The problems were pretty evident, the biggest being that this isn’t an over-30 co-ed league and there’s a huge difference between 26 and being in your mid-to-late 30′s. I’m turning 35 in January and was the second-youngest on our team. The second-biggest problem was conditioning and, to a lesser extent, possession. When you don’t have the ball you need to run a lot more, and running a lot more makes you tired. When you’re playing against teams a decade younger than you, you need to do your best to hand onto the ball. Even though I’m making my observations based on 60 minutes of soccer, that’s my assessment of why this team has shipped 21 goals and scored 4. It’s still good exercise though.

We had our 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM portfolio review session yesterday and it was not fun, but at least it’s over. I appealed a couple decisions and once I hear back on Monday whether they were upheld or overturned, I can send out fail letters and submit grades. Then I’ll be done with 101 for the semester.

I’m within touching distance of finishing my final paper and then it’s almost home-free. I think I’m taking the rest of today off and I’ll hammer through it tomorrow. I’m exhausted and I feel like stopping right now, but that ain’t gonna happen. I like sleep. (sigh)

I watched Tottenham against Man Ure today and thought it was a good end-to-end match. Man Ure had most of the possession and looked more dangerous but Spurs never went away and had several good moves themselves. I also watched the second half of Man City and Everton and it was so-so.

You might expect me to point out that brilliant, youthful Ar*nal drew 1-1 with mighty Middlesbrough today, providing more proof that this team is well out of the title race, especially when the teams above them stalled out. But I’m tired of pointing out the obvious.

I watched UFC’s Fight for the Troops the other night and holy crap there were some big time knock outs. Koscheck’s KO of Yoshida? Cue the tweety birds at about 2:10 of that clip. My god, I hope that never happens to me.

Current Mood: Tired in General |

Silva is amazing. I recently watched a rerun of his second fight against Rich Franklin and all I can say is that the man packs a wallop with that thin frame. Franklin was doing okay, and then in a flash he really wasn’t. A couple blows to the body wiped him out and then Silva went on autopilot with those knees and strikes. He throws so hard and so accurately. Watch the above video again and note how he measures that one punch perfectly. As Mike Goldberg so eloquently puts it, “His precision is so…precise.”

Current Mood: Ouch |

Memo to Jon Fitch: It’s totally cool to say that you didn’t mind fighting a no-name guy because you’re fighting for the purity of the sport and don’t care about winning the belt, but that’s somewhat compromised when, with the next question, you say you think it’s time you got a title shot.

Memo to Evan Tanner: Rethink your comeback.

Memo to Alessio Sakara: They stopped the fight because your arms were down at your sides and Chris Leben was hard at work merging your head with the canvas. I understand you don’t remember any of that, but that’s because you were unconscious, so don’t complain.

Memo to Heath Herring: Great fight and congrats on the close decision, but you have to stop complaining when guys take the fight to the ground. Yes, you might want to stand and trade blows, but the beauty of MMA is that your opponent can have a different strategy. If you want to fight standing up, you need to figure out ways to keep the fight there instead of whining to the crowd that you wanted to put on a good show.

Memo to Anderson Silva: You’re the real deal, but I’m sure you know this. That is all.

/
Holy cow. Crazy stuff happening in the race for the title in the world’s best two leagues. Man Ure’s 5-1 hammering of Newcastle last weekend and a 3-0 stroll over Fulham yesterday has all but closed the gap between them and Ars*nal, who were lucky to grab even a point yesterday against Villa. This sets up a very nervy last 10 games to the season and I’m quite looking forward to it.

(By the way, Fulham—current employer of Americans Kasey Keller, Brian McBride, Carlos Bocanegra, Eddie Johnson, and Clint Dempsey—are serious relegation contenders. They had a shot to lift themselves from the mire after their inspired win over Villa, but remain seven points from safety. Not good. At all.)

Speaking of high drama, La Liga is worth a look. Real Madrid has been on the skids as of late and Barcelona has steadily making up ground. At the start of the day, Barcelona trailed Madrid by only two points. In the opening minutes of their respective games, Madrid went down 1-0 and Barcelona went up 1-0, results which would have put them top of the table had they finished that way. They didn’t. Robinho inspired Madrid to a 3-2 come-from-behind victory, whereas Barcelona crashed 4-2 to Atlético Madrid, Real’s arch rivals.

I have notified my wife that I’m looking into whether Louise Erdrich is single and whether she’s accepting suitors. I’m reading The Beet Queen at present, which has set my crush on her in stone, and I fully plan on reading Love Medicine and The Bingo Palace whenever recreational reading comes back into my life.

