The Vegas Recap - Part I

I decided this fall that I would travel to Las Vegas on the first weekend of June with my co-ed soccer team to take part in a tournament held there every year. In previous years I did not have a team to go with, but everybody kept telling me about how much fun the trip was and how much fun I would have, so I couldn't resist. I gave in this year and booked my ticket. Oops.

To begin with, I discovered in January that spring quarter finals would begin the week following my return from Vegas. With any luck, my finals would not be on Monday and Tuesday. Things usually work out for me, so I of course assumed that my finals would be Tuesday and Wednesday. No such luck. My Legal Ethics final? Monday, 8:30am. Too much irony here for me to fully address. Oddly enough, I had Family Law on Tuesday. It seems to me that the two subjects I would be tested on were particularly fitting given my trip to Vegas. How many families have been destroyed by what people did while in Vegas? So I knew before I left that I would have to study while in Vegas... I should have taken bets on my productivity.

We arrive on Thursday night at 11pm. I link to this Bill Simmons article because he does an excellent job of describing McCarran Airport. Simmons refers to it as the "Seventh Circle of Hell", and he's correct. We land, and it's a race to the taxis. I am traveling with friends Dan and Matt. Matt is in Vegas at least once a month for work, as he manages an office there. He informs us that in order to travel with him, we are not allowed to check bags. Fine. We all have carry-ons. We get off of the airport tram and it's a speed-walking contest to the taxi-line. I wish it were a sprint, but the distance couldn't have been any shorter than a mile. We finally get there (Matt and I get there, Dan is considerably behind and counting the moments until he can start smoking), and the line is ridiculous. We deliberate, and decide on taking a casino shuttle, thinking this will save us time. The decision blows up in our face. Although it leaves the airport 30 minutes before we would have gotten a taxi, it stops to drop off the other 15 riders on the shuttle first. Each rider staying at a different casino. In other words, the Sixth Circle of Hell. We could have walked to our hotel in 20 minutes. Instead, we were trapped on this shuttle, continually driving within 4 blocks of our hotel but never actually going there. It felt like being on the merry-go-round and reaching for that stupid ring. This was always an issue for me as I was NEVER tall enough to reach it. So, constantly within sight but always out of reach. That was our trip to the hotel.

Finally, at 1am, we arrive and check in. Our room is nice, and the bed is comfortable, but this is Vegas baby! We're not staying in our room, we're going out! Dan and I meet up with the rest of our team at the MGM. They've all been in town for a day, and they are all wasted. Dan and I are sober. This is not fun. I end up leaving after an hour because I've had my junk groped three times - and never by a person who does not have their own junk. Sometimes I wonder about soccer players.

Matt was the smart one. He went to sleep when we arrived at the hotel. Because he knew something we didn't. We would be waking up at 7am to run errands. We had to pick up our rental car. We had to go shopping for booze. We had to check in to our new hotel. And then we had to go to a day-long bachelor party that Matt's friend was throwing in Vegas. Dan and I, who between us slept maybe 8 hours, were tired and grumpy. Coffee helped solve this, as did the convertible we rented. But Vegas is hot, and nothing makes me grumpy like sweating in a car. Every time we stopped moving it felt like I wet my pants. I have a perspiration issue - I sweat at the drop of a hat. So Vegas and 107 degrees is problematic for me. But I struggle through, and we get to the Palms with $300 worth of booze and an afternoon to kill with a bunch of early 30s bachelor partiers at a pool-side suite. Good times ahead.

Small explanation. You can't check in to a hotel at 11am, so when we moved to our new hotel, all we could do was check our luggage. I forgot to bring my swimsuit with me, so when we got to the Palms, all I had to swim in were my cargo shorts. I decided what the hell, and got in the water, knowing full-well that I would be moist and unpleasant the rest of the day. The pool at the Palms was familiar... reminiscent of something I'd seen before. No, not other swimming pools... Aha! I remembered! It was like watching Animal Planet shows about mating behavior. In the pool were no more than 10 guys who were not using steroids or human growth hormone. People in the pool were huge. Even the small guys looked like Magnus Ver Magnusson, able to pull a jet from the runway to the gate if the engines were to lose power. The women were mostly plastic or botox. Again, maybe 10 women in the pool did not have fake boobs. But the most memorable people were not in the pool.

