School Update

I head off to school in a couple days, so I don’t know if I will be updating the blog as often as I was during the summer, or at all. Obviously school will be my first priority, so writing for my blog or any others as a guest is out of my immediate plans, but if I do have some free time to write a blog post, I could probably do that.

I always used this blog to get some nagging thoughts out of my head, and to comment on the events around me, locally and globally. To be honest, I was shocked to see that so many people came to check out my site and that it got so many views. It was successful, that’s for sure.

I want to thank everyone out there for checking out this blog, commenting on the posts, linking it to other sites, and such. Without you, the reader, this wouldn’t be possible.

Like I said before, I don’t know if the blog postings will be affected. I could still be posting 2 blog posts a week, but I doubt that much. I have to be focused for school.

Cheers all, and have a good day.

Canada vs. St. Lucia: Post-Game Thoughts

Last Friday, I went out to BMO Field to see Canada start their campaign for the 2014 World Cup against St. Lucia, one of the Caribbean minnows of CONCACAF. Overall, the night was incredibly fun, despite my obvious drunkenness. Thankfully, Canada won the match 4-1, but I won’t be talking about Canada’s performance in the match (leave that to the media). Rather, I will talk about what I noticed while sitting in the south end watching the match, from a supporter’s perspective.

The first thing I want to talk about is the crowd. Overall, the crowd was very pro-Canadian, compared to other Canada matches that took place at BMO Field, where the away fans typically outnumbered the home support. There were a few St. Lucia fans around, but they were in very small bunches. My rough estimate on the St. Lucia fans that attended the match is around 500-750 people, out of the total number of 11500 people in attendance. Most of them congregated in the north stands, but there were a few St. Lucia fans all around the stadium. With that said, I was happy with the Canadian presence at this match, especially in the south end.

One thing that got me angry was the conduct of some of the St. Lucia players during the match. There was an unusually high number of St. Lucia players falling down and acting like they were injured. I counted at least six or seven stretchers coming out onto the pitch during the match, and they were all for St. Lucia. Obviously this was nothing more than a tactic by St. Lucia to waste time, especially when the match was tied 1-1. Still, this drew out the anger of the Canadian fans, and the insults were flying towards the St. Lucia players.

The thing that impressed me the most at the match was the atmosphere from the south stands. The east stands were decently full and the west and north stands weren’t as full as the east stand, but the south stands were the place to be for the match, it was very packed. It wasn’t just the supporters sections of 112/113/114 with the chants and songs, the rest of the south end got into it as well, which was awesome. There was a sense of unification in the south stands at the Canada match that you don’t get when going to a Toronto FC game. In terms of atmosphere, I would much rather go to a Canada match than go to a Toronto FC match. I remembered getting home after the match and watching the same game I was just at, and I heard the Canadian supporters sing their hearts out loud and clear. This was incredible.

I would love to go to the other Canada matches taking place in October and November, but I have school. Still, the match on Friday was quite the crazy match to go to. I was bummed to not meet anyone from Twitter, but it was still a great night.

Some Thoughts over the Weekend

The above picture says it all, really. On Sunday, I watched Manchester United absolutely destroy Arsenal by the score of 8-2 at Old Trafford. Wow, 8-2, that’s like a hockey score right there. Let’s start with United. Complete performance from the team, every attacking player was firing from all cylinders. Rooney had two pinpoint accurate free kicks along with a penalty for his hat-trick. Young had two outstanding shots bending straight into the side of the goal, breathtaking stuff. But I thought the critical moment of the match came when Arsenal were awarded a penalty while United were up 1-0. Up stepped Robin Van Persie, he shot the ball near the bottom-left of the net and United goalkeeper David de Gea bent down low to make the stop. It can be argued that Van Persie took a poor penalty shot, but that was a good save.

As for Arsenal, I’m not going to repeat what so many of the media have already said about Arsene Wenger and his squad, though I am getting pretty sick of constantly hearing about their problems. The media have always talked about it since near the end of last season. I don’t need to be repeatedly reminded about how Arsene needs to spend money and trying to get more experienced players and strengthen their depth. I already know this.

