lolz!

had to copy this from the 5th official, watch the highlights if you haven't.

Taxi for Caldwell

We all have bad days at the office, but thankfully, most of us don't embarrass ourselves in front of an admittedly sparse crowd at the Reebok, or the millions watching around the world. Gary Caldwell did on Saturday, after he was responsible for ALL FOUR of Bolton's goals. It's enough to make you wonder if fellow Scot Owen Coyle slipped him a bag of unmarked notes before the game.

Caldwell's shocker was made all the more funny by the fact he was wearing cycling shorts, as if he was a finely tuned like an Olympic sprinter and not an average duffer. All it seemed to do was make his legs behave like a 15 minute old foal. He danced round the ball for Bolton's first, hacked Tamir Cohen down to give away a penalty, took longer to turn than the Titianic as Fabrice Muamba befuddled him for number three, then shanked a clearance straight to Matt Taylor for the fourth.

Perhaps Caldwell should have stopped in Scotland, where similar mistakes rarely go punished. It's easy to look like Bobby Moore when you're playing Hamilton Academicals and Falkirk every week.

its madness

i've been having as good a time as anyone following along with the bubble watch and bracketology, etc. but then i read this article and i realized how much of a sham the whole bubble thing is. in a way, it seems that lunardi is more of an authority than the committee itself. since all we're ever watching is espn, and they spoon feed us, who's in and who's out, we've got no reason to be surprised selection sunday.

its all about the big10, big 12, acc, same old same old. i'll never forget when uta state didn't get in a few years ago when they were like 29-3. oh well. go spiders.

oh and here's a laugher. end is the best

yayyuhyayyay hohohahahuh

trolololo!

Introducing...

16 year old Wayne Rooney!

happened to turn on the england egypt friendly right as they were walking the teams out. besides being shocked that walcott was in the 11, i couldn't help but noticing how all england players were singing along with the anthem as if they were clearly under big brother's watchful eye, and would be castrated in the media if they didn't.
All but 1 man that is...



bad ass

karma capello?

nice tevas

well michael ballack you were right on cue sir. just as soon as i put your big ugly mug up you go on ahead and lose your cool and try to injur poor little carlitos tevez who was by far the best player on the field at the bridge yesterday. that should have been a straight red in itself and he remains the forerunner for biggest bastard in the premeirship. still like villa for 4th though.

i didn't/don't want to see the tackle on aaron ramsey. its a wonder that more people don't brake their ankles in the premiership, but i guess its now a much safer place with joey barton and alan smith and newcastle's shenanigans out of the league. but i'd trade newcastle for bald man pulis' joke city any minute. stoke are just that, a joke. their basically not even playing football up there, but credit to them, the style of the prem is built for these big barging sides to just basically beat the shit out of each other and then bundle in a goal out of a rugby style throw in courtesy of some rory bloke who has less foot skills than dan ritter/greg o'brien.

but what the hell is fabio capello trying to pull here calling up shawcross? just a big fuck you to arsenal fans? is he trying to endure himself to the potter faithful? doesn't he need a left back? i don't get it.

goal of the day belongs to leo messi, those barca highlights are worth watching. check out the pass from xavi to dani alves to messi for the deciding goal. doesn't get any sweeter than that.

fingers crossed for usa hockey tonight, which could salvage what would otherwise be deemed the most succesful olympics ever by are ever-more annoying nother neighbors. where the hell are they coming up with these speed skaters and gold medals? i use to subscribe to the belief that most cummulative medals is worth more than golds. not so sir, at least not in the ROTW, out of the american media's grasp. And i can't tell you how much i've enjoyed watching the olympics on eurosport where not every 10/11 events you see doesn't have to contain an american.