The first was perhaps a 26 year old man, roughly 6'3", who was dancing on the edge of the pool wearing a cowboy hat and expensive sunglasses. His dance reminded me of a Bird of Paradise, showing off his moves for a potential mate in hopes that they would be powerless to resist him. Either that, or the barking/splashing spectacle that seals put on when trying to attract a mate. Whether his dance was working or not is unclear. I was not there long enough to witness any success. I was there long enough however to see him attempt his own Thunder Down Under review show with a poor girl sitting in a lawn chair next to the pool. He "mounted" the chairs on either side of her, shook his business in her face, and gradually moved in closer and closer. At one point, it appeared that the girl threw up in her mouth a little bit. At this point, he turned around and started shaking his ass in her face. Everybody in the pool was watching, so this guy achieved his goal of being the center of attention. Perhaps he's more successful than I thought because I'm writing about him now. But he's a D-Bag. So in the end he loses.

The other was a cougar. Perhaps in her mid-30s, this woman stood at the edge of the pool for over an hour. She was dressed in a bikini top, expensive sun-glasses, platforms, and those boxer-brief type shorts that girls wear when they want their ass to hang out. This girl had a nice ass - hell, she had a nice body. And everybody knew it. But so did she. So she stood, on the edge of the pool, for over an hour, facing her friends in the lawn chairs, addressing her assets to the eyes of all men in the pool. Shameless promotion. But she did have a nice ass. She was not enticed by the dancing D-Bag, however.

As time progressed, Dan and I had to leave to go to the MGM and meet up with our teammates. We took a shot for the road, and I was a wee bit drunk. Drunk enough that I forgot to bring my t-shirt with me when we left. So there I was, moving from one hotel to the next, in nothing but flip-flops, wet shorts, sun glasses and visor, and a towel. I probably looked like an asshole. We wandered out to the lazy river pool. Recall I was a bit drunk and had only been to the MGM once before. I had no idea where we were going or how we got to the pool. But I wasn't falling over or anything. I was just distracted by all the bright lights! We got to the pool at 4pm, and started drinking for real. Beer after beer after beer. Everybody was buying 5-beer buckets for $25. The beer was flowing like wine, and the elite were flocking like the salmon of Capistrano! Well, it's hard to gauge how drunk you are when you're in the water and it's 100 degrees. So when 7pm rolled around, and everybody wanted to go change and get dinner in anticipation of going out, I was in trouble.

I believe, and this is no better than a rough estimate, that I consumed 8 beers while at the MGM. Along with what I'd had at the Palms, I'd had roughly 13 drinks in 6 hours. I was WASTED! But I didn't know it until I tried to get out of the pool, which, took me three tries. I got halfway out, only to fall back in. Again, but this time, 3/4 out. Finally, with some assistance, I made it out of the pool. I took two steps, and fell down, scattering lawn chairs in every direction. People laughed. So did I. How drunk are you? they asked. A lot drunker than I thought, I answered. After another lawn-chair scattering fall, I had secured a towel, dried off a bit, and retrieved my wallet and cell-phone, which went into my pockets. Dan and I walked out, to drive back to our hotel and change for the evening. No such luck for me, things would not be that simple.

