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Where does ice cream truck music come from? Read all about it [pdf].

Continuing in the long tradition of excusing my posting hiatuses, I present a summary of today’s principal events:

• 9:00 AM: Ate waffles (four).
• 10:00 AM: Watched the World Cup match between Germany and Ecuador.
• 1:00 PM: Acquired a bed and mattress for school from Sleepy’s. The salesman’s pen ran out of ink as I signed a form, which appeared to ruin his day. He admonished me to stay in school so I don’t end up with a shitty job like this, goddamnit, I hate that pen.
• 3:00 PM: Watched the World Cup match between England and Sweden. Predicted Gerrard’s entrance into the game to the minute at the beginning of the second half.
• 5:00 PM: Listened to Cake’s Fashion Nugget to get a Mingus tune out of my head.
• 6:00 PM: Bought salad dressing, because the funny-tasting Hidden Valley Ranch I had yesterday had in fact expired sixteen months ago. (Conclusion: consuming year-old salad dressing does not have any ill effects, but is still kind of gross.)
• 6:30 PM: Ate a salad (topped with new, unexpired salad dressing).
• 7:00 PM: Read The Breast, a Philip Roth novel about a man who inexplicably turns into a talking 155-pound female breast. I now anticipate next semester’s Roth class with some trepidation.
• 9:00 PM: Watched England-Sweden again, this time mocking Marcelo Balboa the whole game.
• 11:30 PM: Prepared and ate an entire bag of frozen french fries, washed down with a can of Pepsi.

With my empty summer schedule I have been much too busy wasting time to update the site. Thankfully, I start work next week at Camp Hillard, so things should pick up soon. Stay tuned!

ESPN’s World Cup coverage is pretty hilarious.

As you may already know, Americans are stupid and don’t know anything about geography. And that’s OK, because ESPN thoughtfully supplies every country’s location, capital, and official language by overlaying a huge, garish graphic on top of the game. We’re also incapable of the most basic short-term memory, so they also provide frequent, helpful reminders: which team is wearing which color, who’s announcing the game, This Is The FIFA World Cup Presented By Adidas, England is playing tomorrow morning. This essential information is conferred by means of a giant infobox, preferably covering the ball, whose arrival is accompanied by swooshing noises and flashing lights. It’s a good thing there are so many interruptions; I don’t know how else our attention spans would handle such monotony.

I expected that much from ESPN, though, if only because of their American sports heritage. The best part was hearing Adrian Healey and Tommy Smyth, a duo clearly chosen for the authenticity of their accents, make painful, forced analogies that the US audience might understand. Smyth came up with a gem (I’m paraphrasing here): “Ecuador has taken two shots in the second half, and scored once. That’s, uh, I’d say they’re at .500, you know? If I could hit like that I wouldn’t be here talking to you now!” After Healey made some comment wondering what in God’s name his partner was on about, Smyth sheepishly followed up with “Uh, I was talking about baseball.” After witnessing a couple of these abortions (“He’s got a free kick! Will he use the, uh, driver or the pitching wedge?”), I decided they should stick to what English and Irish announcers do best: saying things like “good pace” and “clean sheet” without sounding like pretentious windbags. That’s something no American will ever be able to take away from them.

Despite some questionable coverage, I am excited that I’ll be able to see all of the games, between ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC. If you’ve never been much of a soccer fan, this is the time to get into it. Here’s a schedule.

UPDATE: To clarify, I think Smyth and Healey are infinitely better than any of the American announcers. I love them. I was just miffed that they tried so hard to make soccer “accessible” with their American sports analogies (a missive from the higher-ups at ESPN, no doubt). Happily, they seemed to have phased that out.

Google: whoops, we were evil.

Snake on a plane. Coincidence? Or…viral marketing?

IGN Dreamcast has relaunched. The Dreamcast rocked and all, but WTF?