On Vacation
We're off in an hour or so on vacation, so things will be slow here for a while. If I get the chance, I'll send some camphone pictures to keep you busy. I'll leave you with some quick hits:
The Knicks are doomed. Renaldo Balkman at #20? Sheesh. Not a big fan of Mardy Collins either, but at least he seems somewhat talented.
The Supreme Court seems to have grown some balls on the Guantanamo prisoners, saying that military tribunals are not the way to go.
And one last thing: Go Deutschland!
Yellow Sun
What is this bright yellow light I see in the sky? What? The Sun? Haven't seen that in a week! National Airport reports over 12 inches of rain since the deluge started. Unbelievable. We probably got more like 10-11 inches, but that's still substantial. It's going to take days before the lawn dries out. Thankfully, no problems in the basement, and everything is intact, if not a bit soggy. And now that it's sunny again, we're leaving for Chicago for the weekend, which, naturally has the chance of thunderstorms in the forecast for the whole time we're there. We'll just have to make do with what we're given. At least Ellie will get the chance to get outside today. She's been more than a little bit stir crazy being stuck inside for a week. Even Superman (movie comes out today) would have had his powers drained by the extended absence of our yellow sun.
We're packing up tonight for the drive to Chicago that starts tomorrow. If anyone knows someone who can loan my their XM Radio (the only way to listen to the World Cup while on the road), let me know. Gotta cheer on my Deutschland!
World Cup 1/8-finals wrapup
Naturally, after bragging that all 6 of my favorites to win the Cup were still in it, 2 of my top 3 lost in the Round of 16. I never had a lot of confidence in Spain, as they always have a letdown in the World Cup, but I thought maybe this would be their year. Alas, they got knocked off by a much better French team today. And Netherlands, well, you know my feelings about their match with Portugal, so I'm not really sad to see them go. Unfortunately for Portugal, they will be without Deco, who remained suspended for a game after getting two yellow cards against Netherlands, including one on the jerk who stole the ball instead of doing the right thing and giving it back after the injury.
Good matchups nonetheless: Germany-Argentina, Brazil-France (especially with France looking much better against Spain today, maybe they finally turned a corner), and England-Portugal. The only clunker is Italy-Ukraine. They're on a break now before resuming play on Friday. Dang! I just realized that I'm going to be on the road on Friday during the Germany match! That really sucks. Maybe we can plan our lunch break for a place with a TV...
So: Brazil, Netherlands, Spain, Argentina, Germany, England. Really, 4 out of my original 5 are still in it, so that's pretty good.
La La again
Revisiting the La La CD trading service, since I've been doing it for a couple of weeks now. I gotta say, it's very cool. I've traded away 9 CDs I either didn't want any more, or was kinda tired of (who knew that someone out there actually wanted Air Supply's Greatest Hits Live?), and in return I've received 5 CDs I wanted to listen to, and there are 5 more on the way. 3 of the 5 had liner notes too, which aren't required, but nice to have. I've even gotten some fairly recent releases too. The latest White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand, and the latest release from Ghostface Killah, which just came out this spring. Of course, with all these people sending me CDs, I'm back "in the red," and probably won't get any more sent my way till someone else requests another one of mine. Now wait, scratch that. While I was typing this, someone requested one more of mine, so I'm back in yellow. Nice. One thing I'll have to revisit though: Apparently one of the CDs I sent hasn't arrived yet, and it's been almost two weeks since I sent it. Maybe that's one I forgot to include the extra postage (for the liner notes) on, I'm not sure, but the guy says he hasn't gotten it yet. I'm not sure what'll happen. It should either get returned to LaLa HQ, where they will try to send it on to him, or else maybe he will get a "Postage Due" notice. Still, it seems strange that it's the only one to not get there yet.
All told, I'll have gotten 10 CDs for about the same price as one new one would cost me. If you like music, you've got to get in on this. Send me an email, and I'll send you an invite to join. Maybe you'll even get one of my CDs.
Update: Apparently the missing CD arrived on Friday, and the receiver finally marked it as such, so my karma is intact. Still strange that it took so long though.
U-G-L-Y
Wow, that Netherlands-Portugal game yesterday was the very definition of ugly. 16 yellows cards, 4 reds. And poor play and sportsmanship all around. On one play when the referee called a drop ball, after Portugal had possession but a man injured, Holland took the ball away and tried to get offense going, instead of kicking it back to Portugal, as they should have. Unfortunately, when Portugal made a hard tackle on the Dutch player running with the ball, they got the card. One of the worst displays I've seen, and neither team deserved to move on.
England didn't play great, but that's the story of their Cup so far. Get a goal, hunker down. Beckham's goal was pretty too. Just when you're asking youself what he's doing out there, he shows you.
Now if you want to talk about the "beautiful" game, look no further than the goals in the Argentina and Germany wins. Germany's two strikers (hear that, Bruce Arena? Two strikers! What a concept. You have to score to win) combined for their goals, with Klose as a decoy and setup man, and Lukas Podolski putting them away. We're in for a treat when they take on Argentina in the quarterfinals, in a game that's more worthy of a final.
Maxi Rodriguez had, in my opinion, the goal of the tournament in overtime. He took a long pass, chested it in the air, took a couple of steps just outside of the box, and rifled a left-footed shot right into the top corner over the keeper's reach. If you missed it, you got to try to catch it on the highlights sometime. Simply amazing.
Kind of boring matchups today. Italy-Australia and Switzerland-Ukraine. I'll be cheering on the Socceroos to pull off the upset. Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oy oy oy!
World Cup Round 3 Update
Round 3 is over, on to the knockout round of 16. Let's review.