As we walked, the pool was on my left. I was probably 10 feet from the edge when it felt like gravity drew me towards the pool. I began to lean, and pretty soon my momentum was carrying me towards the pool, while my body still faced forward. To the onlooker it appeared as though I'd been pushed, but that was not the case. Instead, I fell into the pool, ruining my cell phone. Once in the water, I pulled my phone out of my pocket, just in time to see it go dead. People laughed. Dan, however, did not stop to wait for me. I have no idea where Dan went. I finally made it out of the pool, and began to wander alone back towards the casino lobby. That took awhile. I was drunk, wet, I had no shirt, and no means of communication. I found the lobby, but no Dan. I stumbled around. People stared at me. I had a towel and a sunburn. I must have been a sight. I began to weigh my options. I did not know the room numbers of the people who were staying at the MGM. I knew the name of the person the rooms would be under, but the workers would not give me the room numbers. I was too drunk to realize that they would likely be willing to call the room for me and then I could figure out what their room numbers were. I had money. I could take a cab back to my hotel. But wait, we hadn't checked in. And my name wasn't on the room. So if I were to go to the desk at my hotel, again, they wouldn't give me the room number. And I didn't know if anybody was there, so would I be able to get in? I had no shirt. Again, this greatly limited what I could do. And I had no phone. So I stood there, wondering if I was going to spend my first full night in Vegas hanging out in a lobby, wet and drunk, waiting for somebody I knew to come by.

Fortunately, somebody came by much sooner, and I was saved. Eventually I got in touch with Dan, and we made it back to the hotel. I passed out at 8:30 and woke up the next morning completely refreshed, just in time to play some soccer...

This concludes Part I of the post.

Broken Foot = Not Funny

That's right, I broke my foot on Sunday playing soccer. I wish it were more glamorous, like I broke it scoring a game-winning goal or something, but it's not. I broke a bone in my foot because I was changing directions and the bone couldn't handle it. Oh well, what are you going to do? It is amazing how important one small bone in your foot can be, but I can't put any pressure on the stupid foot, so I'm on crutches for at least one week, and wearing a walking boot for at least two.

This was compounded by the fact that I've never been on crutches before. I park four blocks away from my office, so the crutch-walk to the office on Monday was unfortunately long. I made the walk last Friday when I was healthy in 5 minutes. I made it on Monday in 25 minutes. And now I have bruises in my armpits. I don't think I'm using the crutches correctly. Thank god I got a parking pass in the building for the next few weeks, it made my life more bearable today.

Getting around on crutches is miserable. You can't carry anything. I had to ask people to get coffee for me today, to pick up documents from the printer, and to get people to sign documents. I can't help feeling helpless.

Hopefully my foot heals properly and quickly. I have no intention of giving up soccer and it's going to take a lot of rehab in order to get myself to the point where I don't get hurt again. I'm holding out for a change of my luck. Let's see what happens...

My Future Life as an Uncle

Great news from the family in the last few months - my brother and his wife are pregnant and expecting sometime this fall. I am pumped, although I'm not sure exactly what to do with this information. My brother, who as you can tell from the picture is incredibly photogenic (and somehow I'm even worse 0ff in the photogeneity department), decided that as he was entering his 30s, it was time to start procreating. All the signs were there. They bought a house together, they have two dogs, a yard, and they live out in the country. And they needed somebody else to play video games with - which is actually the single biggest reason that I don't have kids yet. Who wants to share their PlayStation 2 with somebody else? Total crap, I say. Anyway, it was getting to be time to have some little ones running around, so they got to it. My sister-in-law, who's picture turned out poorly (I think there was something wrong with the background lighting, maybe she was standing in front of the sun?), was of course part of the process. Bear in mind that this is the photo of my sister-in-law that comes up when you google her, so technically speaking, this is what she looks like. Part of the charm lies in how my brother and sister-in-law chose to break the news to the rest of the family.

Our family has initiated a new tradition - family breakfast/lunch on the third Sunday of every month. As the great family man he is, this is my brother's idea. I personally can't handle driving 30 minutes to see my family every third weekend of the month. I love my family, but come on. Seriously. It's one of the reasons that I live 30 minutes away from them. To begin with, my dad attracts fat and tall people. On planes, at movies, while dining, you name it. Whatever would make the experience less enjoyable, that is the type of person that sits next to/in front of my dad. I try and avoid him in public places because of this. Hell, he even got attacked by a dog and bitten on both legs last week while riding his bicycle. My mom - well - she has the mom thing going. She can look at me and make me feel guilty about not (a) living up to my potential as a human being, and/or (b) not doing as well in school as I could. I suppose these are both connected. And she has amazing powers of instilling guilt for a non-Catholic or non-Jewish mother. My brother and my sister-in-law have two dogs. I borrowed their car recently and I'm still sneezing. I keep finding dog hair all over my clothes and apartment. I even found some dog hair in my bed last week. I promise you, when I sleep with dogs, I keep it on the couch, so I have no idea how that hair made it in to my bed.

