World Cup 2006

2006-06-19T15:43:00.000-04:00

Day 10

Croatia 0, Japan 0

A very evenly played game in which neither team was able to really break through or even apply consistant pressure on the other. After thier showing with Brazil, Croatia was ready to take it to Japan, but the closest they got was a second half PK, which was brilliantly saved. Other than that the heat seemed to take its toll on both teams.

Brazil 2, Australia 0

Brazil got the win, but Australia made some good impressions on the defending champions. Brazil struck in the 49th minute with a nice strike from Adriano, and they added the second one to put the game away in the 90th from Fred. By the way, he has to have the best mono-name in the tournament, I propose we make that an award or something. The biggest story here might actually be the way in which Brazil is playing, or more truthfully, the way they arent playing. Brazil seems to be lacking the look of a team that is unbeatable, something we were all being convinced they were. However, the important thing is that they have recorded their six points and locked up the top spot in their group. But going forward they will have to show more focus and ability, or this might be a very beatable team.

France 1, South Korea 1

The French finally got a goal, but they still havent won a match since the final of the 1998 World Cup. Henry came through in the first half to put the French fans into a frenzy. They have been waiting for him to warm up and get a goal, which he finally did. It seemed to fortell of an easy win for France, but the Koreans staged their second comeback of the competition. There have been only 5 games so far in which the team to score first did not win, and Korea is responcible for two of those games. This time it was Ji Sung Park who tied things up by wrecking havoc in front of the net and getting the ball to eventually pop past the French keeper. France was denyed a goal on a play in the first half that could have given them a 2-0 lead, but even with that, this was a game they should have won.

Group F - 1 game left

Brazil 2-0-0 6 points +3
Australia 1-0-1 3 points Even
Croatia 0-1-1 1 point -1
Japan 0-1-1 1 point -2

Brazil has locked up the number one spot in the group, but the rest of the group is still sitting open. Japan is pretty much finished, having to play their final game against Brazil, who will be looking to regain their top form. That leaves the game between Australia and Croatia to decide second place. The Socceroos have looked good so far, and it would be a shame for them to miss out on such a good chance to advance for the first time ever. They are looking to grab at least a tie, which would be enough to push past the other two, as long as Brazil doesnt get crushed by Japan. Croatia needs a win, which should be enough to climb in, also assuming Brazil doesnt get creamed. To me, it looks like Australia is going to get what they need. After that game with Japan, I think they just wont be denyed before the next round.

2006-06-18T12:55:00.000-04:00

Day 9

Portugal 2, Iran 0

Portugal took care of business and booked a place in the final 16 for the first time since 1966 with their 2-0 win over Iran to start the day. However, one cannot help but be impressed with the spunky play of the Iranians, who have managed to play level with the top two teams in their group for the first 70 minutes or so. Against Mexico the score was tied 1-1 until two late goals put Mexico out in front, and today the game was scoreless until the 63rd minute when Deco pushed Portugal out in front with a very nice goal. Ronaldo (no, not the Brazilian) scored the second goal of a penalty kick in the 80th minute to seal the deal.

Ghana 2, Czech Republic 0

With the fastest goal of the competition so far, Ghana set up their stunning upset of the Czech Republic, who looked so good only a few days ago after they crushed the United States in their first game. Gyan worked his way past 2 Czech defenders and fired a shot past Petr Chek in the 2nd minute of the game, the first goal in World Cup history for his nation. Ghana continued to pressure the Czech defense throughout the game, and stood up to all attempts to equilize the score. Things got even better for them in the 65th minute, when a red card meant that Ghana would have an extra man for the rest of the game. Only some amazing saves, and a PK that hit the post, prevented Ghana from opening up a larger lead. Finally, in the 82nd, Ghana sealed their first ever World Cup win with a second goal, and the Czech's never seriously threatened afterwards.

USA 1, Italy 1

The United States looked like a completely different team from the one that lost 0-3 to the Czech Republic only 5 days ago. This time they were ready for one of the top teams in the world, and they gave everything they had to gain a point and stay in the running in Group E. Italy scored first on a free kick header in the 22nd minute, but the USA would quickly respond, with a little help. On a free kick of their own in the 27th minute, a clearance attempt by Italy's Zaccardo deflected the wrong way off his shin gaurd and into the Italian net. Then things got crazy. In the 28th minute, De Rossi was sent off for an elbow to the head that bloodied up Brian McBride. The United States, playing in a tied game and with a man advantage, suddenly had a huge edge, or at least they did until Mastroeni was shown a straight red card for a challenge that was clearly not a red card offense. Shortly after half time it got worse, with Eddie Lewis receiving his second yellow of the game and being sent off. Now the Americans had to play nearly an entire half down 10 men to 9, and they stood tall. The last ten minutes were dominated by Italy, who had courner kicks in the 86th, 87th, 88th, 89th, and 90th minutes, but could not score thanks to great effort by Keller and the remaining US players. The United States earned their first point ever in a World Cup held in Europe.

Group D - 1 game left

Portugal 2-0-0 6 points +3
Mexico 1-1-0 4 points +2
Angola 0-1-1 1 point -1
Iran 0-0-2 0 points -4

As expected, Portugal and Mexico are up on top of the group, but the tie with Angola leaves Mexico needing one more point in their final game with Portugal to advance. Like Trinidad and Tobago in Group B, Angola is a tournament long shot that is still alive, but not in very good shape. For Angola, they need a win over Iran and a Mexican loss to have a chance of advancing. On top of that, however, they need to win the goal differencial tie breaker. So a win by 3 goals or more is the only way they can know they are going through with even the slimmest of losses by Mexico. Portugal needs a tie or win with Mexico to top the group, and Iran are heading home no matter what.

Group E - 1 game left

Italy 1-1-0 4 points +2
Ghana 1-0-1 3 points even
Czech Republic 1-0-1 3 points +1
USA 0-1-1 1 point -3

After seeing the ease with which Group C, the supposed 'Group of Death' was navigated by favorites Argentina and Netherlands, there is really no choice but to declare Group E the official Group of Death of the 2006 World Cup. With one game remaining, all four teams are still alive and no one has clinched a spot in the next round yet. Italy, the leader right now, could slip down as far as third, and America, currently in last, could end up 2nd and advancing to the next round. The final match-ups are Italy vs. Czech Republic and USA vs. Ghana. The situations for everyone are really complicated, but Italy and Ghana will both advance with wins, or if both games end up tied. For America, we need a win over Ghana and a loss by the Czech Republic. The other possibility is a win over Ghana and a tie or Italian loss in the other game. Then, however, we would have to win by at least 5 goals, which seems highly unlikely. After being so far out of it 2 days ago, America now looks to have a fairly possible run to the next round. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic, who were in fine position before today's loss, now find themselves needing a win and some help to advance. Italy should have enough to knock off the Czech's who are starting to show thier age, and the Italians will be looking to win, so they can top the group and avoid Brazil in round #2. The winner of the USA-Ghana game should end up second in the group.

2006-06-17T02:19:00.000-04:00

Day 8

Argentina 6, Serbia and Montenegro 0

No, thats not a typo. Argentina has rolled right through the so-called "Group of Death" and advanced to the round of 16 in dominating fashion with a 6-0 victory over Serbia and Montenegro. Perhaps even more amazing is that they scored six times against a Serbian defense that only allowed one goal in their ten World Cup qualifying matches. Add in the one they allowed in their opening 0-1 loss to the Netherlands, and you get only 2 goals allowed in their previous 11 games, yet Argentina opened them up over and over again. The scoring began with Maxi Rodriguez in the 6th minute. Serbia shut things down for a bit after that, but Crespo set up the second goal with a brilliant back-heel pass in the 31st and nothing was the same after that. Maxi had his second goal in the 41st. Serbia had a man sent off in the 65th minute, and Argentina took full advantage of that oppurtunity as well. They added on goals in the 78th, 84th, and 88th minutes to complete the rout and send them strongly to the top of the group. Meanwhile, Serbia and Montenegro are headed home to their newly divided nation.

Netherlands 2, Ivory Coast 1

One of the most entertaining matches so far saw the Ivory Coast playing all-out for their tournament lives during the second half in an attempt to earn a point. The Elephants fell behind with two goals from the Natherlands in quick succession. Van Persie struck a beautiful free kick around the Ivory Coast wall and past the keeper for a 1-0 lead in the 23rd minute, and the lead was extended when Van Nistelrooij was found with a pass unmarked in the box only four minutes later. Ivory Coast was never that far out of it, however, because they immediately began pressing for a goal. In the 34th minute a nice shot beat the Dutch keeper only to slam off the crossbar in the courner of the goal mouth. Four minutes later an equally nice shot found the back of the net as Kone brought the Coast within a goal. The second half was all about the relentless attack of the Ivory Coast and the strong defense of the Netherlands. Despite a few great chances, the Elephants were unable to find the tieing goal and they will be finished in this competition with two one goal losses to two of the world's top teams.

Mexico 0, Angola 0

Group D got a bit more interesting on Friday as African first-timers Angola picked up a point with a surprising shut-out of Mexico. The Mexican team was never able to assert themselves and control the pace of the game as they would have liked, and the result was a stalemate with the very solid Angolan defense, which only yielded 9 goals during qualifying. While Mexico had no lack of chances to score, they seemed to play a bit out of synch, as they were never able to make the last pass needed for a goal to be possible. On top of the Mexicans sloppy play, the Angolan keeper, Joao Ricardo, made 3 fantastic saves in the second half to preserve the draw. One of them was a one-handed catch of a cross in front of his net and another came in the closing seconds, with two Mexican players sitting right on his doorstep. Both times he came down hard but was able to hold on to the ball and secure Angola their first point in World Cup history.

Group C - one game left

Argentina 2-0-0 6 points +7
Netherlands 2-0-0 6 points +2
Ivory Coast 0-0-2 0 points -2
Serbia and Montenegro 0-0-2 0 points -7

Argentina and Netherlands will be playing for the top spot in the group when they meet in the final game, but both of them locked up safe advancement to the round of 16 already. The "Group of Death" proved to be a challenge, but not a very difficult one, for either of those nations, both of which look ready for long runs in the knock-out stages. However, first place in the group, and a supposed second-round matchup with Mexico is far superior a proposition than having to play Portugal since Mexico has traditionally struggled to win against anyone in European World Cups. The only real casualty of the "Group of Death" is the Ivory Coast, who played their hearts out in two games against two of the best in the world and came up a goal short each time. In some other groups (H, F, B, and G) they would probably be in position to advance with the way they have performed so far, yet they have to go home early. It would be very nice to see them win their last game, and will give them a boost heading into qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup. They will be favorites not only to qualify again, but also to make a much bigger splash next time around, with the Cup venturing to South Africa in four years. This is a young team who will be stronger and more prepared for upsets in the future, but found themselves in over their heads this time around.

2006-06-16T00:17:00.000-04:00

Day 7

Ecuador 3, Costa Rica 0

The Ecuador national team entered this game with an oppurtunity to clinch a spot in the Final 16 for the first time in their history. Not bad for a nation only making its second World Cup appearance, and they were not about to let the oppurtunity slip by with a game against the hosts looming. Costa Rica came in needing at least a point to stay alive, and a win to put themselves in good shape advancement, but they seriously disappointed after their decent showing against Germany in the opener. Ecuador took the game right at the Ticos, and cashed in right away with a header goal in the 8th minute. Costa Rica was immediately taken out of the game, only able to mount a chance to respond late in the first half. However, only nine minutes into the second half Ecuador went up 2-0 and ended any question about the outcome with a final goal on a stoppage time fast break.

England 2, Trinidad and Tobago 0

The tiny nation of Trinidad and Tobago impressed in their 0-0 tie with Sweeden in their opening game, but today's challenge proved to be a little too much for them. Another game in which they were beaten in possession and shots on goal, but they stood firm in defense and kept England off the scoreboard for a long time. The addition of Wayne Rooney as a sub in the 58th minute seemed to energize the Brits and they finally pushed a goal through the T&T defense in the 83rd minute with a Peter Crouch header. By then it looked like the defense for T&T was just about out of gas after two taxing matches in a row. England scored the clincher a minute into stoppage time, with Gerrard recording the goal.

Sweeden 1, Paraguay 0

It took Sweeden nearly two full games, but they finally managed to score in the 2006 World Cup, and now they are in good shape to advance. Paraguay, however, are left to wonder what could have been after their second straight 1-0 loss has left them no chance of advancing. Sweeden clearly had the better of the game throughout, but just as in their opener with Trinidad, they were unable to grab a goal. Finally, Freddie Ljungberg came to their rescue with a beautiful finish after a cross and a header into the 6-yard box. The win moves Sweeden up to 4 points and puts them in position to advance with a point in their final game with England.

Group A - 1 game left

Ecuador 2-0-0 6 points +5
Germany 2-0-0 6 points +3
Poland 0-0-2 0 points -3
Costa Rica 0-0-2 0 points -5

Ecuador and Germany are both moving on, perhaps a bit of a surprise in a group so evenly matched as this to be finished already, but both those teams deserve their lofty positions after how well they have played, particularly Ecuador. There is still something to play for, however. With England in position to win Group B, both these squads would like to win this group and avoid having to deal with England in the round of 16. For Germany, that means they must beat Ecuador in the final group game, since a draw would award Ecuador the top spot based on goal differential. Germany is capable of beating Ecuador, but they are really on a role right now, so I think that match will end in a draw, and Germany-England will be the premiere match of the round of 16.

Group B - 1 game left

England 2-0-0 6 points +3
Sweeden 1-1-0 4 points +1
Trinadad and Tobago 0-1-1 1 point -2
Paraguay 0-0-2 0 points -2

Paraguay has already been eliminated, a harsh way to exit with two losses by a score of 1-0, but their game with T&T will still have some meaning. A win by Trinidad would not only be historical for thier nation, and prompt another massive celebration, but it would keep the pressure on Sweeden until the very end. Sweeden should still advance though, all they need is a tie to do so, and England will also be happy with a tie since it would allow them to top the group. Rooney will almost certainly not play, and without him on the field, England looks as if they lack a spark, while Sweeden cannot seem to score no matter who is on the field, so expect a low scoring affair. Sweeden will manage to get through.

