This site gets severely neglected in crunch times, and it’s crunch time. I was freaking out earlier about how I was going to get everything done by the end of the semester (Dec. 12 or so) but after mapping it all out I think I’ll be good to go. I realized today that a slow, steady approach is not what’s called for. I have about three major projects that I need to care of, and it makes way more sense to dedicate about a week to each while abandoning nearly everything else. This plan should keep me sane.

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I love my Packers, I really do, and to see them mercilessly whip up on the Bears was a joy to behold. They looked like world-beaters, even though I’m convinced that the NFC North has three average teams that aren’t going to the Super Bowl.

The Badgers have been so god-awful this season that I can hardly stand to watch. The only consolation this weekend was that you can always count on the Golden Vomit to botch things up worse than Wisconsin. Their complete capitulation inspired much laughter in my house.

Speaking of the corridors of Hergenrader echoing with laughter, how great was Aston Villa’s Arse smacking on Saturday? A fairer score probably would have been 4-0 as Villa played their hosts off the park. Seriously, to put in such a limp performance at home…why are there still headlines saying “Ars*nal Title Chances Dented”? I suspected that their win against Man Ure last weekend did more damage to the champions’ hopes of retaining the title than it did about Ars*nal’s credentials for staying in the race, and this result suggests I was right.

For the yutzes who haven’t yet come to grips with how these European leagues work—it doesn’t matter how pretty you play or the big teams you beat, it all comes down to the season-long table. If you’re like the Arse and you’re nine points off the pace with a third of the season gone, not only do you need to basically be flawless from here on out, you need to have the three teams ahead of you all drop more points than you do. For a side that’s already lost four (two at home), that doesn’t seem too likely, does it?

The major misconception is that unlike baseball, basketball, or American football, there is no “peaking at the right time” in regards to the regular season. Mediocre teams like the NY Giants managed to get hot in December and that paved the way to the Super Bowl. Not so in the league for footie. That holds true for the cup competitions, but it’s quite often that teams are mortally wounded by November and December and there is no coming back. The only recent exception is Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle blowing a ten-point lead in the ‘95-’96 season, but I can’t see Benitez’s Liverpool or Scolari’s Chelski wobbling that badly. Nor can I see this Ars*nal crop making up the ground.

Still awfully tight, tight, tight though.

Current Mood: Sure |

I’m kicking myself because on Friday I was thinking, “You know what’s going to happen on Saturday? Ars*nal is going to beat Man Ure and all the bandwagon jumpers will exclaim with delight that they’re back in the title race. Of course, this is exactly what happened even though lots of folks were expecting a 6-0 thumping by the champions. However, I contend that this game will mean more for Man Ure’s season than Ars*nal’s, mostly because both of these teams still trail the front-running Chelski and Liverpool by six-to-eight points (although Man Ure has a game in hand).

These opinions are supported by this article on Soccern*t that statistically shows that the head-to-head results of the top four have not been the deciding factor in determining who wins the title, but rather it’s the results against the smaller teams that make the difference. Ars*nal may win the Big Four “mini-league” with their slick attacking soccer, but as long as the Fulhams, the Hulls, and the Stokes of the world can shove them around, I see them dropping points all over the place—and the weather hasn’t even gotten bad yet. Man Ure don’t have that same kind of frailty but they do seem to be going through the motions a lot of the time. They appeared to be on auto-pilot for long stretches against Celtic in the Champions League. The big difference for me is that unlike last year, Chelski is not stuttering. And then there’s the question of whether Liverpool can keep (or set) the pace.

For my money, I think Chelski wins the title and Liverpool and Man Ure split second and third. The bigger question is whether the Arse can finish fourth. I think they can, but mostly because I don’t see Aston Villa finding that next gear. It’s still early days but these teams’ natures seem to have taken shape.

Oh, and for all the doubters out there, Spurs have now won three and drawn one in the league and are out of the drop zone. They’re still too far out to make a realistic charge on the UEFA Cup spots but it’s hard to see them making a serious U-turn and heading back down. The bottom half of the table is separated by a grand total of three points—the 20th team has 11 points whereas the 10th has 14. Tight, tight, tight.

Right, so lots of morons were flapping their lips about how Ars*nal was going to be a contender for both the Premier League and Champions League. They’ve now pulled a Liverpool, having seen their title aspirations basically over by November. They haven’t played many teams in the top half of the table yet have still managed to draw to Spurs and lose to Stoke this week. The point gap isn’t great, but the psychological one is enormous. On the bright side (from them), they might take a page from Liverpool’s book and focus more on the Champs League this year.

