A Question of Sport

The Final Four has invaded Indy. Or, more correctly, I guess I should say the corporate sponsors have invaded Indy. They've plastered Coke and Bud Light signage on every available inch of the downtown buildings, and most of the streets around Monument Circle are shut down and covered in lighting rigs, speakers, and giant projection screens shilling their products (all guarded by some flabby meatheads wearing security shirts who feel they have to earn their minimum wage by being total dicks and not letting you cross the street to get to your office because they're assembling some scaffolding 2 blocks away and "someone could get hurt"). It takes a good 10-15 minutes to make the 5 block drive from my apartment to my work. There appear to be about 200 portable trailers selling all manner of fried food (and to wash it down, of course, Coke and Budweiser products). Half of the circle is now buried under a stage where 80,000 people are expected to gather to see Michelle Branch, John Mellencamp and Carrie Underwood. Nothing like an American Idol winner to bring out the masses. But it's all worth it, because millions of dollars will be spent in Indy this weekend. Millions of dollars of free publicity will be generated for the sponsors. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours will be wasted by workers staring out their windows at all the chaos and holding on that last little slim hope that they might still win their office pool. Oh, and somewhere in all this mess, some college kids will play a couple of basketball games. Luckily, I managed to get something worthwhile out of this deal, scoring some free tickets to see a non-lip-synched concert when Robert Randolph and the Family Band play tomorrow afternoon at... the Bud Light tent? Shit. I guess nobody's safe from the long arm of corporate whoredom.

While most of the country is gearing up for this moneymaking extravaganza, I'm saving my excitement for the fact that this is Opening Weekend for MLS. All 12 teams are in action, with 3 matches on Saturday and 3 on Sunday. There are 2 matches on national TV tomorrow: Chicago and Dallas start the day on ABC at 4 pm Eastern, and ESPN2 has the rematch of last year’s final between LA and New England, at 11 pm. My boys from DC United open the season on Sunday at home against the New York Red Bulls, one of two teams that changed their name this year. The Red Bulls used to be the Metrostars, but were bought only a month ago by (believe it or not), Red Bull, and immediately rebranded. The other team with an identity crisis ended last year as the San Jose Earthquakes. During the offseason, they moved to Houston, where they were christened Houston 1836, after the year Texas won its independence from Mexico. Unfortunately, this managed to piss off the very Hispanic community the team was trying to attract, so they wisely and quickly changed the name again, settling on Houston Dynamo. They did manage to get one thing right, though, ending up with some of the coolest uniforms in the league. For more info, ESPN and MLSnet have both extensively previewed the new season, and SoccerTimes has a condensed wrapup of the offseason.

So between Final Four-related activities and a wide range of televised soccer, I’m in for a busy weekend. Usually, I’d be joined in my excitement by my friends Todd and Cynthia, but for some reason they seemed to think a two-week vacation in Australia would somehow be more interesting than sitting on the couch watching sports. Different strokes, I guess...

AP Photo

Live Forever

Oasis rolled through town tonight for a show at The Murat, and in an hour and 40 minutes they managed to prove the old salt about mellowing with age. Interestingly, most of their setlist came from either from their latest album (Don't Believe the Truth) or their first (Definitely Maybe), while sprinkling a few hits (Champagne Supernova, Wonderwall, Don't Look Back in Anger) and some rarities (Acquiesce, The Masterplan, an acoustic Songbird) in between, closing with a rousing cover of the Who's "My Generation". Some things were exactly what you'd expect from an Oasis show: Liam and Noel's stage banter was unintelligible; Liam's vocals were rough; Noel-sung songs got a big crowd response. But some things seemed out of place: Liam and Noel joked with each other and seemed to be enjoying sharing the stage; and Noel sang a lot of songs without a single jealous crack from Liam (I think). Aside from the guy behind me who apparently has never been introduced to the concept of singing on key, it was an enjoyable show, but not spectacular. I still maintain my belief that the band would be better in many ways if they dumped Liam and Noel became the lead singer. A few years back, that wouldn't have seemed so far-fetched, but with the kinder, gentler Gallagher brothers I saw tonight, I'm afraid Liam will be around until their third Comeback Tour. Like the song says, he seems likely to live forever.

