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July 19, 2006

Back And Ready To Sign

Reflections on my extended sabbatical and ruminations on recent events that are near and dear (guess what starts tomorrow morning!)

And we're back.

It's been over a month since I've posted anything on ThatKid. Checking my records [draws index finger to lips, daintily moistens said finger, flips through imaginary stack of papers], I think this is the longest I've gone without posting since I started this nonsense almost a full two years ago.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about that.

On the one hand, it was nice to take a little break (at least from ThatKid). It's been a crazy month on a lot of fronts, and there was really no way I could have managed to keep up with ThatKid in the midst of all the action. On the other hand, I've kind of missed doing ThatKid -- it's a lovely little hobby for me, and I didn't realize how much I enjoyed it until I stopped for a bit.

All that said, I trust YOU'VE ALL BEEN DILIGENTLY READING FC CAMENA. FC Camena has been an absolute blast over the past month, and while I had envisioned it sort of winding down after the World Cup, I'm now thinking that it needs to live on. I think it should evolve, but it's been too much fun for me to let it go. Not when we've been feted by Deadspin and have had lovely young Nigerian fellows asking us for a trial.

What I mean to say is that I think Camena is a keeper; I hope we can keep it going, and even expand our roster/ charter. But that's a story for a different web site.

Back here at ThatKid, we have important business to attend to! Here's what's on the brain as we rejoin the ranks of the regularly updated bloggerati:

For the avoidance of doubt: in case we didn't make the point aggressively enough over on F.C. Camena, let me there be mistakes or confusion: The World Cup Is The Greatest Sporting Event In The World And Was One Of The Best Trips I Have Ever Taken. I cannot stress this enough. I can't even describe the trip without grinning like an idiot; and usually I feel like my descriptions (for whatever reason) don't remotely do the trip justice. The best I can come up with is that The World Cup is like soccer mardi gras, only with fewer drunk rednecks and more drunk Europeans. And that it makes you feel like you're really a part of something much bigger than yourself and your immediate community. If that makes any sense. "Did you have a good time?" "I had an awesome time." To summarize, I see no possible way I'm missing the 2010 World Cup. This likely deserves its own post, and will probably get one, but I thought it was worth mentioning. So you know.

I take back everything I said about the weather in C@L: sure it rains nine months out of the year. But the other three? It's gorgeous. 75 and sunny most days. Lots of good times outside. The sun doesn't set until well after nine at night. Last weekend I spent one day on a boat and the other on a golf course. This must be what it's like to live in San Diego. Only with much more refined tastes in indie rock.

Reviews Past Due: I'm usually pretty good about reporting on what I see, read and listen to, but with a five-week programming break, I don't know how best to summarize. Let me foist some Key Takeaways By Category on ya:

Movies: I still haven't seen a good summer movie, and I definitely haven't seen a good movie this summer, though I think I'll like the Al Gore polemic. X-Men was pretty blah, and Superman was long and conflict-free (I should have seen it in 3-D IMAX). The best thing I've seen in a movie theater this summer is the trailer for Invincible (the movie about the Eagles -- includes Greg Kinnear as Dick Vermeil(!)). I'm "pretty" fired up for an Eagles movie.

Books: as you might expect, lots of travel means lots of reading. I ponied up for the new Vernor Vinge book (which probably requires its own posting), nerded out with American Vertigo, Traveling America in the Footsteps of De Tocqueville (worth the read), and really can't say enough about Soccer Against The Enemy (I consider myself an expert in the field of semi-serious soccer writing, and this is definitely one of the best the genre has to offer -- much better than the Franklin Foer rip-off of two years ago).

Music: way, way too much to talk about here. Essentially, I went a little aggressive with the music purchases over the past month. Still, if there's anything you absolutely need to know about, it's The Ark. They're apparently from Sweden and are absolutely in my sweet spot -- very catchy and poppy music that's absolutely willing to be dark and mean-spirited. What can you do when you find yourself singing the words to "This Piece Of Poetry Is Meant To Do Harm" or "One Of Us Is Gonna Die Young" because the hooks are just so perfectly catchy? You sound like a psychopath, though in a kind of happy way. Still, it's a little, errr, over the top.

Starbucks and C@L taxpayers not interested in funding NBA in C@L; let the lame-duck season begin! Wow. So I've never had a team sold on me before. This is totally lame. Nobody, least of all C@L Mayor Greg Nickels, expected that Howard Schultz, one of the Vice Emperors of C@L, would be so cold as to sell his hometown team. And as long as he owned the team, the city could play hardball over the stadium. "Oh right, like you'll leave. You run the coffee empire, and that isn't going anywhere." Well well well! Take that, city of C@L! Schultz and co. are out! And a bunch of dudes from Oklahoma City are in, and have already named their deadline! Thorry C@L! As a season ticket holder, I'm actually legitimately pissed off about this. Seriously. I am not down with this. I even ate at the Dick's near Key Arena in an act of preemptive nostalgia. Of course, it's going to make for a spectacular local sports story over the next year.

(Guess what starts in six hours!): my favorite TV show, interactive product, and live event kicks off tomorrow, as rookies and select veterans report to Eagles training camp. They're going in a little early because they have to play a preseason game on August 6. And this means that the 24-hour Eagles media machine is back in business. Perhaps. I feel almost spoiled by the timing this summer; what did we have, two weeks between the end of soccer season and the start of training camp? Absolutely fantastic. Really can't say enough about that.

It's good to be back.

Posted by thatkid at July 19, 2006 11:53 PM under ThatKid

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