Here’s an exercise for you – Come up with the one definitive Christmas moment or day?
Here’s the problem – Is it possible?
If you’ve gone through a large share of Christmas Days, you have one or two moments on each day that stands out in your mind. Some have sentimental value, others have the surprise factor and one or two are so surreal, there’s no way you can forget it or downplay it.
That’s why it is impossible to really, really find that one moment that defines Christmas. They’re like snowflakes – every Christmas Day is different from the others. No one snowflake or Christmas Day is better than another, just different and unique.
This is what I remember from Christmas Day:
* My daughter’s first Christmas she was able to participate in, where she tore through everyone’s presents – because she believed they were all for her and all of them were from Santa. No one told her any different. She still has my new Nike driver in her room, because Santa wanted her to be a golfer like Daddy.
* I gathered my two younger brothers in my room when I was 9 and waiting for my Dad to set up the stage light and the camera to tape everyone opening their presents. It took him hours and two trips to the one hardware store that was open on Christmas morning to get another light bulb. We fell back asleep and opened presents after lunch.
* A few years later, on Christmas morning, the three of us marched in step into the living room and sat down in spots to hide from the camera to open presents.
* The first Christmas away from home was my first Christmas in the Northwest. I tried to just play off the day like it was any other day – a day off without work – and it failed miserably. My family, aunts, uncles and cousins sent me box after box of gifts, decorations and candy to help me celebrate the day.
* My first Christmas with my future wife started with Midnight Mass and ended with me, her uncle and her sister’s boyfriend watching pro wrestling tapes and yelling Christmas caroling lines to highlight the matches.
* Every Christmas back home includes playing of the Christmas tapes of past, including the afternoon “morning” opening and the march in. All of them have enough cringe-worthy moments for everyone and I usually stay out of the room when they play. The one year when my Mom didn’t put in the tapes, no one missed them and she never let us forget it. A transfer DVD of those tapes are on my desk right now.
* Yesterday, my daughter, now 4, told Mommy what Daddy bought for Christmas. How did she know? She found the receipt from the store that didn’t make it into the trash can and gave it to her. She was cleaning up the kitchen with Mommy, throwing away trash and found it. Now Mommy is mad at me for spoiling (as in giving gifts early/forgetting to put them away) Christmas again.
Snowflakes, each and every one of them and none of them involved any actual present received. That would be an entirely different and much longer list. And, in all honesty, it isn’t as much fun as this one.
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.
I still catch myself staring up at the sky, especially at night.
I can name the constellations quickly, can pinpoint the Northern Star at a moment’s glance and know that the bright orb just off the horizon is a planet, not a star. Most likely, it is Jupiter from where I’m standing.
I’m a million miles away from where my childhood resides, but I’m just one glance from seeing what I saw when I was there. It keeps me young. It keeps me grounded. It keeps me wondering what else is going on around me and away from me.
It isn’t too hard to figure out that I wanted to be an astronomer when I was a kid. My head was in the stars, flying among them and visiting the planets and galaxies that were just out of reach of a 8-year-old boy’s grasp. It was wonderful pouring over books about Jupiter, Mars, comets and the exploding stars light years away that made up the night’s sky. Space and all that it contained enveloped my dreams, my day-dreams and my fantasies. It still does to this day.
Movies also did a good number of feeding this childhood obsession – Star Wars and 2001, especially, with Battlestar Galactica thrown in from TV. I saw myself flying in a space craft, fighting the enemies and saving the day, knowing that one slip would send me into the airless vacuüm where there was no return. I imagined the planets, the people and animals within, and the sights of the galactic arms turning in the distance.
It is wonderful just sitting here thinking about it all.
Just one small problem – I have an artist’s drive, but not a mathematician’s mind. I never got past the basics, continuously tripped up over Statistics, and even struggled to get past Algebra. Yeah, I can compute a pitcher’s ERA pretty quickly and a hitter’s OBS (on-base percentage + slugging), but that’s as far as I could go. Even with encouragement and help from my parents, I was limited.