2006-06-15T11:40:00.000-04:00

Day 6

Spain 4, Ukraine 0

In one of the most surprising, and certainly the most lopsided, of the Cup so far, Spain looked to eliminate their curse of underachieving on the world's biggest stage. Although many people had the Ukraine pegged as a dark horse to make a run deep into the World Cup, their performance in this opening game leaves many questions for them to ask. Spain struck early with a goal from Xabi in the 13th and a second from Villa in the 17th. Ukraine had difficulty coming back from that deficit, as they were never able to mount much of an attack against the Spainish defense. Things didnt get any easier in the 47th minute when Ukraine had a man sent off and had to play a man down the rest of the way. A minute later Villa converted the PK and gave Spain an insurmountable lead. Finally, Torres ended the scoring with the fourth goal of the game for Spain in the 81st.

Tunisia 2, Saudi Arabia 2

The goals kept on coming in the second game of the day as both teams tried to take advantage of the loss by Ukraine and take a step towards an unlikely advancement. In a wildly entertaining game, Tunisia struck first with the only goal of the first half in the 23rd minute goal from Jaziri. Despite being dominated for the entire first half, the Saudis came out looking like a different team in the second half. They attacked the Tunisian goal time and time again before finallly breaking through with a 57th minute goal. In the 84th minute they went ahead with one of the best goal of the competition. Starting at their own box with a header to clear, they rushed forward with four players taking less than three touches apeice during a basketball-like fast-break. It ended with Al Jaber slotting one into the back of the net for a 2-1 Saudi Arabia lead. As time was running out Tunisia pushed forward for an equilizer. In stoppage time a great chip found the head of Jaidi and then the back of the net for Tunisia. Neither team was able to take full advantage of the Ukraine loss and grab three points, but both found many positives as they move forward.

Germany 1, Poland 0

With all the opening games completed, it was time to start the second rotation through group play, and the hosts kicked things off again with a match against next-door neighbor Poland. The Polish team never had much of a good attack, and by the second half it became apparent they were playing for a goalless draw and a single point which would keep them alive for now in Group A. After the red card given to Sobolewski in the 75th minute reduced Poland to 10 men, it looked like only a matter of time until Germany broke through. In the 89th minute, Germany hit the crossbar with a header and the rebound in less than three seconds. Finally, a sliding Oliver Neuville connected with a cross inside the 6-yard box to give Germany the winning tally two seconds into stoppage time. The Germans will lock up advancing with either an Ecuador win over Costa Rica tomorrow or just a single point against Ecuador in their final game.

Group H - after 1 game each.

We knew the opening game with Spain vs. Ukraine would define how the rest of this group would have to play from here on out, but no one really expected the dominant performance that Spain put up in their 4-0 win. Now the Spainish are sitting pretty to advance as the top team in the group, which is good news for them because it means they can probably avoid France in the second round (unless of course, France still cant find a way to score). As long as Ukraine doesnt panic from their loss they should be able to recover and advance in a generally weak group. The tie between Tunisia and Saudi Arabia also helped them out because instead of trailing second place by 3 points they are only a point back. Wins over Saudi Arabia and Tunisia will give them a spot in the final 16. As far as those two teams go, both of them had good chances to win their opener and get into position to pull an upset and advance, but the tie hurts both of them. Now they will both be looking for more points in their next games, and if Saudi Arabia can play like they did in the second half of the Tunisia game, they can perhaps take advantage of a nervous Ukraine team in their next game. Seeing the Saudis advance would be very unlikly, but every World Cup needs a surprise or two.

2006-06-13T12:37:00.000-04:00

Day 5

South Korea 2, Togo 1

Togo was not expected to make much of a splash in this World Cup, even being in a weak group, but they showed plenty of ability during their opener with South Korea. Togo took the lead in the 31st minute when Mohamed made a great run through the defense and split the last defender and the keeper with a low shot into the far courner. South Korea went into the half trailing, something they have never recovered from in their World Cup history. But in the second half it all came apart for Togo. A quick goal on a free kick immediately following a red card on one of the Togo defenders evened the score, and Korea punched in front with a nice shot from Ahn in the 72nd minute. Togo had one or two chances to tie the score late in the contest, but by then the Koreans were controling the momentum and the possession. A tough opening for Togo but a good comeback for the favored Koreans who pick up their first win ever in a World Cup hosted in Europe.

France 0, Switzerland 0

With both teams looking to chase down Korea for the group lead after one game, one would have expected a better offensive game. However, since both these nations had played through the same group in European qualifyer, they know each other very well, and it showed. Neither team was able to create many scoring oppurtunities, but Switzerland had the better chances when they did come. In the first half they had a free kick clank of the post of the French goal, and in the second half a rush forward was stopped only by a spectacular reflex save on the line from the French keeper. France had a scary moment when Henry went down and appeared to be hurt, but he came back on and looks to be ok. This shut-out means France hasnt scored a goal in the World Cup since their 3-0 win over Brazil in the 1998 Championship match. They were held scoreless in 2002 and only picked up 1 point.

Brazil 1, Croatia 0

The defending champs and heavy favorites finally got their World Cup run underway with an 8th consecutive World Cup win. It was far from being their best performance, but there were a few moments of brillance from the Brazilian midfield and forwards. Croatia played very well and showed why they are going to be dangerous in this competition by shutting down the high scoring Brazilians for most of the game. Kaka came through with the only goal on a lovely shot in 44th minute of the game. In the second half Croatia had at least three good chance to tie the score, but good saves from Dida kept Brazil in front and record the win.

Group F - after one game apiece

This is looking to be a very interesting group. Brazil is stil well in front of everyone, and they should win all three games, although I could see Australia pushing them very hard and maybe even getting a goal with their physical play. I think the way to beat Brazil starts with taking the attack to them and testing their defense as often as possible, and Australia has the ability, and now the confidence, to do that. Japan is in a tough spot since their last game will be against Brazil, and they will need a win versus Croatia to have any chance of advancing, but the Croats were impressive in the loss to Brazil. I think the second spot in this group will come down to who can win the final game between Croatia and Australia, and that looks to be a very good matchup.

Group H - after one game apiece.

France came in to this group the clear-cut favorites, but after another game without scoring, the French have got to be nervous. Anytime a favorite starts to feel nerves, the other teams see a good oppurtunity to advance. In this group, it is very possible to see France fall to third behind Korea and the Swiss. If France cannot find their attack and they drop the game to a good Korean team that has finally found confidence on European soil, even a win against Togo in the finale wont be able to save the French because Switzerland would only need to tie Korea to advance ahead of France. On the other hand, if France can even get just one point from Korea in the next game, they should be fine as long as they knock-off Togo in the third game. Its not going to be easy for them to advance, and they need to find a way to score, but look for them to find a way through anyways while Korea and Switzerland play their last game against each other to grab the second spot.

2006-06-13T12:10:00.000-04:00

Day 4 - America's first game.

Australia 3, Japan 1

The first incredible finish of the World Cup 2006, one which will surely be remembered for years to come, particularly in Australia. The "Soccer-roos", who have appeared in only one other World Cup, Germany 1974, had never scored a goal in the World Cup due to being shut-out all three games during that competition. It took them a while to break through, but when they did they really poured it on. Japan scored in the 24th minute on a chip that made its way into the net when a Japanese striker clearly fouled the Australian keeper. But no whistle was blown and the goal was allowed to stand. Japan tried to make the lead hold up, but Australia finally recorded their first World Cup goal in the 83rd minute to tie the game up. Tim Kahill, who scored the first goal, came right back with a beautiful strike for his second goal in the 87th minute, and then John Aloisi scored another on fast break in stoppage time. After not scoring for nearly their fourth consecutive game in history, Australia poured it on for their first points and first win.

Czech Republic 3, United States 0

The most most poorly played game in the Cup so far was not by one of the teams making their first appearence, but by the very optimistic United States, who failed to find any way to crack open the Czech Republic. The Czech's, on the other hand, had no trouble breaking right through the US defense from the very beginning. A complete defensive collapse allowed the Czech's 6'8" striker Jan Koller to beat two defenders and score easily in the 5th minute. After Reyna had the USA's only good chance to score bounce off the post, the Czech's countered and made the score 2-0 with a fantastic shot by Rosicky that Keller had no chance to save. Rosicky added another on a fast break in the second half and the US never seriously threatened the clean sheet for the Czech Republic. Although he did not score, Pavel Nedved absolutely dominated the American midfield, and seemed to be everywhere he needed to be all day long. The Americans had difficulty establishing possession and even a tougher time keeping it.

Italy 2, Ghana 0

The Italians got themselves off to a good start by taking out a dangerous African team in Ghana. A thrilling first half with many scoring chance by both teams ended with an Italian strike from beyond the box, perhaps one of the best goals of this Cup. In the second half Ghana tried to turn up the pressure and Italy's famous defense didnt look as good as it usually does, but they recored the shut-out with some help from the officials. Twice in the second half Ghana players were fouled in the box, but neither one was called so no penalty kicks were awarded. Italy sent a quick rush back the other way in the closing minutes to score a second goal and put the game away.

Group E - after 1 game apice.

What started out as a difficult task for the United States now looks nearly impossible. There was little desire shown by the US on Wednesday, and it makes you think they were playing for a 0-0 tie, which is never a good idea and even less so against such a strong offensive team as the Czech Republic. They couldnt control the mid-field at all against the Czech's and that cannot happen again against Italy. The United States needs to pick up a win against Italy, but it is difficult to see that happening with how poorly they played and how well Italy did. If the US can pick up a draw with Italy they will remain alive, but the odds of advancing will be very slim. They would need a win in the finale with Ghana and have to hope for a Czech Republic win over Italy at the same time. It's starting to look like the Americans arent as good as we were all lead to believe, and they need to come ready to play on Saturday. The other story of the group is the Czech Republic. As bad as the US looked today, the Czech Republic also looked much better than I expected. For an aging team that was supposed to be beatable, they dominated the midfield, and that the secret to winning in any level of soccer. The US came in ranked 5th in the world and the Czech Republic was ranked 2nd. Today, one of them proved they deserved that lofty ranking and the other did not.

2006-06-12T01:04:00.000-04:00

Day 3

Netherlands 1, Serbia and Montenegro 0

The day opened with the best matchup of the three scheduled games, and this one did not dissapoint. The Netherlands controled almost the entire first half behind strong play from Robben, who got the lone goal of the match in the 18th minute. Serbia came out with more attacking skill in the second half, but they were unable to get many good shots on goal. The Dutch ability to control possession and pass the ball better than most any other team in the world proved to be the deciding factor, as most expected.

Mexico 3, Iran 1

In the opening game of Group D, it looked like Iran might have been on the verge of a major upset for about 70 minutes. The outshot Mexico and had the better of the play until well into the second half, but in the end it was all about a few key subs for Mexico and a big mistake by the Iranians. The game was tied at the half with Mexico scoring in the 28th minute and Iran answering off a courner kick in the 36th. Finally, the Iran defense made a critical mistake, a turnover just outside the box that provided Omar Bravo with his second goal of the game. Only a few minutes later Mexico scored of a header on a beautiful rush forward that was helped by a poor job of defending in the box.

Portugal 1, Angola 0

In one of the worst performances of the World Cup so far, Portugal dominated the first 10 minutes against Angola, scoring in the 4th minute on their third shot of the game, and then decided to take it easy for the next 80 minutes. As the dude on NikeSoccer.com would say, this was NOT Joga Bonito. But the Angolan's played well, better than most expected, but they were unable to get a goal against Portugal, even though the Portugese deserved to have a surprise pulled on them because of the desire they showed today.

Group C - after 1 game apeice

The "Group of Death" has been tough so far, but both the favorites seem to be doing ok. The Netherlands scored one on Serbia today, which equals the amount the Serbians gave up during all 10 preliminary games. Argentina will get to try their hand at one of the world's best defenses next, but I expect them to be able to crack it at least once as well. Look for Serbia to bring a stronger attack however, a draw looks very possible. Meanwhile, Netherlands look to end the meaningfulness of the Ivory Coast's first trip to the World Cup with their next game, but a slight slip-up will open the door for an Elephant-sized surprise.

Group D - after 1 game apeice

This is the easiest group for the top teams to navigate, and today left little doubt of that. Both Mexico and Portugal picked up the full three points, and since they dont have to play each other until the final game, they are both going to be looking to lock up advancement with wins in their next games too. Portugal didnt deserve to win their game since they decided to pack it in with a 1-0 lead in the early part of the first half, but when you have a group with Angola and Iran, I guess it was the smart thing to do. It would be cool to see Iran pull an upset, or at least grab a point in their next game, in part because they were so close against Mexico, in part because Portugal deserves a scare, and mostly because it would make things a little more interesting going into the final games. But that probably wont happen, and Portugal and Mexico will both win with ease, as expected.

Tomorrow:

Group F - Australia vs. Japan 9:00 EDT
Group E - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA vs. Czech Republic 12:00 EDT
Group E - Italy vs. Ghana 3:00 EDT

2006-06-11T00:05:00.000-04:00

Day 1 and 2

A great opening to a what is certain to be a fantastic World Cup in Germany. The first two days featured 5 games, all decided by 2 goals or less, a total of 12 goals were scored, and a few surprises arose as well. Here's the quick recap of what went down.

Day 1 - Friday, June 9

Germany 4, Costa Rica 2

The opening game of the World Cup saw the hosts grab three points and head to the top of Group A, which they are favored to win. The game fetured the most goals (6) ever in the opening game of the World Cup, and the quickest 3 goals in World Cup history. Germany opened the scoring in the 6th minute, only to have Costa Rica quickly answer back in the 12th minute. Germany went ahead 2-1 with a goal by Klose in the 17th minute. After that the scoring slowed down a bit, Germany added goals in the 61st and 87th minutes while Costa Rica grabbed their second of the game in the 73rd to make the score 3-2 at that point and ensure a close finish.

Ecuador 2, Poland 0

The second game in Group A was the first upset of the World Cup, even if it was only a minor one. Poland, playing close to home, was expected to at least pick up a draw with Ecuador, who is in the World Cup for only the second time in history. However, the South Americans look determined to do better than their first-round exit in 2002 as they scored in the 24th and 80th minutes to take down Poland. Despite having the better of the posession, Poland could not convert their chances and will have to try and bounce back against Germany in their next game.

