Getting started right where we left off...
Ok so clearly I’ve been slacking off on doing theses MMPs. Maybe I’ll get back in the rythm of doing them, probably maybe not.
FCD has been pretty consistent so far: play a better possession game than last year and yet lose anyway. Not really a whole lot to discuss on that matter, so let’s move on. I thought it appropriate that, given all the new faces, I dedicate most of this post to the new kids on the block.
I’ve got a midterm on Wednesday, so I’m gonna start the season just like how our defense started the season: real frackin’ slow.
Your Weekly Transcendentalist Horoscope
Random yet oddly appropriate quotes from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
…but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change nor accident.
Change seems to be the message all over the land these days. Sounds like change is going on around FCD as well.
FCD vs. Colorado Bowel Rapids
To paraphrase some nasty perscription drug commercial: we don’t have a going problem, we have a growing problem. And by going, clearly I mean scoring. Offense. Balls in the back of the net. Gols. Bulges in the auld onion bag. You know, that thing that helps you win if you can, you know, make some.
Even when we dominate possession — and I thought we had the better of that — we just seem to pass the ball around the top of the box, then wait for some reason to stupidly give it away. Usually this involves ill-advised passes to a striker, despite that player being double-covered or not in a good (or onside, in Jeff Cunningham’s case) position.
We’re not getting goals from midfield. Heck, we’re not getting goals from defense. Kyle Martino (yes, you read that right, they’ll make anyone a color commentator these days) said that FCD has scored off one set piece all season (Drew Moor on a corner kick). That ain’t good, guys. Ain’t good at all. Until we start getting goals off set pieces and non-strikers, teams will simply play to our weaknesses by taking away our strikers’ shots and leaving everyone else on our team alone so they can manage to screw things up. Check out the pain:
Notation: Striker, Midfielder, Defender, Gone
8/30 - Cunningham
8/23 - Rocha
8/16 - Cunningham
8/3 - Cooper (2)
7/27 - Cooper (2), Oduro, Thompson
7/19 - Cooper, Toja
7/4 - Thompson
6/26 - Cooper
6/21 -
6/15 - Cooper
6/6 - Alvarez
6/1 - Oduro
5/28 - Cooper, Moor
5/24 - Oduro (2)
5/18 - Oduro
5/10 - Cooper
5/3 -
4/24 -
4/20 - Cooper, Thompson
4/12 - Alvarez, Cooper
4/6 - Cooper (2), Alvarez
3/30 - Toja
Kenny’s and Dominic’s goals from the Club America friendly seem to further confirm this: we aren’t getting any goals from non-strikers. The only non-strikers still on our roster who have scored all season are Drew Moor (on that one set piece) and Andre Rocha (on that 40 yarder). And I wouldn’t be surprised if Rocha is Ricardinho‘d before the season ends (Ricardinho’d - v. to send back to the Brazilian farm team). This brings the total to:
Strikers - 24 (18 after removing Thompson and Artie)
Midfielders - 3 (1 after removing Toja, 0 after Rocha gets the boot)
Defenders - 1
For those of you that think this is normal, here’s a comparison to Celtic after just 4 games:
8/10 - Barry Robson
8/17 - Paul Hartley
8/23 - Stephen McManus, Georgios Samaras (2)
8/31 - Georgios Samaras, Shunsuke Nakamura
That’s less than half the goals coming from strikers and 1.75 goals/game against opponents that use bunker tactics. Now Celtic isn’t even in mid-season form yet, and lost to one of the biggest jokes in Scotland, yet that is still a far more impressive goal distribution than we have here in Dallas.
