fidel castro dead?

this guy has been killed off more than i dont know what.. ive heard this story a million times now.. one of the things i was afraid of before i moved to brasil was that i would miss the scene in miami when fidel castro finally died.. there are stories buzzing all over the internet.. val at babalu blog has some info here, and links here, and here is a story.. of course, there are those that think he was killed off in 1981 and replaced by alexis papagos.. (thanks to sergio at babalu who found that story)

more on zidane

someone in the comments section asked for a bit more on the zidane incident.. here is a link to google news with more info, and here is another.. follow tem and you will find more info on it.. this story is bringing everyone out of the woodwork.. in this story, an iranian official says zidanes reaction was a result of islamic pride.. in this story a far right italian politician has interesting comments.. here is a snippet : Meanwhile, the far-right vice-president of the Italian Senate stoked anti-French feeling in the country on Tuesday, branding the French team as "blacks, Islamists and Communists".Roberto Calderoli, head of the right-wing popular Northern League party, refused to retract earlier comments in which he hailed Italy's defeat of France in Sunday's World Cup final as "a victory for Italian identity"."When I say that France's team is composed of blacks, Islamists and Communists, I am saying an objective and evident thing," Calderoli was quoted on Tuesday as saying by the Ansa news agency.Italy's all-white team, from a largely devout Catholic populace, had won against "a France team which sacrificed its own identity by lining up blacks, Islamists and Communists to get results," Calderoli had said on Sunday.

everyone has an opinion....

zidane

just one way to describe the zidane incident:

O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low?Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,Shrunk to this little measure? (julius caesar 3.1.148)..

one of the best players in the history of the game, the best french player ever.. more cantona than platini...

Garanhuns to Araua, Aracaju, and back to Garanhuns

THE TRIP FROM GARANHUNS TO ARAUÁ
ok it was a VERY long trip and week.. for starters, we had serious bus problems.. soon after the trip started, one of the wires that sends juice the windshield wipers was frayed and came loose.. every 30-45 minutes theyd come undone and we had to stop and reconnect them.. things became unraveled, literally, when we blew a tire and it was just shredded to pieces.. we pulled over to the side of the road to change it, only to discover the jack did not work.. luckily, a truck driver that had pulled over had one in working condintion and lent it to us.. he was really nice about it, he waited almost 45 minutes as we changed it and refused to take money from us for his trouble.. "we are all on the road, and one day i may need your help", is what he said and then drove off.. the kids enjoyed the fact that a bus for an all girls school pulled over and their driver helped us.. you take one bus with 60 boys ranging in ages from 11-17, and take another one filled with about 50 girls ranging in ages from 13-19, and you get quite the event.. we got the spare on, but it was bald.. we had to drive slow into the next town to get a new tire.. while we waited for the new tire, we got lunch.. this whole process delayed us about 5 hours.. we got in to arauá alot later than we had planned, but at least we made it to arauá, in the state of sergipe..
THE TOWN OF ARAUÁ
think small... imagine a one mule town.. now, imagine a town smaller than that.. the only place with internet access was city hall.. not much to do in this town.. i like small towns, but this was too much.. everything stops after about 8PM.. it got so bad we got away two nights after the games were done.. the first place we visited was estância, a bit bigger than arauá but smaller than garanhuns.. we got the kids pizza.. the second trip we made was to a town called boquim, and i really liked this place.. small, but it still had signs of life.. there was a plaza in the center full of girls looking for guys, and guys looking for girls.. the players really enjoyed it..
THE TOURNEY IN ARAUÁ
the tourney was very competitive.. there really wasnt a bad team there.. the teams came from various states here in the northeast: bahia, sergipe, alagoas, and us, pernambuco.. all the teams had ups and downs, but in the end, all classified for the finals.. the youngest group lost in the first games of the semi finals on an own goal.. the middle group lost on penalties.. the older kids made it to the finals, but lost on penalties as well, and we ended up with a second place trophy.. all the other coaches came over to tell us ours was the most organized, most professional looking group, and many offered players to train with us.. in the future we are going to hold our own tournament here in garanhuns and many will bring their teams to participate in it
BACK TO GARANHUNS
if the road to arauá was difficult, the road back to garanhuns was worse.. this time the other tire blew.. we got it patched up, but about 45 minutes later, it blew out AGAIN.. we decided to drive to aracaju, a beach in sergipe.. we tired to find a hotel for the night, but due to an event, most everything was booked.. at 4 in the morning we finally found a hotel where we could get 10 rooms and cram the kids in.. the next day while we got the tires fixed the kids went to the beach.. it was the first time a few of them had ever been to the beach and they really enjoyed themselves..