Now, I have NASA’s Web site to fuel the fires of my dreams. There are more movies to wonder over. There are tons of books – fiction and non-fiction – to keep me in tune with the dreams and the fantasies that are still in my head.
And, of course, I have the night sky to look up at, where my childhood resides, just out of reach of a 38-year-old man’s grasp.
I have two hours between the start of my abbreviated Thursday night shift and the annual Holiday Party (not Christmas, Holiday). This’ll give me two hours away from the office before returning to answer calls from angry coaches. Of course, there’s not one drop of alcohol in this equation, which will make the two hours at the party nearly impossible to get through.
So, here’s a few more examples of the good life some people have on this glorious December day:
• A Holy Cow:
Aaron Flaum / AP
(AP/MSNBC) The month: December. The place: A humble farm. The setting: Just perfect for an auspicious event.
On a cold, dark night in the wee hours of the morning, a baby calf was born. His nurturing mother, Fuzzy, welcomed him into the world by licking and licking his head — an act that obscured a special detail about the little guy that would soon generate headlines all over the planet.
“When we first saw the calf … the mother had licked the hair and it was all sideways and we thought it was a regular calf,” recalled Connecticut dairy farmer Brad Davis. “Then a little later on in the morning we went in and there it was, standing right out. It was really quite a sight.”
“It” was none other than the distinctive markings of a white cross on the newborn calf’s forehead. The image had quite an effect on Davis, Davis’ relatives and friends and families all around the dairy farm.
“The first night that he was here, when we shut the lights out that night late at night, the only thing you could see in here was that cross showing in the dark,” Davis told the local Norwich Bulletin newspaper. “It was really quite a feeling. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, actually.”
Davis’ 70-year-old father, Andrew Gallup Davis, told the Bulletin that he’s never seen a pattern like this on any of the thousands of calves he’s encountered in his lifetime.
“It’s not one you look at and you try to make something out of it,” he said. “It’s pronounced.” Editor’s Note: I’m still waiting for the pot of gold from that leprechaun that was in a tree a few years ago. Also, divine signs are best when they’re on food products or messy spills you can’t get Bounty to pick up for you.
• AOL starts first day as an independent company: (CNET) NEW YORK – The line on Wednesday night snaked outside the New York Stock Exchange building as a swarm of marketing, advertising, and other media types waited to get into the party that AOL was throwing on the trading floor to mark its spin-off from Time Warner. Onlookers weren’t really sure what the big deal was.
An evening commuter walked past, craning his neck up at the massive AOL-logo banner–yes, the one with the fuzzy blue monster on it–and asking a few of the people in line, “Why’s AOL having a party?”
“Spinning off from Time Warner.”
“Oh, finally,” the commuter replied, and sauntered off into the night.
Approximately 10 minutes later, security stalled a pack of party guests between the coat check and the entrance to the trading floor so that they wouldn’t get in the way of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s photo op on the red carpet with publishing industry dame Anna Wintour. There were waitresses carrying massive bourbon-infused cocktails called “The Ticker,” sushi chefs chopping up spicy salmon rolls, and a photographer snapping pictures of guests posing with the iconic NYSE gavel. Oh, and there was a DJ booth where rap legend Sean “Diddy” Combs was calling the shots.
The next morning, long after that had all been cleared out, trading of the new AOL stock commenced: it fell in the first hour, hovered around $23 for most of the day, and climbing a few notches to close at $23.52. It looked less like the refreshed, shiny AOL that had turned the NYSE trading floor into a celebration of its vision of 21st-century publishing, and more like the AOL that, in preparation for the spin-off, cut 2,500 employees and began to explore selling off peripheral businesses like ICQ and MapQuest. Editor’s Note: It took me 90 minutes to discontinue AOL nearly 17 years ago and they still charged me for three more months before I got the bank to cut them off and get a refund. But I’m not bitter… I didn’t even realize they were still around, even as AOL Time-Warner, until about a month ago when rumors started about the breakup between the two companies. Good luck with that, AOL. Coming back from irrelevancy is a tough road to travel, especially when people’s images of your company starts and ends with stuff like this —
• Obama wins some friends during Nobel Peace Prize speech: (AP) WASHINGTON – By using his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Thursday to justify expanding the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama won over some Republican critics at home, even as he preached messages of multilateralism, diplomacy and civil disobedience that resonate in anti-war circles around the world.
