Do they think at all?
Just off the cuff: Tonight is McCain “I humbly accept your nomination to be the Big Cheese” Night. It’s also the first night of play for the NFL.
I know which one is on my TV right now.
Entries Tagged as 'Sports'
Football goes mainstream
Ok, maybe it’s not really that big around here still, but we’re starting to deal the English soccer fans
While the West Ham fans were removed to a stair landing on the back side of the stadium, supporters of both teams gathered on the concourse. Several punches were thrown and one West Ham fan was thrown to the ground by security and handcuffed by police, who used pepper spray or mace to help break up the melee.
The funny part is the English guys acting like they weren’t doing anything… The Columbus police seem to have been smart and been in the local area in case something like this happened too.
Staggering across the line
I ran my first ever half-marathon on Saturday and completed it in an hour and 51 minutes which is a decent 8:26 per mile pace. I am very sure that I could have pulled out an hour and 45 minutes, but starting at about mile 10 I had to take at least 5 minutes worth of walking spread out about every three-quarters of a mile. I’m not very happy about that part.
I only prepared for about three weeks for this one, with a 3-8-3 (miles) schedule during the week and then a long run on Saturday morning. As an aside, I’ve been sleeping on the couch Friday nights since Otter doesn’t want to be up at 0500 on a Saturday, what a weirdo. The bad thing about this is that running at 0600 in Texas is pretty nice even by the time you get finished an hour or two later. Running at 0800 (the race start time) in Texas is not so nice since the sun has seared all the clouds from the sky at that point. It may just be a Texas thing, but the line for the beer tent at the end of the race was the longest and nearest to the end of the course. I skipped the beer and downed a bunch of orange slices (hello memories of AYSO games) and glasses of HEED (interesting stuff).
So. The next thing to do at this point is clearly run a full marathon. 26.2 miles of running with no companionship but the voices. The next one in the area is in November: will I be crazy enough to run it by then?
Hot manlove
Move over Victoria, Becks is mine!!
David Beckham, the world’s most recognizable soccer star, is leaving Real Madrid to join MLS’ Los Angeles Galaxy in August on a five-year contract.
This rocks. What rocks even harder is that I’ll be only a few hours away from FC Dallas games, who happen to be in the same division as my beloved Galaxy. Can you say multiple? Yes, yes you can. ¡Siempre fútbol!
Bringing up the rear
USAFA has already given me a Christmas present:
Troy Calhoun became the first former Air Force player to head the Falcons’ football program, rejoining the program Friday as longtime coach Fisher DeBerry’s replacement.
Color me surprised, as I didn’t know that GeneralCoach DeBerry had retired. Now it’s the time for the traditional prognosticating by some who doesn’t know shit, i.e. me. We’re going to suck, which isn’t a change, and which I don’t mind. What I do mind is losing every year to the goat-fsckers at the Naval Academy and the dirt-eaters at the USMA. If Calhoun can beat those guys every year, I don’t care if we lose every other game.
Must have been the wrong kid
Next time, I’ll make sure she’s ritually pure… 
What a loss. Stupid fouls, no attacking strength AGAIN, letting the other team dictate when they have the ball. This entire World Cup experience for us was retarded. Arena has been good, but he needs to go. Other people’s words:
So, Bruce, thanks for helping restore respectability, but please don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way back to the States.
Not impressed with Johnson (our only threat in Game 1) being on the gd bench for the next two games. Lewis was poof f’n vapor, hell even Donovan could barely put together 10 solid minutes. Thanks Claudio Reyna for the “ouch I got hurt and that’s why they scored” act during the Ghana match. 
Man up, bitch. Stuff should have been broken in the locker room during halftime of the Ghana match, fires lit underneath peoples asses, hell maybe a few public executions. No motivation at all.
Overall, this was the most disappointing run I have ever seen. Sure we did better than France ‘98, but let’s face it we were still building back then. All we had to do was get past the first round for this to be a success, only crazy people expect us to win it all right now, but it would have been proof of progress. Instead, we’re slinking back home after getting punked in the ass yet again in Europe. So, let’s get a new coach who isn’t comfortable with the job, and make all the players requalify. Start from ground zero again. We have four years, so let’s make the most of them.
Soooo, the following is for the females and I guess the USMNT since they played like they were adoring fans instead of soccer players.
[Read more →]Cat? Check. Dog? Check. Child? Working on it
No, that’s not the list of what I want to have at some point in my life. That’s the sacrifice list for good fortune in the World Cup today. Right now, we have a 20% chance of getting to the second round. There are a lot of problems to over come in order to do this though.
