It's Chris' birthday in 27 minutes. Exciting.

I've also experienced major laundry fail. Now have a lot of tinted yellow clothing. Yay? I hate doing laundry.

Oh, in more entertaining news, we bought mini passes to see four Earthquakes games. Get to see them play Galaxy...was so hard trying to get tickets for that. Speaking of which, life was sad today without any World Cup games.

Back to folding laundry. At least I'm folding laundry to David Bowie.

No more posting long incoherent posts before I go to bed.

This has been shaping up to be an interesting summer. I kicked it off with an intense comic book obsession as I finally decided to start working my way through Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. I also played an unhealthy amount of Super Mario Galaxy during that time.

Now, I've been living and breathing football/soccer because of the World Cup. I actually got up at an absurd time so that I could be in SF by 7 to watch the US-Algeria game. That kind of crazy.

It's led to some interesting patterns for me. I'm pretty sure that I've spent more money on World Cup-related expenditures than music, for one. In fact, I am so not on top of my music hipsterness. It's ridiculous. I haven't even listened to the new Blitzen Trapper album. Been meaning to get that, actually.

Another interesting development: I'm the one talking about sports at work. Usually, during sports conversations I'm the one smiling awkwardly in the corner while everyone else talks about basketball or football or whatever. Right now, I'm considered the soccer fanatic. It's a weird change of pace for me.

It kind of makes me want to go back and read Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. I wasn't obsessed with soccer back when I read it. I read the book and compared his obsession with my music obsession. The themes were similar, but I think it might be worth a revisit. If I can find that book at all, that is.

Anyway, Thursday and this Saturday have led to a lot of sulking. Sulking that Lippi decided to play a team of old fail-tastic Juve players instead of the younger Italian players. Sulking that Uruguay beat South Korea (though, in their defense, Uruguay has been on fire this year). And, of course, sulking about US's loss to Ghana in a game that we probably could have won. Effectively, those three games knocked all of my nationalities out of the running. Italy didn't really disappoint me. I saw Italy's fail coming. Wasn't sure how far South Korea would make it. On the other hand, I did honestly think this would be the US's year this year. I thought it'd be the year that we'd go far and maybe increase US interest in the sport. I guess there's always 2014, right?

Donovan's still my hero, though. I've been trying to get tickets to see San Jose Earthquakes play LA Galaxy. If I do and Donovan's playing, I might have to change my team allegiance for the game.

Anyway, now I'm rooting for Germany. My fondness for the German national team goes back to that backpacking trip in 2008 during the Euro Cup. I hope the Argentina-Germany game this weekend is as amazing as it seems. Also excited about the Brazil-Netherland's match up. In the end, I think I want any team but Brazil to win this year. So over them winning.

All of this also reminds me that it's been four years since my summer in Florence. It's crazy. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but so much has really changed. Or so I say. That summer, Chris and I were still licking off the wounds from that Ed debacle. Lost some friends to do that and, at that time at least, we thought we'd be losing more.

The thought of losing so many of the friends who I spent most of undergrad growing close to is what eventually pushed me into joining CalPIRG. I figured I'd throw energy into something new. I can't say I regret it. I made some great friends from those experiences. It help me focus on what I really wanted to do. Gave me a thirst for activism and "fighting the good fight." It made me go from being politically apathetic to actually paying attention to what was going on in the world. Granted, I've changed my focus and passions a little since my CalPIRG days, but it's the same general idea.

I regret how things ended between Chris and Ed. I don't think either of them are ever going to completely get over it. Sometimes, though, I really think it helped me. I don't think I would have gotten into law school if things had continued the way they did, where I did nothing but go to school and then watch stupid television shows with everyone until late at night. So maybe the Chris-Ed fallout wasn't entirely bad. It sparked a new flame in me that led to some of my most memorable undergraduate experiences.

Another interesting thought. One of the people who helped me through that whole Ed incident (in some respects at least) hates me and no longer speaks with me. Had I known that even two years ago, I might be sad about that, but life is a little less stressful with her out of my life.

So, this was a long incoherent and tl;dr (it's way past my bedtime). I guess where I was going is that I've already been planning out my viewing schedule of the 2014 World Cup. However, the difference between 2006 Alea and 2010 Alea makes me wonder what things will be like for me in 2014.

We are heading off on another family adventure today. As per usual, the accounts of the adventure will be recorded on a blog. Hope you enjoy: http://beachsocceroil.blogspot.com/

Also, my room is disgustingly messy. I've been trying to sort out Journal Competition entries the last few weeks (people need to write onto journals to become members of them), so they are EVERYWHERE in my room. It's insane.

Tomorrow is my first Yelp Elite party. I'm excited.

Other than that, have been busy trying to do work with a longer commute than what I have for school and a daily hour long trip to the gym. Means every day is pretty tiring and I'm out by 11:30. Trying to get laundry done right now before the trip (going on a family trip next week) and Gianni's graduation.

Oh and i used the rest of my LexisNexis AmEx card on Pokemon Soul Silver. Don't judge me.

I guess my little two week stint of carefree frolicking have come to an end. Tomorrow, I start my internship with Creative Commons. I will not be having fun waking up early again, but I was also getting pretty restless.

Just saw Inter win the Champion's League final. 2-0, both scored by Milito. It was pretty awesome and led to a rare series of tweets from me about sports. Weird, I know.

Anyway, this Nike commercial was one of the highlights.

19 days until the World Cup!

I've been down on Glee lately. It's gone downhill since it came back in April and there have been more bad episodes than good. However, I just watched last night's episode and it was awesome . NPH singing Dream On and Piano Man. NPH being on there in general. There was actually character development (which is probably because the awesome Joss Whedon directed it). They actually used Other Asian for something. Wasn't a big fan of Idina Menzel singing, but I don't really like Idina Menzel so whatever. Now that Dollhouse is officially canceled can Joss just do more Glee episodes? It'd make everyone happier. Maybe (just maybe) I'd even convince Chris to watch with me.

Also, new Miggs album is out. It's kind of awesome. You should check it out.

Finals are done! They've been done since Wednesday, but I've been too busy playing Super Mario Galaxy and reading The Sandman and eating my way around the Mission to mention that. I've been using my LexisNexis points on The Sandman. Just got Vol. 3 but now I am out of points. Haha. Why is Neil Gaiman so awesome and why has it taken me so long to discover this?

Have the summer internship lined up with Creative Commons. I'm very excited about working with them. I have a couple of weeks of bumming around before that starts, so I'm taking the time to undo all the damage that finals caused. Signed up for 24 Hr Fitness with my mom and James. Chris restarted his account. So hopefully I can fix some of the damage before then. Going to spend this summer actually taking the diet thing seriously as well. We'll see how that goes. Maybe I'll even start cooking for myself again. A novel concept, I know.

Okay, should probably try to find something to eat.

Also trying to finally beat Super Mario Galaxy before the new one comes out. This is taking longer than it should because I'm being anal and want to get all the stars first. Whatever.