Last year? A day late. The year before? Overslept. Pretty fucking shabby treatment for a fucking blog holiday, possibly the premiere blog holiday of the year hereabouts, since I certainly am fond of D-Day, now that I consistently remember it as Kiltboy's birthday too (h/t Hamster--the nick is his doing, and better than mine). So it's a day early as I write this, because we willna be foo'd agin (Crivens!). We'll just give this here bloggity scheduler thing a twirl.
Of course, I'm a dick, and I snarked at BFF mightily on the Twitter machine this morning about something pointless, which got me to thinking/realizing about what I had to get done before tomorrow, which precluded the longform snark, which would've really been classless. So here we are.
I actually started thinking about this months ago, for a change, and so you're getting something that's not David Bowie, though you'll get that at the above two links, so good enough on that. No, I wanted something summative. Something like:
I know, right? Totally different time of imperium, totally different time of life, but all the exact fucking same thing, right? Except American bands came back and shit. But, y'know, that's just a diversion in the river of conscience.
So there's that, because, well, we mustn't, y'know. That's one founding principle for this year. Here's another.
That's right. Suck on Martha Hull, bitchez. Here, that was so fucking awesome you should suck on her again:
That's where we come from, X-gen/millennial whelps. Low tech, beer-fueled, Cold War-powered angst while wearing our shitkicker hiking boots and slamming into each other at top speed, at least top speed for drunken not-really-grups on dope. I think I mighta gotten to touch someone's breast at one of those once, too. Woot.
We didn't even know we were going to elect Reagan yet, the Iranian hostage crisis hadn't happened, the World Trade Center was barely built, let alone twice bombed, and Richard Fucking Nixon was still an excellent moral compass. Try growing up with that shit and tell me how hard your life is when you didn't get a fucking cell phone until you were 14 and Obama didn't buy you a fucking pony. Right. Off my lawn, & c.
Happy Birthday, BFF, you geriatric fuck, and props to our boomer brethren. Because generational war beats the fucking shit out of class war.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
DCU 1-1 Phunions
I tweeted in response to Goff's question ("On a scale of 1 to 10, Geiger deserves a...") that Geiger deserved a bullet and an invoice, the reputed sentence for condemned Chinese under the current regime.
Geiger being Mark Geiger, MLS (and, it appears, at least according to Kevin Payne and various YFWP commenters, FIFA and Olympic) referee. Let's not mince words. He was fucking inept. He lost control of the game early and often, and he did not fairly assess punishments--that is, he consistently called DCU for milder fouls than he did the Phunions, and in the end, he wrongly deprived DCU of at least one goal.
But let's back the fuck up, because while Mark Geiger should never referee another game for money, DCU cost itself plenty tonight, before Geiger even had a chance to fuck it up.
Yes, let's back it up to the first fucking half, when DCU gave up an 8th-minute goal to Brian Carroll off of a free kick by some Phunion shithead (turns out, on review, that it was Freddy Adu, and the play was inexcusably chaotic), and spent the rest of the half alternating between not attacking and having to rely on Bill Hamid to make remarkable plays because it wasn't defending.
Oh. Do I need to remind that I hate the motherfucking Phunions? Here, I'll say something nice about them, for balance: they got rid of Sebastien Fucking LeToux.
Anyway, United pissed this away before 45 minutes were gone. I believe that 10 minutes of possession consisted of a triangle of Perry Kitchen passing the ball back to Emiliano Dudar and the appallingly incompetent Brandon McDonald, playing catch until high pressure forced some measure of creativity. Sadlly, this creativity usually resulted in a long ball upfield to a Phunion. I was grateful each time it didn't result in a backpass past Hamid and into the goal. Two Phunion breakaways were thwarted by Hamid, and United were lucky not to be down 0-3 at the half.
Which brings us to the second half. In the 64th minute, some lovely play between Boskovic and the geriatric and exhausted Dwayne Derosario led to a chance. Phunion goalie The Traitor Zac MacMath* couldn't get the handle on the ball; Gabriel Farfan cleared it away to Nick DeLeon, who buried it. Unfortunately, in a bit of byplay not related to the goal, Hamdi Salihi tripped over the prone traitor MacMath (who was out of the play whether Salihi went flying over him or not). Mark Geiger's Philly eye for the game spotted that as a foul. On Salihi. No goal. This was stone robbery.
United equalized minutes later. Then, near the end of regulation Pontius won a penalty kick on what I initially thought was a dive, but what was actually a legit call. DeRosario banged home the spot kick, but McDonald encroached (into the arc--a technically correct, but bush league call by a ref determined to call stuff). DeRosario skied the retake (in stoppage time).
But there was a scuffle in between the kick and the retake. One of the fucking Farfans jumped on Boskovic's back as he tried to retrieve the ball; Boskovic took a swing at him. The fucking Farfan, who instigated the fight, got a yellow card; Boskovic, who missed, got a red. Jeebus.
On the next possession, Dudar fouled some Phunion, getting mostly ball and making little contact, though the tackle was from behind; Geiger wasted no time red-carding him, after having allowed violent criminal Phunion Michael LaHoud no fewer than four yellow-card fouls through the course of the game, two of them arguably red cardable (including his first, and second-most-deliberate foul, a raised foot to Chris Pontius' chest while Pontius was in possession of the ball, and a lengthy, 4-second jersey tug against...I forget, but there were like two feet of jersey stretched out behind the fouled United player). In the closing minutes of stoppage, Geiger completed his rampage by red-carding Phunion Sheanon Williams for a book-definition yellow-card foul against Pontius (professional foul, neither last man nor DOGSO). Sure, it felt good. But this, too, was Geiger's fault.
The game, though? Blame DeRosario. Blame Kitchen. Blame McDonald. Blame Olsen, who didn't replace a totally gassed Nick DeLeon after the Salihi goal, and whose last sub, in fucking stoppage time after the red cards, was the situationally useless Marcelo Saragosa, and who coached these stupid fuckers into being afraid to fucking attack.
What a stupid, fucked-up loss of two points against a key divisional opponent. The team should be fucking ashamed of themselves, and Olsen should start the fucking reserves against Chicago on Wednesday.
Oh, right. We don't have any fucking reserves.
*Discommendated Terp.
Geiger being Mark Geiger, MLS (and, it appears, at least according to Kevin Payne and various YFWP commenters, FIFA and Olympic) referee. Let's not mince words. He was fucking inept. He lost control of the game early and often, and he did not fairly assess punishments--that is, he consistently called DCU for milder fouls than he did the Phunions, and in the end, he wrongly deprived DCU of at least one goal.
But let's back the fuck up, because while Mark Geiger should never referee another game for money, DCU cost itself plenty tonight, before Geiger even had a chance to fuck it up.
Yes, let's back it up to the first fucking half, when DCU gave up an 8th-minute goal to Brian Carroll off of a free kick by some Phunion shithead (turns out, on review, that it was Freddy Adu, and the play was inexcusably chaotic), and spent the rest of the half alternating between not attacking and having to rely on Bill Hamid to make remarkable plays because it wasn't defending.
Oh. Do I need to remind that I hate the motherfucking Phunions? Here, I'll say something nice about them, for balance: they got rid of Sebastien Fucking LeToux.
Anyway, United pissed this away before 45 minutes were gone. I believe that 10 minutes of possession consisted of a triangle of Perry Kitchen passing the ball back to Emiliano Dudar and the appallingly incompetent Brandon McDonald, playing catch until high pressure forced some measure of creativity. Sadlly, this creativity usually resulted in a long ball upfield to a Phunion. I was grateful each time it didn't result in a backpass past Hamid and into the goal. Two Phunion breakaways were thwarted by Hamid, and United were lucky not to be down 0-3 at the half.
Which brings us to the second half. In the 64th minute, some lovely play between Boskovic and the geriatric and exhausted Dwayne Derosario led to a chance. Phunion goalie The Traitor Zac MacMath* couldn't get the handle on the ball; Gabriel Farfan cleared it away to Nick DeLeon, who buried it. Unfortunately, in a bit of byplay not related to the goal, Hamdi Salihi tripped over the prone traitor MacMath (who was out of the play whether Salihi went flying over him or not). Mark Geiger's Philly eye for the game spotted that as a foul. On Salihi. No goal. This was stone robbery.
United equalized minutes later. Then, near the end of regulation Pontius won a penalty kick on what I initially thought was a dive, but what was actually a legit call. DeRosario banged home the spot kick, but McDonald encroached (into the arc--a technically correct, but bush league call by a ref determined to call stuff). DeRosario skied the retake (in stoppage time).
But there was a scuffle in between the kick and the retake. One of the fucking Farfans jumped on Boskovic's back as he tried to retrieve the ball; Boskovic took a swing at him. The fucking Farfan, who instigated the fight, got a yellow card; Boskovic, who missed, got a red. Jeebus.
On the next possession, Dudar fouled some Phunion, getting mostly ball and making little contact, though the tackle was from behind; Geiger wasted no time red-carding him, after having allowed violent criminal Phunion Michael LaHoud no fewer than four yellow-card fouls through the course of the game, two of them arguably red cardable (including his first, and second-most-deliberate foul, a raised foot to Chris Pontius' chest while Pontius was in possession of the ball, and a lengthy, 4-second jersey tug against...I forget, but there were like two feet of jersey stretched out behind the fouled United player). In the closing minutes of stoppage, Geiger completed his rampage by red-carding Phunion Sheanon Williams for a book-definition yellow-card foul against Pontius (professional foul, neither last man nor DOGSO). Sure, it felt good. But this, too, was Geiger's fault.
The game, though? Blame DeRosario. Blame Kitchen. Blame McDonald. Blame Olsen, who didn't replace a totally gassed Nick DeLeon after the Salihi goal, and whose last sub, in fucking stoppage time after the red cards, was the situationally useless Marcelo Saragosa, and who coached these stupid fuckers into being afraid to fucking attack.
What a stupid, fucked-up loss of two points against a key divisional opponent. The team should be fucking ashamed of themselves, and Olsen should start the fucking reserves against Chicago on Wednesday.
Oh, right. We don't have any fucking reserves.
*Discommendated Terp.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
United 1-2 KC: This Ain't Hard
Shatzer and others correctly tag the critical meme here: high pressure (and secondarily, inability to suss out a 4-3-3). DCU can't cope, and never has. Shatzer and others completely fuck up the impact of missing players; no, Korb and Chabala is not a dropoff from Russell and Woolard, except to the extent that Chabala had joined the team only three days before. Look, if you can't understand that the team has managed to tactically correct for Woolard's incredible slowness, and incredible fucking stupidity, to the point where you believe that Daniel Woolard is a credible starting left back for any team that doesn't have some bar's name blazoned across its shirts, I can't fucking help you.
I'm not convinced that the blame should lie entirely with Olsen, who has coached the team to shorter passing, single touches, good ball movement. There was none of that in evidence last night, and I'm hard-pressed to believe that Olsen came out before the game and told the team, "Hey, let's languidly drop long balls back into KC's laps, and stand around on defense, and apply no pressure at all, except for you, PartyBoy and LongTanJohnson."