And as far as the bottom of the table goes, again, hats off to the morons. Teams ten through twenty are now separated by a staggering four points. To put the table in further perspective, Spurs are now six point away from seventh place—the same number of points Ars*nal are off the title race. So sorry morons, Spurs are not favorites to go down after having taken four points off two of the Big Four in the span of a few days. It could still happen, but it’s seems highly unlikely.

Their win over Liverpool was extremely lucky and they were dire in the first half. Liverpool should be kicking themselves for not finishing off the game in half-dozen chances they had to double their lead, but the shots of the fans crapping themselves after the winner were pretty priceless.

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Halloween went very well, as we attended a rip-roarin’ party hosted by our friends Matt and Chris. Here’s a look at our costumes: that’s me as Bob Ross, Chris as Lewis from Revenge of the Nerds, Steven as Abe Froman from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Nate as Crocket from Miami Vice. The girls were Jenny as Cheetara from Thundercats, Fung as Siouxsie from Siouxsie and the Banshees, Amanda as Strawberry Shortcake, and Amy as Rainbow Brite.

On Saturday we went to Wisconsin’s largest corn maze (a-mazing!) where you had to find mailboxes containing the next piece of the map. Fun stuff for a slightly hungover crew as we made friends with a pig, a turkey and a horse. Clicking will earn you bigger pictures.

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Current Mood: Tired, but What’s New? |
Currently Listening To - The Hold Steady - “Stay Positive”

Yes, I know that Spurs are a complete laughing stock, however I do spare some chuckles for the “elite” team of Norf London. The Arse, who some deluded morons still think have a chance at the title, allow poor, troubled Tottenham to muster a 4-4 draw, scoring two goals in the final two minutes.

Ars*nal fans, consider your team’s record: 6-2-2 over 10 games.

How many of those ten games have been against teams in the bottom half of the table? Give up? Yeah, eight. And the two teams in the top half of the table? That would be Sunderland (at #10) and Hull City (at #5). Points taken against those two teams? Yes, that’s right, one point. One. Earned as a late, late draw against Sunderland. No Man Ure yet. No Liverpool yet. No Chelski yet. Just thought I’d mention it.

And what I love about delusional Ars* fans (in addition to their failure to understand that both Portsmouth and Tottenham have won more trophies in the last few seasons) is that these are the same jackasses who call Fox Football Fone-In saying Tottenham are going down. Look kids, Spurs are now a whopping three points from safety and in case you haven’t noticed, Fulham, Bolton, West Brom, Stoke, Wigan, and Newcastle are all relative crap. Yes, they’re in the cellar now, and yes, they’ll probably be in the cellar for the next couple weeks, but let’s check in around New Year’s and see how they’re doing. The old cliche’ that the league is marathon not a sprint is just as true for the foot of the table as it is for the champions.

Current Mood: Chuffed |

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So, Spurs ditched the magic Juande in favor of ‘Arry Redknapp. I think axing Ramos was the right move because he clearly did not command the respect of the players, winning a grand total of four league games while in charge. In one game, ‘Arry accumulated more points than Ramos did in eight. And as most sensible people realized, Spurs are now three points (one more win) from pulling out of the drop zone—provided other teams keep losing. I think three out of Bolton, Fulham, Stoke, and West Brom will get relegated. It’s early days, but I can see Newcastle and Spurs muscling out enough points over the long haul to get to the comfort zone before spring. (Speaking of which, can you believe Hull? You’d have to think 40 points would keep you safe, and they’re already half-way there in just 9 games with 29 more to play.)

I’m pretty excited about Liverpool beating Chelski today, and hope to high heaven that they’ll still be contenders come January. A certain Ars* lead the table for long periods last fall before falling apart in the New Year, so early results do not guarantee late returns. Still, it’s better to win than lose…

Back to ‘Arry Redknapp for a second, it’s an appointment that seems solid but doesn’t get the heart racing. He generally has had a galvanizing effect for the teams he’s managed, but he’s also been dodgy in the transfer market. Spurs savior? Not hardly. At least he should keep them up. Emphasis on should.

