Cav's Place

Yes, I’ve been watching the Women’s World Cup once again and… I’ve actually been meaning to praise even more notable improvements when I decided to write this post, but then I read what I wrote back in 2011 and saw striking similarities.
France again impressed but didn’t make it too far while Germany advanced without impressing, the United States dominated and progressed but didn’t shine, Norway was an even worse disappointment this time and was eliminated early on, and Japan will once again have a lot to say. In fact, I’m now expecting another United States – Japan final, though I would have wished for France to be there among the top four, though instead of England and not Germany, all of these high-level clashes starting even in the last 16 being a result of the attempt to clear a path for Canada, as hosts.
Sadly, at least out of the matches I did see, there were fewer thrilling ones, as in interesting for a neutral observer to watch. However, considering the teams that took part in the less interesting matches and, even more so, the specific way in which they played out, I’ll say that’s not a matter of the quality and professionalism of the players or coaches dropping, but an unfortunate result of it actually increasing, to the point that they are better able to cancel each other out and also more aware, likely too much so from the point of view of said neutral observer, of the stakes at play. The finishing, which remains largely poor, France’s performance against Germany being a great example of that, definitely doesn’t help either, and neither does the noticeably improved goalkeeping, though the position remains a sore spot for quite a number of teams.
Interestingly, however, perhaps the most striking difference I’ve noticed doesn’t involve players or coaches, but referees, and not necessarily when compared to the previous competition, but simply between the group stage matches and the following rounds. I mean, I saw absolutely dreadful refereeing during group stage matches, with some quite simply destroyed by awful decisions, and then it was like a switch was flipped and the refereeing in the next rounds was mostly great, not only in terms of mostly correct decisions, even in difficult situations, but in the spirit of the game as well. So I can only hope this will continue and we won’t end up with one of these last few, most important matches being decided by refereeing mistakes.

As something of a conclusion, this Women’s World Cup looks significantly more like the men’s, if not necessarily in the good ways, with the exception of the clearly improved overall quality of goalkeeping. And once again, this makes me wonder even more how much further could women’s football get if it’d receive even half the attention, and perhaps a quarter of the funding, men’s does. And I’m talking of Europe here, and perhaps even more so of South America, because in the United States or Japan, or even Canada, China and possibly even Australia, it seems to be doing quite well, especially by comparison. And I still don’t know why it doesn’t, because these girls can play, despite the great differences in pay, facilities, recognition, governmental support or number of fans.

According to Google Maps, I walked 15 kilometers yesterday just on streets, plus hours of wandering around three times through two hypermarkets, as I was in the first one of them twice, and quickly browsing a couple of other stores in the mall that same one is in. Part of that was obviously done while carrying stuff, some 6.5 kilograms, possibly up to seven, when I got back the first time, after I was done with the larger part of the planned route, and about 5.5 the second time. And it was all done on all of three hours of sleep…
What do I have to show for it? Savings of a mere few percent compared to just getting everything from the second store, admittedly the farthest one, which was the one I initially planned to go to, and which was also the only one of the two which had the type of honey I added to the purchases when I saw it, which resulted in giving up on new toothbrushes for the moment. Then again, since I spent all I had on me, it’s not a matter of savings, but of getting a few additional items, and considering the amount and what I added on top of the clear plan, we’re talking of some pretzels and some red green onions, plus the fact that, since I showed the good apricots I found when I got back the first time, I was asked to buy some more, also being given another 10 RON for it, part of that going into the red green onions in the end.

When your time’s not worth money, nor much of anything else for that matter, you can afford to do these things for a feeling of beating them at their little game of making arrangements with each other regarding sales. Plus, walking’s not bad either, and neither is running, and I was actually considering going back out to run in the evening. Thought better of it in the end, but when I did go, today, I managed a time that was better than my usual one over 12 and a half laps, if not entirely making up for what I managed last week.
Initially meant to go in the evening, considering the forecast, but it actually seemed chilly when I was inside, so I went in the afternoon, not changing my mind when I stepped outside and realized things were quite different in sunlit areas. It wasn’t bad, the reported temperature being some 28°C and some clouds also making an appearance for a few minutes, just that the Sun did tend to burn a little, so I tried to minimize the amount of time spent on the part of track that has no shade whatsoever, and that may have helped me on the way to the 28:11 I managed. Just over 50 seconds for the first half a lap as well, as I was trying a different running style, but I couldn’t keep it up when I tried it again on the last lap, so that took me just about exactly two minutes.
Quite sure I had at least another ten seconds in me over the last two laps, possibly more, so I should have just managed to get under 28 minutes, and the time for the first ten laps was a great 22:41, but then I suddenly realized I had forgotten the time for what I later figured out had been my sixth lap, which also meant I was missing it while counting. That meant I spent the next to last lap trying to figure out why didn’t my count agree with the time or with the fact that I knew I had already covered over ten laps, and the result was the slowest lap, the only one that got to around 2:25. My mind was still partially elsewhere at the start of the last one as well, so didn’t quite pick up the pace for the first straight and even forgot to switch to the first lane, as I do for the last lap, until I was at the exit of the first turn.