Not that I don't have questions for Saint Benny. For instance, why is PartyBoy marking fucking Teal Bunbury on corners? And even bigger philosophically (though not in practice--Bunbury's goal was on Pontius, he knew it, and he thumped his own chest in acceptance in the afterglow), why the fucking fuck is a goddam moron like Brandon McDonald marking that giant Aurelien Collin, instead of the taller, smarter Dudar? Why, when Branko came up with a kneebummy, did you fucking put in another D-mid instead of, say, Stephen King, who once in a while shines in center attack (unlike Saragosa, who was not in any way cut out for the job he was asked to do last night)?
On to my critique of BFF's analysis, which is what prompted this post in the first place:
Worrisome if not distressing.
Take a Valium. It's one game. The outcome and the methodology were predictable--as, I concede, you're about to admit in a few sentences.
Minus DeRossario, minus Woolard (replaced by some journeyman with two workouts with the club)
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Last night showed what DeRosario brings: bullying the rest of the team into running. Now, that's nontrivial, I'll admit. But we also left behind DeRosario blaming the rest of the team for him being 34 years old. As to Woolard, no. Just no.
And beloved, I'm not sure how you so easily spouted the most myopic, ill-informed, and goopingly unironic description of Mike Chabala that you possibly could, but...wow.
I wonder how much of it is United's lack of athleticism versus Kansas City's. Man for man, Kansas City was bigger, stronger, faster.
I long for the day when Japanese movie monsters run wild in the streets of Kensington, just so I can watch you flap your arms for a few seconds before I myself am consumed.
It's easy to look bigger, stronger, and faster than someone who's not moving. Athleticism...I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.
They swarmed because they could. United panicked on the ball because they had too.
They swarmed because United didn't move, and didn't move the ball. United panicked on the ball because no one moved off-ball. That's part of the tactical deficiency Shatzer's talking about. Again, being too fucking lazy to do your job isn't a failure of athleticism, it's a failure of getting your deadwood road-gaming ass to move for some portion of 90 minutes.
Someone is going to take out Kitchen. He's dirty...
Woot! I get to throw a bone!
Yes. Yes, he is.
He's also United's best player, but he's dirty.
Holy crap. Can you make just one point and move on before you completely fuck it up, beloved? No, he's not. Pontius is a better player. Hamid may be a better player. Boskovic may be a better player, but we'll never know because he's such a terrible fit for the club. Salihi may be a better player, but we'll never know because...
Long Tan sucks. Sucks.
Well...only sort of, so far. Unlike anyone between Hamid and the front line (with the exception of Andy Najar, for 20-second stretches, and Danny Cruz, who came in far too late to have an impact), he worked for a living last night. He has the same problem everyone else on the team has--he can't volley, and I really wish that Saint Benny, who could volley, would fucking do some fucking drills on hitting balls on the half-volley, because the need to settle the fucking ball and make love to it before directing it goalward has gotten pretty fucking stale.
By which I do not mean to exclude the very real possibility that LongTanJohnson sucks.
Saragosa sucks. Sucks unto suck.
I disagree. Saragosa was--stunningly, I know--misused. Last night was, and I admit that there were challenges but still, a frightfully instructive example of how not to manage a formation with the players available. He was a terrible choice to plug in when Branko went down, without some adjustment of roles and relationships and positions.
Part of the thing here, and it's a part we're loathe to admit, is that Benny is a really, really fuckawful in-game coach, and a poor tactical manager. Can this improve? Maybe. Given time, he'll improve more in a year or two than Tommy Soehn or Curt Onalfo will for the rest of their lives.Will he get time? Will he deserve it? Beats the fuck out of me.
This is why this team is at least a year away - they would have lost this game with starters. Their second-stringers suck, and in MLS, you need good second-stringers. United doesn't have any.
That's where you're totally steering the boat onto the reef, beloved. You just said the second-stringers were all hurt. The bench was the third-stringers. Some of the regular starters are second-stringers, and the team has managed to correct for that enough of the time.
I disagree that they would've lost the game with starters--the only one not in was DeRosario. Might his arrogance and sheer dislikability have made the difference? I actually think it might've been the difference between a loss and a draw, but who the fuck knows? Would his presence have kept Benny from making the defensive adjustments that cost the game--or caused him to make different ones that worked? Not putting Dudar on Collin after the very first corner kick was a huge tactical error. Chabala's unfamiliarity with the system, which drew him so far into the middle that he lost his mark on the back post as the Traitor Graham Zusi charged in, certainly didn't help. Pontius in a crucial role in defense on another set piece (but wait! it worked with Tino Quaranta!) was sub-optimal, too.
I do seriously doubt that physical differences were the key here, given the stunning errors in judgment (didn't you hear me, half a county away, screaming about putting Dudar on Collin?) that both Saint Benny and the team laid out there last night. The really disturbing thing to me is that I knew we'd lose when we turned on the game. If, thousands of miles away, I knew that (and so, clearly, did BFF), what the fuck is going on with the team that they can project it so unerringly?
Harkes sucks.
Wynalda's wife doesn't think so. Boo-ya!
I miss The Bow-Tie, and The Bow-Tie sucked.
No, he didn't. He was the glue that kept us all together. He was goooood.
I'm not convinced that the blame should lie entirely with Olsen, who has coached the team to shorter passing, single touches, good ball movement. There was none of that in evidence last night, and I'm hard-pressed to believe that Olsen came out before the game and told the team, "Hey, let's languidly drop long balls back into KC's laps, and stand around on defense, and apply no pressure at all, except for you, PartyBoy and LongTanJohnson."
Not that I don't have questions for Saint Benny. For instance, why is PartyBoy marking fucking Teal Bunbury on corners? And even bigger philosophically (though not in practice--Bunbury's goal was on Pontius, he knew it, and he thumped his own chest in acceptance in the afterglow), why the fucking fuck is a goddam moron like Brandon McDonald marking that giant Aurelien Collin, instead of the taller, smarter Dudar? Why, when Branko came up with a kneebummy, did you fucking put in another D-mid instead of, say, Stephen King, who once in a while shines in center attack (unlike Saragosa, who was not in any way cut out for the job he was asked to do last night)?
On to my critique of BFF's analysis, which is what prompted this post in the first place:
Worrisome if not distressing.
Take a Valium. It's one game. The outcome and the methodology were predictable--as, I concede, you're about to admit in a few sentences.
Minus DeRossario, minus Woolard (replaced by some journeyman with two workouts with the club)
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Last night showed what DeRosario brings: bullying the rest of the team into running. Now, that's nontrivial, I'll admit. But we also left behind DeRosario blaming the rest of the team for him being 34 years old. As to Woolard, no. Just no.
And beloved, I'm not sure how you so easily spouted the most myopic, ill-informed, and goopingly unironic description of Mike Chabala that you possibly could, but...wow.
I wonder how much of it is United's lack of athleticism versus Kansas City's. Man for man, Kansas City was bigger, stronger, faster.
I long for the day when Japanese movie monsters run wild in the streets of Kensington, just so I can watch you flap your arms for a few seconds before I myself am consumed.
It's easy to look bigger, stronger, and faster than someone who's not moving. Athleticism...I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.
They swarmed because they could. United panicked on the ball because they had too.
They swarmed because United didn't move, and didn't move the ball. United panicked on the ball because no one moved off-ball. That's part of the tactical deficiency Shatzer's talking about. Again, being too fucking lazy to do your job isn't a failure of athleticism, it's a failure of getting your deadwood road-gaming ass to move for some portion of 90 minutes.
Someone is going to take out Kitchen. He's dirty...
Woot! I get to throw a bone!
Yes. Yes, he is.
He's also United's best player, but he's dirty.
Holy crap. Can you make just one point and move on before you completely fuck it up, beloved? No, he's not. Pontius is a better player. Hamid may be a better player. Boskovic may be a better player, but we'll never know because he's such a terrible fit for the club. Salihi may be a better player, but we'll never know because...
Long Tan sucks. Sucks.
Well...only sort of, so far. Unlike anyone between Hamid and the front line (with the exception of Andy Najar, for 20-second stretches, and Danny Cruz, who came in far too late to have an impact), he worked for a living last night. He has the same problem everyone else on the team has--he can't volley, and I really wish that Saint Benny, who could volley, would fucking do some fucking drills on hitting balls on the half-volley, because the need to settle the fucking ball and make love to it before directing it goalward has gotten pretty fucking stale.
By which I do not mean to exclude the very real possibility that LongTanJohnson sucks.
Saragosa sucks. Sucks unto suck.
I disagree. Saragosa was--stunningly, I know--misused. Last night was, and I admit that there were challenges but still, a frightfully instructive example of how not to manage a formation with the players available. He was a terrible choice to plug in when Branko went down, without some adjustment of roles and relationships and positions.
Part of the thing here, and it's a part we're loathe to admit, is that Benny is a really, really fuckawful in-game coach, and a poor tactical manager. Can this improve? Maybe. Given time, he'll improve more in a year or two than Tommy Soehn or Curt Onalfo will for the rest of their lives.Will he get time? Will he deserve it? Beats the fuck out of me.
This is why this team is at least a year away - they would have lost this game with starters. Their second-stringers suck, and in MLS, you need good second-stringers. United doesn't have any.
That's where you're totally steering the boat onto the reef, beloved. You just said the second-stringers were all hurt. The bench was the third-stringers. Some of the regular starters are second-stringers, and the team has managed to correct for that enough of the time.
I disagree that they would've lost the game with starters--the only one not in was DeRosario. Might his arrogance and sheer dislikability have made the difference? I actually think it might've been the difference between a loss and a draw, but who the fuck knows? Would his presence have kept Benny from making the defensive adjustments that cost the game--or caused him to make different ones that worked? Not putting Dudar on Collin after the very first corner kick was a huge tactical error. Chabala's unfamiliarity with the system, which drew him so far into the middle that he lost his mark on the back post as the Traitor Graham Zusi charged in, certainly didn't help. Pontius in a crucial role in defense on another set piece (but wait! it worked with Tino Quaranta!) was sub-optimal, too.
I do seriously doubt that physical differences were the key here, given the stunning errors in judgment (didn't you hear me, half a county away, screaming about putting Dudar on Collin?) that both Saint Benny and the team laid out there last night. The really disturbing thing to me is that I knew we'd lose when we turned on the game. If, thousands of miles away, I knew that (and so, clearly, did BFF), what the fuck is going on with the team that they can project it so unerringly?
Harkes sucks.
Wynalda's wife doesn't think so. Boo-ya!
I miss The Bow-Tie, and The Bow-Tie sucked.
No, he didn't. He was the glue that kept us all together. He was goooood.
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
Fine Canadian Wine
So yesterday the US Womens National Team beat the Canadians in an Olympic semifinal game, 4-3, in extra time, to advance to the gold medal game. It was wacky in a number of ways, and the Canadians are feeling unjustifiably aggrieved about the whole thing. Let's discuss this, and let's not bother to do it kindly, because the Canadians are collectively way the fuck off their stereotypically polite nut about this whole thing.
It started with the Canadian coach, a Kiwi asshole named John Herdman, trying to work the referees in the presser the day before the game. I foolishly misread Herdman's performance (I mean other than the part about him being an asshole); I thought it portended a lot of Canadian diving. I was wrong, as Canadian forward Melissa Tancredi showed immediately by committing two brutal, bookable fouls within the first minute of the game. By our count, Tancredi was responsible for 9 of the 19 fouls called on the Canadians (USWNT was called for 20, all legit in reality and many of them questionable in light of what the Canadians were getting away with), which alone should've gotten her red-carded for persistence; she committed another dozen or so that went uncalled.