In good news, last weekend Man City United spanked the opposition 8-2 on a lovely, sunny afternoon. Yesterday however, we lost 1-0 on a cold, windy day on an abomination of a field that had a serious slant to it and a huge patch of mud in the center of the park. The conditions were almost unplayable and I figured it would either be 0-0 or someone would score on a fluke or mistake, and unfortunately that’s what happened. Our keeper slipped throwing the ball into play and it landed at the feet of one of their strikers, who popped it into the empty net and then celebrated like he’d actually done something incredible. We went on to miss about three chances that were nearly as easy, only to see our strikers get in each others way (twice) and blaze over the bar from a ridiculous position.

Worst of all, I rolled my ankle getting shoved over in a mud patch and will be hobbled for a week or so. (sigh) Titanium breakaway ankles…

You can say what you want about MLS’ two-conference system and the playoffs (I often say they’re dumb) but it does set the stage for some pretty good late-season drama. Colorado vs. Real Salt Lake was a perfect example. Because Amy trumped me on the remote, we ended up watching some real estate shows and, during the commercials, I’d seen that the Rapids went up 1-0. I figured that while we were watching Trading Spaces, two things would happen: either Colorado would score another goal and ice the game, or they wouldn’t. Turns out they wouldn’t, which led to frenetic last ten minutes that I did get to watch, including RSL’s dramatic and late, late equalizer that saw them go through to the playoffs for their very first time. Good stuff.

On the writing front, I was boosted by the news that a friend of mine who has a boatload of sales to highly respected literary mags says he sends out his stories to about twenty markets at the same time. In the same conversation, he said he was amazed that I had the publications I did from sending out my stories one at a time, due to the restriction most f/sf markets have on not accepting simultaneous subs.

This is certainly good news and helps me get my head around how to succeed in the lit mag world. I typically get very cordial, personal rejections from the f/sf mags I submit to and rarely, if ever, get so much as a hand-written “thanks” on the form rejections I get from lit mags. Rather than taking this personally, I’m guessing I just need to cast nets a little farther and a little wider.

Who has time for reading books in grad school? My reading list is way down this semester for a variety of reasons, mostly because my time is devoured by teaching and my admin position, and my reading time is dedicated to articles, not books. In a word, this sucks. I have a long list of stuff I want to read but it will have to wait.

Current Mood: Bleh |
Currently Listening To - The Hold Steady - “Almost Killed Me”

We finished another major project we’d had on the docket for awhile, and that was having a new driveway poured and redoing the front walk and stoop. All in all, it turned out to be a frustrating experience because the concrete contractor wanted to do the job quickly which meant some details got left in the concrete dust, but overall it turned out pretty nicely. Here’s what it looks like:

Right, so Tottenham lost again today, giving them their worst start to a season ever. That’s ever, as in “since 1882″ ever. I’ve been following Spurs since about 1990 and they’ve toyed with relegation a couple times but, unless things change quickly, this team could go down.

I’ve only watched them twice this season, against Sunderland and against Stoke, and it seems pretty clear that Ramos has got to go. He might be a fine manager and a wonderful fella, but the players looked sloppy and generally uninterested in playing. The idea was to get rid of the players who only wanted to collect their paychecks and make an earnest push for fourth, but that ain’t happening with this lot. Ramos clearly hasn’t inspired them, and they need to get inspired sharpish.

Over the years I’ve grown less and less fond of the club as business aspirations have trumped footballing decisions. One of the major blows was when Tottenham sold Michael Carrick after narrowly missing out on fourth; to me, that sent a signal that the club’s real goal was to be a broker for high-profile players, buying young and selling at great profit. The purchases made by the board in Jol’s last days were testaments to that, and I think they bought poorly heading into this season. They bought poorly but sold well, don’t you think? Shipping out their two highest goal scorers for wonga profits will look nice on the shareholders’ statements, but their failure to buy proven players in key positions may cost them dearly.

As much as I love the footie, the big boys have been working hard for the last decade or so to get a stranglehold on their domestic leagues, and it’s working. Sure, the season starts out a bit rocky but who rises to the top once again? Chelski, Liverpool, Man Ure and Ars*nal. Sure, Aston Villa looks like Spurs from a few seasons ago, but when they can’t break into the top five (and hence the Champions League) where will they be when Agbonlahor, Young, Barry, et al get lured away by clubs that can offer them that reward?

I would also say that the US’ display in Trinidad was not all that surprising and even though I’ve been barking for Bradley to give some of the younger players a chance, I didn’t necessarily mean he should give them a chance all at the same time. And for what it’s worth, I have yet to see Maurice Edu play a really good game, and the young man has a penchant for passing to the other team.

