Behind on everything except for an obvious weather observation

[danceswithwords]

I'm back from the family reunion. The TiVO runneth over and I was sitting right in the middle of a swarm of infants and toddlers on the flight from Atlanta to San Francisco, and in my experience, children that age can handle about 3.5 hours max of an afternoon flight before things start getting hairy. That flight is 4.5 hours. I was counting on

Comments

[molly_may]

Coincidentally, I went to Flip Burger in Atlanta last week! However, I didn't eat anything, although the menu looked very intriguing, because I was on a drinking excursion with a friend. So I had the pear martini that's on the menu and some orange cream drink that's not on the menu and no food. I would like to go back and try it sometime, though.

[asta77]

I don't suppose Flip Burger is anywhere near where will be staying during DC? And now I'm starving!

[danceswithwords]

I was wondering about that! Although the Flip in Birmingham is in an upscale suburban mall, and I'm guessing they have a similar location strategy in Atlanta.

[molly_may]

It's actually not too far away, about four miles or so. I could fit three other people into my car, four if three people don't mind squeezing into the backseat together...

[asta77]

Other than Toddlerpalooza, how were the flights??? ;)

[danceswithwords]

Mostly okay. I lucked out; my uncle and his partner had their flight from Birmingham to Atlanta cancelled and ended up getting back to Seattle in the middle of the night.

[raffaella]

I'm glad your family reunion went reasonably well, mosquitoes and unpleasant teenagers notwithstanding.

I can remember when we were watching World Cup games on obscure channels 8 hours to a day after they'd been played, and that was if we were lucky.It must be nice to now have easy access to something that was a novelty for so long (was that the case when the US hosted the WC in 94? There must have been better coverage then, no

[danceswithwords]

It must be nice to now have easy access to something that was a novelty for so long (was that the case when the US hosted the WC in 94? There must have been better coverage then, no?)

Sadly, there really wasn't, although I believe ESPN did air some key games live. This is the first cup where (ETA to clarify) English-speaking American audiences have gotten real coverage; to its credit, ESPN (the sports channel) has gone all out, airing all of the games more or less live and bringing in commentators from Europe who know the game and can talk about it intelligently. In the past, they've used familiar domestic faces who don't know the sport and who spent a bunch of the game explaining what offsides is, and saw their viewership bleed over to Univision, the Spanish-language network, because people prefer not understanding the commentary at all to being talked down to. So in terms of American sports media taking the game seriously, this cup is a real landmark

[danceswithwords]

I can't tell if Germany is really good or England is that bad.

Maybe a little from column A and a little from column B. As for Brazil, I don't think they're fielding as strong a team as they have in the past, but it's still plenty strong. Most of the play we've seen so far has been segregated by the flights, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the quarterfinals. And Argentina is fielding a very strong team this year; I would not be surprised to see them beat Spain.

I love that you have World Cup memories with your family; I have similar memories of getting to stay up REALLY late to watch (or one time, listen to) the matches when they were being held half way around the world. I love it SO much!!Oh, that's great! My family was really involved with athletics when my brother and I were kids; I was a better swimmer, and my brother was a better soccer player, but we both did both. He was fairly talented--played at the college level (and got scholarship money for it) and in high school played in regional leagues and