I have a hard time with internet and the whole anonymity issue. I quite understand it when someone in a difficult position tries to reveal information on the internet but remains anonymous, like this whole Wonkette blog and political blogs and whatever else. I also understand it to a degree in forums.
The problem I have is when it comes to character assasination and when people simply go on to discredit a person, with their anonymity. Somehow, through being anonymous, you can't address and target them, but they are just anonymous figures, hiding behind their name and in my opinion pretty low figures. If you call out a person by name and claim that he did this and that or accuse him of something, at least be man enough to tell us who you are, because you obviously also know who that person is. There have been a lot of cases on this issue I came across and although it has always somehow been an issue to me, I never really cared, but now I do.
On another issue, Dejagah scored again for Wolfsburg. I still don't believe that he will ever play more than 15 national team games for Germany, but I feel okay about him choosing Germany and although I think he is a real stupid guy, I felt it was absolutely ridiculous how the German public treated his case. Everybody sort of knows, that you get into trouble when you are Iranian and travel to Israel. Now a lot of Iranians do it with a different passport, but when you play an international game there, how can you remain anonymous?
Something else that strikes me and makes me go "hmmm" on Iranian football is how Dejagah was treated by Iran, Iranian players and IFF. Some friends of mine got to know him when he was a kid and played for Hertha Berlin on youth level. They said that his eyes glowed when they asked him about playing for Iran. He said that he only wanted to play for Iran and no other country. That was when he was about 15 or something. However, Iran never invited him to anything.
Worse still, Daei, who back then also played for Hertha, said something like "We have enough of these talents in Iran. We don't need them!". Nevermind that I really hate Daei for a lot of things, but the guy is seriously saying that a guy who is considered one of the biggest talents in Germany, a nation of 3 world cups, 80 Million people, and 100 world class players, would be nothing special in Iran of....nevermind?!?
This is what's wrong with Iranian football and I don't see it getting better. When Messi joined Argentina's national team, people like Zanetti, Milito, Ayala, Sorin, etc. always had an eye on him. At Barcelona, Sylvinho, Deco and Edmilson treated him like their young nephew, Xavi and Puyol did the same for Iniesta and Eto'o, Messi and Henry do it for Bojan Krkic. They protect the guy, help him grow into the team, respect him and take him serious, because he has to learn it one day too.
And then we have Daei, Karimi and the rest....
Monday, October 22, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Fir Sorman Noster
We have a winner. Sir Norman Foster is set to remodel Camp Nou and he won it against some prestigous competitors, although non of them has really his name and reputation and I guess the New Wembley really did his thing for him.
I have to see the model first to really judge, but I personally am not the greatest fan of him, or let's say, I see it as a huge name thing of prestige. First of all, it will cost a lot, second it will not be some avantgarde thing, third you know when two big names collide, it hardly ever results in something great.
But eitherway, I'm interested to see the result, which I hopefully should this weekend in Barcelona.
I have to see the model first to really judge, but I personally am not the greatest fan of him, or let's say, I see it as a huge name thing of prestige. First of all, it will cost a lot, second it will not be some avantgarde thing, third you know when two big names collide, it hardly ever results in something great.
But eitherway, I'm interested to see the result, which I hopefully should this weekend in Barcelona.
Friday, September 7, 2007
I can't stand the rain
It's raining now for around 2-3 days in a row. Incredible. I haven't seen anything like that before. It hasn't really stopped to rain and it keeps on and on. The weather is really flipping.
Too bad there's national team week right now, otherwise I would have probably booked my flight earlier, as in Barcelona and Madrid, there are 27 degrees and sunshine and here we got 9 degrees and rain....and rain and rain..
The new Keith Murray album is great btw.
Too bad there's national team week right now, otherwise I would have probably booked my flight earlier, as in Barcelona and Madrid, there are 27 degrees and sunshine and here we got 9 degrees and rain....and rain and rain..