So what do we do? Obviously, we need goal scorers. I’m so dedicated to the team, I made a list. Of everyone. On the planet. All 6.7 Billion or so. Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t give me those kinds of post sizes, so I just had to give context around the guys that played on Thursday night. If the FCD front office needs the entire list, just shoot me an e-mail. At my charitable scouting rate of 20 cents/hour, this will work out to a $639 Million consultancy fee. Since FCD’s top priority is winning, according to Señor Hitchcock, I feel they’ll pay the fee and my time will have been well-spent. So here they are, in order:
173. Andriy Shevchenco
174. Semih Şentürk
175. Kenny Cooper
176. Ashley Young
177. Brian McBride
565. El Pescadito
566. Wayne Rooney
567. Jeff Cunningham
568. (Fat) Ronaldinho
569. Paul Scholes
1,254. Ramon Nunez
1,255. Roberto Mina
1,256. Dominic Oduro
1,257. Abe Thompson
1,258. Juan Toja
9,845. Chad Barrett
9,846. President Bartlet
9,847. Drew Moor
9,848. Clarence Goodson
9,849. Schella Hyndman’s indestructible balls
16,082. Kobe Bryant
16,083. Steve Nash
16,084. Eric Avila
16,085. Ally McCoist
16,086. Mo Johnston
28,096. Last year’s Tom Brady
28,097. Joe Hamilton
28,098. Dax McCarty
28,099. Ocho Cinco
28,100. Bo Jackson
45,283. Buzz Carrick
45,284. Victoria Beckham
45,285. Bruno Guarda
45,286. David Beckham
45,287. Bruno Guarda’s Mom
146,837. Steve Morrow
146,838. Bob Woodward
146,839. Blake Wagner
146,840. Kyle Martino
146,841. Maradona (not back then, I mean now)
156,037. Sarah Palin
156,038. Jon Stewart
156,039. Michael Dello-Russo
156,040. Tony Stewart
156,041. Martha Stewart ’s bodyguard
275,091. Gordon Brown
275,092. Robert Downey Jr (”you never go full retard“)
275,093. Pablo Ricchetti
275,094. Matt Stone
275,095. Trey Parker
1,873,388. Barnum
1,873,389. Bailey
1,873,390. Anthony Wallace
1,873,391. Barack Obama
1,873,392. KirkBhoy
984,837,896. Jessica Simpson
984,837,897. William Shatner
984,837,898. Aaron Pitchkolan
984,837,899. Nancy Kerrigan
984,837,900. Boris Johnson
3,923,140,086. Asif Ali Zardari
3,923,140,087. Islom Karimov
3,923,140,088. Dario Sala
3,923,140,089. Alex Ferguson
3,923,140,090. Barry Ferguson
6,721,850,700. Elizabeth Windsor
6,721,850,701. Tom Brady
6,721,850,702. Marcelo Saragosa
6,721,850,703. Don LaFontaine [UPDATE: Whoops, he’s dead now]
What? There’s a trading deadline? We can’t sign anyone we want? Not even Robert Downey Jr.?!? Damn. Well, Schellas, you’ve got your work cut out for you.
WTF Commentary of the Week
Alas, Kyle Martino did a decent job. For a rookie. Rob Stone, however, is the journalist equivalent of Eric Wynalda. I saw Stoner interviewing Les Miles last weekend and then doing the Thursday night game. This guy won’t get out of my TV, for crying out loud.
One side note about their commentary. They compared Cooper and Cunningham and the gist of the argument goes like this: when Cooper scores, FCD wins; when Cunningham scores, his team doesn’t necessarily win. Yawn. I think this gives a little too much credit to Kenny and not enough to Cunningham. When we’re playing like crap, Kenny is taking ridiculous shots from 30+ yards out. He gets them on frame and no one complains, but ultimately he’s so far away from goal that when we’re not playing well he’s not putting himself in a position to create a goal. As for Cunningham, the dude is a poacher. Go and look at Ruiz’s stats (I have not, too much time ranking every player on the planet) and I’d imagine you’d see similar trends. Jeff will get goals when we have bad games, just as Carlos did (Houston playoff game, anyone?). Now I wouldn’t dream of drafting Jeff over Kenny. I just think the stats don’t reveal what the players are doing out on the field. Are these two going to gel at any point? Who knows. At this point in the season, probably not. Hopefully I’m proven wrong. Ultimately I think if we get more offensive chances created by midfield players, people will swear Kenny and Jeff are soul mates. That is a big ‘if’ however.
Minutiae
I might have pointed this out to some of you before, but Anthony Wallace has a really tiny head. I mean, if this soccer thing doesn’t work out, he’s got a guaranteed career in sanitation — he can stick that noggin in any sized pipe he wants!
I was pretty busy around the time Abe Thompson was traded, otherwise I would have done an Iron Man Memorial post on the subject. I can see players with attitude like Ricardinho, Alvarez, and Rocha not being “on the bus”, but Abe? I hope he gets more playing time where he’s going, but Kansas City is collecting strikers like we collect central midfielders who cannot score.
Oh, Kickette, what would we do without you? Probably something productive and less depressing.
Beer news: Budweiser gets bought by Belgians, then they come out with an “American Ale”. Anyone gonna call BS on this one?
And Your Weekly Namesake Update
Attempting to get Guatemala into the final stages of World Cup qualifying. Probably enjoyed his trip to Trinidad & Tobago, and managed to go another game without a yellow card. Amazing.
