the boys are back in town!

Well, kind of. We didn't look infallible today (I mean clearly, with an OG you can't really be perfect) but with van Persie's two second half goals we came away from Stamford Bridge with three points! Not many teams can say that. Not many teams can beat Chelsea and Man United but lose to Stoke and Fulham either...all I can say is, whatever is going on with us at the moment, we sure are one of a kind!

And, not that I'm keeping track or anything, but Capitan Fabulous is now 2/2. Two games played, two games won. That's a 100% success rate, dontcha know.

happy belated turkey day!

And so I return from the North; older, wiser, and a good 20 pounds fatter. Okay, so that part may not be true--my aunt claims that I actually lost weight, though I'm pretty sure that's not true either--but I did eat an exorbitant amount of food. Such as it should be on Thanksgiving, the happiest of food-filled holidays.

It was actually a rather small crowd this year; I think we only had about 20-25 people, so we set up three tables instead of the usual four.I should have spent the week off working on my English essays, but in fact I ended up reading the books in the Twilight series--four books in three days, so I can affirm that they are every bit as addictive as everyone says they are. When we got to Connecticut I had every intention of taking a nice long nap (after a three-hours-of-sleep night and a seven hour car ride, I certainly could have used it) but I couldn't fall asleep. Then I saw Twilight sitting on the side table so I decided I might as well see what the fuss is all about. They're quite entertaining; no Shakespeare or Joyce or Fitzgerald, of course, but they never claimed to be--they're very good for what they are.

Anyways, enough about my forays into the teenage world of vampires and werewolves and star-crossed lovers. Here's a picture of my Thanksgiving plate before dinner:
And after dinner:
I think I was the only one at my table who cleaned their plate. I'm such a pig. We also had lots of pies:Mmm, delicious.

traffic makes me want to kill myself

I made a post last month about how slow-walking people were the most annoying thing in the world. I lied.

It's traffic.

I left my house at 1:30 pm, to drive back to school. It should have taken 3 1/2 hours; 4 if you drive slowly (which I don't). But no, I just got here. It is now almost 8:30. That's a good (or bad, I should say) 7 hours of driving.

It took me a full THREE HOURS LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE.

first win for captain fabulous: a story in pictures

1-0 to the Arsenal! So it wasn't especially pretty, but it was a win. El Capitan looked quite dashing with his new yellow band:



But of course, he wasn't the only one on the pitch. We also had Robin van Persie, doing what he does best:

Carlos Vela, a.k.a. Theo's Mexican twin:

Baby Jack Wilshere:

Aaron "Jailbait" Ramsey:
And, of course, the goalscorer. The pink-shod and half-naked Niklas Bendtner:

o captain! my captain!

My life is now complete. Well, almost. Why, you ask?

Because we'll be seeing a lot more of this lately:
Yes, Cesc is the new captain of Arsenal!

"It will be Cesc Fàbregas. This is a permanent thing. But I don't think I especially have to explain why." --Wenger.

No, Arsene. No, you don't have to explain. I approve.

Cesc says: "It is a great honour for me to captain one of the biggest clubs in the world. It is a proud moment. I know it's a big responsibility but together with my team-mates, I know we have the spirit and commitment to get back to winning ways and fulfill our potential."

Aw, he's all grown up. I'm just so proud right now! *tear*

My life will actually be complete when I see El Capitan Cesc in action at the Emirates.

[P.S. Clichy also approves.]

more pretty people: blog challenge six

This week, it's all about the ladies.

First up, tennis player Ana Ivanovic. Super jealous of her. Her boyfriend is also quite attractive. (Side note: He just helped Espana win the Davis Cup--and he's a lefty!)

Sylvie van der Vaart. Another one that I'm jealous of for both looks and romantic affiliations. Rafa is adorable and they're adorable together.

Eva Green. Her eyes are totally mesmerizing.
Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power. Gorgeous girl with a gorgeous voice.

Keira Knightley; not my favorite actress by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think she's beautiful.

Finally, Diane Lane. Hard to believe she's 43. No way I'll look that good when I'm 43. I don't even look that good now.

the boy from new joisey

Love him.

weird goings-on at valencia

Check out the number on the back of Marchena's shirt.
*click to enlarge*

(okay, it's a little hard to tell, but that's the best picture I could find. The 5 is clearly upside down.)

I don't get it, did they not notice before they sent him out on the pitch?


