my world cup impatience grows

Seriously, this day is basically shot. I'm sure I could give a good goll durn, but really, today is just prep for tomorrow, when the world stops for a month. Maybe most of the US won't bother, but they'll have to see it anyway with both of their precious sports channels devoting so much time to the beautiful game.

As a side note, because the thought just occurred to me, I have another reason for why I think there is an anti-soccer conspiracy. Soccer refuses to stop for commercials. Without those random breaks, how do I get that useful information on what sports drink and financial planning service I will purchase?

Soccer is played by a set of laws, yet each law is open to interpretation, by the ref, on a moment to moment basis. The ref can base decision on his interpretation of the spirit of the law as well as the flow of the game. Soccer refs can overlook small offenses if the offending team gains no advantage. Even fouls that are called are usually quickly dispersed with at the player's discretion. Soccer is not a game that can be divided into segments allowing for advertising optimization. At most, an advertiser buys time in which his logo is placed next to the score and time in a corner of the screen.

Okay, there is the side rant stuffed into what was originally going to be a post about me not wanting to wait for the games to begin. I made it into a nice little box to set it apart from the real meat of this post.

Germany and Costa Rica kick off the world's greatest month, tomorrow at noon if you live in the EST part of the US. If you go to the official FIFA World Cup site schedule, you can click on the time next to each game and get a box that converts game time to your time. I know, that's not as cool as I think, but I do think it's really, really cool. I'm always amazed at the little tricks people can make websites do.

Frank Deford has an interesting piece at SI.com about American soccer. He suggests that American disinterest in soccer will allow the US team to be more relaxed and possibly perform better in the tournament. Because the rest of the world takes soccer so much more seriously than we do, they hold their players and teams to a much higher standard. Outside of the US, soccer players are the idols for the kids, and they are heroes or villains based on their performance on the pitch. Mr. Deford goes on to say that, if the US does happen to win the World Cup, we will be that much more hated by the world. Our asinine foreign affairs will suddenly pale in the light of the US beating the world at a game they don't think we get.

open letter to interneting homeschool parents

Dear Homeschooling Parent,

Hi, my name is Sam, and I too am a homeschooling parent. I know that many of us are on the internet these days. It's a wonderful tool as well as an often pleasant diversion. To those of us still without the internet, how the hell are you reading this?

I am glad that so many of us are blogging. It's a good thing for us to meet so many people, especially when it causes us to stop and remember that the world isn't always like us. The internet is a great place for remembering there is a whole world out there. But that isn't what this letter is about.

I use Blogger. I'm sure you can tell that if you look around at the links. That isn't the point either. I imagine most blogging sites are basically the same. Assuming that, I'm going to talk about this neato button at the top of my Blogger "create" window, and one that most likely exists in a similar form at most blogging sites.

This button, on Blogger, has an ABC above a checkmark. It's kind of humorous, that little pun like thing. But beyond the wit lies a useful tool. This button begins an operation that checks my spelling throughout the blog. Granted, it doesn't recognize homeschool or even blogging as words. But it helps me spell "occasionally," a word I very often misspell.

So, dear homeschool parent, as you blog through your random average day, remember that spell check is your friend. In fact, spell check is the ultimate homeschooling tool, a little quick check that lets us see how "necessarily" is actually supposed to be spelled. And we can learn spelling along with our kids so that they don't stumble over these words one day. But they probably will stumble over them.

Thank You,
Rock On,
Sam

New? meh Improved? perhaps

For all intents and purposes, I'm going to say I'm turning over a leaf and making my whole blogging experience more variously user friendly. That is to say that I'm trying to make this something worthwhile in a sense.

I feel I may have limited myself a bit over the past pile of things I've written. Here and there I find that I could have expressed myself less cussiferously. By nature, or force of habit, or because I'm just an ass, I have become quite a swearer of swears. In real life I've learned this little thing called moderation. It's not that I try only to cuss in moderation, but I moderate when and to whom I cuss. I know for a fact that my family, the siblings and parents and inlaws, is sensitive to the variety of things I could say if I let my tongue run wild.

I'm not sure exactly how to go about this, because I don't want to limit myself to a PG-13 world. Sometimes, a little damn-it-all is quite called for. If I post about restaurants for example, something I'm want to do on occasion, I will most likely add some pepper to the pot. They are each their own little world, the restaurants of the world, and rife with language unbecoming more polite society. But life isn't a restaurant . . .or is it?

In the end, my rambling here is mostly a rambling of some things I've been thinking about. I can't build my army if I can't contain myself when I need to. And in the end, the army is what it's all about. If I want to start getting into those homeschool blogging things, with all the people reading and coming back because I'm so cool, and then comes the army, followed by the super robots built by my army, I need to write in a way that doesn't drive away my more sensitive reader/follower.

Oh yeah, I forgot to explain about the army. Through my wonderfully entertaining blog, I'm slowly gathering the minds of homeschoolers. I will subvert their hyper intelligent and friendless children to build me a second army entirely made up of super robot slave warriors. I will purchase those homeschool children's loyalty with sugar and television and a dream of 40 friends in the afterlife, because, you know, homeschool kids don't get those things. That's so totally nefarious and why I have to have a top notch, A1 blog.