spud says hi

Different worlds

My university's athletic system is quite different than the ones I'm used to from the US.  Not that the educational institution I attended had much of anything going on, but the ones I taught at did.

But here?  This is the big news this morning.

And look at the stands in that picture.  They weren't all that much more full during the game itself, I'm betting.

Also,

this is cool.

The Olympics are exhausting

You know, right?  Sitting on the couch for such a long time can really wipe a person out!

And the late hours?  C'mon!  This is actually the first time I've seen the Olympics in the Eastern time zone, so all this staying up until midnight to see the torch lit thing is seriously tiring.

And then there's the dehydration caused by the crying, since I'm a TOTAL SAP and find myself tearing up at the joyful faces of athletes, or at all those horrible heart-tugging profiles of athletes.  And then there are the youtube links I stumble upon.

Like, this.  I do not remember that at all, but it totally made me cry.  Or this isn't sad, or anything, but, wow was Greg Louganis stunning.  I admit, I had a bit of a crush on him in the 80s.  Of course, now he's connected in my mind to my least favorite high school teacher (an English teacher who actually almost made me hate reading; his was the only class I ever dreaded attending).  After Louganis hit his head in Seoul in 1988, and thus we were all talking about it before class started, the teacher ended the discussion by telling us all in a sort of snide voice "You all know he's gay, don't you?"  At the time it made my little high school girl crush fade a little bit, because I hadn't yet realized that since I'm never going to meet anyone famous anyway, their sexuality doesn't actually matter when it comes to crushes.  In retrospect, I just think, man, that guy was an ass.  Not for talking about homosexuality, of course, just for how he did it--it wasn't meant to spark an open discussion, it was just meant as a way for a self-identified cosmopolitan hipster to shock us poor sheltered bourgeois kids.  Anyway.

In my recent youtubing, I've also discovered this, which is AWESOME ON MANY LEVELS.  As is the other Patrick Stewart Sesame Street bit that comes up next (though that one actually requires knowledge of Star Trek to make it funny).

And I posted a couple more videos of Ziti.

First, this kind of comes before the one I did a while back of me getting home.  He's been getting noisier and noisier even before I come in the door, so... well, here.  The volume's fairly low at the start, since you're hearing him meowing through the door.

And then there's this one, of him just being cute, and using his inside voice, for once.

(Incidentally, I think I'm futzing so much with youtube in large part because Russia is freaking me right the hell out.  But more on that later, if necessary.)

I'm not sure if this is awesome or deeply disturbing

I'm still not watching a ton of the Olympics, but here and there I am.  This morning I looked over on the official NBC site and noticed they have a bunch of videos on line (though sadly few from this Olympics, it seems).

Among them is this video of Evgeni Plushenko performing at an exhibition at some point.  The title of this says it all, kind of.

You'll see.

Oh, and the Russian commentators are noting that this caused a "complete furor" when first performed, and that even his practices of the routine drew big crowds.

Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!!!!!

Go White Sox!

Baseball induced schizophrenia

I grew up in Cubs land.  One of our neighbors lived and died by the Cubs.  Well, lived and wandered around in a state of profound depression by the Cubs.  Sadly, seeing as they were, you know, the Cubs, there was a lot of the wandering around bit.  Others were nearly as committed.

Now, my household was sort of baseball agnostic.  As I remember it, my dad tended to follow mostly just the Bears (more sighing, more often than not, although I did have the entire "Superbowl Shuffle" memorized back in the day...  "We are the Bears shufflin' crew, shufflin' on down, doin' it for you...") and baseball we just didn't watch that much. 

And my mom grew up in Sox land, so there was that influence, albeit a small one. 

The Cubs are just kind of ever present, so even if you're not a real fanatic, they kind of impinge on your consciousness more than the Sox.  There's the whole WGN thing, there were the day games that were on TV virtually every day in summer.  It was almost harder to ignore the Cubs than not.

I went to college and grad school on the south side, where there was much more of a Sox presence, even if just because their part was closer.  But those were also, at least for much of it, the years of the Bulls, and they trumped everything. 

As not a super fan of anything, I suppose I've tended to be a fair-weather fan more than anything else, which sort of makes me feel guilty.  But, basically, I'm mostly ambivalent about sports, and so I get caught up in whatever's making the news.

Now, since leaving Chicago, I find myself mostly just wanting all teams associated with Chicago to win.  Sadly, this often leaves me looking at the sports pages muttering "frickin' Cubs" or whatever.

Two years ago (three years ago?  shows how much attention I pay) I got completely caught up in the Cubs pennant run.  Watched all the time, was tangentially caught up in the Red Sox, just because it was all so much fun.  And then they tanked.  And it was awful.  Just gut wrenching.  I gave a horrible lecture the day after their total collapse, and apologized to the class that the Cubs had gotten me so very down that I couldn't summon up energy to attempt to make the revolutions of 1848 interesting.

I'm unwilling to let that happen again.  But tonight I found myself turning on the game and getting involved and pumping fists and all that.  At least until I had to leave.  Sigh.  I may not be able to help getting involved.

In the meantime, I'm going to critique one of the sportscasters.  Frankly, I could probably critique a bunch of them, but I only watched for a while and so have one thing that I really noticed.  I don't know her name, but the woman who was broadcasting during the pregame was just so bizarrely dressed to my eye.  She had flowing blond hair, big chandelier earrings, and a fur coat with a very dramatic collar.  The coat made a certain amount of sense, as it was apparently quite cold.  The hair, whatever.  I think it's the earrings that set my teeth on edge.  She looked like she was dressed for a fancy dress party, and the guy next to her should have been in a tux.  I feel sort of bad for being bothered by this, because on the one hand, she should be able to wear what she wants.  But it ended up just looking really weird to me.  Really.

Uh.  Anyway.  Go Sox!

The story of Spud

After reading this article about cats on the web, I decided that clearly what I need is another cat picture. And, anyway, it'll stop the sweater picture from being out in front. So, more Spud.

I found Spud, long ago, on the cold November streets of Chicago. Walking home late at night, I saw a cat looking a bit lost. He was immediately friendly, and actually did begin to follow me home. We (my many roommates and I--Spud had a bit of a harem at the start) looked for an owner, but never found one.

Yeah, that's not that exciting a recollection. I did once think he'd gone missing after I moved into a new apartment. I couldn't find him all day, and thought I'd looked everywhere he might be. I started making signs, blah blah blah... and as I was on the phone with my mother, saying I was about to go out and post them, Spud appeared from a closet, covered in dirt. Seriously, all grey. Ick. Apparently, he'd been climbing around the walls of my apartment... or maybe of the whole building, for all I know, all day. As I think about it more, that was about the same time that the Bulls won their third championship in a row (the first time). And it was a bit riotous around.

That was sort of sad. I remember the first time they won, and it was just all so exciting and fun. I lived in Hyde Park, on the South Side, and as soon as the game was over I went out onto the streets with the college boyfriend and another friend. And it was happy! Lots of people went out, just cheering and honking horns and high-fiving and being euphoric, really. We stood on a busy street corner, and cars passed with cheering people. Just totally cool. I'd actually gone to one of the play off games, in the old Chicago Stadium, and stood way up at the top... literally, standing room "seats." I don't remember much about it, except that Manute Bol played for the other team, and was so tall and thin it didn't seem possible he was alive (when I said this, I was told, "but he's speared lions! he's really strong!"). But a couple of years later, it was less pure fun, and more angry, and I stayed inside.