I think I gone done broke myself

IU last weekend was awesome. 3 games of beer pong, 2 80's parties and a whole lotta friends is always a good way to spend free time, even if I did get up early each day, resulting in me being a little bit broken. Didn't help that I hadn't been to the gym for a week before Monday, so now I'm broken and sore. Boo.

DC RoKS in two weeks!

I'm feelin' happy, so highly evolved

Back at IU and having a daaamn good time. Catching up with friends, most of whom I haven't seen in nearly a year, with a night of alcohol-related fun last night where Team Future Impoverished Teachers beat Team Future 6-Figure Salaries in Beer Pong. My friend Brad and I won by harnessing the awesome power of my ass (fun story). It was some good times.

I'm sitting here in some vaguely 80's gear (half-open pink shirt and khakis) for a party/parties tonight - that comes after the rematch.

Avast!

In honor of International Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, I've challenged Jen to a Sword-Pistol fight (we'll tie pistols to swords "for twice the adventure"). Who will win? Who will perish? Will we bother to do it in the first place? ...Probably not, seeing as how we have to leave at 4:30am for Team Days tomorrow. Never mind.

Yarr!

IU beats UK

...University of Kentucky, that is. IU is currently 3-0 this year and the Quarterback's name is Blake Powers. That is an awesome name.

Other football winners this weekend were the Bizarro Colts and Jen, who won her first game of flag football without clotheslining anyone out of their shoes. Bravo!

Goodbye, Youssef!

Today was Youssef's last day as part of the US MC. Anyone who's met Youssef will attest to his spirit, good humor and general awesomeness in helping to make the Salaam program what it is today. He'll be greatly missed - good luck, Youssef!

"Jim... Where are my Knees?"

A bar we often head to had its first birthday party last night and celebrated with a free open bar. A FREE OPEN BAR.

Last night, I was "That Guy". The title of this post is an actual quote. I cannot remember much of what happened after a certain point - I remember that they played Where the Streets Have No Name by U2 and that it made me very happy, because "it was the powerpoint song!", but it only went downhill from there. I won't go into details, because you can probably guess - not pretty. Jen is now officially a saint for bundling me into a taxi and letting me sleep on her couch. I had to go back to the bar after work to pick up my glasses (which were lost), and thankfully no-one recognized me or gave me a "Oh no you d'ent" look.

This will not happen again.

Hurrah for money!

Congratulations to the Salaamis past and present on their triumph in securing MEPI grant funding! May it mean yet more awesome people crossing the Atlantic and communicating their cultures both here in the States and in the Arab World 8)

Well Shut my Mouth

England won the Ashes test against Australia for the first time in 18 years, shame I wasn't there to join in (although I'm wearing my England football shirt for my own l'il celebration). When is the next Cricket World Cup?

At Scott Tworek's Still Bar performance last night, Jill was the first American I've heard actually want more football (or soccer for the uninitiated), going against the suprising amount of vitriol/apathy I've heard from most Americans. Football has very little in the way of stats, is a national game (ie you have a national team that plays others in international tounaments) and the scores are low per game (compared to basketball, American football and baseball), so I never figured it'd be that huge over here. Combine with this the cultural aspect (football/soccer has always been seen as a "yuppie" sport in the States, it seems) vs the more traditional aspects of baseball et al.

I got a book a little while ago about Football and globalization (an interesting mix; Farid seemed to like it) and the final chapter is about football and American culture, with part of it devoted to various people who just don't like football and want to tell everyone that fact. One guy said that if other countries could afford baseball, basketball and American football leagues maybe they'd like those sports just as much as football, which is pretty stupid. NFL Europe blows, and while there are basketball leagues they're just not on the same plane of popularity as golf, let alone football (there must be leagues outside of America as the US got their asses handed to them by several at the Olympics last year). As for Baseball? Forget about it. It's practically inpenetrable with all the stats, and outside of Central and Latin America no attempt is made to market it.

Personally I like baseball and American Football a lot (haven't seen any hockey and I don't really care too much about basketball), but only because I had people to walk me through the game and explain what the hell was going on. Now it's fun. Go Colts!

Naan Bread: It's what's for Dinner

My personal resistance against the low-carb diet fad continues...

Carbs are tasty. Mmmm-MMM.

The Sounds of Laughter, Work and Friends

Hurrah! The office is once again full of people as Carly, Sarah, Jen and Claude return from India. Nice to have the sounds of people catching up with each other floating over the walls of our quasi-cubicles. I shall celebrate by eating copious amounts of sushi and fruit over the course of today.

Sports, the English & Winning don't Mix

Watched some of the US Open in Madison Square Garden with Jill 'n' Phil last night - it was nice to be out in the open while the nights are still warm, and nicer still to not worry about all the "will Tim Henman win?" crap that usually accompanies me watching tennis. In case you don't know, every time Wimbledon comes around at least one commentator (often John McEnroe) will say that this might be the year he wins the tournament. Following this, one of two things will happen; 1) Tim will get to the semi-finals and be soundly thrashed by Federer/Roddick/Agassi/whoever wins the whole thing, or 2) he'll get to the 2nd round and will have the crap kicked out of him by a 17 year old Eastern European guy whose ranking is triple-digits. This doesn't stop people from saying he might win it the next year though, all of which has made me at best a little cynical when watching England/Britain play sports.

Another example of this comes from the England World Cup qualifier last night, a 1-0 loss to Northern Ireland. Now, no disrespect to Northern Ireland - I didn't see the game but from what I've heard they played far better - but England has a better team and should be able to spank them on a regular basis. It's just that every English or British team comes with a provision that, every now and then, frequently in an important game, they will simply suck. Even normally talented players will suddenly play with all the intuition, grace and skill of... well, me. Once in a blue moon the opposite will happen and they'll play like nipple-clamps and a variety of impliments involving chains and pointy things await them if they lose, but otherwise they appear to be the eternal self-destruction team. None of this means I'll stop supporting them though, revealing a masochistic streak in me that I find confusing but somehow strangley compelling.

Then again, they might win the Ashes this week for the first time in forever, which would be fantastic as it would be another thing to tease Jen with. Go England!

Go Big Red!

22nd of September - the day I'll return to one of the places I call home for the first time in nearly a year. A weekend of bars, Avers 8's and old friends awaits - IU here I come!

No Whey! Yes Whey!

I'm trying to take the whole going-to-the-gym thing seriously, so I've started trying out protein shakes after each visit. Helped that my room-mate had a blender squirreled away so I didn't have to shell out for a new one, and the shakes are pretty good with a banana mixed in.

In light of this, I had a look at some of the food I eat semi-regulary, namely Subway and Chipotle. I figured Chipotle was horrendously bad for you and after checking it's pretty much just that: a shade under 1000 calories, 1 and a half times the RDA for sodium, about half of my daily fat RDA... and I get let off a lot of crap because I don't get cheese, guacamole or sour cream in mine...

Turns out my favourite Subway sandwich is awful (goddam tuna): 1060 calories, 62g of fat (out of 65g-ish per day!), and that's without the bread.

I checked McDonalds for comparrison - turns out that a Big Mac is roughly the most healthy out of the three.

So, what does this mean? I don't think I'm going to have a heart-attack anytime soon, but it sucks to find out how crap some of the stuff I eat is. I guess you can eat at Chipotle like once a week or so and not have it mess you up, but as for the tuna sub... damn. That was the only one that filled me up. I'll have to stick to Whole Foods more in the future - sushi isn't bad for you, right?