World Cup hiatus

Now that the round of 16 is over, I'm at a loss for what to do during my day for distraction. If nothing else, the Guardian minute-by-minute replays have been a great read even when the matches have sucked.

I'm hearing mixed reviews of Superman Returns. Could be good, could be bad. I'm about 99% certain there's no Krypto in it, which is a huge strike against it. Krypto makes anything better--he could have saved the awfulness that was the last couple of films.

Still, it seems weird to decide to stay in continuity with the Christopher Reeve films when most folks haven't seen them in years. On the other hand, one could watch the later Dirty Dozen films without having seen the first ones.

Bit of insomnia lately, caused by multiple concurrent crises at work, and anxiety over campaigns going out. I'm a little gunshy on those lately.

The new season of The Venture Brothers premiered over the weekend. There's still a chance to go out and watch the first season before the next episode this weekend. You'll be glad you did.

Go Team Venture, indeed.

Presented for your amusement...

This panel from Kawaii Not, which may be one of my new favorite Webcomics.

Found via Lore Sjoberg (oh, wait, his Wired blog) via Penny Arcade.

Speaking of Gabe and Tycho, I am quite glad that they finally got through their awful legal battles and were able to release their books. I have one of their early Penny Arcade: Year One books, but it's a tiny tiny subsection of their work.

Flashback only without the constant smell of popcorn

It's World Cup time again. I can't listen to any of the live feeds--none of them can punch through the proxy here at the printer mines--but I have been trying to keep track as best I can.

Google has a live update on their personalized homepage, but it's dropped out for most of the first half of the Poland - Ecuador game. Instead, I've been viewing their constantly-updating World Cup coverage. For example, here's one of their comments from today's game:

49 mins: Krzynowek wastes yet another corner, this time swinging the ball over everyone in the box and behind for a goal kick. Very disappointing so far for a man with a supposedly cultured left-foot.

I've also learned fun facts, like the stadium in AufSchalke has 5 km of piping to bring in beer. Truly, this is a magical world we live in these days.

Between World Cup fever and the incredibly long REM playlist I just uploaded to my work machine, I'm flashing back to college, sitting in my apartment above a movie theater and watching the 94 World Cup on Univision.