Soccer Blog

NPH has blogged before about Franklin Foer's fun little book, How Soccer Explains the World (I've even blogged about how I've blogged about the book). Now Foer, the editor of The New Republic, and a number of his colleagues have set up a World Cup Blog.

It's awesome.

The writers of Goal Post know soccer (which is more than can be said for the ESPN commentators assigned to the matches). But they know culture, politics, and lots of other stuff useful mostly at cocktail parties and magazines. Really, it's great reading. Here's just an excerpt, from Aleksandar Hemon:

"I suppose that one of the favorite pastimes of mindless American patriots is flinging
insults at soccer. But the target is not the liberal or the Democrat--it is the immigrant,
or the impure American--the un-American, in short. And then liberals or Democrats
also happen to be un-American. What is interesting is that in the minds of those
people, baseball or some other "American" sport and soccer are mutualy exclusive. You
have to choose--your own, or foreigners. Somehow hating soccer--and foreigners--is
often a staple of American patriotism. And that has as much to do with soccer as such
as it does with the latte--if it wasn't soccer, it would be something else."

NPH will be checking in throughout the tournment.

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Now This Is Vacation

NPH is enjoying a long-awaited week of vacation. Day one of the vacation was spent at the World Cup watch party out at Arrowhead (watching the U.S. get smacked by the Czech Republic 3-0) before it was capped off by an NPH-prepared dinner and a walk around the Plaza, concluding with a margarita and cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory. With friends.

Today, however, will be hard to beat. For today NPH took in lunch with a buddy at Oklahoma Joe's, a KC spot patronized far too infrequently. Not only is it a great bbq joint, but it's a great bbq joint inside a gas station. That sells frisbee golf equipment. We ate good chow and watched the end of the France vs. Switzerland match (a disappointing 0-0 draw).

Then, to work off the lunch, NPH and said buddy played 18 holes of frisbee golf. NPH sucks at frisbee golf, but it's good exercise and a delightful excuse to hang out with Alan Wang.

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It's Still A Major League City

The Kansas City Royals are on their way to setting a major league record for most losses in a season. They are staunchly marching toward their third 100-loss season in four years. Kansas City hasn't seen postseason baseball for 20 years.

But that didn't stop 28,000 people from coming out to the 'K' on Friday night to watch the Royals begin a three-game set against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. It's still got to be one of the best sporting experiences you can have in this country: a warm summer evening at a beautiful open-air baseball park watching big leaguers. What better excuse do you need to hang out with good friends for a few hours?

The promotional $1 hot dogs, sodas, and peanuts don't hurt either. Neither did the dancing mascots or the spectacular fireworks. Neither did the fact that the boys in blue pulled out a win, a late-inning come from behind win. NPH screamed like a 10-year-old.

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The Monkey Chow Diaries

NPH is bemused by the Monkey Chow Diaries. Here's a guy who has committed to eat nothing but the food that zoos feed to monkeys for seven days. The stuff claims to be a "complete diet for all primates, including the larger apes."

The experiment can be seen as a juvenile stunt, the kind of thing that the internet now allows to be seen by millions. By NPH thinks it's more than that. Here's someone very publicly asking questions about how we North Americans relate to food. How much money do we spend on food? What function does food play in our lives? To the people who live on the continent that consumes the vast majority of the world's food resources, these are pressing questions, and the Monkey Chow Diaries is asking them, at considerable discomfort to the interlocutor.

NPH suggest that the experiment is a kind of postmodern fast, a science and publicity propelled meditation on the most powerful of human appetites.

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A New Look

Look! It's NPH's first template change ever. We, the editors, decided it was time to make a move in the direction of lucidity; they grey of the NPH readers have come to know and love was bringing us down, to be frank. And the links were hard to see. We all agree that this is simpler, bigger, and clearer.

Now if NPH move in a similar direction with the content we'll all be better off.

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NPH Goes All On The Media

On The Media has become easily my favorite podcast. It's become a bit of a tradition for me to download the week's show on Sunday morning and listen to the first half of it on my way to church.

This week OTM had a piece about Youtube, the online video site that shot to the top 10 on the most viewed websites list. Youtube is changing the way we view media, putting old television content and all sorts of amateur-produced content online for worldwide viewership. Somewhat of a community forms around certain videos, like happened with SNL's "Lazy Sunday" short, which spawned countless replications by nameless hacks with camcorders.

But it's not all fun. Traditional media distributors, like major television networks, are ill at east with Youtube's ability to facilitate a viral spreading of media content. Especially their content. So NBC's lawyers smacked down Youtube for it's distribution of Lazy Sunday and made them remove it from their site.

Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine said on OTM that American media companies are doing everything in their power to hold on to their grip on media content distribution, while European network execs are taking more of a "the-old-world-is-gone" stance and looking for ways to capitalize on the internet's media distribution capabilities. But however our traditional media distributors react to things like Youtube, it can hardly be argued that it's the best example of how the internet is changing how people relate to media. I mean, before Youtube, could millions of watch what was originally a street performance for a handful of passers-by?

This skeleton dances like Jeff Bryan.

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Wine and Work for The Weekend

NPH can't sleep for anxiety over tonight's wedding and tomorrow's Pentecost worship. So NPH has gleefully trotted over to Panera at 6:00 am on a Saturday to hammer out a wedding message and Pentecost sermon.

Last night NPH and the wife took part in a novel idea: a wine-tasting party. About 20 people gathered at the home of a colleague, each bringing a bottle of wine. Upon paying $5 at the door, party-goer's wines were wrapped in a paper bag, numbered, and placed on the table. Then, over the next 2 and 1/2 hours, everyone sampled all the wines, giving each one a score from one to 10. Reds and whites were scored separately, and, at the end of the night, the bringer of the best white and the best red split the door money. The worst white and red each got their $5 back.

We were pretty confident with the Riesling that we picked up at Berbiglia on our way; it was, after all, on a special tasting display by the front door. But we did not win (we didn't finish last either). The winner of the white category was a brand simply called "House Wine," while the red that won was a Folie a Deux winery production called Menage Trois.

Not to be confused for actual wine experts, our party scored this red gem higher than any other, even higher than another bottle of the exact same wine of the exact same year.

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