Week 4: Why Swansea City?

I love sports.  But lately I’ve gotten a bit tired of American sports.  American sports don’t really usually have anything to play for.  Yes, they play to win the championship each year, but that’s it.  They compete and that’s it.  If an American professional sports club loses every single game in a season, there’s really no consequences for them.  They come back the next year and play in the same league again against the same teams that beat the hell out of them before.  What fun is that?

This brings me to English league football.  In the English leagues, if you have a really bad season you can face “relegation”.  This means your team is bumped down to a lower league to play lower league teams.  Teams that do well each year are bumped up into higher leagues.  So each year you have teams moving up and down and you really have something to play for!  The teams in the highest English league want to be in the top spots because they can qualify for “European play” where they play the best clubs in the world in tournaments!  This all sounds much more exciting to me!

This now brings me to an English football club called “Swansea City”.  I look at Swansea right now because one of their current managers is American.  Or at least he was a manager.  They “sacked” him which means he was fired.  Apparently he sucked.  And besides sucking, the English fans weren’t very fond of him because he would use American terms when speaking to the press and they didn’t like that at all!  It might have been acceptable if Swansea City were winning, but they were losing, and losing badly.  This has to be all Manager Bob Bradley's fault, doesn’t it?  It can’t just be the circumstances he was put in.  I mean anyone off the street can manage a club in the English Premiere league, right?  Hell, I’ll bet I could do a better job and I’m American!

Ok, since I’ve written that it’s now time to put my money where my mouth is.  I have a video game called Football Manager 2017 that simulates being a football club manager.  (Soccer, for those of you who don’t understand.)  This thing takes everything into account including where players are from, agents, who’s happy and who isn’t, who’s in shape, and on, and on, and on.  But I should be able to easily handle this!  So let’s play!

So I started a new game which will start me as the Swansea City manager at the start of this season.  I’m certain I can come up with a better record than the real club.  Right now they have 5 wins, 3 draws, and 14 losses.  I can get more than 5 wins by this time of year.  They’re a club with a bit of money, so all it should take is me making a few key transfers and we’ll be off and winning in no time!

So now it’s time for me to look over my new club.  This Bob will do much better than the other Bob!  Or at least that’s what I hope!  Looking over my club the best player I seem to have is Gylfi Sigurdsson.  And…that’s about it.  No other real superstars.  I’ll just have to build my club around Gylfi. 

Looking things over, I have a few problems at Swansea City at the moment.  Looking at what the game says are the club's weak spots, my players are bad decision makers, they have a weak work rate, they lack strength, there are really no leaders at the club, and my coaching and scouting are the worst in the league.  This isn’t me judging, it’s what the game is identifying as weak points to me!  Well damn, should I bring in new coaching staff?  I look that over and there are literally thousands of people to look through!  I have no idea who is really good and who isn’t?  This might turn out to be harder than I at first thought!

I decide to forget the staff and play on with who I have for the moment.  If I just hit the transfer market and bring in a few team leaders, maybe I can start getting things straightened out that way.  I send a couple of my horrible scouts out to look for some players.  Now keep in mind I haven’t even advanced the game one day yet!  All this is still on day one at Swansea City for me!

Looking through the “Under 23” group that I have at the club I find a guy who doesn’t look too bad.  I transfer him to the senior squad.  He’s 28 years old.  How is a 28 year old on the Under 23 squad in the first place?  Now I’m a bit confused, but that doesn’t matter, I’m pressing on!

A scout emails me a few transfers I might be interested in!  Hell yes, these guys look good!  I decide to make an offer for one of them.  He should only cost me something like 2.3 million to bring in with some negotiation.  No problem!  … … … Ok, problem.  I can’t make an offer for the guy because he’s not trained by an English club.  The game is telling me that I have to have at least 8 players on my club that have been trained by an English club and the guy I want is some foreign player!  What the hell?  Realism is getting in the way of my winning now!  I check my senior roster and only have 3 English guys and one guy from Scotland.  The Scottish guy counts though, right?  I sure hope so!  So now I’m going to have to search for some English players, I guess!  Why is my squad loaded with foreign guys!  Even Glyfi is from Iceland!  DAMN!  How many of my players speak English?  What the hell am I doing?  Welcome to Premiere English League Football, I guess.

Now I’m going to have to do more research into things.  I’ll have to try and find some English players and maybe transfer list a few of the foreign players?  But then the game tells me that if I transfer out too many players everyone will be unhappy because they will all be afraid they’ll be the next to go!  And they damned well might be, too! 

This is honestly some people’s career!  This is not going to be as easy as I thought it was.  *sigh*  Ok, I’m going to end the blog and try and figure out what to do before moving on to day two in my game.  I have a match scheduled between my senior squad and the under 23 team so I can “take a look” at everyone.

You really do seem to need to be a hard core football fan to play this game.  So off I go to see what I can do.  Keep good thoughts for both me and Swansea City.  And keep asking why!

Week 3: Why can I not understand the Star Wars accents?

