FIFA refuses to come out of the stone age, instead preferring futbol to be refereed by one human being guaranteed to make mistakes – mistakes that the world can watch in gorgeous hi-def slow motion, over and over, seconds after they occur. Players perpetually dive and shove and take cheap shots behind the ref’s back, unashamed of the camera catching their every move, simply because it pays off – the fans may boo, but the play goes on in their favor, and the only one clueless to the truth is the poor overworked referee.
Poorly distributed cards aside, the number of bad calls at this year’s World Cup has been staggering, with the most well-known errors leading to an incorrect score. Even before the World Cup began, complaints regarding the famous French handball that knocked Ireland out of qualifying were at a din. During, the US were mysteriously stripped of a winning goal against Slovania without explanation, England was denied a critical goal that was a yard inside the net, and Argentina was given a goal against Mexico when it was clear to everyone that their man was offside. These kind of errors not only change the actual score, but provide a mental blow that certainly further affects the outcome. And don’t even get me started on the red cards, apparently distributed randomly as the lone referee grapples with maintaining control.
The most shameful thing that FIFA has done is scapegoat the referees. All three refs that made the goal errors have been sent home, as well as another that sent off Kaka after some ridiculous Ivory Coast acting. Talk about not fixing the problem. Until FIFA adds more referees, implements goal-line technology, and generally decides that truth is better than drama, they will be ON MY LIST. :P
World Cup Frenzy
We had the best time this morning, I took off work and Andrea Reiley Wren Bailey and Larry and I met at the My Way Tavern for two awesome simultaneous games: US vs Algeria, and England vs Slovenia. These were the games that determined who got through the group stage for Group C – it’s nail-biting time for the World Cup! The place exploded when Donovan gave us all a rush scoring in the 91st minute. Man I love that man. Still shopping for a jersey…
- mexico 1-1 south africa the refs stole a goal from mexico – NO HE DIDN’T, know the rules dummy!
http://getpublished.news-leader.com/wordpress/blog/2010/06/11/world-cup-south-africa-vs-mexico-offsides-for-dummies-and-espn-announcers/ - uruguay 0-0 france
- south korea 2-0 greece s korea was on FIRE! greece on their heels
- argentina 1-0 nigeria nigerian goalie is AWESOME, argentinians big and strong
- england 1-1 us us was energetic, england was ok too – green is a dead man
- algeria 0-1 slovania
- serbia 0-1 ghana
- germany 4-0 australia ROBBED by a totally ridiculous red card from the mexican ref, most calls were TOTALLY BAD
- netherlands 2-0 denmark holland in orange looking really good
- japan 1-0 camaroon japan hard working, camaroon too but frustrated
- italy 1-1 paraguay at first i had the teams confused – paraguay was energetic!
- new zealand 1-1 slovakia gorgeous nz cross+header at 93 minutes!
- portugal 0-0 ivory coast c.ronaldo looking good – yellow carded!, ivory coast getting some shots on goal
- brazil 2-1 n.korea brazil not as effective as you’d think
- hoduras 0-1 chile missed most of it
- spain 0-1 swiss HOLY CRAP! swiss strikers showtime! spain hammered over and over, hit post 2-3 times, couldn’t get it in!
- swiss striker ROLLED into the net, another followed it in – spain defender came up with cut face
- germany 0-1 serbia klose red-carded, germany was screwed
- s.africa –
- us 2-2 slovania TOTAL $#*$ ROBBERY! no one even knows why us goal 3 was denied!! US WAS ON FIRE!
- uruguay 1-0 mexico mexico the better strikers, uruguay scored and played defense
- france 1-2 s.africa france, the disgrace of the 2010 world cup, AS I PREDICTED – zidane’s shame lives on
- argentina 2-0 greece greece sucks – altho their one lone striker had impressive moments!
- nigeria 2-2 s korea awesome game, well played by nigeria but not enough to go on – going to miss that goalie
- us vs algeria do or die! algeria came out shooting first, tense – then us got upper hand, scored – DENIED ‘offsides’ bah!
then chaos at the net at 91st minute, Donovan follows up to SCORE!!! win 1-0, US GOES THRU!! - england vs slovenia england scores first half, keeps game muted after that – not stellar but ENGLAND GOES THRU! AMAZING!!