What Could the N.F.L. Learn From the World Cup?

From the Freakonomics Blog..
What Could the N.F.L. Learn From the World Cup?
The World Cup final was both predictable (Italy’s comeback and eventual triumph after the early French goal) and bizarre (Zinedine Zidane’s farewell head-butt). Not a great game but not bad.
The consolation match on Saturday, between Germany and Portugal, wasn’t much more exciting—except for the hometown German fans, who saw their young team secure third place in the tournament with a 3-1 victory.
But even if you weren’t a Germany fan, it was nice to have one extra game after getting hooked on all this soccer over the past few weeks.
Which led me to think: why doesn’t the N.F.L. have a consolation game?
It could be held the Saturday afternoon before the Super Bowl, presumably in the same stadium. Imagine the N.F.L. held such a game this year. It would have matched the losers of the conference championship games, the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers. Not the most exciting matchup imaginable—but, as with the World Cup, with a nation of TV fans having followed the teams through the regular season and playoffs, I’d imagine there would be plenty of interest. And plenty of money to be made for the N.F.L. and the many other people who have a piece of the football pie.
You could surely object to this idea on the grounds that the Broncos and Panthers, having lost in the conference championships, just want to go home and couldn’t work up the vigor to play another game. But hey: this is the league that sends its all-stars to a Pro Bowl after the season, in Hawaii, a game that absolutely nobody watches. And yet they still go, and they still play it.
The N.C.A.A. used to hold a consolation game during its Final Four weekend, but I believe it was abandoned it in the early 1980’s. I think the N.F.L. would do a good enough job with a Consolation Bowl that it would become part of the fabric of what has become Super Bowl weekend. And by creating a 3rd and 4th place finisher in the N.F.L., the Consolation Bowl would make 2nd place—i.e., the Super Bowl loser—a bit more meaningful, whereas now everyone complains that no one ever remembers the loser of a Super Bowl.
Considering how adept the N.F.L. is at maximizing profits, goodwill, and opportunity, I’m guessing this idea has already come up for conversation at league HQ plenty of times. Here’s hoping that Paul Tagliabue, the forward-thinking outgoing N.F.L. boss, watched enough World Cup to think that it might be worth giving it a try.

theres a new trophy in garanhuns

just a quick note on the tourney, we finished in second place, and brought back to garanhuns a trophy.. the player holding it is the team captain, named aponay.. hes a (brasilian) indian..

back in garanhuns

well, i finally made it back to garanhuns.. it was a long week, and the bus trip seemed even longer.. give me some time to catch up with the work in the office and i will update everyone on the tourney, the trip, and new happenings, but in short, its great to be back in garanhuns...

off to another copa..

ok one last post before i leave.. right now i got 45 or so kids running around at the stadium.. they will spend the night there and tomorrow morning at 5 AM or so we leave for arauá, sergipe for a one week tourney, III copa ouro, against similar schools.. this is a good test run for future tourneys.. we get to work out all the kinks and each tourney runs smoother.. now, on the brasil loss.. they played like crap, france was the better team.. but what surprised me was the reaction.. i thought people would be walking around like zombies.. i only saw one guy and a couple girls cry.. the rest, they are partying on like if nothing happened.. they figure, we will celebrate to cheer ourselves up.. pretty intersting.. ok in out for a week..

Run Away! Run Away!