I’ve loved the original Star Wars movies since I was a kid and first saw them in a theater.  And as I got older I began to notice that the Evil Empire people had English accents and the good guy Rebels had American accents.  After watching some of the films over again and also watching the newest “The Force Awakens”, I am now really confused about the accents.

Ok yes some of the Evil Empire officers had the English accent, but all the Stormtroopers seem to be American.  How did that work?  You don’t hear many Stormtroopers actually talk in the movies, but when they did, it sounded American.  Darth Vader sounded American.  He was a huge Empire bad guy!  Why didn’t he sound English?

I’ve played an online game about Star Wars and when you create your character, all the Empire side characters sound English and the Rebel characters sound American.  Want to be a Jedi?  Your character sounds American.  Want to be an evil Sith?  Your character sounds English.  Shouldn’t we have a few Empire characters with a German accent?  Wouldn’t that be more appropriate?

And while I’m on the subject of Germans, why do so many Nazis in the movies have an English accent?  The Nazis were NOT ENGLISH!  Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to make movies where Germans weren’t played by German actors?  The world is so baffling to me sometimes!

Anyway, back to Star Wars.  Han Solo sounds American.  Of course he’s a smuggling pirate.  Or is he?  Some people will argue that he’s a hero.  Maybe he is a hero, but he was still a pirate.  And of course since he ends up joining the rebels, he has an American accent.  Princess Leia has an American accent…sort of.  *chuckle*

One of my favorite actors in the Star Wars movies only has one line.  I honestly don’t know who he is, but I remember him saying, “You Rebel scum!” just before they blow him away.  American accent.  What the hell?  Now I’m losing track of things. 

Now I’m watching The Force Awakens and the main character of Rey has an English accent.  She becomes part of the “Rebels”.  “Finn”  or FN-2187 is part of the “First Order” and has an American accent.  What happened to the Stormtroopers?  Why are there no Stormtroopers now?  I’m not sure I like changes like that!  You don’t just get rid of Empire Stormtroopers! 

In the “Prequels” the mercenary Jango Fett had an English accent.  Actually his accent was from New Zealand.  Could the English people who watched the movie tell he wasn’t English from his accent?  And again, why is one of the bad guys speaking with an English accent?  Or New Zealand accent?  I’m quickly losing track of things now!

I give up.  It’s taking too much energy now to try and sort out the Star Wars accents, let alone the new plot line.  I need to go back to when I was a kid and didn’t question how people spoke as much.

The End for this week.  Until next week, question everything.

Week 2, Why do I need this?

Welcome to week 2 of 2017.  This week I ordered something I don’t really need.  But then what does anyone really need besides food, air, and water ,right?  Right?  Ok, yes I’m just trying to justify buying something that I really don’t need.

I ordered it online.  It was a bit expensive, but sounded like fun.  And what else should I be doing with the money I earn if not buying fun things?  (Don’t be telling me I should be paying rent and bills and such either!  Those aren’t fun!)  So it was scheduled to come by FedEx.  Don’t they make you sign for things?  I’m not sure!  I went online and somehow put in a request for the package to just be left in front of my door.  Will they listen to the request?  I’m not sure!  The item will be delivered on one of my days off, though!  I can’t wait!  (I’ll more than likely be bored with it shortly after getting it, but what the hell?)

And so my day off arrives and I await the package!  Will it come in the morning?  Doubtful, stuff I order never seems to come in the mornings.  I wonder again why I ordered this.  I wait and wait and wait.  Did I just hear a truck?  No, that was an airplane.  Damn!  I wait and wait some more.  Now I’m getting tired and have to go to the bathroom, but I can’t sleep or relive myself because the package might come!  It could be here any minute!  And finally…I wait some more.

My package does finally arrive around two in the afternoon!  I’m thrilled!  I’m so thrilled I go to the bathroom and then drop down for a nap.  I can play with it later when I wake up.  That’s one thing I hate about being an adult, I don’t seem to get as excited about things as I did as a kid.  So what did I get from FedEx?  THIS:

That’s right, I ordered an air freshener!  Wait…how is that fun?  I don’t think that’s what that is.  Taking another look, I actually ordered what’s called a Google Home.  Much more fun than an air freshener!  It’s kind of like having a computer from Star Trek.  You ask it questions and it answers them.

Me: “Hey Google!”

Google Home waits

Me:  “How far away is Orlando, Florida?”

Google Home:  “You are 2,298 miles from Orlando by car.”

Me:  “Hey Google, how old is the Cookie Monster?”

Google Home:  “Frank Oz is seventy-two years old.”

So apparently Frank Oz is the Cookie Monster?  Maybe she didn’t quite understand me.  I ask how long Sesame Street has been on the air and the Google Home tells me a bit about Sesame Street.  It didn’t quite tell me how old the show is now, but it did give me some information.

So what is this thing for, just asking questions?  I’m still figuring that out.  I did ask it to play a local radio station and it put the station on!  That was quite a thrill for the moment.  I’m still trying to figure out how to get it to play podcasts.  It will tell me the news, but so far just the news it seems to want me to hear.  How about some local news?  Nope!  Google Home only cares about national news!

