The United States men's national soccer team beat Spain's men's national soccer team in the knockout stages of a major FIFA tournament yesterday. Beat them convincingly and definitively. It wasn't luck, they weren't looking past us. We were the better team yesterday. The final score was 2-0. Or as we say in America, two-nothing.

Joy.

Just pure, unqualified, unambiguous joy. I haven't stopped smiling since 4:22 yesterday afternoon, when I saw the ESPN.com matchtracker mistakenly post "Full Time: ESP 0:3 USA" or something like that.

For me, watching the match was a pure US Soccer fan experience. Watch it live on TV in my native language? Well, unlike those who'd come before me, that option was available. But I couldn't skive off of work yesterday because I'm in a class, so I "watched" the match on the classroom computers, first following the surprisingly good fifa.com matchtracker (my favorite option, The Guardian.co.uk, wasn't covering this one), then when their servers became overloaded, the ESPN.com matchtracker.

My breath hitched a bit when I saw that Davies had nearly scored in the 8th minute. I nearly jumped out of my seat when Jozy put us ahead. I spent minutes 28-73 in absolute terror, watching "DAVID VILLA has shot blocked" and "XAVI swings in a corner kick" over and over again. Class was over by the time Deuce hit the clincher, and I was barely keeping my cool. When it hit me that the match was over and we had actually won, I jumped around the nearly empty classroom like a five-year-old.

After I got home, I turned on my DVRed recording of the game. I watched Jozy's goal, Clint's goal, the final whistle, and Alexi and Reese's recap. I haven't been off of Google News since, trying to find every available article on the match. I've read them in English, German (and even a couple in Spanish). It took me hours to get to sleep last night, and I sprung out of bed this morning to hunt down more articles (nearly missing my train!) before leaving for work.

In terms of importance, I guess this victory ranks right up there for our boys. It's not '89 vs. Trinidad, nor is it '02 vs. Portugal, but it's certainly a more important (if not more improbable) win than '50 vs. England, and while it's not as important as '02 vs. Mexico, anyone who's ever watched a sporting event knew that when we drew Mexico we were through to the quarterfinals.

I'm just incoherently happy. And as an American soccer fan (who gets to simultaneously hear "you guys can't play this game" from folks who live elsewhere and "why should we care" from fellow countrymen), I think I've earned that.

Okay, some of you on my list enjoy this show. I've just gotten into it recently, so I have a question for you longer-tenured fans.

Sara Gilbert: did you enjoy her character as much as I did or is it just me still digging her from Roseanne?

I really enjoyed that bit. Sara Gilbert makes everything better.

Yeah, we'll go with excited.

It's "Next Food Network Star". Now, it's Food Network, not Bravo or A&E or whatever, so you'd think it's about food, right? *facepalm*

No, it's about the personalities. And it seems to be even more about the personalities this season. They were dishing on each other in the intros. Hopefully it won't suck this year. The less they talk about food and the more they talk about each other, the worse it is.
( Spoilers Ahoy! )

And a beautiful day it is.

Couldn't get the England - Kazakhstan game here (except on PPV), but I did catch the score. 4-0 Eng-er-land.

Did manage to watch much of the second half of Australia v. Qatar. A scoreless tie, but it's enough to qualify Australia for South Africa. Congratulations to the Socceroos!

There are a couple of South American qualifiers going on right now, but I'm not really following any of those teams, and the announcers speak much too quickly for my poor Spanish. So instead it's Baseball. Yankees (excuse me: the First Place New York Yankees) vs. the defending AL champion Tampa Bay <strike>Devil</strike> Rays (and that still feels weird to type). Yanks are up 1-0, bottom of the fourth in the Bronx.

At 4 (it's quarter past two now) it's back to soccer. This time it's the Galaxy, hoping to get a win in Toronto. Tough match for my Gs, to be honest. Another tie wouldn't be the worst outcome, to tell the truth.