June 26, 2006, 5:49 a.m.Run Away! Run Away!A short history of the party of surrender.By Mario LoyolaThe text of the Kerry-Feingold proposal to withdraw American forces from Iraq contained an element of unintended comedy: The President shall redeploy, commencing in 2006, United States forces from Iraq by July 1, 2007 … leaving only the minimal number of forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces, conducting targeted and specialized counterterrorism operations, and protecting United States facilities and personnel (emphasis added). Since that just about is the mission, the proposal would have had no effect at all on troop levels. So its sole purpose was to serve as a declaration of surrender. Most Democrats, however, preferred the surrender declaration proposed by Senator Carl Levin, which not only did not specify a date, but in fact hardly specified anything at all. This rather effete (and eerily French) inclination to seek defeat has a rich history in the Democratic party, going back at least to the Kennedy administration. Despite sweeping declarations about paying any price, etc., for the success of liberty, Kennedy’s foreign policy was actually based on the notion that war most often results from miscommunication. That, apparently, was his thinking when he reassured the Soviets that we would not attack if they raised a wall in Berlin. (They didn’t know that before, which is why they hadn’t built it). The predictable result, a few months later, was the Berlin Wall, which saved the Communist regime of East Germany from death-by-mass-emigration. What is harder to divine is what Kennedy might have been thinking when he waited until the Bay of Pigs invasion was underway before deciding to pull American air and logistical support. Thousands of Cuban exiles, who were in fact willing to pay any price for the success of liberty, threw their lives away on the beach or rotted in jail for decades. And then, of course, we have the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was caused most fundamentally by Khrushchev’s desire to see if there was any limit to Kennedy’s submissiveness. (Fortunately, there was a limit to the Pentagon’s.) The roots of the Democratic defeat-fetish grew deeper in the weary Johnson years, during which nearly a million American boys were sent to the other side of the world by a president who was driven there almost purely by domestic politics and who appears never to have worked up any real resolve to win. By the time 1968 rolled around, Johnson himself gave up, and withdrew from the reelection battle.Nixon and Kissinger came to office convinced that Vietnam was unwinnable (which, by that point, may have been true) and that the key thing was to surrender without appearing to have done so. They started negotiating with everyone — the North Vietnamese, the Chinese, and the Russians — to try to triangulate a settlement that would bring “peace with honor.” For most Democrats, there was no reason to sugar-coat it — surrender tasted just fine by itself. They put enormous pressure on the administration to withdraw, with or without concessions from Hanoi. In diplomacy, this is called a unilateral concession; in strategy, we use a different term: Surrender.Interestingly, it was at about this time that “neoconservative” Democrats started to give the party a more hawkish tilt. The détente inherent in triangulation brought Kissinger into increasing propinquity (so to speak) with the Soviets, which made some Democrats very angry. Led by Senator Scoop Jackson (and his aide Richard Perle) these Democrats demanded that the Nixon administration extract concessions from the Russians in exchange for the grain credits we were offering them — in particular, that the Russians allow tens of thousands of Jews to leave the Soviet Union. But this hawkish trend faded just a few years later, when the neoconservatives were driven from the Democratic Party by a president for whom defeat was a moral virtue. The basic message of the Carter presidency was that America is on the decline, and we have to accept it. Though the Carter years are really too depressing to think about, I recently came across an interesting and telling anecdote: The Delta Force units that took part in the disastrous Desert One operation were under orders not to use lethal force if they got as far as the embassy in Tehran and encountered a hostile crowd. (As Mark Bowden revealed, they had little intention of following these ridiculous instructions). In fact, Carter has dedicated his entire career to American surrender. After Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, he lobbied the Security Council to vote against the Gulf War resolution, by writing letters to each of the members. (Only Cuba and Yemen followed his sage advice). More recently, he has worked to establish warm relations with many of America’s enemies, most scandalously Hugo Chávez.After a long interregnum of American victories, Clinton brought the Democrats back to the White House and proceeded to pack as many defeats into eight years as was humanly possible. There was North Korea, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, Rwanda, Iraq again, and Kosovo. Bosnia and Kosovo eventually turned into victories, but not before we allowed the Serbs to win. In Bosnia, we actually helped the Serbs by drawing Bosnian Muslims into undefended “safe havens” and then looking on with some concern while the Serbs slaughtered them. In Kosovo, Clinton also tried to lose, by allowing Belgium (Belgium!) to block NATO from planning for the use of ground combat troops even as a contingency. The result was that 800,000 Kosovar Albanians lost their homes, and many tens of thousands their lives, before General Wesley Clark finally pounded Belgrade into submission with air strikes. He was promptly fired. The greatest of Clinton’s achievements in the realm of defeat-fetish was his response to al Qaeda’s declaration of war on the United States. After our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were destroyed, Clinton valiantly lobbed scores of cruise missiles at a milk factory in the Sudan and several empty campsites in Afghanistan. The only effect on Osama bin Laden, besides giving him a reason to laugh at us, was to convince him that we were weak and would quickly accept defeat if we were hit hard enough. And now, with the Iraq war, the Democrats are at it again. Their comparison of Iraq to Vietnam is, to say the least, a stretch. The insurgency in Iraq has failed to achieve a national geographic scope; it has no foreign countries supporting it; it has no political program that anyone can understand; and it does not even have the scant military effectiveness of the Viet Cong. But there is one striking parallel with Vietnam: The Democratic party is once again mired in a race-to-the-bottom debate about how best to make America surrender. As events in the Senate showed last week, there is diversity of opinion among Democrats on that issue; victory, on the other hand, has almost no support within the party. Senators Clinton and Lieberman, among the only Democratic politicians who think that victory is both possible and necessary, routinely get booed at public functions when they even mention the dreaded “v” word.The basic problem for the Democrats is that Americans are not instinctive losers. And because the Democratic base is split between moderates who want to surrender in Iraq, and liberals who want to surrender generally, they can’t exploit the biggest vulnerability Republicans have, which is, of course, the war. Any time the Democrats are forced to take a position on the war, they alienate a part of their base, and embarrass themselves in the process. This is why last week’s defeat of the two surrender declarations in the Senate is such good news for Republicans; the Democrats appear to have made surrender the essential theme of their political platform. As a result, they may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory come November. —Mario Loyola is a writer in Washington, D.C.