When It Got Dark in Germany

The Nats went to Hamburg yesterday missing just about all of of their big stars. No Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, Claudio Reyna, Brian McBride, Eddie Pope or Oguchi Onyewu. Germany, on the other hand, had a rather full roster, headlined by such world stars as Michael Ballack, Oliver Kahn and Miroslav Klose. On paper, it looked like it would be a blowout, and for once, that held up on the field. The US "B" team may be able to handle Guatemala and Norway, but a nearly full-strength Germany is another thing entirely, a fact that was painfully driven home as the Nats ended up on the wrong end of a 4-1 scoreline.

The US started well, weathering the initial storm, and had a few good chances in the early first half. But as the half came to a close, Germany began to apply more pressure, and the Yanks were lucky to get to the whistle without conceding a goal.

The second half was a disaster. The Americans looked like they were sleepwalking through much of the half, giving up a goal in the first minute and then a flurry of three goals later in the half. They didn't close any attackers down, gave them loads of space to run, and gave away too many sloppy passes. Ballack didn't have a defender within 10 feet of him when he scored his goal, and he was standing on the penalty spot. You can't give a player of his quality that kind of space. Keller had no chance. The US was able to pull one back through Steve Cherundolo's 75 yard pass that squirted through everyone and rolled into the goal, but it was a fluke. They were lucky to get it, although it made up for Eddie Johnson's earlier header from a corner kick that would have been a goal had Oliver Kahn not bent his body like Gumby to save it.

Players that I think helped themselves: Cory Gibbs and Jimmy Conrad (despite getting shellacked, both looked like they belonged on the field with the world-class German players), Bobby Convey (several dangerous runs and free kicks), and maybe Eddie Johnson (wasn't real involved in the game, but came very close to scoring once and collided with Kahn on 'Dolo's goal).

Players who did nothing to improve their status: Brian Ching (invisible except for 1 shot early on), Josh Wolff (came off after 17 minutes with a concussion), Pablo Mastroeni and Kerry Zavagnin (had a few good tackles but gave way too much space to the German midfield).

Players who hurt their cause: Gregg Berhalter (caught ball-watching on a couple of goals, totally at sea). He should not make the roster over Gibbs, Pope, Bocanegra, or Conrad.

Michael Lewis of ESPN.com has a different opinion.

I don't know that underselling the team to our European opponents was a bad thing, but it still hurts to travel all that way and get pounded. Even Bruce Arena admitted the game may have been a mistake (since it was not a FIFA-sanctioned date, we weren't able to get a lot of our players released for this match). I'm trying not to read too much into this result, since the US roster was so depleted, but it still stings given that recent successes of the team.

Photo by Christof Koepsel/Bongarts/GettyImages

Man And Mask

Now that I've had a day to digest and consider V for Vendetta, I'm ready to share my thoughts. When I walked out of the theater, I thought it was a fantastic movie, but I wanted to make sure that was still true after spending some time thinking about it. So after a day of reflection, here's what I've come up with:

1. When I left the theater, I was ready to turn around and go back in, and a day later, I'd still go see it again. It's one of those movies that bears watching a second and even a third time, because there's so much going on.

2. It was heavy-handed, and some of the imagery was overdone, but despite being set in a futuristic London, it was still a pretty biting commentary on today's political situation in the US, touching on the war in Iraq and a media-created "culture of fear", used to chilling effect by the movie's fascist British government. All the more impressive considering Alan Moore wrote this story in the 80's (although the screenplay updated some references to make it more current). It made for an interesting experience, because it's not often that an action movie tries to cause you to reconsider what you believe. The last movie to do that was The Matrix, so it's not surprising that the Wachowski Brothers, who directed The Matrix, were screenwriters on Vendetta. Of course, any time filmmakers allow politics to creep into their work, it's going to polarize critics. One review I read passed the movie's message off as a pose, calling it "rage against the machine, by the machine". But I prefer to think of it as sending an anti-machine message from inside the machine. The creators aren't necessarily part of the machine, rather they're using it as a tool to reach as broad an audience as possible.