*is blatantly ignoring the Arsenal result*

redefining sidewalks

A friend of mine posted this note on facebook, and I thought I'd spread the word.

Hey friends at other colleges and universities,

I am a member of a student group here at Princeton protesting Proposition 8, California's recent ballot initiative that banned gay marriage. In the past week, our group has begun staging rallies on our campus for a measure we have dubbed Princeton Proposition 8 (PP8), which would ban freshmen from walking on the University's sidewalks by securing what we feel is the traditional and right definition of a sidewalk (a means of pedestrian and bicycle transit for use by sophomores, juniors, seniors, grad students, faculty, staff, and visitors only). We feel that California's Proposition 8 provides us with a very good precedent to take away the rights of a minority like this.

We are doing this because we are outraged. We are outraged because a majority voting to deny the rights of a minority is illegal, unconstitutional, and wrong. It is the very thing a constitutional democracy is designed to prevent.

Moreover, we are outraged by the fact that to date no one at our university is speaking out. There has been no public outcry; there has been no public discussion of the issue. Our goal in doing this was to create some.

And we have thus far been very successful. People are talking about this issue now. This satirical protest has people discussing the appropriateness of the analogy being made (that marriage, like sidewalks, are a civil right which cannot be denied to a minority simply because a majority wills it to be so). This conversation invariably leads to a deeper weighing of the issues at the heart of the matter.

Over the course of two days of rallying, our pro-PP8 petition has garnered over 400 signatures from enthusiastic "supporters" of traditional sidewalk values, including that of University President Shirley Tilghman. You can watch a video from our pro-PP8 rally on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59IK28ry9eQ), or read about it in our campus newspaper (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/11/21/22209/). Since the posting of these items, they have been linked to by a surprisingly large number of blogs, including Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish. The YouTube video has received over 14,000 views. Word is spreading. We will continue our rallies on Monday and Tuesday, with the eventual goal of organizing a formal vote to "pass" our law.

This is a letter inviting you to participate in our movement. At our college alone we can do only so much. But imagine if every college in the country started such a movement. Together, we'd be impossible to ignore. We could get the whole nation talking.

We encourage you to rally at your own campus for an anti-freshman-on-the-sidewalk University Proposition 8. This is a way for us to make our voices heard in a unique and profound way, especially in a world that views our demographic as complacent and apathetic.

If you're interested and want more information about what we did, email our organizer, Christopher Simpson, tagged in this note (cjsimpso@princeton.edu).

Feel free to copy this note and tag your own friends at other schools!

Thanks,
Lianna


Here's the video of their rally:

au revoir mon capitaine?

Apologies about blogging on the fly, but I am about to drive home for break so I have to make this quick. Also, sorry for posting unconfirmed rumors, but this is just too good to ignore.

According to arseblog, Gallas has been stripped of his captaincy and will not play this weekend's match. No report about who will replace him, but my money's on Clichy. I'd say Kolo, but he hasn't been playing regularly, so I'd be surprised if he gets it even if he is the one to replace Gallas in tomorrow's lineup.

Like I said, not a confirmed report, even if it is a "reliable source", but if it's true...

Hallelujah!

super obama world!

Seriously.

If you're a regular video game player it'll probably be easy for you. If you, like me, don't know the first thing about video games, it might be harder.

i'm entertaining and friendly. suck it, bitches.

It's true, and I have proof. (I'm also hilarious, but you'll have to take my word for it instead of this website's, because it surprisingly says nothing about me being funny.)

According to my blog analysis, I am:

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

Fascinating.

tragedy of king lear-ian proportions

Theo Walcott could be sidelined for up to three months with a dislocated shoulder. I couldn't care less about the England game, but THREE MONTHS???


Cesc will also be absent from the roster for this weekend's match against Citeh for accumulated yellow cards.



Goodbye, cruel world.

nostalgia

Yakko, Wakko, and Dot.

If you are like me, you are very familiar with those three names. Or at least you were as a child. Animaniacs was serious the best cartoon ever. It was intelligent without being overbearing, sarcastic without passing over into cruelty, and it contained a fair amount of risqué humor. Looking back on it I'm actually surprised with some of the jokes they got away with. But I guess that's the very reason they got away with them; you need a certain level of maturity to get the more mature insinuations. (When you're little you just laugh at the fart jokes.)

Okay, I love Disney movies as much as the next girl, but this is just classic:


Animaniacs helped me pass History of the Americas in eleventh grade...


...and English in twelfth grade.


