Marriage Equality

I came across a short movie which cleverly deals with the topic of marriage equality and reminded me that I had actually just been talking about this issue with TMac the other day. He was saying how he didn't understand the rationale for preventing same-sex marriages. I, of all people, decided to play devil's advocate and cite all the reasons people have given to prevent the marriages, but it was pretty weird. The arguments are just plain weak and unsupported by any real data (which I as a scientist require). My best friend Mike said that preventing same-sex marriage is beyond reason - laws are created to keep people from hurting others and the proposed amendment doesn't fit the bill. The short film takes a different approach, but it is nonetheless true. It can be viewed here.

Defeat

I guess it was naive to think that we would win against Ghana given our inconsistent playing and erratic mental state, but still I had hopes. The early goal we let in scared me. Actually, it pissed me off. That was some of the worst defending I've ever seen and the fact that Reyna tried to make it look like he was hurt was just embarassing childishness (aka excessive womaning). We got our own goal afterwards, but then were subjected to a pathetic call for a foul in the penalty box. That was no foul - apparently any bum off the street can be a World Cup referee. I'm not saying that this call was the reason/excuse for our losing the match. Sure it ruined the morale of our team, but if you really want something, you go for it. There were numerous situations where we could have taken a shot on goal, but didn't. Instead, we passed the ball to another team member, which of course was ugly since defenders were always in the box. You can't expect to win if you always pass the ball. In the words of Gene Hackman from a fantastic movie called The Replacements, "Winners always want the ball."

Redemption!

This past Saturday was the big day - USA had to play Italy in order to remain in the World Cup and to redeem themselves after their horrific showing against the Czech Republic. A bunch of guys in my soccer club gathered at a local bar to cheer them on. At first we were all very quiet because we didn't know if they would play like we knew they could, but they did. USA really wanted to win this one and they played hard. Ultimately this game proved to be the most enjoyable one thus far in the World Cup because shots were flying and so were the penalties. Italy became a man down, then USA did as well and then USA lost another man. So, we played most of the game with 9 men on the field and still managed to prevent Italy from getting a second goal. I've never been so proud of a tie score. Well done USA!

Play It Forward?

There was no drunken carousing this past weekend as I had to get up early on Saturday and head judge a limited format Kobe PTQ. We really expected a large turnout for this, but only 117 showed. I thought this would make things easier, but with my judge staff being two L0s and somewhere around 20 decklist errors/illegibilities, things were pretty rough in the first few rounds. Beyond that, things went smoothly and that's what I like to see. Sunday was even better than Saturday because it was the first weekend day where it was reasonably warm, very sunny, and I was free to hang out in the park. I went to a new location this time (Sheep Meadow) and got some sun for a few hours. Sooo nice! Then I forced myself through the waves of Puerto Ricans in order to get dinner and head back to my place to see all the World Cup matches that were taped on my DVR.

Yesterday I made exception to my rule of taping all World Cup matches and watching them later by watching the USA play Czech live during my lunch hour (or two). I honestly can't remember when I last had such a bad time (maybe when I had surgery on my finger?). Similarly, I can't remember when I last saw a professional team play as poorly as USA did in that opener game. Yes, USA is outclassed by Czech, but that doesn't mean you give up. By looking at interviews after the fact it's pretty obvious that USA wasn't in the game mentally - at all. I have no idea why that is, but putting that aside I can't imagine why they made the tactical decisions they did. What pissed me off more than anything is how any time a USA player would have the ball and dribble it forward, if a Czech player challenged they would stop, turn around and pass the ball back. They did this nearly every time! At one point in the game I started counting the number of times they didn't pass back and decided to cut the ball, make a turn and play the ball forward (which is what they should have done a lot more of)...I think I only counted two of these aggressive plays. It's really embrassing when your national team plays for 90 minutes doing things that MY local club gets yelled at by our coach for doing. There were times when I was thinking that my club could have done a better job than USA did...and that's just wrong.

Towards the Dark Side

For a month or so now I had been planning to go to Great Adventure with Mike, Erich and Matt. The chosen date was June 3rd, but the weather leading up to it was just awful. The day before said the forecast would be rain and thunderstorms, so I told the guys that I wasn't going to attend. I still bought discount tickets for them, but was ribbed by them for wussing out. Well, as it turned out it did rain and thunder that day and there were even worse things about the trip which I won't go into. The point is that because I didn't go it meant I could sleep in late on Saturday morning. This normally wouldn't be something I would need to do (I normally get up at 6 am to exercise), but our Friday league soccer game was cancelled due to rain and since Gus and I knew several of us would be free because of this, we decided to go out on the town.

Gus and I met up at a sports bar for a quick drink before seeing X3 (second time for me). Brian met up with us to see the movie and afterwards Gerald met up with us and we headed out to some bars. At this point is was very early Saturday morning and Gus' birthday. In honor of this we bought him some drinks and shots. The buying got somewhat out of hand and I, one who pretty much only drinks vodka, found myself drinking all sorts of stuff. Brian ordered a round of shots of something which still remains unknown to me. Then there was a round of tequilla and also I believe a jager/red bull combination which was surprisingly good. By the time we were at our last bar stop I realized that I had drank more than ever before in my life. It was much harder to walk and paying attention to anyone except people right in front of me was nearly impossible.

After our last bar stop we went to a dance club in the east village. They were playing 80s music which was perfect for all of us. I forgot how much I enjoy dancing and it was even more fun with friends. The four of us had a fantastic time - joking, getting to know each other better, gossiping about other people on our soccer team, prank calling our club's Fundraising Officer at 4 am (he was awake and online doing God knows what). Sticking to my guns and not going to Great Adventure plus going out on the town for drinking and dancing is something I would simply never have done 5 years ago, but I loved every minute of it. I can't wait to do it again. Cue the Imperial Death March...