The new Keith Murray album is great btw.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Time will tell
I have more time now, also to update this thing here. My work contract is over, so I'm a full student again. I will go to Barcelona in end of September for the Sevilla game and the 50 year Camp Nou anniversary. However, I'm quite saddened, as I won't see Eto'o. His injury comes at a very very bad time, as in one way or other I'm pretty sure, that Rijkaard wanted to try the front 3 of Henry-Eto'o-Messi, because Henry-Eto'o is just perfect and Messi is just Messi. However, Eto'o is now out of football for around 3 months and once he comes back, he will probably have to play African Cup of Nations. I personally strongly believe that this season will be Ronaldinho's last at the club. I don't see him play for another year, so it would have been even more important for a healthy Eto'o to lead the way. Specially, as so far his partnership with Henry had looked pretty fine and now he will probably miss out again of El Clasico.
Regarding Ronaldinho, the friends from Futbolitis have written an excellent analysis on him, which unfortunatley the most Ronaldinho posterboys won't understand and they will come up with his 21 goals of last season. However, Ronaldinho as a football player right now to me is finished and I wouldn't mind uncle Silvio's suitcase of money. He might prove me wrong, you might come back at me, but as it is right now, Ronaldinho is just useless and my last hope for a semi-decent season is Henry, whom I really respect both as a player and professional.
With regards to the team, I had a look at our team again and I would say that we would need 1 more right or leftback and a winger would have been a good idea too. Dos Santos might fill the role, but I'm not so sure.
Eitherway, the game against Athletic should be interesting.
Anims Samu!
Regarding Ronaldinho, the friends from Futbolitis have written an excellent analysis on him, which unfortunatley the most Ronaldinho posterboys won't understand and they will come up with his 21 goals of last season. However, Ronaldinho as a football player right now to me is finished and I wouldn't mind uncle Silvio's suitcase of money. He might prove me wrong, you might come back at me, but as it is right now, Ronaldinho is just useless and my last hope for a semi-decent season is Henry, whom I really respect both as a player and professional.
With regards to the team, I had a look at our team again and I would say that we would need 1 more right or leftback and a winger would have been a good idea too. Dos Santos might fill the role, but I'm not so sure.
Eitherway, the game against Athletic should be interesting.
Anims Samu!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Would they ever dress like that?
What the hell are they thinking?? White pants, black shirt...all of them?
Could anyone imagine Franklin, Eusebio and Johan dress like that??
Btw. 5-3 Sevilla, Forca Juande!!!!
If I should get married one day...
Every time I go to a wedding ceremony, I think about...should that day come..how should it be?
Generally, I believe that you either get married right, with a big party and you have everyone in you know and like, or you don't mind at all and don't get married. Getting married with just 10 people around you...somehow, it's not fun. So if you get married, get married right.
I would ban everyone from holding a speech, specially if they would come up with a poem by Molana, Hafez, Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Verlaine, whatever. Honestly, either make it personal and say your own words and feelings or nevermind at all.
Frankly speaking, I wouldn't like anyone to talk.
The wedding ceremony should be short. The party however, should be even longer and again, no TALKING. I will just let the music play and make sure everyone has something to eat. I want to celebrate, not bore people.
And, if I get married, I either want DJ Jazzy Jeff, the greatest DJ on earth, or my man Cay Taylan, the next-best choice.
Generally, I believe that you either get married right, with a big party and you have everyone in you know and like, or you don't mind at all and don't get married. Getting married with just 10 people around you...somehow, it's not fun. So if you get married, get married right.
I would ban everyone from holding a speech, specially if they would come up with a poem by Molana, Hafez, Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Verlaine, whatever. Honestly, either make it personal and say your own words and feelings or nevermind at all.
Frankly speaking, I wouldn't like anyone to talk.
The wedding ceremony should be short. The party however, should be even longer and again, no TALKING. I will just let the music play and make sure everyone has something to eat. I want to celebrate, not bore people.
And, if I get married, I either want DJ Jazzy Jeff, the greatest DJ on earth, or my man Cay Taylan, the next-best choice.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Hommage to Jeremy Clarkson
I have never been a person who bought car magazines or really read through car reviews. Generally here in the German speaking world, both of them are pretty dull and boring and most reporters try to get past it like as if it's writing a user's manual. It's a real shame to read the reviews and articles, it's an even bigger shame that those people call themselves journalists.