Current Mood: Feh |

The secret to watching the United States play some good attacking soccer? Have them face a tiny Caribbean nation playing with one man down. The US whipped up on Cuba to the tune of 6-1 last night and featured some pretty decent attack play. I was really happy to see DaMarcus Beasley bang in two well-taken goals and Heath Pearce, who I have been moaning about for the last several months, had a really good game, serving in great balls from the wing.

Still, I can’t be all positive. The US started with essentially the same lineup that’s been boring us to tears since qualification began. I was excited to see Altidore, Adu, and Torres in the squad, disappointed that none of them got the start. I thought Altidore and Adu played quite well in the minutes they did get, scoring and getting an assist respectively, and Torres looks like he could be handy too. But I don’t want to draw too many conclusions as Cuba was well-beaten and exhausted at that point. My sincere hope is that these fellas don’t step off the field for the next two irrelevant games and force their way into the starting lineup for the final round of qualifiers.

I watched portions of England’s win over Kazakhstan and was fairly unimpressed. The first couple goals game off set pieces and the team looked awfully plodding until the goals finally started dropping in late in the second half. So a big scoreline, yes, but watching England reminds me a lot of the current US squad and I find myself asking this question: what happens when these teams play somebody good?

Like Spain. 3-0 against Estonia might not have been a devastating performance by the Spaniards, but they sure do look tasty all the same. Iniesta and Xavi are ridiculous in the midfield. During the Euros I said you couldn’t get the ball off them if you had a pool cue to help trip them up; I’m raising that to a shotgun. If you want to criticize (and I don’t) you could accuse them of trying to walk the ball in the net, but it’s still fun to watch, and they still won handily—away, on a rain-slicked pitch. I wish the World Cup was this summer…

The less said the better. My prediction was that it would be ugly so I watched the US national team instead. It turned out to be uglier than I ever would have dreamed. Pure awful. After the Michigan loss I said that this team tends to lose in streaks, and boy, have I been proven right.

Mad City FC won again yesterday, 5-1, and I had nothing to do with it since I wasn’t in town. I should make the next two games though and hopefully close out the season with a pair of wins.

Current Mood: Fine |
Currently Listening To - Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros - “Global A Go-Go”

We saw Beck at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago on Thursday night and a good time was had by all. He opened with “Loser” and, surprisingly, played almost a dozen other songs before finally playing “Soul of a Man” off Modern Guilt. In fact, he only played five songs off his most recent album during the show, and was heavy on Guero and Odelay!. I was more than fine with that.

The whole set list and a good (if slightly hyperbolic) review appears here.

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In case you were wondering, this semester isn’t the worst imaginable but neither is it the best. I am not a morning person and my schedule demands that I become one. I do okay in the morning but it’s the mid-afternoon crash that gets me, even when I get a full eight hours of sleep. That and between balancing the various and disparate responsibilities of teaching my classes, taking classes, and doing the program admin job, it will be a minor miracle if this semester doesn’t eventually grind me into a fine powder, mix me with some water, spread the resulting paste on a cracker, and devour me whole.

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And it’s been an awful few weeks for teams I support. The Packers blew yet another winnable game against Atlanta yesterday, as did the Badgers against Ohio State. I have become a big Aaron Rodgers fan and pin very little of the blame on him for the losses, but his durability might be an issue. The Badgers are a far more depressing proposition as I don’t see where this team goes from here, and there’s very little to get enthused about.

On the footie front, Tottenham has become such an abject failure that the streak of losses don’t even phase me anymore. Can they get relegated? They surely can. They shipped out two proven Premier League strikers with virtually no backup, and the midfield is decidedly lightweight. Conventional wisdom would suggest that once they find their footing they’ll be okay as the side has lots of talent, whereas teams like Fulham and Bolton look like they might struggle again this year because there’s not much to work with. Yet there are no guarantees and if things don’t turn around soon, there’s real danger.

And sadly, Mad City United lost its first game 2-1 to the perennial league champions last weekend, and I wasn’t able to make the game. It’s looking like I might not make this weekend’s match either but I hope at least we can return to winning ways.

Current Mood: Beat |

Mad City United won again, this time 5-2. I again opened the scoring early in the first half, and again it had to be one of the most god-awful goals in league history. I shot from about 20 yards out (again, almost the same exact circumstance) but didn’t hit it all that well. The ball dipped at the goal line and the keeper, expecting it to bounce up into his arms, had to be mortified when it nutmegged him for a goal. Oops.