So there we are, at family lunch, Sunday at 11:30ish. We're at a Mexican restaurant, eating tortilla chips as we wait to place our orders, when my brother blurts out, "So... you guys are going to be grandparents." That's it. No, "Hey guys, we have something to tell you", or, "We have an announcement to make!". Just, "Pass the chips please. You guys are going to be grandparents." My brother specializes at this type of thing. He loves to diminish his own achievements, probably because he doesn't feel like it's proper to shamelessly promote yourself. I don't agree with him on this - I have to pimp this blog if anybody's going to read it. But seriously, having kids is a big deal! Announce it! You made a little human! We're all happy for you buddy. But my brother doesn't like to be predictable either. This is the guy who decided that he was going to become a NASCAR fan because, as a Latino, it was the sport people least expected him to care about. I guess as a market analyst, he probably had access to the demographics for NASCAR. Don't talk to him about how poorly Michael Waltrip is doing this year. It hurts him.

As my old boss told me on the day I quit, I am selfish. I believe the quote was, "You know what, you are just like a typical little brother, selfish, always thinking about yourself!". Because I hate to disappoint, I will now produce my selfish list of Uncle demands, for my brother to read. I don't need his approval, these are unilateral and unalterable (2 years of law school helped me word that sentence).

1. I will only baby-sit when it is both convenient and I am willing.
2. I reserve the right to feed your child junk food, and then leave once he/she spazzes out.
3. You do not have the right to act this way with my children when you too become an uncle.
4. When your kid gets older but is still a minor I will supply him/her with alcohol.
5. I will always be the Cool Uncle, the one who never punishes and always says yes and takes the kids to sporting events while you clean up after his messy ass at home. As I will be feeding the kid at the game, see #2, supra.
6. I will take your son to a nudie bar when he turns 18. While there, I will relate to him any and all adventurous sexual experiences I had before I got married to his aunt. He will talk about it in front of his aunt, and I will get in trouble. At this point, I will cease to be the Cool Uncle and I will become the Weird Uncle, see #5, supra.
7. I will require a key to your place. I will say it is so I can drop your kids off and pick them up to assist you in your child-rearing duties, but really it will be so I can eat your food and watch your movies. I will crap on your new flooring and blame it on the dogs.
8. At some point, I will take your child to get a tattoo, one that will be incredibly embarrassing when they finally learn what Yo Amo Mexico means (self-respecting Guatemalans probably wouldn't do this to their nieces/nephews, so this one is probably not going to happen).

So there you have it. This is what you have to look forward to Brother. Your selfish, small-minded little brother, is planning to work against all your parenting efforts simply to entertain himself. I hope you're ready for it. Because as Charlton Heston once said in Ben Hur, "You may conquer the land. You may slaughter the people. But that is not the end. We will rise again!"

Starbucks - Home of All Things Pretentious

Starbucks - coffee shop or status symbol? I'm going to vote for the latter.

Every product sold in a Starbucks shop strikes me as pretentious. Merriam-Webster provides the relevant definition: "expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature". I can't help thinking this is, as the Brits would say, spot-on. And while I'm at it, I might as well write this article using intermittent British slang I picked up while over there 8 years ago. So I'm going to take the piss out of Starbucks.

