I have to say, DVR makes watching a full football game a joy. Critics can say what they want about soccer, but for me a major knock on American football is that the time between plays is about four times longer than the plays themselves.

Anyway, what can be learned from Wisconsin’s demolition of Akron? Not much. They moved the ball at will on the ground (PJ Hill had 100 yards with five minutes to go in the first quarter) and only a couple of botched plays on the 1 yard line from the Badgers kept the Zips (yes, Zips) in the game. I don’t know what this says about the season to come, but it’s better than struggling, that’s for sure.

Well, unless Spurs absolutely tonk Chelski tomorrow (which is highly unlikely), the Ars* will win the week three award for most improved team. They ran poor Newcastle ragged today but (surprise surprise) I am not among those who think they’re right back in the title chase. At best, this squad will do what they did last year and leap out to a quick lead but fade in the end. Still, they looked pretty damn smooth.

Elsewhere, the league is entirely unpredictable. West Ham’s 4-1 win over Blackburn do the visitors a disservice since it could have easily ended 1-1, and Everton’s season is already in shambles after getting bombed 3-0 by Pompey, their second home loss. And Hull’s confidence must be cracked—nay, shattered—after suffering a 5-0 pounding at home to Wigan of all teams. This is not that unusual for this time of year where teams are still settling in and finding their feet, and there’s also the small matter of the transfer window closing tomorrow night at midnight. Still, I wouldn’t want to be betting large sums of money on any of these games right now.

Speaking of transfers, I’ll tell you what Tottenham need sharpish—two strikers and a holding midfielder. I’m not all that excited about Pavlyuchenko (nor am I that excited about Arshavin) because I thought these guys ran far too hot and cold. If the Berbatov transfer doesn’t go through—although I’m betting it will—then I hope he can man-up and give it his all.

I haven’t heard anyone saying this (although I haven’t been listening too hard) but I think Tottenham’s next biggest void is in the center of the park. For my money, the defensive midfielder role is probably the hardest to fill since so few players really excel at this position. Didier Zokora was supposed to be this box-to-box enforcer but it really hasn’t worked out that way. He’s useful but not dominant, and Spurs need a big-time heavy to put some steel in their speedy but lightweight midfield.

And of course a striker who could hit an elephant’s ass with a banjo would help too.

There’s still a good chance that we’re switching to DirecTV in order to get GolTV so I can watch the Spanish league, but I’m still going to follow it the best I can in the meantime.

I’ve decided that I’m really pulling for Valencia this year. Although Tottenham is my team in England, I also root for Liverpool and Newcastle whenever they’re not playing Spurs. In La Liga, I have always been a Real Madrid fan mostly because I love Madrid (and Spurs currently occupy the room in my heart for a perennially underachieving team in my heart, Atlético) but after that it’s always been Valencia and whoever is playing Barcelona. (Interesting fact: I have noticed that fans of Ars*nal in England also tend to be fans of Barca in Spain.)

Anyway, my feeling for Valencia became clear last year when they were within touching distance of relegation, yet rebounded to win the Copa del Rey. I was fearful and ecstatic for them, and I find myself relieved that striker extraordinaire David Villa has re-upped his contract. They’ve got Morientes, Joaquín, Silva, Albiol, Marchena, Albelda, Helguera, del Horno…the list of players I admire goes on and on. Not all of these guys are firing on all cylinders anymore, but still. This is a good club that’s given me many happy footie-watching memories, so I’m pulling for them big time this term—even though I’ve never been to Valencia.

Current Mood: Bushed |

It’s that time again to post the classes I’m taking and what I’ll be reading and working on in the coming months. Classes don’t officially start until September 2nd but in reality they’ve already begun, as we had a mini-class for the teaching composition course and I have to have a book read for my other class that meets on Tuesday.

For readers not in the know, I am a second-year Ph.D. student in Creative Writing at UW-Milwaukee. This year I lucked out by landing a 25% Creative Writing Program Assistant job and a 25% Teaching Assistant position, which means I teach one composition class instead of two (that other 50% goes to finishing coursework) and I’m locked into the PA/TA position for the year. I’m also guaranteed an additional four years of TA funding.

The classes with brief descriptions and reading lists after the break:

ENG 701 - Teaching College Composition
ENG 813 - Fiction Workshop: Obstructions and Restrictions

Overall, this semester is somewhat daunting but doable.
(more…)

One of the features of the new series of iPods that I don’t need (and don’t really want to pay for but have little choice) is the bit that displays cover art. I concede, it’s pretty cool although entirely unnecessary. What’s most annoying about it? The fact that iTunes doesn’t do close matches. Erm, shouldn’t it somehow be able to suss out that Greatest Hits in the Bob Dylan artist file is the same album as Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, or that At Budokan is Bob Dylan at Budokan, or that MTV Unplugged in my library is the same as MTV Unplugged (Live) in iTunes?