3. Natalie Portman's fake English accent bothered me. But only for the first 15 minutes. And she's still gorgeous with a shaved head.

4. Hugo Weaving did a pretty good job creating a relatable character out of a mask that can't show expression, although his dialogue was a bit hard to understand at the beginning of the film. But at the end of the movie, V remains somewhat of a mystery, and I really appreciated that. I think knowing too much about him would have been an easy trap to fall into, and would have made the movie a little too predictable for my taste.

5. I'll buy the DVD. And I'm going to have to read the graphic novel.

Image ©2006 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

A Foreign Language

Last night, I watched the DVD of Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy twice. The first time, I watched it on the default setting with the dialogue in the original Japanese with English subtitles. When it was over, I was playing around with the special features and started watching it again with English dubbing. Normally, when it comes to foreign films, I'm very much anti-dubbing. Call me a purist, or a snob, or whatever, but I think it changes a movie a lot if you're not getting the dialogue the way it was originally recorded. However, when it comes to gorgeously animated movies like Steamboy and the films of Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Nausicaä, etc.), I've changed my thinking. When you have to read subtitles to follow the plot, you miss out on an amazing amount of the visual beauty of these films. Steamboy is an incredible visual feat, blending traditional animation and computer-generated imagery to create a fantastic vision of Victorian London, and I'm glad I watched it twice, because I was amazed at how much I missed the first time through.

Images © 2004 Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The Hand Of The Artist

I added two new links to my sidebar tonight. Both are illustration blogs by some artists I really enjoy: Process Recess by James Jean, who I've written about before, and Tropical Toxic, by Tomer and Asaf Hanuka. I've worked with Asaf in the past, and I'd love to work with both Tomer and James if the future allows. But I think it's fascinating to get a peek into the thought processes of these guys, and also to see what a big impact Photoshop has had on the "finishing" aspect of modern illustration.

I haven't come up with a new name for the blog yet, but I have made one decision. Beginning with the previous post, my headers are all going to be movie titles. Why? Because it's fun for me, that's why. God bless IMDB. I thought about using song titles, but Jenny beat me to that one.

An Affair To Remember

Ah, Borders, my Siren. Always luring me onto the rocks of credit card debt, drawing me in at just the wrong moments. This relationship has been going on ever since we first met in 1995 near my bus stop in DC. It has been a tempestous 11 years: intense moments of passion when I lavish money on you, followed by guilt and avoidance when I come to my senses and realize what I've done. And yet, I cannot stay away. Already this year, you've seduced me once. You remember, it was soon after Christmas. There we were: I, with shiny new gift cards in hand, and you with your "Buy 3 DVDs, get the 4th free" deal. You knew I'd never be able to pay for 3 DVDs with gift cards alone, but you sold them to me anyway. It had been a long time since we were together, and I thought perhaps that was it, that it had come down to one cheap post-holiday fling. Sure, I've passed you on the street. I've peeked in your windows and browsed your magazine racks. I even (briefly) considered making you my regular coffee spot. But it just wasn't the same, until today. Just as I was thinking that it's been a long time since I've actually sat down and read a book, there you were on the corner as I walked back from lunch, tempting me with your "3 for 2" book deal. You knew I was weak, and still you drew me in. You took me in your arms, overpowering me with your heady scent of pulped pages, jewel cases and mint mochas, and I lost all control... of my credit card. We cannot be together, and yet we can't stay apart! Borders, you're driving me mad... and I can't get enough.

Yeah. So anyway, here's what I bought:

Free time

Beware the Ides of March, because it usually means there's a bunch of crap at the movie theaters. Since my schedule was pretty light this weekend, I hit the old Yahoo Movies listings to see what I could catch up on, and there wasn't a single thing that made me excited enough to want to leave my couch. The mainstream theaters are full of crap like The Shaggy Dog, Madea's Family Reunion and Failure to Launch, and even the new Landmark Theater has the same old stuff. If I didn't want to see Capote and Transamerica two months ago, I still don't want to see them now. The only thing that looked mildly interesting was The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, but mildly interesting is not enough to get me to drive 30 minutes and pay $8. Thankfully, the Sopranos starts tonight, so I can at least get an hour of decent entertaiment this weekend.

