Saturday, June 17, 2006

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.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

You'd be proud Lord Koomington, I watched the hockey game last night, my first of the year. Pretty exciting stuff, except for the part about Carolina losing. Watched most of the soccer this weekend, too, good stuff.

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