Well, the USA got booted out of the World Cup today by Ghana. No real surprise there. The US wasn't that good. And I for one will be glad to not have to watch Clint Dempsey dive all over the place pretending to be hurt.
However, I did learn an interesting fact watching the game today- Tim Howard, the US goalie, has Tourette's.
Hmmmph. Who knew?
Thinking of all the goalies that I know, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest! :)
Saturday, June 26, 2010
dressing rooms
My mom and I went shopping at Von Maur a few nights ago because she needed a new dress. I was just there to keep her company. And give her moral support.
Trying on dresses can be a bit hard on the ego.
The women in the dressing room with us (where you have separate rooms but can hear everything) were cracking me up.
The first woman walked by me muttering "Great...something, something... kangaroo pouch... something... and it makes me look pregnant!"
A salesperson knocked on another woman's door and asked if she was doing all right in there. Her response? "No. It's going bad. Really bad!"
But my favorite was the woman who tried on a dress that was solid on top but sequined on bottom and was fairly tight (just the style of the dress) and she was trying it on because she needed a dress to wear when she got up and sang in her friend's wedding. She went out to show it to her boyfriend and I just heard her say, "Oh my god! My ass looks like a giant disco ball!"
I wanted to give every woman in there a big hug!
Trying on dresses can be a bit hard on the ego.
The women in the dressing room with us (where you have separate rooms but can hear everything) were cracking me up.
The first woman walked by me muttering "Great...something, something... kangaroo pouch... something... and it makes me look pregnant!"
A salesperson knocked on another woman's door and asked if she was doing all right in there. Her response? "No. It's going bad. Really bad!"
But my favorite was the woman who tried on a dress that was solid on top but sequined on bottom and was fairly tight (just the style of the dress) and she was trying it on because she needed a dress to wear when she got up and sang in her friend's wedding. She went out to show it to her boyfriend and I just heard her say, "Oh my god! My ass looks like a giant disco ball!"
I wanted to give every woman in there a big hug!
storms cont'd
Okay, I know these posts about storms are getting kind of old.
But they just won't stop! (The storms that is, not the posts!)
This morning around 4:30 AM I was startled awake by one of the loudest bolts of lightning/ claps of thunder that I have ever heard. And I must have been dreaming about soccer, because it startled me awake just as someone in my dream was about to kick the soccer ball which was actually kind of cool. Like, "Wow! He really hit that ball hard!!!"
Anywho, the storms are starting to freak me out. What is going on with Mother Nature this year?
Normally I really enjoy thunderstorms but this one freaked even ME out.
My camera didn't even pick up everything. My camera only recorded the bolts of lightning in front of me, it didn't show when the sky would light up from the bolts behind and to the sides of me. The sky LITERALLY lit up every three seconds. I've NEVER seen anything like it.
I mean, as it is, there are over 15 flashes of lightning in this 1:22 second clip!
I made it through. My room stayed dry. My computer didn't get zapped. Hooray!
Hopefully we are done with storms for a while so I can move onto better topics.
But they just won't stop! (The storms that is, not the posts!)
This morning around 4:30 AM I was startled awake by one of the loudest bolts of lightning/ claps of thunder that I have ever heard. And I must have been dreaming about soccer, because it startled me awake just as someone in my dream was about to kick the soccer ball which was actually kind of cool. Like, "Wow! He really hit that ball hard!!!"
Anywho, the storms are starting to freak me out. What is going on with Mother Nature this year?
Normally I really enjoy thunderstorms but this one freaked even ME out.
My camera didn't even pick up everything. My camera only recorded the bolts of lightning in front of me, it didn't show when the sky would light up from the bolts behind and to the sides of me. The sky LITERALLY lit up every three seconds. I've NEVER seen anything like it.
I mean, as it is, there are over 15 flashes of lightning in this 1:22 second clip!
I made it through. My room stayed dry. My computer didn't get zapped. Hooray!
Hopefully we are done with storms for a while so I can move onto better topics.
Friday, June 25, 2010
storms
I love thunderstorms. As long as I'm indoors, that is! We've had quite a number of crazy storms lately.
I jinxed us though. I was talking to my client from Alabama earlier this week and I was talking about nice it is living near Chicago because we don't get tornadoes this close to the city.