Group A - after 1 game apice

The win by Ecuador throws this group up in the air even more than it was already. Most opinions seemed to be that Germany would cruise to the top while the final game between Poland and Costa Rica settled the second place finisher. Now, Ecuador has a chance to wrap up a spot in the next round without even having to deal with the host country if they can knock off Costa Rica in their next game on Thursday. If the Ticos can recover and defeat Ecuador, however, it will bring them back to life in the tournament. Poland is in a bleak situation right now, they really needed to get a point in their opener. Now they face Germany and I cant really see them getting anything from that match either. In a perfect world they would have a point right now and be able to grab another from Germany, then try to take out Costa Rica in the final game to advance. Now, however, they are left to try and hang around and get some help from Costa Rica beating Ecuador and then hope Germany does the same later on, but its not a pleasent situation for Poland to be in. Looks like another first-round trip home for them.

Day 2 - Saturday, June 10

England 1, Paraguay 0

England scored early, on a free-kick by David Beckham that deflected off a defender's head and into his own net, in the 4th minute. After that things didnt really progress too much. England controled the entire first half, but they did not look as solid in the second half, and Paraguay had the better chances as the game wore on. England should not be too concerned though, they did pick up 3 points and next they get Trinidad and Tobago

Sweeden 0, Trinidad and Tobago 0

In THE best game of the World Cup so far, tiny Trinidad and Tobago, a pair of islands in the southern Carribbean Sea making their first ever appearence in the World Cup, held Sweeden scoreless for the entire game to pick up their first point. Prior to this game, teams from Carribbean island nations had only 3 points to show for their 6 games in the World Cup (Jamaica defeated Japan in 1998), and never had one of these small countries earned a point against a European side. Sweeden dominated the play, but could not get a shot past T&T goalkeeper Shaka Hislop, the back-up who only found out he was going to start a few minutes before the opening whistle. He made several huge saves and had alot of help from his defense, something which Carribbean and Central American teams rarely have strength in. The even greater challenge came when T&T had a player sent off with 2 yellow cards in the 46th minute. For all but one minute of the second half Sweeden had an extra player on the field, yet they could not push a goal across. The final whistle brought a wild celebration from the fans and the team on the field while Sweeden's supporters could only look on in disbelief.

Argentina 2, Ivory Coast 1

The Ivory Coast may be the best of the African teams in the World Cup, but they have the toughest road to travel to advance. The opening game in the Group of Death, Group C, saw Argentina jump in front with two first half goals and then hold on as the "Elephants" came rushing back to close within one goal with a strike in the 82nd minute. An exciting game with 2 solid teams, but the Ivory Coast's lack of experience on the World stage may have hurt them early. They outpossessed and out shot Argentina but they could not make the most of their chances.

Group B - after one game apice:

This Group looks as though it will belong to England after today, but even the Brits failed to impress on the first day. Trinidad and Tobago were definently the most surprising and impressive team out there, but their chances are still slim. If they can pull out more magic and gain a draw with England in their next outing, maybe then they can find a way to sqeeze into the top 2 with a win over Paraguay in the finale. More likely is that England will come out with more fire in the next game, beat T&T, and lock up a spot in the final 16. Sweeden will have to push it all the way now if they are going to get in. Their next game is with Paraguay, the game being a must-win for both teams.

2006-06-10T19:09:00.000-04:00

So here's the newest incarnation of my former blog on everything and anything. I have considerably narrowed the area I am covering for now, down to everything and anything I think about this years World Cup in Germany. I will try to update this everyday with games, results, and commentaries by me whenever I think something needs to be said. Of course, that will be quite often.

Starting off, here's my picks for each group and all the knock-out games. I know, I know, technically I should have posted this before play began yesterday, but I swear I have changed nothing based on the outcomes of the 5 games played already. Here's how it will all shake out by July 9th:

Group A:

1. Germany
2. Costa Rica

Germans are clearly the best here, plus they have the home fans this time around. Costa Rica will be in good shape even with that opening game against Germany. Neither Poland nor Ecuador looks particularly threatening. Four points against those 2 teams should be enough to put the Ticos through to the Round of 16.

Group B:

1. England
2. Sweeden

Since these 2 teams dont have to play each other until the last match, that means little trouble for them as they will both should be able to pick up wins against Paraguay and Trinidad & Tobago. Paraguay could be a possible threat because of good defense, but they will do no better than 4 points in their three games, with 3 of those in their final game with T&T, so Sweeden should be able to move on with relative ease.

Group C:

1. Netherlands
2. Argentina

Since the draw I've considered Group E to be the "Group of Death", but I have recently reconsidered when I found out just how good Serbia's defense is. They hardly gave up any goals during qualifying and they will be very hard to knock out. Also, I would pick the Ivory Coast to advance if they were in a few of the easier groups, but they will be overmatched here. Probably going to be a lot of low-scoring games here, and more draws than winners, but the Netherlands have the most balenced team and they are a dark-horse to go very deep in this competition. Argentina's offense will be just enough to sqeeze past Serbia, probably comes down to goal differencial for that last spot.

Group D:

1. Portugal
2. Mexico

Easiest group of them all. Even if Iran plays their very best I can not see them being able to sneeak past Mexico, and Portugal is ready to turn around the dissapointment from 2002. They will come out for blood and win all 3 group games. Angola is way overmatched here.

Group E:

1. Italy
2. United States

Right up there with Group C as the toughest one. USA has the advantage of playing Ghana last, so they will be least likly to be surprised by the Africans. Czech Republic might get caught taking a game off between a tough match with USA and final game with Italy and Ghana will get a tie with them because of it. That will be enough to send the Chechs home early and the US through to the second round with 5 points (tie, tie, win).

Group F:

1. Brazil
2. Croatia

Brazil will run right through this weak group and grab all 9 points. After that it will be very interesting watching Japan, Croatia and Austrailia fight it out for second. In the end it will be the Croats who have the most balance and will pull through ahead of an overachieving Aussie team who might even test mighty Brazil before falling.

Group G:

1. France
2. Switzerland

France, like Brazil, has a very easy path to 3 wins, and Togo shouldn't be much of a factor for any of these teams. That means it will all come down to who wins the match between Switzerland and Korea on June 23rd (the final day of group play). Switzerland has the edge because they are playing so much closer to home and because Korea has never done well at all playing in Europe. Even with this early exit they will have done better than co-surprise semi-finalists in 2002, Turkey. The Turks failed to qualify for the World Cup this time around.

Group H:

1. Ukraine
2. Spain

The Ukraine are the other dark-horse to make a surprising run in this competition. This is only their first World Cup, but they looked very good in the qualifying and they have great balence between good defense and effective scorers. Spain have been to the World Cup 11 times, but have not reached the Final Four since 1950. They have a long history of strong group play followed by a disappointing loss in the early knock-out rounds. Perhaps a loss to Ukraine in the group will refocus this team and help them actually go farther. Tunisia should get some consolation by being able to beat up on Saudi Arabia in their opener, but they will soon be dropped into third place.

Round of 16:

Germany (1A) over Sweeden (2B)
Netherlands (1C) over Mexico (2D)
Italy (1E) over Croatia (2F)
Spain (2H) over France (1G)

I dont see too many surprises in the first half of the bracket. The best game will be Spain and France, and the Spainish might finally win a big game. This is mostly because France is an aging team who wont have the speed to keep up with a much younger Spainish squad.

England (1B) over Costa Rica (2A)
Portugal (1D) over Argentina (2C)
Brazil (1F) over United States (2E)
Ukraine (1H) over Switzerland (2G)

Costa Rica and the United States both make valient efforts against better opponents. England will probably win big, but the USA will keep it close with Brazil, who may be overlooking American in this round. America will be back with the intent to win it all in 2010, at a more neutral location, but this is not a shameful exit, although it is one game short of the Quarter-finals because they had to play through a tough group and met the best team in the world right after that. Ukraine will continue their dominating run. Toughest game in this half of the bracket will be Argentina vs. Portugal. Portugal's head coach used to coach Brazil, so he knows Argentina very well and that is why they win. However, if Argentina avoids Portugal in this round, they could run to the Semis or beyond.

Quarter-Finals

Netherlands (1C) over Germany (1A)
Italy (1E) over Spain (2H)

Tough losses for Germany, the home team, and Spain, who fall just short of their first semi-finals since 1950. However, Netherlands are just too good for the young Germany team which will be relying too much on only a few players. Spain cant catch a break after beating France and the Italians are too much.

England (1B) over Portugal (1D)
Brazil (1F) over Ukraine (1H)

No surprises in the lower half of the bracket. England is very good and very determined this year, Portugal has a history of underachieving and they will be too busy celebrating the win over Argentina to prepare for England. If Brazil is going to get upset, I think this is where it will happen. By the semis and finals, they will be too focused to be beaten, but Ukraine may have the element of surprise on their side and they play so well at both ends of the field they have a chance to take the play to the Brasilians and expose the weaker defense of the favorites.

Semi-Finals

Netherlands over Italy
Brazil over England

Should be a pair of great matches, and really any one of these 4 teams could win it all. Assuming no bad mistakes or poor calls, the Netherlands and Brazil have the best teams out there. England will be left to wait another 4 years and Italy will have to return from their magical run to the nightmare of the scandal in their home league.

3rd Place - England

Final

Brazil over Netherlands

I really would like to pick the Netherlands to win here (they are the best country to never win a World Cup) but by the time the final rolls around they will have played a brutal road to get here, starting all the way back in the group stage. Not to say Brazil has an easy road, but their group is pretty weak and although both USA and Ukraine may test them to the limits, there is also a chance that wont happen. If that is the case, they might not have a difficult match until the semi-finals, and they will have plenty more left in the tank than will the Netherlands. Brazil brings home their 6th FIFA World Cup, twice the number of the Italiens and Germans, who lead the rest of the world with 3.

That being said, if Brazil goes down somewhere along the way, the Netherlands are my pick to win it all.

2006-03-28T22:44:00.000-05:00

soo.......havent written in this since December 15th, that was like so last year....But right now I dont know if I have anything important to really put out there for people to look at and read and all that good stuff, but at the urging of a bunch of people, I'm gonna try my best.

So what I could do is try to update whats been going on here since January, when we got back....but that would be boring.

I could tell you about how excited I am for baseball season to start on Monday, when the Phillies host the Cardinals, or about how pissed off I was when the refs determined the outcome of the Super Bowl and my team came out on the loosing end for the second straight year.....but thats the future and the past

I could talk about how awesome Megan is, since that was her suggestion......but I dont want to be telling lies on here

I will ask this question: Eric is desparately trying to settle on a major and minor(s). So between the choices of Politics, History, Communications, and Philosophy, let me know what I should declare as my major and minor(s). Maximum one major and 2 minors, cause I just dont have time for any more than that. IM me - Iwant2believe87 - and if you have legitamate reasons I might actually listen to you.

Next I will put this out there: Eric is one victory away from winning $100 in an NCAA office pool, so everyone reading this better be cheering for UCLA to beat LSU in the national semi-finals on Saturday. UCLA doesnt have to win it all, just this one game, and here's to hoping that George Mason can beat Florida and then UCLA for the national title. How awesome is this run by George Mason? They have beaten the last 2 national champions (UCONN and North Carolina) and two of last year's final four teams (North Carolina and Michigan State) on their way to the most improbable run in tournament history.

And you have to love their coach, he's the reason that they have gone this far. He's said in interviews that he doesnt want his guys being serious at all, cause they seriously have no chance of winning. Instead, he pumps them up by calling them, for example, the Connecticut Assassination Association (because they are from the CAA), and humming the Mission Impossible Theme in pre-game meetings. The dude has his team believing they might as well win games because thats why they play them, even if UCONN and North Carolina are on the court with them.

Also, major props to George Mason's five starters, these guys are as good or better than any starting five in the country. The same five players played the final 10 minutes of regulation and all five minutes of overtime against UCONN on Sunday, using TV time-outs to suck down some water and get a breather. And in those final 15 minutes of play they outscored the "best team in America" by 6. I hope they win it all, but Florida has been very, very, very good this tournament. Which means George Mason is gonna make them look helpless, I hope.

So lets see, what else is going on? How about the Counting Crows, I've become a big fan lately. Started with Mr. Jones, which is a great song. But the rest of August and Everything After (their first CD and the only one i have so far) is amazing. Round Here has one of the best opening lines ever ("step out the front door, like a ghost into the fog, where no one notices the contrast of white on white") and the rest of the song is great too. Raining in Baltimore is another good one, as is The Murder of One. Definently a great album.

Finally, everyone must go see V for Vendetta. It is your patriotic duty to do so, a reminder of the Libertarian values this country was founded on. And boo on everyone who says it is nothing more than a critique of the current administration. This movie is a critique of any government which takes itself too seriously and controls freedom too much. If that draws a parellel to the current government in America, then it is a consequence of what they have been doing, and this which should be fixed, by us, the people. Any time a movie can show you the power of the idea of freedom, it's a winner, and this is far better than most. Additionally, it's so packed full of action and plot that you cant even blink or you'll miss something. Its as if they packed the 3 matrix movies into one film, cut the excess (the over-prolonged fight scenes and sex scene in Reloaded), and left only the philosophical depth and amazing story. Lastly, thank you to the filmmakers for having the guts to make us question the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist. There is no doubt that you could say this film justifies terrorism, and makes you cheer for a terrorist, but that is plain wrong. Read the Declaration of Independance, or go see this movie, and you will learn the difference between terrorists and those who fight a government which is no longer legitamate.

As a final thought, when the Libertarian revolution takes place in this country eventually, this film, along with (to a lesser degree) the Matrix movies, will be pointed to as the beginning of the movement. The sad part is that the Academy Awards always recognize movies which raise issues, such as BrokebackMountain or Crash (homosexuality and racism), but they will certainly pass over this movie which raises a better issue in a more powerful way. Too bad for them. Best movie of 2006, easily.

Ok, thats all I got for now, gonna try to keep up on this a little more the rest of the year.

Take it easy, everyone

And by the way, I didnt mean what I said at the top about Megan, she is pretty awesome. Probably not as awesome as she thinks (or would like you to think), but she's cool none-the-less. Yay for Megan.

ok, now I'm done

2005-12-15T21:52:00.000-05:00

Hey, Eric's back at it after quite some time. Finals and all right now, 1 down and 3 more to go before I'm out of here for Christmas. So I'm not gonna actually make a post today, but I have 2 clippings my dad sent me that need to get out there. So check these out:

Both of these are taken from the Libertarian Party Newletter:

Property Taxes increased to pay for views

- In New Hampshire, town officials are permitted to levy an additional tax on homes with scenic views, as such views are considered a bonus feature. This additional property tax has become known as a 'view tax'.