Otherwise, finally activated Windows today and that went with no issues. Hadn’t activated the copy on the new computer because I was worried I may need to go through some hoops for it, as it had already been activated on the old one and, even though it’s a retail copy and can be moved like this, there could have been additional procedures to follow, but now the second month was close to ending as well and if the first time I reinstalled on the last of the 30 days, as I had just been trying to test some things until then, now I clearly didn’t plan to do it again.

And also found the court papers in the mailbox when I went out today, so yes, the date really is July 9, as strange as that seems to me. I’m not sure whether I’ll also get a ruling then, however, since at least in the schedule posted on-line me and the other protester who seems to be in an identical situation and was assigned to the same court and on the same day are the last two of 21 cases, and some of the others seem to be more complicated, at least judging by those involved. So it may be a case of wasting a day only to get another date, but I guess I’ll see what happens when I’ll get there.

While largely excusable in a first book in a series, the sort of pace and narrow focus seen during the first 600 or so pages of this one as well, so for nearly as much as the entire length of The Name of the Wind, is less so in a second. That said, it’s still the story of a man, told by the man himself, and if at times he focuses on that which the reader may find less interesting and when he decides to skip something else it’s something that may be more relevant to others, it’s entirely his right to do so. Or, in other terms, it indicates that the author managed to portray the story exactly as intended. What I can’t quite excuse, however, is that now it’s less a matter of Kvothe having only himself to thank and to blame for his successes and failures, the usual combination of friends, allies and quite a lot of luck rearing its head plenty of times.
Still, once it finally does switch gears, any tedious or frustrating moments, as well as any other complaints, are quickly forgotten, and overall it’s still atmosphere and emotion and the occasional notable bit of wisdom, with a fair amount of humor thrown in as well. It’s a dream, a fantasy, while at the same time feeling stunningly, overwhelmingly “real”, in more ways than one. It’s lovely, sweet, creepy, horrible at times, thrilling and occasionally hopeful, even encouraging, yet overall depressing and disheartening due to the weight of the gloom and doom it holds over your head. And, once it’s over, it will leave you with a lingering, bittersweet exhaustion… Because, after all, you just lived through a portion of a life not meant for mere mortals to experience.

Rating: 4/5

This is odd, but noticed yesterday that the court date for the Gendarmerie’s appeal was set, and it’s in July, so during what I knew to be vacation time for the courts, during which dates are only set for emergencies. More interestingly, another activist had just posted that his court date, also for the Gendarmerie’s appeal regarding the fine he received for attending the November 7 protest, was set for September, so as it should be at this point, after the vacation. However, looking at all the cases listed at that court on that date, not only that all of them are appeals regarding fines, but there’s also one other protester, apparently also regarding November 7, though I don’t recognize her by name.

That’s pretty much what I meant to post right now, because otherwise I just managed to catch up on reading yesterday, after falling behind at the start of the week, and I mean to push a bit now, maybe trying to finish the book on Saturday if possible, which will also mean that the quick review for it may well be this week’s second post, sparing me from needing to just throw something else on here that will be even more pointless. And I also did actually start playing Age of Wonders and I’m already at the fourth scenario, so I’d rather get back to either one or the other.
But before finishing, I should also mention that this week’s run marked the first noticeably worse time over 12 and a half laps, as after nearly identical times on the first four attempts, around 28:22, I now only managed 28:58, and also only about 2:05 for the last lap. Admittedly, some 15 seconds were lost when the shoelaces of one shoe came undone and I had to stop and tie them again after ten laps, but that still leaves plenty, despite the lower temperature, overcast sky and the fact that it had just rained before, so there was definitely no problem regarding heat. Weaving around puddles may have been an issue, but that also meant I was on the first lane for a turn and a half, so perhaps not. Sleeping a mere three hours that morning definitely was a problem, however, as was the fact that I had walked four kilometers in 30 minutes, so exactly at jogging pace, after midnight the night before, returning from an activists’ meeting that had stretched far past the time when it was supposed to end.

