Zizou, Henry, Barthez and my other new friends

Yesterday evening we went to Saint Etienne, about 50km far from Lyon to see the friendly match between France - China. It was a good opportunity to see the French national football team before World Cup 2006, especially with €15 tickets from Jeff, our American friend but also honorable football referee.











What to say... game was quite okay, finally France won 3:1. But how much effort would you expect to put into a friendly match, three days before World Cup? Concerning me, I still prefer to watch tennis... or ice hockey... or swimming... or even women beach voleyball (after seeing one game of Brazilian women beach volleyball team, who will ever care about Brazilian men football team?).
The bad thing I noticed when observing crowded grandstand is that football attracts only men, juveniles and boys. Women usually say that they admire football players but I think they only watch their pictures in magazines and are not really attracted by their play. Which is the same situation when men like all nice and young actresses and in principle are not really concerned about their acting skills ;) But tell me, will women ever understand men's desire to play "games" at any age?
The good thing about football is that 90 minutes of match pass more quickly than I expect :)





















So today I was in school in the afternoon and I watched Roland Garros which was on bar's TV. Czech player Nicole Vaidisova lost to some Russian... merde! In the tornameny she has already beated Amelie Mauresmo and Venus Williams. She was so close to winning again, only two balls and she would be in Grand Slam finals! I have wished this so much to her. Well she is only seventeen now, she really needs more experience. (I wonder about my life when I was seventeen:) This is how it works in tennis - Performance creates Confidence and Confidence results in Performance. The mystical combination, never let anybody to intefer into this cycle, because both also decrease at the same time. Nicole, see you again!

Sprained Ankle

Live from Lyon, France... I have just sprained my beloved ankle.

I went to the nearby park to practice my tennis hits against the wall. WOW I was in such a good form that I was looking for the afternoon when I will play with Radi and kick ass!!! YOu know when you just hold the racquet and pam-pam all the hits are good. Just one of the backhands kinda sucked and ended stuck in the net above the wall. I tried to get it. I placed my racket against the wall, put my left foot on it and tried to use it as a higher, slow rebound. Not high enough. Unfortunately, as my right foot touch-downed the surface again, it stepped directly on a nasty rock. I lay on the ground in pain, hurting my right wrist as well. In this moment, I flashbacked all those ugly videos I have seen when somebody gets hurt and sprains his ankle or brokes a leg. AAA!

In a few minutes I got up and get it to the tree, hid under the shadow and drank some water. I was thinking how I will get out of here, I was losing consciousness a bit when walking and I had a bike with me. It was actually the bike that helped me a lot. The left foot was pedalling and right one could rest because there was no body weight burdening it like it would be if I was walking.

So now I am in my room, I am cooling down my ankle with ice, I got something good to drink, some chocolate... I deserve those! "Physical pain is killing you (Psychological pain destroys you)" - that's what I realized when I was walking. I did not have any accident like this for a long time so I almost forgot how bad it is, to feel something physically hurts. There are so many diseases and harms that causes pain human body so I must say "Respect to all the people in hospitals, without health we are nothing". Don't you also feel it when you are in a hospital, from time to time? All the people there deserve to be visited by their families and friends and not to stay alone. (On the picture - the right "phat" ankle in comparison to left "tiny" ankle - Monday afternoon)

Okay, this is one of my characteristics - when something small happens I always seek the big picture :) I am sorry for that. Now I am lying in my bed and thinking that I would need to have a small application to turn everything on laptop screen by 90 degrees so my head can rest horizontally on the pillow. I am going to watch some Discovery Channel documents and eat cookies which are the only joys that an accident can give you :)

PS: Let's make some grammar clear.

Infinitive	Definition	Simple Present	Simple Past	Past Participle	Present Participle
to lay	to put or place something down	lay(s)	laid	laid	laying
to lie	to rest or recline	lie(s)	lay	lain	lying

Lie is an intrasitive veb (it cannot take direct object).
Lay is a transitive verb (it is incomplete without a direct object).
Lay is the past tense of lie.

If you want to ensure that you learn this, click for a small story about lie and lay. And I wish for everyone to get laid! ;)

Fashion fades. Style is eternal. (YSL)

In the meanwhile, have a look at this new (well, February 2006) campaign for French connection more famous under their marketing acronym fcuk - Fashion v Style. The advertisement was done by Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie and received 127 complaints the first week.

I would love to have his job! (even though I would become a yuppie metrosexual)

Head spinning

Just a short post before I finish the work on tomorrow's presentation and finally go to bed.

Today, my Marketing des activites culturels class took place in Lyon, at Ecole de Danse which was founded in 1977. There was some talking in the beginning, I understood that culture needs to be subsidized heavily so the prices are kept low hence it stays accesible to a broader public. That makes sense - for a moment I was thinking if all museums should be made free because the more people visit them the more cultivated they become. Wouldn't it be good for our society?

Then we saw a rehearsal of dance performance. It was a modern dance (scenic?). One guy was actually singing with a deep voice and there were 3+3 dancers performing, nothing else. I think it is one of the most difficult arts to understand - what people want to express by their movements. But somehow it was really soothing and what they did felt to be so synchronized and aesthetic. The one thing they did was without any music or singing, the melody was just made from the sounds of their steps on the platform. I cannot understand how can the guys remember they choreography so well.

So I am going to work some more right now. Next time I would like to write about the my last weekend which was really great, but I need to find a little bit more time to do it.

$100 laptop prototypes

$100 laptop prototypes
Originally uploaded by Pete Barr-Watson.

Have a look at those first prototypes of a notebook computer that would have a price tag of $100 and still would work. They are meant to be spread to poor countries like Slovakia and assist in education. It sounds sweet to run open source software and put some great products on them - especially Wikipedia comes to my mind! Well this might work but I think that all the school books that covered my basic studies were less than $100...

PS: Actually I just thought that it would be okay to use something similar to these let's say at High Schools (in Slovakia, od course) - students can use them to read many e-books (esp. in foreign laguages to improve!), use them for math calculations&graphs and the best - write homeworks which they then upload to teacher's computer. Internet could be a threat because of viruses and "internet surfing addiction" but on the other hand it could serve well for collaborative work. In conclusion, $100 those laptops would be perfectly affordable and the basic configuration should be enough to everything needed for education. Now the suppliers must only provide a new design for the product, so you would not ruin your social status - especially important when at High School. And if it looks at least a bit trendy - the better the chance it would be fond of and used everyday.