A column about my favorite commentary subjects: unnecessary laziness and flashy brilliance.
Your Weekly Transcendentalist Horoscope
Random yet oddly appropriate quotes from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
I weathered some merry snow-storms, and spent some cheerful winter evenings by my fireside, while the snow whirled wildly without, and even the hooting of the owl was hushed.
FCD vs. Kansas City Railroad Workers (Explanation)
Dear Mr. Referee,
I’m just not seeing it, Mr. Mauricio Navarro, sir.
I rarely complain about refs, sir, I rarely do. Don’t consider this a complaint, more of a request for a clarification of the rules.
I can overlook 90% of the crap calls you made all game long, Mr. Navarro, really I can. If you want to red card Pablo Ricchetti–a man who I doubt has ever shown malice to so much as a house fly–I guess I can accept that as long as you call the rest of the game evenly.
About that “rest of the game” thing though. How is that K.C.’s players didn’t start getting carded until Bruno Guarda finally got the Nancy Kerrigan treatment towards the end of the game? Between the 22nd minute (when Drew Moor received the first FCD yellow) and the 62nd minute (when Pablo was so ceremoniously ejected), I could have sworn I was re-watching the USA v. Guatemala game, there were so many fouls.
Yet, while I’m sure the situation really required Adrian Serioux to be carded for time wasting in the 38th minute, I can’t help but wonder: what about the real fouls? You know, the ones where FCD players were getting laid out like one of those Japanese game shows. Its easy to card a dude when he tosses the ball away from the opposing team when its in their possession. But have you ever paid attention to Adrian Serioux toss the ball? If he had really intended to “Delay the Restart” (the rule you used to remind him who, indeed, was the boss on the field), then you’d realize that Serioux would have Barry Bonds‘ that overpriced synthetic leather out of the “stadium”. The game, after all, was in a minor league baseball park. Which does, after all, seem to be like the kind of place Bonds would end up if he really intends to return the baseball anytime soon.
If Roger Espinoza, Davy Arnaud, and Carlos Marinelli all manage to get yellow carded within a six minute span late in the game, then one must ask: what caused them to get so aggressive all the sudden? Since you don’t seem to be in possession of all the answers, let me step in an offer my own enlightening vision: they had been playing that way for the past hour. They had slowly elevated their physical play as they became ever more embarassed about the situation they were placed in. You seem to like to take context into account, Mr. Navarro, as that is the only thing that explains Victor Sikora getting carded, the thought of retalliation must have been on your mind. So did you not understand the context in which they were mistaking a soccer game for a small Kansas town branch of Fight Club?
Then there is the whole matter of Jimmy Conrad. You see, when someone scores a goal and then does a minor-league baseball version of the Lambeau Leap, then that is referred to as an excessive celebration, or “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” in referee-speak. You see, in most of these “football” leagues on the planet, if a player’s celebration involves physical touching a fan, beyond a simple “high-5″, then the result is a yellow card. Conrad, in fact, must have hugged just about every one of the 9k fans that bought tickets, even the ones who didn’t actually come to the game. Maybe, Mr. Navarro, this is an issue I should bring up with Señor Garber?
What I’m trying to say, Mr. Navarro, is not that your crap performance changed the result of the game. If it did, then it was deserved as Dallas played the role of Rangers F.C. to Kansas City’s Zenit St. Petersburg — only Rangers can’t score a goal from 4 yards, much less 40. But then again, Andre Rocha’s shots to goals ratio is sitting somewhere around 5,823-to-1, más o menos. I’ll consider the point FCD took away to be a lucky point. We should have lost 2-0.
What I’m trying to say, Mr. Navarro, is not that your crap performance should get you relegated to Conference USA Soccer (here’s a hint: SMU wins, Rice loses). No, for I’m sure those refs would suck it up too if forced to decide whether El Pescadito, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, or Marcello Saragosa was really assaulted with a 50-lb blunt weapon or softly touched in the face.
What I’m trying to say, Mr. Navarro, is not that your crap performance is a reminder that the quality of US Referees needs improvement. I have, in fact, just about given up on that happening within the next 2-3 World Cup cycles. Or when Kevin Stott starts pretending it is opposite day, whichever comes first.
What I’m trying to say, Mr. Navarro, is that because of your crap performance, you are this week’s Monday Morning Pescadito Man of the Match. Congratulations. Now take that prize money and take yourself and Mr. Stott on a vacation until, oh, let’s say… November 24th.