I realize that this request is harder than it seems, but a lot of this is just silly. For instance, there are seven albums in the bootleg series. Why is one The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975 - The Rolling Thunder Revue (2 of 2) (quite a mouthful that won’t fit on the iPod screen by the way) and another Live 1966 “The Royal Albert Hall Concert” - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4, and yet another No Direction Home, The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7 (Movie Soundtrack)? That means this series of albums winds up being alphabetized under ‘B’ and ‘L’ and ‘N.’ Stupid.

On another note of aggro, I tend to like Adobe’s programs. I’ve used Photoshop for years as well as ImageReady and ImageStyler, and have always been a fan of Acrobat. Except for the software updates. For some reason, Adobe hasn’t figured out how to do unobtrusive software updates, and they have taken a page out of Microsoft’s book as far as backwards compatibility goes when it comes to PDFs. And if you have an older version of Acrobat installed in order to create PDFs, but need a new version of Acrobat Reader to open newer PDFs, the computer gets confused and melts down. The only answer? To always buy the most recent version of Acrobat of course. Annoying? Not hardly.

Current Mood: Annoyed |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “Self Portrait”

…it would probably look a lot like what I’ll be teaching this year.

We had four eight-hour days of orientation for teaching Intro to Composition, plus a two-hour bonus session today. Often illuminating, often frustrating, usually unexpected would be my three phrase summary. Rather than calling the course “Intro to Composition” it should be called “Intro to Critical Thinking Via Composition.” Grammar and usage aren’t the focus of the curriculum, which might strike you as odd for a college-level composition course.

More or less, the instructor invokes the Socratic method to challenge students to find new ways to think about their education and to question their roles as mere vessels for information; instructors are not repositories of answers but rather the chief question-askers. So if a student asks what “dissemble” means, the instructor asks if the student has looked it up. If the student doesn’t understand the definition, the instructor asks what part of the definition the student didn’t understand. If the student doesn’t understand the context of how the word was used, the instructor asks the student what some possible interpretations may be. Repeat until doomsday.

This is all fine and good, but it does get old. Like when you ask, as a first-time instructor, what to do on the first day of class. “What do you think you might do?” And if you ask what strategies work better than others? “What strategies are you considering, and what do you hope to achieve?”

Right. At a certain point—like at the end of an eight-hour day of talking about nothing but college composition—physical violence seems like a reasonable way to answer such questions. The point, of course, is that there is no right answer and that all instructors must develop individual styles, and what may work for one instructor may not work for another. However, I happen to think that an honest answer like, “Well, every time I tried something like that, it ended in absolute failure” can help lessen anxiety.

But honestly, after about 36 or so hours of training and orientation, I don’t feel anxious. Just tired.

Current Mood: Just Tired |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “Ten of Swords (Disc 03)”

Whew. Two eight-hour days of straight TA orientation is fairly brutal. We have the weekend to recuperate (with homework of course) followed by two more days next week, plus an extra-special bonus session on Wednesday. And I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that even with all of this training, you just have to stumble into teaching composition and learn a lot by trial and error. So it goes.

The Egyptian striker Mido has revealed that Wigan want to sign him on loan. From Spurs to Boro to Wigan? There’s a trajectory there son, and it sure as hell ain’t up. Next stop: Millwall.

My fiction group critiqued my novel Thursday night and I got a ton of valuable feedback. The things I thought were problems and I could quickly paper over? Still glaring problems. The parts I thought were the best part of the book? Yeah, they liked those the best. All without me really saying a word.

Sadly, the novel needs more work than I would have hoped. Happily, thanks to these friends, I have a much, much better idea of where and how to start fixing. Having good critical readers is invaluable. What I really learned is what themes or parts to ramp up a bit and what parts to suppress. And I found it oddly liberating to laugh along with them at the parts that just didn’t work. Like I said, far better for us to laugh so I can cut them than have potential agents and editors laughing at them as they seal up my pink slip.

Current Mood: Sleeping While Typing |

Look, before I start moaning about how Bob Bradley’s US squad plays a helluva lot like Bolton, I do have to say that three points on the road in CONCACAF is always a good result. I don’t mean to take that away from the team because the bad fields, dodgy refereeing, and intense atmosphere all add up to a very tough environment to play in.