And finally, one of my absolute faves, the modern day "Who's on first":


Why isn't modern kids programming this good? You'd be surprised at how difficult it was to choose clips to post. I feel like I've missed out on a billion classic episodes. Go youtube them.

best time of year

Winter is my favorite time of year. I know it's not actually winter yet, but the first snowfall of the season is happening right at this very moment and I'm super excited about it! I love this weather. I thrive in this weather. I especially love the clothes: coats, hats, scarves, gloves, and fuzzy boots make me very happy.

Plus, the winter holidays rock. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are all fabulous. And St. Patrick's Day, although most people don't consider that a real holiday...whatev, I do.

But seriously, I canot wait until Thanksgiving break this Friday. And winter break a few weeks after that. I want this semester to be over with so I can enjoy the snow in peace!

alas, it seems that you are just a smooth playing rock star.

Sometime during my senior year of high school Phantom Planet played a concert in Harrisonburg VA, which is about two hours south of where I live. Sadly, it was on a weeknight so I had work to do and school early the next day, so I couldn't go. But two of my friends (twins who lived in Radford at the time) went, and they met the band briefly and said the concert was amazing and all that good stuff.

A few days after the concert, their friend wrote a joke fan letter during class and one of the twins stole it and actually mailed it to the band. Fast forward a month or so, and this video is up on the Phantom Planet blog.



Epic win.

P.S. Alex pronounced Brianna wrong.

P.P.S. I believe the swan in question belonged to the girls' older sister.

favorite words: blog challenge four

1) clearly - this has kind of become my word. I'm not sure why, but I say it all the time. Clearly.

2) facetious - totally fun to say. Try it if you don't believe me!

3) ignominy - a word that surprisingly enough comes up quite often in my vocabulary. I'm not gonna say why, but it makes me laugh every time I say it.

4) quandary - I am in a quandary as to why I like the word quandary so much. I also really like the word "perplexed", which is usually used to define quandary. Maybe I'm just confused often, so words to describe my confusion are comforting? Yeah I dunno.

5) foodstuffs - my 12th grade World Topics teacher used to say this all the time and it cracked us up. She also pronounced "experiment" like "ex-spearmint" and said "drug" instead of "dragged". She was a great teacher though. Fun times in high school...

america's not fixed yet

I'm not normally a huge fan of Keith Olbermann, because even though I agree with most of what he says he's a little too OTT for me, but this needed to be said and I think he says it well.



You go, KO.

we all have our fangirl moments, right?

So I've written on the legit reasons I became a footie fan. Now I'm hopping to the shallower side of the pond: the eye candy. Because really, who doesn't love looking at hot guys? Settle down and grab some popcorn, 'cause this is probably going to be a long post.

First up, the Spaniards. No surprises here, they are beautiful boys who play beautiful football.

1) Cesc Fàbregas, the love of my life. He's a bit of a dork, but then again so am I. And he sure threads a mean pass. So amazing, he deserves two pictures.
2) Iker Casillas, a.k.a. God. I am a devoted member of the Church of San Iker.
3) Raul Gonzalez, the other Spanish God of football. Also sometimes known as The Original Hottie.
4) Fernando Torres, the waxing, bleaching, swearing-in-English, goal-scoring genius himself.
5) Xabi Alonso. I'm still lamenting the fact that we couldn't sign him. He is exactly the kind of player Arsenal need at the moment. Plus he'd look pretty in a Gunners kit--we already know red suits him! (Don't worry Liverpool fans, I'm just kidding!

...kind of.)
6) Vicente Rodriguez. Best legs in the biz. Also makes getting punched in the face look damn fine. (Of course, next to him is David Villa--that's Dahveed Veeyah--of Euro 2008 high scoring fame.)And now on to the non-Spaniards.

7) Robin van Persie. I mean, who doesn't love a guy who gets so into table tennis? If nothing else, he'd probably be a great beer pong partner.

8) Roque Santa Cruz. Coolest footballer's name ever. Well, second coolest; I still love saying Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite. But Roque is prettier than Kaka. See?
9) Vedran Corluka. Congratulations Charlie, you are the first Tottenham player I have ever admitted to being attracted to. Quite an achievement. (In my defense, I found him attractive before he sold his soul to the devils.) I can't help it though, he is very much my type: tall, dark hair, amazing green eyes, tall, lean, foreign, did I mention tall? It could never work out between us, me hating his club and all, but that might not stop me stalking him in London...
10) Niko Kranjcar, the other tall beautiful Croatian boy. Sadly, this one's married and doesn't live in London. Although he might soon! Okay, so it's a completely unfounded not-even-rumor-yet, more of a "we should sign him" than a "we are going to sign him", but still. It would be fab. And we both drink lots of milk and pull our long sleeves down over our fingers: totally MFEO.

