james choice

lupita nyong'o, one of the actors in the film, is asked in an interview what she'd want to say to homer. and she says: i'd ask, homer, you gave women almost no place at all in your book, but look, now in this film a bunch of women have screen time, what do you think?

this one sentence drove the final nail into the film's coffin, so long and farewell. the woman is out here crying that "there aren't enough female characters heeere" about a book written 3000 years ago... is she an idiot or what.

an even bigger version of the disgrace we lived through when rachel zegler shoved the snow white she played up the dog's ass is on the way. come on, nolan, you weren't the guy to sink into these kinds of embarrassments, damn it.

i love messi and argentina in general for various reasons. but the sleaziness, dishonesty, and dirtiness that's in most south american teams is very much present in this argentina team too. constant complaining, physical play, malicious moves toward the opponent, tricks to fool the referee... basically every kind of dirty trick you can think of, they've got it. come on, at least don't play like this against a team weaker than you, you pricks. the penalty situation was won thanks to a total con job too, and thankfully it didn't result in a goal, which made me glad.

in all these years of world cup history, nothing as scandalous as the cancellation of balogun's red card through political channels has ever happened. belgium was very clearly robbed of what it deserved. belgium needs to win this match and teach politics a lesson.

donald trump said:

"i saw the play, and i'm a person that loves sports ... that wasn't a foul. that wasn't even an infraction ... this referee, who is a little bit suspect if you check his past. he made a call that nobody could believe ... he's our best player, or one of our best players. and he gave him a red card. i didn't know what that meant ... yes, i asked for a review by fifa."

infantino said:

"fifa's judicial bodies are independent. they operate autonomously, apply the fifa disciplinary code, and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and the specific facts before them. their independence is essential to the credibility and integrity of football, and this must always be respected. yes, i regularly discuss matters related to the fifa world cup with the president of the united states, and on this matter, i did receive a call from president donald trump, just as i receive calls from heads of state, government officials, football stakeholders and business executives from around the world on many different issues ... whether we personally like a decision or not is irrelevant. respect for independent institutions and the rule of law is what protects the integrity of our competitions and the credibility of fifa at all times."

i read both a few times and honestly you do not need me, put them side by side and they answer each other.

trump made the call, and look how he talks. short, open, no fear. "yes i asked for a review." "he is our best player." the man who did the thing just tells you. infantino is the one who got saved from the mess, and look at him. long words, "independent", "autonomy", "rule of law". the man who benefits hides behind a dictionary. old lesson. the strong one speaks simple because he fears nothing, the one who depends on him hides because he must. so here the one who talks less is hiding more.

game theory has one rule i love, do not listen to what people say, watch what they do. words are cheap. and the action here is loud. for sixty years this rule did not bend for anybody, then the strongest man on earth makes one phone call and it bends. that is the answer, not the press release.

the reason is not even hidden. "he is our best player." not that the card was wrong, just that the guy is valuable to us. justice wears a blindfold on purpose, so she cannot see who you are or which team. trump took the blindfold off on live tv. he even called the referee "suspect". first you dirty the judge, then you delete his call. this is not modern law, this is old tribe law, the big man looks and the rule moves.

and my favorite line, "i did not know what that meant." he did not even understand the rule he broke, and it did not stop him. power does not need to understand, it only needs to want. hobbes said it centuries ago, it is authority that makes the law, not truth.

then infantino uses the words "rule of law" to defend the most lawless thing this cup has seen in sixty years. he is wearing the clothes of the thing he broke. small tip, when you must announce your independence in a statement, it is already dead.

and nothing here is free. anthropology has a simple rule, every gift is a debt. a shiny "peace prize", a good seat at the final, then the phone rings, then the favor comes. this is not friendship, it is an invoice, and infantino is paying it in public.

so, balogun can play, fine. the only thing that cannot play anymore is the idea that this was ever a fair game.