I guess I’m ending up posting a Sunday update after all, but instead of covering the whole week, this post will just be about one day, and that’s yesterday. Was sort of thinking of trying to post something non-personal, likely about the Women’s World Cup, even if it’d have been short, but certain events having to do with activists and protesters took place last night and I’m still trying to figure out exactly what happened and whether I mean to attend the response which is apparently being announced for this evening, so this will have to do, especially since I sent someone a message describing pretty much everything last night and now I’ll pretty much just have to turn it into something that may be posted here.

The first thing I did yesterday was go to a “free shop” organized by a separate group which formed after the past protests. I keep saying it’d be funny if it wouldn’t be so sad that the anarchists who attended managed to organize themselves, uniting with a few other radical anti-capitalists, feminists and a few who dared to take a more firm and public pro-LGBT stance, set up their own place somewhere and hold ongoing events all this time while the “United We Save” movement split and splattered all over and still largely spends more time and energy on internal struggles, egos and being suspicious towards and attacking fellow activists than on anything else.
But back to the “free shop”, the idea is to simply drop off things you no longer need and take whatever you want, without any sort of exchanges taking place, whatever’s left at the end of the day being donated to needy people. Been half a year or so since I first saw one such event announced and while I didn’t go then, I meant to have a look next time, as it was supposed to take place every month. However, haven’t seen anything of the sort announced by them since, so had five issues of National Geographic to drop off, as I had decided to keep them since then, thinking that if somebody’d want them it’d count as reusing, which beats recycling them directly, at least if the last user will recycle instead of throwing away or hoarding for no reason. Also dropped off two of the DVDs with full games I bought with issues of Level magazine in 2010, namely King’s Bounty: The Legend and The Dark Eye: Drakensang, and a pajama top which had been sitting in the wardrobe since last year, as the trousers had ended up too ruined to be salvageable anymore.
The games were picked up by a guy almost as soon as I dropped them on a table, but saw them back there when I passed that spot again, so guess he decided against taking them in the end. The magazines, on the other hand, I had dropped next to two boxes of old books that were near the entrance, and by the time I looked through said boxes the five had become three. Then, when I got back from looking through the two shelves of books that weren’t nonfiction in their little permanent “library”, the three had become two. Oddly enough, it’s the most recent ones that were still there, or at least the May edition was still on top, as I’m not entirely certain which the other one was.
As for what else was there, I can just say what I saw at that time, roughly between 6:05 PM and 6:25 PM, as the event was to take place between 4 PM and 9 PM and it’s quite obvious that items were dropped off and picked up throughout those five hours. But at that moment the first thing you saw as you entered were those two boxes of old books I mentioned, which contained mostly old school manuals, but also some really old actual books, a few without covers, and one notable new one which looked to be some sort of romance, judging by the cover, and which was already in some girl’s hand by the time I left. Next to those boxes were a few vinyls, a keyboard and another small stack of books that I had also placed the magazines on. Then there were a few other books scattered farther on, a couple of board games, a couple of computer games and a few movie DVDs. But most of the space was taken up by a few piles of clothes, and on top of that there were some accessories on the small table I had also placed my games on and probably seven or eight pairs of shoes lined up near the entrance, which included what appeared to be some Nikes still in pretty good condition, but all seemed to be in quite small sizes.
As I said, I looked rather thoroughly through the books, but didn’t find anything interesting, and the games didn’t interest me either, so I left without taking anything… And when I did I found a tiny all black kitten at the door, and it didn’t seem afraid at all. The two who came out after me stopped even longer, to pet it, try to figure out if it was a boy or a girl and wonder whether it belonged to anyone or whether they could adopt it. She was saying she’s seriously thinking of that, but he was pointing out the dog will eat it, and after she also asked me if I knew whether it had an owner, which I obviously didn’t, I left.

