Ultimate campus tour.

I will never forget this. You three are the most amazing and wonderful people I could have ever hoped to meet.

Even though my feet smell now. Luckily I'm throwing away all of my bedding stuff in three and a half hours.

Mala Leche.

Watching USA:Italy at Tim's:

Tim: See, the problem is that American fans aren't aggressive enough about soccer. The ref knows that the Italian fans could kill him after the game.
Ryan: He's taking advantage of our ignorance.
Tim: Exactly. This is where George W. needs to step up and be like "I'll invade your ass. I may not know where your country is, but that doesn't matter."

Tim: Yes, because deliberately elbowing somebody in the face, and being a split-second late on a legal tackle are equally worthy of the red card. Fucker.

Tim: This is why Americans hate soccer. Any other sport you're encouraged to screen the opposing players to help score.
Ryan: Maybe we were right all along. Damn, that's a thought that's gonna fester when I try to sleep tonight.

Announcer: If the USA can pull off the win, as the underdog to a talented Italy team, nobody will be talking about the referee or the red cards.
Ryan: I'll take that bet. Moron.

Announcer: It's the 90th minute, you have a substitution left, the US should bring on somebody like Eddie Johnson to give some fresh legs.
Ryan: Hey Tim, why didn't you start talking about that twenty minutes ago!?
Tim: Fuck me! Yes, that's a fantastic idea! Bring on a substitute with fucking 30 seconds left in the game!

Ryan: I like how Musberger comes back from the commercial ranting about how the ref was suspended in 2002. No introductions, no 'Welcome back to post-game', just straight up invective. God I love sports.

[Hats off to Lee for title inspiration.]

Unlimited.

So I changed my service today on my cell phone from the 1000 texts/month to a media package that gives me 1mb of internet plus 200 texts. This is solely so that I can keep up on World Cup scores, and on NYC weather, while in class. But when I switched, the lady told me that they were running a free promotion and that I got unlimited texts for the first month with the media package. I said 'So that's for this month?' She said 'It's for 30 days, so it runs from June 16th until...wow, actually it says here until August 13th.' So ladies and gentlemen, you haven't even begun to Facebook me enough yet.

Closing time.

My schedule for the next 90 hours or so:
Today In Lawrence with TV and computer, but limited food.
Tomorrow In Lawrence through lunchtime, then home to Humboldt for evening with car and remaining electronics.
Friday Back in Lawrence after lunch, with no car, TV, computer or much of anything beyond what I'm taking to New York City.
Saturday In Lawrence all day, same conditions apply.
Sunday Leaving approx. 7:45am after breakfast downtown with my mom, who is taking me to KCI.

So if you want a meal or a drink with the Rt. Honorable Minister of the Church of Beer, or to drive him to said place for food and drink, or to invite him over to watch World Cup matches or movies, let him know. Cause you can always come back, but you can't come back all the way.*


*That line has no relevance, but I wanted to quote Bob Dylan at least once on this blog.

For all you doubters out there.

One day, one damn near empty apartment. Thanks, of course, to the fine strangers who will carry away anything marked with a 'free' sign, including the sign itself.

The ten boxes in my living room...

Are telling me that it might not be such a terrible thing for the world's books to be digitized and accessable through a central mainframe onto portable e-paper screens.

Seriously, moving is a bitch.

On picking the USA to advance out of group play.

Surely by now you've heard. And yes, I did pick our boys to place second in the group-both times. But I want to make it very clear that it was not out of jingoism or because I picked up the Landon-graced cover of SI. It was simply and solely because I thought that if any manager in the World Cup could get past all of the crap that this team has had to deal with, it would be Bruce Arena. He has been the mastermind behind the US surge of the past decade, and I felt sure that he would prepare these players, some of whom play internationally while the others toil in MLS, for the rigors of the Group of Death. But as in any sport, the coach can only do so much; the blame for yesterday's game clearly rests on the players who allowed the Czechs to get in deep, and get in fast. I knew if the USA was to have any chance at advancing, they'd have to get at least a draw (and a precious point) out of this game; after watching Italy:Ghana yesterday, I think it might well be a tall order to not go 0-3-0.