Rersidents are questioning how local officials determine the value of a scenic view, especially with high-value properties. One local official admits the process is subjective. The assessor for the town of Conway said it's an "I know it when I see it" process.

There are no formal guidelines in determining if one scenic view is more valuable than another scenic view. Various informal guidelines have been developed. One appraisal company was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that if the property has a view of a well-known mountain such as Mount Washington, it would be worth more than if it had a view of a less-known peak.

Some New Hampshire property owners have seen their property tax assessment jump solely because it has a scenic view. Brad Wilder, who owns a house in Plainfield, reportedly had to pay an extra $4,700 for his view of Mount Ascutney and the Connecticut River Valley.

And the second story:

Consider Richard Paey, a 46 year old father of three, as the new face in the war on drugs. A paraplegic after a disabling car accident and a case of multiple sclerosis, Paey moved to Florida from New Jersey, and he couldnt get his new doctors to prescribe him the medication he needs for constant pain. His repeated requests for the meds caught the attention of Florida authorities, and Paey was arrested for drug distribution. The authorities conceded there was no evidence that Paey sold or gave away his medication, but convicted him of distribution because of the amount of medication he at one time possessed - even though it was prescribed, and was for his own use. He was sentenced to 25 years in a Florida prison. There he was provided with a morphine pump that gives him the same medicine - in the same dosage - that the state of Florida told him was illegal.

wow.....

I dont need to comment on this, I hope everyone can figure them out for themselves.

2005-11-24T01:31:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving Break!!

How awesome is it to get home and have real food and family and to get back together with friends we haven't seen in a long while? it's just great. So here's some of the things we should be thankful for:

- Life, Liberty, and Happiness

- That we have a place to go that we can call home, and now that we are at college, that we actually have 2 places where we can feel at home.

- For the clothes on our backs, and in our closets, and drawers, and dressers.

- For the food on our plates, and in our pots, and pans, and platters.

- For our families who have sacraficed, worked, and payed for all the good things we enjoy in life

- For our friends who have been there to laugh, cry, be alive with.

- For those who spend everyday keeping us and this great nation safe from those who want to destroy it and us. Even more for the ones who cannot be home this Thanksgiving because duty is calling them

- For the people who work in the inner cities, providing hope for the tired and food and shelter for those who despartely need it.

- For all those special people we have met in our lives and all the lessons they have taught us

- For football, soccer, baseball, hockey, and even basketball, and all the other sports which we can use to distract us from other things and can give us issues to argue about for hours on end.

- For 'extreme bowling' on thursday nights, and 180 spinning strikes

- For music, television, video games, the internet and movies - the endless discussions and entertainment they provide.

- For the memories of the past, the fun of the present, and the knowledge that we have no idea what might happen tomorrow.

- For having a room which doesnt smell like crap

- For away messages, which we can compulsivly check

- For the dogs, cats, hampsters, rabbits, chickens, and asorted other pets which provide us with more than companionship

- For hooded sweatshirts

- For caffeine, in all its assorted forms

- For staying up until the sun rises

- For naps after class

- For people like Jon Stewart, who can make you laugh and think about something at the same time.

- For the joy of finding something that you thought was lost

- For the freedom of choice between 300 brands of cereal in one aisle.

- For bottled water, since apparently the water coming out of faucets just isnt good enough

- For those Ugg boots and North Face jackets that everyone, i mean everyone, is wearing. If we didnt have those I dont know what we would do.

- For leather sofas and big screen TVs

- For getting to live in America, greatest country in the world, even with all it's problems

- For being allowed, while we live here, to complain about it anyway.

- For rain

- For sun

- For the good times and the bad times, since we always remember those much better than the mediocre times

- For inside jokes

- For Love

- For our cars, even if you drive a '96 Ford Escort

- For God, whether He creates with designs or with evolution, whether He is called by any certain name, and whether He leads us or lets us choose our own path.

happy thanksgiving everyone

2005-11-11T11:24:00.000-05:00

It's Friday, and I have only one more class to take care of before the weekend gets started here, so in the meantime (and while I wait for my laundry to get done) there's a few things that need to be commented on.

First of all, today the Fairfield men and women's soccer teams both have huge games. The women have already won the MAAC (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) and they did so last weekend by upsetting the top 2 teams in the semi-finals and finals to climb all the way to a championship despite being only the number 5 seed in the conference tournament. Now they are playing a first round NCAA Tournament game in nearby New Haven against the Duke Blue Devils. We're the 14th seed in this region, so Duke is number 3, but stranger things have happened, and we do have a decided home field advantage. I say Duke better come to play or the Stags will be rolling into the second round. GO STAGS!

As for the Men's team, they are hosting the 2005 MAAC Tournament this weekend. Not only that, but we go into the play-offs with a undefeated (8-0-1) record in the league and the number one seed. If that wasnt enough, we are ranked number 24 in the nation! yes, thats right, Fairfield University has cracked coveted top 25 list in a sport. Coming off seven straight wins, and an eleven game unbeaten streak that goes back to a 2-1 loss at Harvard on September 23, it would seem Fairfield is posed to crush the competition this weekend.

Semifinal Game is today at 6PM against Niagra (5-4-0) and then we will meet the winner of the other semi-final, which is at 3 PM today. That game features defending Champion Marist (6-3-0) and perenial soccer powerhouse Loyola (MD) (6-2-1). It should make for a great weekend of soccer and hopefully it will all end with the men lifting the conference championship trophy and the women pulling one of the biggest upsets in history. GO STAGS!

Moving on, an interesting tidbit from German class this morning. Apparently, the German word for a city hall (or any goverenment building in general) is "Rathaus", which I found exceedingly funny. Come on, it sounds like Rat House, which is exactly how we probably should describe buildings which house legislators for any period of time. At least the germans got it right.

Also, since we are on the topic of rats (aka - people screwing you over for personal gain), lets look at the Caf again. I think I mentioned before how much it is ripping people off with these meal plans, but even more evidence has come to me that must be presented. This weekend, my friend Megan had a friend over from Columbia University. Sara (the friend) naturally had the desire to nurish herself during her time with us, and being that she failed to pack a day's supply of freeze-dried food, that meant she had to eat in the Caf with us. Here was the delemma (yeah i know i spelled that wrong, deal with it, ok?): She was not allowed to eat by using a meal off someone else's card.

At this point I feel it is important to remind you that these meals are pre-paid for. As such, neither the University, Sodexho, Buddha, Jesus Christ, or Bubba (erica's pet fish) should really give a crap about who uses them or when they do so. The University is still raping us for money. SoDexHo is still making the money no matter when we use the meals, because the University pays them a flat amount anyways. Buddha and Jesus have bigger things to concern themselves with, and Bubba, well Bubba pretty much just sits in his little bowl. Who KNOWS what he's thinking.

Back to the point, if Megan brings a friend up to eat, she should be allowed to simply use one of Megan's meals, since Megan has paid for the right to those meals and as such should have the right to choose when and where and who can use them. If SoDexHo would like to feed us for free, then they can tell us who can eat and when. So what is their solution to this problem? They charge Megan $10.50 to allow Sara to eat with us. $10.50!! I mean, there are very few 300-pound sumo wrestlers who would eat $10.50 worth of SoDexHo food, so how much can one, rather small and thin teen-aged girl possibly consume? I'll tell you, it's definently not $10.50. Although there is an upside (no, I didnt save money on my car insurance), because of this we made the decision that if SoDexHo would rip us off like that, we would no longer hold any remorse towards them and their money stealing ways. Starting that night we have begun an underground guerilla campaign against SoDexHo and I urge everyone who reads this to do your part. Steal a few cups of cereal, maybe take a fork or spoon, loudly complain that tonight's meet loaf looks like last night's London-style beef and the previous day's boneless ribs all ground into one quasi-meat compound. Whatever you do, do it proudly, you are fighting the empire. Maybe leave complaints on the comment board about how much they are ripping us off, whatever works for you.

Just because I feel I should mention it, Megan has just informed me that today she received breakfast for free in the Caf. Not sure how she pulled it off, but she feels the "universe is almost righted itself". I disagree, but it is nice to know you just got a meal on the house. I must contemplate other ways in which this could be done.

Coming Soon: Avian Flu

haha, thats a pun isnt it?

2005-11-01T14:56:00.000-05:00

It's been practically another week since my last post on here, and looking back I realize I only had five for the entire month of October. Hopefully November will offer me a few more oppurtunities to get my opinions out into the world via the web. At least mid-terms are done. So today there are really two issues which I would like to dedicate time to. One in Politics and one in Sports (come on, what else is there?) But since they will both require quite a bit of time and effort on the part of yours truly, I am only going to tackle one of them today, and hopefully get to the other within the next few days before it becomes old news.

For today we're gonna go after the sports topic, namely the World Series Champion Chicago White Sox, who erased 88 years of bad luck and loosing with a sweep of the Houston Astros last week. Yes, the series ended on Wednesday, which means I am 6 days late in realizing the significance of this win, but I think that is actually quite appropriate. It took me, along with most of the people in America, longer than it should have to realize just how good this team was. Why? Probably because they had no true strengths, or, more appropriately, they had no strength which towered over all their others. Also, besides manager Ozzie Guillen, they had no real flashy members or guys who's names you would easily recognize. Despite this, I cannot clearly remember any other team with the balence both offensivly and defensivly that this team possessed.

So they jumped out to a huge lead in the AL Central over the summer and most people were recognizing that this was a talented team with a knack for winning the close games (they won more games by one run than any other team in baseball). But then came the month of September, when they folded up and allowed the smoking hot Cleveland Indians to close within a game and half with only a week to play. It looked like Chicago was ripe for another dissapointment, a historical collapse that would have rivaled the year the Phillies blew an 8 game lead over the final two weeks. But Chicago suddenly bounced back. They won their final six games of the year, including a sweep over the charging Indians in the final weekend which bumped Cleveland out of the play-off picture. Still, most people looked at the way Chicago limped through the last month and predicted an easy win by the Boston Red Sox in the first round of the AL Play-offs.

Little did any of us realize how wrong we would be. Instead of Boston rolling past Chicago, the White Sox cruised right on through the defending champs in three straight games. They outscored Boston by more runs in those three games than in any series in Red Sox play-off history. Next came the ALCS against the Anaheim Angels, and the White Sox looked even better. In the 5 games it took to knock off Anaheim the White Sox starting pitchers threw all but seven pitches, the last seven pitches of the Sox's only loss, game one. All of a sudden the team that looked like they might choke on a 15 game lead looked like they had the modern day versions of Cy Young, Christy Matthewson, Sandy Koufax, and Nolan Ryan all on the same rotation. The only thing, the experts said, that could undo the great pitching of the White Sox was the great pitching of the Astros, which featured Roger Clemmans, Andy Pettite, and Roy Oswalt.

Then the Chicago White Sox started really firing on all cylindars. Each game against Houston someone we had never heard of stepped up to deliver the big play. Check it out:

Game 1: With Chicago leading in the 8th inning, they bring in closer Billy Jenks. He's a big fat white guy who has spend the better part of this decade in the minors. In May (of this year, 2005) he was pitching for the Angels AA team. So how good can he be? How about this, to end the 8th inning he threw 3 fastballs past Jeff Bagwell, one of the best hitters of the past decade, that were clocked at 100, 101, and 102 MPH. Then he struck out the first 2 batters in the ninth inning too. Game Over.

Game 2: After giving up 4 runs in the seventh, Houston scored 2 in the top of the ninth off of Jenks, proving that tonight he wasnt going to be the hero. So where did Chicago turn to with the score tied and 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth? Why not to Scott Podsednik, who did not hit a single home run during the entire regular season? Well, he hit his second long ball of the play-offs deep into the Chicago night and put the White Sox on top 2 games to none.

Game 3: After going into the 5th inning down 4-0 and with Oswalt throwing a great game on the mound, the White Sox could have conceeded the game and come back tomorrow still leading the series, but they didnt. They proceeded to not just crack Oswalt but tear him a new one, scoring five runs in the fifth to take the lead. Ultimately, they would need a new hero because Houston came back to tie it and this became the longest world series game in history (14 innings). So why not have it be Geoff Blum, who hit the go ahead homer in the top of the 14th inning. Chicago would go on to score again in the inning, but Blum's home run was the difference. So why is that significant? It was Blum's only at bat of the world series, and there is only one other man in history to hit a game-winning home run in his only World Series at bat, a man named Kurt Gibson ("I dont believe what I just saw"). 3-0 Chicago.

Game 4: The hero for this game could be Jermaine Dye, who singled in the only run of the game in the eighth inning for Chicago (and was the Series MVP), but I'm looking at someone else. With one out in the ninth inning, shortstop Juan Uribe made the play of the series by diving into the stands to catch a foul ball. First of all, it was an amazing play by him, which is part of why Chicago deserves to win. Second of all, it showed why Houston deserved to lose the series. No one in the front two rows even tried to go after the ball, or, when Uribe was lieing down before the umpire saw the ball in his glove, tried to pry it loose. Astro's fans, in case you weren't paying attention, this is the final inning of what could be the final game of the World Series for your team, and you are not going to try and help them out? I'm sorry, but I never again want to hear about how deprived Houston is of a championship, and how badly they wanted to win. If that play had happened in Philly, for example, Uribe would never have made it out of the stand with the ball in his glove, even if his hand needed to be separated from his arm to do it. So people of Houston, when you decide you want to win, come back, but until then stay away from the Fall Classic.
But getting back to Uribe, after he makes that amazing play, he comes streaking across the infield to grab a high-bouncer that was out of Jenk's reach and fire it to first. And when I say fire, i mean fire. It looked as if the ball was shot out of a cannon. Most of us thought it must have been a bad call at first because there was no way the ball got there in time, but the replays clearly showed just how right the umpire was, which means Uribe's throw made it to first base in about the time it took the runner to take two steps. Game Over, Series Over. White Sox Win.

So how impressive was the White Sox run in the play-offs. They went 11-1, tieing the 1998 Yankees for the best record since the beginning of the 3-round play-off format in 1995. Also, they won 8 consecutive games after loosing game one to Anaheim in the ALCS. That had never been done before, until Boston did it last year against New York and St. Louis. All in All, pretty amazing stuff and this team is certainly one of the best in the current era. Going to be fun watching them and Philadelphia in next year's World Series.

2005-10-26T11:23:00.000-04:00

Too much has been going on for me to keep up with this for a little while, but thats life I guess. Mid-terms have been this week, but today was my last one, so it should be smooth sailing for a little while, or at least until some papers start piling up.

