this piece should be in the sports category but since i’m a blatant sports freak, anything about sports is always personal. i would be going to stop by white hart lane again tomorrow to watch tottenham hotspur against internazionale milan. seeing the brazilian striker adriano in the flesh would be a better thrill than bumping into beckham. i know some unbelievers view football as boring as facing a white wall for hours. ninety minutes with nothing but the time on the scoreboard. but doesn’t a no-hitter in baseball is also nothing but zeros on the screen? actually i love watching baseball when the pitchers are trying to outdo each other. homeruns put me to sleep. in addition, american sports always take a million hours. two hundred forty minutes just for basketball alone with a hundred timeouts and a thousand fouls? the game clock stops with one or the other. it’s convivial to see pace in whatever field. whether it’s aaron lennon from the right midfield or kobe bryant from the back of the court. then there’s ledley king, tottenham hotspur’s captain. injuries kept him out of the world cup. rio ferdinand, ke barbaridad. sol campbell, he’ll kiss you then will stab you in the back. the other half (i would say soulmate) and i walked miles on tuesday just to watch the spurs against stevenage football club. SFC has a very small ground. i gained some deep-seated insight that standing room only could actually be fun . my legs, my feet were virtually writhing in pain. i would need new shoes or new legs or manage my pain much better. and we’ve got ledley at the back. yes, my dear simba. we still got ledley at the back. 
quo vadis michael carrick.
(image from the tottenham hotspurs website)
it’s delightful to see tiger do well in this heat. i couldn’t even venture outside my protected zone to avoid the glare and the soaring temperatures. but the world’s best golfers are out there competing in the Open under the intense humidity amid dried fairways and dreadful bunkers. those with early tee times clock in at the unholy hour of 6am. at least the third round starts at eight twenty. i’m so eternally grateful i could watch the Open this weekend .
plus there’s the added laxury of being glued to the Tour de France. i’ve read about floyd landis early travails in lance armstrong’s sequel to his bio it’s not about the bike entitled every second counts. landis is a colourful personality. his connection to armstrong makes him a media favorite. still, i miss armstrong’s dedication and strategies on winning the tour. the texan was utterly scientific while bordering on weirdness. he wasn’t only counting calories, he was also weighing his food. i presume he would tend to look up his blood results and check up if his numbers balance in the pyrenees. but lance is now basking in retirement, cycling with the likes of mcconaughey and gyllenhaal. not clashing against the robbie mcewens, oscar pereiros and andreas klodens.
as i watch all the sports i could muster, i feel like the catherine keener character in walking and talking . i don’t necessarily wait for the phone to ring. i have this craving for reading my friends’ blogs and e-mails. i send selected e-mails to some kind souls. however instead of being undulated with inspiring replies, long and significant pauses are thrown my way. so what’s with the chain mails? i know incalculable errands compete for attention or i just ask too many questions about the blue state of Illinois.
but after the summer comes the breeze of autumn. i wouldn’t be walking and talking the next few days. i have to delve deeper into the core and keep up with the readings. it’s disheartening to be an unhurried reader. not keeping up with the enlightened tide makes us linger in the nerve centers for novices. and when we come around to the essence of the venture, we’re left on our own, little support and some very nasty critics.
for the first time in like a hundred years i didn’t watch a single match at wimbledon during its fortnight. although already the best-ever, i don’t actually dig the Swiss guy. even the resilient spaniard withered in the depth of his talent. a day before nadal’s semis, we were given a lift in the federer carriage. the lady was unmistakably into mr. bandana nose and she wouldn’t give any one a chance in rooting for any one other than her glory-hunting choice. not even her sweet-talking hubby. she may not decipher the peculiarities between the baseliners and the serve and volleyers but she wouldn’t give her residual passengers one tiny moment to air their views. or my views as the object of my affection is not that enraptured with tennis. next time i’ll ask her about golf. or darts, maybe snooker, who knows, she could be that savvy.
but it’s nice nice to hear the bryan twins winning. every time i watch them whether in doubles or mixed-doubles, i couldn’t tell mike from bob. who is the left-hander? who is taller? i should have at least recorded that match but my sked was unforgiving. i would just sleep through it.
summer has only a few days left, i try to peer through the cricket and grasp the rudiments of the stumps and bails. there’s also baseball. all anguish, bitterness, desolation, despair, remorse as the cubs’ season is clouded in dysphoria. hopefully, greg maddux wouldn’t be traded to the brewers.
there are times when some folks find it easy to dish out comments without thinking. i take into account when certain opinion-laden souls say i’m getting a lot chunkier the last few months. it’s probably because of my carbo-loaded diet or the fact that i sleep a lot. i became stagnant in march due to something tragic and producing teardrops slowed down my metabolism. but the days of my fast metabolic process are way over and it’s time to borrow some ideas from the janet jackson book of slimming. 
it’s actually not politically-correct to tell others they’ve gained weight. or worse yet, they’re fat. but when it comes to me there is suddenly an exception. i’m built with a huge sensitivity chip, not very good in absorbing criticisms. thus my fear of people. because people judge. in the words of stanford blanche, "everybody judge. some people do arts and crafts, we judge."
at the moment it’s a struggle with the clothes. all my trousers pre-2006 no longer fit. i cannot work out in the gym as the social implications seem so frightening. and i love my share of spaghetti a week so switching to salads would be like suicide. a herbivore, i’m not, definitely. there’s the matter of my joint pains. it’s severe pain every hour of the day on every joint if i haven’t taken my tablets. my movement becomes completely static. i’ve managed the pain over the years; prolonged warm baths, painkillers and now somebody to help me stand in the morning. 
gaining weight is mainly a downside to getting older. however the frequent transgressors have probably not heard of emily post. so i can appreciate the insouciance. i could ask and i’m sure they’ll answer, "sino iyon?" or i’m just miscalculating their range. but why couldn’t they just say "hello," rather than their immortal favorite, "alam mo, tumaba ka?"
my flat is still in chaos. debris and litters of disappointments still hover all over my living room. that’s my world cup reality. there are various angles to the england flop — sven’s tactics, their spasmodic tics while taking penalty shootouts, etc. as i devour the points of views of the columnists and fans, i could pick out the haters and the simply patriotic. and contrary to the beliefs of people who live outside the uk, english fans are not hooligans. and wayne rooney shouldn’t be described as one.
but since germany is going to meet italy in the semis tomorrow. this post is actually about my glory-hunting days. despite the rise and rise of fernando alonzo, i’m still huge on schumacher. michael that is. not ralph. although ralph is the good-looking one. even when mika hakkinen was unstoppable in his mclaren in 1998-99, i was into the schumacher special. then last year, a german was in the room next to mine. she was awful. she was like a witch with no social skills who only talks with the austrian next to her four-cornered walls. i can sense white supremacy in action. schumacher is definitely my last german.
with that i hope italy wins. despite the huge cloud looming over the corruption in italy’s professional football leagues. plus valentino rossi rocks! brazil is out. the hateful french are in. vava-voom scored the goal. and the gooners are grinning.
