Dispatch From London # 7

All I have to say is before I left the states, my opinion was that soccer or "Football" as it is called here sucks. Yes soccer sucks!! Ok, I will say you gotta have some stamina to play, but that is about it, ok, they do let the ball bounce off their head or chest, but ok, and? If they could make street crossing a sport here, it would be far more entertaining that soccer. Soccer sucks period. Anyway, these folk take soccer serious as hell and will go to blows over their teams. Since there is no other sports on T.V., I have been subjected to having to watch the World Cup. First of all the dorm has only one t.v., and the other students from all over the world are pretty much glued to the matches. So, me being me, I sat down there the other evening to watch England play Ecuador. Having no ties to either land, I let the brother factor determine who I was going to pull for. I counted all the brothers on each team, and the count was not close, I was going to pull for Ecuador. Everyone else in the room was pulling for England, so every time Ecuador looked like they were gonna score, I would fake some hype or act overly excited. My actions brought a many frowns from the England fans. I was loving it though, the aggravating of others, not the game. Anyway, after sitting there for 93 minutes of soccer, England won the game 1-0. What the heck is that, you run up and down a big azz field for 93 minutes and all you can score is one dang point? Soccer sucks. For real.

So, some of the folk from Southern have been calling me Martin around here, though I dont think there is any resemblance.

We decided to get out last night to watch the soccer match between France and some other team, its soccer so who cares who the other team was. Anyway some thought it would be kool to go to a Brazilian pub to watch the match, but when we got there the spot was kind of dead. We saw another spot with a long line wrapped around the building, but it looked like it might be tight, so we rounded up and headed for that location. Someone in our group got there before us and found out they were not letting anyway in for at least an hour or so, in addition to the fact it was going to cost us each 5 pounds, or ten in dollars. I was like damn that, lets head back to the room, but some of the group was getting in line. So it was either get back on the train by myself or make moves. So.......................

I decided to get my scheme on......hmmm

I told everyone the plan and to follow along. We got out of line, and proceeded to the front where the entrance was blocked off with a velvet rope. There were three big bouncers, one of which was a brother. I walked up accompanied by two female classmates and called for the black bouncer. We he got to us, I told him in a very low tone, that I was Martin Lawrence in town for the week and was told by someone that this was the place to lay low and have a good time. He was like Martin Lawrence? A classmates chimes in at the same time uh yea Bad Boys....Martin Show, he's like ohhh Bad Boys the movie? Oh Yea! I was like yea man, I don't do lines what can you do for me and my crew. So he looks at the group of 15 behind me, and says, I am gonna take care of you. Long story we all got in for the free and I ate for free. I know I was wrong, but it was kind of fun....wont do it again...

On a more intellectual note, Who is Hugo Chavez? Why should we care who he is? http://progressive.org/mag_intv0706

Here's just another reason we are not winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060630/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_soldiers_investigated