Germany will take on Sweden. This game should show whether or not Germany is for real. I'm pinning my hopes on them, and I think they will do well if they continue to attack. Ballack to Klose, baby!
Argentina plays Mexico. As I said before, no contest here. Argentina is too good.
England plays Ecuador. Dangerous game for England here. They're playing without Michael Owen, and they haven't shown a lot of scoring prowess yet. If they're not careful, they could go home early.
Portugal takes on Netherlands. I've still got Netherlands as my #2 pick, but Portugal has played well.
Italy will crush Australia. I think. Never know with those Socceroos.
Brazil should get past Ghana if they play the way they did against Japan. Finally they showed some good agressive play against an inferior opponent.
Spain let up a little bit today against Saudi Arabia, resting their regular starters in a meaningless game. They should get past France, who certainly don't deserve to be in this round, to face Brazil in the quarterfinals.
Ukraine played horribly against Tunisia, who deserved a win but were deprived by a missed hand ball call, and a poor penalty kick call against them. Switzerland aren't much better at this point though, and this game will not be pretty.
With the way Italy has played so far, and with England's key injury, I'm tempted to swap in Italy in my predictions (especially since Italy practically has a free pass to the semifinals), but I'll stick with what I've said all along: Brazil, Netherlands, Spain, Argentina, Germany, England (unbelievably, they're all still in it!). There are going to be some very good quarterfinal matchups if they work out: Argentina-Germany, England-Netherlands, Spain-Brazil. Keep watching, even though the US is out. The real soccer powers are about to put on a show.
Shoulda Stayed in Bed
Well, either that or I should have gotten my lazy butt out of bed for Ultimate Frisbee this morning. Last night, there was an awful thunderstorm that kept me from falling asleep until very late, so I didn't have the energy to wake up at 5:30am this morning to go play frisbee. Instead, I slept an extra 45 minutes and just came into work. On the way in, this bitch in a Jeep Liberty damn near killed me cutting me off. Then, after I got ahead of her and gave her the one-fingered salute, she passed me and another car on the shoulder of the on-ramp to the Beltway. I'm so sick of people and their bullshit.
Once I got into work, I found that our power had been out until 6am this morning. No problem, I turned all my computers back on, but then discovered our servers were down. Apparently, even though they are on UPS power, the air-handling system is not, and we had to shut them down before they exploded from the heat.
The day can only get better from here. Right?
Go Home Yankees
Awful. Terrible. Horrid. There are no better words to describe the US performance today. Italy gave them a chance by soundly beating the Czechs, but the US looked like they didn't want to advance. They were tentative in the midfield again today, and Ghana took advantage. Claudio Reyna looked like a rookie standing there with the ball, inviting Ghana to take it away, which they did for the first goal. After a brilliant steal and pass by DeMarcus Beasley to Clint Dempsey, they drew even, but not for long. A questionable penalty kick call by the referee (most would say it's a foul when it's not in the box, but in the box, it usually takes more than that to call a PK), and they're right back in a hole. They never really threatened again. They continually played long balls from the defense or Kasey Keller, which never connected, and are largely wasteful plays. One close header by McBride that hit the outside of the post, but had little chance of going in. One chance on a free kick just outside the box was wasted by Landon Donovan, who curled it 20 feet over everyone's head. Donovan later dribbled around just outside the box looking for a pass when he should have shot the ball. A poor effort the entire Cup for the US, and the two most deserving teams of the group, Italy and Ghana, advance.
So now it's left to Germany to carry my hopes for the Cup. Deutschland!
R U red-E?
Before I go on, check out Ellie's page. She's growing up fast!
I'm excited about the USA-Ghana match today. We're headed out to watch with some other fans here in a bit. Hopefully Bruce Arena gets aggressive and puts the right lineup in there to get some goals and the victory. It should be a good game regardless.
World Cup Round 2 Update
The second round of group matches is now complete, and the picture is clear as mud. We know this much:
Germany wins Group A with their victory over Ecuador today. Ecuador finishes second in the group even with the loss. Germany looks strong on the attack, and shored up the defense after looking shaky in their first match.
England is through, and Sweden likely as well in Group B. The winner of the group avoids Germany, so their match later today is important for both sides.
Argentina and Netherlands both survive the "Group of Death." They'll play to determine first place tomorrow.
No surprise that Portugal and Mexico will advance from Group D. Either way, they'll both lose in the Round of 16 to Argentina and Netherlands.
Group E is now the "Group of Death." No one has clinched a spot in the next round yet, thanks to Ghana's shocking win over the Czechs, and the US's gritty tie with Italy. Italy-Czech Republic and USA-Ghana yet to come on Thursday morning. The USA has a slim chance to advance, but need to win, and most likely by a large margin, to have a chance. Their reward if they do?
A matchup with Group F's unsurprising winner, Brazil, even though they're not playing "beautifully." Australia should also advance with a tie, unless Japan can beat Brazil by two goals.
The surprise of the tournament may be Korea, who are tied atop Group G, and France, who are not. Luckily for them, France still faces Togo, and should be able to make up a good goal differential in that match. The Swiss currently have the goal differential advantage over Korea, and just need to tie them to advance.
Spain stumbled slightly against Tunisia, struggling to score for almost 80 minutes, but then closed them out 3-1. Tunisia now needs a win over Ukraine, who soundly beat Saudi Arabia, to advance.
I'm sticking with my predictions: Brazil, Netherlands, Spain, Argentina, Germany, England. I'm glad the US did better against Italy, but they are still a long shot to advance. I think, depending on the lineup Bruce Arena sends out there, that they have a good chance of beating Ghana.
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