But still. When I was working for US Soccer, there was this little thing called Project 2010 that the bigwigs called us employees down to the meeting room to tell us about. It was an audacious proposal that wanted the US to host and win the World Cup in 2010. Shoot for the stars and all that. Call me cynical, but I think picking up three points in Guatemala was probably part of that plan, so I’m not all that carried away about tonight’s “historic” achievement. Frankly, no matter how tough the conditions are, the US should be able to go to Central American countries and win regularly. Yes, there are no easy games in football blahblahblah, and I’m not saying that they can’t suffer the odd blip. But the money US Soccer pours into player development probably dwarfs Guatemala’s GNP, so they should be getting some return on that expenditure, shouldn’t they?

The lineup and style of play wasn’t a surprise given the roster, but it has to be said that the US put together few fluid attacks. Harkesy and Davis can praise Bradley for making the team a threat on set pieces, but a defensive-minded team that resorts to long punts up the field and set pieces? Sounds like Bolton, dunnit? And they’re not winning over any neutral supporters.

Bocanegra played great but there were few other standouts, except Howard. Onyewu was fine, Pearce was not, and Cherundolo was solid except for the silly second yellow (even though the first was totally unwarranted). Mastroeni could have easily been sent off too, but luckily the refereeing was inconsistent enough that he escaped. Did Eddie Lewis play? The only thing he did that I noticed was catching an elbow to the face to get the teams back on level terms. Donovan was invisible and Bradley was erratic. Dempsey tried very hard and needed someone to play with, and Ching did what he does best—posts up. He did a lot of grunt work, which is valuable but not inspiring.

This round of qualifying is actually rather dull and this one result makes it even duller, which is good from a US perspective. The US should tonk Cuba at home on September 6th and if they win in Trinidad on September 10th, call in the scrubs. Seriously, if US soccer takes itself seriously as being the powerhouse in the region, is there any real reason that six points shouldn’t be the expectation.

Glad they won but it wasn’t pretty. I like pretty.

Current Mood: Blah |

Is it comment spam season? I’ve been getting absolutely hammered by comment spam both here and over at the cream city review website and the usually spot-on filters have been letting quite a bit through. And this is on the heels of a bunch of user registration spam on this site. Death to spammers, huh?

UWM classes officially start September 2nd but school more or less starts for me on Thursday. I had university-wide orientation on Monday that was largely not time well spent, and that’s followed by eight solid hours of TA orientation this Thursday, Friday, next Monday and Tuesday. And I was notified today that there’s a bonus (though mandatory) two-hour session on Wednesday. And there’s homework, too. Boo.

Actually, I’m happy to get detailed instruction on how to teach Intro to College Composition since I know a lot of people say their programs just threw them in front of a class without any preparation, hardly even a syllabus. The assigned readings have been interesting and thought-provoking, so I’m hoping for the best.

I finished another story today, this one entitled “Rogerio’s Library.” It actually names Borges not once but twice, which might be akin to whacking someone over the head with a hammer to get their attention. I like the idea and voice very much but it’s a slippery story and one that will need some rearranging before it leaves the nest.

US vs. Guatemala in World Cup qualifying tomorrow, 9:00 CT on ESPN2. Don’t miss it.

Current Mood: Bushed |
Currently Listening To - Bob Dylan - “The Bootleg Series, Vols 1-3 (Disc Two)”

First things first, I have surprisingly little to say about the opening weekend of English football action. Of the four title contenders, only Chelski sparkled and against what was on paper the toughest opponent. Liverpool defined the word “rusty” as did Man Ure, in fits and spurts.

Really, it takes about 8-10 games (roughly a quarter of the season) for teams to truly find their feet. Only then do teams start to reveal their true colors. Even so, fixture congestion, injuries, winter transfers—all of these have a huge impact on the final table. All things being equal, 3 points on the opening day are better than 1 or none because they all count the same in the end, but you can’t read too much into things at this point; Man Ure were 1-2-1 in August last year yet went on to win the title.

I finally saw I’m Not There, last year’s Bob Dylan movie. I’m a huge Dylan fan and was interested in this movie but, after hearing mixed reviews, my eagerness faded. Overall I thought it was okay.

What I didn’t like was the knowing artsy-ness of it all. Cate Blanchett looks astonishingly like Bob Dylan and had his mannerisms down, but I found her totally distracting. I kept thinking, “That’s Cate Blanchett acting like Bob Dylan.” Christian Bale always seemed like Christian Bale doing a bad Bob Dylan impression. Richard Gere seemed like Richard Gere and didn’t conjure Dylan in the slightest. I only thought about the actors as being actual Dylan incarnations during Ben Wishaw’s shifty-eyed Rimbaud scenes and Heath Ledger’s scenes, where for those flashes I forgot I was watching an actor. So while in theory, having six different actors playing Dylan was genius, it was flawed in execution.