Well, we usually don't get tornadoes. Except for two days after I said that when the sky turned that funny color- you know what I'm talking about if you've ever been in a tornado. And then the sirens started going off.
I went to the bathroom, grabbed my book, water and chapstick (the necessities) and headed down to the basement.
A tornado did not hit my town (see, I was right, we don't usually have them) but we did have insane wind and three inches of rain in one hour! Can you say flooding?? Luckily my basement is unfinished and we are used to it flooding but for lots of friends that meant the destruction of their finished basements. Suckage. Especially for some people who flooded not just with rain water but sewage too. I don't even want to think about that!
Speaking of damage though, we have a new leak in the roof. (Thanks to our neighbor's stupid tree hitting our roof.) This one of course leaks right into my bedroom! Ahhh, I miss the days of renting when I could just pass this problem over to my landlord! Of course, if I was still renting I would still be in my basement apartment and would have had all of my stuff destroyed with flooding. Pick your poison I guess.
I didn't get footage of the tornado storm but I did get a little bit of footage of the storm from last Friday- before I freaked out and jumped back into the house! It doesn't quite do it justice but you can kind of tell how windy it is. Whoa, it's windy out here!
I jinxed us though. I was talking to my client from Alabama earlier this week and I was talking about nice it is living near Chicago because we don't get tornadoes this close to the city.
Well, we usually don't get tornadoes. Except for two days after I said that when the sky turned that funny color- you know what I'm talking about if you've ever been in a tornado. And then the sirens started going off.
I went to the bathroom, grabbed my book, water and chapstick (the necessities) and headed down to the basement.
A tornado did not hit my town (see, I was right, we don't usually have them) but we did have insane wind and three inches of rain in one hour! Can you say flooding?? Luckily my basement is unfinished and we are used to it flooding but for lots of friends that meant the destruction of their finished basements. Suckage. Especially for some people who flooded not just with rain water but sewage too. I don't even want to think about that!
Speaking of damage though, we have a new leak in the roof. (Thanks to our neighbor's stupid tree hitting our roof.) This one of course leaks right into my bedroom! Ahhh, I miss the days of renting when I could just pass this problem over to my landlord! Of course, if I was still renting I would still be in my basement apartment and would have had all of my stuff destroyed with flooding. Pick your poison I guess.
I didn't get footage of the tornado storm but I did get a little bit of footage of the storm from last Friday- before I freaked out and jumped back into the house! It doesn't quite do it justice but you can kind of tell how windy it is. Whoa, it's windy out here!
highlights of the week
So I thought last week was bad when I only had three clients. I might be on the way of setting a new record with only one so far this week. Yikes!
One of the things I worked on with my hypnotist was to not get freaked out and depressed when work is slow. That is one of the things that really triggers my depression. And it seems to be working. A little stressed, sure. But still happy. Convinced that it is going to work out. It will.
Anywho, is it wrong that the highlight of my day was getting a coupon for a free Chipotle burrito in the mail? Chipotle is the only fast food that I eat but I LOVE it. Yum, yum, yum. Plus I love their marketing campaign. I'm not immune to advertising. It's like they make all their ads with me in mind.
One of the other things that I enjoyed this week was watching my sister try to eat the world's biggest strawberry...
Lots of soccer to watch on tv. Lots of time spent with my mom. Life is good. Still, a client or two would be nice! :)
One of the things I worked on with my hypnotist was to not get freaked out and depressed when work is slow. That is one of the things that really triggers my depression. And it seems to be working. A little stressed, sure. But still happy. Convinced that it is going to work out. It will.
Anywho, is it wrong that the highlight of my day was getting a coupon for a free Chipotle burrito in the mail? Chipotle is the only fast food that I eat but I LOVE it. Yum, yum, yum. Plus I love their marketing campaign. I'm not immune to advertising. It's like they make all their ads with me in mind.
One of the other things that I enjoyed this week was watching my sister try to eat the world's biggest strawberry...
Lots of soccer to watch on tv. Lots of time spent with my mom. Life is good. Still, a client or two would be nice! :)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
best sport ever?