Switching gears to UFC last Saturday night, there is no denying the dominance of Anderson Silva, who retained his Middleweight title by beating Yushin Okami in the second round. After watching that fight, I kept thinking to myself “Who next?” Who can possibly stop this guy? I don’t think anyone can right now.

Apparently there was also the MTV Video Music Awards Sunday night? Umm…I didn’t watch it. It's pretty much a costume party nowadays...

That’s all I got to say…

Random Thoughts 7: The “Earthquake” Edition

As I was writing tonight’s blog, apparently there was an earthquake that struck the east coast of the United States and was felt up here in Canada. The earthquake measured 5.8 on the Richter scale. I personally didn’t feel any kind of tremors, but other people did. I pulled out my phone to check the reaction on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, it was your typical annoying overreaction from a few of my Facebook friends. But on Twitter, when I clicked on the “#earthquake” hash tag on the Trending Topics list, I saw people acting like it were the end of the world going on. There were also people not making a big deal of this and posting pictures of the devastation (see the picture above), but generally the media was making a bigger deal than it actually was.

Here’s my message to those making a massive deal about this earthquake. Stop being such a pussy about it and man the hell up. If you want to take precautions after the earthquake struck, then do so, but don’t go around acting like the world is going to end, or the rapture was coming, or some other stupid shit. The west coast is used to this, and they pass this off as nothing. Maybe the east coast should do the same.

There was also some sad news that came yesterday, where opposition leader Jack Layton has lost his battle with cancer and passed away. He was an extremely likable guy, who had the best interests of lower and middle class Canadians, as well as Canada as a whole. He will be missed.

I planned to write up a post yesterday about trying to understand the hate and abuse on football (soccer) officials by supporters, but I had difficulty trying to present my argument. The thing that sparked me to try to write that was when I went to see my cousin’s soccer game on Saturday. In my opinion, the referee called a fair game, apart from a couple questionable calls. But that didn’t stop the other parents taunting the referee and the linesman and hurling abuse at them for calls that didn’t go their way.

It’s always the same story whenever I go see any kind of footy match. The supporters don’t like a decision the ref has made, then they taunt the ref for the rest of the match. Sometimes it is justifiable, but other times the things these people say is just mean. You know what I would like to see, I would like to see a random supporter picked at random to ref a match. I bet that the person wouldn’t have a clue. Referees are trained to ref matches, supporters are not (unless the supporters are all trained referees), and although the referees don’t see everything that goes on in the match, the officials have a better judgment than the supporters. Nowadays there are the advancements in technology designed to help the referee make the correct decision, but the human element of football will always be there, no matter what.

Random Thoughts 6: The “Niagara Falls Tragedy” Edition

Over the last couple days, I have been reading the story about a student from Japan who visited Niagara Falls. She climbed over a railing to get her picture taken, and when she tried to climb back, she lost her balance and fell into the Niagara River, and then she got swept over Niagara Falls.

It is a tragic story indeed, but I don’t exactly feel compassion for her. The reason why I don’t feel compassion for her was because she hopped the barrier in order to get a picture. The barrier between the water and land isn’t there for style; it is there for safety reasons and to prevent people from falling into the water. Everyone understands this.  If you hopped the barrier in order to get a picture or any other reason, you’ve effectively waived your safety rights and anything that happens to you while over the barrier at Niagara Falls is not the responsibility of anyone but yourself. I don’t understand how anyone could be so stupid, but this story is still tragic nonetheless.

Last weekend, I got suckered into seeing Final Destination 5 by my cousin. It is also worth noting that I also got suckered into watching Final Destination 4 by that same cousin. So we went to see Final Destination 5, and if you’ve seen 1 through 4, this was pretty much no different. It had your typical gore, had a couple entertaining bits as well, but for the most part it was a forgettable movie. It was exactly what I expected.

Going to see that movie lead me to another thought, I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to horror movies. What I mean is, I like to watch horror movies that actually make me feel scared and terrified, with suspense and will haunt me in my dreams. Nowadays, a lot of these mainstream horror movies are all about gore and how disgusted they can make the audience feel. I’m no expert on horror movies, but I think that nowadays, the benchmark on the mainstream horror movies made these days is blood and gore, and not the sense of proper fear that made horror movies popular in the first place. That’s how I see it at least.

That’s all I got to say. I would usually have more to say, but my head is in the clouds right now.