update

ok guys i was without internet for a week or so as we set up the new office.. sunday im leaving for a tournament ans will be without internet for another week or so, but after i get back i should be able to update regularly.. miss you all...

Brazilian kids see soccer as a way out of slums

Brazilian kids see soccer as a way out of slums
By Daniela Perdomo Thu Jun 29, 4:41 PM ET
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Vila Brasilandia, an poor, remote neighborhood in Sao Paulo, has been gripped by World Cup fever. Rough portraits of the Brazilian squad adorn walls. Green and yellow national flags hang overhead.
The decorations lend a festive atmosphere to the otherwise gloomy vision of sidewalks cluttered by wheelbarrows, scrap metal, and cardboard.
In the midst of a maze of unpaved roads that don't appear on city maps is the Espaco Crianca Esperanca (Child Hope Space), a project jointly run by a Brazilian group called Sou Da Paz, or I Stand for Peace; the Globo television network; the city government; and UNESCO, a United Nations cultural agency. It offers athletic, artistic, and academic programs to kids and young adults.
Soccer is the most popular activity. Many kids idolize soccer stars who grew up in their neighborhood or others like it where shantytowns mix with working-class row houses.
In a place like Brasilandia, where half of kids under 19 have not completed elementary school and juvenile homicides are routine, the community center offers an alternative to a life of crime, and for a lucky few, a route to fame and fortune.
"Soccer is a way out," said Roberto Carlos da Silva, who coaches field soccer at the Espaco, and has worked with stars such as Deco, a Brazilian who now plays on the Portuguese national team. "The time they are on the pitch, is, more than anything, time they are off the streets."
Just last week, Silva discovered what had happened to a 15-year-old who had not shown up to practice for several weeks. The mother came to let him know that her son had been caught stealing a cell phone and sent to juvenile jail.
The staff at the Espaco hope that involvement in soccer and other activities at the center will make such cases far less common.
"Today's big goal is to transform this place; to bring safety not through walls or armed guards" - a reference to the facility's set-up - "but through well-being and community. And we want to make the kids feel like actors in this transformation," says Rodrigo Damasceno, a project director.
Most of the kids who play soccer come by every day. One of them, 12-year-old Lucas, is considered one of the facility's "revelations." His coach, Orlando Alves Ferreira, a former goalie for Club Portuguesa, wants to show him to scouts once he grows a little more. Right now Lucas is just shy of four feet
.PROS FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Lucas plays forward, scores lots of goals, cheers for the Corinthians club, and knows the name of every player in all 32 teams in this year's Cup. While his teammates say they would like to be firefighters if a soccer career does not pan out, Lucas is unwavering: "I won't be anything else."
The hope is real. The boys know that Viola, who was on Brazil's 1994 winning team, grew up in Vila Brasilandia. Vitor Augusto, 11, who plays on the same scrimmage team as Lucas, says his cousin, Jefferson, 19, now plays for a team in Japan. Jorge Luiz, 13, prides himself on the fact that his father played for Palmeiras' second-division team.
Though Silva estimates that less than 5 percent of the kids he coaches will ever play the sport professionally, he tells his players, "If you don't become a player, at least become a human being."
"Soccer is a beautiful game. It seeps into all areas of your life and can teach you to be an honest, kind, good person," Silva said.