I guess I can set alarms and timers with it.  I can ask a few trivia things and maybe have it ask me some trivia.  Yes, pretty useless at the moment.  It will tell me how long it should take to get somewhere and what hours different places are open.  And now I begin to wonder about something called an Amazon Echo Dot!  That works through Amazon and may know more about books and things!  Now I might want one of those!  Am I going to end up with two talking wifi connected things sitting on my nightstand discussing how to get rid of me so they don’t have to answer stupid questions anymore?  Quite the possibility!  I’m sure it would be quite disturbing to walk in and hear one of them saying, “So tomorrow when we make him fall down the stairs…oh wait, shh, he’s here!”

I’m still learning about my Google Home, but it is still kind of fun to have.  Every so often I’ll ask it something.  I’ll have to think about whether or not I want one of the Amazon ones, too.  Again, I don’t really need one of these things, let alone two!  But why not fill my life with useless things?  *chuckle* 

So for this week I’ll try and figure out why I bought a Google Home and why I may need an Amazon Echo.  And maybe next week we’ll figure out why the hell I’m doing some of the things I’m doing in life!

Until next week, question everything!

Week 1: Why Food?

For 2017 I wanted to start writing a blog again.  It’s a good writing exercise, but what to write about?  Why not write about “Why”?  Questions that come up in my head.  My thoughts bang all over from place to place and can be pretty chaotic, so “Why” seems like a good topic to my.  For week 1, Why Food?

So this morning I was frying myself some bacon and eggs.  And I’m standing there wondering to myself if I’m making what’s called an “English Breakfast”.  I don’t think it was because an English Breakfast has more than just bacon and eggs, doesn’t it?

This picture has tomatoes and…black stuff and…why are the tomatoes still on the vine?  Who serves food like this?  Is this a photo from some fancy restaurant?  I don’t think any of my English friends serve breakfast like this.  Can you imagine serving this to a two year old?  Your tomatoes and vine will end up on the floor!  I’m sure there are a ton of ways to serve English Breakfast, though.  So is my breakfast an American Breakfast?  I don’t even know.

In the United Kingdom there are a number of restaurants that are popular because they’re “American”.  I don’t even know what “American” food is!  What do we eat that the people in England don’t eat?  Are they serving instant Ramen and Doritos?  Those are American.  Well, at least the Doritos are.  Or are they a world wide snack?  We call them “Chips”, but to the people in the UK they would be “Crisps”.  Just like in an American restaurant in America some kid asks you “Would you like fries with that?”  In the UK you get “Chips” with that.  Not the Doritos Chips, or potato chips, but French Fries.  And I don’t even think French Fries are French!  What the hell?

Upon trying to look up some “American” restaurants in the United Kingdom I came across a chain of places called BTP or “Boston Tea Party”.  Do they brew you up some nice tea and then throw that and your food in the bay?  Probably a bad joke, but a restaurant based on Americans protesting tax, really?  How…odd to me.

BTP Menu

Above is the link to a BTP (Boston Tea Party) menu.  As you can see they serve “West County Breakfast” which looks suspiciously like an English Breakfast, Mushrooms on Sourdough toast…ok, let me stop right here for a second…

Who in America eats mushrooms on toast?  I’m sure it’s fantastic, but I don’t know anyone anywhere near where I live who does that.  Why is this supposedly “American”?

Goats Cheese and Beetroot Salad.  I don’t even know what a “beetroot” is.  One of the few things that actually looks “American” on this menu is the Club Sandwich.  Is that even really “American?  Everyone probably makes a Club Sandwich different anyway.

Enough bitching about the food at restaurants I’ll probably never even get a chance to visit.  And if I did, would I be ordering and then saying “Oh, fantastic food, just like home”?  Probably not.  On the other hand, here is an "American” restaurant in my neck of the woods:

          There is a place in Las Vegas called “The Heart Attack Grill”.  They serve free food to anyone who weighs over 350 pounds.  Take a look at this lovely website and video:

The Heart Attack Grill

The video says the “nurses” will “spank” you if you don’t finish your order.  That’s…um…I don’t even know how to reply to that.  I’ve actually went there once and ordered some food to go.  I refused to put on a hospital gown to go inside and waited for my food just inside the entrance.  I did make a video of my brother putting on a gown and going in there, but I have no idea where that is at the moment.  I can honestly say I’d rather eat at BTP (Boston Tea Party) and worry about my food being tossed off a ship instead of worrying about some grown woman spanking me if I leave a pickle on my plate!

Spankings and heart attack food.  Nice, now what was I even writing about in the first place?  Oh yes, cooking my bacon and eggs.  So again I’m not sure if it was an “American” breakfast or not, but it was delicious!  Sometimes the best meals you have are the ones you prepare yourself.  I’m not sure why, I’ll have to think about that.

Until week 2, question everything.