Then at 8 is the big show. USA v. Honduras. We just stunk up the joint in Costa Rica on Wednesday night, so we really, really need to nail down the three points on our own turf. They're a tough team, couple of EPL players. We've got a few key players hurt or out with yellow card accumulation. It'll be tough, but I think the kick in the ass we got Wednesday night will do wonders for us.

Enjoy the lulz.

Hooray for Honda. Great meme, and it allows us to pimp some of our favorite fanfiction from other-than-HP fandoms. Personally, I only ever read two: HP and Daria, but here goes.

In no particular order:

1. Harry Potter And The Summer Of Change » by lorddwar  

Harry returns to Privet Drive and Tonks helps him become the man and hero he must be to survive. The bestest Harry/Tonks in the action genre, ever. The first and best Lord-Baron Potter-Black. It kicks ass. It takes names. I know, it's my default rec. But there's a reason for that.

1a. Lizardlaugh: Birthday Boy »
and

1b. Undercover Discoveries: http://browneydweasley.livejournal.com/22524.html#cutid1
Harry needs to get out of what's become uncomfortably close quarters in the tent with R and Hr. Apparently someone's been keeping an eye on the trio.

What do these fics have in common? It's all about the pink-haired auror. Moving on...

2. India by Perspicacity 

The real hero of Deathly Hallows was Hedwig; this is her story. A canon-compliant, Deathly Hallows era, spy/military/action/thriller with Hedwig as protagonist. Hedwig/Phantom . I forget what the occasion was (think it was the last RL birthday thing), but this was my favorite.

3a. Bar Maid by

snegurochka_lee and 3b. Five Women who Hate Fleur Delacour, also by snegurochka_lee 

Do you hate the way women were reduced to trite, stock supporting roles in HP the way I do? So does the authoress, who has composed two of the most overtly feminist, brilliant and deliciously subversive fics ever to find their ways into the HP verse.


4. Girls Together Sarcastically » by Dennis
Time to leave the HP verse! In this series of post-canon vignettes, Daria Morgendorffer, her sister Quinn, best friend Jane and Quinn's old high-school nemesis Sandi form a band up in Boston. They rock the house.

We'll end it with another Daria rec.

5. An Overlooked Flaw by legendeld. Quinn devises the perfect system to rank potential dates. There's one fail-safe she forgot to program in, however.

Enjoy, and happy reading. If some are new to you, let me know how you like them. If they're not new, let me know that they're your favorites, too :-)

Yeah, so I spent an hour and a half trying to figure out where to eat tonight. It's the last of my nine nights in Washington (spread out over four weeks), and I had yet to really go foodie in this big foodie town. Tonight? Well, I'm always up for adventure, and there's a cuisine I have no familiarity with whatsoever, so here goes: Ethiopian. There's a Little Ethiopia section of town that the foodies here (thank you, Chowhound) fall all over themselves for. So I'm headed up there to see what I can dig.

The idea is to have a character assigned and then be asked several questions about that character. Suzanne rocks, so she gave me Tonks.

1. Do you like this character?

Adore this character. She's one of my favorite in canon. What's not to like about a mood-hair sporting, death-eater ass-kicking hottie, anyway?

2. What name/s do you call this character?

It's sure as hell not going to be "Nymphadora". No death wishes here. I'm also not a fan of "Dora," which is a fanon convention, especially in the Harry/Tonks community. Nope, I call her "Tonks". Even when I wrote a Lupin/Tonks and they were getting married, she was still "Tonks".

3. What image-color do you associate with this character?

Electric Hot Pink and Black.

4. What image-song do you associate with this character?

Image: she'd have to be a Roy Lichtenstein. Song: "Ray of Light" by Madonna.

5. What blood-type do you think this character is?

Metamorph - she can be whatever type she wants to be ;-)

6. Of all of the titles to that this character appears in, what character do you like to put this character with?

I've shipped Harry/Tonks since I first read Order of the Phoenix. Shocked the crap out of me when she got paired with Remus.

Now: you want your own character? Go for it. I can play in the Harry Potter, Daria and Xlormp fandoms.

