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Showing posts from May, 2012

Soccer = Vanilla Ice

With the buzz related to the exciting finish to a championship soccer game in England last week, we get to be treated once more to accusations that Americans need to get on board and appreciate soccer, to be point of elevating it to a major sport. This is a good time to address a few common misconceptions regarding Americans and soccer: 1.  If Americans would just give soccer a chance, they'd enjoy it more than baseball, football, or basketball. Look, it's not like Americans haven't tried. First, we played it in both organized (league) and unorganized formats as a kid (Exhibit A: note all the youth soccer leagues throughout the nation). I played it for 3 or so seasons myself. In fact, I played it as young adult in a league for one season. I've attended games by local professional teams (I live in the 4th-most populated area in the US, and we have a couple to choose from). I've had my kids play in leagues. I have watched it on TV. And yet, with all that,

Star Wars vs. that other movie

Lots of folks are being clever with today's date, and associating it with Star Wars. (May the 4th = May the fourth be with you: get it?) When Star Wars made it to theaters in 1977, I was 12. I went, got so bored I barely made it to the end of the movie. A few weeks before or after, a movie called "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" came out, and I loved it. It was a powerful story, far superior to Star Wars.   To this day, I don't get why, of those two movies, one became iconic and the other is barely remembered. I have never seen another Star Wars movie since, although I may sit down and watch them since my boys are about old enough to get into them. Hopefully, I'll find them more interesting than I did the first time. I'm sure that Star Wars is more popular because of the effects, the use of music, the bad guy you love to hate, the light sabers, and the talking robots who seem human.  Sadly, the thing that is missing from Star Wars is the huma