Go USA!!

I'm by no means a soccer fan.  At one time, when I was about 10, I decided I was going to be a soccer player like all of my friends.  I got a uniform and cleats, and shin guards.  I became part of the local team (not even sure what our name was), and I "played" soccer for one whole season.  What was learned during this foray into sports was I can't run - it's completely not in my nature; I bounce instead of running - and soccer's hard.  Like really hard.  After that first game, my soccer career was officially over but I was stuck slugging through for the rest of the season, much to the chagrin of my family who was forced to watch their incapable daughter bounce all of the field in search of a ball that was most likely somewhere she wasn't,

However, that's not to say, that I'm not all about the Women's World Cup this year.  These girls are awesome and are kicking some serious butt!  I have all the respect in the world for anyone who can run and play that hard for 90 whole minutes and not die of a heart attack in the middle of the field. I sure as heck couldn't.  They are some serious athletes! And they deserve to have all little girls looking up to them!  Maybe those little girls will soon have more soccer prowess than I ever did.

The US team is all pretty popular right now, but I have a suspicion that when (why even bother with if?) they win, they'll have millions more fans screaming they're praises. It's so cool to see!  You go girls! 

Social Media Geniuses

There have been some pretty amazing things that have happened on social media.  Some companies just get what to do and they do it brilliantly.  While others, just wind up embarrassing themselves.  But this week, this week, takes the cake.  Between some serious World Cup drama, super television news and just a bit of fun out of the golf world, these guys win the internet for best uses of social media!

Tim Howard is everyone's hero even though we lost to the Belgians.  It didn't take long for the hash tag #ThingsTimHowardCouldSave to make its way around twitter.  This one is my personal favorite.

Then there was the big announcement by the BBC this afternoon at 2:21 (clever, huh?) GBR time.  There was never any doubt as to whether Sherlock was going to be picked up for a 4th season, but as it turns out, there was a surprise.  We get a 4th episode this season instead of the usual 3. Of course, there's always a catch - the fourth season won't be premiering until Christmas...2015.  Seriously!?  But at least we got to see loads of creepy Moriarties making the rounds.

Then the golf world decided to get involved too.  I literally have no idea where this idea even came from, but the videos are super cute!  Also, I'm just itching to see if gloomy Gus Tiger, decides to get himself in on the action and for once actually have a little fun.

Well, That Sucked...

After years and years of not giving a lick about soccer, I have to admit I became a bit of a fan these last few weeks.  It was pretty exciting to see lots of Americans make the same discovery I did: It's actually pretty awesome.  The running those guys do is pretty insane and they are athletes even more so than football players, in my opinion. Imagine someone like Haloti Ngata, running back and forth on a field for 90 minutes.  I'm not thinking he'd be able to.  

But as cool and exciting as it's been, it seems the party is over for the Americans.  After 2 straight hours of playing their hearts out, the Belgians were able to beat the US 2-1.  So depressing!  I'm not sure if Soccer does the whole MVP thing, but if they do, Tim Howard deserves the title more than any other goal-keeper ever!  He may have given up 2 goals, but the number he prevented was 5 times that.  He's a pretty amazing guy and it was neat to see him get the love on social media, that he's been deserving.

Of course now that the US is out, even though Soccer isn't as boring as I once thought, I'm probably done watching it.  But, I'm proud our boys!  Go USA!!

Friday Five

1. World Cup Madness: I have to admit, that I don't give a single thought to the world of soccer most of the time.  But I'm kinda hooked on the World Cup right now.  It's pretty awe-inspiring to see the entire US agreeing on something for a change.  I know we Americans care more about football and baseball most of the time, but we really should get a little more into soccer.  It's pretty awesome what these guys do!  I'm tired just watching them.  Go USA!

2. This is strange, bizarre, and mostly just plain weird but it made me legitimately laugh out loud.  At the time I was pretty sure it had something to do with GISHWHES , and as it turns out, it's their "corporate sponsor", that was promised earlier this week.  Something this strange could only have come from a mind of a mad-man, but I have to say the dude's a genius.  Speaking of GISHWHES, it went live today and I'm seriously regretting the fact that I have no back-bone.  I'd love to get involved if I could just work up the courage!

3. For someone with no Prince Charming currently in her life, I spend an inordinate amount of time prowling wedding sites on Pinterest.  I'm currently digging these super cute card holders.  I'm not even sure I'd be able to decide on one particular one for my future wedding...you know the one that's not going to happen until I meet the man of my dreams...

4. Some people believe "The Wire" or "Breaking Bad" will go down as the finest television ever made.  I believe they are very, very wrong and "The West Wing" wins that prize.  I will never not love it's snappy banter, dizzying walk and talks and their highly intelligent and compassionate Executive Branch.  So I got a little too excited to see BuzzFeed give it some love this week.  

