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Today I am furloughed from work, so I thought it would be a good chance to watch the USA World Cup game against Algeria. I turned on the match just after the US had a goal called back because a player was offsides, although a replay showed he was just barely onsides. I watched the rest of the scoreless first half with the USA playing better than Algeria in general. At one point, in referencing the bad call, one of the announcers mentioned the 1982 game between Austria and Germany that prevented Algeria from advancing from the pool play portion to the bracket play. Eventually Dish Network’s signal was lost somehow and I missed the rest of the game, but the USA won 1-0 with a late goal and advances to the second round. England won by the same score with the same record, but USA won the pool because they tied one of their games 2-2 and England tied one of their games 0-0.

Anyway, I looked up the 1982 game on Wikipedia. The deal was that Algeria had already played their match so both teams knew that Germany (West Germany at the time) would advance if they could win the game, but Austria was already a lock so they had nothing to lose or gain. Germany scored early to go up by 1-0 and for the rest of the game, basically nothing happened. Although the teams deny they were colluding against Algeria, neither played with any sort of aggressiveness and one announcer refused to call the game anymore while another told viewers they should turn off their TVs.

After that game, they started scheduling the last of the pool games for the four teams in a group at the same time so they couldn’t safely collude.

This week Publix had half gallons of their premium ice creams 2 for $5. It’s about as good a price as they offer it and they still use real half gallons, unlike Breyers and others who shortchange you by keeping 25% of your ice cream.

A few months ago I got a really intense chocolate ice cream called Chocolate Trinity which is dark chocolate ice cream with a magic shell type of crunchy swirl and chocolate bits. This past week I bought one they call Cappuccino Fudge Blitz that is really good. It is a coffee flavored ice cream with white chocolate cream nuggets, mocha espresso brownies (like cookie dough), and chocolate marble. There are grainy things in there that turn out to be real coffee grounds. This is about my favorite ice cream there is right now. Well, until I have something else in my freezer.

This morning a friend of mine e-mailed me, knowing I had been keeping up with Lost and asked me to explain how it ended. He had only watched Seasons 1 and 2. So here’s what I wrote:

I’ll see if I can sum it up. At the end of last season they nuked the magnetic source and seem to have created an alternate reality where the plane doesn’t crash and everybody ends up getting reunited in that alternate universe. When they are together they will suddenly remember they were on the island together. So Sawyer ends up with Juliette, Hurley with the girl that got shot, Sayid with the blonde chick that got shot, and Jack with Kate.

The island was being run by two immortal type guys and has a cork in the bottom that if you pull it out, all of the good things in the universe will drain out. So Jacob (good) is one of the guys and the smoke monster is the other guy (evil) but he can take a human form and ended up taking the form of Locke who had died (he was also all of the other dead people that showed up on the island). Jacob gets killed by Ben and then Jack takes Jacob’s place and kills Smokey Locke [whoops, Kate actualy kills Locke], but not before Desmond pulls the plug (not realizing the consequences) and the island starts to sink. So Jack goes in and puts the stopper back in place and saves the universe.

Continue reading “Lost Series Finale”

I went to the Georgia Aquarium the first month it was open in 2005, then again on Mom’s Christmas outing that December. But I had never been back. One thing I had been wondering about was the tropical reef which they had said back then would get better every year as the corals actually grew and created a real reef. Also the whale sharks should be getting bigger except that the two biggest ones died.

At work we have been taking one furlough day without pay each month because of the budget shortage and it always seemed like it would be good to go to the aquarium on a furlough day. During the week it should be less crowded, plus state employees get a 10% discount. So I figured I would go yesterday, before most of the schools let out, but maybe too late in the year for a field trip. I found out about a great deal for Friday nights where you can get a ticket for $15 ($16.25 after a fee) instead of $26, but the ticket time is restricted to Friday from 5 to 8 PM (the aquarium stays open until 10PM for jazz nights). I’m not a fan of jazz, but nothing is more relaxing than saving money, so I bought a 5 PM ticket.

Continue reading “Back to the Aquarium”

When I’m out walking the dogs, I try to always go around people instead of passing them on the sidewalk because I never know if the dogs will nip, growl, or lick someone. I especially try to give black people a wide berth because they seem to worry more about the dogs than most people (I don’t think this is racist, this is just kind of how it works, primarily with black people who you can tell aren’t usually in the neighborhood). So anyway, I am going around a black guy this morning and after we get by without incident (as usual, my dogs aren’t racist, they just don’t like postmen and garbagemen), the guy asks me what kind of dogs I have. I say they are black labs. He said Really? I didn’t think they got that big. I pointed to Katie who is a little bigger than Austin and I said yeah I’ve seen bigger and a lot of times broader dogs (Katie is pretty lanky) and we moved on (neither of us had stopped, we were just passing).

This seemed to be part of trend or maybe just a coincidence because this past weekend I was outside when the postman came to deliver mail and had a chance to talk to him while the dogs were barking at him from inside. I said something like Sorry about the dogs. And he said it was no problem, but those sure were BIG dogs. He said he told people at work about how big the dogs are at my house, their heads halfway up in my windows. I said I don’t think they’re really that big, but they do have a stool near the window that lets them get a better view out the window. He laughed and seemed relieved that they didn’t tower 4 feet off the ground. I’d never thought about the stool making the dogs seem bigger but it also might help explain why last week my phone books were left not on the doorstep but about 10 feet out into my yard. That must have been about when Katie or Austin scraped on the inside of the door.