Cool camping on a hot day
We went camping this weekend – even though it was 95 degrees! But we avoided the heat – we brought the inflatable boat and spent all our time in Lake Jordan.
I did my best pirate impression and kept the girls on the run – including Sparrow (Wren), Calypso (Scarlett), Starfish (Savanah), Spongebob and Patrick (Olivia and her friend), and my arch-enemy, Rat (Reiley). We rafted, they rafted, we captured, they walked the plank, they stowed away, they abandoned ship, they stole our oars, they captured the treasure from us, they buried the treasure, they swam right past us with it without giving it away. They did a fine job of keeping Captain Jack (Richard) and me baffled as to the whereabouts of the rare and valuable green sword for most of the time at sea. Scurvy little sea scum rats!
We had a nice campfire with dogs burgers corn beans and smores, classic. Cameron drew the lucky straw and came with us, he was a darling. And the new tent is fantastic.
It was a compact and fun trip, and we made it back in time to relax, watch more World Cup (go US!), and celebrate Father’s day. What a life. :>
Soil sampling
We took some soil samples from some land we were looking at, NC has a nice soil testing service through the Agronomics branch of the Agriculture Department. You just drop off some soil and they send you a report, awesome! Takes about a week…
Wrenny shows off her African dancing skills
Fumbling with iphone wordpress app, it won’t post video… forthcoming…
new wordpress iphone app, crashes less, posted pic but not showing up
two more revs of app and still sucking…
Wrenny’s team wins their soccer tourney!
What a fun day, two games on Saturday, taking the team to the winner’s circle! Gary, Randy and I have coached these girls for years, and watched them come together as a team. I’m like a broken record, but I’d rather see the girls play as a team, with great crosses, using the whole field, leading passes to open spaces, etc., even if it means losing to the poorer strategies of teams that leverage one kid dribbling the length of the field, or the whole team playing packball. The beautiful thing about this tournament was the fact that our team-based effort is now officially blowing the doors off those strategies, with the kids’ constantly-improving level of play taking them to a coordinated effort that is truly a beautiful thing to watch. Every kid is a contributor, and they were on FIRE on Saturday. Way to go, Allie, Brooklyn, Chloe, Dania, Holly, Jennifer, Jessica, Kylie, Olivia, Syndey, Wrenny, Zoe!
One cute puppy
Pictures forthcoming…
An ode to bro
My bro is constantly trying to fight the right-wing hate machine that lives and breathes through all the bitter old people that use the internet (read: forward junk mail). He does a beautiful job of debunking the bs, but it always falls on deaf ears (and minds).
So… I am reposting his inspired responses so they aren’t lost in the bottom of an overstuffed inbox. All in good fun. Continue reading “An ode to bro”
Happy 14th Birthday Reiley!
Fourteen, holy cow. We went to PF Chang’s, had cake, opened presents, and stayed up ’til midnight watching Woody Allen’s Manhatten Murder Mystery, fun fun! The highlight by most accounts was the news that Reiley is in line for a puppy – let the next great search begin. :>
9.5 Massive Attack – Paradise Circus (Breakage’s Tight Rope remix)
I didn’t pick up on this song until TapTapRevenge gave it away for free, and I realized I already had it on my iPhone. 10 years ago, my friend Zac didn’t appreciate the subtleties of Massive Attack, instead preferring more-direct bands like slipknot and Powerman 5000 that got right to the point. I could understand this – 15 years before I was Ministry’s single biggest fan. But Massive Attack is to ultraviolent music as thrillers are to action movies – it’s a matter of suspense and minimalism. Minimalism is hard to do right. Anyone can create music in moments (and it seems like everyone has) by cutting and pasting measures repeatedly, resulting in mind-numbing banality. Simple is beautiful, but it’s so easy to slide into simplicity. Bands like Massive Attack and Depeche Mode realized that you can easily lay down 50 tracks of sonic wall but when the user slips on the headphones they only hear one sound. That one sound is essential.
A couple other recent selections that get the minimalist thing pretty well are Bassnectar’s CozzaFrenzy, GetDarker presents “This is Dubstep” and The Crystal Method’s Legion of Boom.
This post brought to you by Dragon Naturally Speaking on the iPhone – sure beats typing on that stupid “auto-correcting” (sic) thing!