That's why Jeremy Clarkson is such a breathe of fresh air. At work, I've gone through most of his reviews by now and they are simply..amazing. He not only gives his articles soul, but also the cars. He doesn't take the political incorrectness too far, his articles are full of wit and he is in full control of both language and knowledge on his field.
Take this as an example from his review on the Lexus GS:
Cars sit in the Japanese psyche along with spoons and mashed potato. They don’t come naturally. Oh sure, they can copy a Mercedes and use it to earn vast lumps of foreign currency, but how do you copy flair and panache and feel? The simple answer is: you can’t, so you end up with a completely soulless driving experience.
It’s a bit like those vegetarians who insist on eating hamburgers that are designed to look, feel and taste like the real thing. But they’re just not.
Technically, this new Lexus is probably better than a Mercedes, in the same way that a golden egg made by laser is going to be technically better than one of Karl Fabergé’s originals. But which one would you rather have?
About the Jetta:
t my old school, detention usually involved being asked to write a 1,000-word essay about the inside of a ping pong ball. So I’m well qualified to write about the new Volkswagen Jetta. Because I spent every Saturday afternoon for five years writing about the precise chemical breakdown of air, it’s a breeze to fill these pages with prose about what is unquestionably the most boring car in the whole of human history.
His review on the M3 CS starts with a brilliant rant about car clubs:
Many thousands of years ago, I was a member of the Ford Cortina 1600E Owners Club (South Yorkshire branch). We’d meet once a month, in a car park, and would mooch about in the rain looking at one another’s cars. Looking back on the experience, I really can’t see why this should have had any appeal at all. I mean, yes, my car had a picture of Debbie Harry in the centre of the steering wheel, but other than that it was pretty much the same as everyone else’s car.
Perhaps we thought that because we all had the same type of car we had a common bond, a platform on which lasting friendships could be built. But they were all miners. And when they lost their jobs a few years later they had to burn their cars to stay warm. So the bond was gone.
Today I loathe, with a furious passion, all car clubs. The notion that you’re going to get on with someone because he also has a Mini is preposterous. Clubs are for people who can’t get friends in the conventional way. They’re for bores and murderers.
The Ferrari Owners’ Club is particularly depressing because they all have carpet warehouses in Dewsbury and creaking £10,000 rust buckets from the Seventies and Eighties.
Most turn up at events in Ferrari hats, Ferrari shirts, Ferrari racing booties and Ferrari aftershave and you can’t help thinking: “For heaven’s sake, man. You’ve spent more on your apparel then you have on your damn Mondial.”
Anyone with the wherewithal to buy a proper, important Ferrari from the past 60 years is going to have better things to do with his time than drive to some windswept motor racing circuit no one has ever heard of and spend the day watching a bunch of Dewsburyites going off the road backwards in their botched and bodged 308s.
Mind you, I’d rather swap saliva with someone from the Ferrari Owners’ Club than go within 50,000 miles of someone who turns up to Aston Martin events. Because there are no cheap Astons in the classifieds — well, none that will actually get you to an owners’ club meeting, or even to the end of your road — the members are a lot more well-to-do than their oppos with Ferraris. There are few regional accents, and lots of green ink.
All of them are stuck in the 1950s when for a few glorious years Aston Martin did manage to win a couple of not-very-important racing events. And all of them, you know, were attracted to the brand not because Aston made the best cars — it really, really didn’t. But because they were made by British people and not “darkies”.
The worst thing about an Aston Martin Owners Club member, however, is not his politics, or his still burning flame of hatred for Harold Wilson. It isn’t even his shoes, or his trousers. No. It’s the way he refers to all previous Astons by their chassis numbers. And to the people who raced them by their nicknames.
“Do you remember when Pinky and Lofty drove xvr/ii-2? Course that was before bloody Wilson.” Sometimes, when they talk to me. I find myself wondering what they’d look like without a spine.