Okay, now that I've revealed myself to be a total fawning fangirl and destroyed any sort of credibility about the game that I may have previously had, I'm going to go now. Peace out.

all i want for christmas

I'm having sort of a bad day. This, dear readers, has cheered me up. I guarantee it will cheer you up too, even if you don't actually need cheering up.

Seriously, whoever thought up this product = genius. I mean, capes? Really? I now have a very vivid image of team Arsenal running around the pitch in superhero outfits, capes flapping behind them. Of course, they're wearing masks too. But cool masks, not like the creepy old man mask that John Terry had to wear.

Super Gunners!

The only thing that would make this better would be for one of the players to actually be modeling the merch for the website. I think that just might make my life.

old news. but still freaking awesome.

I love the West Wing. This is no secret. The show kept me sane during the Dark Ages, a.k.a. the Bush years (which I guess are technically still here, but at least there's a massive light at the end of the tunnel now). But I never thought that we'd actually be living the TV show.

I'm sure most people have heard of the similarities between Barack Obama and Matt Santos, and yes, it's not a coincidence. The character of President-elect Santos was based on Obama. What not many people know is that the Josh Lyman character was also based on a real politician, i.e. one Rahm Emanuel. Josh Lyman becomes Santos' Chief of Staff. Rahm Emanuel is now Obama's Chief of Staff.

Woah.

I'm so excited, you have no idea. Too bad they couldn't find a CJ to be press secretary instead of Robert Gibbs.

arsenal on ice

A friend of mine coined this term, mainly to describe his current Stanley Cup-holding team the Detroit Redwings, but it totally applied to the Caps tonight. We steamrolled Carolina 5-1, meaning we have now pulled ahead of them to the top of the Southeast division. (And let's just hope we stay there so we don't have to win seven in a row at the end of the season again.)

The Alexes were on fire tonight: Ovie with a goal and two assists, and Semin with a pair of each. Mike Green also scored one, and Nick Backstrom finally got his first goal of the season. But the real gems of the game were our passing plays. Hence the "Arsenal on ice"; the quick passing was totally Arsenalesque. All in all, I was very proud of my boys.

Also, I wish I could have seen Detroit vs. Pittsburgh last night; sounded like a blinder. 13 goals in all, Pitt coming back from a 5-2 deficit to win 7-6. And Jordan Staal got a hat trick in the third period. You know, he's only a day older than me. Boy, do I feel useless.

no wonder i never had a 4.0 gpa

Earlier it was suggested that I do a post on all of the various sports I follow, and I am nothing if not obliging, so here you go.

6. College Basketball - I used to be much more into college ball than I am now. This seems a little backwards, as I am in college now and should therefore be more invested in it, but my school isn't actually that good at the sport. And since I'm now tied to one university, I can no longer root for my previous favorite team, because that would just be morally wrong. I still love March Madness competitions though.

5. American Football - Exactly the opposite of basketball, this has moved up the list since I came to college. I started liking the sport in ninth grade, because my high school team was kickass (and being on the dance team I had to go to all of the games anyways) so I ended up getting really into it. But I didn't follow NCAA or NFL until my freshman year of college, where I fast caught Hokie Fever, and through an increased appreciation of the game went back to my roots and started paying attention to Da Bears. And going to games is amazing, especially with our fabulous right-behind-the-band-close-to-the-action seats this season.

4. Tennis - This one is a little harder to get as worked up about, because I don't have one specific player that I follow over others. But I watch all of the Slams (or at least as many of the matches as I can catch...the Aussie Open is a little difficult with the timing issues) and I love most of the players so I'm generally happy with whoever wins. I just appreciate exciting matches, whoever happens to be playing. Unless it's the Williams sisters.

3. Hockey - I'm relatively new to the hockey love, but I've fallen and fallen hard. Now for football and baseball, I've got family loyalties to the Chicago teams because those are the teams my mom grew up cheering for. But she was never a huge hockey fan and I was never instilled with any sort of Blackhawks loyalty, so I became a fan of my local team. And what a team they are! The Washington Capitals make my life complete.

