jmoiron.net

...and the living is easy. I got older on the 27th of June... seems like it's at the same time every year. On the 22nd, I was able to see the pillows for the third time (saw them twice previously). 日本語のクラス is plodding along at a decent clip; ときどきむずかしです。 By next week I will be done with level 3 and starting level 4, which I think begins kanji and radicals.

All manner of life things hinge on the outcome or development of two super secret secrets, the secrecy of which are somewhat silly and somewhat damaging to me and others simultaneously. It's kinda like private key encryption.. I think there's only one other person out there who knows both, and those who know one probably do not have the requisite access to the other. Unfortunately, in one case it's kind of Serious Business, and impacts the life of people from whom I must keep the information secret. They throw my late august travel plans into a question mark which I now must have resolved within the next few weeks.

World Cup Fever has hit .. well, everyone. I did a lot more watching of the Premiership and Serie A this year than previous years, so I knew about most of the big names (and some of the smaller) and what kind of form they were bringing to the world cup. This knowledge really changed the lens through which I have viewed the american comentary, which has been very poor. You can sorta tell that the announcer doesn't know what it means to be a midfielder from Internazionale when he reads that tidbit from his bulleted spec sheet.

The final is set to be played in a few days between France and Italy. France beat out Portugal in order to make it in a match that was quite close and decided by a penalty kick. It was really unfortunate, because I would have rather liked to see what would happen if the teams were forced to score from the field instead. Portugal dominated most of the second half (searching for an equalizer) but could not find away around France's 7 defenders (4 backs and 3 mids who hardly saw the light of the portuguese half). Very entertainingly, portuguese keeper Ricardo played mostly inside France's 18 yard box for the last minute or two of the game, but the equalizer just wasn't there. I'll have to settle for watching Portugal vs Germany in a few days.

The most bitter thing about world cup losses is having to return to your normal life, where there's nothing to cheer for. As if one let down wasn't enough, Kenneth Lay died and avoided 20 years of entirely deserved punishment. The people he completely fucked over can no longer sue for punitive damages, and officially he will never be recorded as having been indicted (which he was) or convicted (which he was) because he was in the middle of his appeals process.