Il Nittalope

It's been a while. Happy Christmas and Merry New Year and all those sort of things... I'll talk about football, if you don't mind. We all know that's the most important part of my life at the moment: playing football. After the 3 weeks intermission during the holidays (as per above) this week 2 tournaments started again: the 7 a side (Mondays) and the 6 a side (Tuesdays). You would notice that there is a 0 days break between one tournament and the other; a thing I am so happy about that you would not believe me (and, please, don't believe it, because I am scared and worried about it). So, Monday we played, 7 against 7, and we lost. We had no substitutes, they were slightly better, but we simply lost 4 - 2. Not bad. My ankles didn't enjoyed the match as much as they would have liked, mainly the left one, as the opponents enjoyed kicking it from the early start. I didn't play particularly well or particularly bad. Simply it was difficult to run...

Dan Carter was already a legend in his own rights. Already the top scorer in the game by far, already considered the best fly-half of of the modern era (and possibly of any era), good looking and whatever you want to say, he got it. But entering this Rugby World Cup he was at the end of his career, coming back to a World Cup after having lost all but the first games in the previous one. He got injured during that World Cup while he was at the top of his career and missed the rest of the competition. Then ruptured his Achilles tendon in 2013. Already new players on the rise took his place in games during last years, so his position was not the one of the big star that no-one can doubt. Then the competition begun, the matches went on and he was playing his game, good composure, on target with the kicking. Everything was going well, even if the All Blacks were not crushing every opponent as expected, but simply winning. And then a quarter final against France started, and New ...

I am waiting for to go to the station and catch the train to work. I am kinda late, really late, but there are not so many train. So lets use this time for something completely useless. Monday night, another football game of the famed team Notti Magiche . We are up 4 - 0 after 10 minutes, than we let them come back, because we are kind people. The match begins to turn to a grind, though game. We are still up 4 - 3 in the final 10 minutes of the match, they mainly try to score in counter attacks (don't ask, please don't ask how a team that is up by one is pressing high instead of waiting for the opponent to come... don't ASK!), but we are managing quite well to control. They started to make faults, we started to receive them, this is a usual pattern. For once I am not complaining that much with the referee, since he is controlling everything quite well and when he sees a harsh tackle he has no problem on talking to the player and tell him to quite down. Finally. The...

This is a football post, this is a "I annoy people and people annoys me" post. Today is Thursday, a day I used to spend doing something for sometimes, a something that I really enjoyed doing and that now I miss quite a lot, and that now is devoted to football. Playing football. 6 vs 6 football (I know, I betrayed my beliefs... but I needed a second night of sport each week, and this was what was available). It's with not the team I organize, and you can understand it by the fact that in 3 matches I played we've never lost. With the team I organize (7 a side) we never won. Anyway, we are from Ukraine, we are not a great team, we are not a bad team. And tonight we draw. It was a though match, we controlled the first part of the first half, and than we were down 3 - 0 all of a sudden. We hit posts, their goalie save quite some shots, when the goalie was not there a defender saved a goal already done (by the way... mine...) and at the end of the first half we...

Few days ago (actually, almost 2 weeks ago) I have had a nice confirmation of how less I understand people. Well, truth is that it wasn't really on that day that I had the confirmation, I already knew it. But it has been a nice follow up on the conclusion I had come to in past times (and actually the episode was not so important on the matter, it was really important on another level, but transeat. ..). I really don't get people. I maybe am able to understand their reactions, facial expressions and words when I am actually detached from them, but the minute they matter to me... ooohh!!! That gets really interesting! I simply get lost, go blind and deaf. I know myself, so nothing that happens really takes me by surprise, but it still hurts sometimes finding out... that I was right... or wrong, depending on which side you look at the matter from. I definitely don't get people. I am better of with animals. I can understand why an animal does something. I cannot unders...

I am easily satisfied. Even if probably a lot of my friends will tell differently, I am. And tonight, after the weekly football match (by the way, having taken 3 paracetamol in the last 24 hours it's a clear indication that you will struggle during a football match, mark my words!), I sad down, saw my new thermos, that I bought less than a week ago, sitting on the table. There's tea in it, I knew it, because I prepared it at 5 pm. And it's 9:30 now... so probably the tea will be already cold. IT. WAS. NOT. Ah, that's a reason to have a life, after all... right there! (Still enjoying the second cup, by the way, just before heading to bed...)

When I was a kid, and also late in my teens, and even further in my twenties, I enjoyed reading fictions book... I am not sure if this is the correct word. Anyway, books about invented stories, not reality, not history books. I enjoyed even then the once in a while history book, or the physics manual (or ants... if that matters). Past the thirties I started developing a taste for manuals, research papers and the such. And that's true that I can't even remember the last fiction book I have read (barring the eventual re-reading of some of my favourites like LOTR or Lem's Solaris and the Invinceble, or Garcia Marquez Cien años de soledad). I am really not sure why something like that happened. I believe it's related to my dislike of any story that ends badly: if I already know that it will end badly it's not an issue, but if I have to be passionate about the outcome and than everybody dies... no way I'd read it! So lately I've read the history of the c...