feijoada

ok so here in brasil we get these ridiculous two hour lunches, not productive at all, it messes up your day cause while i have tons of crap to get done the whole town pretty much shuts down between 12-2pm, and its freakin nerve racking when you are in a time crunch to get stuff done.. but if you cant beat’em, join’em.. brasil’s national dish, FEIJOADA (say fay-zho-ada, the z in the zho part i pronounced like dge).. it was traditionally served on sunday.. there are various tale as to how this dish came about, all deal back to the slave days, when the portuguese were colonizing brasil, but the one most commonly told says that during the week, the family would give all their leftovers to the slaves.. this would be meats: mostly pork, linguiça (a portuguese style sausage), carne de sol (sun-dried meat, like beef jerky) etc.. the slaves would then save them till sunday, take a big crock pot, make beans (frijoles, or here, feijão quick note on feijão.. here in the northeast, its more the custom to eat the red beans, and in the south, black, however with feijoãda, its made with black beans..) and throw in all the meats, and cook it.. they serve it on a dish, and TOP it off with rice.. for some reason, the custom, at least when ive been paying attention, is to serve the beans/ meat first, and the rice goes on top.. anyways, that’s my culture lesson for today.. if you find a good brasilian restaurant in your area, give it a try, or come visit and you can try it.. here is one recipe here is another and another..

brasil-japan game

high point of yesterdays game was a goal by juninho pernambucano.. since hes from this state everyone feels a connection to him, and the place just erupted when he scored... the celebration was a bit more intense for him.. most people seem to be coming around to "forgiving" ronaldo for whatever they were mad at him for, scoring two goals seems to have that effect.. and most everyone was happy to see rogerio ceni get some playing time once the game was in the bag.. brasil wins the group and everyone is awaiting the knockout stages.. at this point, you win, you advance, lose, you go home.. for most fans here, this is when the copa "really" begins.. tomorrow is "festa de são joão" which is a really big deal here in the northeast.. tomorrow after a meeting with the kids parents regarding the tourney i talk about here, i will go to união dos palmares, in maceio, a state just south of here to see a friend.. probably wont update till late monday..

