Sighinide

Ah yes, we are DOING this shiznit, motherfuckers!

Alright, well, here’s the thing, at least thusly: I watched the USA vs. Paraguay match, and it was much more fun than I was expecting.

Interestingly, I learned that all my life, I was mispronouncing “Paraguay”. It turns out it isn’t Pair-a-gway. Huh.

Well, beyond that tidbit, there were a few other weird morsels: the match started with, poetically enough (tho not for the reasons you may expect) a self-goal from Paraguay, which gave the US an initial point, which seemed to strongly mirror the start of the, yes, 1994 games, with the only US goal being the same, that time against Columbia.

This year tho things were very different. Incredibly, the final score was 4-1 US. Times have definitely changed. Back in the day the US was… rarely the favorite in any soccer match. I’m being diplomatic here.

Perhaps it was the great success of the US women that gave the men a “leg up” (heh) and a greater prescence in the sport. It legit could be.

Interesting, no?

Perhaps this deserves investigation, or at least consideration, if not perhaps active remuneration, from a certain point of view. Hmmn.

Well, whatever the cause, clearly, things are different now on the world stage.

You know- there weren’t even as many fucking commercials as I thought there would be, especially since it was primetime programming. So I think we can do this. And yes, I do realize all of that about Olivia Rodrigo, thank you American Express.

I thought the addition of technological “officials” was… interesting. IDK. Yeah. I guess it can help with stuff like offsides calls, but that kind of thing make me more wary than anything else these days.

The camera shots of the uncomfortable, confused political figures in the audience was NOT appreciated. I intentionally avoid talking about politics, that stuff is so toxic I cannot stand it, ugh. Seriously- please leave them out of this totally if at all possible.

Other stuff – during the Canada match I did in fact rack my brain for a few minutes, trying to remember the name of a particular player, some dude that cut an album back in the mid-late 90’s and tried, unsuccessfully, to ride the post-grunge wave to crossover success. I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name, tho.

After the US match finished I did a double take and almost laughed out loud but for a timely tongue bite when I realized that one of the commentators WAS THAT DUDE.

Srsly- for real! As soon as his name popped up on the screen I recognized it immediately. Alexi Lalas. Right!!!! I saw his album in a store once, I think it was a Best Buy.

Immediately after everything in the game had finished I jumped on Spotify, and, lo and behold, THERE IT WAS. It’s called Ginger, apparently. I listened to a few songs. It was exactly what I thought it would be. It sounded like Candlebox, with a hint of The Wallflowers and a smidgen of Matchbox 20 thrown in.

Good lawse!

You know- I don’t know why I find this so amusing. Really, I don’t. But, I do, lol. I mean it’s not bad music. I think it’s the whole totality of all the things, in combination.

But OK. This is good stuff fr on god. The rizz is hitherto off the chain, methinks.

YESSSHHHHHH.

Might as well, lol.

So- I was disappointed to see that Peacock Premium / Plus or whatever was NOT going to be offering World Cup stuff in English. Apparently their contract was only with Telemundo.

So, I decided to brave the waters of broadcast TV and watch a game the old fashioned way. I caught the Canada / Bosnia and Herzegovina game. It was a soccer / football game, for sure. Thankfully, it was not as Ad-drenched as I feared it would be.

For the purposes of this blog, and to help with me keeping my sanity, I will refer to this sport from now on as “soccer”, lol. Feel free to auto translate if desired.

The sport really hasn’t changed much since like… forever, it seems. I mean it’s the same sport as it was the last time the US hosted the World Cup back in 1994. Egads, that was a LONG time ago.

I still have my 1994 World Cup collector’s thermos, btw. I use it to hold my prescription eyedrops.

Some thoughts: Well, it’s soccer. Seriously tho, the sport hasn’t changed in a looooonnnnnng time. I’m not sure of what I was expecting TBH. I mean I’ve watched games since then, of course. Different World Cups, Olympics, random games, etc. It’s very much the same sport. But I really struggled to find even the tiniest of differences between what I remember back in 1994 to what I saw today.

I guess the only real difference of note would be the personal one. Obviously, 1994 was a long time ago, and I was actually playing the sport when the cup was on. I played it from, IDK, I think 6 years of age through most of high school on the local HS team.

I watched a few of the 1994 games with the team I was on, back in the day.

Well, that’s pretty much it, lol. No great insights here, lmao. Perhaps that’s disappointing but there it is. My soccer exploits honestly pale in comparison to a lot of the other things I’ve done. I mean, they weren’t bad, but I mean…

I remember in high school the literary magazine I was a part of was voted the best in the nation not once, but twice, in different years. Yeah. As far as my high school soccer team goes… well, I remember us winning more games than we lost.

