Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@HobbitGamer, @Luna_110 Thanks! The nice thing is that the initial recovery time is relatively short.

@Heavyarms55 I'd love to visit Japan one of these days. I had a friend from college who went there, too. It's a really long way from here, but I bet it's worth it!

@MarioLover92 Coming here was a literal dream come true. I never want to leave!

@Tyranexx Gotta have that 8K vision, right?

You had them lasered?

@bimmy-lee Yeah, kinda. At my age, these kinds of matches really aren't good for my heart. It was grueling. Wonderful goal, and well-deserved for the player who made it, because she's been working really hard, and playing real good during the entire tournament, but that first half, and large parts of the second half were not good. Too many mistakes and missed shots. So, I wouldn't say they did a fantastic job at all, @DenDen. They were just lucky and they're fighters, so as a team, they dragged this victory away from the gates of hell, but the football itself really wasn't that good.

If they play like this against the USA, then they're going to lose with big numbers.
Either way, I'm getting my dream finale, @bimmy-lee, so whoever wins now, is fine by me...

@Tyranexx Good to hear the surgery went well. Did you get your eyes lasered or something? The same surgery is offered here as well, and I have been thinking about it, but my contact lenses are relatively moderate in strength (-2.50 in both eyes), so I don't feel like I'm already near-sighted enough to have this done.

As for those limits you mentioned: did you mean eating limits, or something else?

@Ninfan Well, as you could see from the links I gave you, Ginx TV itself hasn't stopped, they've just changed into an eSports channel now, more than likely because it makes them more money. But there's still the news items and the first hour segment that I mentioned earlier. I'm not familiar with the other channel you mentioned. Ginx is the only one we used to get over here, and we had some local video game programs as well, but other than that, there wasn't anything else to watch.

So there was apparently an earthquake in Vancouver, then Los Angeles, and now my mom is worried it might reach us too

Prob depends on what part of Mexico youre in I'd imagine right?

@Morpheel Well, still sounds better than a certain area in Italy: the volcano Stromboli erupted, lots of people needed to be evacuated immediately, and the first victim has already fallen.

@Morpheel
Hopefully it doesn’t!
Still, it wouldn’t be a bad time to check over your emergency kit if you have one. Better to be prepared in case of anything.

Well, our house is well made, due to the hurricanes that happen every year, and we've never really had any significant earthquake happen here. That I know of...

So we should be fine I think, still, I don't think it would continue traveling south like that, right?... Right?

@NintendoByNature the California south of the California south of the California with Disneyland.

@ThanosReXXX I see the planet is having fun today.

@Morpheel Either that, or Mother Nature has had just about enough of us pests...

You should look up the footage, though. They had a webcam installed near the volcano, and it filmed the whole lava explosion. Pretty awe-inspiring. Glad I'm not living anywhere near such a natural disaster zone.

There's volcanoes around here, but I don't think any of them are particularly active.

@Heavyarms55 I wouldn't want to leave either! I would imagine you'd need to have some knowledge of speaking Japanese if you want to come to Japan. I've been wanting to learn it for quite a while.

@Morpheel - The west coast of the entire continent is on or near a fault between two tectonic plates. In certain spots, there are convergences of three plates. Anywhere along these faults is at increased risk for shifting events, as well as reverberations and aftershock from events at different spots along the fault. As Thanos mentioned, it seems like a rather eventful day along earth’s crust. I blame all the fireworks in the US. We’re blasting the plates further apart.

@ThanksReXXX - Haha, can’t imagine that was easy on the ticker, but I’m glad you survived to see your ideal final matchup. You’re in the rare win/win sports scenario, but it seems like there has to be a team you’ll be rooting for ever so slightly more than the other? Even if by a hair’s width?

@Morpheel
Still, just check safe spots and what to do in case of a quake (basically don’t stand beneath anything that can fall upon your head). If you have hurricanes every year, though, then you’re probably well prepared.

Isn’t the west coast of the US due a big one? At least that’s what I’ve been hearing since time immemorial.

It's comforting to know that the shelf where I keep all my collectibles, you know, the one with all the games, figurines, books and random ceramic stuff, is also my bedhead.

So I'll be the first one to know if an earthquake happens, when a decorative mug hits me in the face.

