Category: Fourre-tout

What is the most popular sport in the world? Baseball, football, basketball, curling?
Wrong my unlettered friends!

“According to a FIFA survey, over 240 million people regularly play soccer in more than 200 countries, in every part of the world”, and the sport enjoys an estimated 4.0 billion (4,000,000,000) person following.

The 2018 World Cup final will be watched by an estimated 600 million people and yet, none of the Big Three American television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) bothered to broadcast the games.

WTF? Too busy with POTUS antics?

Today, soccer is played in the most remote corners of the world and its popularity has never been so great. Even among women, who are making great strides to be recognized as the equals of male players.

Soccer is one of the most demanding sport in the world, requiring a lot of strength and stamina. A match is played in two 45-minute halves with a half-time period of 15 minutes. Basically, all the players run non-stop for 90 minutes with a very short break in between.
Useless to say that there are no chubby players in that discipline!

But what used to be a well-regulated sport has degenerated in some kind of grotesque wrestling contests.

While watching some of the matches on Fox or Telemundo, I was aghast by the tactics employed by some players. The Beautiful Game is now more like wrestling, with a series of tripping and body slams occurring every 5 minutes. And very few of these transgressions are penalized! Very regrettable!

The chances of injuries are high and many players leave the field on a stretcher. But the financial rewards and glory are so great that all players will risk it all to come on top.

Once you have made it to the finals, you become an iconic figure in your country, and if you happened to be on the winning team, you are demigods.

❤ ❤ ❤

If I had young children with a surplus of energy, I would definitely stir them to soccer instead of American football. It is somewhat safer and more strenuous in the long run than briefly trying to contain a massive offensive lineman.

Alain

Free lunches don’t come cheap. Charles Petzold

Ideally speaking it would be nice, once in a while, to be the beneficiary of a “free lunch”. But more often than not a “free” lunch proves to be more costly than a purchased meal.

Because let’s face it, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Soon or later, one way or the other, you will have to cough up for your “free” lunch.

Don Corleone: “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.”
Naturellement! What did you expect?

A free lunch offer is like bait. Enticing, tempting, easy to get, but with strings attached. Why do you think lobbyists ply you with such nice perks? Because they love you?

“Love is like a taxi fare, the further you go, the more dearly you will pay.”

Every action has a consequence just as every Yin has a Yang. A free lunch indebts you to your “benefactor”. And interest could be more costly than expected.

The best gifts are intangible…

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy. Meryl Streep

A hug might be more soothing than a fruitcake, or a piece of jewelry.

This does not mean that you should systematically refuse every lunch invitation. An invitation from a long-time friend is definitely more genuine that an invite from your local politico during elections time.

Always beware of the word “free”. It is a four-letter word. It is a lure, a decoy, a thing intended to tempt or entice you. When you hear that dirty word, turn around and run!

A free kiss is acceptable, as long as it is not binding. But beware; there nothing is more expensive than a free kiss from an alluring woman.

Genuine free hugs from you know whom!

Alain

“Remain humble or life will do it for you.”

If you are a pétanque player, you might have noticed that this unpretentious game has a way to keep you humble… or cut you down to size.

National tournaments (like Sonoma’s) are a good way to assess your skills. When you start thinking that you are a big tuna, you might discover that your size shrinks significantly when you venture into a bigger pond. There is ALWAYS somebody who will lick you. Surprise!

This sport, like any other competitive exercise, has something to do with physical ability and mental strength. A great player usually starts young, is naturally gifted and gets a lot of practice. You need to play often, preferably with stronger players, to hone your skills.
And you need to control your temper and stay cool under pressure! The mark of a champion is to remain grounded while achieving greatness.

Unlike other sports, age is no handicap in pétanque. Sexagenarians can be as good as teenagers, and young phenoms could deflate anybody’s ego faster than you can utter OMG!

You can spot a “serious” player by the way he/she behaves on the field. Marching back and forth scrutinizing every inch of the ground (?), marking where the cochonnet landed, crouching to assess the topography of the area, mulling about the next move…

As a photographer, I cannot help but notice those things and they sometimes make me chuckle. D-Day required a lot of thinking and a lot of planning. Shooting or pointing should take a little less time.

But who am I to say this? I am an emblematic Pastis (minus the Pastis) player. I only play on weekends and never farther than 30 miles from my abode.

This does not mean that I am not competitive. I am, and I don’t like to lose. But I was a late starter and it is difficult to catch up with somebody who began playing while still wearing diapers.

So I am a journeyman player. And if you play against me, call yourself lucky because you have a good chance to beat me.

If I were a really good player, I would probably be full of myself… the opposite of the wonderful human being that I presently am. And if I were really good, I would probably not lower myself to play with you.

So we are all lucky. Since I am less than great, I remain friendly and humble… and you, you won’t have to be snubbed by a self-anointed champ.

Don’t let me win too often. It could go to my head and make my derrière too big for my britches.

Alain

Karma has no menu. You get served what you deserve.