Hope you all had a nice Super Bowl Sunday and if into it, enjoyed the game. Yea, there has been a well-deserved pushback comeuppance about employees doing their political activism on company time, but perhaps they've mostly given that shit up because it's an awful look.
Here in Thailand, the annual Super Bowl live takes place on Monday morning, starting about 6.30am. Sports bars with the big screens and gear open as early as 5am for the pre-game stuff. Early drinking is assured.
...What I like more than the actual game is going out to take in a bunch of Euro expats all coming together to watch America's biggest FOOTBALL game, ha! The rest of the year and in all the places, they're watching "matches"—which I like to characterize as like watching porn. If you've seen one soccer game, you've seen them all. He came once or twice, she came once or twice. Three times...well...that's more rare.
You can Google lots of stuff about how much the American political and social commentator Ann Coulter dislikes soccer. Here's a funny quote.
"Soccer fans have decided to prove me wrong about soccer being a fruity sport by spending the last week throwing hissy fits."
I suppose I digress too much.
I wasn't sure I'd go, even though the Stoned Crab pub is no more than about a mile away. I'd been sitting at my desk since 7am, game stated 6:30am, and by 9am I was hungry and did my own private what the fuck thing, hopped on the motorbike maskless—hair in the morning breeze—and headed on down.
When it takes 30 seconds to find a place to park a motorcycle, it's packed. 100+ people watching 2-dozen screens. Still, coffee and some scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast was forthcoming forthwith.
It was just the start of the 4th Quarter, Rams down 4 against Bengals, 16-20. My first thought was WHEW!!! Only mammals. No endangered species, cultural icons, indigenous peoples...
...Imagine is there was a team called the Squaws... Oh, wait... That would be in soccer...
I've really got no dogs in any races or fights, but I don't know fuck of Ohio or Cincinnati, so I decided to bestow all of my moral authority and presence of spirit to the Los Angeles Rams for 15 minutes of game time.
That was uplifting, if you watched the game.
...Then I came home, sat at my desk for more doing what I do, then walked down 30 meters to the pool. It was 5 steps in my last place.... I get in on a wonderfully hot day here in south Phuket and whereas the pool is almost always empty, there's a family in the pool. Man, wife, 2yo naked boy, and a couple of others, friends or family. They're speaking amongst themselves, sounds Russian. They're teaching the boy to swim. They form a ring, about 10 feet diameter, toss him in the middle.
Sink or swim.
He didn't panic, likely because he knew and could see his people. He got better and better each time.
That was my entry and I began applauding and making light encouraging comments and so the conversation strikes up. Their English is very good.
Punchline: They're Ukrainians and actually live in Florida. They've lived there for 5 years, green cards, and he's a professional poker player.
What a small world after all.
So that's the monologue. Now to the meat course.
The post Someone Really Cool Spoke With Someone Really Cool appeared first on Free The Animal.
