There aspects of his story/journeys that are reminiscent of Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp) from Into Thin Air.
1: I thought that too. I find the type intensely irritating, the kid born into privilege who's looking for something real, man. I've rubbed up against too many of the type. Ugh. The big difference I see is that Boyer didn't get killed by his stupidity in going unprepared to Sudan.
Also it's Into The Wild. Into Thin Air is about the big disaster on Everest. Same author. I think the Everest thing also has strains of privileged people looking for a meaningful experience and totally fucking up the risk analysis.
2.last: Ah right. Something seemed amiss but I couldn't put my finger on it.
I was quite surprised to come out of Into the Wild (the movie) having enjoyed it. (I went in accompanying a girlfriend who saw it for professional reasons.) Thought it did an impressive job of keeping me engaged with a main character I found foreign and unsympathetic, when movies that have that goal don't typically grab me.
I went in accompanying a girlfriend who saw it for professional reasons.
You paid a friend to see a movie with you?
Ha! I enjoy that re-reading, but the truth is that her firm had manufactured a prominent prop.
Mark Wahlberg had a fake penis in that movie also?
Every movie, yo. It's in my contract.
This is a pretty brilliant line:
the beleaguered head coach who has never lost his ability to make you wish he was your grandfather
The whole reading this article, I kept thinking, "His poor patents..."
At least he didn't want to play for Penn State.
I suppose phrases like "the long-snapper of the UT longhorns" are just recompense for us lot all talking about saveloys and haggis in the other thread. I presume, without clicking the link, that Mr Boyer is in some sort of cow-related occupation.
The degree of specialisation in US sport is reliably amazing - it's like the opposite of Crossfit.
That said, your Rugby League team is doing astonishingly well in the World Cup - topping the group and unbeaten after spanking the Welsh.
https://twitter.com/RLWC2013/status/398128230294495232/photo/1
An American friend of mine who fancied playing rugby at Oxford* joined the University league team [not union] and ended up touring the US where they played the US Rugby league team. He got knocked unconscious just a few minutes into the game, iirc.
* he'd played a bit of high-school American Football, and rowed a bit, but wasn't super sporty
topping the group and unbeaten after spanking the Welsh.
I had no idea rugby was that kind of a game.
re: 19
Rugby is _exactly_ that sort of game.
18: ah. went league because he thought it would be an easy halfblue...and then CRACK. WELCOME TO T'NORTHERN UNION!
re: 21
Pretty much exactly that, yeah. Although, to be fair, he's one of those deceptively-tougher-than-he-looks blokes. I think he took his knocks without any complaint.