiging (until Sunday) World Champions Spain saw seven balls roll over the line in their three group stage matches, as did Portugal. It took Algeria and Switzerland a fourth game to reach that total. Only Honduras (eight), Australia and Cameroon (nine each) allowed more than seven goals over the course of this world cup. Those last three teams finished 30th-32nd in the tournament. Yesterday, in capitulating...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today\’s is, of course, from Maureen Dowd, who in her column today, \”Silicon Valley Sharknado\” (no, really), writes: That leaves me free to worry about rampaging robots. HOW THE F ARE YOU...
Continue reading...When It’s Over: World Cup Recap and Brazil-Germany Preview
Five days. It took me five days after the USMNT lost to Belgium to be able to read any of the many obituaries, encomia and tributes that followed in that match\’s wake. It took me five days before I could begin to think on the accomplishments of the US team and reflect on what had happened. It took me five days to get over it, to move on from it. As I watched the games on Friday and Saturday, as the quarterfinals became the semifinals, I did so not really believing the next game wouldn’t feature Dempsey, Howard, Bradley and Jones. Their...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today\’s is from frequent guest of the show David Brooks, who in his column today, \”The Creative Climate,\” writes: This creative process is furthest along, I’d say, in the world of B...
Continue reading...Breakfast Octopus
Go ahead and read these two paragraphs (go ahead, I\’ll wait for you): So there sat Bezos at the breakfast table, faced with a question for which he was apparently unprepared. Many painful seconds passed without an answer. Rutledge let the pause lengthen as long as he could bear it and was just about to tell his host to forget it, when Bezos finally spoke. He looked down at his plate. Bezos had ordered a dish called Tom’s Big Breakfast, a preparation of Mediterranean octopus that includes potatoes, bacon, green garlic yogurt, and a poached egg. “You’re...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today\’s is from Paul Krugman, who in his column today \”Beliefs, Facts and Money,\” writes: Well, it turns out that money is indeed a kind of theological issue. Huh, but I don\’t...
Continue reading...World Cup Preview: Belgium vs. USMNT
People will say that the US is lucky to be in the Round of 16. They’ll say, as we did, that Pepe, the Portugal centerback, had just as much to do with getting the US to the knockouts as anything any US player did. They’ll note that they faced a weakened Portugal and lost to a German team that really didn’t have much to play for in their match, the score as close as it was because the Germans didn’t need anything more than the 1-0 win they ended up with. They looked anything but convincing against Ghana, switched off at two...
Continue reading...This Is How We Die
We do not choose to die. But we do. It is an inevitability. It is the inevitability. Death comes for us all, some sooner and some later. Some die quietly and peacefully, some fight and rage until the last capitulation. But still we die. Death is not honor, so much as it is science. One can die honorably only in the sense that a flower is honorable when it turns to fruit, as a rock is honorable when worn to sand by the sea . We look at the world as it is spread before us, and know that it is...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day
If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today\’s is from David Brooks, of course, who in his column today, \”The Evolution of Trust,\” writes: People are renting out their cars to people they don’t know, dropping off their pets...
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