We are the champions

Busy day today.

1. I've joined an intramural indoor soccer team, and we've just played our second game. We improved a lot over our first effort, losing 0-7 rather than 1-13. I turned my left ankle rather painfully, and skinned my right knee; I also took a hard fall on my left butt cheek, but that didn't seem to do much damage. I mostly play defense, same as I did last time I played an actual game of soccer, which was probably, oh, about 12 years ago. I'm OK at breaking up plays, but after about a minute of actual activity I feel like sitting down and maybe taking a nap.

2. Kate and I got a ride with Dawn to Target. Very large store, rather disorganized, and there were no price tags on half of the items. For some reason it seemed like a distinctively American shopping experience.

On our way out, our receipts were checked by a guy wearing a badge that read (as I recall) "Target Protection Specialist". We spent some time debating whether or not that was sad.

In the parking lot we were approached by a guy asking for money, who claimed to have a car that was out of gas and full of hungry babies or some such. I coughed up some money, and then remembered Dave telling me that he's gotten the same line on a number of occasions, which increases the probability that it's just a line and nothing more. I try not to be cynical about these things, but I also hate being a mark. Maybe next time I'll ask the guy to introduce me to his kids.

3. After that, we all went to the Oriental Institute. Don't be fooled by that link's horrible web design--there were some fantastic exhibits there. My favourites included a Pazuzu figurine, a giant lammasu, and the 5.3m tall statue of King Tutankhamun. There was also a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which wasn't that spectacular, but was still kinda cool. We only got there 20 minutes before the place closed, so it will probably warrant a return visit.

4. Finally, we saw The Constant Gardener. It was a decent film, all about the evils of large pharmaceutical corporations. But the movie got really preachy at times (surprise!), and I kinda feel that films (similarly to Madonna's dad) ought not to preach, even (especially?) if they're supposed to transmit some sort of social/political message. And surely the film-makers could have had enough faith in the audience to trust that sympathy for the impoverished children of Nairobi had been quite firmly established during the course of the film, making it enitrely unnecessary to have those concluding slo-mo shots of the kids while touching music played in the background.