buying a house in germany is pretty much impossible, either you take out a loan and pay it off until the day you go into the ground, or you pay rent until the end of your life. on the other hand, a considerable chunk of the homes in the country sit empty. the main reasons for this are the aging population, the growing wave of migration from the countryside to the big cities, and homeowners not wanting to rent their places out. since tenants are protected by strict laws, a tenant in a property that gains value just sitting there is basically no different from a bank lien. so while finding a home in the big cities gets harder, the rural areas are turning into ghost towns, and this keeps getting more pronounced by the day. especially in the evening hours, if you pass through a neighborhood far from the city center, the empty streets under the streetlights and the homes with their lights off can even be eerie; no sound, no strays, no cars.

from cape verde's standpoint, their world cup story is like a movie script. they are taking part in the world cup for the first time, they are scoring the first world cup goals in their history, they are advancing to the knockout round for the first time, and on this journey they are coming face to face with the reigning world champions. any way you look at it, just watching them at this level is a huge deal in itself. whether they win or lose, the fight they have put up and the story they have written deserve all kinds of praise. this right here, stories exactly like this, is what makes football so special.

a relationship is run by past traumas, families, friends, social media, the prices on menus, and the people responsible for the country's economy. if there's any chance left after all that, the partners swap roles now and then, bicker now and then, and get along just fine.

miuccia prada, who could make the devil put their shoes on the wrong feet, a communist party member with a doctorate, and a feminist on top of that. early in her career she held one of her first runway shows at the french communist party headquarters. she's certainly not unaware of her products' price tags. she has thoroughly earned the lifetime insincerity award, hands down.

one of the most enjoyable matchups of the round of 32, a match that will hopefully be completed with a japan win.

heaven for those with a lot of money, but for the normal or poor person it's europe's island swimming in shit. it doesn't just live quietly and keep to itself or anything, it's sunk into more crime and filth than cyprus, it just doesn't show up much in daily life. it's the backyard of europeans and even russians. if you have money you can get anyone to sort out any business for you. that includes the prime minister and the like too.

i want to write a few things about the crystalline, humming, ocean-breeze sounds we heard at its startup. every time the console powered on, these sounds weren't from a recording but were synthesized by the note files in the bios chip being sent to the sound chip. what you heard was a few analog sounds being synthesized and brought together, so each startup was like someone playing the organ for you. according to some the bios chip's memory was insufficient for .wav files, but the truth of it is that the japanese were making the 48-channel stereo and fully hardware-based 3d sound chip inside the device flex its muscles. the sounds didn't come from a single center, they practically swirled around us, and this was a huge revolution for the year 2000, some people had started needing the ps2 sounds in order to fall asleep. the ps2's sound engineer had said that while designing the startup sound he drew inspiration from the big bang theory; the first hum symbolized a vast universe with nothing in it yet, waiting to be discovered, while the blue/green light filtering that appeared on the screen (they changed according to the time of day) and the cubes (as many as the amount of games on your card) were stars and galaxies waiting to be discovered. an artist also made some nice music using the sound pieces in the bios.

whether it's the atmosphere or the surprises, it's turning out to be a wonderful cup. yesterday south africa, who was considered a sure bet to be eliminated from the cup as the last-place team in the group, earned the right to advance with the win it got. and today ecuador, who was considered a sure bet to finish last in the group and was moreover down early in the match against an opponent like germany, won the match and advanced. the people here saying "as if a 48-team cup could work," "football isn't played outside of europe," "they've filled the cup with every dinky country there is" were proven wrong yet again.

their country is at war. they're trying to play in the world cup on enemy country soil. since they aren't allowed to stay in america, they come to the matches via a 4-5 hour plane journey from another country. they're searched at the airport, and searched again separately on the way to the match. and not some rough pat-down or anything, they're flat-out made to strip. they play the match and go back to the other country via another 4-5 hour plane journey. despite all of this, having scored two goals and with two draws, they're sitting at the top of the group containing belgium, new zealand, and egypt. even though the west isn't going to make its documentary, its film, its series about it, the story of the 2026 world cup has turned out to be entirely the iran national team.

he's unquestionably the greatest athlete of all time. the guy even has an olympic gold medal.

his national team career is by far better than messi's and c. ronaldo's.