In a 36-minute speech in Oslo, Obama defended last week’s announcement that he’ll send 30,000 to 35,000 more troops to Afghanistan. He discouraged other nations’ “reflexive suspicion of America,” recalling how Europe survived thanks to U.S. intervention in World War II. He spoke of “just war.”
The president even invoked one of the favorite qualifiers of his predecessor, George W. Bush, whose legacy he campaigned against last year. Obama said, “Evil does exist in the world.”
While accepting an international honor that in the short term also has been somewhat of a political albatross, Obama sought to convey sufficient humility. He acknowledged “the considerable controversy” over receiving the peace prize after less than a year on the job.
Given the stature of some past winners, and the ordeals faced by humanitarian leaders who’ve never won, the president said, “I cannot argue with those who find these men and women, some known, some obscure to all but those they help, to be far more deserving of this honor than I.”
Obama called on other nations to step up their commitments to U.N. peacekeeping efforts, nuclear disarmament and imposing serious sanctions on regimes that pose a threat to world stability.
“It is also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North Korea do not game the system,” he said. “Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.” Editor’s Note: Liberals love the fact he got the award and conservatives have everything he does, but in one speech, Obama pleased both of them. You have to hand it to the guy, he’s good. Really, really good. Now, get home and finish this health care reform policy…
• Facebook privacy settings get revamped:PC World story Editor’s Note: This was too good to just clip and paste. I don’t particularly care to do this type of format too often – cut, paste, witty retort – but it works sometimes. As for Facebook, the new settings will allow you to avoid those awkward and sometimes annoying status updates from friends you know somewhat well, but not well enough to bask in their glow as a farmer, mob boss or poker player. So irritating.
My column from Sunday’s game. It’ll go into Monday afternoon’s paper, but I wanted to get it out here a little earlier…
SEATTLE — The spirit of giving was in full display on Sunday.
Seattle allowed its visitors the entire first quarter to take over the game, but San Francisco returned the favor with timely turnovers and misplays to give the game and the victory back to the hosts.
The last gift by the 49ers gave the Seahawks the ball late, when Olindo Mare’s 18th consecutive field goal punctuated Seattle’s 20-17 victory over San Francisco in a pivotal NFC West showdown at Qwest Field.
It was enough to make one head coach smile and another grouse about what could have been.
“It feels good to win a close game at the end against a good football team,” Seahawks head coach Jim Mora said. “We hung in there and found a way to win it in the end.”
“Today, we found a way to screw it up,” 49ers head coach Mike Singletary said. “In every situation, we found a way to screw it up. Championship teams don’t do that. There were questionable calls, but I’m not going to go there. The refs didn’t fumble the ball, didn’t miss tackles and didn’t make the plays. We could have overcome those mistakes and won the game.”
A Frank Gore fumble allowed Seattle to march back down for a 17-14 lead on Mare’s 25-yard field goal with 9 minute left in the game. But just as the Niners tied the game following a Seahawk touchdown in the second quarter, San Francisco got a gift to help set up a tying field goal.
A pass interference call — one of the few flagged — on Marcus Trufant set up Joe Nedney’s 34-yard field goal with 2:51 remaining.
The Seahawks stalled at midfield, then the Niners gave them the ball back with 21 seconds left after an ill-timed 3-and-out — three straight incomplete passes — with less than a minute left. It was an inglorious end to a career day by quarterback Alex Smith, who finished with 310 yards on 27-of-45 attempts and two touchdowns.
