I'm back.

Back on this motherfucker!

Watermelon seeds!

Man, whoever decided to eat dry salted watermelon seeds was a genius!

Swedish mystery writers

I've realized why I like Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson so much. I have some sort of affinity with their culture and I like everything Swedish. The picture above is one of the things I like. I wonder if I can get one at IKEA.

Hiatus

As everybody must have noticed, I'm taking a vacation from my writing activities. I will be back soon.

The Sounders suck!

Having lived in Brazil for most of my life, I know soccer (by the way, fuck soccer, I know football) Living in Seattle now, I'm actually trying to get excited about the Sounders, but man, they make it hard.

Yesterday I was watching the game against FC Dallas and I had to turn the TV off 10 minutes into the second half. It was an impossibly poor performance by both teams, in a level only displayed by amateur football in Brazil. The ball was mostly in the air, and the players were struggling to gain control of it all the time. Nobody knew how to open up space, and any player in control of the ball would promptly turn it over to the other team. Absolutely ridiculous!

This should not be called Major League Soccer. It should be called Double A Football.

Rest in peace, Rick

My friend's dad passed away yesterday. The man survived colon cancer and walked across America. At the end of his journey, the cancer came back. He had surgery to partially remove it and was contemplating life after colostomy.

After a month battling generalized post-surgery infection, he finally passed away yesterday at 8:50 PST. Rest in peace, Rick. I never met you but, knowing your son, you must have been a hell of a man.

Rick's adventures and the final battle can be followed here.

Japan champion of the 2009 World Baseball Classic!

I'm Korean and was yelling hysterically at the TV and, in the bottom of the 9th inning, I even thought we might have a chance, but Japan deserved every bit of it. 15 hits against 5, we were overmatched gloriously by their players. That the score was only 5 to 3 is evidence of the lack of luck by the Japanese hitters.

And to compensate for the huge difference in talent, we pitched poorly, made wrong decisions at the wrong moments and were too proud to walk a great hitter like Ichiro with 2 in scoring position, 1st base open and 2 men out.

It was a difficult game for us Koreans to watch. It felt like Japan had baserunners in every inning. It was pressure and more pressure on the defense and the pitcher. Nevertheless, we actually had a chance to win the game in the bottom of the 9th inning. But, had we won, it would have been a huge injustice to baseball. Japan deserved to win. They played better tonight and they have a stronger and bigger pool of talent to choose from.

But the 2009 WBC was interesting for these two teams. They played a total of 5 games against each other (Japan had 3 wins against 2 from Korea) and they only lost to each other. Every other game they played was kind of a blowout.

I guess it does say something about the evolution of the sport in those countries. Congrats to both and mainly to Japan, those motherfuckers.