To begin with, ordering a drink there gives you an exaggerated sense of accomplishment. Ordering a drink in Starbucks is like learning Italian. When you finally learn how to say something, it sounds beautiful. Whispering a complicated drink order into a woman's ear is guaranteed to get her naked in under 30 minutes - "Double shot tall non-fat macchiatto with whip, baby". I might as well be saying, "Hey slut, let's get naked and rub up against each other". I've never used that line, though, so I'm not sure if it works. And learning to order can be just as or more difficult than learning a foreign language. I know how to order two Coca-Colas in Italian - I can't even order Coke at Starbucks, for fuck's sake! Just look at the expression on the faces of people who order drinks at Starbucks, you can see the overwhelming sense of accomplishment when they place their order in one smooth, sexy sentence, feeling as if they've impressed the cashier, the barista, and any mere mortals who may be standing in line behind them. Bollucks. I study at Starbucks - if you watch enough people, you can actually see a few people experience that moment when they first place a complicated order flawlessly - they smile and giggle, like small children learning to ride a bike for the first time without their parents holding them by the belt loop of their pants. Total shite.

Thankfully, I only order a handful of things at Starbucks. My drinks of choice? First, a short hot chocolate. I never, under any circumstance, order hot cocoa. You want pretension? There you go, order cocoa. Makes people sound like they long for the days when the only people who drank hot chocolate were members of the European elite, who imported the bean from The New World, probably harvested through the efforts of enslaved indigenous people. Those were my ancestors. I am still mad at their exploitation. Don't be fooled by the picture, it wasn't much fun to be a slave in The New World. Can anybody say reparations? Second, I order a short drip. One cashier always alters this order into "one short cafe verona", but I quickly correct him. Don't call me cafe verona you ass! But seriously, I don't want cafe, and I don't want verona. Just give me a small white paper cup full of coffee, and NO, I DON'T NEED ROOM FOR CREAM!

Cashiers always seem perplexed by the simplicity of my orders. Perhaps I mistake bemusement for confusion. Insert picture of Ross the Intern here. Maybe they hear me order and hearken back to simpler times, when they too ordered such unsophisticated drinks. Maybe they view me as aliens view us, prisoners to our lack of intellectual advancement. Or maybe not. Bloody hell, I don't really know.

But what really got me going on this rant against Starbucks and it's giant ego has me conflicted: sausage breakfast sandwiches. The damn things are just delicious. I don't really know what to say - they really and truly are delicious. I used to eat them all the time. But then I had a sobering experience. I ate a sausage breakfast sandwich at work, prepared in the office cafeteria. It too was delicious. It too was tasty. Et tu, sausage breakfast sandwich prepared by line cooks? So I tried a Jimmy Dean sausage breakfast sandwich from my local grocery store, prepared first thing in the morning and held in a persistent vegetative state under the heat lamp until I plucked it around 10am. And wouldn't you know, it was delicious. I'd made a right mess of it. The Starbucks mystique had been destroyed. I had paid attention to the man behind the curtain. The Starbucks breakfast sandwich had been exposed for what it was - an overpriced fraud.

To date, I am uncertain how to proceed. Starbucks is everywhere. It's stores are more pervasive than Jazzercise. If I want coffee, I need only lift my eyes and look around, and I can find a Starbucks. And with it comes temptation. Adam didn't know temptation like I do, unless the apple was Satan's Starbucks sausage breakfast sandwich. In which case, Adam, I apologize. Just look at that B, forcing the apple upon Adam. Starbucks is my Eve. Forcing me to buy into its pretentious attitude, to devour its delicious breakfast snacks, to crave them as I craved gummy worms as a child. Damn you Starbucks. In the words of Charlton Heston, "Get your filthy hands off me, you damn dirty ape!"

Alli - Friend or Foe

I was up late watching television last night, Leno to be precise, when the monologue mentioned a new diet pill hitting the market right now - Alli. The pill is marketed by GlaxoSmithKline ("GSK"). Supposedly, the pill works by limiting how much fat your body retains during digestion. Only a limited amount of fat is taken up during digestion, with the excess fat passed out of the body. If used in conjunction with an effective diet, a person who could expect to lose 10 pounds in two weeks would instead lose 15. Modest impact, but enough to motivate thousands of people to pre-order the pill.

The Alli website touts the pill because it has received FDA approval. This is an important fact - the pill shouldn't be causing any serious side-effects or long-term problems. But a closer look at the website reveals a series of nasty immediate side-effects. GSK has lovingly termed this embarrassing moments "Treatment Effects". None of these side-effects is enough to prevent FDA approval, but perhaps they are enough to dissuade the educated buyer from choosing Alli. The list includes:

• gas with oily spotting
• loose stools
• more frequent stools that may be hard to control

I find this piece of advice equally disturbing:

"You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work"

So the question is, just what are you willing to put up with in order to lose weight?