So the despicable fuckface John Herdman's strategy, then, was to try to neutralize the officials when he planned to turn the game into a rugby match. I don't have a problem with this, in and of itself. The Canadians have spent 11 years showing that they can't beat the US team at soccer. It's perfectly understandable that they'd want to try something else.
And it was working. The Canadian's persistent chippy fouls and outright brutality got their star player, Christine Sinclair, into prime attacking position three times--and she closed the deal on each, fueled by the Canadians' dislike of the US team coupled with her own personal rivalry with Abby Wambach, USWNT's (and, until yesterday, the world's) leading scorer. Good on her. In addition to three very well-played goals, I'll credit Sinclair (who I've never liked, but I have to acknowledge that she can score) with not personally participating in the brutality.
With the US down 3-2, Erin McLeod decided to deliberately delay the game by holding the ball; apparently, she'd been warned about that (she admitted as much, though it was a whiny, so-what sort of admission). The referee called her on it and awarded an indirect free kick inside the box--which bounced off of the arms of two Canadians. One arm was tucked. The other wasn't. Wambach converted the ensuing penalty to equalize, and the game was settled in the closing moments of extra time by an Alex Morgan header as USWNT fans collapsed in exhaustion and confusion.
This has unleashed a torrent of whining from Canadians who apparently didn't understand their team's strategy of fouling early, often, and hard, which had to that point been quite successful. They're wrong. The McLeod call was legitimate; no, it's not called often. Teams also don't often pursue a strategy of deliberately cheating, and get away with that even less often. To be offended at being called on it at a critical moment--with an admittedly dire result--is pretty poor. The handball wasn't deliberate, but Eve-Marie Nault's arm was well away from her body. She was making no effort to tuck it. The call is discretionary, but completely legit.
In short? Shut the fuck up, Canada. You rolled. You lost. I'll freely admit that your hypocritical whining in the aftermath makes me all the more happy to taste your bitter tears, but really? That's your doing.
Updated:
FIFA is investigating comments that Herdman and the Canadian players made in the wake of their failure.
In the same story, Abby Wambach admits that she lobbied for the McLeod call by counting out loud while McLeod was holding the ball and pretending to look for a play.
Video: NBC captures the utterly innocent and blameless Melissa Tancredi deliberately stomping on Carli Lloyd's head.
YFWP: Christine Sinclair whines.
AP (from YFWP): The delay call, discussed.
I repeat: shut the fuck up, Canada. And anything nice I said about Christine Sinclair? Fuck that. What a classless piece of shit. I hope FIFA disciplines her and her coach for explicitly accusing the referee of fixing the match.
Also updated:
Bronze medal game, 8 AM Eastern time on Thursday. Go France, not that the Canadians' utterly reprehensible behavior has altered that--the only time I'm not pulling for the French women is when they're playing the US.
More updating:
From the FIFA Laws of the Game (Law 12):
An indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a goalkeeper, inside his own penalty area, commits any of the following four offences:
It started with the Canadian coach, a Kiwi asshole named John Herdman, trying to work the referees in the presser the day before the game. I foolishly misread Herdman's performance (I mean other than the part about him being an asshole); I thought it portended a lot of Canadian diving. I was wrong, as Canadian forward Melissa Tancredi showed immediately by committing two brutal, bookable fouls within the first minute of the game. By our count, Tancredi was responsible for 9 of the 19 fouls called on the Canadians (USWNT was called for 20, all legit in reality and many of them questionable in light of what the Canadians were getting away with), which alone should've gotten her red-carded for persistence; she committed another dozen or so that went uncalled.
So the despicable fuckface John Herdman's strategy, then, was to try to neutralize the officials when he planned to turn the game into a rugby match. I don't have a problem with this, in and of itself. The Canadians have spent 11 years showing that they can't beat the US team at soccer. It's perfectly understandable that they'd want to try something else.
And it was working. The Canadian's persistent chippy fouls and outright brutality got their star player, Christine Sinclair, into prime attacking position three times--and she closed the deal on each, fueled by the Canadians' dislike of the US team coupled with her own personal rivalry with Abby Wambach, USWNT's (and, until yesterday, the world's) leading scorer. Good on her. In addition to three very well-played goals, I'll credit Sinclair (who I've never liked, but I have to acknowledge that she can score) with not personally participating in the brutality.
With the US down 3-2, Erin McLeod decided to deliberately delay the game by holding the ball; apparently, she'd been warned about that (she admitted as much, though it was a whiny, so-what sort of admission). The referee called her on it and awarded an indirect free kick inside the box--which bounced off of the arms of two Canadians. One arm was tucked. The other wasn't. Wambach converted the ensuing penalty to equalize, and the game was settled in the closing moments of extra time by an Alex Morgan header as USWNT fans collapsed in exhaustion and confusion.
This has unleashed a torrent of whining from Canadians who apparently didn't understand their team's strategy of fouling early, often, and hard, which had to that point been quite successful. They're wrong. The McLeod call was legitimate; no, it's not called often. Teams also don't often pursue a strategy of deliberately cheating, and get away with that even less often. To be offended at being called on it at a critical moment--with an admittedly dire result--is pretty poor. The handball wasn't deliberate, but Eve-Marie Nault's arm was well away from her body. She was making no effort to tuck it. The call is discretionary, but completely legit.
In short? Shut the fuck up, Canada. You rolled. You lost. I'll freely admit that your hypocritical whining in the aftermath makes me all the more happy to taste your bitter tears, but really? That's your doing.
Updated:
FIFA is investigating comments that Herdman and the Canadian players made in the wake of their failure.
In the same story, Abby Wambach admits that she lobbied for the McLeod call by counting out loud while McLeod was holding the ball and pretending to look for a play.
Video: NBC captures the utterly innocent and blameless Melissa Tancredi deliberately stomping on Carli Lloyd's head.
YFWP: Christine Sinclair whines.
AP (from YFWP): The delay call, discussed.
I repeat: shut the fuck up, Canada. And anything nice I said about Christine Sinclair? Fuck that. What a classless piece of shit. I hope FIFA disciplines her and her coach for explicitly accusing the referee of fixing the match.
Also updated:
Bronze medal game, 8 AM Eastern time on Thursday. Go France, not that the Canadians' utterly reprehensible behavior has altered that--the only time I'm not pulling for the French women is when they're playing the US.
More updating:
From the FIFA Laws of the Game (Law 12):
An indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a goalkeeper, inside his own penalty area, commits any of the following four offences:
- controls the ball with his hands for more than six seconds before releasing it from his possession
Thursday, August 02, 2012
Excess
Ilse and I are on a vacation swing, having started on Sunday with dinner with her parents, Joseph and Jesusina, at an ostentatious meat palace in the capital of the Confederacy. We stayed at a modest (in American terms) hotel, and continued the next day, driving our gas-guzzling vehicle (at a high rate of speed, guzzling extra gas) on to North Carolina, where we spent two days visiting my mother, the She-Nurse of the SS, and her boyfriend. We ate modestly, but we ate, and we stayed in a slightly less nice hotel at my mother's expense (she and her gigolo just moved to a smaller place that doesn't have really room for overnight guests, not American ones anyway). We drove on, again at a pretty high rate of speed, to Asheville, North Carolina, a beautiful place, where last night we ate a seriously fat-ass meal and stayed in a hotel of the same chain we stayed at in Richmond.
So why am I so pissed off at what I visited today? A ginormous emblem of excess and rapacious capitalism, Biltmore House is a serious candidate for the capitol of capitalism. Rife with pillaged treasures and the produce of years of exploitation of Americans who couldn't afford it, the mansion is a vomitorious display. BFF characterized it as "amazing and appalling;" he's right, but I'm having trouble getting past the appalling part.
I'd like to think I'm not just pissed off because I just don't have the balls to be that fucking evil. And I wish I were sure that would be intellectually honest.
So why am I so pissed off at what I visited today? A ginormous emblem of excess and rapacious capitalism, Biltmore House is a serious candidate for the capitol of capitalism. Rife with pillaged treasures and the produce of years of exploitation of Americans who couldn't afford it, the mansion is a vomitorious display. BFF characterized it as "amazing and appalling;" he's right, but I'm having trouble getting past the appalling part.
I'd like to think I'm not just pissed off because I just don't have the balls to be that fucking evil. And I wish I were sure that would be intellectually honest.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Wow. What a Fucking DICK.
Meet Alexander (Sasha) Semin. Erratic sometime goal-scorer. Moody European skating fairy who fights like a girl:
Former Washington Capital. Pissy little emo bitch who signed with a division rival.
Fuck you, Sasha Semin. Headhunting in hockey is despicable and wrong, but it'll be worth the 10-game suspension that Ovie will get for destroying your poncy ass the first chance he gets.
Dick.
Former Washington Capital. Pissy little emo bitch who signed with a division rival.
Fuck you, Sasha Semin. Headhunting in hockey is despicable and wrong, but it'll be worth the 10-game suspension that Ovie will get for destroying your poncy ass the first chance he gets.
Dick.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Suburbia
It's 5:45 PM on a weeknight in outer MoCo, and there are severe storms approaching fast. It's a favorite time for me, and I stepped onto the deck for a smoke before the storm. Lookee what I found.
Trippy.
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| Yes, the doe in the middle is taking a dump in my yard. |
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| Unconcerned by the likes of me, the little savages continue to strip my landlord's trees. |
Monday, July 23, 2012
Dr. Sally K. Ride, 1951-2012
Various newsers are reporting, and her company's Web site confirms, that Sally Ride died today. This sucks on a number of levels. Ride crashed several barriers during her career as an astronaut; she was the first American woman in space, and at the time of her 1983 shuttle flight, the youngest American to have travelled into space.She devoted her post-NASA career to promoting young peoples' interest in science, focusing as she should have on young women. She was a good scientist, a good astronaut, a good role model, a good Democrat. Most of all, Sally Ride was a great American.
I'm no fan of the space program in real/governmental/societal terms. I don't think it's cost-effective, especially compared to other things we could be doing with our national resources, though I recognize that cost effectiveness may be hard to measure given the implications and benefits of space science for other research, and of course I'm a wet-pantied fanboy for science fiction. All that's not relevant in light of Ride's magnitude as an icon for my generation and those that followed (she was 9 years older than me--not so old at the time of her Challenger flight as to be unhip, and certainly not so old as to be disconnected from today's young scientists).
I also find Ride's death moving because it was premature, and it was caused by pancreatic cancer, which is one of the most terrifying and despicable of cancers, one that's affected me personally. Fuck pancreatic cancer. Fuck premature death. And fuck great Americans dying early.
I'm no fan of the space program in real/governmental/societal terms. I don't think it's cost-effective, especially compared to other things we could be doing with our national resources, though I recognize that cost effectiveness may be hard to measure given the implications and benefits of space science for other research, and of course I'm a wet-pantied fanboy for science fiction. All that's not relevant in light of Ride's magnitude as an icon for my generation and those that followed (she was 9 years older than me--not so old at the time of her Challenger flight as to be unhip, and certainly not so old as to be disconnected from today's young scientists).
I also find Ride's death moving because it was premature, and it was caused by pancreatic cancer, which is one of the most terrifying and despicable of cancers, one that's affected me personally. Fuck pancreatic cancer. Fuck premature death. And fuck great Americans dying early.
