Post-Euphoric States

To be honest, I feel numb now. Watching Italy winning the World Cup is like living in a dream. 16 years ago, football was everything for me, and when Argentina kicked us out in the semifinal I felt like something inside me was broken... it was one of the first steps in understanding that "Justice Is Not Of This World". From then on, I lived any European or World Cup with the inner certainty that an inevitable defeat, one way or another, would be dished to the Italian team.

But now, 23 players (and a cunning manager) succeeded in breaking that bad spell. They "unbottled" the joyous rage that was rotting inside me since 1990, and I felt the air fizzling with energy for one night.

But then the night passed, and a day, and another night; and now... now what? Everything else seems a bit pointless now, compared to Winning The World Cup and Putting 1990 Right. Also, my well-rehearsed "noir" pose, as the survivor of a thousand (lost) football battles, it's now left without any credibility...

Football hooligan for a night. (Champions of the motherf***ing world!)

The "Sports Cafe" in Manchester is a bad place. Dark, seedy, home to the worst kind of unsportsmanship and hooliganism. The best place to go watch a World Cup final then! Almost an hour before the kickoff, it's already packed. We struggle to find two chairs with a decent view of one of the two big screens, and will spend the night shuffling between that and the smaller TV nearby. The French are almost undetectable, but when BBC shows the "golden goal" steal of Euro 2000, they start to sing and shout. They'll pay for that, oh yes, and in spades. The match starts, the game seems nervous, the teams cautious; it looks like the match with the U.S.A., it will end up being very similar. Then, a useless french winger, one of those players that will never ever score against us, takes a big dive in the penalty box, and gets away with it because Materazzi (that will became Maserati on the radio, the day after) moves in the wrong way. Zidane scores and the French are exstatic, singing louder than ever; I "know" then that we will win 2-1, and I won't be much wrong. Less than 5 minutes and Materazzi, clearly an instrument to some higher will, scores from up in the sky. 1-1 and the French now are stunned. I-TA-LIA, I-TA-LIA, and I even forget that my ex is just a few seats behind me. Two goals in the first 20 minutes, a rare sight in a World Cup final these days. Then the match stalls. We play better on the sides, but Totti is completely out of the game and Toni is too lonely, easy prey for Thuram. We score again, but a passive offside means it's not good. France grows in confidence, we are again overpowered by their singing "allez les bleus" and "zi-zou, zi-zou". The break is time to relieve ourselves from beer, and I've never seen that toilet so packed. The French can't restrain from shouting even when they pee. I am tempted to start a riot. The second half we suffer. Lippi tries to win it, but Del Piero and De Rossi are not effective and our midfield disappears. Zidane warms up and almost scores, but our goalkeeper is simply too good for any player nowadays. He won't be beaten in live action, only from penalties (and an own goal). Extra time is over us, we are tired, the players are tired, the damn French start to gloat thinking about penalties... but then Zidane loses his cool and gets sent off. I shout BOOOOOO as much as I can, what a shameful way to end a wonderful career. The French are silenced, their talisman is gone, they sense fear. They put on the pitch the two players that killed us in 2000, but this time the stars are with us. Trezeguet, who scored the golden goal at Euro 2000, fails the penalty. Del Piero, who missed so many appointments with glory, this time is ice cold. Fabio Grosso, hard-working defender playing for Palermo, gets the responsability on his shoulders like he did in the semifinal, and starts the party. It's all mad then. The french move out, some shaking hands with me, while the italians are jumping and celebrating. "We are the champions" goes on and on again, until Cannavaro grabs the cup and we dance and jump and hug and sing and I really don't know what happens next.

World Cup, World Music, African Weather

My weekend started with World Cup action and ended with World Music bits, with in-between cooking and entertainment courtesy of torrid temperatures (that really reminded me more of Morocco than South Wales). Global warming threatens to make the British weather extremely attractive, that's probably why politicians are getting around the idea of stopping it.
Related Linkage:

• resting under trees is the best way to find God
• you'll find world music, even if you are not looking for it (but too late, it's gone now)
• maybe I should subscribe to this magazine, it's fairly cheap too; check out the Beginners' Guides!
• Glasgow, east of Latin-America; too bad I didn't catch them live
• Zidane has a caipiriñha, some silly Scouser gets sent off, 1982 echoes start to be heard and, of course, the Germans win

One of those days

In Which the Author Proclaims to Feel Bored and Proceeds to Bore his Readers as Well.

A day-long software installation is working in background, and I feel bored.

I had a dream, last night, about a lion with the body of a cow. People were afraid and passed near it pretending not to care, very slowly. A friend (who I knew, but doesn't exist) told me not to worry, that it was easy, just walk slowly and it won't do anything to me. So I tried, but the lion-cow felt my fear and hit me with the side of its head. I was scared.
I don't remember anything else about it, but I suppose it's better to write it down here before I forget. It's quite a rare occasion for me to remember dreams.

Sometimes I think I should try to be creative again... that I should write something, or code something, instead of repeating these semi-mechanical acts of system administration (install some software, use it once or twice, then break it and try to fix it, play a game, repeat). Unfortunately, "being creative" takes so much time, and effort, and it's the easiest thing to procrastinate since it doesn't really stop anything else from getting done. I suspect this might be quite Wrong, in fact.

I built a UI mockup for a little program to manage and assign housekeeping tasks, using Qt Designer (neat tool, after learning a bit about it); this is for the new house I am buying with Cristina... we might end up managing the h.k. rota before we can actually get into the house (mortgage companies and estate agents are parasites). So there's another little python project entering the huge group of Programs I Never Quite Managed To Complete.

Oh, the install has ended. More later, I suppose.

Oh, I still have a blog!

1-2-3-test, test, ah-ah, be-be.