grass
our lawn needs some tlc and so I thought it would be a good idea to overseed in the decent places and reseed the bad parts. In preparation for this, I mowed the lawn extra close on Saturday and the got out the dethatching rake. I picked this funny looking rake only because it has pointy things on it and the plan was to rough up the bad parts so the new seeds would have some place happy to land and grow, rather than sitting on a surface of dead grass. Out of curiosity, I also gave the rake a few pulls across the 'good' parts of the lawn, just to see what would happen. Lo and behold, the rake magically gets filled with dead grass and leaves the healthy stuff in place. When properly worked over you're left with green grass and dark dirt beneath and that's it. So I spent a fair amount of time over the weekend running that rake over every inch of the lawn, not just the crummy parts as I had originally planned. The dethatching was more work than I had expected but I think I've given my new seedlings a good chance to become grass. On Monday over lunch, I spread the new seed and some starter fertilzer and am hoping for the best. I had my first dream of young new seedlings growing last night. How pathetic.

The whole notion that keeping a 'nice' lawn should be a priority for every homeowner still doesn't still too well with me. It strikes me as the height of suburban vanity and I know first hand the impact that excess nitrogen from fertilzers can have on local estuaries. But I was raised in the suburbs and can't shake the annoyance of my lawn being crummy. There's also the issue of having a nice place for Wolfie to learn how to play soccer. Hey Mike, what was that book about lawns that you read?  6 comments

a little light
remember the final match of the World Cup? You know, the one where the balding French guy dropped the Italian guy with a headbutt?

you'll recall that towards the end of the match, Materazzi pulled on Zidane's shirt at the end of a play and that Zidane told the Italian, "'If you want my shirt so much I'll give it to you afterwards." Materazzi said something in reply while Zidane was walking away. Upon hearing the remark, Zidane turned around and delivered a vicious headbutt to Materazzi's chest.

There was much speculation as to what sort of comment could have caused such a violent and stupid reaction. Some professional lip readers, who work for reputable newspapers, offered their opinions that Zidane had been called "the son of a terrorist whore" while Zidane offered only that the remarks "concerned [his] mother and sister." FIFA had no clue and punished Zidane ($6,000 fine and a 3 match suspension, to be served as community service now that Zidane has retired) and Materazzi ($4,000 fine and a 2 match ban) almost equally.

Well at least one side of the story is out now, with Materazzi offering his version of the "remark" recently as Italy prepares to play France on Wednesday. In response to Zidane's offer of his jersey after the game, Materazzi replied "I would prefer your sister."

Talk about boring. I've heard worse trash talk at a church social. It will be interesting to see if Zidane agrees with this version of the exchange. If he does not contrdict it, it would seem that 100% of the responsibility lies with the Frenchman and none with Materazzi and I would hope that FIFA recinds their punishment of Materazzi.

When asked about offering an apology to Zidane, Materazzi offered, "If anything, I owe apologies to his sister, although I swear, before all this mess I didn't even know Zidane had a sister."  0 comments