Monday Update: 7/26/2021
I spent much of last week preparing to go out on vacation to San Diego and I spent all of the weekend in San Diego, so my update’s going to be somewhat light and it’s mostly going to discuss the experience that I had there.
The only piece of art/media I really have anything to say about is John Cassidy’s book Dot.Con, which covers the history of the late-nineties Dot Com bubble. I have been fascinated by the Dot Com craze for a while, for a variety of reasons - for one, while it’s not necessarily represented in the stock market, I definitely think we’re at the tail end of what was a Web 2.0/Smartphone App boom of sort. I see a lot of similarities between the optimistic words with which people discussed at least the beginning part of the dot com bubble and the optimistic words with which people discussed Facebook and Twitter from around 2009-12 or so, and now we’re at a point where much of that optimism has fallen by the wayside into cynicism. I can’t speak for the economic aspect of it because the accompanying stock market boom wasn’t that big, but I definitely see the whole “isn’t it weird that Webvan has never made a profit in a fiscal year and yet they’re still highly valued?” thing being repeated with, for example, Uber, nowadays. Also, I’m amazed by how much shit people got away with regarding the internet in this era. There were at one point four competing pet store websites, all traded on the stock market.
How were so many companies raise so much money with little more than an idea? Why did otherwise-savvy businesspeople and stock traders get duped so badly? It’s astounding. This book was quite dry, definitely written for the economically-minded people, those who understand more about the details of the stock market and the Federal Reserve and Alan Greenspan, et cetera, et cetera, but I learned something more about the stock market, and what a speculative bubble is, that sort of thing. I cannot call myself anything close to an expert on it, but to be fair a lot of people who called themselves experts on economics and the stock market also seemed to be very wrong about many aspects of the dot com boom quite often.
I think the book that I’d be more interested in reading about the Dot Com boom was Philip J. Kaplan’s “F’d Companies”. Kaplan is cited in the Cassidy book for running a site satirizing and criticizing the boom and the many companies that had sprung up to capitalize on the rush, and that book seems to be an extension of the site. That’s a fascinating point in history in my eyes and there hasn’t been like a defining documentary about it or anything yet. Maybe one day we’ll see that. I finished this book on a plane. I love finishing books on planes. I can’t say I’ve done it all that often but what a great feeling it is to be so close to so many people and yet the only person appreciating what you’re appreciating.
I also attended San Diego Loyal SC vs Phoenix Rising FC on Saturday night. I pre-bought a season ticket for their inaugural 2020 season during January last year. I went to one friendly and one USL match in March 2020 before they proceeded not to play any more games in front of supporters for the rest of the season, and I moved away, et cetera, et cetera. Since I’d already paid for the tickets, which ended up all going to the 2021 season, I had one for Saturday night’s game against Phoenix, which I ended up attending.
I think about the last Loyal match I attended in March 2020 quite often. I had a good time, it was a fun match to watch, there was a great crowd there, and only about four days later, everything was shut down for a long time. For a while it felt like it would be the last really good night of my life. There’s a strange connection I feel with this club, like I’d see their games on TV last year and I’d just feel sad, like that was the last connection to a different era of life for me. That was the last night of my previous life.
Anyway, this match did not necessarily live up to that expectation, but I had a good time regardless. I am surprised, only like ten games down in full capacity, at how well coordinated the supporters’ section is with their songs at this point. It’s not easy to get everyone on board that quickly.
Anyway, Phoenix and San Diego is a budding rivalry in USL Championship, Phoenix being the most dominant team in the league (at least in the regular season) over the past two seasons or so, and San Diego having really found its groove after a slow start this year. They’re geographically close, so the fans can make the ~3 and a half hour drive between the two cities for these matchups, and they’re both independent teams with high ambitions, so it’s only natural. There was also some controversy last year involving a Rising player calling a Loyal player a homophobic slur, for which San Diego walked off the pitch.
So this was a big game, not just in that it was a good team coming to town, but fans, and I’m sure the players, really wanted to see this specific team go down. Sadly, that specific team did not go down, Phoenix won 1-0 on a sloppy goal off of a setpiece in the first half. I don’t love the way that SDLSC plays, I think they’re a bit too pragmatic and don’t attack aggressively enough. When they really started to take desperate attacking risks near the end of the match, they were able to get past the Phoenix defense and get a few good chances at goal, but for the most part of the game, there was so much lateral and back passing without going forward that they just never looked like they were in control of the game.
But, regardless, I had fun and I was just so happy to be back there again, and I’m glad to see the team and its fanbase thriving once again.
Finally, I want to link this video I took of some clouds outside of my window on my flight home today.
That was my first flight since January 2020 and I hadn’t seen clouds like that since. Absolutely awe-inducing. My shitty little Flip Video camera couldn’t do it justice (I accidentally left my normal good quality digital camera at home) but please enjoy eight minutes of clouds in beautiful 480p, and have a great week!