Here Among the Cats

I do believe summer has finally arrived. It's a sweltering 85 degrees out, and temps are expected to hit the 90s the rest of the weekend and into next week. About freakin' time.

Today's a big day for the sporting events; well, watching them on TV, anyway. The U.S. plays Italy in the World Cup in a little while. After their dismal performance on Monday, they pretty much have to win to move on. Then tonight, the Oilers will try to take the Stanley Cup finals to a game 7 against Carolina. My arse will be planted in front of each game.

UPDATE: Well, both the teams I was rooting for had good results today. The U.S. were aided by Ghana's upset of the Czechs, and then went out and tied Italy 1-1, despite playing two men short for most of the second half. The nitwit ref gave two U.S. players red cards, which for you non-soccer folks means they were kicked out. I missed the second one, but the first red card call was absolutely ridiculous; it was a late tackle, the likes of which had been allowed all game without any call whatsoever. Despite the ref's idiocy, the U.S. played a smart, aggressive game. Now they need to beat Ghana to advance to the second round. Meanwhile, the Edmonton Oilers laid a serious beating on Carolina, shutting them out 4-0 and forcing a seventh game on Monday night in Raleigh. They've come back from a 3-1 deficit and have all the momentum with outstanding performances in the last two games. It was nice to see Erik Cole make a surprise return for the Canes; he'd been out since March with a broken bone in his neck. He actually played well, although his timing was off (understandably) on his shots. I've been rooting for Edmonton all along, but when it was 2-0 Carolina, things didn't look so good. I hope they can continue their excellent play and take the Cup Monday night.

Take it away, boys:

• I had a busy Thursday night. First, I met up with a bunch of my co-workers in Boston to run the J.P. Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, a 3.5 mile race that starts at Boston Common. There were about 11,000 runners and walkers. The first year I did this, I started too far back and got stuck behind a lot of walkers, and last year, I started right at the front and went way too fast for my liking. This year, I started a little further back and ran a good steady pace. We repaired to Remington's afterward for some beverages and food; turns out we were sharing the downstairs room with New Balance, and sure enough, my buddy Bob showed up. Lately, we've been running into each other inadvertently at sporting events; already this year, we've bumped into each other at a BU-UNH hockey game, a Red Sox game, and now the Corporate Challenge. After a little while at Remington's, I headed over to Avalon to see the Arctic Monkeys show. I was bummed that I missed most of the opening set by We Are Scientists, a band I really like, but the Monkeys made up for it by playing a blistering one-hour set that had the joint jumping. This was the end of their U.S. tour. I suspect when they come back, they'll be playing larger venues. I'm glad I got to see them in a fairly small setting. There were a lot of Brits in attendance, fitting since the Monkeys are absolutely huge in the U.K.; I saw a lot of Guinness being consumed and heard a lot of talk about the World Cup.
• Hey, I like to think I'm pretty open-minded about stuff, but this story about a male doctor who is getting a sex change makes me wonder how I'd react if I were one of his patients. It would definitely be weird to go in for an appointment and find that he was now a she.