On a side note, Gore only had the ball for nine carries and the Niners, who turned themselves into a balanced running team under Singletary, had just 12 carries total.
“Interestingly enough, they didn’t attempt to run the ball,” added Mora. “They moved a little bit away from the power running game that they were early. They’ve had success in doing so. The development of Alex Smith, I think it’s evident. It’s not smoke and mirrors, he’s becoming a very good football player.”
Two plays after the 3-and-out, Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck hit rookie wide receiver Deon Butler on a 34-yard pass play down the sideline to the Niners’ 15-yard line. Butler got enough of a push on reserve cornerback Keith Smith for separation to make the catch.
Mare’s game-winning kick soon followed.
“Yeah, I saw (the push),” barked Singletary, when asked about the Butler pass play. “It was right in front of me, but I’m not going to get into that.”
“It was a moment of truth play (to Butler),” Hasselbeck said. “We usually don’t get second chances to win, but we did this time.”
San Francisco laid claim to the first quarter, limiting Seattle to just 7 yards of offense. However, two unsuccessful pass plays at the Seahawks’ 1-yard line — including a fourth-down pass play that exemplified a pass interference penalty, but wasn’t called — and a botched punt-return reverse kept the Niners from taking advantage.
Seattle could have been down by two, maybe three touchdowns at the end of the first quarter. That’s why a 7-7 tie to start the second quarter was a gift to the Seahawks.
The gift the teams gave to the fans, all 67,761 of them who braved an Arctic cold storm, was one they’ll return every time came in the third quarter — a seven-punt display, with both teams combining for 81 yards and just two first downs.
The seven came in the middle of 12 successive possessions ended on punts by both teams, which Gore’s fumble early in the fourth quarter snapped.
“A lot of 3-and-outs for us today, frustrating,” Hasselbeck said. “Every time you looked at the scoreboard, we were always in it. (The playoffs are) what we’re still playing for. The way to do it, though, is one game at a time … just doing all the things we said before the season is so important.”
The playoffs? That will be the biggest surprise gift of all from the Seahawks.
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A quick add: Seattle’s win kept it mathematically in the playoff race at 5-7, along with San Francisco, Chicago and Carolina. Thus, the Seahawks will have to win out – a seven-game winning streak total – and get some help to get into the postseason. Stranger things have happened, but I don’t see it. The most logical spot for either Seattle or San Francisco is the NFC West title, but both teams are now three games back with five to play. The Niners still have to play the Cardinals, but Arizona technically needs just one win the clinch the division title.
It has been a tough 72 hours for Tiger Woods, whose dirty laundry was tossed into the wind storm created by the lowest-common denominator media (aka TMZ).
Reading through the commentary over the past 24 hours on Woods, the aftermath and the apology, the consensus theory is that he’s human. Really. It took this fucking long for people to realize that Tiger Woods – the golfer, the icon, the video game avatar – is human? As if his knee injury-riddled victory in the U.S. Open didn’t prove it, it took him cheating on his wife and him running away in his Cadillac Escalade just before he hit the fire hydrant and tree. Fantastic. Nearly two decades of carefully crafted media images was wiped out in the span of one hour – from the time Tiger’s friend was texting him and Elin (his wife) caught him to the accident. Welcome to the rest of the world, people.
To the rest of us who’ve been following Tiger, we’ve know it was a façade. We’ve known that he’s human. We’ve known that he has mistakes – a thrown club here, yelling at the gallery because someone coughed there – that duffers and semi-pro golfers make all the time on the links. We’ve known that he didn’t trust the media and the press and wanted to keep all of them at more than an arm’s length. Hey, that’s why you live in a gated community – to keep people away (unless TMZ and the paparazzi pay a cop or a neighbor to get in to take pictures).
And, of course, he’s known to rip off a few near microphones….
Two items of proof —
First one (29 seconds in):
Second one:
OK, Gary McCord was blamed for the fart on the second video, who had a bit of a rolling humor feud with Tiger on who could break each other up with well-placed farts, but the point is simple – I think Tiger would love to go back to the time when a fart caught by a television microphone was the biggest uproar caused by him on and off the course. Because he’s human like the rest of us, I hope for the same thing, too.