@bimmy-lee I've never been addressed and thanked at the same time before...

And yes, seeing as I've been living here for the majority of my 49 years, I do slightly favor the Dutch team.
Their victory would also be a far greater achievement, because on a purely technical and speed of play level, they would never be able to win, so it has to come from perseverance, endurance, fighting spirit, whatever you wanna call it.

There's also no team in the world like the US, with their 200+ staff, with handlers, trainers, psychologists, therapists, masseurs and what not. All the other teams only have 10 to 15 men, maybe 20 in some cases. And the US has a far bigger talent pool, being able to select from 50 states, another thing that especially European teams can't really compete with.

So, it's basically David vs Goliath. But, even if they lose, it's still a massive achievement. Before the last European Championship, women's soccer was more or less unknown or ridiculed, and they've definitely put themselves out there, and secured a spot and earned the entire country's respect for getting as far as they have now, in the space of only 4 years. And on top of all this, they've also qualified for the Olympics, so all in all, no matter what happens, they can be very proud of themselves.

The subtle difference for me, compared to full-blown Dutch people, is that I will still feel a bit sad if they lose, but not as sad as them, because I'll always have one team left, that I also like. And I'm pretty sure I'll also feel a slight pang of regret if the US team loses, also because it means they'll lose their title as reigning world champions.

Then again: in soccer, there's hardly ever a team who successfully kept their title for more than one time in a row, so it wouldn't be all that unexpected.

@ThanosReXXX - That’s an interesting perspective. No matter the sizes of the training and coaching staff, and the advanced state of training that footballers can experience here, our “soccer” teams can still feel like plucky underdogs within the scope of American sports culture. I think it’s only natural that, if it ended 0-0 and the final decision came down to a snap of your fingers, you’d choose the Dutch team in this scenario. I love a good underdog story, my allegiances are wavering.

@bimmy-lee Well, obviously professionalism and your constituents (kinda wondering if that's the right word for the team behind the team, but I suppose you'll catch my drift) do very much matter, and in that respect, team USA has an enormous head start on any and all teams around the world.

And their almost machine-like approach towards the sport and the way they train for it, is in some ways quite uncanny, for European teams at least. I actually kind of imagine them training like Ivan Drago in Rocky...

But in all seriousness: they've scored their first goal in each of their matches within the first 10-15 minutes, whereas the Dutch typically only score in the second half of the game, or later, like yesterday. That means that they'll have to fend off team US for at least one half of the game, in hopes that not having scored in their usual time frame, might faze the US slightly.

Team USA does have a lesser midfield section, though. The two central players standing there could be the key for the Dutch, but the Dutch need to watch out for Rapinoe, Jordan, Lavelle (brilliant player), Press and Heath.

Funny how soccer is still so underappreciated in the States, apparently, while it truly IS the world's #1 sport, and even more ridiculous is that because of that one weird, and stubborn country, that continues to argue that what the rest of the world plays isn't football, we all of a sudden had to call it soccer. Quite crazy, if you really take a moment to stop and think about it. And then they use the label football for a game that hardly ever uses feet to propel a ball forward... Madness, I tell you...

But I digress. Back to women's soccer: from the interviews I've seen from team USA, they certainly don't seem to see themselves or feel like underdogs. Maybe compared to other sports in the States, but not compared to the competition in this championship. The general sentiment that most European commentators and analysts get from them, is that it doesn't matter to the US who or what comes up against them, they'll see what color they have to play against, when they enter the pitch, and only their own goal matters, which is to hold on to their title.

What was also kind of funny, but also telling, is that when interviewed, the American players all talked in really generic terms, which also seems to support the prior notion of them not caring, and possibly not even watching other matches, like most teams would normally do, to observe the next opponent's play style and such.

P.S.

You didn't get that first sentence in my previous comment, did you?

Hope everyone in the Earthquake areas is alright. I was surprised to hear one that low on the scale caused so many issues.

@MarioLover92 Yeah, though my Japanese is far from perfect I make it work. I can read write and speak enough for most things. It's good enough to know when anime subtitles are glaringly wrong. lol And it isn't just fan subs. Even official subs on sites like CR sometimes have pretty impressive mistakes. Recently in a show I was watching a character clearly said 10 and they subbed it as 5. How does "juu" sound anything like "go"???