As an interesting side note: If you read the top of this blog you will notice the title, Nosce te ipsum, is a Greek phrase meaning, "Know Thyself" and that it was inscribed on the Altar at the Oricle at Delphi. Anyways, I was watching part of The Matrix this weekend (it's always good to see this movie at least once every few months because you always find something new in it) and I was reminded of the message inscribed over the door to the Oricle's kitchen. It contains the Latin version of this same phrase, and the Oricle points this out to Neo. Of course this is because the Oricle is all about guiding you to know yourself, and if you watch the scene carefully she doesnt tell Neo anything important, he comes to conclusions on his own and she simply lets him go with them. Anyway, it was a cool connection that I never had thought of before.

Aside from the Matrix, I've seen two other incredible movies over the past week, well 3 of you count Team America (no doubt an awesome movie, but not quite at the same deep level as), "Saw" and "Fight Club". Both of them are full of crazy plot twists and make you feel like your mind has been turned inside out by the end, although the vehicles used to deliver those feelings and ideas are greatly different. I dont want to ruin either film, but if you get the chance to see either one, do it!

Also, an interesting thing happened at my high school this week. You can read about it here: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/23/school.snakebite.ap/. And it was also on ABCNews, Fox News, and just about any other news wedsite you can think of. So go ahead, read the article, thats right, a snake in school. The school that I graduated from not more than six months ago. Sad thing is, this is the third major news story, although the first to get national attention, thank God, that Pius has made in the past two years. And take my word for it, none of those stories were about students helping little old ladies cross the street, feeding all the homeless people in Southern Bolivia, or finding a cure for the common cold.

But here's the problem, and it isnt a simple one. What can you do about this situation in particular? There will be, and I'm sure already are, people throwing around ideas as to where to place the blame and what should be done as a consequence of these actions. All the usual arguments that are heard when a kid brings a gun to school will apply: How did the parents not know? Why did the school not have a safer atmosphere? Was the kid pressured or abused to the point where he felt he needed to do something drastic? Where were the teachers/moderators when it happened and why didnt they help?

Yes, a snake is not a gun, I'm aware of the fact. It's probably not as bad of a situation, at least in most cases. Most people would argue that a shooting spree is more serious than a snakebite and that this was just a mistake made by a teen-aged guy, we all make them, etc. I would argue the oppsite. A snake cannot be controlled as a gun can. I could carry a gun to school every day of my life and as long as I was responcible with it, no harm would come to anyone. An animal on the other hand cannot be controlled. This snake was no doubt scared as hell after being captured, caged, and carried around for a while. And whats more dangerous than a wild animal? A wild animal which is scared/injured. There is no way to control what that snake was going to do when this kid (who i will not mention the name of out of respect, although I really want to) opened the box it was being kept in. However, I could give you pretty good odds that it was gonna bite someone. And it did.

So now we come back to these questions, where can we assign the blame for this one? How about the school officials, I mean after all shouldnt they know everything that goes on in all courners of the school at all times? Arent they responcible for controling the thoughts and actions of the students in their school and preventing them from doing anything wrong? Sure, and the day that happens will be the day schools are actually safe places to be, but face it thats never going to happen. In fact, since this happened on a day when no classes took place, they werent even there, but I bet somehow blame will be levied against them.

How did the parents not know what was going on? Well I am in no position to postulate on the family circumstances of this kid, so I wont try. But suffice it to say if I wanted to get something by my parents, I could, any kid can by the time he's 17. They arent responcible for checking their son's backpack for Copperheads. What about the drama moderator? She was 'on duty' with these kids when this happened. So yes, certainly part of this is her fault, but at the same time she has alot of other things to deal with and the assumption that she is working with the kids, not babysitting them, should be good enough to absolve her of most responcibility.

So then who is it? Can we blame the snake, since it actually inflicted the wound? Of course not, it was acting on years of snake instinct, and it was scared and probably pissed off too. I would do the same thing were I in it's position. The vast majority of the blame here has to rest on the kid who caught this snake and brought it into school in the first place. Why? I can hear it already: He didnt know he was doing anything wrong. He was just trying to be cool. He's not 18, it cant be his fault.

Well first of all, scientists (psychologists I presume) have found serious evidence that humans have a naturally built in adversion to reptiles (such as snakes). It's part of that instinct left over from when we were animals too, and is probably a common bond between all mammals. Retiles eat mammals, so we should be scared of them. Basic human nature. So yes, he did know better than to go after the snake in the first place, and if he didnt know better than to bring the snake to school, then there are more serious issues here.

And if you want to be cool, wear a leather jacket and sunglasses. Bringing a snake to school is NOT cool. Same goes for bringing a tiger, alligator, elephant, or feces-flinging monkey to school. I'm pretty sure by the time we reach high school we know this.

And yes, he's a minor so I guess that means his sense of right and wrong are completely screwed up until that magic moment when he turns 18 and suddenly the light goes on, right? I mean I know I felt SO much more mature the day I turned 18. no, sorry, doesnt work like that. As it is, he will likely just "learn his lesson from the mistake" and move on with his life.

I dont mean this to be a personal assult on this guy, I mean I know him and he isnt really all that bad. But this goes well beyond irresponcible behavior. We all have the right to be irresponcible with our own lives as much and as often as we want, so long as this does not endanger anyone else's rights to life, happiness, etc. Had the snake bitten him he could "learn his lesson and move on" but the moment he endangered other people and certainly the moment the snake bit someone else, he gave up the right to be merely irresponcible. Unfortunately, given my school's history of non-existant enforcement of policy against those who endanger themselves and others on school property, I dont expect much else to happen.

2005-10-19T01:16:00.000-04:00

So I'm back after taking a week off from this I guess, and I have a class in less than 8 hours, so i really should be sleeping, but there are some things needed to be discussed. On the agenda tonight:

-college is ripping us off!
-baseball play-offs
-Hurricane Wilma
-anything else that comes to mind. (Third Eye Blind)

My Random College Observation for the week:
So hows this for a rip-off? Anyone who is attending a university right now probably has a meal plan with that University, or more specifically, with a food service company who has monopolized the food service at your university. Now here's an interesting bit of information that I have to give credit to Brian Erikson for unearthing. We're going to use the numbers for what we pay as Fairfield University students, but for any of you out there at other (read-"lesser) schools of higher academia, the statisitcs should be about the same.

The minimal meal plan here is 12 meals per week in the Cafeteria, plus 100 'Dining Dollars' to be used at various other facilities around campus to purchase substanance. For this, we pay $1,970
per semester to SoDexHo to supply us with said food. Now, there are 16 weeks in the fall semester and 14 in the Spring, so we will average $1970 over 15 weeks. This comes to, $131.33 per week per student. If you and your roommate pooled this money, you would have over $250 per week. Can you imagine all the food you can buy with that much money EACH WEEK? For comparison sake, my family at home spends around a hundred bucks a week to feed 4 people.

Now, yes SoDexHo does prepare the food and clean up for us, so thats worth something for convienence, so removing them completely would be wrong and just plain bad. But they have a clear monopoly on the food service here, and as is always the result of monopolies, can get away with things they normally wouldnt. We need competition on college campuses to keep businesses honest, and to require them to compete with the quality of their food.

Next we move on to Houston, where the Astros watched their trip to World Series dissapear, at least temporarily (and hopefully for good), with one swing of Albert Pujols' mighty bat. He hit that ball about 1200 feet and joins the list of the few memorable post-season home runs hit in baseball history, or at least he will for sure if the Cardinals can figure out Oswalt and Clemmens over the next two days and win this series. The best part is, even if Houston does end up winning the National League, they weren't allowed to do it on their home field. The groan in that stadium is SO LOUD as Pujols hit that ball, its almost unbevievable. They deserved to get punched once, and now they face a real challenge in trying to win one more in St. Louis to punch that team's first ever World Series ticket.

That being said, if they dont make it, this will join the Angels in 1986 and Yankees of 2004 as one of the biggest post-season collapses ever. In fact, they are almost identical to the Angels of '86, who were winning Game 5 at home, one out from winning the series when they gave up a home run, then went to Boston and got blown out in back to back games and had to wait until 2002 before they would get a chance to make the World Series again. Of course there was justice in 1986, because Boston was also one out from winning the World Series when they collapsed and lost Game 6 on Bill Buckner's error. Maybe a similar thing will happen to the Cards this year, but I think they have the edge from here on out. Oswalt is Houston's last hope, because "the rocket" has choked in his last 3 critical post-season appearences (if you discount his relief-appearence gem in the 18 inning thriller with Atlanta), including Game 7 of last year's NLCS, against St. Louis.

And how about the White Sox? 4 consecutive complete games by their pitchers, that hasnt been done in the play-offs since the days when Don Larson was pitching for the Yankees back in the mid-50's. They used 1 pitcher in their bullpen all series, and he threw 7 pitches. Thats nothing short of incredible these days. If they pitch four more games like that, it's gonna be hard to beat them, and Houston's pathetic offense wont have a chance if they end of getting there. But I'm not going to predict the World Series, because so far this is how my picks have gone:

1st I picked Boston, they lost in 3 straight games
2nd I picked Anaheim, they won 1 and then lost 4 in a row. So I'm out of this business for now.

Moving on, I just read that hurrican Wilma is up to a Catagory 4 storm. This is not looking good. The only part of the Gulf coast to not be destroyed by a storm this year is the Western Coast of Florida, and thats exactly where Wilma is heading. Hopefully the storm will deviate over Cuba on the way in and weaken a bit (and take out some commies at the same time.) But come on, enough is enough with the hurricanes.

Speaking of which, Wilma is the last name on the list, which means if there is another named storm (and come on there has to be at least one more, right?) it will be named Alpha, followed by Beta and so on and so forth. This has never happened before. I wish I had a point here but I dont.

And oh yeah. Today I downloaded Third Eye Blind's 3rd CD, "Out of the Vein" (I did it legally, by the way) and I have to say that it has reaffirmed their position as my favorite band. It might not quite live up to their first two albums, but the lyrics are intelligent, deep, and emotional. Add this to the awesome music and you have a guarenteed winning combination. I wish more bands would do this instead of producing the thoughtless crap that you hear so much of today. The lyrics arent all as profound as what you see in "Motorcycle Drive-By" (one of the greatest songs most people have never heard) or "How's it Gonna Be" or "10 Days Late". But "Blinded", the only big hit off the album and "My Hit and Run" are both excellant songs. Blinded contains a great analogy of a failing relationship to Icharus (the greek guy who flew too close to the sun) and is exactly about what 3eB does so well. The song is certainly sad, althought there is a reaffirming spirit to it, much like Deep Inside of You from their 2nd CD, but the secret to the greatness of Third Eye Blind comes from their ability to drive home pain and angst with poetry instead of whining about it a la "Simple Plan" or "Dashboard Confessional". Instead of using images that are hackneyed and empty, 3eB is constantly using new images that you have to turn over in your head to figure out and then give you goosebumps when you do. For example, 'My Hit and Run' contains this gem:

"We always think we have more time,
in Red Lights and Cathedrals there's a sign"

the whole song is brilliant. The entire thing takes place in the split second between when the narrator is hit by a car while riding his bike and when he hits the pavement. All the images and thoughts that run through his head as he's "flying through the air, maybe living, maybe dying" He keeps coming back to the premise that he doesnt know if he'll land and survive or be dead, and that he wishes he had more time like we all think we do. The red lights and cathedrals are both images telling us to stop. The red light ties into the car accident scene and the cathedral into the life and death image, but both are there to warn us that we arent going to have an "open road" of life for as long as we think. It's just mind-blowing. Isn't that the perfect image of a warning to live for today because you never know? anyway by the end of the song, when he gets up and walks away, he has seen one image more than anything else during his experience and he decides to act on his feelings for a girl he loves right now rather than put it off again. Just a great song, go get this album!

2005-10-11T11:36:00.000-04:00

Hey, I'm back after a weekend away from school back home in Pennsburg.

Also this weekend, baseball play-offs, football action, and World Cup Qualifying.

last one firtst, USA lost to Costa Rica 3-0 on Saturday but it doesnt matter because we're in already, and congratulations to the Ticos for joining us and Mexico in Germany next summer. Still one more spot open, I think Guatemala will grab it.

Craziest things are going on in Africa. Of the 4 soccer powers in that continent: Cameroon, South Africa, Tunisia, and Nigeria, all but one are staying home from this World Cup. Tunisia managed to sneak in on the last day of qualifying, but Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, and Angola took down Cameroon, South Africa, and Nigeria in their respective groups. Then you can throw in complete surprise Togo as the fifth and final African qualifyer out of the group that featured the 2002 WC's surprise team, Senegal.

The other big news is that France could miss out entirely if they loose on Wednesday to Cyprus, but that seems highly unlikely (but we can hope)

So how about those baseball play-offs? Houston took out Atlanta, but they needed to play the longest game in baseball play-off history to do it (18 innings). And then, even better, last night the Yankees got knocked out by the Angels, meaning they will go another winter without a ring, despite a payroll of over $200 million.

But that payroll is slightly deceiving, dont believe the Yankees were as good as they could be with a wiser use of that money. For example, as ESPN pointed out, $46 million of that was paid to players who weren't even on the postseason roster. $46 Million - to guys they werent even using - thats more than the entire roster of some smaller teams.

And while they had 3 high paid Designated Hitters (which raises the question why do you need 3 DH's?) they lacked a true Centerfielder. This came back to bite them last night when the Angels took the lead for good when the Triple-A call-up Bubba Crosby ran into Gary Sheffield as he tried to make a catch. How can a team afford three Designated Hitters and have not be able to field a better Centerfielder?

Furthermore, $25 Million of that payroll went towards one Alex Rodriguez. If you're like me, there was nothing better than seeing A-Rod (the most over-paid, under-committed athlete in sports) ground into a double play to erase a lead-off single in the Ninth. It was the perfect cap for a series where A-Rod was unable to get a single RBI. Much like last year's ALCS when all A-Rod could do to help the team was to slap the ball out of Red Sox players' gloves, he never came through in the clutch this year either. Maybe it's time we realized A-Rod is not one of the best players in the game.