Oh, I also have Four Souls and The Painted Drum on CD checked out from the library. So yes, this crush if for real.

Current Mood: Okay |

Turns out, this team has gotten progressively better and better. They kicked the ever lovin’ out of Oakland today and have won a series of impressive game. Even the loss in Dallas was done with heads held high. I’m not a complete convert, but I do have to say that McCarthy deserves a lot of the credit for the team’s change in fortunes.

Right, so the finals of The Ultimate Fighter were last night and it turned out to be pretty anticlimactic. Most of the fights between the show’s various losers were pretty good, especially between War Machine and Squeaky Voice. The final? Not so much.

Though I was pretty sure of this going in, the season really made me dislike Matt Hughes even more. I like how he’s managed to shoulder none of the blame for the six fights his guys lost yet likes to take credit for getting two guys in the final. What a jerk. You could see the mediocre guys from Serra’s team jump up a notch so you know he’s a great coach.

A couple things on MMA. One thing I don’t like is how slips and illegal hits usually end up helping the perpetrator quite a bit. Last season, a fighter got clobbered with an illegal elbow in the back of the head. After the restart, he got whipped. In the semifinal between Tommy Speer and George, Tommy poked George in the eye; to me it looked like a convenient accident. And Tommy’s big shot KO’d George because he never saw it coming—probably because it hit him on the left side, the same eye that had been poked. I don’t quite know how this gets fixed.

Also, I’m noticing that I like The Ultimate Fighter show less and less, primarily because these guys are still learning. I stopped watching the WEC and some other MMA fights because the fighters weren’t as well rounded. I prefer to see the real deal, like the Guerrera vs. Huerta fight where both guys are really good. TUF obviously produces a lot of good talent but a lot of the fights aren’t so great and the last two championship fights have more or less sucked.

Right, a good day in English football. Spurs won 2-1 over Man City, and the Ars* finally lost. And to Boro? Why is it that Gareth Southgate manged to beat Chelski last year and the Ars* this year, yet still contrives to lose against Wigan?

What I find remarkable about this season is how it seemed like Man Ure and Chelski’s stuttering starts was such a major deal, as was the Ars*’s undefeated streak. Now they’ve played the same number of games and a whopping three points separates the three teams with over half the season yet to play.

And even though Liverpool is another four points back of Chelski with a game in hand I’ve already written them off. Rafa’s team selection often mystifies me and the Reds looked downright bad against Reading. I still have a man-crush on Nando Torres though. It’s those boyish good looks and Spanish charm.

Current Mood: Grody |

Oh, and about a $6000 bill to boot. Looking back, was it so worth it. As if we had a say.

Woo hoo! The Chicago Fire upset league-leading DC United in the MLS play-offs. Last week they won 1-0 at home and plugged in two first-half goals last night in the second leg. DC roared back to level it at 2-2 but couldn’t find the go-ahead goal.

I don’t understand the resistance in MLS to the “away goals” rule. Had DC managed to win 3-2, the score on aggregate would have been 3-3 and they’d have played overtime to decide the winner. Everywhere else in the world, Chicago would have gone through on the away goals rule, which apparently is too hard for the American sports/soccer fan to understand. So let me try to explain it in a single sentence.

Away goals rule: if the scores of the games added together are equal after two games, the team that scored more goals away from home wins.

Not so hard, is it?

I used to like Matt Hughes. One of the first UFC shows I watched was a Matt Hughes special that showed him body slamming all sorts of dudes. Then he made a blatantly racist comment to Din Thomas on The Ultimate Fighter a few seasons back and all respect bottomed out. Matt Serra has described Hughes as a jock meat head egomaniac and, after watching this season of The Ulimate Fighter, that’s pretty much my impression too.

Serra is up 6 wins to 1. The single fight Hughes’ guys won was when he chose his best guy against Serra’s weakest. Yet after six consecutive losses, Hughes continually blames his team—the team he chose. He has taken zero responsibility for why they might be unprepared, and Serra has hit the nail on the head—Hughes’ only response is to work them harder and physically beat them up in training. Anyone else notice Serra’s fighters haven’t had any injuries while two of Hughes’ guys have been hurt in training? But Hughes did tell a guy whose cousin had just died that he “expected a win out of him” before he left for the funeral. Nice.

I take my Spanish competency exam on Monday. Part of me says it should be a piece of cake. Part of me is worried that I’m overconfident. You can keep taking it until you pass and I have another two years to do so, so it’s a low-pressure situation.