You can read the reviews here and frankly, there's nothing better to read during 5 minute breaks than these small pieces of brilliance.
That's why Jeremy Clarkson is such a breathe of fresh air. At work, I've gone through most of his reviews by now and they are simply..amazing. He not only gives his articles soul, but also the cars. He doesn't take the political incorrectness too far, his articles are full of wit and he is in full control of both language and knowledge on his field.
Take this as an example from his review on the Lexus GS:
Cars sit in the Japanese psyche along with spoons and mashed potato. They don’t come naturally. Oh sure, they can copy a Mercedes and use it to earn vast lumps of foreign currency, but how do you copy flair and panache and feel? The simple answer is: you can’t, so you end up with a completely soulless driving experience.
It’s a bit like those vegetarians who insist on eating hamburgers that are designed to look, feel and taste like the real thing. But they’re just not.
Technically, this new Lexus is probably better than a Mercedes, in the same way that a golden egg made by laser is going to be technically better than one of Karl Fabergé’s originals. But which one would you rather have?
About the Jetta:
t my old school, detention usually involved being asked to write a 1,000-word essay about the inside of a ping pong ball. So I’m well qualified to write about the new Volkswagen Jetta. Because I spent every Saturday afternoon for five years writing about the precise chemical breakdown of air, it’s a breeze to fill these pages with prose about what is unquestionably the most boring car in the whole of human history.
His review on the M3 CS starts with a brilliant rant about car clubs:
Many thousands of years ago, I was a member of the Ford Cortina 1600E Owners Club (South Yorkshire branch). We’d meet once a month, in a car park, and would mooch about in the rain looking at one another’s cars. Looking back on the experience, I really can’t see why this should have had any appeal at all. I mean, yes, my car had a picture of Debbie Harry in the centre of the steering wheel, but other than that it was pretty much the same as everyone else’s car.
Perhaps we thought that because we all had the same type of car we had a common bond, a platform on which lasting friendships could be built. But they were all miners. And when they lost their jobs a few years later they had to burn their cars to stay warm. So the bond was gone.
Today I loathe, with a furious passion, all car clubs. The notion that you’re going to get on with someone because he also has a Mini is preposterous. Clubs are for people who can’t get friends in the conventional way. They’re for bores and murderers.
The Ferrari Owners’ Club is particularly depressing because they all have carpet warehouses in Dewsbury and creaking £10,000 rust buckets from the Seventies and Eighties.
Most turn up at events in Ferrari hats, Ferrari shirts, Ferrari racing booties and Ferrari aftershave and you can’t help thinking: “For heaven’s sake, man. You’ve spent more on your apparel then you have on your damn Mondial.”
Anyone with the wherewithal to buy a proper, important Ferrari from the past 60 years is going to have better things to do with his time than drive to some windswept motor racing circuit no one has ever heard of and spend the day watching a bunch of Dewsburyites going off the road backwards in their botched and bodged 308s.
Mind you, I’d rather swap saliva with someone from the Ferrari Owners’ Club than go within 50,000 miles of someone who turns up to Aston Martin events. Because there are no cheap Astons in the classifieds — well, none that will actually get you to an owners’ club meeting, or even to the end of your road — the members are a lot more well-to-do than their oppos with Ferraris. There are few regional accents, and lots of green ink.
All of them are stuck in the 1950s when for a few glorious years Aston Martin did manage to win a couple of not-very-important racing events. And all of them, you know, were attracted to the brand not because Aston made the best cars — it really, really didn’t. But because they were made by British people and not “darkies”.
The worst thing about an Aston Martin Owners Club member, however, is not his politics, or his still burning flame of hatred for Harold Wilson. It isn’t even his shoes, or his trousers. No. It’s the way he refers to all previous Astons by their chassis numbers. And to the people who raced them by their nicknames.
“Do you remember when Pinky and Lofty drove xvr/ii-2? Course that was before bloody Wilson.” Sometimes, when they talk to me. I find myself wondering what they’d look like without a spine.
You can read the reviews here and frankly, there's nothing better to read during 5 minute breaks than these small pieces of brilliance.
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