Gym and Soccer

I've been going to the gym here for past few days. It's a decent gym. The machines work. The place is clean. No real complaints about the gym itself. I'm willing to bet that the showers in the locker room are the best at the university. The only thing I need to do is figure out the conversion between pounds and kilograms. But the real reason for this post is to vent about how the music at the gym is terrible. Absolutely terrible. Lately, they've been playing Janet Jackson, Celine Dion, the Plain White T's and Nickelback.

For those of you who don't know, Nickelback makes my ears bleed. They have got to be the worst band in history. Their singer's voice is grumbly and he looks like an ugly woman. Their lyrics are terrible, repetitive, and only set to music so that they can make money. Seriously. Nickelback sucks. Hardcore. Who would think that Canada, the nation that gave the world hockey, maple syrup, and politeness, could churn out such a complete and blatant mockery of modern music. Although Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette are Canadian, so this really shouldn't be surprising. But how could Canada go from Rush to Nickelback in the span of maybe 20 years? What happened? If I ever hear "This is How You Remind Me" again, I'm going to go insane.

Thankfully, I was able to fight off the assault on my ears by bringing my ipod to the gym. Black Flag, Run-DMC, the Ramones, and Motorhead kept me from going insane. Which is ironic because during America's interventions in Latin America in the 1980's, Motorhead was used to drive the enemy insane. In fact, I think they still blast "Ace of Spades" at high volumes at Guantanamo Bay prison, but don't quote me on that.

Anyways, I played soccer for the first time in 11 years tonight. It was a completely different experience from when I was 11. I didn't have people telling me that I sucked at soccer, before I was even picked for a team. I didn't have a coach screaming "Dammit David, you're like a Goddamn ping-pong ball." I didn't have people calling me fat. I didn't have people saying that I couldn't play with them because I was Jewish. It was almost surreal.

I am the first to admit that I am a terrible soccer player. But, at least this time, nobody picked on me for it. They even encouraged me. And I wasn't playing with other Americans. These were German and Israeli players who had been playing all their lives and love soccer. Really really love it. One of the German players plays professionally when he is back home during the summer. Either way, I had fun playing and I can see myself playing soccer regularly while I'm here.

I just can't picture myself watching it. It's so boring. And the talent level in the Israeli pro-leagues is not very good. Plus, I don't want to deal with hooligans. That would be bad. I'm going to play it safe and start listening to Sharks games online at 3am, now that I have internet.

Speaking of which, I have gone back and added some photos to this site and will add more while I'm here.

Sorry this post is a rant, but I needed to vent.