World Cup Fever 2026

In 1982, three kids from Madrid arrived in my neighborhood from Madrid. That summer we spent every afternoon watching World Cup matches, and then all evening and deep into after the sun set, we played football in the vacant lot next door. Ever since then I have been hooked. In 1986, I was in the Nederlands for the summer and watched every match and wrote it down in my travel journal. In 1990, I was in the military and they had my head so I missed that year, but 1994 I was in front of the TV again for whatever poor selection that was being served in the US - mostly on the Spanish langague channels.

Along the way, the Internet grew up.

Now, I had a way to watch matches from broadcasts from around the world. One dropped frame at a time. One stuttering moment linked to the next. But it was glorious. Some years, I would watch in a bar after closing time with a small group of friends, or in the main viewing pub in my town that I was in at the time. I actually watch the Nederlands v Spain final on an airplane on the way back from the honeymoon in Curacao. I was gutted by the violence and awful loss. And later the Divorce.

So two threads, or more, are woven together here in my life. Technology and Football, the World Cup is probably the biggest global event and stresses the information nervous system of our combined civilizations in a way nothing else does. This year, my efforts are no different than the past. Only at the same time that I am trying to figure out how to watch the matches, I am also building a new website.

This blog, this radio station, this hopeful little effort to attract some connection with some other likeminded Small Open Web people. For instance there is this really cool idea which I am hoping to add into this site to connect.

Three Months Ago

I fired Meta and their gross social media sites.

I fired Amazon - period.

I am mostly out of Google.

Twitter has been dead to me since the sale.

And it is back to basics - finding places where people can connect without the interference of commerical interests always trying to make money off my(our) input. Basically, I want to find the other weirdos out there.