2. Baseball - I understand why many people think baseball is boring, but I grew up watching this game and now I just can't stop. I'm addicted. I get far too into my team (as I'm sure you have all read about in previous entries at the beginning of last month) and despite perpetual letdowns, I still come back at the beginning of each new season and get excited about my boys again.

1. Football (a.k.a. Soccer) - Well, I just explained about where my love of the game came from last entry, so I won't bore you with the deets again. Suffice it to say that this is my favorite sport, my obsession, the one that I absolutely cannot live without, and also the one that weirds people out the most. ("You like soccer?...but why?") I don't think that part will ever change in America.

Whew. Clearly this takes up a lot of my time. I don't know why I go to such pains, and subject myself to so much opportunity for heartbreak. The only thing I can come up with is that seeing my teams win, no matter how infrequently, makes it all worth it.

Plus, athletes are hot.

football history: blog challenge three

I'm sure some (if not all) of you have heard this story before, but whatev. It's a good one, so don't complain! My obsession with football started in Chicago when I was 13. It was the summer of the 2002 World Cup and I was at my grandparents house for a family reunion. My aunt had just returned from Ecuador, where she had gotten married and been living for a few years, and she brought her footie-loving husband back with her. Now as far as I knew, I liked playing soccer but thought watching the sport was incredibly boring. But the two of them were so into it (going so far as waking up in the middle of the night to watch the matches live on the Spanish channels) that I got caught up by the whole thing and started watching. Well actually, I was forced to watch the first game--I had some movie on and they made me change the channel--and I am forever indebted to them because of it.

So I fell in love with the US Men's National Team. (And yes, this is where my animosity for the German NT comes from--I have still not forgiven Torsten Frings for that uncalled handball on the goal line during the quarters, and I have hated Michael Ballack and Oliver Kahn from that game on. I don't think it'll ever change.) I started watching MLS, and soon fell in love with Taylor Twellman and Brian Ching and Carlos Bocanegra. And then about a two years later, right before my junior year of high school, we switched from basic to digital cable and I discovered FSC. My life has never been the same since.

Up until that point, the only English teams I had heard of were Manchester United (of course) and Reading (because that's where Bobby Convey went when he left DC). But I figured that was a very uninformed way to make a decision about which team to support, so I took a few weeks and watched as many matches as I could. First came Man United and I was unimpressed. They just didn't do anything for me. But the first Arsenal game I saw had me hooked. Dennis Bergkamp, Bobby Pires, Titi--I fell in love with the fluid style of play, and yes I will admit, the players. The teenage Spaniard with the monster passes filling in for Patrick Vieira captured my little footie-loving heart.

And then I found out that Nick Hornby (my favorite author because of High Fidelity, Songbook, and his weekly "Stuff I've Been Reading" column in The Believer) had written a book called Fever Pitch and IT WAS ABOUT HIS OBSESSION WITH ARSENAL. Fate? I think so!

I didn't realize until I started writing this and actually tallied it up--I've only been an Arsenal fan for about 4 1/2 years. That seems so weird to me because I can't remember a time when I didn't look forward to watching football on the weekends. Now I'm looking forward to actually going to a match someday. It's gonna happen.

overwhelmed

So it's over. And I seriously cannot describe what I'm feeling right now. There are no words.



President Barack Obama...sounds good, doesn't it?

EDIT: Virginia also went to Obama. This is a huge deal. And Fairfax County was one of the major factors. Also, Montgomery County (the one that houses VT) went blue. My vote counted! And my volunteering helped! I'm so proud *tears up*.

laziness

Arsenal have been doing rather poorly lately, in case anyone hasn't noticed. I'm a bit too lazy to write about it, but this post says basically everything that I'm thinking. You should read it if you're at all interested.

I missed Champions League football today because of classes, but to be perfectly honest I'm more interested in things a little closer to home today (i.e. the presidential election). I'll probably be up all night following the results, which will make for an interesting day of classes tomorrow, I'm sure.

i'm informed. go me.

You Should Be Allowed to Vote

You got 12/15 questions correct. Generally speaking, you're very well informed. If you vote this election, you'll know exactly who (and what) you'll be voting for. You're likely to have strong opinions, and you have the facts to back them up.

Should You Be Allowed to Vote?

Good thing, because I sent my ballot in a while ago.


So tomorrow's the big day. Everyone go vote for Barack Obama!

someone's discovered scissors!

Am avoiding mention of the game, because it's just too damn depressing to think about right now.

BUT:


Thank you, Cesc.