Friday, July 13, 2012
The Festival & c.
Yeah, it's that day. Legitimate debate rages on whether you'd rather give up a birthday bang to me, Patrick Stewart (STFU, honey), or Han Solo, but of course that's your call, because even more of course, it's all about you.
On the state of the sentient computer:
Love to all the peeps.
On the state of the sentient computer:
Love to all the peeps.
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Of Course Their Opinion Is Intrinsically Every Bit As Valid As Yours
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| The Face of Communism |
Ha! Made you click, hope you feel dirty. But if you ignore my little joke on some few of you and take a look at the substance, you'll get to how some right-wingers think that citing "This Land Is Your Land" means Communism. I'm not joking, and if you think they are, you're dumber than I look.
Having sat in a rural Waffle House just yesterday, suffering through "God Bless the USA" as I et my delightfully greasy, exquisitely American brekkies, all I have to say about this is:
Fuck You, wingnuts. You're too fucking stupid to be allowed to have opinions; perhaps you should just love it or leave it. Really.
Fucktards.
But Happy Fourth, and remember kids: Fuck Jefferson, that slavefucking piece of shit.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
A Birthday Wish
Alan Turing was born 100 years ago today, and here's my birthday wish for him: I wish he hadn't been hounded quite literally to death by small-minded idiots. If you know anything about Alan Turing, congratulations; you're not a complete fucking waste of protoplasm. If you worship Alan Turing...uhm, hi Sasha.
Turing was a brilliant scientist, a pioneer in computer science (those who are into such labels call him computer science's daddy) and information theory. He was a critical figure in British cryptanalysis during World War II. He was so fucking brilliant, so creative, and so important to the war effort that cracking the famous Enigma code used by the Germans may have been the least of his major accomplishments during the war.
Turing was responsible for two key (and related) concepts in information theory and computer science: the Turing Test and the Turing Machine. Oversimplified, the Turing Test is an experiment in which an interrogator attempts to determine, using natural written language only, whether he is conversing with a human or a machine. The classic definition of artificial intelligence refers to a machine that can fool the interrogator. Also oversimplified, a Turing Machine is a formal description of what we would think of as a simple computer, except it's gussied up with a whole lot of math and modeling that Alan Turing could master and command, in his head, while simultaneously making his grocery list, taking a dump, and deducing the location of the Bismarck at 7:52 AM British War Time on February 18, 1941 based on an abstract imaginary mathematical representation of Admiral Lutjens' hair color, three grains of sand on Brighton Beach, and the position of a randomly chosen link on his bicycle chain.
Turing killed himself in 1954, some time after being chemically castrated by the British judicial system following his conviction for homosexual acts. There have been some attempts at forensic revisionism, suggesting that his death by cyanide poisoning was the result of a scientific experiment gone wrong. The man was found dead of cyanide poisoning with a half-eaten apple in his hand. Grow up, revanchists.
In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized for the state's treatment of Turing; two years later, the British Minister for Justice declined to pardon Turing, contending that Turing was a big faggot who deserved what he got.
Turing is a fascinating figure, a man of incredible allure for information science junkies, engineers, and the formerly great writer Neal Stephenson, back before Neal was tragically lost to humanity while spelunking in his own ass for epistemological complexity. Turing was an instructional fable to Princess Nell in the still-amazing The Diamond Age, teaching Nell how to program computers by using an increasingly complex series of...yes, Turing Machines. Duh. Turing was also an active character in Stephenson's less ageworthy but still very fine Cryptonomicon, a colleague and mentor to one of the most central characters, Lawrence Waterhouse. For all I know Turing was also in The Baroque Cycle, to the extent that that pile of vocabulary drenched in Neal's ass was decipherable as literature--I honestly don't remember because I'm pretty sure I was either asleep or being tortured on a waterboard while I was reading it. I didn't read Anathem, because I heard he invented a language to write it, as if Klingon isn't good enough, and I decided I'd rather be rimmed by beavers than read that. I have heard that it's possible that his latest, whatever the fuck it's called, is something we might actually consider a book.
Wait, was I discussing something? Right, Alan Turing. Sorry, my bad. The point, of course, is that you should take a moment from whatever you're thinking about today, or tomorrow, or whenever you read this, to thank whatever you fucking consider holy that you got a chance to walk the same fucking planet as Alan Mathison Turing. Because, seriously? You're not fucking worthy.
I'd have missed Turing's birthday, if not for Slate, which clued me to this Vimeo gem by some Dutch guy calling himself Ecalpemos:
LEGO Turing Machine from ecalpemos on Vimeo.
Turing was a brilliant scientist, a pioneer in computer science (those who are into such labels call him computer science's daddy) and information theory. He was a critical figure in British cryptanalysis during World War II. He was so fucking brilliant, so creative, and so important to the war effort that cracking the famous Enigma code used by the Germans may have been the least of his major accomplishments during the war.
Turing was responsible for two key (and related) concepts in information theory and computer science: the Turing Test and the Turing Machine. Oversimplified, the Turing Test is an experiment in which an interrogator attempts to determine, using natural written language only, whether he is conversing with a human or a machine. The classic definition of artificial intelligence refers to a machine that can fool the interrogator. Also oversimplified, a Turing Machine is a formal description of what we would think of as a simple computer, except it's gussied up with a whole lot of math and modeling that Alan Turing could master and command, in his head, while simultaneously making his grocery list, taking a dump, and deducing the location of the Bismarck at 7:52 AM British War Time on February 18, 1941 based on an abstract imaginary mathematical representation of Admiral Lutjens' hair color, three grains of sand on Brighton Beach, and the position of a randomly chosen link on his bicycle chain.
Turing killed himself in 1954, some time after being chemically castrated by the British judicial system following his conviction for homosexual acts. There have been some attempts at forensic revisionism, suggesting that his death by cyanide poisoning was the result of a scientific experiment gone wrong. The man was found dead of cyanide poisoning with a half-eaten apple in his hand. Grow up, revanchists.
In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized for the state's treatment of Turing; two years later, the British Minister for Justice declined to pardon Turing, contending that Turing was a big faggot who deserved what he got.
Turing is a fascinating figure, a man of incredible allure for information science junkies, engineers, and the formerly great writer Neal Stephenson, back before Neal was tragically lost to humanity while spelunking in his own ass for epistemological complexity. Turing was an instructional fable to Princess Nell in the still-amazing The Diamond Age, teaching Nell how to program computers by using an increasingly complex series of...yes, Turing Machines. Duh. Turing was also an active character in Stephenson's less ageworthy but still very fine Cryptonomicon, a colleague and mentor to one of the most central characters, Lawrence Waterhouse. For all I know Turing was also in The Baroque Cycle, to the extent that that pile of vocabulary drenched in Neal's ass was decipherable as literature--I honestly don't remember because I'm pretty sure I was either asleep or being tortured on a waterboard while I was reading it. I didn't read Anathem, because I heard he invented a language to write it, as if Klingon isn't good enough, and I decided I'd rather be rimmed by beavers than read that. I have heard that it's possible that his latest, whatever the fuck it's called, is something we might actually consider a book.
Wait, was I discussing something? Right, Alan Turing. Sorry, my bad. The point, of course, is that you should take a moment from whatever you're thinking about today, or tomorrow, or whenever you read this, to thank whatever you fucking consider holy that you got a chance to walk the same fucking planet as Alan Mathison Turing. Because, seriously? You're not fucking worthy.
I'd have missed Turing's birthday, if not for Slate, which clued me to this Vimeo gem by some Dutch guy calling himself Ecalpemos:
LEGO Turing Machine from ecalpemos on Vimeo.
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
High Holy Day
68th anniversary of D-Day? Or just William Wallace's birthday? Happy birthday, Bromance. He swears that the reason he's got my back is not that I've got a cute ass, and I tend to believe him; his cute ass is by no means the only reason I've got his.
It's a day so holy you have to go back to June 6, 2009 to find me saying anything substantive about it. But that's also because William Wallace has a cute ass.
Doody calls, though: BFF tells of last evening's DCU humbling by the aforementioned Chester club. Yeah, yeah. Another stupid one-goal loss in earlyish USOC going. This is like Harry Potter 6, you know what's coming. Sure, Benny's pissed, and it was a shabby effort. The club is neither as good as its record nor as bad as Beloved thinks it is on a bad night. It's been 10 days since they played, everyone's rusty, and they spent significant time at practice on penalty kicks--they fucking expected a close game of no particular repute. There's nothing to pore-bleed about here. It's just ordinary, annual self-fulfilling prophecy.
Which also describes the MNPPCC police presence. You can watch the (second) video in his linked post for the start of the story. Soon enough after the events of that video, Officer Weissmann, who steps into the picture at about 0:30 of the video, shows why she's not a county cop by trying to extinguish a burning flare with a half a bottle of Aquafina. That's a flare burning on aluminum bleachers. Non-flammable aluminum bleachers. You're a one-woman brain trust, Officer Weissmann (and I apologize if I've improperly spelled your last name).
Shortly thereafter, the po-po descended with a vengeance, with Officer Weissmann leading the charge in rifling through stray jackets laying on the bleachers. Officer Weissmann, who appears to be unaware of the Fourth Amendment and the concept of probable cause (which is unsurprising, given that she's a grim fascist twit who's probably been victimized by institutional misogyny in addition to her own feeble intellect), was soon rewarded with two (!) more unignited flares in some dumbass's jacket. Hilarity ensued. My phone takes crappy pics, but Planet got some good ones, because she's artsy and stuff.
The po-po dragged out the flag guy in the video, and some other dumbass. They stood the dangerous ruffians up along the perimeter fence and yammered at them for...well, until there were about four minutes left in extra time. Terrorist criminals punished by deprivation of the thing they paid to cheer. Justice done. Way to go, police state.
The scene was distracting, and the game mostly boring; during one of the many delays while some player or another lay upon the ground, nursing a thug-inflicted owie (the referee was incompetent and nowhere near in control of the game), I turned to the guy on the rail behind me and chatted quietly and calmly about the incompetence and jackbootedness of the MNPPCC cops, while looking in the direction of that clusterfuck. From 75 yards away, Officer Opie decided I was eyeballing him and calling him a fucktard (I was, by association, but not personally), and came over with a big shit-eating grin and his hand on his Sam Browne, asking if I was talking to him.
BFF is right that I was loud about the jackbootery, though it wasn't when Officer Opie decided I was nostrilling him, or what the fuckever. I do admit that I was shouting about the Fourth Amendment as Officer Weissmann and her little fascist companions drug out the supposed (but apparently not) criminals. Loudly. Repeatedly. They could not possibly not have heard me. I also took the trouble to toss my car keys to Ilse before I went over to about 40 feet away from the circle jerk of interrogationism to exercise my constitutional right to take some pictures of MNCPPC doing some undoubtedly fine police work.
So there you have it. Bloggy holiday, a birthday, one graf about a game, and five grafs about the stupid fucking MNCPPC po-po. Bout average for a USOC post, right?
It's a day so holy you have to go back to June 6, 2009 to find me saying anything substantive about it. But that's also because William Wallace has a cute ass.