So instead of a movie, I decided to simulate the US's first round of World Cup games on FIFA 06 (yes, I was really bored, and yes, I am also a big nerd). Playing in order, I took on the Czech Republic, Italy, and Nigeria, who took the place of Ghana, who are not available on the game. And I have to say, if the actual World Cup turns out the way my games did, I'll not only be shocked, but ecstatic.

For my lineup, I set up the team in a 4-4-2 with a box midfield, since that seems the most likely formation given the way the US has played in the past. I assumed either John O'Brien or Claudio Reyna would be injured, so I left O'Brien off the squad in favor of Clint Dempsey. Also, I played Bobby Convey at left back, even though Eddie Lewis has been playing there a lot. But I prefer to have Convey on the field, and there wasn't a place for him in midfield. So my US squad that took the field against the Czechs like this:
Johnson McBride
Beasley Donovan
Mastroeni Reyna
Convey Bocanegra Onyewu Cherundolo
Keller
The US started well, but the Czechs took the lead against the run of play on a breakaway in the 13th minute. Soon after, Brian McBride was injured on a a nasty tackle from behind that only earned a yellow card for the Czech defender. McBride couldn't continue, so I had to sub him in the 21st minute for Taylor Twellman. After a back-and-forth game, the sub finally paid off as Twellman got on the end of a Beasley cross and headed home in the 80th minute. With a final of 1-1, the US earned a point in their first match.

Against Italy, I started with the same lineup. I assumed McBride had recovered, so he returned to the starting lineup, and made a major impact on the game. In the 4th minute, the US earned a corner. McBride headed Reyna's kick towards goal, and in the ensuing scramble, an Italian defender knocked it into his own net. 1-0 US. The US kept the pressure on throughout the first half, and at the stroke of halftime, Donovan crossed for McBride, who knocked it past the Italian keeper. 2-0. Apparently, the injury was completely gone, because in the 65th minute, McBride got on the end of another Reyna corner, and this time put away the cross himself. 3-0. In the 80th minute I subbed Dempsey for Reyna and Twellman for Johnson. Both players managed to hit the post in their 10 minutes, but the game ended 3-0.

So with 4 points in their first two matches and the weakest opponent coming last, I decided to rest a few players. For Nigeria/Ghana, the starters looked like this:
Johnson Twellman
Beasley Donovan
Mastroeni Reyna
Lewis Bocanegra Pope Cherundolo
Keller
Despite a few backups in the lineup, the US ran roughshod over the Africans. Mastroeni headed in a corner in the 30th. Beasley tucked past the keeper on a breakaway in the 41st. Johnson headed in a corner in the 45th. Beasley finished another breakaway in the 70th, and Twellman topped off the scoring with another breakaway in the 90th minute. Dempsey entered for Reyna and Cory Gibbs for Mastroeni in the 81st minute, and the game ended 5-0.

So with 7 points, I decided the US would advance to the next round where they would have to face mighty Brazil. I went back to the original starting lineup, and they did not begin well, allowing Ronaldinho to touch home a corner in only the 4th minute. The US recovered their composure and took the match to the Brazilians, paying off their hard work in the 20th minute when Landon Donovan knocked in a deflected corner kick. But just after halftime, Ronaldo showed some of his old form and left 3 US defenders in the dust to tuck home past Keller. Despite the introduction of Dempsey for Mastroeni in the 71st minute and a slew of chances for the offense, the US was never able to find another goal and were eliminated from my simulated World Cup.

Now, I very highly doubt the US will score 9 goals in their first round games, but a tie and 2 wins in the first round would have Nats fans going nuts come June. Hopefully, the outcome is somewhere close to this favorable.

The Blahs

No, not my mood. For no particular reason, I decided to search Blingo for "blah blah blog" today, and after 54 pages of links and not a single mention of my page, I've concluded that there are about 47,310 blogs with the same name as mine, which is about 47,309 too many. So look for a name change fairly soon, as soon as I can stop grinding my teeth about work long enough to think of one.

