I think we've hit the summer doldrums around here. We've settled into our routine. World Cup games are taking a hiatus for a few days. We've got about a month left in the country. We don't have any big trips planned for the next little while.
It's the lack of World Cup games that has really thrown me for a loop. We've been overseas for the last three World Cups (in Russia, Jordan, and now Egypt) and it's great as far as societal awareness goes - pretty much everyone is following the games to some degree, so you can always count on a lively crowd if you go to watch the games in public. However, maybe just once it would be nice to be in the US for the World Cup because there, at least you get to watch all the games for free (on ESPN.com if nowhere else) (and yes, it's blocked outside of the US. I tried. Several times).
There are fancy satellites here that broadcast the games to your home television, but you have to have a certain one and even then you have to pay extra for the World Cup package. That wasn't going to work for us, so Jeremy and I thought we would be stuck taking turns going to cafes to watch the games and possibly giving up a few years of our lives to the lung cancer we would certainly contract as a result.
Jeremy took the first turn going to a cafe to watch the game and an employee there told him he could buy an antenna for two bucks and tap into the Egyptian terrestrial channel, which, out of the kindness of its heart, bought the rights to a few dozen games and was showing them for free to the masses.
He came home at halftime with the bunny ears, and it worked! Sure, the picture quality was terrible to the extent that at times each player had one or two duplicate shadows chasing after it, but we could watch the games at home, together, without choking down second-hand smoke for two hours (hubbly bubbly smoke is INTENSE).
Egyptian TV doesn't show every game, but you can pretty much count on watching whichever one is on at 9.30pm (Egyptian time). Last night, when there was no game on for the first time in weeks, I was suddenly aware of a gaping void in my life.
So we flipped over to our satellite and found a channel showing the old Time Machine movie from 1960. It was so weird and so mesmerizing that we watched it for a good hour before thinking of turning it off. Needless to say, I'm excited for World Cup games to start up again.
In the meantime, discuss:
1. England's non-goal against Germany. UNBELIEVABLE. If FIFA does not take action and institute some kind of video review or at least a simple, immediate appeals process, I don't know. The game could become irrelevant. It's all well and good to have the game be just as the ref calls it, real-time, but when they start not noticing goals that are actually scored, something's got to change. And for those of you claiming that, well, Germany won 4-1 so it's not like that goal mattered anyway, I beg to differ. That goal going uncounted changed the whole feel of the match. Though I admit that 4-1 is about as good of an outcome as you could hope for in that case. And I do think Germany was the superior team on the field, but still, the injustice of it all!
2. Argentina's entire team sporting 1970s hairdos. Their uniforms are a bit 70s-ish, too. Every time I see a group of them together I feel like I'm seeing pictures of that rugby team that got stranded in the Andes in 1972.
3. Japan's heartbreaking loss to Paraguay. On the one hand, I think it's really exciting when a game comes down to penalty kicks. On the other hand, it doesn't seem fair that the game can be decided that way. I was really cheering for Japan to pull through, but even though they didn't, I at least wish that FIFA would let them complete the penalty kicks so their "score" could have possibly been a more respectable 5:4 instead of the official 5:3.
Are you watching the World Cup?
It's the lack of World Cup games that has really thrown me for a loop. We've been overseas for the last three World Cups (in Russia, Jordan, and now Egypt) and it's great as far as societal awareness goes - pretty much everyone is following the games to some degree, so you can always count on a lively crowd if you go to watch the games in public. However, maybe just once it would be nice to be in the US for the World Cup because there, at least you get to watch all the games for free (on ESPN.com if nowhere else) (and yes, it's blocked outside of the US. I tried. Several times).
There are fancy satellites here that broadcast the games to your home television, but you have to have a certain one and even then you have to pay extra for the World Cup package. That wasn't going to work for us, so Jeremy and I thought we would be stuck taking turns going to cafes to watch the games and possibly giving up a few years of our lives to the lung cancer we would certainly contract as a result.
Jeremy took the first turn going to a cafe to watch the game and an employee there told him he could buy an antenna for two bucks and tap into the Egyptian terrestrial channel, which, out of the kindness of its heart, bought the rights to a few dozen games and was showing them for free to the masses.
He came home at halftime with the bunny ears, and it worked! Sure, the picture quality was terrible to the extent that at times each player had one or two duplicate shadows chasing after it, but we could watch the games at home, together, without choking down second-hand smoke for two hours (hubbly bubbly smoke is INTENSE).
Egyptian TV doesn't show every game, but you can pretty much count on watching whichever one is on at 9.30pm (Egyptian time). Last night, when there was no game on for the first time in weeks, I was suddenly aware of a gaping void in my life.
So we flipped over to our satellite and found a channel showing the old Time Machine movie from 1960. It was so weird and so mesmerizing that we watched it for a good hour before thinking of turning it off. Needless to say, I'm excited for World Cup games to start up again.
In the meantime, discuss:
1. England's non-goal against Germany. UNBELIEVABLE. If FIFA does not take action and institute some kind of video review or at least a simple, immediate appeals process, I don't know. The game could become irrelevant. It's all well and good to have the game be just as the ref calls it, real-time, but when they start not noticing goals that are actually scored, something's got to change. And for those of you claiming that, well, Germany won 4-1 so it's not like that goal mattered anyway, I beg to differ. That goal going uncounted changed the whole feel of the match. Though I admit that 4-1 is about as good of an outcome as you could hope for in that case. And I do think Germany was the superior team on the field, but still, the injustice of it all!
3. Japan's heartbreaking loss to Paraguay. On the one hand, I think it's really exciting when a game comes down to penalty kicks. On the other hand, it doesn't seem fair that the game can be decided that way. I was really cheering for Japan to pull through, but even though they didn't, I at least wish that FIFA would let them complete the penalty kicks so their "score" could have possibly been a more respectable 5:4 instead of the official 5:3.
Are you watching the World Cup?