I've been watching his YouTube content for a long time now, so it was very strange shaking his hand and talking to him in person. I asked him how much preparation work he does before an interview, and he said he'll literally read every book they've ever written.
In other religious life news, this article about "near death experiences", or "NDEs" was super interesting. The descriptions from these people exactly matches the Christian explanations for God and Heaven, exactly what Jesus Himself told us. Heck, I was just reading the petitions for a Mass recently, and the words for the "recently departed" were "may they rest in God's perpetual light", which is straight from these "NDEs".
In football news, I've been super critical of VAR since day one, writing stuff like this since 2017 and 2018. As is often the case, it took the mainstream many years but they've finally caught up with what I was saying from the very beginning. From the article, translated:
"But today, seven years after the introduction of the VAR, we are faced with a bluff poorly concealed by the discretion of the use of the means itself, which has left a good percentage of choices to the interpretation of those who referee, but above all of those behind the monitor"
Like I've been saying since 2017, VAR doesn't lead to better outcomes: in the end decisions still come down to the discretion of the same individuals. The only thing VAR does is delay the game, and turn the bad decisions into three-ring circuses. As the article says, all VAR does is change the means, not the interpretations.
It especially hurts because the current body of refereeing in Italy hates Lazio as a team. Almost every major controversial decision goes against us, and it's all well documented, to the point where the referees will do reviews and routinely "apologize" to us after the fact and admit the mistakes-- but then go on to have another horrible game the next time too.
I think we're the best team in Serie A this year. I saw statistics recently where we run the second-least, and have the second-best ball distribution. That's a clear formula for dominance-- and we are dominating. So why are we in fifth? Well, we've lost three games, and all three were wildly influenced by blindingly major refereeing mistakes.
And by the way, Lazio and Vikings always follow the same cadence. This season it's been especially pronounced. For example, two games ago both teams won on last-minute plays by wily old veterans Pedro and Stephon Gilmore, respectively. Then this past game they both lost super tight matches to powerhouse members of their respective leagues in Juventus and Detroit, albeit the Lazio result was highly controversial due to the aforementioned refereeing mistakes.
In video game news, I'm playing "Super Mario Bros. Wonder" on Switch, "Arcade Paradise VR" on PSVR2, and "Madden NFL 25" on PS5. I'm not sure when I'll get time to play them enough to do reviews, but you can expect them at some point.