MCU played really well today with lots of fluid passing but we were a bit profligate in front of goal. We passed instead of shooting, and shot instead of passing. The opposition got only a handful of shots on goal and they were awarded two penalties (one pretty clear-cut, the other not so much). From the run of play they had made a shot or two, and scored on a corner with the last kick of the game to make the score seem somewhat closer than it was. On that same play, a dickhead on their team who was routinely going in with perhaps too much gusto decided it would be a good idea to shove me from behind as hard as he could to get open, and now my neck and back are out of whack. Had the game gone on another two minutes I likely would have found reason to return the favor. So it’s probably better it ended when it did. And I need to do more physical therapy on my right leg—it seems noticeably weaker in the last few weeks and I am having the occasional twinge of pain walking up and down stairs. Not good, not good.

Speaking of profligate strikers, can you believe Ars*nal surrendered their perfect home record at the Emirates to Hull City today? Hilarious. I was just starting to think that maybe, just maybe, they could actually be title contenders this year, but today offered a good dose of reality—they did not address their defensive problems on set pieces, they don’t deal well in general with physical teams, and as the season wears on and injuries come into play. They still play some pretty stuff when they’re on their game, but I honestly don’t see them being able to keep pace with Man Ure and Chelski.

This article on Spurs suggests why the club is always in a state of crisis, but Hubbard misses the real point: business has always taken precedence over the squad for at least the last decade. They have bought up every young player in England (and increasingly the continent) they could get their hands on with the intent of selling them. The Berbatov bit was a good piece of business, and the bottom line is that for all the talk of going fourth, Spurs have not bought any of the big-time, world-renowned players who would help them get there. The reason? It’s too much of a risk and doesn’t make enough business sense.

I skipped through most of Wisconsin’s loss to Michigan today. In truth, Michigan tried handing them the game about a half-dozen times but the anemic offense couldn’t seal the deal. Blowing a 19 point lead is ridiculous, and it’s this same ultra-conservative play calling that the Packers do to protect a lead that allows teams to get back in the game. Stupid, stupid, stupid and what’s worse is that losses tend to beget losses for Wisconsin, and that doesn’t bode well for next week’s game versus Ohio State.

Current Mood: Okay |

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That’s pretty much how I feel right about now. Just beat. This semester is going to be very rough if the first three weeks are any indication of what’s to come. Teaching comp 101 is taxing work with 24 students, although that number has now dropped and will drop some more as students find out that I’m really not kidding—at all—when I say if I don’t get an assignment within a week of its due date that I won’t accept it, and hence they can’t pass the class.

It may sound draconian but the premise is pretty simple—I’m hired to teach them composition, not scramble to figure out who has turned in what and the assignments build, so without turning in assignment 2.1 you really can’t get at what 2.2 wants you to do. A week is plenty of time to get a single assignment in, and I’ve even taken the extra step of emailing them the day before to say “if it’s not in today, you’re not able to pass.” Comp 101 strongly encourages students to work out multiple interpretations of a text; sadly for these students, these emails are one case where there’s not a lot of room for creative interpretation. Strange too how these “warning” emails are met with silence, yet the “sorry, you now have to drop” emails are responded to within hours.

Overall the teaching goes really well. The majority of the students are motivated and hard-working, and those folks make it a whole lot easier to get to the interesting stuff rather than bookkeeping.

But the pedagogy course is going to be a lot of work and the project assistantship is like a bottomless pit made of time-sucking antimatter. In theory, I’m supposed to put in 10 hours of teaching and 10 hours of program support. Perhaps not surprisingly, the first couple weeks have been skewed by about the power of ten. Considering I’m being paid around $8/hr for this work, let’s just say I’ll be finding new ways to prioritize tasks and cap the hours spent working so I have some free time to do things—and things that arent’s driving back and forth between Milwaukee.

Things like eating. And sleeping.

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I took a break to watch the last 20 minutes of Man Ure vs. Villarreal and about 10 minutes of it was top-notch stuff.

I did think it strange that Derek Rae was going all Castilian on us with his pronunciation of Santi Cazorla as ca-THOR-la. Doubly strange that Argentinian Ariel Ibagaza got the plain ol’ anglicized iba-GAZ-a. It could be that Derek Rae knows something I don’t, but I also doubt that he would pronounce Zaragoza as thera-GO-tha, which would be, you know, consistent.

Current Mood: Pretty Goo…zzzzzzzzzzzz |