Oh well, they say that you should root for your home team and then have a stand-by in case; I pick the Dutch. I can't say as to why, but when we're talking about a nation known internationally for sex, pot and dykes, do you really need a reason?

The greatest decision I may ever make.

I will not cut my hair for the rest of the summer. If all goes as planned, some lucky publishing house will have hired an orange fro by this winter.

Too bad they didn't 'accidently' burn it down again.

For the love of God, you've got to be kidding.

Six days out.

I have lots of things to do before I leave Sunday morning. First among these is finishing the last couple of advance assignments, having to do with magazine circulation. But a very close second, and more pressing in my mother's eyes, is packing everything in my apartment and moving it back home within the next three days. Right now, though, I'm having way too much fun uncovering mp3s I had on my computer back in high school. There was more Creed than I'm comfortable with admitting, but holy crap, 'Firestarter', 'Mrs. Jackson', 'One Armed Scissor', 'South Side', 'Stan', 'Voodoo', 'Hemorrage (In my hands)', 'Original Prankster', and of course the classic 'It Wasn't Me'.. where have you guys been!?!

TIP KU 06: The Pool.

For those of you who have no idea what TIP is, you can skip this. But I wanted to go ahead and make some predictions on how the first term will go, as it started today:

First kid to get written up: The boy who will streak naked into a now-off-limits girl's floor.
When it will happen: It probably already has. If not, then 7am tomorrow.
First doorway to have a finger stuck in it: Fraser Hall.
Exclamation upon this happening: 'Gadzooks, that was most inopportune and vacous of me; thou art doltish! Kindly please do open this entryway back up again that I might extract my forefinger and put a cold compress on it, posthaste!'
First couple caught making out: They probably already have. If not, then lunch tomorrow.
First trip to Watkins: Tuesday.
First trip to hospital: First 'ultimate' evening activity.
Location of first 'lost' kid: Hastings. Seriously, where else?
First broken bone: In honor of the World Cup, a metatarsal.
Kids who will boogie at the first dance: 30%.
Kids who will be reading at the first dance: 25%.
Action deserving of the first gold star: Finding the secret five-min., no stairs route from Oliver to Fraser.
Instructor to make their kids walk while holding lanyards: Mackey. He's old-school like that.
First evening activity to get suspended, then reinstated: Lacrosse. (Ha! Ha! I'll never get hired by Duke again.)

Dominance.

One of the more common arguments among sports fans is who is most dominant in their sport, ie: Lance in cycling, Tiger and Annika in golf, Tim Duncan in basketball, etc. I think the case can easily be made right now for Rafael Nadal in tennis: at the tender age of 20, he has just stared down a modern great in Roger Federer and came back from a set down to win his second consecutive French Open (his sixth win in seven meetings, fifth straight over Federer), his 17th title overall, and now 60 straight wins on clay. This kid's got a gleam in his eye.

Meanwhile in Paris.

This fourth set of the men's French Open final between Nadal and Federer may be the best I've ever watched. Two giants of the game, after lopsided opening sets, are slugging it out and it is magnificent to witness. The thing I've always loved and wondered about in tennis is the hyooge changes in momentum, such as Federer winning 6-1 in the first set today and then Nadal coming back to reverse it in the second set. After all, it's not like in team sports where you can bring in a reliever out of the bullpen or a specialist off the bench; they're the same players they were in the previous set, with the same strengths and weaknesses, and no advice from their coaches during play. They must adjust themselves, in real time, on the court. [Case in point, Nadal had six unforced errors to start out the match, while Federer had none; at the start of the fourth set, Federer had 47 to Nadal's 21.] Which is why tennis is a most glorious sport. Anyway, I hope Nadal can pull this one into a tiebreaker and take it home; always root for the guy in capri pants.

10K in 53'15".

I'm back, baby! Now watch me lose all of my endurance, strength and flexibilty because I'm too afraid to go outside and work out in NYC.

Freaky deaky Dutch, pt. 2.