I, for one, would not be willing to take this pill in order to lose weight. As much as I love donuts, bacon, and anything high in fatty content, I have to believe that I am not alone in preferring a change in diet to making a mess in my pants. What options do I have to avoid embarrassing moments? Wearing adult diapers? I suppose that's a legitimate option, but would I be wearing them all day long and changing every time I have an accident? Perhaps I need a new shirt to warn people of the impending horrors I am about to unleash upon them? If I'm at work, is the only real inconvenience that I must change my clothes? The website fails to mention that if I make a mess in my pants at work, the smell is likely to travel beyond my desk - others will no doubt be consumed unwittingly by the stench of my "gas with oily spotting". And that's assuming a best case scenario of having an accident at my desk. What if it happens during a meeting? What if it happens in the elevator? I am going to take the stairs for the next few weeks, I'm not sure I want to be in any confined spaces with people I don't know for awhile.

I wish this were the only example of drug companies pushing a miracle cure on Americans that had unfortunate side-effects, but alas, there are others. One such example is Olestra, the food additive of the late 1990s. While Olestra was a fat-substitute that supposedly retained flavor, it too was characterized by "Treatment Effects". Olestra warned consumers that it may cause "abdominal cramping and loose stools", but the buzz word of the era was "anal leakage". The FDA categorized complaints under the term "fecal incontinence". I'm not sure it matters how you try and describe these types of side-effects - they will always evoke responses of disgust.

Which leads me to one simple conclusion. The human body is designed to absorb fatty acids. If we don't absorb them, they only have one place to go - out of the body. Unfortunately, the body is not designed with this in mind. Until somebody (God, if you're not too busy, you might want to get on this) re-designs the human body to come up with a less unpleasant means of excreting unwanted fat from our digestive tracts, it appears that the only SAFE AND DIGNIFIED method of losing weight continues to be diet and exercise. Damn! No short-cuts!

Diving and Playing the Ball Out

Diving in soccer has reached epic proportions. It changes the outcome of games. Just look at Zinedine Zidane - his red card in the 2006 World Cup Final was the likely reason for his team's defeat. Granted, it is difficult to head-butt somebody and not receive a red card, but the Italian culprit, Materazzi, sure made a spectacle of the event. He flopped to the ground like he'd been shot in the chest at close range with a shotgun. Clearly an over-exaggeration, but a symbol of recent developments in soccer.

There are several suspects when it comes to diving. Ariel Ortega of Argentina is a central figure. "El Pitufo" ("The Smurf") developed a reputation as a diver. As the smallest player on the field, Ortega likely developed the approach in an effort to protect himself from larger opponents. This approach cannot be entirely faulted. Big guys can hurt you. As a matter of fact, they can crush you, break your leg, and receive a 3-match suspension, while you miss 6-9 months recovering and rehabbing your injury. But what makes Ortega and other divers notorious is that they often dive in anticipation of contact - without ever having been touched. Defenders committing themselves to sliding tackles are most open to a dive of this nature, as officials already view such tackles with suspicion. But seriously.... you can get hit, fall down, show evidence of pain, and get your point across to the official. Propelling yourself through the air like a flying squirrel hardly seems necessary. In fact, it brings negative attention to yourself and the game. Best to fight through those challenges you can, go down when you can't, and save the theatrics for another, more appropriate setting.

By itself, diving is bad, but not destructive. The problem for me has been diving in connection with a new form of "fair play" - playing the ball out of touch when an opponent is on the ground.It is my recollection that playing the ball out of touch when an opponent was on the ground developed in England, a league where players do not go to ground very easily. If a player was on the ground, he was hurt. Perhaps still able to play, but in need of some form of medical attention (bring on the "magic spray!"). Thus, when a team played the ball out of bounds so that a player could receive said attention, they felt confident that there was no gamesmanship afoot. The player was, indeed, in pain. But the infiltration of the Premiership by foreign players has seen a marked increase in the number of dives, and the number of players who lay on the ground, feigning injury, in an effort to stop an attacking opportunity or waste time. When the team with the ball fails to play it out of touch, the team with the man on the ground cries poor sportsmanship.

