The Great Battle Not to Be Flushed in La Liga 2022-2023”

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2314281/football

 After a mostly joyless season as a Valencia Club de Fútbol fan, the most exciting game of the season may be Sunday’s final match in what I’m calling “The Great Battle Not to Be Flushed in La Liga 2022-2023.”

 I can't ever remember being so invested in not seeing a train wreck happen before my very eyes, and I was a Chicago Cubs fan as a child, a shit team back then but they never got tossed out of MLB. To steal a good joke, it will be like being tied to a chair and watching a toddler play with a loaded pistol.

 ¡Amunt València, Visca el València del nostre cor!

 The very last game this season of the Spanish La Liga has six clubs fighting separately not to be relegated with all final games to be played at the same hour on Sunday:

 

Celta de Vigo

Barcelona

 

Betis

Valencia C.F.

 

Elche C.F.     

Cádiz

 

Valladolid

Getafe

 

RCD Espanyol

Almería

Ode to Madrid

 I live in a city of somewhere around 800,000 inhabitants, not small and not too big. Valencia is a sophisticated metropolis with an excellent public transportation system and wonderful rail connections via the high-speed Spanish network of AVE. It’s not like I’m living in the sticks, yet the moment I arrive in Madrid, I’m simply overwhelmed by its immensity, the masses of people, the bustling metro, and the endless expanse of cool neighborhoods.

My Coldest Damn Winter in Spain

 I have been such a whiny little bitch the past two weeks as we've experienced what I think is the longest cold snap of my time here in Spain. Low temperatures are below five degrees and daytime highs are around fifteen. As you can see in the photo above, there is no end in sight.

In the street, I'd never complain about the cold because it isn't that cold. The problem is my drafty, un-insulated apartment with no central heating. I have a couple of butane gas heaters which do a good job, but if they aren't one, the place is colder than it is outside.

In an effort to make my life a bit more comfortable, I bought an electric blanket. It's no substitute for spring weather, but it makes being in bed more tolerable. I feel like a cold-blooded lizard in this cold and have so little motivation that my bike must think I filed for divorce, although I am making it to the gym to lift.

I'll survive, maybe, but I'm not going to take it like a man or whatever. This is why I never complain about about the heat in the summer. I'd take that seven days a week over these frigid weeks. For me, the cold is like a low-level and constant pain.

                                                15FEB23

 

The Oscar Winner in the Category of “No One Gives a Shit” Goes to…

 

Do we really need to always be talking about race and gender? Is there nothing else? This is from the NYT article I linked:

 The nominations were a mix of welcome surprises and perplexing snubs, as our awards expert Kyle Buchanan noted: “Everything Everywhere All at Once” led the tally with actors of Asian descent making a particularly good showing. Yet Viola Davis and other Black stars of well-known films were completely shut out of the running for best actress, and Andrea Riseborough unexpectedly succeeded with an out-of-the-box campaign for her little-seen “To Leslie.” (How little seen? As of this writing its box office take stands at $27,322.)

Our co-chief critic Manohla Dargis is more optimistic about Hollywood*, specifically about the status of women in the industry. Citing a raft of female-driven movies in the last year, she writes, “Despite continuing biases and barriers, women are now directing movies with a variety of budgets, topics and casts. It’s made my job as a critic more exciting.”

Do they hand out race and ethnic scorecards so these writers can keep track? It's not like these awards were ever based on merit (judging art like horse races if just too stupid to ponder in the first place). Why don't we just give everyone an award like we do for children's sporting activities these days?

Rich fuckers giving themselves prizes for being rich and famous. That should set the world right. If the Academy Awards are so racist and sexist, then let’s do away with them altogether. I’m OK with that because I don’t care about prizes for rich creeps, not even a little

*This is what Manhole writes:

“I find it an agony to compile a Top 10 list. There are just too many good and great films, too many titles that I want to celebrate.”

Wow! Really? Great films? I thought that almost everything was pure crap, including most of those being celebrated by the Academy.