Doody calls, though: BFF tells of last evening's DCU humbling by the aforementioned Chester club. Yeah, yeah. Another stupid one-goal loss in earlyish USOC going. This is like Harry Potter 6, you know what's coming. Sure, Benny's pissed, and it was a shabby effort. The club is neither as good as its record nor as bad as Beloved thinks it is on a bad night. It's been 10 days since they played, everyone's rusty, and they spent significant time at practice on penalty kicks--they fucking expected a close game of no particular repute. There's nothing to pore-bleed about here. It's just ordinary, annual self-fulfilling prophecy.
Which also describes the MNPPCC police presence. You can watch the (second) video in his linked post for the start of the story. Soon enough after the events of that video, Officer Weissmann, who steps into the picture at about 0:30 of the video, shows why she's not a county cop by trying to extinguish a burning flare with a half a bottle of Aquafina. That's a flare burning on aluminum bleachers. Non-flammable aluminum bleachers. You're a one-woman brain trust, Officer Weissmann (and I apologize if I've improperly spelled your last name).
Shortly thereafter, the po-po descended with a vengeance, with Officer Weissmann leading the charge in rifling through stray jackets laying on the bleachers. Officer Weissmann, who appears to be unaware of the Fourth Amendment and the concept of probable cause (which is unsurprising, given that she's a grim fascist twit who's probably been victimized by institutional misogyny in addition to her own feeble intellect), was soon rewarded with two (!) more unignited flares in some dumbass's jacket. Hilarity ensued. My phone takes crappy pics, but Planet got some good ones, because she's artsy and stuff.
The po-po dragged out the flag guy in the video, and some other dumbass. They stood the dangerous ruffians up along the perimeter fence and yammered at them for...well, until there were about four minutes left in extra time. Terrorist criminals punished by deprivation of the thing they paid to cheer. Justice done. Way to go, police state.
The scene was distracting, and the game mostly boring; during one of the many delays while some player or another lay upon the ground, nursing a thug-inflicted owie (the referee was incompetent and nowhere near in control of the game), I turned to the guy on the rail behind me and chatted quietly and calmly about the incompetence and jackbootedness of the MNPPCC cops, while looking in the direction of that clusterfuck. From 75 yards away, Officer Opie decided I was eyeballing him and calling him a fucktard (I was, by association, but not personally), and came over with a big shit-eating grin and his hand on his Sam Browne, asking if I was talking to him.
BFF is right that I was loud about the jackbootery, though it wasn't when Officer Opie decided I was nostrilling him, or what the fuckever. I do admit that I was shouting about the Fourth Amendment as Officer Weissmann and her little fascist companions drug out the supposed (but apparently not) criminals. Loudly. Repeatedly. They could not possibly not have heard me. I also took the trouble to toss my car keys to Ilse before I went over to about 40 feet away from the circle jerk of interrogationism to exercise my constitutional right to take some pictures of MNCPPC doing some undoubtedly fine police work.
So there you have it. Bloggy holiday, a birthday, one graf about a game, and five grafs about the stupid fucking MNCPPC po-po. Bout average for a USOC post, right?
Saturday, June 02, 2012
Fear the Bam
So I'm actually getting this year's birthday tribute to my younger kid up on the right day for a change. He's sitting at the kitchen table as I write this, devouring his usual breakfast of PopTarts and cereal, because both Ilse and I were too busy and too run down to get his favorite thing, which is small sugar-covered cake donuts. But that's okay, they gave the boy cupcakes yesterday afternoon at school, in lieu of a zoo trip beaten into cancellation by the merest whisper of a world about powerful thunderstorms. The sugar buzz was first rate.
That was a little bit of a disappointment, since we had spent some time on building that up. I was, you see, going to chaperone the lad on this trip, and since it involved the Metro, which he has experienced once, unsuccessfully, his teacher and I had laid on the preparation. She wrote a little picture story about him going to the zoo on the Metro with his school chums and his teacher and his Andy*, and read it to him twice a day, and for most of a week I read it to him each evening after dinner, and it became a little bit of routine, he'd actually go get the story off the kitchen counter and bring it to me to read to him, and we had to read it twice, and he still acted surprised and gratified when we got to the picture of his Andy, and...well, elaboration is unnecessary. The boy and I connect, is all. Sadly, we didn't get to connect at the zoo. Maybe today, we're still waking up. No effing Metro, though.
So you've seen a lot of it before, like for instance here, so no need. No change: I used to just exist, now I have to, end of story.
Happy 12th birthday, Bam-Bam. Rock on, rock on, rock on. You're my favorite, don't tell Databoy.
* Yeah, woot. You know my first name. WTFever.
That was a little bit of a disappointment, since we had spent some time on building that up. I was, you see, going to chaperone the lad on this trip, and since it involved the Metro, which he has experienced once, unsuccessfully, his teacher and I had laid on the preparation. She wrote a little picture story about him going to the zoo on the Metro with his school chums and his teacher and his Andy*, and read it to him twice a day, and for most of a week I read it to him each evening after dinner, and it became a little bit of routine, he'd actually go get the story off the kitchen counter and bring it to me to read to him, and we had to read it twice, and he still acted surprised and gratified when we got to the picture of his Andy, and...well, elaboration is unnecessary. The boy and I connect, is all. Sadly, we didn't get to connect at the zoo. Maybe today, we're still waking up. No effing Metro, though.
So you've seen a lot of it before, like for instance here, so no need. No change: I used to just exist, now I have to, end of story.
Happy 12th birthday, Bam-Bam. Rock on, rock on, rock on. You're my favorite, don't tell Databoy.
* Yeah, woot. You know my first name. WTFever.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Some of the Ways in Which Chester, Pennsylvania Is A Giant Shithole
We set out to have a nice weekend, and I suppose that, overall, we did, thanks in part to the wonderful city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is not, as some might suppose, a giant shithole. We had some very nice food, and some very accommodating folk in a pub near our hotel were kind enough to dedicate a television to the USMNT friendly against Scotland (friend Goth: "...I kept finding Waldo."). Actually, the parenthetical deserves emphasis. Here you go:
The numbers don't contrast well enough with the background to be seen, either live or on television, in addition to the disturbingly French Navy lilt to the shirt's overall...idiom. And yes, the women wear exactly the same shirt.
Which brings us to the city of Chester, Pennsylvania. Once upon a time, some Phunions fans serenaded us as we entered the Soccerplex, which is in every sense the home field of the Landru family, singing "Baltimore United." They shut the fuck up a whole lot when I yelled, "You live in Chester." They mostly shut the fuck up because they were laughing their asses off, having no other reasonable response. Because Chester is, in every single respect, a giant festering shithole.
We went to Chester earlier this evening because the U.S. Womens were playing the Chicoms at Phunions Park. And it was a lovely game, just lovely. The Womens gave up a goal pretty early, like in the 18th minute or so, and it was a pretty dumb fucking goal to give up, and it was pretty much all Amy LePeilbet's fault, except it wasn't, because Pia Sundhage, who I have previously admitted makes a shitload of money as a U.S. national team coach, while I don't, was playing LePeilbet at right back, which makes no fucking sense whatsoever, because LePeilbet is a fucking center back who suffered through an entire World Cup last year at left back, but is now apparently our best option at right back, which I find really fucking hard to believe. But like I said, Pia makes a shitload of money to know better than me, and frankly, the woman got the team to a fucking World Cup final, so I should probably just shut the fuck up a whole lot about that, except I can't, because that makes the stupid goal Amy LePeilbet's fault for getting turned inside out, and I don't find that to be a satisfactory conclusion, so I'm not getting to epistemic closure on this shit anytime soon.
After that, it was all cake and Alex Morgan, though Abby Wambach was inexplicably named WotM for a 1-goal performance, even though Morgan (best sign in the crowd: "Alex Morgan Used To Like Me") had two goals and an assist. The Chicoms are a speedy lot, and pretty well-drilled, though not so much as the hated North Koreans, but they're just plain fucking tiny, and well-fed, longshanked American womanhood just pretty much beat the little Commies down into the hole they deserved to be in.
And that's the last nice thing I have to say about the game. Phunions Park is a fucking shitmoat. It's on the Delaware River, right underneath the Commodore Barry Bridge, in Chester, Pennsylvania. It's a badly designed firetrap, with poorly placed concessions, ridiculously arranged seating sections and concourses, a fucking totalitarian staff, and scandalously inadequate parking and traffic access. And oh yeah, it's located in Chester, Pennsylvania. One phylum of the animal kingdom finds the location out-fucking-standing, and that's insects, because the place is built in a fucking swamp on the shores of the Delaware River. Everything else living? Not so much, because it's also built in a heavily industrial section of Chester, which description doesn't really do much to distinguish its level of shittiness from the shittiness that is the non-industrial sections of Chester, one of America's least appealling cities to begin with.
Which is, as I may have mentioned, a giant shithole. It literally smells like fucking Calcutta. There is nothing charming or useful about the city. There is an abundance of nothing around the park, except for a giant Pennsylvania Power and Light facility (appropos of which the stadium is officially named PP&L Park, which is okay, sort of, because my family has a long history of involvement with PP&L, including painting its electrical towers and making some money, back in the day, off of its stock--thanks, Grandpa) and some really foul-smelling industrial stuff. And a whole lot of urban blight.
We should've clued early; as we came down off of the highway, many less-than-scrupulous persons tried to flag us into unofficial "approved" parking areas formed from abandoned lots marked by ramshackle abandoned buildings. We were a little squeamish about that, because we had luggage in the car from our trip, so we made for the official lots. They refused to let us into the one closest to the Park, even though it was clearly marked as a cash lot, and they were collecting cash. They sent us another half mile down the road to a lot surrounding the aforementioned PP&L facility.
Let me describe the geography. The Park sits on a more-or-less east-west road that runs by the river. There are two north-south streets that lead up to a single east-west road (PA 291) that feeds back into the highway that leads to New Jersey or I-95. We got sent well to the west of the park. Fine. Whatever.
Here's where we get to the part about the fucking ineptitude of the PP&L Park staff, and most especially the inexcusable incompetence of the fat, stupid, mongoloid, hydroencephalic retards who populate the Police Department of the City of Chester, Pennsylvania. When we exited the far lot, we got sent west, to the westernmost access to the north-south street that leads up a few blocks to PA 291. We had to go east on PA 291 to get back to the highway. We spent 55 minutes tracking back to the highway access.
Why, you ask? Because the fucking dumb shits who constitute the Chester PD were blocking one lane of two-lane PA 291 to let out all of the traffic from the easternmost stadium lots, leading to a 55-minute backup for anyone forced to go the way that the PP&L Park staff and the Chester PD told them to go.
I suggest doing crimes in Chester, Pennsylvania, because the fucking Chester PD is too fucking stupid to solve the mystery of how traffic works.
In conclusion, I have a number of people to insult:
Fuck you, Mayor John Linder of Chester, Pennsylvania, you fucking inept, lying hack. Mayor Linder, on the city's Web site: "Chester is a regional transportation hub with direct access to major roadways..."
Not when your retarded Yankeecracker police force blocks that access, you dumb shit. Fuck you.
Fuck you, Police Commissioner John Bail, of the Chester Pennsylvania Police Department, you fucking inept, lying hack. Commissioner Bail, on the city's Web site: "We are members of an elite and highly trained profession: law enforcement."