From there, since I had the book with me and also the camera and knew the day’s Pluto Time for here, I went first to Unirii Park, where with some difficulty I found an empty bench and read for a while, despite being assaulted by tiny insects. Then left in the direction of the Parliament, heading for Izvor Park, the sidewalks still being open for most of that stretch of road even if the street was closed to cars due to a concert taking place in Constitution Square.
I didn’t go far at first, stopping on another nearby bench to pull out the book again, but I ended up quickly needing to find myself another spot when some man just sat down next to me and lit a cigarette. Not that I could enjoy reading that much there either, as soon after I sat down again an older and, shall we say, particularly large woman sat next to me while a man who may have been her husband remained standing. Saw her pull out a package as well, but it only contained napkins, which she used to wipe sweat off herself before walking away again. Must say she reeked, and that’s saying something, as that sort of smell has to be quite bad for me to even notice. Also must say that, after they left, another guy sat next to me, but he just played on his phone… Which sure led me to wonder whether I had a sign anywhere stating there’s a free seat there and I welcome the company. I mean, I’m sitting here, I don’t know you, unless you absolutely need to sit down at this exact moment, move along and find yourself a free bench the same way I did!
Either way, stopped with a chapter left of what I meant to read that day and continued towards Izvor Park, following the stream of people as I had to go around when even the sidewalk became blocked for that concert. Eventually came out where I should have, entered the park, found another bench, finished reading what I meant to, then pulled out and tested the camera, and pulled out and put on the watch, which I had set just correctly before leaving, to make sure I’ll take the pictures at the right time.
That was all done at 8:30 PM, but the day’s Pluto Time for that place was 9:06 PM, so wandered around for a while, looking for a good spot and the right angles for the pictures, as I wanted to have a reasonably clear view of both the Parliament, seeing as capturing a local landmark is recommended, and the direction of the setting Sun, to pretty much only need to turn between the shots. Once that was done and I had settled on a spot, I wandered around slowly a little longer, returned to that spot with a good ten minutes left, and then just sort of stood there… And got assaulted by big insects, not sure exactly what. At first I thought bees or bumblebees, but probably, and fortunately, that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Still, they were quite bold, as after the first one struck my head and circled me a few times I saw another, and another, and they struck my head and back a few more times, then were flying right in front of my eyes and moving as I moved. Couldn’t even take all the nine pictures I eventually ended up taking, to show how it looks in different directions and with different settings, within the planned one minute, as I had to dodge another assault through it. Still, managed it in less than two minutes, so was good enough.

Something that struck me as odd while in Izvor Park was seeing a girl playing ball with a guy on one of the main alleys, wearing a dress and barefoot. Her sandals were dropped right on the side of the alley, behind her, along with a few other things. Think the dog roaming freely around the area was theirs as well, and it was wandering off quite far from them, including sniffing around one of the tents horses were in, as there were horses there for some event. Had all been brought inside from the fenced ranges by then, and there were notes everywhere to keep dogs away so they won’t scare them, but nobody seemed around and that tent was open on one side, so was worried the dog will even go inside and make matters worse, as I already heard horses whinnying when it approached. But it didn’t, wandering away again after a short while.

And before ending this, I’ll also say that I’m quite sure I briefly crossed paths with Remus Cernea on my way to the “free shop”. Judging by his posts and the time and place, he was coming from a TV show where he argued for an adviser of the Minister of Education to resign after it was revealed he’s the president of a religious NGO advocating abstinence-only sexual education in schools, alongside their main goal of making the “religion” class once again mandatory, most preferably teaching only the Christian Orthodox dogma.
Either way, I raised an eyebrow, then turned to stare, trying to be sure, said hi, didn’t get a reply, we crossed the street together, then went in different directions. He may not have heard or noticed, since he did unblock me a while back and even replied to and “liked” a few comments I posted on his page since, so it should no longer be a case of making a point of ignoring each other due to, to put it mildly, major differences of opinion over his political choices from that period, as it happened the few times we met and even sat right next to each other during a few protests, while he was associated with PSD.
Does strike me as rather sad that it’s so weird to just happen to meet a member of the Parliament simply walking down the street, wearing, as he often does, a t-shirt with what appeared to be some band logo, though I couldn’t make out the name, and with a simple and rather worn bag slung on his shoulder. I mean, shouldn’t it be pretty normal for them, or at least for more of them, to also be and act like regular people, like the rest of us?