Back in Cali, Champions League matches started at 11:30; right in time to take a nice long lunch. Here on the East Coast: 2:30. Just in time to surreptitiously put a lame-ass matchtracker underneath a spreadsheet every time you hear someone walking near your cubicle.

Okay, it's a bit overcast, and maybe a bit cool. But after wearing a winter coat for four months, followed by two weeks of freezing my ass off because I refused to wear the bloody thing again, I think it's safe to say that Spring has finally reached the Northeastern United States.

60 degrees F (um, high teens, maybe 20 C?), and just enough Sun to let you know there's no danger of rain. I've had a wonderful day so far - spent the whole day in Manhattan. I went to an AA meeting at the General Service Office (kinda like world headquarters, if there were such a thing), and rather informally celebrated 5000 consecutive days (which is nearly 14 years) without a drink. I had a tour of the office, which was just lovely, and then took care of a couple of errands. Then I took the subway downtown to Columbus Circle, and heard some rather swinging jazz in Central Park. Just four kids on the street blowing Central Park South pretty much away. Walked over to 5th Ave., stopped at the Lindt store (present for my wife) and H&M (for me), and now I'm sitting in Rockefeller Center waiting for DW to come downstairs(she works at 30 Rock), 'cause we're headed to the Museum of Modern Art, which is just a few blocks away.

So, yay. It's Spring, and I love New York in the Springtime. And I love my 4x10 workweek which gives me Friday off. And sorry if I just killed your F-page with my ramblings, but I'm on the blackberry, so I don't get the groovy "insert cut" button.

Yay Spring :)

He's Green, stubbly, and ready to beat some evildoer upside their evildoing head with his stick of whoopass. Hero maker rocks.

Well, would you look at that, Christopher's typing about sports again. Sports of the international variety.

This time, however, it's not soccer. Nor is is Basketball. It's Baseball. The only sport out there that even comes close to capturing my heart the way Soccer does. The tournament is called "World Baseball Classic". It's the tournament that answers the question "So, if an international sports competition takes place, and Europe is an afterthought, is it really an international championship?" Why yes, Europe. Yes it is.

16 teams; Four from Asia (Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea), two from Europe (the Netherlands is really a Caribbean team for these purposes, and to make up Team Italy, they pulled any major leaguer whose last name ends in a vowel), four from North America (USA, Canada, Mexico and Panama), three from the Caribbean (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba), plus South Africa and Australia.

Yup. Australia. I didn't really believe it either, until I saw it. Well, if the USA somehow keeps getting invites to international rugby tournaments, we can let Australia play a little ball, right? Right?

The game's going on right now. It's the top of the first inning, and Australia is beating Mexico, 3-0. Mexico. A country in which the game of baseball is played at a very high level. I don't know if this game is even available on television, but if it is - wow. That's a story. Not quite as big a story as, say, the Netherlands beating the Dominican Republic yesterday (which is rather like the Dominican Republic beating the Netherlands in soccer).

Meanwhile, my boys in Red, White and Blue are down to Venezuela, 3-2 after four innings. Honestly, not unexpected. We don't get to send our best players (no team does except Cuba), and the tournament is rather an afterthought to the pre-season. Baseball is very much a club-before-country sport.

Update: it's now 3-1 Australia, bottom of the first with two out.

EDIT: So, my boys wound up winning 15-6. And Australia wound up kicking the crap out of Mexico - invoking the mercy rule - 17-7 in 8 innings. Mexico is a very good team - knocked out the USA last time around. Most Australians would try to bounce the ball to the plate, 'cause it looks a lot like cricket, but it isn't quite. This was a colossal upset.

Title: Scorpius Malfoy Learns Quidditch
Dedicated to my friends at The Sober Universe. They inspired this.
Rating: R
Words: 2500, give or take
Couple(s): Scorpius/Rose
Summary: Fifth-year Scorpius doesn't know how to answer when his dorm mates ask him what hoops he's scored through with Rose. So they give him a little Quidditch lesson.
Warning(s): Boys and locker-room humor. Mom jokes. And you'll never read a Quidditch box score the same way again.
Authors Note(s): I'd left this one off of LJ for some reason. Apologies to my f-listers who are also on scorpius_rose for the cross-posting.