Yeah. You're the least elite and most untrained members of the profession, but yeah, sure, technically you're members of that profession. Let me make this clear for you, Commissioner Bail: Your officers are fat, stupid, inattentive, and poorly trained at traffic management, a pretty basic police function in an urban environment. They couldn't stick their fingers up their fat asses and pull them away smelling of shit. I got a clue as to how fucking clueless you are when I found, on your Web page on the city's site, numerous mentions of places you've travelled in becoming an anti-terrorism expert, many of which, like Mumbai, India, have absolutely no traffic control whatsoever.
But wait, there's more, you fat hack: it's great that you're actually a fucking legacy commissioner, you're fucking Flounder. And you've chosen to build your career, in fucking Chester, Pennsylvania, on antiterrorism expertise? What a fucking maroon. Terrorists aren't going to touch Chester; it's already fucking wasted.
Fuck You, Chester, Pennsylvania, and Fuck You, PP&L Park. It'll be fucking cold day in Hell when I spend money in your city, or your stadium, ever again.
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| It almost looks better on the women. Almost. |
Which brings us to the city of Chester, Pennsylvania. Once upon a time, some Phunions fans serenaded us as we entered the Soccerplex, which is in every sense the home field of the Landru family, singing "Baltimore United." They shut the fuck up a whole lot when I yelled, "You live in Chester." They mostly shut the fuck up because they were laughing their asses off, having no other reasonable response. Because Chester is, in every single respect, a giant festering shithole.
We went to Chester earlier this evening because the U.S. Womens were playing the Chicoms at Phunions Park. And it was a lovely game, just lovely. The Womens gave up a goal pretty early, like in the 18th minute or so, and it was a pretty dumb fucking goal to give up, and it was pretty much all Amy LePeilbet's fault, except it wasn't, because Pia Sundhage, who I have previously admitted makes a shitload of money as a U.S. national team coach, while I don't, was playing LePeilbet at right back, which makes no fucking sense whatsoever, because LePeilbet is a fucking center back who suffered through an entire World Cup last year at left back, but is now apparently our best option at right back, which I find really fucking hard to believe. But like I said, Pia makes a shitload of money to know better than me, and frankly, the woman got the team to a fucking World Cup final, so I should probably just shut the fuck up a whole lot about that, except I can't, because that makes the stupid goal Amy LePeilbet's fault for getting turned inside out, and I don't find that to be a satisfactory conclusion, so I'm not getting to epistemic closure on this shit anytime soon.
After that, it was all cake and Alex Morgan, though Abby Wambach was inexplicably named WotM for a 1-goal performance, even though Morgan (best sign in the crowd: "Alex Morgan Used To Like Me") had two goals and an assist. The Chicoms are a speedy lot, and pretty well-drilled, though not so much as the hated North Koreans, but they're just plain fucking tiny, and well-fed, longshanked American womanhood just pretty much beat the little Commies down into the hole they deserved to be in.
And that's the last nice thing I have to say about the game. Phunions Park is a fucking shitmoat. It's on the Delaware River, right underneath the Commodore Barry Bridge, in Chester, Pennsylvania. It's a badly designed firetrap, with poorly placed concessions, ridiculously arranged seating sections and concourses, a fucking totalitarian staff, and scandalously inadequate parking and traffic access. And oh yeah, it's located in Chester, Pennsylvania. One phylum of the animal kingdom finds the location out-fucking-standing, and that's insects, because the place is built in a fucking swamp on the shores of the Delaware River. Everything else living? Not so much, because it's also built in a heavily industrial section of Chester, which description doesn't really do much to distinguish its level of shittiness from the shittiness that is the non-industrial sections of Chester, one of America's least appealling cities to begin with.
Which is, as I may have mentioned, a giant shithole. It literally smells like fucking Calcutta. There is nothing charming or useful about the city. There is an abundance of nothing around the park, except for a giant Pennsylvania Power and Light facility (appropos of which the stadium is officially named PP&L Park, which is okay, sort of, because my family has a long history of involvement with PP&L, including painting its electrical towers and making some money, back in the day, off of its stock--thanks, Grandpa) and some really foul-smelling industrial stuff. And a whole lot of urban blight.
We should've clued early; as we came down off of the highway, many less-than-scrupulous persons tried to flag us into unofficial "approved" parking areas formed from abandoned lots marked by ramshackle abandoned buildings. We were a little squeamish about that, because we had luggage in the car from our trip, so we made for the official lots. They refused to let us into the one closest to the Park, even though it was clearly marked as a cash lot, and they were collecting cash. They sent us another half mile down the road to a lot surrounding the aforementioned PP&L facility.
Let me describe the geography. The Park sits on a more-or-less east-west road that runs by the river. There are two north-south streets that lead up to a single east-west road (PA 291) that feeds back into the highway that leads to New Jersey or I-95. We got sent well to the west of the park. Fine. Whatever.
Here's where we get to the part about the fucking ineptitude of the PP&L Park staff, and most especially the inexcusable incompetence of the fat, stupid, mongoloid, hydroencephalic retards who populate the Police Department of the City of Chester, Pennsylvania. When we exited the far lot, we got sent west, to the westernmost access to the north-south street that leads up a few blocks to PA 291. We had to go east on PA 291 to get back to the highway. We spent 55 minutes tracking back to the highway access.
Why, you ask? Because the fucking dumb shits who constitute the Chester PD were blocking one lane of two-lane PA 291 to let out all of the traffic from the easternmost stadium lots, leading to a 55-minute backup for anyone forced to go the way that the PP&L Park staff and the Chester PD told them to go.
I suggest doing crimes in Chester, Pennsylvania, because the fucking Chester PD is too fucking stupid to solve the mystery of how traffic works.
In conclusion, I have a number of people to insult:
Fuck you, Mayor John Linder of Chester, Pennsylvania, you fucking inept, lying hack. Mayor Linder, on the city's Web site: "Chester is a regional transportation hub with direct access to major roadways..."
Not when your retarded Yankeecracker police force blocks that access, you dumb shit. Fuck you.
Fuck you, Police Commissioner John Bail, of the Chester Pennsylvania Police Department, you fucking inept, lying hack. Commissioner Bail, on the city's Web site: "We are members of an elite and highly trained profession: law enforcement."
Yeah. You're the least elite and most untrained members of the profession, but yeah, sure, technically you're members of that profession. Let me make this clear for you, Commissioner Bail: Your officers are fat, stupid, inattentive, and poorly trained at traffic management, a pretty basic police function in an urban environment. They couldn't stick their fingers up their fat asses and pull them away smelling of shit. I got a clue as to how fucking clueless you are when I found, on your Web page on the city's site, numerous mentions of places you've travelled in becoming an anti-terrorism expert, many of which, like Mumbai, India, have absolutely no traffic control whatsoever.
But wait, there's more, you fat hack: it's great that you're actually a fucking legacy commissioner, you're fucking Flounder. And you've chosen to build your career, in fucking Chester, Pennsylvania, on antiterrorism expertise? What a fucking maroon. Terrorists aren't going to touch Chester; it's already fucking wasted.
Fuck You, Chester, Pennsylvania, and Fuck You, PP&L Park. It'll be fucking cold day in Hell when I spend money in your city, or your stadium, ever again.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
How I Confused My Literate Blogfriend. Or Not.
I have some. Literate blogfriends, I mean. Jim is way the fuck smarter than me, at least in his oeuvre and some nontrivial number of others, so I mostly just look at his pictures and skim over the stuff with the alphabets because it just gives me sads.
I discovered this thing today called the Flesch-Kinkaid Readability Index. It's pretty cool and utterly fucking meaningless. It calculates, in theory, the grade level at which you write, and the ease of readability of a given passage of text. I found it in some story about how congresscritters speak, on average, at a 10th-grade level, which was meant to be an insult. I shoved some work-related writing samples into this online calculator thing and discovered that I write at a 12th-grade level with a readability index of 41 (the lower the index, the more dense and incomprehensible the writing). A sample of recent Minions posts yielded scores of 10/50 (the Moog post), 12/47 (the hockey coaching post), 12/45 (the Mothers Day rant) and, stunningly, 10/54 (the Bam-Bam post, which earned me a cookie from Jim, and thanks for that, Jim). Jim's most recent prose post (other recent work has consisted of pictures and quotations), about Mittens' gay-hatin' garnered a 14/32. This makes Jim measurably smarter than me, so STFU, QED.
Yeah, it's a toy, and a pretty stupid one, at that. A Slate article I read about it called it "reductionist," and that's pretty spot on. Actually, I think it was a Weigel piece, so it probably couldn't decide whether it scored an infinity/infinity or a 6/smartass. But I had fun reductionizing myself.
So anyway, I lit into Himself, lovingly and a little bit, because the day had reached the point where I was no longer fit to do the things people pay me to do, and the peasants would've thought ill of me if I'd had the sedan chair brought around as early as 4:45. A little cruise led me to a brief mention of DCU midfielder Branko Boskovic, beloved by Himself because he's from one of those Balkan places, and Himself is also a 'Vic/'Vich, great-grandma from Buda and great-grandpa from Pest, or some such trifle, and he's all prejumidiced and suchlike. He claimed it's because he likes tens.
And I ranted, in the comments therein, about Tennism. You can poke over there for the rant, if you care, or not. Jim did, and I'm suspecting he regrets it, which is a shame because he's never done anything bad to me.
A ten is an center attacking midfielder, a playmaker who can also score. We're talking about footy here, by the way. Famous tens include Johan Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane, and others I'm too lazy to remember, but knock yourselves out in the comments. Less famous tens--who are pretty significant here because they significantly contributed to BFF's and my conversion to Tennism (by playing for DC United), would be Marco Etcheverry and Christian Gomez (first tour of duty, pre-obesity). Less famous tens who made us wish for Marco Etcheverry and Christian Gomez, mostly because they weren't tens or were sucky or washed-up tens, would be Marcello Gallardo, the Ginger Fucking Midget (who may well have been shorter than Gallardo, who was nicknamed El Muneco--The Doll), Freddy Adu, Matias Donnet, Rod Dyachenko, Justin Mapp, Justin Moose, Santino Quaranta, Jamil Walker, Rodney Wallace, and Christian Gomez II (The Fattening). Some of those guys had value as footy players, but they all sure sucked balls as center attacking midfielders.
We really, really want Branko to be a ten. That's because he could be, although he prefers to play out left, because his right foot sucks every bit as much as the noodle dangling from the end of the late and lamented Marc Burch's right leg. And even though he's slower than Databoy trying to eat asparagus, and not a whole lot more enthusiastic about the team's preferred pace (to Branko's credit, he's shown more energy in the last two games, which he has started). It's also because we really like Dwayne DeRosario, who is probably more of a natural ten, and Hamdi Salihi, who is also probably something of a natural ten, up top.
Of course, in BFF's case, he also wants Branko to be a ten because of the fucking Balkan connection. But that's neither here nor there.
By the way, the other half of his ancestry is German, so he's not all bad. And he can't help that wrong side of Pennsylvania thing, so it's unfair to mock him for it, even though it is pretty tragifunny.
A point, a point, there was a point...right, how I confused Jim. I didn't. That was a lie. He pretended to be confused, and placed his cultural origins in...uhm...well, exactly the same generational spot as me and BFF, which really isn't very surprising at all, now, is it?
But the whole thing left me troubled and vaguely confused, and not because of Jim, because of the demons in my own shadows. Leaving only one place to turn:
Fucking rubes. You fall for the bunny trick every fucking time.