Orange collared jersey + white shorts = classic. Orange shirt + orange shorts + orange socks = a few too many magic brownies.

Six minutes later.

1:1

Goddammit, this is gonna be a fun tournament. I'm off to lunch; don't get into any riots, at least not without inviting me.

Five minutes in.

So I may have been a little hasty with my prediction of today's Germany:Costa Rica match. It's already 1:0, and there was a near-goal two minutes into the match. It's gotta be the ball.

Backed-up.

Blogger has been fucked for the last day or so. So while I have a chance, here are some things I have accumulated over the last couple of hours.

• Being the tennis fan that I am (it's my favorite sport to play, though I haven't stepped onto a court in over a year now *tear*), I enjoy the hell out of the Grand Slams. My #1 dream growing up was to win Wimbledon, as Pete Sampras was and probably will be the greatest athlete ever in my eyes (I've modeled much of my game after him), and I loved the serve and volley action on the grass courts as much as I loved the keen upper crust English-ness. But lately I find my loyalties switching to the red clay of Roland Garros, site of the French Open. I've really come to appreciate the sheer stamina and the tactical fortitude that players must have to win on the much slower surface; there's a reason some have recommended that the French Open have three set matches for the men through the quarters (unheard of in the Slams) to save them from ubiquitous five-hour matches early on, like Rafael Nadal (sooooo awesome) had in the second-round last week. Anyway, here's a look at why the clay is so tough, and why I'd really like to play on it sometime soon and try it out.

• As if I needed any more reason, I'm really gonna miss Lawrence.

• The new UniWatch column on ESPN.com today focuses on one of the best reasons to watch the World Cup: the 'kits', as they're called in Europe. I know I mentioned Portugal as having my fave uniforms, but seeing all of them in one spot, I have to go with the Netherlands (the primary and alternates complement each other so well), followed by Italy (typography rules!) and Mexico (ditto, plus the underprint on the front stripe is great historical touch).

Harder than it looks.

One of my assignments for CPC|NYC06, as I've taken to calling it, was to make a list of my favorite and most influential books (with a very short description of each). It took me about an hour to narrow it down, so here goes.

The Art of Looking Sideways Alan Fletcher – A treasure trove of inspiration for the artist, the bohemian, the designer, the literati, and anybody who simply takes joy in creativity.

Soccer in Sun & Shadow Eduardo Galeano – His short vignettes on the history, players, goals and very soul of the game are a welcome respite from the current business culture of sport.

In Praise of Athletic Beauty Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht – I read this right before coming to Columbia, and found it utterly absorbing in detailing emotions that I always felt, but never named.

The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway – One of the few books I can just pick up and read at any page, his sparse, blunt style is absolutely transfixing. Also, everybody gets drunk.

Theater of War Lewis Lapham – Quite simply the best essayist today, this book is an arrow to the heart of all that has gone wrong in the American Republic over the past few decades.

Our Dumb Century The Onion – Intricate revisionist historical humor at its absolute finest; the headlines are the draw, but the devil, like always, is in the details.

The Fountainhead Ayn Rand – The only one of her works that doesn’t leave the taste of bile in my mouth, so, I guess that means something.

Strange Rumblings in Aztlan Hunter S. Thompson – Actually a long article for Rolling Stone, this is the kind of journalism that we should, my goodness should, see more of.

To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson – The best history I’ve ever read, Wilson illuminates a grand narrative of revolution in an era when that actually meant something.

Rolling Stone: The Complete Covers Fred Woodward & Jann S. Wenner – As a design, history and rock & roll junkie, I practically have this memorized. The whole thing.

Things I love, #62.

KEXP's Song of the Day podcast, for delivering an always great, sometimes amazing track to my iTunes every morning. Through them I've been introduced to Band of Horses, Rogue Wave, Common Market, The Gossip, Blue Scholars, among many others. The last two days picks have been singularly wonderful: "Chariot" by Page France, and "Rise Up in the Dirt" by Voxtrot. The first has those lifting lyrics that sound so corny when just read out loud; the second has those vocals that shift directions in an instant. Both together are making music fun again.