The Onion takes a kick at the World Cup

The Onion takes a kick at the World Cup
Devastated By U.S. World Cup Team's First-Round Loss, Nation Grinds To Halt
June 15, 2006
NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, and WASHINGTON, DC—With the Dow Jones average down over 600 points, factory productivity in a downward spiral, and workplace attendance down by nearly a third, experts say the U.S. World Cup team's heartbreaking 3-0 defeat at the hands of Czech Republic on Monday has brought life across the soccer-crazed nation to a virtual standstill.
"What happened in Gelsenkirchen has indeed dealt a grievous blow to the morale of the American people," said President Bush, who had promised his constituency a swift and speedy victory in the World Cup this year and whose popularity has taken a 9 percent hit since the U.S. team's loss. "I want the citizens of this great nation, the world's only remaining superpower, to know that I grieve alongside them and urge them to be strong in our hour of darkness, and urge them to return to their jobs and schools despite their heavy hearts."
Mere days ago, the feeling across the nation was one of great joy, eager anticipation, and optimism for the prospects of the most talented American team to ever take the field. It is estimated that over 85 percent of U.S. households were watching the USA–Czech Republic matchup. And going into the game that most Americans have been waiting for, analyzing, and all but living for during the past four years, schools, offices, shopping centers—everything, in fact, except vital services—closed their doors as the game began.
Now, days after the end of penalty time, many of those doors are still closed.
"I take full responsibility for losing the game," said Claudio Reyna, whose shot off the crossbar of the Czech goal as the U.S. trailed 1-0 in the opening half of play has been shown to coincide with a significant bump in the suicide rate, a momentary increase in reports of domestic violence, and a $0.45 increase in the per-gallon price of gasoline. "But we still have games to play in this opening round. I realize that the United States, more than any other country, loves this game. But that is no reason for so many people to cancel their weddings."
The general feeling of hopelessness may be felt across the United States, the nation the rest of the world thinks of as Pelé's adopted home, the land that popularized the term "soccer," and Americans are finding many different ways to voice their despair.
Hundreds of yards of black bunting hung over the head and arms of the Statue of Liberty has yet to be removed by the New York City Parks Department; similar shrouds have appeared on Mount Rushmore, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hawaii's Pearl Harbor Memorial. Las Vegas casinos are running skeleton staffs at the tables and doubling the size of security shifts, at once worrying over their empty floors and fearing retribution at the hands of World Cup gamblers who bet on the U.S. out of loyalty. And the House of Representatives, which traditionally remains closed throughout the World Cup, called a special session for the specific purpose of introducing a bipartisan bill that would change America's national sport back to baseball.
"This cannot last," said Bruce Arena, coach of the U.S. World Cup team and by extension effectively the second-most powerful man in America, in an address televised simultaneously on every national channel Wednesday night. "We cannot have crops unharvested in the fields, the doors of our churches sealed shut, the Stars and Stripes fixed at half-mast, all because of our dishonorable standard of play. We cannot ask you to forgive our loss to the Czechs, as that must be left to the wisdom of the God of our fathers. We have always been a nation blessed with strength, not only in our love for our soccer teams, but in our love for one another, and we must call on both now if we are to endure these dark days."
At press time, the U.S. team is scheduled to play Italy on Saturday and Ghana the following Thursday, and the National Guard has reported moderate casualties while attempting to contain hooligan activity in the nine largest U.S. cities.

Those Crazy Thai Monks

Mad Thai monks too tired to take alms
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Buddhist monks in Thailand are too tired to receive early morning alms because they are staying up late to watch the World Cup, a Thai newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The Nation quoted a woman in the northern city of Chiang Mai who said her birthday celebrations were ruined because monks at a city temple were not awake to receive her morning offering, a mandatory religious ritual in the predominately Buddhist country.
The woman, who declined to be identified, said she was told by a senior monk that most of his young colleagues were still asleep because they had stayed up to watch the games which can go on well past midnight.
The Sangha Council, which oversees the tens of thousands of Buddhist temples in Thailand, has not banned monks from watching the World Cup but said it should not interfere with religious activities.
Chiang Mai chief monk Phra Thep Wisuthikhun said he had received complaints about "inappropriate behavior" at seven temples in the province. "It is the duty of the abbot of each temple to supervise the behavior of young monks, making sure that their religious activities will not be affected by the games," he told Reuters.
In neighboring Cambodia, some 40,000 monks have been warned they could be defrocked if they became too excited while watching the games.
"If they make noise or cheer as they watch, they will lose their monkhood," Phnom Penh patriarch Non Nget told Reuters this month.

ad wars

there are few rivalries like the one between brasil and argentina.. right now during the copa there are ads poking fun at the argies.. they do the same thing.. here is an example of the ad wars.. back during "eliminatorias" (qualifying) an argentine condom company produced the first ad, the blue one.. after brasil won the game, they gave a "measured" response

Watching The Wheels

this pretty much sums up how i feel about being here..