I discovered this thing today called the Flesch-Kinkaid Readability Index. It's pretty cool and utterly fucking meaningless. It calculates, in theory, the grade level at which you write, and the ease of readability of a given passage of text. I found it in some story about how congresscritters speak, on average, at a 10th-grade level, which was meant to be an insult. I shoved some work-related writing samples into this online calculator thing and discovered that I write at a 12th-grade level with a readability index of 41 (the lower the index, the more dense and incomprehensible the writing). A sample of recent Minions posts yielded scores of 10/50 (the Moog post), 12/47 (the hockey coaching post), 12/45 (the Mothers Day rant) and, stunningly, 10/54 (the Bam-Bam post, which earned me a cookie from Jim, and thanks for that, Jim). Jim's most recent prose post (other recent work has consisted of pictures and quotations), about Mittens' gay-hatin' garnered a 14/32. This makes Jim measurably smarter than me, so STFU, QED.
Yeah, it's a toy, and a pretty stupid one, at that. A Slate article I read about it called it "reductionist," and that's pretty spot on. Actually, I think it was a Weigel piece, so it probably couldn't decide whether it scored an infinity/infinity or a 6/smartass. But I had fun reductionizing myself.
So anyway, I lit into Himself, lovingly and a little bit, because the day had reached the point where I was no longer fit to do the things people pay me to do, and the peasants would've thought ill of me if I'd had the sedan chair brought around as early as 4:45. A little cruise led me to a brief mention of DCU midfielder Branko Boskovic, beloved by Himself because he's from one of those Balkan places, and Himself is also a 'Vic/'Vich, great-grandma from Buda and great-grandpa from Pest, or some such trifle, and he's all prejumidiced and suchlike. He claimed it's because he likes tens.
And I ranted, in the comments therein, about Tennism. You can poke over there for the rant, if you care, or not. Jim did, and I'm suspecting he regrets it, which is a shame because he's never done anything bad to me.
A ten is an center attacking midfielder, a playmaker who can also score. We're talking about footy here, by the way. Famous tens include Johan Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane, and others I'm too lazy to remember, but knock yourselves out in the comments. Less famous tens--who are pretty significant here because they significantly contributed to BFF's and my conversion to Tennism (by playing for DC United), would be Marco Etcheverry and Christian Gomez (first tour of duty, pre-obesity). Less famous tens who made us wish for Marco Etcheverry and Christian Gomez, mostly because they weren't tens or were sucky or washed-up tens, would be Marcello Gallardo, the Ginger Fucking Midget (who may well have been shorter than Gallardo, who was nicknamed El Muneco--The Doll), Freddy Adu, Matias Donnet, Rod Dyachenko, Justin Mapp, Justin Moose, Santino Quaranta, Jamil Walker, Rodney Wallace, and Christian Gomez II (The Fattening). Some of those guys had value as footy players, but they all sure sucked balls as center attacking midfielders.
We really, really want Branko to be a ten. That's because he could be, although he prefers to play out left, because his right foot sucks every bit as much as the noodle dangling from the end of the late and lamented Marc Burch's right leg. And even though he's slower than Databoy trying to eat asparagus, and not a whole lot more enthusiastic about the team's preferred pace (to Branko's credit, he's shown more energy in the last two games, which he has started). It's also because we really like Dwayne DeRosario, who is probably more of a natural ten, and Hamdi Salihi, who is also probably something of a natural ten, up top.
Of course, in BFF's case, he also wants Branko to be a ten because of the fucking Balkan connection. But that's neither here nor there.
By the way, the other half of his ancestry is German, so he's not all bad. And he can't help that wrong side of Pennsylvania thing, so it's unfair to mock him for it, even though it is pretty tragifunny.
A point, a point, there was a point...right, how I confused Jim. I didn't. That was a lie. He pretended to be confused, and placed his cultural origins in...uhm...well, exactly the same generational spot as me and BFF, which really isn't very surprising at all, now, is it?
But the whole thing left me troubled and vaguely confused, and not because of Jim, because of the demons in my own shadows. Leaving only one place to turn:
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| These bunnies stripped Mary Ann and left her in the creek. |
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| This bunny is enjoying itself just a little too much. |
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| You can't fool me. This bunny is a motherfucking space alien. |
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| These bunnies are creeping me the fuck out, but I'm guessing Sasha digs them. |
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| Okay, I was wrong. These bunnies are creeping me the fuck out. |
The Dyspeptic Whale
Today's Google doodle is fucking awesome; the late Robert Moog was born 78 years ago today, and some enterprising Googlenaut came up with a doodle of a working Moog synthesizer.
Without Bob Moog, we couldn't have danced away the 80s. Thanks, Bob.
Along about 1974 or so, we premiered a Moog synthesizer at a band concert (Himself may recall the grade we were in and the name of the guy who was enamored of the thing, but I don't; it was somewhere in junior high, the guy was also a Robert, and he demonstrated the thing using some hideous composition of his own...well, composition). Now, junior high band concerts are awful enough without some 9th-grader noodling around on a synthesizer made, as all things were back then, in black and white from rocks and mud. John the Daftist put it best, post-concert: "That thing sounds like a dyspeptic fucking whale."
At that moment, I agreed. I evolved, John the Daftist didn't (hence Ilse's comment after four days with John and Lucretia some years ago: "Oh my fucking God, please make the fiddles stop.").
Dance, bitchez.
Without Bob Moog, we couldn't have danced away the 80s. Thanks, Bob.
Along about 1974 or so, we premiered a Moog synthesizer at a band concert (Himself may recall the grade we were in and the name of the guy who was enamored of the thing, but I don't; it was somewhere in junior high, the guy was also a Robert, and he demonstrated the thing using some hideous composition of his own...well, composition). Now, junior high band concerts are awful enough without some 9th-grader noodling around on a synthesizer made, as all things were back then, in black and white from rocks and mud. John the Daftist put it best, post-concert: "That thing sounds like a dyspeptic fucking whale."
At that moment, I agreed. I evolved, John the Daftist didn't (hence Ilse's comment after four days with John and Lucretia some years ago: "Oh my fucking God, please make the fiddles stop.").
Dance, bitchez.
Monday, May 14, 2012
A Coach I Didn't Hate
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| Maybe he can regrow the 'stache now that he doesn't have to be all coachy and shit. |
Which leads us to 11:45 AM today. I rejoiced the day Dale Hunter was appointed coach of the Washington Capitals, and I have rejoiced even more every single day since about April 2. Dale Hunter, a Caps hero whose number sits in the fucking rafters for reasons best evidenced by the videos accompanying the linked post, turned around a team that hated itself (and with good reason). Dale Hunter took a team that would've never made the playoffs with the fat man at the helm, and made it earn the seventh seed in the playoffs. Dale Hunter was at the helm, in fact, for all of the things I cited here yesterday.
Today was breakdown day for the 2011-2012 Caps, and Dale Hunter chose to go home to his family and his other business interests. There are people who fault him. They're dicks. There are people who fault George McPhee (a consummate hockey management guy), the general manager who hired him knowing that it might be temporary. They're dicks. There are still people who are whinging about their ungrateful point of view that the season was somehow a failure. They're ignorant fucking dicks who should go pay attention to something else.
Dale Hunter salvaged something for the Caps' season; of course, it was the players who salvaged the season, but Hunter's system, Hunter's passion, Hunter's drive, Hunter's will pushed them into salvaging what smelled like an actual failure. It's like I said yesterday; if, by now, nearly 48 hours after game 7, you feel anything other than gratitude toward anyone on the Capitals, you're a fucking piece of shit and you should, seriously, shut the fucking fuck up and go be a fan of something or someone else.
It's breakdown day. There are Capitals I want gone. Dale Hunter was not among them, but like any sane person, I respect his choice and remain grateful that he did us the favor of six months of coaching. Thanks, Dale.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
In Which I Am Struck By The Incredible Meanness Of Humans
So the Caps lost to the Rangers last night in game 7 of the second round of the playoffs, and there's a lot of whinging out there, a lot of namecalling, a lot of superiority from people who've never donned ice skates, who've never even paid money to see this team play. Let's review some facts.
The Washington Capitals were the seventh seed in the East Conference bracket. They beat the two seed in seven games, and they took the one seed to seven games. 13 of the 14 games they played were one-goal games.
The Caps were missing a star defenseman, Mike Green, for a third of the season, and their best all-around player, Nick Backstrom, for over half of the season. Backstrom and Green represent something like 20 percent of the Caps' salary structure (together, they are like 8 or 9 percent of the Caps' team). Webtards who ignore these key facts should die, painfully.
The Caps fired their coach in mid-season and hired as coach a retired player who had enjoyed success in one of Canada's minor leagues. He implemented a new and defensive approach to the game that recovered the season and was, more than any other factor, responsible for the Caps' playoff run.
The Caps did not guarantee themselves a playoff place until the penultimate game of the season.
The Caps spent a lot of money on a well-regarded goaltender in the offseason. We haven't seen him in uniform since sometime in March, when he was skating off the ice after one period, having reinjured his aging and ridiculously overpriced vagina.
The Caps' young goaltender (whose vagina is a much better value), who was going to be the man after the team traded another young goaltender last season, was also hurt for much of March and part of the playoffs.
The Caps went through their last four or five regular-season games, and 14 games of the playoffs, with a rookie goaltender, Braden Holtby, who had fewer than 10 games of previous NHL experience. As I said, 13 of the 14 games were one-goal games. He bested a probable Hall-of-Fame goaltender (Tim Thomas will absolutely make the Hall of Fame of Famous Tea Party Fuckwits, and is probably an even-money chance for the hockey HoF), and nearly bested a goaltender who is a finalist for (and should win) the Vezina Trophy (season's best goalie). Holtby's play was brilliant. He gave up two late goals in what was essentially the keystone game (game 5) when the Caps took a double-minor penalty with under two minutes left in the game. I read one comment suggesting that the entire series loss was Holtby's fault. The person who wrote it should die, painfully.
By the way, Braden Holtby's fiancee gave birth to their first child on Thursday, two days before game 7.
The player who committed the double minor is a forward named Joel Ward. He is black, which is of course a little unusual in hockey. The penalty was unintentional, accidental, but still a legitimate double-minor penalty. Ward scored the game-winning goal in game 7 of the opening series against the Bruins. Certain elements of the Boston fan base flooded social media with racial abuse after that win; some, according to news stories, suffered pretty severe personal consequences as a result. Some Webtards are now blaming the series loss on Joel Ward. Those commenters should die, painfully.
It goes on. If you think the Caps choked, you're really too fucking mean and stupid to live. If you have anything to say to this team (as a whole, and to the 26 guys who played in at least one playoff game) other than "Thank You," just shut the fuck up, then die. Painfully. Preferably on teevee so I can watch and tell you what a lousy job you're doing of it.
And to any Cap who might trip over this: Thanks. Please come back, although if you're Mike Knuble or Roman Hamrlik, I respectfully request that you consider retirement (but thanks for all the fish, Mr. Knuble, you worked out pretty damn well for a former Flyer, and nicely recovered, Mr. Hamrlik); and if you're Dennis Wideman, I don't like you very much and I think you turn the puck over way too fucking much for someone who makes money to play hockey, but thank you very kindly anyway, and congrats on your All-Star selection. Oh yeah, and if you're Tomas Vokoun, please stop reading now. Gone yet? Good. Go steal someone else's money. I'd say fuck you, but since your fitness issues and outright theft of a nontrivial portion of our salary cap allowed us to experience the glory that is Braden Holtby, the best part of politeness and valor demands that I thank you as well.