It used to be a yearly rite of passage, one that got you out of school (sometimes) and one that everyone endured as they grew up.
The trip to the dentist.
Between my experiences in the chair and what my daughter went through today, I believe she’s going to have a little easier time going and getting checked up than I did. Even for a small spot filling on a very small cavity spot, she survived it with little trama and pain. I, however, remember all too fondly of my pain and torture at the hands of the jawsmith.
I went to the dentist at a time in the 1980s when you were given two mouthpieces filled with fluoride paste, usually with the taste of bubblegum or grape, and were told to sit there for 15 minutes or so to let it soak in. Every time I was given this moderate torture device, I puked – a combination of the mouthpieces triggering an overzealous gag reflex and the nasty taste of the paste sliding down my throat. Every time, blech… puke, paste and saliva running down the bib and shirt. Sometimes the dental hygenist or assistant would calmly help me out and find a different way to do it or I’d get Nurse Ratchette, who’d wipe me down and shove two fresh paste-filled mouthpieces back into my piehole. It is a wonder I didn’t get a complex from it.
Another time came when a new dentist tried to pull an extra tooth out of the front of my mouth – and broke the root off. That meant a trip to the oral surgeon, who put me under and surgically removed the root and cleaned out some other anomalies in the bottom of my mouth. Not so bad – except for the fact that neither I nor my parents told the oral surgeon that I sleepwalk. Under heavy sedation, I was lead to a room to sleep and recover. I ended up walking in on two other surgeries and nearly caused grave injury to one of the patients in the chair. The other one was a friend of mine, who was getting some work done and was out, luckly. I was 13.
Wisdom teeth: I had four of them removed at the same time, with enough Novocaine in my jaw to keep me from successfully closing my mouth for hours. Pulled in the morning, off to work for 12 hours of lifeguarding to help pay for school afterward. Yeah. Never again. I was pretty much useless. Fortunately, I was the manager, so I delegated the work and I sat in the shack to collect the money. No one drowned or was hurt on that day, because the threat of a lawsuit would have really put a bright red bow on the painful day.
There are others, but I may have to hypnotize myself to get through the mental blocks I’ve placed in front of them. Today, I don’t have any problems with going to the dentist. And that’s fortunate.
Which leads me to my daughter, who told the dentist halfway through the filling filling that she liked him a lot and he was very nice. She’s 4. I couldn’t be more proud of her. I owe her one ice cream as a reward. And the best thing about the morning, more than her bravery in the chair – no mouthpiece fluoride treatments to be found. Very nice.
This banged-up Dodge Ram was found on Fillmore St., Hoquiam.
As I’m typing this, I’m on hold at Electronic Arts (EA), trying to check up on a game order. There are Websites that are easy to navigate. EA Store’s isn’t one of those, especially when you want to quickly find out if/when your game is going to be sent to you. Amazon has a pretty good interface, as well as Best Buy, but a 25 percent off coupon was tough to pass up. Chalk it up to experience this time.
At least the hold music was decent – “Fire Away” from Jupiter One; “Fa Fa Fa” from Datarock; “Booming Right At You” from Junkie XL; “More (Radio Edit)” from Junkie XL, featuring Lauren Rocket; unrecognizeable (Caribbean steel drum beats); muzak jazz; – but constantly interrupted by a disconnected Harold Lederman-type voice telling me to go online to get help. I actually tried that and didn’t get too far. Thus, I’m here waiting for the phone. It isn’t that bad, if you have something to do while you wait.
Twitter – check. If you like cringe humor, follow @fireland. He comes recommended from Joe Rogan.
Facebook – check. I could do without all of the invitations to create a farm or become a mafia member. However, I could always use some more poker chips. I’m on a bad run right now.
Fantasy football teams – losing, winning, losing, really losing.