Fortunately for everybody, I have a solution. Dive or no dive, from now on, when a player goes down, no team should ever play the ball out of touch. Players should continue on while the man is on the ground, and press any advantage they may have as a result. If the ball goes out of play, then the player may receive medical attention, but that attention should be given on the sideline. Bring on the cart, remove the player from the pitch, and give him the treatment he needs on the sideline while play continues. And don't let him back on the field for 5 minutes.With such measures and expectations in place, players will know ahead of time that if they go down and stay down, they will place their team at a disadvantage. If they are truly hurt and unable to continue, a substitution can be made and the team can return to 11 men more quickly. Like, say, for instance, when your leg gets broken (poor Totti, he shouldn't dribble so much).

I fully believe that this approach will cut back on diving, but will be more effective at preventing players from lingering on the ground and disrupting play. Players who dive will have the proper motivation to get back on their feet when the official does not see fit to award a free kick, instead of staying on the ground attempting to draw the official's sympathy. Maybe then we'll see a return to officials calling actual fouls.

And where should this revolution start? That's right, England. Let the English, the inventors of the Beautiful Game, be the ones to tell players "Tough luck - stay on your feet and grow a pair". Then FIFA can create guidelines for officials to follow that have the benefit of being tested in an intense game-day setting. I'm looking forward to it already! Maybe then we can turn our attention to what really matters, awesome goal celebrations! Flips, dances, pretending to be Elvis and using the corner flag as a microphone... All great stuff.
As it turns out, you can get a yellow card these days for taking your shirt off after scoring a goal. Seems pointless to me, since the rule was put in place to prevent the game from being slowed down by players who couldn't figure out how to get their shirts back on. Just keep guys from rolling around on the ground, that should save you 5 minutes of action each game.

Landon Donovan... and other Ramblings

Watching the US - El Salvador game, I was struck by something odd. Landon Donovan, when taking a penalty, carried out a pre-kick routine. Not that these types of routines are strange by any means, but HIS routine was strange. He sets the ball down, backs off 6 yards, crouches down, and then the strangeness ensues. He looks at the grass, pats it, first with his right fist, which he then brings to his mouth and kisses his wrist. Then he pats the grass with his left fist, followed by kissing that wrist. After this, he kisses his right forearm, then his left forearm, and then he stands up, crosses himself, and takes the penalty. I prefer to remember Donovan as he is in the picture, scoring goals against the hated mexicans, who are not worthy of having their proper noun capitalized. The routine brought back memories of Karl Malone talking to himself at the stripe ("Di'be Karl Malone...).


A thorough search of youtube.com turned up no available video to clearly display this routine, so you'll just have to take my word for it. But weird it is. I'm not sure it worked so well since his first penalty went right at the keeper.

Landon also has a habit of kissing what looks like his ring finger at times, typically after he scores, in what appears to be a Doug Christie-esque tribute to his wife, Bianca Kajlich. Seen here at their wedding in January, the happy couple has been together for some time. The Internet calls her "little-known actress", which is probably true. I know her because apparently she went to Blanchet, and she was on Dawson's Creek, a show I watched nearly every day while unemployed a few years ago. Talk about routine, I would get up and 9, watch the Creek, and then watch two hours of The West Wing. Every day for 6 months. That was so pathetic.

And I can't resist a photo of Professional Sports' most whooped man, Mr. Christie. Too bad he's from the area, it hurts our civic reputation as Seattleites. At least Rick Fox, a Tar Heel alumnus, knows how to deal with guys like this. When you get to the point where even over-the-hill role players want to smack you in the face, it may be time to hang up your sneakers and go make dinner for your wife.