Signed,
KirkBhoy
—
Dear Mr. Bill Gates,
Please make is so Firefox and PowerPoint can both run on my machine simultaneously so I can make a MMP column with pictures, please. Or just make Internet Explorer suck much much less. Though, you’d probably still probably have trouble running it and PowerPoint simultaneously. Or, stop helping starving African children and buy me a new computer, probably easier than the first two options.
Signed,
Someone who’s job it is to know how to use a computer, therefore not some stupid moron who has a slow machine because he is, in fact, a stupid moron when it comes to computers.
And Your Weekly Namesake Update
So many subplots involving El Pescadito in the USA v. Guatemala game.
Landycakes made some interesting statements about Fishinho leading up to the game:
My guess is Carlos won’t be back, but I don’t know. (laughing) My guess is Carlos will be in Guatemala for a few days, if I know him correctly.
My guess is Landon knew Ruiz was about to get Ronnie O’Brien‘ed off to Toronto FC.
The game starts (and continues and continues and continues…) with so many fouls. Guatemala clearly has many Ruiz impersonators on its side.
Then Ruiz decides to kick Tim Howard in the face. I’ll leave this one up to ESPN’s oh-so-professional commentary:
Ruiz, again, I’m sorry. Dirty player. He’s done it many times…. That’s such a rash challenge right there. Typical of Ruiz though. [Timmy gets in Pescadito's face] Yeah, I don’t blame you Tim, don’t blame you at all. [Ref and Bocanegra separate the two] Yeah, Get into him. I would. He does it constantly to players. Nothing worse than a dishonest player. [Timmy gets a yellow card, Carlos does not]
John Harkes
I wonder if the Guatemala player who took Eddie Lewis out knew that his captain (and, one must presume, hero) just got traded so the Galaxy could free up a couple bucks just to get Lewis. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but maybe he thought if he ended the winger’s season that it would look like a bad trade?
Anyway, El Pescadito dove to the best of his ability and still didn’t manage to score or secure a good enough free kick/PK for his team.
Of course, Landon was correct. Carlos wasn’t in uniform for the MLS game this weekend. I doubt he was in a NATO member country, for that matter.
A column about my favorite commentary subjects: unnecessary laziness and flashy brilliance.
Your Weekly Transcendentalist Horoscope
Random yet oddly appropriate quotes from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports are ever substituted for these; and when some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, I have answered, yes — remembering that it was one of the best parts of my education — make them hunters, though sportsmen only at first, if possible, mighty hunters at last, so that they shall not find game large enough for them in this or any vegetable wilderness — hunters as well as fishers of men.
If you had asked me before game time, I would have told you I’d be happy to get 4 points out of the next 3 road games. Hopefully I didn’t jinx anything… but away points are quite a difficult form of hunting.
FCD vs. Toronto Chris Boshes
MMP Prediction: 0-0
Actual Result: 0-2
I was going to go with an IMDB format, but I realized that wasn’t as good for developing plotlines through semi-structured data, so I’ll make up my own format (and you said it couldn’t be done).
New Movie News!
Release Date: 08/03/2008
Runtime: 90+5′
Title: The Meltdown
Sub-title: How to waste a perfectly good 77 degree day in Canadia.
Lead Role: Amado Guevara as “The Catalyst”
Midfielder shows amazing ability to disappear for long stretches of the movie, only to reappear to take crappy free kicks and corner kicks that are only dangerous because no one knows where they’re going. Forgets the 9th Rule of Fight Club: “Don’t Mess with the Unibrow” and sets of a chain reaction at the climax of the action!
Supporting Role #1: Marco Velez as “The Guy We Never Heard of Till He Was Given a Second Yellow Card”
Previous roles include skipping out on playing for the MetroStars in order to join the Seattle Sounders and Puerto Rico Islanders. [Editor's note: seriously, I had never heard of this guy before the match--actually--before he got sent off. Blame Canada]
Supporting Role #2: Greg Sutton as “The Blind Goalkeeper”
Pretending to be faked out defending a penalty kick is no easy feat, yet Sutton will make every viewer believe it is indeed possible to fake out a goalkeeper so bad that he’s practically touching the right post before the kick is even taken. Later, doesn’t even require a stunt man to miss a shot so badly that he almost clears it with his head.