E-mail – spam, deleted, voice mails (get those after this call), new deadline on last basketball previews (no problem), reminder on Q&A submission (oops…)
Check the news – Seattle and Tacoma police are still looking for the Lakewood Cop Killer. Holy shit, the guys is getting help from family and friends in hiding out from authorities. Seattle Times update
I just realized that they pause the music while the “voice” tells me to go online chat for help, because this song is about 10 minutes long (Booming) if it isn’t. Well, that just guarantees that I get the full, rich techno-computer aided sound that Fatboy Slim and others perfected. Right? Er…
OK, it has been a half-hour. No really. My head is beginning to hurt from the now obnoxious techno beats. It was a good idea at first to put it on speaker-phone, but there’s no way I can take it off now. I’ll miss the “click” of the operator. Ah damn man… Well I’m hitting my limit here. I started this blog item at 4:30 p.m., 10 minutes into the call and at past 5 p.m., I’m about done.
And success.
Mike click-clacks his way through the EA system and … Damn. EA is having processing and shipping problems. Mike cancels my order and sends me a $20 off coupon to use to re-order the game. OK, that’s not bad at all. 40-minute wait, resolution, a discount. In fact, the new discount is more than the old one. Chalk one up to EA and for patience.
With that, I’m done for the night. Monday Night Football is on and I have to go order the game again.
There’s been a few lately. • Tiger Woods. Didn’t talk to the police, released a statement that clarified nothing and will sit out his own golf tournament. If you are going to mess around on your wife and flee at 2:30 a.m., make sure you don’t hit anything. And there’s something really funny about the fact that his wife, Elin Nordegren, used a golf club to help him get out. Explain why both back windows were busted? Tiger was getting the hell out of there. And yes, cheating on your wife, especially when you have a ton of money in the bank, is a bad decision, moral or not. http://tinyurl.com/yljodex • Charlie Weis. Don’t tell the media that he’d have no defense if Notre Dame fired him because of his win-loss record over five seasons. If you’re going to get fired – and you did – don’t let on. Just talk about the future and what it’ll entail, so that when you get the ax, you can act surprised and walk away fine. http://tinyurl.com/yatanjx • Grady Sizemore. Do not, under any circumstance, take a picture of your junk and send it via e-mail to your girlfriend. It’ll end up on the Internet for all of the world to see and your employer will have to apologize for you. Even if you are the reincarnation of Milton Berle, nothing good will come out of this. http://tinyurl.com/ycnul8t • Mike Huckabee. If someone gets a 99-year sentence, there’s a reason for it. You don’t pardon the guy and let him back onto the street. That someone will go somewhere else and kill four police officers in a coffee shop and then you’ll have to explain yourself. And if you think a presidential run is possible now, nope, not even close. The guy raped a child at 17 years old and “he changed.” Wow, that’s a big fuck-up. http://tinyurl.com/yhw6ljs • Kidnapped by Iran. I’ve heard that the coast of Iran is beautiful this time of the year. I’ve never been there and honestly never will, because it is IRAN. They hate Westerners. Not the people, but the government. So, if you have a yacht and you are getting close to Iran’s territorial waters, get the hell out of there. They’ll snatch you and hold you as spies. Hell, they may kidnap me for typing this and I’m nowhere near Iranian territory. And that won’t change – until it is safe to go there without risk of arrest. http://tinyurl.com/yevxd9o
Tap here to begin writing… I guess that’s appropriate when you’re tap, tap, tapping you way through a sentence on an iPhone. I’ll get back on the computer soon enough, but the game is on and it is easier to go this way than type, run back to the TV and repeat. Modern convenience right there.