Speaking of over-the-hill role players, what the hell is Frankie Hejduk doing on the Gold Cup squad? Hejduk will turn 33 in August, and let's face it, he never really had "it" to begin with. He was a scrapper, and ran his butt off, but his poor touch and lack of creativity made sure that his contribution on the field was as a bruiser, if you can be that when you're as small as he is. So what does he provide this Gold Cup squad? Apparently he provides experience, composure, and physical play. Well, let's see, against Guatemala he lost his composure and picked up a yellow card. He wasn't exactly being victimized, but he did make a few plays uncomfortable to watch. He's old. We can do better than him at right back.

Copa de Oro Redux

Hello soccer fans. I'm back. If only because I'm done with finals. But I'm back, so no more complaining about how I never post anything. Brian. You're the only one who reads this anyway.


But on to the Gold Cup. What a great performance from the US squad last night in their 4-0 crushing of El Salvador. El Salvador is spanish for "The Savior", but there was no savior for the poor Central Americans last night.

ES came out needing a tie to move on to the next round of the competition. Logically, this meant that they packed 10 players behind the ball and made no attempt to go forward in numbers. Thankfully, the Americans have progressed enough technically (in other words, Clint Dempsey is my Salvador) to break down some of the teams that try and pack it in against us. First half goals came by way of DaMarcus Beasley (who may be moving to Scotland and Rangers) and Landon Donovan. After that it was pretty much over, as El Salvador pressed for the opening 20 minutes of the second half before running out of gas. Taylor Twellman and DaMarcus Beasley finished off the scoring and our small of stature opponents.

First, my players of the game. Clint Dempsey is a clear choice. His ability to show back to the ball, control and distribute, is for the most part unrivaled by any current American forwards. Kind of sad really. He also was able to break down the Salvadorenos with some clinical passing and some deft dribbling maneuvers. His pass to DaMarcus Beasley to set up the second goal was perfect, as were some of his earlier passes that people chose to blast over the bar. He continues to be our most creative and composed player, and he always seems to be in position to score or assist.

Second has to be Michael Parkhurst. You barely noticed him at all. Which is great for central defenders. Especially those earning their second cap. He looked much better then Oguchi Onyewu, who likes to put his teammates in awkward situations and continues to make strange tackles, averaging a yellow card a game at this point.
Parkhurst won headers and took the ball away from dribbling latino midgets. He did his job well.

And how could I recap the game without talking about the goat? DaMarcus Beasley. I don't care if he scored twice. He showed no desire to get in on tackles, actually jumping out of the way of several tackles throughout the game. His passing was terrible. Most of his passes appeared as though aimed towards Salvadoran defenders. He refused to take people on, which is problematic for a guy who's most known for his quickness and ability to break down defenders. His first touch was worse than Onyewu's. And despite his two goals, he couldn't shoot. His first goal at least appeared aimed for the corner that it ultimately hit, but the shot had nothing on it. I actually spent the five minutes prior to his goal complaining about his ineffectual play on the wing, only to be reminded by Nate that Beasley always seems to be half terrible, half good.

And then of course he scores. Well, I refuse to credit him for it. The shot was weak. I was justified in my spite by two blown opportunities by Beasley in the next 10 minutes. In both situations, he was given the ball in space with only the goalie to beat (one the result of a perfectly placed, weighted ball from My Man Clint), and sent the shot at least 15 yards above the target. Only to outdo himself again shortly thereafter and again in the second half. His second goal came on another perfect pass from Dempsey, one which any player worthy of wearing the national team kit could finish with their eyes closed. Congrats Beasley, you scored a sitter. At least you didn't kick it over. All in all, Beasley ends the game with 2 of 7 shots on target, but should have emerged from the game with at least 4 goals. I can't celebrate his minor breakthrough. He's had no confidence since 2002. He needs to figure it out.

All things considered, the team looked solid. Replace Beasley with Mapp and figure out who to play in the middle instead of Onyewu (bench him and give him some motivation), and this team will win the Gold Cup. I love it. American regional dominance, trudging around Central America with a big stick, whacking our small brown brethren on the head. Teddy Roosevelt would be so proud.