People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing,
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin,
When I say that I'm o.k. they look at me kind of strange,
Surely your not happy now you no longer play the game,
People say I'm lazy dreaming my life away,
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me,
When I tell that I'm doing Fine watching shadows on the wall,
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball?
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,I really love to watch them roll,No longer riding on the merry-go-round,I just had to let it go,
People asking questions lost in confusion,
Well I tell them there's no problem, Only solutions,
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind,
I tell them there's no hurry...I'm just sitting here doing time,
I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,I really love to watch them roll,No longer riding on the merry-go-round,I just had to let it go.

~john lennon~

Aw crap!!!

Doctors probe heart attack risk for football fans
COLOGNE (Reuters) - World Cup football causes joy and despair and even ends marriages but now doctors are studying whether the thrill of it all can be literally heart stopping.
Previous research during international football tournaments has found an increase in the general incidence of heart attacks, particularly on days when tense matches have had fans on the edge of their seats.
In the new FIFA-approved study researchers will receive blood samples from heart attack victims all over Germany watching football at the time of the attack, allowing them to look for traces of stress hormones which can clot the blood.
Doctors will also receive samples from anyone who collapses in a stadium during a World Cup match and whose blood may show higher levels of hormones then those fans watching at home.
"Patients are asked precisely what they were doing at the time of the attack -- whether they were following football on the radio or television, or even watching the pundits after the game," David Leistner of Munich's Ludwig Maximilians University told Reuters.
"So far, on the days when Germany has played we have received a lot more blood samples," he added.
First results are due in October.
A study in 1998 found the number of heart attacks increased by 25 percent on the day and in the two days after England lost to Argentina in a penalty shoot out at the 1998 World Cup
In the new FIFA-approved study researchers will receive blood samples from heart attack victims all over Germany watching football at the time of the attack, allowing them to look for traces of stress hormones which can clot the blood.
Doctors will also receive samples from anyone who collapses in a stadium during a World Cup match and whose blood may show higher levels of hormones then those fans watching at home.
"Patients are asked precisely what they were doing at the time of the attack -- whether they were following football on the radio or television, or even watching the pundits after the game," David Leistner of Munich's Ludwig Maximilians University told Reuters.
"So far, on the days when Germany has played we have received a lot more blood samples," he added.
First results are due in October.
A study in 1998 found the number of heart attacks increased by 25 percent on the day and in the two days after England lost to Argentina in a penalty shoot out at the 1998 World Cup
Researchers in Switzerland also found heart attacks in the country increased by 60 percent during the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea -- even though the Swiss team was not even competing.
The findings prompted calls for emergency heart attack equipment to be installed in stadiums during Euro 2004.
"If it really is the case that higher stress levels can increase the chance of a heart attack then attending football games may have to carry a health warning," said Leistner.
Doctors advise those football fans who may be at greater risk of heart attack anyway due to obesity, high-cholesterol or diabetes, to refrain from drinking excessively during the World Cup tournament.

small things

ok one of the small things i really enjoy about this town.. 6PM, 1800 hours... the Ave Maria... this town is small enough that no matter where you are, youre within hearing distance of the churches, and their bells.. and every night, at 6PM, they play the Ave Maria.. no matter where you are in this town, you cant help but hear it.. and its kinda soothing and peaceful and nice.. add that in the small things i really cant explain but really make me enjoy this place column..

updates for 6/19

we made a change for the copa event.. we just werent getting a crowd for the games that didnt involve brasil, so we will only run the big screen during their games.. the replacement bulb for the projector is expensive, so it became cost prohibitive to run it for every single game.. once the second round starts we will see if there is a demand, and it is enough to warrant running the projector.. i get the feeling that for the quarter, semis, and 3rd place and final match we will be running the full card, provided brasil makes it to the final.. if they lose in the knockout rounds, there wont be much interest.. the other big project i have is the tourney i mentioned earlier, and i have TONS of stuff to put together and not much time.. im gonna be really busy with that so if i dont post much, you guys know why..