I promised that not all of my posts would be about soccer, and my last two haven't been- which means that this one gets to be! :)
When I was in college I was in an amazing class called "arts of oral presentation" which sounds extremely sexual but was actually just a class about giving speeches. You had to get up in front of the class and give four speeches. One was a story, one was explaining how to do something, one was something else (that I can't think of) and one was persuasive.
The day that I was supposed to give my persuasive speech I was lying hungover in my bed and thinking, "F*#@, I really should have prepared something, seeing as how class is in 15 minutes!"
I had pretty much convinced myself that I was going to skip class but then I looked up and saw my photo of Zidane on my wall. Zidane is a French player who was one of the best players in the world and who became a bit infamous for headbutting a player in a game.
You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITdPTKpGHuI
To be fair, however, that player was talking smack about Zidane's mom.
Anywho, since we need to have some sort of visual aid for our speech, I ripped the poster off my wall and brought it with me to class.
Then I gave a speech about why soccer is the best sport in the world. It was a hard sell seeing as how most of my class was made of football and frisbee players.
And I don't know that it is necessarily true. Comparing the different sports is like comparing apples and oranges. And I can understand why some people don't love it and find it boring. Especially with this World Cup where the players are apparently going for the Best Actor award. And I don't imagine that people who don't play soccer would enjoy watching it that much because they wouldn't realize how difficult some of the things that the players do actually are. The players make it look quite simple. I heard a statistic that professional soccer players run an average of 13 miles per game! And a lot of that is sprinting!
There are many reasons to love or hate soccer. But some of the reasons that I gave as to why it was the best sport were that A) anyone can play, even if you aren't amazingly skilled. People obviously get better as they get older, but little kids can have fun playing it too. B) You don't need a ton of equipment. Mainly just a ball. And people in really poor countries tie rags together to form a ball. The goals of most pick-up games are made by putting some bags on the ground to mark the spot. C) It is a universal sport and therefore most people already know how to play. You can't just go to some foreign country and start a pick-up game of baseball or basketball (though that is changing more and more) with people that you don't speak the same language as.
I think this last reason is one of my main reasons that I do love soccer. I was able to kick the ball around with people in France, Italy and Greece, even though I couldn't talk to them. And that was a really special and fun time for me.
Today, for my workout I decided to go to the park and kick around a soccer ball. It is somehow easier for me to run when I am chasing a ball.
This little ten year-old kid came out onto the field. His sister was with him but wasn't playing with him.
My town is right next to the ghetto in Chicago. So lots of people from the ghetto come to the park where I work out at. They don't have safe, clean places to play, so they come here.
The kid does his own thing for a while and then makes his way over towards me. I asked him why his sister wasn't playing with him. He told me that she finds it dull. He seemed sad. So I got in goal and let him take shots on me. Then we switched spots.
It didn't require any real talking. I never even learned his name. But we were having fun. And that's what a sport is supposed to be about. And that's why I love it.
When I was in college I was in an amazing class called "arts of oral presentation" which sounds extremely sexual but was actually just a class about giving speeches. You had to get up in front of the class and give four speeches. One was a story, one was explaining how to do something, one was something else (that I can't think of) and one was persuasive.
The day that I was supposed to give my persuasive speech I was lying hungover in my bed and thinking, "F*#@, I really should have prepared something, seeing as how class is in 15 minutes!"
I had pretty much convinced myself that I was going to skip class but then I looked up and saw my photo of Zidane on my wall. Zidane is a French player who was one of the best players in the world and who became a bit infamous for headbutting a player in a game.
You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITdPTKpGHuI
To be fair, however, that player was talking smack about Zidane's mom.
Anywho, since we need to have some sort of visual aid for our speech, I ripped the poster off my wall and brought it with me to class.
Then I gave a speech about why soccer is the best sport in the world. It was a hard sell seeing as how most of my class was made of football and frisbee players.
And I don't know that it is necessarily true. Comparing the different sports is like comparing apples and oranges. And I can understand why some people don't love it and find it boring. Especially with this World Cup where the players are apparently going for the Best Actor award. And I don't imagine that people who don't play soccer would enjoy watching it that much because they wouldn't realize how difficult some of the things that the players do actually are. The players make it look quite simple. I heard a statistic that professional soccer players run an average of 13 miles per game! And a lot of that is sprinting!