god i hate chelsea

Its all too easy to draw parallels between the nemesis of my beloved O's the yankees and chelsea. abramovic is basically the steinbrenner of the prem. but its not really the brand of football that they play that irks me, I even respect what they do. As resident asshole and jorge posada of the blues Michael Ballack says, "arsenal are easy to beat for us." And yeah he's right, Chelsea just physically beat the shit out of us like no one else can, and Arsene has no answer for it. But I can't find any team more enjoyable to root against. How satisfying was it from a purists perspective when Iniesta snatched that champs league tie from the jaws of death last year after chelsea had played 180 minutes of anti-football. You had the feeling that good had triumphed over evil despite Drogba shoving his donkey mug into your living room huffing, "this is a fucking disgrace." Thanks Didier, that one was for the kids. I still him and his country are grossly overrated and he gets way too much respect from prem defenders, with his whole play when i want to randy moss attitude, i'd never want him on my team.

So you'll forgive me if I didn't empathize with the typical chelea player's protest and english media's verdict that chelsea "deserved more" from their efforts in the san siro. Tough shit chelsea, ever heard of karma kramer? You complain to the referees more than Ferguson almost, and you lead the league in arrogance. chelsea players have a cute little habit of surrounding the referee after every single fucking decision. Womp womp womp, I hope them and Madrid crash out before the quarterfinals.

On a more pleasant sporting note, there really is something special and refreshing about the olympics. Perhaps its just their rarity, but how often do you find yourself rooting for a woman doing anything competitive? Yes the curling coverage is a little excessive, and they only need to show the last stone, but being in the Czech Republic, you really savour the small country - underdog mentality and find yourself rooting for every single biathlete, just feeding off the energy and genuine enthusiasm in the commentator's voice.

when in rome...(don't expect good pizza)

I returned home last night from 3 days in Rome just in time to catch the second half of U of R and GW on the internet, and i have to say that there really is nothing quite like college basketball this time of year, still probably #1 on the American sports depth chart for me. I also managed to stay completely isolated from the champions league proceedings of the week, and was eager to see my highlights.

Its a good thing it wasn't summer because I like to take my computer outside on my balcony and watch stuff out there, and I'm pretty sure I would have thrown the old lenovo off if I had been last night. I wanted to do hang fabianski up from my coat hanger Ala harry and marv and list out all the things i was gonna do to him in home alone 1 before the south ben shovel slayer comes in and saves the day, (smash his face with an iron, bite of each of his little fingers one by one...)

*Home alone sidenote courtesy of jon szuchy: Try to not think about the home alone theme song when you hear the seat-belt on/off sign on a flight now, go on, I dare you. its literally impossible and i'm sure i will think of it every time i fly for the rest of my life now, thank you jon.*

But back to the game, I know there are purists out there who will say that the second goal was a fair enough to allow, and they may be right. But I'm sorry, that's not the kind of bullshit you want deciding the champions league, especially when the ref was actually in sol campbell's way, and as hypocritical as it seems, you just can't allow that type of shit under the circumstances. is that ref just trying to create a new controversy so people forget about the ireland france thing? sheesh.

but i guess i can be happy enough that this happened in the first and not the second leg, and that rosicky is starting to look like his old self again.

Flying with Italians is annoying enough, with their undisputed title of loudest collective nation ever, and their requisite applause and bravos after the plane successfully lands, but this flight to rome had the most non-nonchalant italian ever, unbuckling getting up out of his seat before we were even off the runway, probably still going like 100mph to get his jacket out of the overhead compartment, prompting a "PLEASE SIT DOWN SIR!" on the intercom.

some other highlights from my rome trip:

token pissed off man gesticulating wildly and really getting into a police officers face for writing him a traffic ticket for just leaving his car on the street.

the coliseum

best gelato ever (mango)

the pantheon

lowlight:
2 real scraggly looking folks having sex on a park bench.

and since all you prognosticators are hung up on your europa league teams, i'll go ahead and throw my hat into the mix and say that Villa (who truly have been the 4th best team this year) will find a way to sneak into 4th place.