Good exercise, tho. A lot of running. I never did go on to varsity level. Didn’t have enough time in the day, IIRC.

Also circumstances interfered. It wasn’t too long into my school career when glasses for me became mandatory, and, as you can imagine, eye glasses and headers absolutely do not mix.

I got chewed out by my HS coach for not heading the ball enough, I remember. I was like… yeah, not going to happen, lol. I’ll take getting chewed out by coach over wrecking a pair of $100 eye glasses and getting roasted and grounded by my parents any day of the week.

So I stopped soccer by age 16 and turned full tilt to TaeKwonDo, which was ultimately the best choice for me anyhow. I *STILL* practice TKD. Still- even at 46 years old. I’ve even merged it with stuff like barre and pilates into these weird exercise routines that have worked very very well for me. But that’s a different post.

I found the intentional falls amusing as always. There is definitely a comedy factor there that I enjoy very much. I laughed out loud several times during the match. It was great, honestly. My friends back then didn’t share my views, like at all, lmao. They tended to complain about such things. I always appreciated the theatrical nature of that stuff, tho. It really is hilarious seeing a grown man fall to the ground in pretend agony as if crippled by a stiff breeze lmao.

Adding to the humor is the fact that the players seem slightly bigger than they used to be. I’d say they probably have on average 5 extra pounds of lean mass versus their 90’s counterparts.

But even there, things don’t seem too different. I’m not seeing any “mass monsters” like is typically seen in the NFL or NBA, or even the Olympics these days. The players still seem naturally human sized, which I appreciate.

I can understand the global appeal of the game. I mean it’s fun. Fast paced, approachable, etc. We’ll see how much of it I end up watching. It may get a bit repetitive after awhile, but you never know. This sport is / was a big part of my life.

Well, that does it for this one. If I watch more I’ll probably write more as well.

So… I had an interesting night.

First… I thought a bit, and waited. What should I do tonight, really?

And then, I decided: I think I’ll trowel social media, just because.

On Instagram I was reminded that erstwhile girlfriend and pop music staple Olivia Rodrigo was hosting a radio show on IHeartRadio to celebrate the release of her third album. Curious, I tuned in.

She’s quite personable, of course. The format of the show was that of a “call-in” show where people offered up relationship questions and she answered them. She did really well, I think. In between questions she plugged her new album by playing snippets of her songs. She also played a few other current pop hits, like new songs from Gracie Abrams, etc.

I thought about calling in but decided against it. At the time I was like… “You know, I’ll bet the lines are crammed with callers” so I was like… nah. And, tbh, I might have been right, but still, after I went to the iheartradio insta page after the show was over, there was less than 2 dozen comments about the show, and a few of those were from people who called in.

Huh. Weird. Well… next time, I’ll call in. Of course, I’ll need to learn how but… yeah. I mean I left a good comment on the insta but… that’s not quite enough. I’ll tell you, though- I DID get a lot of insight into her mental processes. So, yes, that whole experience was definitely a net positive.

After that I headed over to her official YT page to check out the premiere of her music video for Stupid Song. I chatted with her fellow fans while waiting. I’ve done this before, but this time, I earned enough “XP” during the chat to become one of her “Top Fans”. I believe this distinction only holds for that particular video, but I might be wrong.

At one point I was ranked in the top 15 or so. Of course, after the premiere ended, the chat stopped, so I closed out of the tab. Congratulations, me. Yay? Sure.

I found the whole thing vaguely creepy, TBH. My real identity was earning “XP” like I was a video game character. Odd and somewhat disconcerting. But I guess it was harmless ultimately.

In a break from tradition, Olivia named her album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. Gone, it seems, are one word titles like Guts and Sour. Also banished are capital letters. Interestingly, this was the same format Laura took for i may be an actress, but i can’t fake how i feel. Huh. Well. Are they all morphing into one person, or…?

Weird.

Welllllll… I’ll going to need to flesh out my social media profiles, I guess, because… well, because. And- uhm, other stuff. You know.

It’s all very interesting, though. You know- I did wonder at a few points tonight where all the people were. Like, where were they? Did they not know Olivia Rodrigo had a new album coming out? Maybe they didn’t, or maybe they weren’t interested. But still, it seemed kinda… I don’t know.

Well, I’ve listened to a few songs on her new album and they’re good, I’ll probably listen to the rest over the weekend.

IDK where I’ve even going with this at this point TBH. I actually stopped typing to listen to some of her songs and whatever and totally lost my train of thought.

I should probably go to bed… not even going to proof this.

You know- speaking of pop icons, after I finish acclimating myself to Olivia’s latest effort, I should work on my relationships with Sabrina Carpenter and a few others. Been meaning to do that for awhile.