There are many reasons to love or hate soccer. But some of the reasons that I gave as to why it was the best sport were that A) anyone can play, even if you aren't amazingly skilled. People obviously get better as they get older, but little kids can have fun playing it too. B) You don't need a ton of equipment. Mainly just a ball. And people in really poor countries tie rags together to form a ball. The goals of most pick-up games are made by putting some bags on the ground to mark the spot. C) It is a universal sport and therefore most people already know how to play. You can't just go to some foreign country and start a pick-up game of baseball or basketball (though that is changing more and more) with people that you don't speak the same language as.
I think this last reason is one of my main reasons that I do love soccer. I was able to kick the ball around with people in France, Italy and Greece, even though I couldn't talk to them. And that was a really special and fun time for me.
Today, for my workout I decided to go to the park and kick around a soccer ball. It is somehow easier for me to run when I am chasing a ball.
This little ten year-old kid came out onto the field. His sister was with him but wasn't playing with him.
My town is right next to the ghetto in Chicago. So lots of people from the ghetto come to the park where I work out at. They don't have safe, clean places to play, so they come here.
The kid does his own thing for a while and then makes his way over towards me. I asked him why his sister wasn't playing with him. He told me that she finds it dull. He seemed sad. So I got in goal and let him take shots on me. Then we switched spots.
It didn't require any real talking. I never even learned his name. But we were having fun. And that's what a sport is supposed to be about. And that's why I love it.
over-rated
Do you know what I hate? People who are famous just for being famous. Not famous because they are talented, or good people, or really smart or doing something interesting. Famous just for being famous.
Reality TV stars are probably the biggest example of this. Why on earth should I ever KNOW the name Spencer Pratt? I shouldn't. He is nobody. He is not worth my time or anyone else's time.
A similar but slightly different grievance I have is when famous people rest on their laurels.
I went and saw Dennis Leary on Saturday night.
He was eh. (it would help if you could see me right now, I am doing a little frowny type face, a la the Godfather, and shrugging my shoulders as I say "eeeh")
The very drunk woman in front of us who was laughing at EVERYTHING didn't think he was eh. But I wasn't impressed. And even that woman's boyfriend kept looking over at her like, "really? you are laughing at this? why am I dating you?"
Dennis Leary was the main comic and MC. He also had three other men with him. Who were all HILARIOUS. And do you know why they were so funny? Because they had to be. Because nobody really knows them. People aren't going to come to see them just because they are famous, so they actually have to have some talent. People come to see Dennis Leary just because he is Dennis Leary. And he seems okay with that. I wasn't. You kind of sucked, Dennis Leary. Just letting you know.
It's not okay for me to give some clients some good massages a few years ago and then slack off.
It's not okay for a doctor to cure a bunch of people a few years ago and then stop helping his current patients.
It's not okay for a basketball star to win the first few games and then not score any more baskets.
Why is it okay for Dennis Leary to have been funny a few years ago and then just stop trying?
Reality TV stars are probably the biggest example of this. Why on earth should I ever KNOW the name Spencer Pratt? I shouldn't. He is nobody. He is not worth my time or anyone else's time.
A similar but slightly different grievance I have is when famous people rest on their laurels.
I went and saw Dennis Leary on Saturday night.
He was eh. (it would help if you could see me right now, I am doing a little frowny type face, a la the Godfather, and shrugging my shoulders as I say "eeeh")
The very drunk woman in front of us who was laughing at EVERYTHING didn't think he was eh. But I wasn't impressed. And even that woman's boyfriend kept looking over at her like, "really? you are laughing at this? why am I dating you?"
Dennis Leary was the main comic and MC. He also had three other men with him. Who were all HILARIOUS. And do you know why they were so funny? Because they had to be. Because nobody really knows them. People aren't going to come to see them just because they are famous, so they actually have to have some talent. People come to see Dennis Leary just because he is Dennis Leary. And he seems okay with that. I wasn't. You kind of sucked, Dennis Leary. Just letting you know.
It's not okay for me to give some clients some good massages a few years ago and then slack off.
It's not okay for a doctor to cure a bunch of people a few years ago and then stop helping his current patients.
It's not okay for a basketball star to win the first few games and then not score any more baskets.
Why is it okay for Dennis Leary to have been funny a few years ago and then just stop trying?
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