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There’s been several incarnations of this blog, the first one dating back to 2004 and I’ve been playing off and on with this format ever since. The first one is/was at JoeUser, which actually did quite well when I had the time and the muse to write to it. Unfortunately, the lack of time and muse dropped me off the radar and off the site. More on JoeUser in a bit. We moved over to Blogger, then picked off a few at MySpace and others, and the same thing happened – time was scarce and the muse was few and far between. I’ve started and restarted the Blogger site so many times, I even got bored and uninspired bringing it back up again. It is a chronic writer’s block in a casual sense – I write for a living and one of the things I don’t want to do when I come home or on a day off is sit down and write some more. Well, I should. I know that now. The more you write, the better you get. The better you get, the more quality comes through when you have to step up and put down the main story. And that’s why I’m back on the grid, back to give this another try. But with a twist…
WordPress allowed me the chance to bring what I’ve done on the Blogger site over here and begin anew. Also, the iPhone app will be a big addition as well. I’ll use that to splice in some smaller items, something to expand on when 140 characters on Twitter just doesn’t cut it and I can’t get to the site (like at work). And, I’ve plugged in the JoeUser site – the original. The WordPress blog – http://andnow42.wordpress.com – will be the main conduit, with the JoeUser site – http://andnow-rb.joeuser.com – as the supplimentary outlet. There may be some original stuff on JoeUser, but that’ll depend. Right now, you’ll see the archives of what I’ve written on the Blogger site. You’ll have to go visit the JoeUser blog to see the old stuff. As for what I’ll write about, I’m not going to limit myself anymore. Most of the time, I would hold off on writing about something or another, because it might reflect upon me in a certain way. No more. This is supposed to be fun and good for my writing fingers. I’m going to treat it that way. I’m not going to take myself seriously and you, the reader, shouldn’t take this seriously either. You have enough to worry about.
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A Sound season in the MLS for the Northwest: When Real Salt Lake defender Robbie Russell’s penalty kick beat L.A. Galaxy goalkeeper Josh Saunders to end the 2009 MLS Cup in Seattle, it put a dramatic capper on the season that was successful for the new MLS champions, Real Salt Lake, but for the league’s newest club, the Seattle Sounders FC. The Sounders broke attendance records all season and played an attacking style of soccer that galvanized a region that was aching for a winner. The Northwest showed its day-glo colors in support of the Sounders, whose fairy tale season ended in Houston in the MLS Western Conference semifinals. With the Seattle Mariners playing well, but still short on talent to get into the postseason and the current Seattle Seahawks limping toward the finish line, the Sounders FC came along at the right time. Now, for the 2010 season and with the majority of the club roster intact, the Sounders need to find a proven goal-scoring forward to power the offense. Freddie Ljungberg and Steve Zakuani in midfield, Freddie Montero up front in support and a solid defense, led by Lacey goalkeeper Kasey Keller, make Seattle a threat next season. There were too many 1-0 wins and losses this season for the die-hard supporter groups to live with.
Here’s a video of the final PKs in the MLS Cup, along with the beginning of the celebration.
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Copy-cat league: The talking heads on TV pound into your head that the NFL is a copy-cat league – If coaches find one thing that works well, they’ll copy it for the next season until the innovation becomes commonplace. In a begrudging way, they’re right. However, one way the league is a copy-cat is in building or rebuilding teams. The NFC West is an example of this. Currently, the Arizona Cardinals are the leaders of the NFC West, with a trip to last year’s Super Bowl in the vault. The Cardinals borrowed some of the successes the Seattle Seahawks used when the Hawks were running over their division rivals – solidify the defense, lock down the best offensive line you can buy, keep your key players in the fold and play to your strengths. Seattle, behind a Hall-of-Fame caliber offensive line, ran Shaun Alexander and the rest of the Hawks to Detroit in 2005. Seattle’s strength was its balanced offense, with a lock-down defense and a true home-field advantage. Arizona, behind Kurt Warner and his Hall-of-Fame caliber wide receivers, played to its strengths and rolled to the NFC title last year. The division is theirs until someone steps up and takes it from them. Someone like the San Francisco 49ers, which is where Seattle got its rebuilding philosophy from. Mike Holmgren knew what he was doing there. The Niners have gone back to their playbook – strength (running game and offensive line), defense (led by Patrick Willis) and players (Gore, Willis, Davis) – to regain some of their lost footing. Coach Mike Singletary changed the atmosphere of the team, which used to be a championship one, and is probably one or two years away from bringing the division title back to the Baghdad By The Bay. Seattle will get to see what San Francisco has done up close on Sunday at Qwest Field. The Seahawks currently are where the Niners used to be under Mike Nolan – injured, aging and rudderless. A few changes and some patience will bring Seattle back around, including a new GM and probably a new coach (sorry Jim Mora). Of course, if those changes aren’t made, it’ll find itself like the team it just defeated, the St. Louis Rams. The Rams have been rudderless and without direction for most of the 2000s, believing that injuries and some bad luck sent them to the bottom of the division and the entire league. The choice is simple for Seattle – copy what San Francisco is doing, which it used to do very, very well in order to overtake the Niners and the Cardinals or stay the course and become a copy of the Rams. This season is lost – time to look at 2010.