So now we have a White Sox-Angels ALCS, which will start tonight, meaning the Angels will be playing their third game in 3 nights in 3 cities after game 4 in NY, game 5 at home, and now game 1 in Chicago. But even so, the Angels will win the series. In fact, I'm thinking now they might win it all. Why? It's all about the adversity, and the Yankees. Hows how:

First of all, consider this, in the 4 post-seasons since the Yanks last championship in 2000, the team to beat NY has won the World Series. In 2001 it was the Diamondbacks beating New York in the World Series, Florida did the same in 2003. In 2002, the Angles knocked off the Yankees on their way to beating San Francisco for the title, and in 2004 it was the Red Sox unforgettable comeback that launched them towards their sweep of the Cardinals for the championship.

So, if this pattern holds true, Anaheim is gonna win it all for the second time in four years. But thats not all they share with the last four championship teams. Everyone is writing Anahiem off because the bad travel schedual will give Chicago a big edge over the first two games. Well in 2001 the Diamondbacks lost three straight to the Yankees (two of them on extra inning home runs) and came back to win after being left for dead. The next year the Angels were down 3-2 in the World Series and trailing by four runs in the seventh inning of Game 6 on the road, and they became the first team to ever win the last two games of the World Series on the road. In 2003, the Marlins trailed Chicago 3-1 in the NLCS and came back to win three in a row, then were supposed to get blown out by New York, and they ended up celebrating in Yankee Stadium. Last year, well we all know what happened last year.

The message here is: the team that is "out of it" is the team that will win it all. So even though I think the Cardinals are still the better team, I have to go with Anahiem as my new choice to win the World Series. As for the League Championship Series':

Anahiem in 6. They will only have to win one of these first 2 and then they get a day off, go home, and roll past the White Sox.

St. Louis in 7. Just like last year.

2005-10-06T19:20:00.000-04:00

It's been a little while since my last post, so here's a new one for everyone to chew on.

haha, i say everyone as if someone actually reads this, oh well.

Baseball playoffs, sans Phillies, are under way, and so far I've been kind of dissapointed. Finally we did have a good game last night between the Yankees and the Angels. Yanks took a 2-0 lead and Anaheim (or LA) came from behind to win. That looks like it's going to be a good series, but thats about the only one.

St. Louis just finished a second straight victory over San Diego and you can see they arent even putting their all into it. San Diego doesnt belong there and thankfully after one more game they wont be anymore.

In Atlanta, the Astros beat up on the young Braves. I dont know why I picked Atlanta to win this series, there's no way thats gonna happen. Houston's pitchers arent as good as most people think, and their offense will not get it done against St. Louis, but Atlanta is too young, and just not good enough, to beat them.

In the AL, Boston is in a familer situation. They blew game 2 with the White Sox because of a play that makes you think maybe the curse of Buckner isnt quite ready to die yet. Now they return to Boston down 0-2 and needing three straight wins to get back to the ALCS for a third consecutive year.

And yes, over the last two post-seasons the Red Sox are 8-1 in elimination games. 8-1. Thats incredible. Just to spread it out a little more:

3 straight wins after trailing 0-2 to the A's in the ALDS in 2003.
1-1 against the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS. The only loss being the walk-off homer by Boone.
and of course,
4-0 in last year's ALCS against the Yankees after trailing 0-3.

But they wont do it this time.

Yes, believe me, they wont do it. I know I picked them to win the series a few days ago. And I know last year when they were down 0-3 I was thinking they could be the ones to do it. But this isn't last year's team. The sequel is never as good as the first time. The shear fact that they can have the attitude of "we did it before and we can do it again" ironically destroys their chance of doing it again.

They have Wakefield pitching tomorrow night in Boston. He's the only Red Sox pitcher to have an L on his record in an elimination game over the past two years, but at times he can be dominant with that knuckleball. I'm willing to concede that the Sox (I mean the RED Sox) might win tomorrow. And they have Schilling on the mound the day after that, so of course if he gets the ball they will win that one too (since he's the best clutch pitcher perhaps in baseball history). But Game 5 in Chicago will not go to the Red Sox. The only way it happens is (and this is crazy) if the Red Sox get a curse to work FOR them.

How? Think about it. The White Sox will not win the World Series. They have been perminently cursed by throwing the 1919 World Series, so that means at some point between now and the end of the month, they will have to loose a deciding game. So, in a crazy twist of events, the Red Sox could become the benificiaries of a curse.

But I think the more likely scenario is that Chicago finishes off Boston, either in Game 3 or in Game 5, and then gets whacked by the winner of the Angels-Yankees series. Then we have a potentially very good World Series match-up between the Cards and either New York or Anaheim.

As far as those two teams go, I'm pretty sure the Angels are gonna pull out the series, but only if they can get back to Anaheim, which means winning one of two in New York. Either way, this is the best of the first round series' without a doubt, unless Boston can come back to force a final showdown game in Chicago. Lets hope it gets better from here on out.

2005-10-02T22:33:00.000-04:00

I know that today is Sunday, which makes it week 4 of the NFL, and i know that I was remiss in my NFL coverage after last sunday, but I promise to deal with that later in the week. Today the top story is the Philadelphia Phillies.

Today the Phillies beat the Nationals 9-3, yet despite this win they were eliminated when Chicago allowed Houston to come from behind for a 6-4 win, giving the Astros the Wild Card.

So Philly missed the play-offs, and 1 win against Houston this year (they were 0-6 against the Astros) would have put the Phils into the Post-Season instead. One win against anyone else would have put the Phils in a play-off game with Houston tomorrow to decide the Wild Card. So I could moan and grumble about the games that Philly should have won this year, including their loss on Tuesday to the New York Mets where they gave up 4 runs in the eighth to loose a three run lead. But I feel this would be an unfair assessment.

Why? This team definently won more games that they should have lost this season than the other way around. Just in September they had at least 5 come backs in the late innings to give them wins that Phillies teams from the past decade would have given up on. This team never gave up. After having been swept by Houston and lost 5 straight overall the first week of September, they fought back. After they lost those 2 to New York last week, dropping them to 2.5 games back with only 4 games to go, they didnt give up. They won their last 4, almost got enough help to catch Houston, and by the way, only ended up 2 games behind Atlanta in the division. In a just world, San Diego (record 82-80) would be staying home and Philadelphia (record: 88-74) would be playing on, but alas the world is not just. So we will once again wait for next year.

But this off-season will be key. And since Ed Wade has a history of screwing up in the front office, here's an easy to follow list of things he needs to do this winter to put us in the play-offs next year.

1. Re-sign Billy Wagner. I dont care how much money it takes, he needs to be with us next year. A great closer like Wagner is the difference between 90 and 80 wins. Or, as the Red Sox have found out, a division title or a Wild Card. Wagner's 100+ MPH heat needs to be on our roster next season no matter what.

2. Find some way to dispose of Jim Thome. With Ryan Howard possibly the best young power hitter in baseball, we dont really need an aging slugger like Thome playing First Base. With 3 years and alot of money on his contract, it could be tough to unload Thome, but if Tino Martinez retires, the Yankees could be interested, and money is no object to Steinbrenner. Ryan Howard has to be the future First Baseman in Philly, and the future has to be now.

3. Dump Ugeth Urbina. I dont care how good he was for most of the season, he gave up 4 runs to the Mets on Tuesday without recording an out, costing us a game, and the season. For this, he should never play in Philadelphia again.

4. Re-sign, for at least 3-4 years, the following:

Chase Utley - definently an All-star in a year or two. Great hitter and good fielder too.
John Lieber - came through in the clutch for us multiple times this year, just like he did last year for the Yankees. This guy is good under pressure.
Ryan Howard - best young slugger in baseball. Period.
Bret Myers - looks like he finally turned the courner.
Cory Lidle - Just because we need another good starter, and I cant expect Reed to actually go get one.

5. Go Get a #1 starter. As good as Lieber is, he's not a true #1 guy in a rotation. We need to find someone, anyone, to anchor this rotation. I dont care who it is, as long as it's an experienced, dedicated, and dominant pitcher. There's always a few in the free agent market.

So thats it, thats all. If we do at least 3 (most favorably, #s 1,4, and 5) of these things, we should be in the play-offs for sure next October, maybe even end Atlanta's run atop the division. If we do all 5, I think we're a World Series contender. But this is Philadelphia, so lets just keep hoping.
But I know 3 things for sure. 1-I cant wait for opening day of the 2006 Baseball season. 2- Atlanta better watch their back's next year. and 3 - for the first time I can truly remember (because i dont really remember 1993) I am proud to be a Phillies fan.

Now lets have a good play-offs. Here's my Picks.

NLDS.

St. Louis over San Diego in 5. (yes, the Padres will win 2 from St. Louis)
Atlanta over Houston in 4. (The Astros only beat Atlanta once this year, they will do the same here)

ALDS.

Anaheim over New York in 5. (The Yankees loosing home field for Game 5 on the last day of the season will cost them)
Boston over Chicago in 4. (Come on, do you really think Chicago is up for a solid postseason run with how they limped through September?. Plus, The Curse of the Black Sox gaurentees that the White Sox never win another World Series for throwing the 1919 Series. In addition, Ortiz will hit a walk-off homer in Game 4)

NLCS

St. Louis over Atlanta in 5. (Atlanta, same old story - win the division, loose in the play-offs)

ALCS

Boston over Anaheim in 6. (yes, Ortiz hits a walk-off homer in Game 6 to end this series too.)

World Series

St. Louis over Boston in 5. (This time the Cardinals make a statement. And Boston really can't complain.)

Thats a boring post-season, i know. No game 7's, and most series over quickly. But until the last 2 years, most baseball play-offs were like this. I just dont think we'll see 3 great ones in a row.

2005-09-29T00:50:00.000-04:00

A post about nothing in particular.

As I sit here tonight, or rather this morning, eating my Cup-a-Soup (which proves I am indeed a real live college student) I am thinking about nothing in particular. The strains of some kind of messed up rap/ hip-hop / r and b music is coming from my roommates computer. Whatever.

Well the Phillies won tonight, which is good i guess, but of course St. Louis couldnt come through for us. They blew a 6-4 lead and lost 7-6. Looks like this just isnt gonna happen. Here's how the situation stands. We have the day off tomorrow and then finish with 3 in Washington, where we havent exactly been dominant this season. But, and thats a big But (cue up Sir Mix-a-Lot), if the Phillies can sweep the Nationals, and this is perhaps even a bigger IF than the afformentioned BUT, then this is what needs to happen.

With 3 wins over the weekend, Philly would end the season at 88-74 (probably their best record since '93). Houston is 87-71 right now, so they need to loose 3 out of 4 in their series at home with the Cubs starting tomorrow. Then of course the Phillies would have to win a play-in game with the Astros, but we'll cross that river when we come to it. IF we come to it. Personally, I'm back to being a non-believer, like the rest of Philly.

Additionally, LOST was a bit of a dissapointment tonight as well. Pretty much, all it did was show that the events on the raft out at sea, in particular the kidnapping of Walt, occured at the exact same time as the bright light went on in the hatch and Kate was pulled from Locke's grip. Then we got to see the events of the night all over again, but from a different point of view. Rather than last week, where we saw Jack's point of view, this week focused on Locke, Kate, and Sawyer and Mike's eventful night at sea. The probelem was, for the first time in show's history, i knew for sure that no matter how bad it looked like Mike and Sawyer had it, and no matter how close Sawyer came to getting eaten, they would be ok. Every other time I've had no idea who was safe, but there was no way a shark was gonna knock off Sawyer. He might not make it to the end of the show, but when he goes out, it's gonna be as a hero, I think.

As I think about it, this episode must have been inspired by Tarantino, I mean who else would do something like this 2 weeks in a row. More specifically, Resivoir Dogs, which does just about the same thing these first two episodes have done. Take a short amount of good material and tell it multiple times to get alot of suspence and drama out of it. The multiple point of view thing is cool, dont make any mistake about it, but it made it seem like the whole episode was kinda a waste of time. On the island we are left with the same teaser as last week - who is this dude in the bunker, and what does he have to do with the island? On the high seas, it looks like Mike and Sawyer got back to the island, only to find Jin running from "the others". But I dont think they are on the right island. Remember last season, the garbled message over the radio Boone heard right before he died? He said, "We're the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, and the responce was "No, we're the survivors of Oceanic flight 815." Maybe this is a different island with a simlar problem. Also, remember how Rose was so sure her husband was alive, even though Jack said everyone in the tail of the plane died? Maybe this is where that part of the plane went. And, if this happens, I'd just like to say I called it last year.

As far as this dude in the bunker, we did actually learn a few interesting things about him. First of all, he seems crazy too, much like Danielle, so maybe he isnt actually running the island, maybe he just stumbled upon this facility after being wrecked here as well. He seems to know very little about how it all works, although he does know that the numbers 4,8,15,16,23,42 reset whatever that weird counter-thing is. Clearly he isnt all knowing and all powerful since he wasnt aware of the plane crash until Locke told him. Also of interest, he spoke of people getting sick, the same thing Danielle had spoken of.

My guess for next week: we see a little more of whats going on with Jin, Mike, and Sawyer, but the rest of the episode focuses on whats going on at camp, with Hurley, Charlie, Claire, etc. while Jack, Locke, and Kate are exploring the hatch.

It's still the best show on TV.

2005-09-27T00:57:00.000-04:00

Phillies setting up a choke.

After the last week or so, who couldnt believe that the Phillies were going to win the wild card? Lets review.

Saturday September 17 - at Florida.
Phils are shut down by Dontrelle Willis and enter the ninth inning trailing the Marlins 2-0. They go on to score 10 runs and win easily.

Wednesday September 21 - at Atlanta.
After losing 2 in a row to fall behind Houston, the Phillies knock off Atlanta when Ryan Howard hits a Grand Slam in the top of the 10th inning to grab a huge win.

Thursday September 22 - at Atlanta.
The following afternoon, the Phils go into the eighth inning tied 0-0 with the Braves. After Atlanta has 2nd and 3rd with only 1 out, the Phils escape when Tim Hudson grounds out weakly in front of home plate and David Bell makes a great diving stop to his right and throws out the speedy Rafael Furcal to end the threat. In the top of the 9th, back to back pinch hitters Michael Tucker and Shane Victorino came up with an RBI single and 3 run home run respectivly. Phils win 4-0.

Friday September 23 - at Cincinnati.
The Phillies strong finishing run continues with a 5 run 9th inning to erase a 10-6 deficet. Utley hits a 3 run homer and Bell finished the comeback with a 2-run bomb to put Philly in front. They win 11-10.

So after that week, it looked like these guys had the 'team of desiny' thing going on. They had come back from every possible situation, and they werent giving up at all.

