johnguinness's Diaryland Diary
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Netflix, Lance, Joan of Arc
I just finished watching Rally For Relief, an exhibition by some of the top tennis players in the world to raise money for flood relief in Australia. The players wear microphones, and they mix it up so you have as many as six players on the court at once. It was a lot of laughs - felt good. By the way, if you ever have to play a doubles match for your life, and have a choice of Kim Clijsters or Rafa Nadal as a partner, pick Kim. Rafe is a great singles player, but a lot of his shots aren't suited for doubles.
I think that the last time I wrote, the news had come out that Lance had a contract and salary for 2009 even though he claimed all year long that he was playing for free. At the time it gave him an excuse to do whatever he damned well pleased. After that story hit, his manager came out and said that he was forced by the UCI to have the minimum salary and a contract, and he had given the money to his own Foundation, so he was riding for free.
If your employer gives you a pay check, and you donate it to charity, are you working for free? And don't you owe the employer something in return?
I raised hell on twitter and in article comments that since he had a contract, he should have been required to train in Astana clothing like every other rider with a contract does (for their own teams). He wore outfits advertising his bike shop, and Livestrong ones that are as much advertisement for his for profit website as for the charity. That got me blocked by him on twitter.
Someone asked him about it today, and he said the salary was maybe 50,000 Euros, which is well above the minimum. If he was only taking it because of the rules, why accept more?
The team also paid for a guy to give him massages every day wherever he was in the world, drive a car behind him when he trained, maintained his bikes, did whatever errands he needed, etc. If an employer supplied that for you, it's a perquisite. I mean, if you win that on Wheel Of Fortune, you're paying taxes on the whole thing. So today I was reminding people of the quote in May 2009 where he tried to make a point by saying the team paid that guy. It's fun when he's quoted in print.
My free month of Netflix wasn't free. They charged my checking account. They sent the e-mail to an address I had used for an account, so they knew I wasn't a new subscriber, and there was no mention of that or anything else in the fine print. I watched carefully during the whole process, and at no point did they tell me I wasn't qualified or that I'd have to pay. Their phone help was useless, and their representative on twitter was worse. I'll enjoy the rest of my paid month, but I don't do business with seedy companies, and they clearly used a bait and invisible switch.
The supermarket had ground beef patties for $2.07 a pound. They don't taste great, and I can feel my arteries clogging already, but it's nice to have some meat for a change. I bought ten more pounds of potatoes on sale, because I've gotten good at microwaving them and getting them out of the skins.
Don't ask me how much cookie dough I've eaten the last 24 hours. I had gotten the Netflix news, then went to get my mail and saw my state wants $55 from me. I expected 20 of it, but they say I can't deduct the taxes I paid to Missouri from the taxes I owe them. Uh, dude, that's the sole reason the extra form exists.
Also in the mail was a hundred dollar "Happy New Year" check from my sister. That's why I got the meat, and sale cheese, and the potatoes, and if you exposed me to heat my whole insides would bake into a giant oatmeal raisin & chocolate chip cookie.
The NFL was mean about online feeds today, so good riddance to them for the season. Starting Sunday evening I have a fortnight of Australian Open tennis in high quality video, with my choice of courts. I'm going to use it to immerse myself in tennis again. I haven't worked it all out yet, but in the old days I'd watch a match, spot where the player facing was hitting the ball, and turn to that side, make the proper grip and swing. I'll add some of that sort of thing.
New episodes of TV shows have disrupted my movie viewing. Oh! One of the hottest actresses around, Sara Shahi, has a new series coming out soon, and is on twitter. So excited.
I did watch The Fugitive for a bit of action. It's cool because there's a scene where a train crashes into a prison bus. Back when vacations were possible, I went to North Carolina and took a tourist train on that same track. They left the movie locomotive on the side of the tracks as a souvenir. I also had BBQ and pie at a restaurant that the actors had eaten at while filming the year before.
I also watched G.I Jane, a pretty decent workout movie. Demi Moore is always believable as the smartest one in the room. I didn't realize that Viggo Mortensen had played an overly tough American officer. Demi kicked the crap out of him.
I got my Joan Of Arc fix by watching an old episode of Biography. I got a bit confused about my own point of view. I liked the Shakespeare play of Henry V, the band of brothers speech, and the victory against overwhelming odds at Agincourt. But here, at the other end of that war, was God telling a teenage girl to drive the English from the country and kill any that wouldn't go. I did learn from a quote by one of her soldiers that when she got ready for bed at night, he could see she had beautiful breasts, but for some reason seeing them didn't make him lustful. The guys who captured her questioned her for a year, and made her very uncomfortable in her prison. Then a guy tricked her into signing a confession, telling her it would keep her from being killed. The documents went quiet for three days, but some say she was then raped, and they still burned her at the stake. She was found innocent like twenty years later. But it must be hard for the English to think of her as a Saint, or hero, when her sole purpose in life was to drive them out of France or kill them. It just seems kind of weird for God to pick sides like that, or to make that the important thing after a hundred years of war and losing all the people to the plague.
11:38 p.m. - Saturday, Jan. 15, 2011
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