Having said that, I dreamed last night that I took a placement exam and wound up in first semester Spanish class where I was complaining to the teacher—in Spanish—about how that couldn’t be right.

I’m learning a lot more about customizing WordPress. I’m moving our program’s literary magazine from a static site to a dynamic one managed solely by WordPress. I haven’t worked out all the kinks yet but I’m damn close and feeling pretty good about it. When I get the time, I’ll probably switch my whole site over to WordPress too. It’s pretty nifty.

If you’re interested in installing WordPress and customizing the default Kubrick theme, I highly recommend the Hacking Kubrick tutorials over at solostream.com Developer Michael Pollock has put together some great AVI movies to show you step-by-step how to customize the Kubrick theme. They were a godsend for me.

Current Mood: Fine |
Currently Listening To – Oasis – “Be Here Now”

I’m beginning to love Mexico coach Hugo Sanchez. Why? Because I can’t possibly hate him any more than I already do, so the only way is up. The big bogey for the Mexican national team is beating the US outside Mexico. You see, they can’t seem to do it. The US holds a 9-2-1 record against Mexico since 2000, 8-0-1 on home soil. Yet when the US plays in places like Los Angeles, DC, New York, or Chicago, it’s hardly home field advantage since 90% of the roaring crowd cheers for Mexico. It was like that at Soldier Field on Sunday, where the US came from behind to win 2-1 on a wundergoal from Benny Feilhaber.

What is it with Mexico’s coaches? I have to give credit to the players this time around who bore the defeat with dignity. No flurry of cheap shots late in the game, and some handshakes and jersey-swapping which sadly they did not show on TV. Sanchez’s predecessor Ricardo Lavolpe could never manage to give the US any credit, blaming loss after loss on the referee, negative tactics, and my favorite, luck. But 9-2-1? Well, Sanchez and some players surrounded the referee after the match to scream about the penalty (which was the correct call) and then retreated behind the ol’ saw of “the best team doesn’t always win.” Apparently, they only win two out of eleven and then only at home.

The game? A cracker. Some are calling it the best ever but I won’t. Too many young players on both sides who are just learning the international game. The US played some great soccer but Mexico probably played slightly better. Technically, the Mexicans are better players. Tactically and physically, the US has the advantage. The US wasn’t stringing together pinpoint passes and players weren’t making mazey runs through crowds of players. The US looks good playing fast and strong. And I’m still not convinced by the Bocanegra/Onyewu pairing in the back. The defense often looks all over the place, and while those guys are good at hacking away dangerous chances, they always seem to be of the last-gasp variety. They say the best goalkeepers make saves look easy. I think the same goes for defending, and the US makes defending look anything but cool, calm, and collected.

I’m also disappointed in the US’ inability to finish. Ching, Twellman, Dempsey, and Beasley each missed multiple Very Good Chances or complete sitters over the course of the tournament. You can do that against the mighty opponents of Guatemala, Trinidad & Tobago, El Salvador, Panama and yes even Mexico and still win. But against Argentina or Germany? Forget it. If you get two chances, you need to take two chances.

And not to throw a wet blanket over the whole thing, but I don’t see how the Gold Cup will advance the US in the global game. I think it helps immeasurably for qualifying, but most South America, European, and African teams have little in common with the minnows of CONCACAF. You can play a tough Panama team ten times in a row and it will mean next to nothing when you play at team like Portugal.

But winning the Gold Cup is far better than losing it, especially when the US beats Mexico yet again and this time from behind.

I watched the Ultimate Fighter Finale and was disappointed even though there were some good fights. The Gray Maynard vs. Rob Emerson was downright weird with a no contest decision after Maynard knocked himself out slamming Emerson, who he had been dominating, to the mat. Injury marred what should have been a very good fight between Manny Gamburyan and Nate Diaz (who uses the words “understandable” and “respectable” when he means “understanding” and “respectful”). Manny’s shoulder popped out at the start of the second round when he was trying to take Diaz down.

And Jens Pulver got completely worked by BJ Penn, who I can’t stand. I thought it was tacky that after winning he stuffed Joe Rogan on the post-fight interview and said, “If you want to know how BJ Penn is feeling, go to BJPenn.com. right now.” Where he probably had written a pre-fight message that he had posted the minute he won. Great. A season-long rivalry comes to a head in shameless self-promotion.

Photos hopefully soon if I can get to them.

Current Mood: Tired |
Currently Listening To – Elliott Smith – “XO”