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cathat12
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Country: Canada
Interests: playing Volleyball and basketball and anything competitive, scrabble, magic card tricks, fantasy sports leagues, reading, cooking
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Member Since:
11/24/2003
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| It looks like pirates have been making a comeback in the news lately. I'm talking about real-life, modern pirates. They have been looting cruise ships and cargo ships that sail around unchartered territoritories, I think many of them off the coast of Africa. Last week, some pirates attacked a cruise liner that was carrying over 1000 people. Fortunately for the cruise ship, they outran the pirates. How embarrassing is that for a pirate to be out maneuvered by a cruise ship?
I know I'm not the only one who's picturing these big wooden ships with cannons and skull cross bones on their sails. I can just imagine some peg-legged guy with one eye and a parrot trying to take over a massiage cruise ship with a sword. "Avast ye land lubber!"
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| So a few days ago my friend tells me he has an extra ticket to watch USA vs Spain in men's basketball. Woo hoo! We ended up watching China vs Germany and then USA vs Spain. Two great matchups. China had to win in order to advance to the playoffs, while Spain was the 2007 world champions, and well USA is USA and is kicking everyone's butts. The face value on the ticket was less than 9 US dollars, but tickets were being scalped for as much as 700-800 dollars. Ridiculous. We had good seats, sitting in the second row in the balcony. Every time I got up to get a drink or take a break, some one would come and take my seat and I'd have to kick them out on the way back. People were sitting on the steps and aisles to watch the China game. Atmosphere was electric. Felt like an NBA game 7. China prevailed sending the crowd into a frenzy, almost like it was a gold medal match. In every other event I've gone to, there are these "professional spectators" which take turns cheering for both teams. But there was almost no one cheering for Germany here, except for a few Germans in the crowd.
There were a good number of American flags that popped up during the USA/Spain match. Apparently, Kobe Bryant is the most popular basketball player in China, even more than Yao Ming, at least according to number of jerseys bought. The USA match wasn't close at all. But I realized that even though there isn't really a USA cheering song (besides the "U.S.A! U.S.A!" chant), what American fans are best at is heckling. There were some great American hecklers sitting behind us and they even started going after some of the Spanish fans who tried to heckle back, but not very well. Even all the Chinese fans were getting a chuckle out of it. I also realized that all Spanish people have what looks like a 5 o'clock shadow. I remember watching Pau Gasol during the NBA finals and being reminded of Shaggy from Scooby Doo. I thought it was a playoff look. But apparently, the entire Spanish team does the Shaggy too, and even the fans on the Jumbo tron. Gillette could make a fortune in Spain.
I was also surprised that fans didn't boo Spain after that picture of the team doing the slanty eyed thing. Seemed like it blew over pretty fast in the media. I really think there is a double standard. If USA team did that, they would've been crucified and given atomic wedgies. I don't understand how people could pose for a picture like that and not feel a bit uncomfortable. They might as well have been holding math books and eating fortune cookies.
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| Handball really is the Olympics most underrated sport. Up until last week, I had no idea what handball was, other than the fact that the tickets were only $10 and still available online. I'm a sucker for anything cheap. I saw Norway vs Kazakhstan and Hungary vs Germany.
Handball is like a combination of indoor soccer, rugby, and dodgeball. The ball is the size of a cantalope. You have to dribble the ball and try to throw it into the opponent's goal. There's what looks like a 3 point line that you have to shoot outside of. And then randomly, there are people tackling each other. I couldn't figure out which tackles were allowed and which weren't. We ended up sitting in the Norway section where everyone was draped with Norway flags and ringing cowbells. Are cows popular in Norway? I asked some of the Norwegians who said that handball is one of the most popular sports in Norway. The second match was even more entertaining as we were surrounded by both Hungarian and German fans who started taunting each other. Hungarian fans had some really great chants. Not just chants, but whole body motions that go along with it.
Had another bad experience with the volunteers. They tend to be rude to you if you're Asian looking, but once you start speaking English, all the polite words start coming out.
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| Indoor men's volleyball was great. I saw US vs Italy in the first match and Brazil vs Serbia second match. Brazil beat Italy for the gold in '04 and US is currently a top 3 team, so I knew I'd see some good competition. Also having played high school volleyball, it's probably the sport that I'd most consider myself an "expert" in. It's always fun being the annoying know-it-all fan who explains every nuance of the game to their friends, or in my case, wife. I brought my US flag with me and we ended up sitting next to this European couple who was cheering for Italy (they turned out to be Germans). I waved my flag right in their face just for kicks, but they were good sports. US lost the first set, but won the next three in pretty close sets.
Brazil and Serbia started out pretty close as Serbia upset Brazil in the first set, but Brazil steamrolled them in the next three sets to win easily. There was a large Brazilian fanbase turnout, all dressed up with faces painted. It kind of gave me a feel for what soccer matches must feel like. They really get into the game with their chants and songs and were marching around the aisles with huge flags. US is kind of lame in that regard in that all we can do is chant "USA! USA!" Someone really needs to think of some US fight songs, kind of like high school and college sports. The lyrics should probably involve our three biggest claims to fame: being the richest country in the world, shooting off guns, and Michael Phelps.
The one bad thing about the event was the concession stands, and really this goes for every concession stand I've been to so far during the games. The food is terrible. All they have is processed foods. Twice I've made the mistake of going to an event without eating first and I have to settle for eating chips, oreos, and some weird sweet cakes. I really wanted some polish sausages with sourkraut and pickles and onions. Even some fries would've been nice. Food is definitely not an area to skimp on.
All in all, volleyball was a blast. Next stop... handball!
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| Went to beach volleyball on Saturday and went to women's basketball today.
Beach volleyball was a lot of fun. It was crazy hot outside, but luckily the sun wasn't shining thanks to hazy skies. Getting to the event was an adventure itself. We walked around the subway station looking for the shuttle bus. There are volunteers everywhere, but they were either pointing us in the wrong direction, or had no idea where the shuttle buses were. One of the volunteers says to me "There weren't any shuttle buses yesterday, so I don't know about today." I'm thinking, "Of course there was no buses yesterday! Today is the first day of the Olympics!!" Eventually we chased down the shuttle bus by ourselves, which drove by as we were talking to the volunteers.
We saw two matches, one men's, one women's. Swiss beach volleyball is lacking. They were in both matches and got whipped twice. We saw the Chinese women's team who looked pretty good. US vs China should be a good match-up.
Women's basketball was... women's basketball. We saw Spain vs New Zealand and Mali vs Czech. The funnest thing about the matches was that Czech outscored Mali by like 22-2 to start the game. And those two points were free throws. I think Mali may have gone the whole first quarter without a fieldgoal. It was amazing. The crowd went wild when Mali finally hit a shot. Oh, and we brought baby with us too. I dug out a plastic bag from a pile of recyclable trash so that we had something to store her dirty cloth diapers. That was right up there in terms of excitement.
Next up is indoor volleyball...
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