Overall, I found the film to be self-important and showy, constantly drawing attention to itself as a filmed fiction. While I would guess that this was intentional, that doesn’t mean it was successful. Having read a Dylan biography as well as Chronicles, I have decent grasp on the man’s history at least in terms of historic events—his faux-rambling days, visiting Woody Guthrie, his marriage, motorcycle accident, divorce, Christian phase—and I am well-versed in his many musical stages as well. And so I was disappointed in that, despite the fragmented storyline and different actors and lyrics-as-conversation, I still think about Bob Dylan the same way today as I did before seeing the movie.

Still, parts of it were terrific. The scene of Blanchett-as-Dylan and Allen Ginsberg shouting insults at Jesus on the cross was priceless, as was the scene of Ledger-as-Dylan explaining to his friend and their wives that women couldn’t write decent poetry. Those scenes to me struck at the heart of who Dylan was, and is, and probably will be again.

Current Mood: Okay

Nothing is worse than waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep, except for waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep and then finding out your satellite service has dropped all the stations carrying Spanish soccer for the upcoming season.

In typical Spanish fashion, La Liga starts a little later than most others with their first round of matches still a few weeks off so I haven’t been paying attention. Googling around, I stumbled on this article stating that as of two weeks ago, Dish network yanked GolTV from their lineup over a contract dispute. I hadn’t noticed because GolTV offers little else that interests me outside their good coverage of the Spanish League, the Copa del Rey (the Spanish Cup), and their La Liga recap show—I don’t follow German or South American football so there’s been no reason to tune in.

So while this is distressing, I thought “No big deal. WorldSport HD still shows ‘big’ games, usually involving Real Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, and Valencia.” Except then I read that Dish also axed the VOOM HD channels back in May, which of course includes WorldSport HD. This was the week of the last regular season game in La Liga, and we were in Spain when this decision went down. Since La Liga was the only reason to tune into WorldSport HD, it’s no wonder I haven’t noticed.

Ironically, I became a Dish subscriber way back in 1997 because it was the only provider that offered Fox Sports Español. Way back then, ESPN showed one English Premier League game a week and usually one or two MLS games, so getting Fox Sports Español was like giving a junkie a crack rock the size of a small moon. They showed the Premier League, the FA Cup, the Scottish League, the German League, the Italian league…it was insane. I had never seen so much footie on the television before. (Note: The Dish was a birthday present from Amy, which is one of the leading reasons I married her; she not exactly what she was getting into, she helped feed it.)

While I don’t want to overstate the case, Dish Network definitely got some decent business from being the provider for soccer fans. It took DirecTV and cable awhile to add Fox Sports World (a channel inferior to Fox Sports Español I might add), now named Fox Soccer Channel. It wasn’t until we once again signed up for Dish back in Madison (satellites were not allowed in our Seattle apartment and cable had FSW anyway) that I knew GolTV even existed—probably because it didn’t until February 2003.

While this move won’t (necessarily) lose my business, it is highly annoying and none too endearing to the company. The timing of the VOOM deal was likely coincidental (I can’t imagine the Dish folks had their eyes on La Liga when they axed ten channels) but to drop GolTV a few weeks before the European leagues start doesn’t seem like an accident. Unfortunately, it’s also sticking up a giant middle finger at soccer fans too.

Over the past few years I’ve heard that entertainment programming is supposed to be going in the direction of a la carte rather than packages, meaning instead of paying for 500 channels you don’t watch, you’d pay for the 10 or 12 you actually do. I hope to God this happens soon because the only reason we have the bloated package we do is because it includes FSC. Cable subscribers in Madison have also been burned by the Big Ten Network which, for some reason, the local cable company can’t come to an agreement with. The same goes for the NFL Network, which many Wisconsin cable outlets don’t carry. People around here get very surly when it comes to their football and I could see literally thousands of people dumping cable in favor of satellite to watch all their Badgers and Packers games.

I have no idea what wrangling goes on between channels and providers, but let’s just say that the ones who end up losing out the most are the consumers. Bolting for DirecTV at this point (which still carries GolTV) is tempting, but there’s nothing to say that this wouldn’t happen again. But with all the promotions and deals you can get for switching services, don’t think I’m not seriously considering it.

Current Mood: Outraged! |

The English Premier League kicks off tomorrow and the off-season has been interesting in terms of player movement, and lack of player movement. For my money, I’m glad that Barry hasn’t transferred to Liverpool at the expense of Xabi Alonso…yet. And that Berbatov is still at Spurs…for now. The transfer window is open for another 16 days and a lot can still happen. Like Robinho to Chelski.