Speaking of work, I'm going to break one of my two rules for this blog (because so many people from both these parts of my life read this, no bitching about work and no discussing my love life) for a brief moment here: one of the dangers of the accessibility of design software over the past decade or so is that now everybody thinks they're a designer. If one more editor questions me on a font choice or color selection or whether something is visually spaced correctly, they're going to require major surgery to have my keyboard removed from their ass. I read what goes in the magazine, and I have an opinion about it, but that doesn't make me an editor. Now if I went back to school and got my journalism degree, then I could complain. And when the editors I work with get their BFAs and have 10+ years of experience laying out magazines, then they can talk to me about leading and kerning and why we can't use the bold weight of our san serif font instead of the semibold weight of the serif font for that caption that had to absolutely be squeezed onto a very self-explanatory photo with a busy background in a layout which I designed using only the serif font.

Whew. OK, I feel a little better.

So, lots of soccer stuff since my last post:
I know this was more than a week ago, but the Nats earned a rare win on European soil, beating Poland 1-0 in the snow in Germany (Lewis and Galarcep analysis). Clint Dempsey scored the only goal, furthering his cause for inclusion on the WC roster.

In MLS, the Name Game continues. Houston 1836 (nee San Jose Earthquakes, nee San Jose Clash) changed their name to Houston Dynamo because of protest in the Hispanic community that 1836 was the year Texas won its independence from Mexico. Apparently, 170 years is not too long to hold a grudge in Texas, but don't you think it might have been a wise idea for team officials to figure that out before they had a press conference announcing the name and colors and logo? And what's going to happen when the Ukranian community in Houston starts protesting that they stole the name from Kiev's greatest team?

And over on the Eastern Seaboard, an infusion of new money into MLS is creating a lot of flap, as Red Bull, (makers of the energy drink of the same name who also own a team in Austria) swooped in to purchase the NY/NJ Metrostars this week, immediately rebranding them "Red Bull New York" (Galarcep analyzed this too). New Jersey officials immediately took umbrage, and I think rightly so, seeing as how the team plays at the Meadowlands and is building a new stadium in Harrison, NJ, neither of which are in New York. Ugly new uniforms will be unveiled when they open the season April 2 at home to my beloved DC United. No matter how they change their look and despite what team president and GM Alexi Lalas has to read from a teleprompter, they still don't have any trophies.

Both MLS participants in the CONCACAF Champions Cup traveled to Costa Rica this week to get knocked out of the tournament, as the LA Galaxy blew a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2 in overtime, and New England lost 1-0 to LD Alajuelense. Here's another example of why MLS desparately needs their own stadiums for every team so that they can start playing on the same calendar as the rest of the world. MLS teams have won this tournament twice in 11 years (LA in 2000, DC in 1998), but usually they tend to crash out early because they're barely into their preseason and are playing teams that are in midseason fitness. Granted, LA played a magnificent first half on Wednesday, and they got totally jobbed on the phantom foul that led to the overtime winner for Saprissa, but they were a completely different team in the second half and lost their legs at about the 70th minute. I tihnk it's far to say that they deserved to lose the match.

On a sad note, however, LA's president and GM, Doug Hamilton, died of a heart attack on the plane returning from Costa Rica. He was only 43, and left behind a wife and young son. Hamilton had worked for LA and the now-defunct Miami Fusion over the past 6 years. The Galaxy were planning to stay in Costa Rica for training, but are returning to the US for the funeral. They have established a fund in support of Hamilton's son, and I would hope the team will wear a patch or armband in his memory for their opener on April 1.

And finally, heading across the pond, I caught the tail end of today's Chelsea-Tottenham match. What an amazing finish, and a heartbreaker for Tottenham. But seeing William Gallas' game-winning strike really brought home the difference in quality between MLS and the Premiership. Granted, Chelsea is a superclub and have amazing players at every postion, but you'd never see an MLS right back hit a shot like that. Hell, half the forwards in MLS probably couldn't hit that shot.

Let me hear you say "Vot?"

The Volkswagen "Un-Pimp Your Ride" commercials: so ridiculous, they're hilarious. Holding it down on ze engineering tip, ja.