Let's Go Caps.
The Washington Capitals were the seventh seed in the East Conference bracket. They beat the two seed in seven games, and they took the one seed to seven games. 13 of the 14 games they played were one-goal games.
The Caps were missing a star defenseman, Mike Green, for a third of the season, and their best all-around player, Nick Backstrom, for over half of the season. Backstrom and Green represent something like 20 percent of the Caps' salary structure (together, they are like 8 or 9 percent of the Caps' team). Webtards who ignore these key facts should die, painfully.
The Caps fired their coach in mid-season and hired as coach a retired player who had enjoyed success in one of Canada's minor leagues. He implemented a new and defensive approach to the game that recovered the season and was, more than any other factor, responsible for the Caps' playoff run.
The Caps did not guarantee themselves a playoff place until the penultimate game of the season.
The Caps spent a lot of money on a well-regarded goaltender in the offseason. We haven't seen him in uniform since sometime in March, when he was skating off the ice after one period, having reinjured his aging and ridiculously overpriced vagina.
The Caps' young goaltender (whose vagina is a much better value), who was going to be the man after the team traded another young goaltender last season, was also hurt for much of March and part of the playoffs.
The Caps went through their last four or five regular-season games, and 14 games of the playoffs, with a rookie goaltender, Braden Holtby, who had fewer than 10 games of previous NHL experience. As I said, 13 of the 14 games were one-goal games. He bested a probable Hall-of-Fame goaltender (Tim Thomas will absolutely make the Hall of Fame of Famous Tea Party Fuckwits, and is probably an even-money chance for the hockey HoF), and nearly bested a goaltender who is a finalist for (and should win) the Vezina Trophy (season's best goalie). Holtby's play was brilliant. He gave up two late goals in what was essentially the keystone game (game 5) when the Caps took a double-minor penalty with under two minutes left in the game. I read one comment suggesting that the entire series loss was Holtby's fault. The person who wrote it should die, painfully.
By the way, Braden Holtby's fiancee gave birth to their first child on Thursday, two days before game 7.
The player who committed the double minor is a forward named Joel Ward. He is black, which is of course a little unusual in hockey. The penalty was unintentional, accidental, but still a legitimate double-minor penalty. Ward scored the game-winning goal in game 7 of the opening series against the Bruins. Certain elements of the Boston fan base flooded social media with racial abuse after that win; some, according to news stories, suffered pretty severe personal consequences as a result. Some Webtards are now blaming the series loss on Joel Ward. Those commenters should die, painfully.
It goes on. If you think the Caps choked, you're really too fucking mean and stupid to live. If you have anything to say to this team (as a whole, and to the 26 guys who played in at least one playoff game) other than "Thank You," just shut the fuck up, then die. Painfully. Preferably on teevee so I can watch and tell you what a lousy job you're doing of it.
And to any Cap who might trip over this: Thanks. Please come back, although if you're Mike Knuble or Roman Hamrlik, I respectfully request that you consider retirement (but thanks for all the fish, Mr. Knuble, you worked out pretty damn well for a former Flyer, and nicely recovered, Mr. Hamrlik); and if you're Dennis Wideman, I don't like you very much and I think you turn the puck over way too fucking much for someone who makes money to play hockey, but thank you very kindly anyway, and congrats on your All-Star selection. Oh yeah, and if you're Tomas Vokoun, please stop reading now. Gone yet? Good. Go steal someone else's money. I'd say fuck you, but since your fitness issues and outright theft of a nontrivial portion of our salary cap allowed us to experience the glory that is Braden Holtby, the best part of politeness and valor demands that I thank you as well.
Let's Go Caps.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Happy Mothers Day, or, No Will for Outrage
There are two things really severely annoying me now, and I really only have the time to acknowledge them because not farting about this will rankle all weekend when I should be helping Data and Bam honor their mother, and of course honoring my own sainted mother, the She-Nurse of the SS.
Now, it's no secret that those scheming and selfish gay folk have monopolized the news this week, what with setting themselves up to be bashed in North Carolina (sadly enough, the home of the She-Nurse, though of course she did the right thing, because if she didn't I'd hate her too much to show my love with that nom d'blog), and then deviously gangfucking Barack Obama in his tight preznitential ass with their big gay dicks until he submitted and put on leather chaps and admitted he's been lying for years about loving the ghey and that Sasha and Malia were only procreationalized because Bill Ayers milked him into a bottle and sold the precious jism to Michelle for her nefarious use.
Damn them. And damn him for loving them. Y'know who almost always says it pretty well? Dahlia, that's who. So yeah, what she said, plus, special to everyone who wants to pretend that BarryO publicly stating, as Preznit of the Motherfucking United States, that he supports gay marriage, isn't good enough, because W: just fuck off. I mean, seriously. No one is saying that his support for gay marriage wipes out his warmongering, so quit fucking shitting up the Internets with that fucking strawman, and the other one about how "I support gay marriage," which is what he unequivocally said, badly mangled though it emerged from the newly christened preznitential cocksucker, somehow isn't good enough and he should personally assfuck every state legislature and cracker until they submit to ghey onions.
Furthermore, I'm fucking sick of you. Yes, war is bad. Killing people is bad. Fucking with the Constitution is bad. Therefore, shit on him at every fucking opportunity, keep fucking pretending about the black Corporate helicopters, keep pretending there's no difference whatsoever that's good enough. Keep up the fucking playground taunting of anyone who doesn't accept your absolute stance, who rejects that compassionate Mittens, the gay preppie's worst delayed-time-bomb nightmare, would be demonstrably worse, because there's some alternative that prevents all death and inequity.
Fucking sophist bullshit, objectively no fucking better or more intellectually sophisticated than...
Jonah Goldberg. No, I'm not fucking kidding. But just typing that name illifies me, so let's let Susan do the heavy lifting, and really, she does that lifting very well. I'm leaving all the thinking to her, thanks. Okay, not all, because Alex Pareene did a pretty awesome job, too.
Yeah, okay, I guess I lied. Three things. And I suppose I do have the will for outrage. My bad.
Oh, and fuck Blogger.
Now, it's no secret that those scheming and selfish gay folk have monopolized the news this week, what with setting themselves up to be bashed in North Carolina (sadly enough, the home of the She-Nurse, though of course she did the right thing, because if she didn't I'd hate her too much to show my love with that nom d'blog), and then deviously gangfucking Barack Obama in his tight preznitential ass with their big gay dicks until he submitted and put on leather chaps and admitted he's been lying for years about loving the ghey and that Sasha and Malia were only procreationalized because Bill Ayers milked him into a bottle and sold the precious jism to Michelle for her nefarious use.
Damn them. And damn him for loving them. Y'know who almost always says it pretty well? Dahlia, that's who. So yeah, what she said, plus, special to everyone who wants to pretend that BarryO publicly stating, as Preznit of the Motherfucking United States, that he supports gay marriage, isn't good enough, because W: just fuck off. I mean, seriously. No one is saying that his support for gay marriage wipes out his warmongering, so quit fucking shitting up the Internets with that fucking strawman, and the other one about how "I support gay marriage," which is what he unequivocally said, badly mangled though it emerged from the newly christened preznitential cocksucker, somehow isn't good enough and he should personally assfuck every state legislature and cracker until they submit to ghey onions.
Furthermore, I'm fucking sick of you. Yes, war is bad. Killing people is bad. Fucking with the Constitution is bad. Therefore, shit on him at every fucking opportunity, keep fucking pretending about the black Corporate helicopters, keep pretending there's no difference whatsoever that's good enough. Keep up the fucking playground taunting of anyone who doesn't accept your absolute stance, who rejects that compassionate Mittens, the gay preppie's worst delayed-time-bomb nightmare, would be demonstrably worse, because there's some alternative that prevents all death and inequity.
Fucking sophist bullshit, objectively no fucking better or more intellectually sophisticated than...
Jonah Goldberg. No, I'm not fucking kidding. But just typing that name illifies me, so let's let Susan do the heavy lifting, and really, she does that lifting very well. I'm leaving all the thinking to her, thanks. Okay, not all, because Alex Pareene did a pretty awesome job, too.
Yeah, okay, I guess I lied. Three things. And I suppose I do have the will for outrage. My bad.
Oh, and fuck Blogger.
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Assorted Nothings
Oh hi. I'm a day late for keeping up my monthly schedule of doing very little.
Things you should know:
-I'm sick. This is day four of a nasty upper respiratory infection. My head hurts, my sinuses hurt, my ears hurt, I'm coughing, and everything sucks. I went to the urgent care yesterday, where they shot me up with powerful steroids (it's an intramuscular shot and they want to put it in a large muscle; you do the math, and no cock jokes, this means you Ilse). I also got a variety pack of scrips, so I'm zoning on more steroids and antibiotics. I hope to recover by Monday, when I have to board an airplane to go to that rural place.
-Wow, Blogger's new interface is beyond-belief awful. Thanks, Google, you fucking control freak shithead user experience failures. If you can find some time in between unlawful egregious violations of the law and simple human decency, go fuck yourselves.
-On the one night I needed to get to bed by 10, the Capitals played until 12:30 AM and lost in triple overtime.
-I don't give a fuck about politics, although I would like to ask that my friends in North Carolina vote no on Amendment One.
-Ilse, Databoy, and Bam are fine. Databoy made his stage debut in M. Butterfly the other weekend. Okay, okay, I lie. It was Aladdin Jr. I like my way better. He was a guard. He was overenthused by his sword. When he did some slapstick, middle school girls in the bleachers behind us shrieked like he was the Beatles arriving at LaGuardia. Ilse and I both turned around and mouthed, "Really?"
Okay, this post satisfies some linkers' requirements that I post once a month or so. Keep pimping me, bros.
Things you should know:
-I'm sick. This is day four of a nasty upper respiratory infection. My head hurts, my sinuses hurt, my ears hurt, I'm coughing, and everything sucks. I went to the urgent care yesterday, where they shot me up with powerful steroids (it's an intramuscular shot and they want to put it in a large muscle; you do the math, and no cock jokes, this means you Ilse). I also got a variety pack of scrips, so I'm zoning on more steroids and antibiotics. I hope to recover by Monday, when I have to board an airplane to go to that rural place.
-Wow, Blogger's new interface is beyond-belief awful. Thanks, Google, you fucking control freak shithead user experience failures. If you can find some time in between unlawful egregious violations of the law and simple human decency, go fuck yourselves.
-On the one night I needed to get to bed by 10, the Capitals played until 12:30 AM and lost in triple overtime.
-I don't give a fuck about politics, although I would like to ask that my friends in North Carolina vote no on Amendment One.
-Ilse, Databoy, and Bam are fine. Databoy made his stage debut in M. Butterfly the other weekend. Okay, okay, I lie. It was Aladdin Jr. I like my way better. He was a guard. He was overenthused by his sword. When he did some slapstick, middle school girls in the bleachers behind us shrieked like he was the Beatles arriving at LaGuardia. Ilse and I both turned around and mouthed, "Really?"
Okay, this post satisfies some linkers' requirements that I post once a month or so. Keep pimping me, bros.
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