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Corner kicks: The usual complaints about the length of the MLB baseball season are legitimate, especially when the dead cold of winter strikes the players in the World Series. In 3 1/2 months, pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. However, the rest of the major league sports in the U.S. aren’t that much better in length. Measured between the championship-clinching game and the start of the preseason and/or regular season, the MLS will have a four-month break between the MLS Cup and the Opening Match (Philadelphia Union at Seattle Sounders FC). The NHL had just under four months break between Pittsburgh’s Stanley Cup triumph and the start of the 2009-10 season. The NBA had an identical span, starting on Oct. 1 just like the NHL and the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA Title on June 14, two days later than the end of the Stanley Cup Finals. The NFL has the longest break, more than five months between the Pittsburgh Steelers’ win over the Arizona Cardinals on Feb. 1 and the start of the preseason on Aug. 13, six months if you go to the start of the regular season on Sept. 10. Baseball used to have more than 5 1/2 months between each season, but with commissioner Bud Selig giving FOX Sports the right to schedule the postseason, what used to be the October Classic is now the November Event. … More than two weeks after France’s disgraceful victory over Ireland in the UEFA World Cup playoff match in Paris, the vitriol from Irish fans has died down a bit. Only a bit. The event may give credence to the establishment of some form of instant replay, if the two governing bodies – UEFA and FIFA – see the errors of their ways, but it has also given a nickname for France’s Thierry Henry that he may never live down – “The Hand of Frog”, a tip-of-the-cap to the handball from Argentina’s Diego Maradona that gave Argentina the victory over England in the 1986 World Cup. Ouch. … In more somber news, the ambush on four Lakewood Police Officers made the international wires, first off on BBC News. I got a text from a friend in England who asked me if I was near what happened. I was nowhere near, but it did strike me that he knew about it out there. Maybe it was the circumstances – four officers sitting down for coffee, going over their laptops, when a gunman or gunmen came in firing. All four died, with the Police talking to a “person of interest” as of 9:45 p.m. Sunday. Honestly, if you didn’t know where this took place, you’d think the Middle East or a war-torn country. But Parkland/Tacoma? Fuck. This is the BBC link to the story – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8385421.stm – and the latest from the Tacoma News-Tribune – http://www.thenewstribune.com/topstory/story/973573.html -. An editorial – http://blog.thenewstribune.com/opinion/2009/11/29/a-crime-and-a-loss-beyond-expression/… I hate to end on a down note, but I don’t know of another way to end it. So, quietly, I’ll step away. Thanks for reading. See ya next time….
View from the press table, Evergreen 2A sub-reg wrestling, Sam Benn Gym, Aberdeen, WA http://twitpic.com/11t2hq••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••2 days ago
Two wrestling tourneys, two stories, two sets of agate, no dinner. Maybe later...••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••2 days ago
"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley" - Robert Burns... Today, this fits. Back to the drawing board. :-(••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••3 days ago
Realized today that I'm woefully unprepared for the upcoming zombie apocalypse... I need to remedy that... :-) #zombieland••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••6 days ago