 

( Scorpius Malfoy Learns Quidditch. )

Yup, I'm curious. This is a topic on a message board I frequent (PPMB, a Daria fandom board), and there are some pretty good examples in that thread. I picked three; one each from Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. And then I remembered I need more Leonard Cohen on my iPod.

So, here they are.

( Tom Waits: Blue Valentines )

There's Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" beneath this cut, too, but my LJ quotient is pegged at "FAIL". That song is kinda my own private angst - kinda lived that one.

( Leonard Cohen: Chelsea Hotel no.2 )</div></span>
Okay, those are mine. Now what are yours?

Just peachy, thanks. It's 7:25 am, and I left the house three hours ago. I got on the 5:38 out of New York. At about 5:50, they tell us the train is going to be awhile, and we might want to find another way to Newark. So I did, which cost me more money than I care to think about right now.

Yeah, so Alice? Remember how I said that was the right call? Not so much. Turns out that after taking a cab from Manhattan to downtown Newark, NJ, I wound up on the exact same train I would have been on had I just waited in Manhattan.

*facepalm*

So, now instead of being a half-hour late to work, I'm broke, have to call a co-worker for a ride, and a half-hour late for work.

Were this morning a Lolcat, it would say: Comutin, Ur doin it rong.

And so I am. But if I can't get sleep at night, I really can't drive an hour each way.

By the Gods, I really need to sleep tonight...

So, you think you're pretty geeky. You write the fanfiction, you know HP and at least one other fandom inside and out. You quote Monty Python at the drop of a parrot.

But you don't know geek until you know...

The Order of the Stick

Oh. Holy. Crap.

So, it has all the geekiness of a webcomic (which is considerable), with the added geekiness of Dungeons and Dragons.

But wait, there's more:

It snarks on inside jokes about the game, breaks the fourth wall with reckless abandon, and takes you through what very well could be an actual game with an actual band of adventurers. Yeah, it's that good.

So, enjoy. Spend a good 12, 14 hours catching up on the story before waiting for updates with breathless abandon. You'll be glad you did.

1) Someone forgot to give Alex Rodriguez the "Emotional Fortitude" expansion pack when he got his ridiculous amount of athletic talent. The man has done and said just about everything he can regarding the steroids deal from six years ago, but he's honestly incapable of saying the right words. I believe him, personally. I think he realized it was stupid, thought the anonymous testing was actually anonymous, thought what he did was akin to driving 70 in a 65 zone (or 110 in a 100 zone for those of you who think in kilometres), and hasn't done anything like that since. But because he's one of the highest paid team-sports athletes on the planet (at least in terms of salary), because he plays for the richest club in sports (New York Yankees), and because he's never really produced when it counts (October - playoff season), he gets slammed a lot more than anyone else would.

2) David Beckham pisses me off something fierce. I really don't care if an athlete is a role model for the kids. I don't care how nice he is or what he does for charity (although I really respect that in a non-sports way). What I care about is how he helps my team. Mr. Beckham came to my team (the LA Galaxy) on a wave of hype, ready to "save" American soccer (which really doesn't need saving, thank you very much). He was hurt the first half-season he was here, was really quite good for the first half of the 2008 season, and then wasn't very good the second half of the season. Okay, at this point I can kind of understand. He's 33, he's never had to fly 5000km for a league match before (imagine one match in Madrid and then the next in Kiev), and MLS is a much more physical league than he's used to. But then he goes to Serie A and tears it up? No. Nuh-uh. Not acceptable. Now he's just a poster-child for American Euro-snob soccer fans who'd never sully their eyes by watching a league as patently pedestrian as their own domestic league. And I really don't care if he ever suits up for the Galaxy again.