baxus

It's not considered as important as the Olympics but it's still at least as important as Euros. Serbian team has had a lot of cancellations. The biggest one is obviously Jokic, but other than him Micic (he was Euroleague MVP twice, signed for OKC for the upcoming season) and a handful of injuries among national team regulars, including the team captain. As a result, few people had faith in this team, though expectations are always to go for the medal. On top of that, Borisa Simanic got hit in a match against South Sudan and due to some fuckup at the hospital the guy lost his kidney. Even with all that crap, this morning (CET timezone) Serbia made it to the semifinals where we'll play Canada or Slovenia.

Not NBA related, but it is basketball related. It's funny how little worldwide interest there is about basketball World Cup.

Yeah, and I'm sure that in fantasy-land people will clearly separate the two if A Song of Ice and Fire doesn't get finished.

You seem to forget that ASoIaF has already been "completed" incompetently.

Yes, it is ok to diss Rothfuss becase he explicitly stated he has already finished the trilogy when book one was initially published and he fervently used that as a marketing tool (and as a diss to authors who are taking their time writing their series, if we're honest). On top of that, he streams himself playing video games and freaks out when questioned about book 3, makes false promises to attract donations to his charity etc. I hope the difference is a bit clearer now.

I'd love to see players getting punished for improper behaviour towards match officials and/or opponents. FAs and leagues cracking down on it would be great, IMO. Captain being the only one who could speak to the ref unless spoken to would be the change in the rules I'd love to see the most. Like they do in rugby and ice hockey, for starters.

At the moment, this type of behaviour is in the best interest of the club who wants to sign him so I doubt they see an issue. I know I wouldn't want to see the player my club was after resorting to this, but we football fans are a fickle bunch and that player would definitely get a pass sooner or later if he performed well. I would really like to see clubs crashing down on players on strike to force a move. Contracts are valid and they are binding. If the club would treat going on strike as a player not fulfilling their end of the bargain and fined him financially for that for the duration of strike, then sent him to the reserves for extended period of time to regain match fitness, I don't see how they would be breaching the contract. Player would lose a lot of money, and they could only complain to their agents because legally everything would be fine. I'm quite sure there is a mechanism for a player to hand in a transfer request and leave the club. If there isn't, there should definitely be one, but this is not the way.

Finally, a break from the heat wave! We've had some normal temperature breeze yesterday evening and some rain during the night and for the first time in a while I woke up without my sleeping t-shirt soaked in sweat. Mind you, I said a break from the heat wave, not cooling down. It will still be 28-29ºC which is still hot, but manageable.

Next level lunacy...

It's because clubs don't want the hassle. The first big club that takes a stance will open the floodgates. All we need is a precedent.

Gotta love the reply from Lovren I never understood this "player is unhappy" as if that actually means something. There is a contract and it's binding to both sides. The player can be unhappy all he wants, but there are some obligations he needs to fulfil towards the club. It's as simple as that. Perform badly out of protest? Sure, get on the bench or even out of the squad and play with the reserves, don't get bonuses etc. It's a loss for the club but also for the player. I doubt any player would sabotage his career that way once the transfer window closes. Honestly, I really wouldn't like losing Salah, especially this late in the transfer window. He's world class, has been world class every season he spent in Liverpool. Losing a player like that would leave a mark on any team in the world. That being said, I do think Liverpool are really stacked up front so his departure could just give room to someone else to step up and reach world class level. Also, if Salah does leave the money from his sale could go a long way in getting other parts of the squad closer to that level.

I was thinking about walking from home to work, since I don't have to go pick my daughter up from kindergarten so I don't have to drive. It made sense, going for a stroll (it's almost exactly 3km) and walk my dog, then do that again in the afternoon. Unfortunately, when I took my dog outside he was getting very hot even while just doing his morning business in front of our building. So, I decided against it and took my car. There's a world of difference between the temperature they say on the TV and the temperature where people actually live. Air temperature is measured by certain standards (in the shade, at specific height above the ground blah blah blah) and those standards usually don't apply to conditions general population lives and moves around in. I mean, all the buildings, roads, pavements, cars etc. also absorb heat from the sun and then radiate it themselves. I take it you haven't been to St. Petersburg, Russia? I went there in early August 2017, and while temperature doesn't vary that much (it was around 20ºC, give or take 1 or 2) the weather itself does. Oh boy, does it vary! You can get from sunshine and not a cloud in the sky to pouring rain and back again in 15 minutes. And that happens countless times throughout the day. Did you miss get the part where he said he does mushrooms?

I was thinking of preparing for and running fall half-marathon in Belgrade, which takes place in November or something like that. While I'm quite confident I could manage that (unpleasant as that would be), on the second thought I decided against it since running outside in the cold part of the year on Belgrade is not a good idea because of all the air pollution which gets to alarming levels and stays there for alarming periods of time.

Scorching heat again today. Ever since coming back from vacation, we've been having 30+ºC days and, what's even worse, 20+ºC nights. Even when we do get some breeze, it's hot breeze and it makes things unbearable. I know I'll miss the heat when we get autumn rains and winds and shorter days and all that, but at the moment I'm not sure why exactly I'd miss it.