5. The fact that there are exactly 15 days until I leave for vacation, next weekend is a long weekend for the 4th of July holiday and in 48 hours I'm finally starting a position that I've been looking for for years.  It's a very good month!

Things on a Thursday

~ I love having big games in the middle of the day.  I probably wouldn't if I didn't have a television in the break-room, but since I do, it's pretty fabulous.  Pretty much everyone gathers around and watches.  This of course was the case for today's US - Germany game. Though, it was certainly not the outcome we were hoping for.  However, somehow, (I'm still not sure how), we managed to move on to the top 16, which is pretty darn awesome!  Oh and speaking of FIFA, way to go on the Suarez suspension!  He didn't draw a penalty at the time, but at least FIFA realized he shouldn't be allowed to continue playing during this World Cup.

~ There's something exciting and fabulous about starting a new job.  I'm not leaving my current building and I'm still working for the same company, but I'm moving on up in the world to a higher floor into training and education.  Seeing as that's what I went to school for, it's pretty darn great.  There's just something to seeing the new desk and setting up your area just how you like it, that makes everything that much more promising.  I'm still counting down to vacation but I actually can't wait to get to work on Monday.

~ This sucks. I was in no way as involved with the site as some scrapbookers were, but it was always a super wonderful place for inspiration and ideas.  They always had a great inventory in their store and I loved browsing the Garden Girls projects.  I haven't quite figured out why they're closing yet, but I'm hoping it's not a sign of the times - in other words, I'm hoping more stores and sites don't start to close.  So very sad!

~ This may be a bit controversial in food circles, but after finishing "Sous Chef" this week, I'm convinced it's an even better account of a professional kitchen than "Kitchen Confidential." I love me some Bourdain,  but "Sous Chef" was fabulous!

Seriously, Suarez?!

I was talking to a friend at work today about sports - actually we were debating the fact that he's a Steelers fan living in Baltimore which is so very, very wrong.  But that's beside the point.  Anyway, my major argument against the Steelers is the fact that Ben Rothlisberger is a terrible human being who likes to pick on people much smaller than he is.  But his major argument against the Ravens was that they've had more arrests than any other team in the off-season, which I had to whole-heartedly agree with.  Those boys need to get their act together.  But mildly-terrible human beings that happen to be sports stars started us on a list of the few that exist today, luckily he agreed with me on the Tiger front or we'd have had some serious words.

To name a few, we agreed on Tiger, Kobe Bryant, and Ray Lewis.  I agree they're great athletes but kids really shouldn't be looking up to them, but of course they are. In all the talk about sports, we really didn't bring up Soccer.  Even with all the World Cup craziness happening, we couldn't name one player. But after seeing today's headlines, I suppose we should have.

A player for Uruguay actually bit another player - for the second time, without drawing a yellow card.  How does this happen?!  I mean he didn't beat up his girlfriend or cheat on anyone, but really, biting?! Gross!

Go USA!

For the record, before today, I was aware the World Cup was happening.  I knew that Brazil was busting their collective butt to get everything done in time for the opening ceremonies. And I know there were some definite questions as to whether the whole thing was even going to happen due to some serious delays.  I also knew that the World Cup meant everyone was going to be talking about soccer for the next few weeks.  I just didn't really care.  Soccer, to me, is just like basketball (lots of guys running back and forth) but with a different color ball.

Though, since the USA is game is finally being played today, I was not so politely schooled in the "awesomeness" (his words not mine) of World Cup Soccer.  There is apparently, lots I didn't know.  For example:

~ There's a guy playing on the US team from Crofton MD.  How cool is that?!  

~We played Ghana in our first game, not French Guyana as I originally thought (points for having the "G" correct though)

~ The US coach is from Germany which seems to be a bit of a conflict of interest if you ask me, but not to the Americans who hired him I suppose.

~ Pele isn't the only famous footballer, he's just the only one I actually knew about.

~ On the subject of famous footballers, Wayne Rooney was NOT a coach for Manchester United in the 50s but IS currently something to do with Soccer.  

~ The teams will play in groups of 4 and the 2 best teams will move on - nothing at all like the medal round in Olympic Hockey like I thought. And bonus points: the US is in a group with Ghana, Poland and Germany (I think...)

All of this is to say, based on the above information, as you can see, I don't know much more than when I started the day.  But I did watch today's game and it was pretty darn awesome! And those players kicked some butt!  There were some bumps in the second half, and I was a little worried we'd never pull out the win but they did it.  Go USA!