But I had forgotten they were from Philadelphia.

So tonight, with Houston a game in front and the night off, the Phils could pull to within a half a game of the Astros for the NL Wild Card. And after 6 innings we lead 4-1 and everything looked good. Sure the Mets got a run in the top of the 7th, but Burrell hit a Homer in the bottom, so we still led by 3 going into the 8th. Then we brought in Ugeth Urbina.

Here's his line for the game:

0.0 IP, 2 Hits, 4 Runs, 3 Earned Runs, 1 Walk, 0 Strikeouts, 0 HRs.

yeah, thank you Urbina. As a result of that performance, and the inabilty to pull another miraculous comeback out in the last inning, the Phillies are now 1.5 games back in the Wild Card standings with only 5 to play. So now we need to basically win out, 2 more against NY Mets and 3 to finish up against Washington. Along with that, we pretty much need Houston to loose both games in St. Louis the next 2 days and for the Cubs to come up with 2 or 3 wins in their 4 game series over the weekend. There's a likely scenario, hoping a team famous for choking can help out another team famous for its choking. So the Phillies are on the verge of falling out of a very winnable Wild Card race. But its probably my fault for thinking they could do it. I forgot, this is Philadelphia.

2005-09-21T23:25:00.000-04:00

Random Stuff Post

First of all, I have found the most retarded thing about college. Let me take you through this step by step. If you wanted to mail 2 letters, say to your grandmother and to a friend, you would think even without having postage or an envelope, you could go to the campus post office, obtain those two things, put your letters in the envelope, apply the stamp to the upper right hand courner, seal it up, and mail it, right? Makes sence to me. It also makes sence that if you wanted to pay for the postage with your campus account, you could do it, seeing how even the vending machines on campus will accept it. I was incorrect in all but one of these assumptions.

Here's how it went down. I took my two letters to the campus post office, only to be told that i could not obtain envelopes, but only postage stamps there, so i would need to visit the school store to get mailing envelopes. I went to the store, picked up my 2 envelopes, and was told they were free. Which makes me wonder, if they were free, why couldnt they be kept at the post office instead of behind the counter of the store?? But I allowed this to slide. I returned to the post office with my letters in the envelopes and the envelopes addressed. When i displayed my school ID, which functions as the way to access our campus account, I was informed that they would only accept cash. WHY? why do I need to be inconvienenced just to use the Federal Post Office System. They are so incredibly lucky I didnt just fed-ex it after that. I mean there is no reason for us to carry cash anywhere on campus, even most of the stores in town accept our school IDs as payment. Yet the campus post office tells me I need cash. So...rather than walking all the way across campus to get a dollar (actually I only needed $0.74), I thought I could go back to the school store, and ask them to give me a dollar in cash in exchange for a dollar off my school account. Makes sence, right? The store accepts our accounts and cash, so they should be able to trade one for the other. Nope, not here at backwards university, usa. They tell me no, thats not possible, so I have to walk all way back to my dorm, get a single dollar, walk all the way back to the post office, buy 2 stamps, and mail my letters. Those 2 people better appreciate all it took to get them their mail. And I dont mean the rain, snow, sleet, hail, crap the post office talk about. Apparently these days they cant even get things organized. So Jill, if you're reading this, that means you. And gramma, you dont have a computer so you wont be reading this, so Jill you better appreciate it for the both of you.

next up: There's another serious hurricane churning it's way through the Gulf of Mexico. I woke up this morning, put on the news, and heard that Rita was up to a Catagory 2. Apparently this came as a surprise to most weathercasters, who didnt expect it to rise to that status until later today. By the time I got home from my 5'o clock class (which we got out of early, and thats like the greatest feeling in the world!) it was up to a Catagory 5. This is now the thrid most powerful storm in recorded history, and yeah its got like another three days over the warm water of the Gulf before it's gonna slam into land.

The only positive side, unbelievably, is Hurricane Katrina. As a result of the devestation caused by Katrina, no one is gonna wait around to see what happenes when Rita hits. It's a good thing too, 'cause it's set up to slam right into Galveston, Texas. If you think New Orleanse was bad, think about this: Galveston is an ISLAND. Yes, a barrier island along the Texas coast, and the only other time it took a direct hit from a Catagory 5 was in 1900. Over 8,000 people died and more than half the city was wiped away all the way down to the sand. No streets, no buildings, nothing. Luckily today we have better buildings and warning which should prevent the scale of death and destruction the 1900 storm brought, but a direct hit could easily cover the entire island in water. This has progressed to a stage where you almost dont want to hear any more about these storms, but we cant look away.

And oh, yeah - do you know where the highest concentration of gas refineries in the Western Hemisphere is? On the strips of land between Galveston and Houston, in the direct path of Rita. Hello, $4.00 gas prices.

On to more cheerful news, The Phillies won tonight thanks to RYAN HOWARD hitting a GRAND SLAM in the 10th inning. Even though Houston also won, this hit kept the Phillies in the chase, only 2 games back. And Zach Duke pitches for Pittsburg against Houston tomorrow, so that should be one in the loss column for the Astros. But back to Howard. The man is a STUD. He has like 18 HRs since joining the team in July to replace Jim Thome. He has potential to be the best power hitting first baseman in baseball. Once he learns to hit left-ies and take a few more pitches, he'll be Hall of Fame material, and he's only a rookie.

2005-09-21T00:24:00.000-04:00

General Sports Post

Football and Baseball at one time!!

We'll start with the NFl, week 2 was this past weekend, and things seem to be getting back to normal around the league. After the Eagles loss on Monday night, we rebounded with a huge thumping of San Francisco, and Carolina, who looked anything but a Super Bowl contender in week one, came back with a huge win over New England. So lets get right to it:

Biggest Upset Win - no doubt Tennessee's 25-10 shocker over Baltimore. After the Ravens played the Colts close it looked like they might be a legitimate contenders, even with the week one loss. But the Titans, who were desimated by the salary cap during the off-season, made them look adsolutely pathetic while the cruised past B-more. What I'm saying is this might be more of a failure by the Ravens than it is an upset by Tennesee, but still no one expected the Titans to pull it off, and the credit goes to them for finding the weaknesses in the Raven's team (namely, their complete lack of a QB) and rolling with it. Dont expect many wins better than this for Tennessee this year.

Most Dissapointing Performance - toss up between Detroit (lost 38-6 in Chicago, including missing an extra point) and Minnesota (lost by a nearly identical 37-8 score in Cincinnati). Lets start with the Lions. Sadest part is they allowed Chicago to score 38 points, come on the Bears offense is absolutely horrible, yet they might be the new favorites to win the division after this crushing defeat of last week's favorite to win the division. Harrington had a chance to show his stuff and put some distance between them and everyone else, but the Bear's underrated D took apart the Lions (perhaps) over-rated O.
Next we turn to Minnesota, who looked rediculous last week against Tampa, looked even worse against Cincy (by the way, the Bengals and Bears might be the 2 big surprise teams of the year). For personal worse performance, no doubt it goes to Dante Culpepper, who threw 5 interceptions - taking his 2 week total up to 8. I've been saying for several years that Culpepper, like Jake Plummer, is no where near as good as people think. Now, without Moss to throw to, we're seeing exactly how true that is.
Honorable Mention in this catagory goes to Seattle, who actually won, but managed to nearly blow a 21-0 lead in the second half. The Seahawks have yet to score in the second half this season; thats gonna have to change.

Most Determined Performance - The Philadelphia Eagles. After loosing a crazy game in Atlanta on Monday, which they probably should have won, the Eagles established themselves as still the top team in the NFC with a crushing win over San Francisco. McNabb was a stud:
23-29, 342 yards, 5 TDs. and he and Terrell Owens looked like they shared a smile at the end of the game. Yes, Philly needed a big win, and yes they did it.

Most Devestating Loss - Second straight week, The Green Bay Packers. After last weeks woeful 17-3 loss to Detroit, and the season ending injury to Javon Walker, they dropped their home opener to a pretty bad Cleveland Browns team by a score of 27-25. Yes, the offense did get things going late, but there is no way this team should be 0-2. I think Farve is gonna spend alot of time this year wishing he had hung it up after last season.

Game of the Week - would have been Indy vs. Jacksonville which went down to the final play, but instead it goes to Washington vs. Dallas on Monday night. After about 54 minutes of pretty boring football, Dallas led 13-0 and looked to be on its way to an easy win. Two minutes later it was 13-7, and after a Dallas punt it took Washington all of 2 plays and 17 seconds to go 80 yards for a game winning TD. Dallas had their chance to come back, actually had two of them, but neither developed into a real scoring chance. Tough loss for Dallas and a huge win for Washington, giving them 2 for the year, and a great finish for the NFL's Hurricane Relief Weekend, which raised millions of dollars for Katrina relief.

Final Notes -

- I told you Minnesota wouldnt be as good as people thought. My guess is they get it together mid-season and end up around 8-8, which puts them in the play-offs in the NFC.

- Speaking of that, the NFC is so bad this year it makes last year's NFC look difficult by comparison. Last year we had two 8-win teams in the play-offs. I wont be shocked to see at least that many again this winter. Here's what you know, Philly will win between 12-15 games, Carolina will win at least 10-12, and Atlanta probably can get at least 10. I think you can pencil Seattle in for at least 10 as well. But if the Seahawks falter, 8-8 might win the West again, and i dont know if you'll even need that many wins to take the North this year. Eventually one of those teams will clean up on the other 3 and manage to win 8 or 9, but its anyone's guess.

- the AFC, you might need 11 wins plus some tie-breakers.

ok, briefly on to baseball.

Barry Bonds has returned, much to the displeasure of this blogger and anyone else who likes the sport. He's already hit 3 home runs in only a week, giving him 706, only a mere 7 more dingers short of tying the Babe for 2nd all time. I dont think he'll manage to get there this season, which means hopefully his body craps out before next April. Just to make sure, I propose that all major league pitchers introduce a policy of walking Bonds everytime he comes to the plate for the rest of the year. But instead of throwing those intentional balls wayyy outside, as usual, i think they should aim to miss the strike zone in a better place, maybe like the region just above Bonds' shoulders.

On the note of his body crapping out, which is a very possible scenario since he has (we assume) stopped taking steriods now, and the withdrawl symptoms might be enough to keep him home next spring. Also, (and I gotta give mad props to my bro for bringing this to my attention) he has recently announced that he will try to loose about 30 lbs. before next season to take pressure off his knees. Maybe no one told him, but if you want to take pressure off your knees, try laying down. Or maybe someone told him he needs to come up with a plausible alibi for why he will shrink down during the offseason with no steriods in his body. Here's what i think will happen. He will loose those 30 or so pounds from the lack of steriods during the off-season, then return and have a Jason Giambi-like post steriod year. Not like this year, where clearly Giambi is back on the juice, but more like last year when Giambi was hurt almost all the time with mysterious illnesses that resembled some of the things your body might do if you stop juicing after such a long period of time. So to make a long story short, Bonds will return, hit about 6-10 homers next year and look so terrible doing it that there will no longer be any doubt wether or not he was on steriods the past 7-8 seasons. Unfortunately this means he will pass Ruth, but he wont get close to Aaron. And no matter what he might say about Ruth's number being the bigger prize, there is no way around the fact that he wants more than anything else to be the all-time Home Run King. Thank God baseball cracking down on steriods scared him away for most of this year when he could have made a dent into that final summit, and will probably keep him off the top of that list forever.

And would someone please - please - make him pee in a cup? just once. For me.

2005-09-19T01:00:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's been almost a full week since I last posted on here, I guess that means time is starting to go faster here on campus and I have more stuff to do with school and all. But I promise at least 2 posts during this upcoming week, even if there is nothing of significance to say.

Anyways, there was football today and I feel perhaps i shall comment on that. But, first and foremost is some news from the Emmy Awards, which I personally never watch and even tonight only saw a small part of. But, luckily, the small part I saw while we were doing some studying in the lounge, was nothing short of awesome.

Do you know who won the 'Best Variety and Comedy Show" catagory? Thats right,

The DAILY SHOW with JON STEWART

yes, Jon Stewart won an Emmy. This means even the big-wigs in Hollywood have recognized the beauty of The Daily Show. And oh, do you know who else was nominated in that catagory against Jon Stewart? Two men named Conan O'Brien and David Letterman, who just so happen to host two shows titled, "Late Night" and "The Late Show", respectively. And, oh yeah, both those shows happen to be on major networks (NBC and CBS) while The Daily Show resides on Comedy Central. But who did the Emmy's choose as the Late Night King? If I need to answer that question for you right now, you need medicine.

Out of curiousity, I just checked the Emmy website and found that The Daily Show also won 'Best Writing for a Variety or Comedy Show'. This means The Daily Show now has 2 Emmy Awards, how awesome/amazing/incredible is that? What do you think the writers/directors of the other 'major' late night variety shows are thinking right now?

I also just found out that LOST won for Best Drama Series, which is good because if it didnt there would be some serious questions. Also, J.J. Abrams won for Best Director in a Drama Series, for LOST, and by the way, he beat Quentin Tarantino who directed an episode of CSI last year. Anytime you beat Tarantino in directing you know you have to be good, the man is a genius.

However, I am nothing short of SHOCKED to see that somehow 'House' beat LOST for 'Best Writing for a Drama Series'. How does this happen? Have these people actually watched LOST? I mean I never saw 'House' and I'm sure it's awesome, but there is no way it can be better written than J.J. Abrams' convoluted, wild, thriller on ABC. Also in the surprising catagory is William Shatner beating out Terry O'Quinn (who plays Locke on LOST) for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

By the way, LOST returns on Wednesday at 9.

I've done enough for tonight, we'll talk football tomorrow. C ya then.

2005-09-13T01:15:00.000-04:00

hey its been a few days since I last posted, but i guess that just means I've been too busy....or something. Anyways I want to get to all the NFL action from week 1, but first a few other things.

-FEMA finally replaced their incompetant director, thank God.

-Also in regard to the Gulf Coast, would everyone please stop calling those people "refugees"! A refugee is a person forced to flee to a foreign nation because of some reason. For example, if this had happened in Mexico and they were being brought here, then they are refugees, but these are AMERICAN CITIZENS.

- Another beautiful day here....what a shock

-yesterday was September 11....the 4th Anniversary of you know what. It amazes me that it has already been 4 years since that day. I can still remember all of it so clearly, and i think thats a good thing. Everyone needs to remember what happened that morning....like they say "we will not forget". Dont really know where I'm going here, but it needed to be mentioned.