When I read this description, the first things that comes to mind is Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey. It's the first book of her Chronicles of Pern series. The series as a whole is a bit hit and miss, but I love Dragonflight. For years it was my go to book whenever I read everything I had until I got a new book. It's some 300 (maybe a bit more) pages, so it's not a door stopper, and it has been translated to Serbian years ago so you may find it in Croatian. It is an older recommendation, having been published in the late '60s or something like that, but it holds up great. EDIT: I was curious, so I looked it up. You could buy the Serbian translation here for 330RSD (less than 3€). I don't know what the shipping would cost but it's not a big book so it couldn't be that much.

I spent one winter swimming, literally training three times a week with a group and a coach, working my legs and my arms separately, swimming different strokes etc. Once we had a session of just swimming freestyle for an hour and I did around 2,5km, though in that swimming pool we'd swim across the pool (22m width instead of 50m length) which made it quite easier. In this pool I went to today we swim 50m lengths and I remember swimming 1600-1800m range in 45 minutes or so in it, but that was years ago. For today, 40 minutes was about the limit of my endurance. I'll have to work to increase that.

I was at the seaside for 10 days and rested like a pro. My only activity was some stand up paddle boarding and "swimming" with my five year old who quite loved the sea (it was her first time). It felt great, and I felt great. Bad side of it is that the scales showed a 4kg increase after the vacation. Because of that I decided to start training a bit more and sorting out my diet a bit. Did crossfit yesterday and was battered as if I've never done it before. It wasn't even that difficult of a workout, just that I was enjoying being lazy for almost 3 weeks. Today I went to the swimming pool for the first time in ages. The main plan was to recover a bit from yesterday and see if I can reach 1km, alternating freestyle and breaststroke lengths. I ended up doing 1,3km in a bit under 40 minutes. I'm aware that's laughable for someone swimming regularly but for me it's a great start.

Australia switched confederations because it benefited everyone involved - Australia would get a higher level opponents while still being able to qualify for World Cup, AFC would get another WC level team which in the long term would help them increase the level of competition and gain more WC spots, while the rest of OFC would no longer have that one juggernaut who would smack everyone (except maybe New Zealand) around, walk through the qualifiers and ruin everyone's motivation to even take part. Saudis to Europe would be nowhere near that, and it would significantly complicate things, especially for teams from smaller FAs. Just getting their team to Saudi Arabia would be pretty challenging for Faroe Islands, for example.

Why would UEFA take them in as new members? The only UEFA members outside of Europe are FAs from former Soviet Union republics who were considered as members of UEFA by default after Soviet Union collapsed, and Israel, for obvious reasons. I don't see how Saudi Arabia would fall under each of those precedents, and the only reason they'd even be considered for UEFA membership would be money. Now, I'm not saying that money should be dismissed as a reason, but after taking that moral high ground on Superleague UEFA couldn't really make an excuse for it. I mean, in basketball there's talk of Dubai team joining the Euroleague, but Euroleague already has teams with guaranteed spots in it regardless of their performance in their national leagues and is moving more and more towards American professional league setup every season. Football in Europe is still not in that place, even if it would ever get to it.

Football supporters are not the same as their golf counterparts. Are there really golf counterparts? In the end, the money in football comes from supporters. If supporters go away, the sponsors, broadcast money etc. will soon follow. Were you around when that Superleague attempt was made?

Yeah, it is preseason. At times both Liverpool and Bayern players looked like they were on a stroll in a park and not playing a football match. There were 3 or 4 defenders around Gakpo and he easily outran them all for his goal, VVD was basically left unmarked for his header etc. The point of the preseason is to get everyone match fit and steer clear of injuries. That's it. Some great tactical ideas are rehearsed in training anyway. We've seen five depart out of which Ox and Keita have been as useful as nipples on a breastplate (to keep in theme with the board we're on ), Milner played only a handful of games and has been far from his peak. Milner is the only one who would've been given a contract extension, and while he was a great presence around the dressing room that would be for purely sentimental reasons. Both Fabinho and Henderson, while world class in their day, have had a rubbish season. There is a concern about having to include too many new players in midfield and the new system for them, but I'm not really worried about loss of quality in our midfield, especially if MacAlister and Szoboszlai perform well.

It's been ages since I read it, but I don't recall Serbian translation being "clunky". I assume that it would b easier to translate to another Slavic language than to English so that could be a factor. I've been thinking of re-reading the whole series for a while now so this might just be the time to do it.

There's stupid money and there's earning 700m€ for a one year contract that would allow him to fill in the gap until he can move to Real Madrid.

Yesterday evening we've had quite a storm. It hit several other countries in the region, too. Last night I took my dog for a walk and streetlights were out in parts of our neighbourhood and I did take him out just so he could do his business so I couldn't assess the scope of the damage. This morning though, a lot of broken branches and a couple of broken trees. There's been some footage on social media showing some construction cranes falling over and stuff like that. Weather is much nicer now, with 25ºC temperature with daily high forecast at 31ºC. Sleeping's been a lot more pleasant last night, I'll tell you that.

We've had 35+ºC weather for over 10 days in a row and I can't even begin to tell you how much I hate it. I guess it's better than all the rain we've had before that but not by much.