Predictions:

* The title is not a four-horse race, it’s a two-horse race between Chelski and Man Ure. Liverpool is Liverpool (or perhaps Benitez is Benitez would be more accurate), and the Ars*nal squad isn’t deep enough to stay in title contention by Christmas, much less May. It’s a coin toss between blue and red for the title.

* Spurs will not overhaul Liverpool or Ars*nal for fourth unless they have dramatically improved and the other two gotten much worse. There are tons of new faces at Spurs and you can’t realistically expect them to gel immediately, and you can’t expect the chemistry of the other teams to magically disappear.

* The relegation battle doesn’t look too interesting either. Hull City and Stoke might as well be down already, so the only real question is whether West Brom can outdo the likes of Bolton, Fulham, and Wigan for the last spot. My guess is that they can’t, but then again one promoted team always seems to exceed expectations.

* Even the race for fifth doesn’t seem that exciting. Blackburn appears to be imploding as does Man City, Newcastle is in shambles, and Everton seems to have its own turmoil, having brought in no one worth mentioning. My guess is that it’s going to come down to Portsmouth, Villa, and Spurs—and maybe one of the aforementioned teams that can get its act together.

Having said the above, I do think there’s an outside chance that Liverpool could make a title push, and that Tottenham may make break into fourth, and of course there will be other surprises. But frankly, outside of the title race, this has the makings of a dull season. I hope I’m wrong.

The Los Angeles derby was an entertaining watch last night, more as a spectacle rather than a showcase of football prowess. Both defenses were god-awful and the game was wide open. The scoring went 1-0, 1-1, 1-2, 2-2 with the Galaxy and then Chivas leading before the injury-time leveler by Alan Gordon, one of the league’s worst strikers (alongside Chad Barrett, who thankful was shipped from the Fire to Toronto FC).

John Harkes is a decent addition to the ESPN commentary team, but can somebody tie up and (more importantly) gag Rob Stone? Annoying doesn’t half describe this twit as he tries to wedge lame-o sports slang onto the Beautiful Game. Soccer does not have “special teams” Rob (just call them “set pieces/plays” like the rest of the world) and I really don’t care how much his wife was drooling over Beckham’s underwear spread in Men’s Health magazine, a story that seemed to drag on forever. Even Harkesy had to laugh and say, “I don’t know what to say about that Rob…” and then changed the subject. I long for the days of Andy Gray verbally sodomizing Stone during the Euros…

The US plays away to Guatemala next Wednesday in World Cup Qualifying, televised on ESPN2. Guatemala City ain’t an easy place to play and I wonder how this US team will play. That’s a big environment for guys like Maurice Edu and Michael Bradley, what with the incessant hard fouling and permissive refereeing that always goes against the US. I’ve moaned before about the defensive posture of Bradley’s teams, and this roster does little to get the heart racing:

Goalkeepers: Brad Guzan (Aston Villa), Tim Howard (Everton).

Forwards: Brian Ching (Houston Dynamo), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles Galaxy), Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC), Eddie Johnson (Fulham FC).

That’s exactly one attacking midfielder in Kljestan, three holding midfielders in Bradley, Edu, and Mastroeni, and the over-the-hill Eddie Lewis on the wing. Brian Ching and Eddie Johnson have failed to impress at the international level for oh, the last three years, which leaves the streaky Dempsey and everybody’s least favorite player Landon Donovan to carry the load.

Look, I totally understand that grabbing a point on the road is huge in CONCACAF qualifying but I feel like the US should be able to go to most of these countries feeling comfortable going for the win and settling for a draw. The fact that Bradley didn’t keep Freddy Adu or Josie Altidore on the roster in favor of six defenders shows you where his mind is at, and it ain’t on attack. The inclusion of Johnson at the expense of Adu or Altidore is baffling to me, since the other guys could benefit from being in that charged atmosphere. And since he’ll probably start Donovan and Dempsey, if things go badly that means you’re left with Ching and Johnson coming off the bench? Yeesh.

The sad thing is that I’m about 80% sure it will work. My bet is that the US will play something resembling a 4-5-1 and try to spring Donovan and Dempsey on the break, although I could also see Ching playing up top as the big target man. I understand that it’s a results-based business, but that’s a pretty dire, uninspiring game plan. I am well aware there are no easy games in qualifying blahblahblah, but if the US seriously wants to be the swinging dick of CONCACAF, you’d think they might want to stuff Guatemala 3-0 away to say, “Here we are, come get us.”

US Soccer: we’re crap and everybody knows it.

Current Mood: Eh |
Currently Listening To - The Hold Steady - “boys and girls in america”