happy new year!

And what better way to ring in the new year than a day filled with good old American (and maybe Canadian) sports?

First, we have a strange fusion of baseball and hockey with the Winter Classic - Blackhawks and Redwings playing at Wrigley Field, home of my beloved Chicago Cubs. Weird and pointless but I'm going to watch anyways. Unless my sister complains and takes the remote.

My parents will probably want to watch the Rose Bowl, even though the Illini aren't playing this year, so I'm sure that will be on later. I don't really care about the Big 10 or the Pac-10, so I can't muster up a whole lot of excitement about this game. I do think that they should have somehow made Illinois go to the Orange Bowl, simply because it would bring me childish amusement to think that a guy named Juice was playing in a tournament called the Orange Bowl. Ahem, anyways.

And onto the Orange Bowl. No Juice playing, but we do have a Macho. Virginia Tech against Cincinnati. Last year we lost it to Kansas, so I'm hoping for a big win tonight. Although we were a better team last year; the team's been pretty inconsistent this season. I guess we'll see how it goes.

avoid confusion

I was confusing myself with my "football" blog entry tag, because I used it for both American football and soccer/football. So I've fixed the problem; American football is now "our football", while soccer/football is "your football".

These tags were, of course, inspired by this old SportsCenter commercial:


The end.

florida, here we come...again

Once again, we beat BC to be crowned ACC Champs! Two years in a row, baby. We're going back to the Orange Bowl, and this time we're gonna win it.

the good, the bad, and the ugly

Arsenal were finally looking like their old selves again today, at least for most of the game. I've heard all the criticism: so many opportunities and woeful finishing, trying to walk the ball into the back of the net, looking for the "perfect" goal, etc. etc., but I will take this Arsenal over the Arsenal of late any day. The last 15 minutes or so were really nervy, what with Eboue giving the ball away every time he touched it and our back line looking typically porous and panicky, but for a good chunk of the match we were dominating possession and passing like the good old days.

Of course, we're still not quite up to the level of...um, our reserve team--the babies beat Wigan 3-0 in the Carling Cup, all we could pull off today was 1-0--but we're getting there. Slowly but surely.

The good: Adebayor's 16th minute goal; Captain Cesc's third win in a row.

The bad: Palacios' tackle on Nasri, resulting in an Eboue substitution in the 32nd.

The ugly: Eboue's subsequent performance. Also, the boos he got when he was subbed. It really makes me sad when the fans boo their own players, no matter how poorly they may have played.

The announcers likened Fàbregas to an American football player during one play where he stood at the half line and launched the ball down the field to a wonderfully positioned van Persie, which I thought was funny because they used to call Guardiola the "quarterback" for the same reason. Well not the van Persie part, but you know what I mean. I bet Cesc would be happy about the comparison.

Speaking of American football, I've got to go. ACC Championship game on now. Virginia Tech against Boston College.

Let's go Hokies.

"never put off till to-morrow what you can do day after to-morrow just as well."

I have an American Literature midterm tomorrow, so naturally, I'm blogging instead of studying. It's how I roll. (Although that quote at the top is Ben Franklin...I'm procrastinating by writing quotes about procrastination that I actually might need to know for my test so it's not really procrastination at all...trippy.)

I've spent a highly productive evening cutting the split ends out of my hair. You think I'm joking? Ohh no. It's a seriously strange and strangely addictive habit--the more I cut out, the more I find, so it's a never ending process. And since pretty much every hair on my head seems to be damaged, it's kind of like I'm giving myself a very uneven haircut. The sensible thing would be to get a real haircut, but when have I ever been sensible? I'll get it trimmed one of these days. But just because I'm slightly obsessed with my hair doesn't mean that you all want to read about it. So I'll move on to a quick weekend sports recap.

Da Bearss lost to Atlanta today. We are now 3-3, which isn't very good, but no one else in our division is doing well either so it's okay. I didn't watch the game because I was on the highway driving back to school in my shiny new-engined car. (Which didn't break down! It's running fabulously after it got all of its insides replaced, plus it looks amazing because my dad got it detailed.)

The Caps lost their season opener to Atlanta (what is it with Atlanta teams, huh?) on Friday, but beat the Blackhawks yesterday in their first home game. I'm pretty optimistic about most of the team; of course Ovie is always going to be amazing and Green looks as good as ever, but I'm a little worried about Theodore, the new goalie. Hopefully he'll improve as the season goes on.

[Random note: Sarah Palin dropped the ceremonial puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' home opener and got booed hardcore. They had to turn the music up way loud to try to drown out the chorus of boos she got. And it totally didn't work. Also, note the two Obama/Biden signs in the crowd behind her. This makes me like the Flyers a little bit more. Or at least their fans.]

No league footie this weekend, on account of World Cup qualifiers. I only saw the first 20 minutes of the US match against Cuba, but we won 6-1 which is a good sign. Beasley's first goal (the only one I saw) was quite nice. Other scorers were Donovan (meh), Ching (awesome), Jozy (equally awesome), and Gooch (haha, yes really). I haven't heard anything about the two missing Cuban players. I'm imagining them wandering the streets of DC in their match kits, shivering in the frigid 80-degree October weather. (Fuck global warming BTW. I want snow!)

I did get to see Spain vs. Estonia, which was about as interesting as it sounds. Spain pulled out an easy win, and they looked good but not fabulous. Nando's hair is looking so much better than it used to though! Definite plus. I always forget how much I like him until I see him play for Spain. Cesc's hair, on the other hand, I will not mention.

I will now end with another quote, this time from John Adams, just so I don't feel like this was a complete waste of my time.

"Had a declaration of Independency been made seven months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects...We should have mastered Quebec and been in possession of Canada..."

Hee! Our second president totally wanted us to invade Canada. Awesome.

macho man

I love Macho Harris.

That is all.