-and while we are talking about foreigners attacking America, we are reviewing the metric system in science class now....and the metric system Sucks! seriously, who are you going to trust, some FRENCH scientist during the french revolution to decide all the systems of distance, weight, mass, and so on and so on? or a system that actually makes sence? dont give me all that decimal system crap, i know that 12 inches equals 1 foor and 3 feet make a yard, thus it makes sence. this is America, we dont care what the rest of the world does, so keep your metric system to yourself. Metric System Sucks

but now to the real issue....well ok 9/11 and Katrina are the real issues, so on to the destactions...week 1 of the NFL.

Lots of surprises and upsets in week one, so this award was the toughest.
Biggest Upset win - hmm, could be San Francisco over St. Louis, could be Tampa over Minnesota, but in the end it's got to be Miami over Denver, because it wasnt even much of a game. A Dolphins team that won 2 games a year ago were heavy underdogs in their own building to Denver, a supposed play-off contender, and beat the Broncos all over the field. If you didnt think it was over after 3 with Miami up 13-3, they put up 21 points in the 4th to close the door.

Most Dissapointing Performance - again alot of nominees, but the New York Jets take this one hands down. A team I picked for the AFC Title Game looked absolutely horrible in a 27-7 loss in KC. Yes, the chiefs are good at home, but New York was down 14-0 before they knew what was going on, and any time your quarterback fumbles 6 times you know you have a problem.

Most Determined Performance - how about those New Orleans Saints winning a game over a supposed Super Bowl contender after everything they have been through. How awesome would it be for them to roll on a series of great games that they pull off with wins and get to the play-offs? It's not gonna happen, but it would be awesome.

Most Devestating Loss - Packers loosing to the Lions 17-3. Not only did it reveal some serious flaws in the Pack's offense, it might have shown that Farve is finally getting old. And to top it all off, Javon Walker went down for the year, which wont help matters in Green Bay.

Finally, Best Game - has to go to the Saints-Panthers game. Back and forth the whole way and it came down to a field goal at the end to win it. Runner up goes to San Diego-Dallas, the Cowboys made a goal line stand in the final minute to hold off the Chargers, but i have to ask why didnt they give the ball to Tomlinson at all on the 4 goal-to-go plays they had in the final minute? But going back to the Saints game, it brings up the major problem the NFL has with TV coverage. I sat here in the dorm watching as the Saints moved into field goal range to win the game with only seconds remaining. But with only 20 seconds left, it was time for the opening kick-off of the Cardinals-Giants game, so where did the coverage go? yeah you guessed it, and I didnt get to see the game winning kick until the first "Fox Game Break" update. so yeah, NFL, fix that ok? The last 15 seconds of a game tyed 20-20 is much much much more important than the first 15 seconds of a game tyed 0-0, am i right? I'm not the only one who thinks this is crazy, right?

Final Thoughts - crazy first week, look at this:

The Philadelphia Eagles and Carolina Panthers, who were supposed to be the 2 top teams in the NFC according to Sports Illustrated, are both 0-1 and alone on the bottoms of their respective divisions.

The San Francisco 49ers, worst team in the NFC a year ago, are all alone on top of their division.

And I've decided the Minnesota Vikings are this year's version of last year's Seattle Seahawks. Remember last September when everyone (myself included) thought Seattle was ready for a Super Bowl run? Well they were pretty dissapointing, won a weak division and lost to an 8-8 Rams team in the first round. I expect the same from Minnesota this year. They have been a sleeper pick to surprise some people in the NFC, but its not gonna happen. I mean they probably got worse in the off season by losing Randy Moss, and if this week is any indication, they might win a very watered down NFC North, but they wont make much noise in the play-offs. There are only 2 teams to watch in the NFC, the Falcons and the Eagles. maybe Atlanta got the better of us tonight, but we'll see who wins in January

by the way, here's my predictions for the season, and they were made before Sunday i promise you:

Eric's 2005 NFL Picks

NFC East
z-Philadelphia
12
4
NY Giants
8
8
Dallas
7
9
Washington
6
10

NFC North
y-Minnesota
11
5
wc-Green Bay
9
7
wc-Detroit
9
7
Chicago
5
11

NFC South
x-Atlanta
11
5
Carolina
8
8
Tampa Bay
6
10
New Orleans
5
11

NFC West
x-Seattle
10
6
Arizona
9
7
St. Louis
7
9
San Francisco
2
14

NFC Wild Card
Seattle over Detroit
Atlanta over GB

NFC Divisional
Philadelphia over Seattle
Atlanta over Minnesota

NFC Championship
Philadelphia over Atlanta
(again)

AFC East
y-New England
12
4
wc-NY Jets
10
6
Buffalo
7
9
Miami
5
11

AFC North
x-Pittsburg
11
5
wc-Baltimore
11
5
Cincinnati
7
9
Cleveland
3
13

AFC South
z-Indianapolis
13
3
Jacksonville
8
8
Houston
6
10
Tennessee
5
11

AFC West
x-San Diego
10
6
Denver
9
7
Kansas City
8
8
Oakland
6
10

AFC Wild Card
NY Jets over Pittsburg
Baltimore over San Diego
AFC Divisional

NY Jets over Indianapolis
New England over Baltimore

AFC Championship
New England over NY Jets

SUPER BOWL XL
Philadelphia
28
New England
20

2005-09-09T01:38:00.000-04:00

More on Katrina
-or-
The Bumbling Beurocrats in Washington Screwed it up again!

I know i just covered this like the other day, but I heard Brian Williams (NBC Nightly News) on The Daily Show tonight and he said a few more interesting things. First of all I feel I should correct myself. I stated the other night that the current head of FEMA was a former judge of Austrian horses and was appointed to the position of FEMA director as a personal favor by
Bush.

I was mistaken.......slightly

Apparently my research has revealed that he was in fact a judge of Arabian Jumping Horses, not Austrian. my bad. But it raises an interesting thought. Are you like me? Are you thinking that Bush might have appointed him as FEMA director because he saw the word Arabian on his resume and thought maybe this man was a connection to oil??

maybe....or maybe not

But the other interesting thing that Williams brought up in the interview was the forecast he received on his blackberry computer a few hours before the evening newscast from New Orleans (where he was on location for the storm) the sunday night before it hit. According to him, and a quick blip I heard on CNN later, there was a scenario out there for exactly what would happen. The NOAA (National Oceananic and Atmospheric Association) published a version of the catastrophy that included multiple levy breaches, severe flooding, contamination of water supplies, and catastrophic loss of life for New Orleans. Williams said NBC and other major news outlets couldnt verify the report in time to put it on the news, so this dire (but accurate) description never made it to the airwaves. However, if the NOAA, a government organization, knew this would happen, how could the rest of the government be so unprepared??

finally, and i promise briefly, Williams talked about some of the stuff that went on after the strom. Most notably, and desturbing, was the fact that his and other media outlet's camera crews were directly instructed not to show any footage of dead bodies, or even mention in reports how many there were. He said the military and government managed agencies informed him of this. Clearly this is a move you make when you care more about Public Relations than you do about actually getting the job done. This is something you do when you want to cover up the seriousness of the problem by telling people over and over that it will be ok, while you do nothing to make it so. In fact, it is eerily similer to how they have handled Iraq. We have been fed a story of "dont worry about it, trust us and it will be over soon" while things get worse and worse, and now they are trying the same PR tactic here, but this is American soil with Americans dying....

I wish i had some closing point to make but i dont.....

2005-09-08T00:49:00.000-04:00

Today I will address the issue of sports...more specifically baseball...more sprcifically the NL Wild Card race.

Now, 5 days ago the Phillies were on top of this mess, and now they have lost 5 straight games. Including tonights fiasco where they recoved from a 5-3 deficit to take a 6-5 lead into the top of the ninth. This means Mr. Billy Wagner is on the mound, a man who hadnt blown a save in 3 months, until last night when he let the Astros win in the 9th inning. And there he was, 2 quick outs, just like he usually does. but then a routine ground ball gets booted by David Bell, and then there is an infield single (i swear I've never seen an infield single with a man on first before in my life)

So at this point Craig Biggio is coming up and he's 0-4 tonight. I turned to my roommate Phelim at this point and (no lie) said, "watch, after 2 outs they have an error and an infield single and now Biggio will probably hit this about 500 feet." Well i was only about 50 feet off.

Houston 8, Philly 6

another sweep
12 straight losses to houston
and now we are 2.5 games back in the wild card.

2 years ago the Phils should have made the playoffs but they couldnt beat Florida to save their lives. Now they should make the playoffs again, but this time Houston is their stumbling block. I know one thing, we have 7 gmes left in this homestand (3 with Florida and 4 with Atlanta), and we better damn well win 6 of them or we are done, finished, over.

2005-09-06T23:29:00.000-04:00

How I Feel About Hurricane Katrina, and the Government's responce to it.

So today was a good day here at Fairfield University. Every day I've been here has been absolutely beautiful. When i first visited, when i was here for orientation, and all 3 days of college have been blue skies and warm. I wonder when its gonna rain or something? maybe never. Anyways hung out at Starbucks tonigh with some cool people and now classes start tomorrow. Good day.

But i have something else that needs to get out. It's now been 8 days since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and 7 days since the levies broke, flooding the city. So i have one question, Why the Hell are there still people there? Actually i have another question, What the Hell has FEMA been doing for a week? Oh, wait, one more question, Why the Hell did the President wait until 3 days after the storm to return home? I know that the media is very liberally biased and uses any sitution like this to attack Bush but this time they have something. I mean this isnt like the tsunami that came out of nowhere to devestate a region of the world, this storm was predicted, the possible flooding was predicted, and the very real possiblity of the leavies breaking was predicted. Everyone knew a direct hit, or even a near miss, by a catagory 4 or 5 storm would break the dams and flood the Big Easy. Yet, thanks to the painfully slow process of beuacracy, it takes a week after the storm (about 10 days after we knew it would hit) for anything significant to happen. But it gets worse.

First of all, FEMA is supposed to be a branch of the federal government that takes care of natural disasters in the US. But after September 11, 2001, everyone had wet their pants about terrorism and FEMA was incorporated into the new Homeland Security Department. What does this mean? Now FEMA couldnt respond directly to the problems it should be able to. but thats not all

Also, The National Gaurd (which, as its name might imply, is supposed to gaurd this nation) has seen more and more units deployed to Iraq (which, by the way, is not this country) to help defend and secure that nation. So now, when we need a military force that is supposed to help out here, we have less than acceptable forces to turn to. Again, thanks to being scared poopless by terrorism abroad, we have risked losses at home. As Jon Stewart pointed out, this is like sending the National Gaurd to Arkansas to build a dam so we can fight the water there instead of fighting it in New Orleanse. And who is primarily responcible for the loss of National Gaurd troops to Iraq?

Yes, thats right, a man named George W. Bush. This man was on vacation, a 5 week vacation by the way, when the storm hit. But did he jump into action? no, in fact as the storm was leveling parts of the Gulf Coast last monday, he was in New Mexico talking about Social Security at a town hall meeting. A day later, as the waters flooded into the city, he went to San Diego to help celebrate the anniversary of the end of WWII. Finally, 3 days after the storm, he annouced he would "cut his vacation short". wow, how generous of him. And briefly going back to FEMA, do you know who the director is, the man who has fumbled and bumbled this situation from the beginning? A personal friend of Mr. Bush, whose last job was as a judge of Austrian dancing horses. Yes, thats right, a retired horse judge was appointed by the president to run the organization most responcible for responding to incredible national disasters like this one.

The bottom line is the whole thing represents a sence of arrogance, a feeling of 'that type of thing could never happen here so why think about it?" attitude. Well it has happened here, and those in charge have done nothing, nothing, to help prevent or help fix the situation.

After 9/11 I had lots of respect for Bush, lots of it. He was taking the fight to the terrorists and even though the Patriot Act sucked, i was willing to cut him some slack. I have supported him for 4 years even though i didnt always agree with the decisions his administration was making. Yet I am starting to grow a little sick of Iraq, the whole Terry Shivo situation exposed the complete hypocrasy of the Republican party (and the democrats too), then the whole Rove thing too, but nothing has come close to this. This has cost the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, and million more have lost everything. It's not like i expect the president to prevent the levies from breaking, but he could have been a little more active after the fact. It's like Independance Day, when the Secretary of Defense knows about the UFO at Area 51 and all that before the attack but says nothing, thus preventing an evaquation that could have saved lives. at least its kinda like that.

So, bottom line (#2), I can no longer say that i have any confidence in the people running our nation. I dont think there is any way we can think we are safe from a plotted plan of attack against us, when we are so vulnerable to a random act of nature that we can see coming days in advance. To finish in the manner i started: what the hell has the US Government been doing to better secure our nation and provide responce and relief since 9/11?? apparently the answer is not a single thing.

2005-09-06T01:33:00.000-04:00

hey guys,

hoff has one of these and he has inspired me to try it as well. And who knows, since CNN relys on bloggers for most of its stories to fill in time these days i might even get on there.

So I'm up here at Fairfield University now, where, barring severe illness or death, i should be spending most of the next 4 years. Moved in on Monday around 8:30 am and spent most of the day trying to get all my assorted shit organized in and around the room. For those of you who dont know, room is Regis 002. I think we should nickname this building "The Filb-ster". Phelim and Johnathon are the roommates, both of them seem pretty ok. I refuse to write anything about any people in particular on here cause that just gets bad.

The last 2 days have been full of meetings and lectures on campus policy and what is expected of us and yada yada yada, but tonight there was a cool thing with 2 guys from MTV's real world. Never watched the show but it was funny none the less.

in other news, i've met some people, and i think things will be pretty cool here, even more so after we start classes on wednesday and you get to start seeing some people on a more regular basis.

Ok, gonna go watch Kill Bill part II now, started it last night but was too sleepy to get past the end of the wedding massacre. To anyone who hasnt seen this movie or its prequel, you need to do it. Well not if alot of blood and stuff scares you, although all the goorey stuff is in part one only. And not if you like really deep detailed storylines, because its pretty straightforward. But if you like an action movie with lots of great screenwriting and kung fu action, then check it out. Seriously, its QT's best stuff. Part 1 is all action, part 2 is all story, lots of background on the characters and explainations of the motives and all that seemed completely missing from part one. Bottom line, good pair of movies that put together seem completely different but compliment one another perfectly.