First, we have to win. A tie or a loss and we’re talking about choking yet again on the European stage. Quite frankly, I’m getting tired of playing strong games everywhere but in Europe, which we treat like it is a mens shower stall in prison. “Ooops, dropped the soap again!”
Next, just like in ‘02, we are depending on another game assuming that we win (where’d I let that brat run off to?). Italy must beat the Czechs in order for the US to have a good shot. If it is a tie, we have to go to goal differential with the Czech’s and we are at -4 right now. This means that we need to beat Ghana by 5 goals to go in over the Czech’s.
In our game, Ghana is missing two of their top offensive forces due to yellow cards. Hooray! Oh wait, we’re missing two of our top defensive forces due to yellow/red cards. Boo! The question is whether our offense can get off their asses and make something of playing in the opponents half of the field for a majority of the time and yet not have a single goal to show for it. (Own goals don’t count, bitches.) With a grand total of 2 shots on goal for two games, prospects aren’t looking too good against a very strong Ghana team.
Finally, where are our soccer hotties? We need some more luscious babe (NSFW :twisted:) support… (*cough* see below for other countries support…)
But, I’m going to be watching on the edge of my seat anyways to the very end. You’re not really a soccer fan until you’ve had your heart broken in a World Cup… Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do my part for our success.
wanders off to slaughter the child
PS. Whatever you do, don’t click more!
[Read more →]I think a blue tie today
While I’m off working on the weeknds, all kinds of cool stuff happens.
First, AFN got the rights to broadcast the remaining World Cup games. That meant I got to watch last night’s 1-1 draw with Italy live. Awesome! I got to chat with lilbro (Bolivia) from Iraq while watching a game in Germany. Small world or what?
Anways, the game itself. Overall, much better from a technical point of view for the US team. We had some brilliant ball movement, and maintained control of things even after our second(!!!) red card. The ref needs to be taken out behind a woodshed and beaten. In the words of a paid writer, he “began pulling out his red card like he was a six-year-old showing his favorite Christmas gift.” Both of our red cards were on late tackles which still managed to get a piece of the ball and the cards absolute BS. The goal in the 26th minute by the Azzuri was a huge knife to the back, and all I could think was “oh no, not again.” Our guys came back strong, and I have no doubt that even with just one red card on us we would have won the game. Kasey Keller was unbeliveable in the goal. And, as icing on the cake, Ghana beat the Czech’s 2-0. This puts us in a decent spot for moving on in that we know Ghana is dangerous, so no surprises there. The big question is whether or not Italy can muster enough to actually win the game against the Czechs as they are through to the second round with a win or a tie. We need a win against Ghana and a win by Italy over Czech Repulic to squeek through again with 4 points (It would be Italy (7 pts), US (4 pts), Czechs (3 pts), Ghana (3 pts) as final standings.)
Meanwhile, people are saying “As soon as Uruloki leaves…” At least, that’s how I feel sometimes. 
The guys back home in WoW had their first kill of Razorgore last night. Since I wasn’t there, he chose to drop clothie gear:
WOWITEM:
, - Netherwind Bindings
WOWITEM:
, and - Gloves of Rapid Evolution
WOWITEM:
.
- Bindings of Transcendence
Congratulations to everyone that was there and saw him go down!
Who plays soccer?
It sure as hell doesn’t appear to be us.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
What a stupid, flat, worthless game we played. Bad marking, all of our first half passing was in the air, no creativity up front. We may as well not have even showed up for the match. I’d have lived with a tie, maybe even a close loss. Not that pile of shit that we left on the field. We need to pull wins out against Ghana and Italy to go on, and that could be very very difficult to do.
Goooooooolllllllllll!
So not only do I get to see a top enemy splattered this weekend, the World Cup started yesterday as well:
Alemania puso a rodar el balón de la Copa del Mundo con una victoria sobre Costa Rica de más brillo que quilates, y Ecuador arrancó por las nubes al vencer a Polonia en una jornada colorida y sin incidentes en dos ciudades germanas.
Grats to Jayd on Ecuador’s win, I expect to see some face paint pics.
The only issue is that although we are in the perfect time zone to see a lot of the games (most are occuring after 1800 here), the “exclusive rights” that were sold to TV really forks over AFN. Since AFN is our only TV here, that means no live soccer for me. The CNNSI automatic update ticker doesn’t really do it for soccer either… Oh well, I will take what I can get, as Otter will attest to. 
The first US game is on the 12th, against the Czech Republic. I’m performing the animal sacrifices now.