Supporting Role #3: John Carver as “The (Ever So Slightly) Slimmer Charlie Weis”
The famously overweight Weis strolls the sidelines at Notre Dame deciding which amongst his 3,893 individually tailored plays should be called. Carver similarly strolls the sidelines doing…well… we’re not sure. [Editor's note: When was the last time you saw the Fergster strolling the sidelines? Brits should know better]
Review #1: This film is such crap, even the film The Away Win containing the likes of Blake Wagner, Michael Dello-Russo, Eric Avila, and Aaron Pitchkolan can beat it in the box office. Heck, the ‘keeper in that film had to act through an injury and still no one in The Meltdown could beat him.
Review #2: *Laughs at executive producer Mo Johnston*
Review #3: The pre-release hype was that The Meltdown could have claimed the prestigious Monday Morning Pescadito Man of the Match award, but Kenny Cooper deservedly earned that award for his role in The Welsh Castaway, an instant classic with his fans. [Editor's note: any time I say outloud "XXX, what the f**k are you doing?" and XXX immediately scores from 25 yards out, then XXX is pretty much guaranteed the MMPMotM. Sorry, strange-but-effective Dello-Russo-Wagner combination-on-the-left-flank.]
Review #4: It is crap films like this that make filmmaker Schellas Hyndmann look like a genius by comparison. Just a couple weeks ago, people were calling for Hyndmann to be released by the studio. [Editor's note: no, not me]
Review #5: Your review could be here!! Feel free to add it below in the comments!! How exciting!!
And Your Weekly Namesake Update
Came back from injury just in time for his team’s own version of The Meltdown.
A column about my favorite commentary subjects: unnecessary laziness and flashy brilliance.
Your Weekly Transcendentalist Horoscope
Random yet oddly appropriate quotes from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
Or sometimes I watched a pair of hen-hawks circling high in the sky, alternately soaring and descending, approaching, and leaving one another, as if they were the embodiment of my own thoughts.
So it is in the world of transfer rumors as well.
FCD vs. Los Angeles Black Holes
MMP Prediction: Another aggravating draw
Actual Result: 4-0
So, wow. In what many had rumored to be Kenny Cooper’s last game for FC Dallas, he shows off an awful lot of class. With contract negotiations underway, he could have sat out the game. Instead, he gave everything he had as a testament to his professionalism and how much he appreciates the league, similar to Tim Howard’s last game for the Metrostars. Key difference being, Kenny hasn’t left yet. And, being rewarded for my procrastination in writing this piece, we have this little gem from Hitchcock that probably means Kenny won’t be leaving unless:
Will Kenny leave? Eventually, yes. I doubt he’ll be here next season. Hopefully he ends up at a more visible league than 14-team Norwegian “Tippeligaen” or the 27-team English Championship (technically, there are only 24 teams, but in reality the English Premier League lets 3 of the teams play with the big boys for a season before sending them right back down). My advice to Kenny is that sometimes things like this can be a real blessing. Just ask Jozy Altidore, who almost joined Reading. Now look where Jozy found himself:
Stay patient, buddy, your day will come soon.
Some people think Arturo Alvarez should win the MMP MotM. However, according to Rule 4b subsection 2:
No player, coach, or other individual may be awarded a total number of prizes in a given Monday Morning Pescadito(TM) column greater than the number of Goal of the Decade awards given to his greatness, El Pescadito.
At last recollection, this means that Artie could win at most 1 award in this column. And Artie has to be given the Steve Morrow Award For Being Released After Playing The Los Angeles Galaxy. AA was the only player who looked out of place in the game despite a nice assist. To quote Nathan:
I especially love the way he jogs past other attackers on the other team pausing only to perform the tackle mentally.
Artie’s punishment was to be traded to San Jose so we can actually have a draft pick next season. Which, as Peter Welpton points out, will likely be the #2 overall pick. We probably would have used that pick to secure the services Bruno Guarda had he not come out early. Considering Artie would have been prime bench material under the current regime, like that or not, the trade is probably not a bad one. [UPDATE: Welpton is wrong, apparently, it was originally Houston's draft pick, not San Jose's natural 1st rounder. Maybe less useful of a deal after all...]
I wish good luck to Arturo, unlike Jeremiah, who will now have to come up with something else to say at games besides “Alvarez! You’re HORRIBLE!!!“. But hopefully Artie’s contract includes a clause that prevents San Jose from chopping off his right leg and replacing it with Ronnie O’Brien’s as first rumored here:
If I could give the MotM to an opposing play for sucking SO MUCH that it made our team go from playing good to looking great, I would. However, in this case, Rule 4b subsection 18 stands in my way:
Steve Cronin can never, under any circumstance, EVER, be named Man of the Match. Not even if he pretends being 6 feet from the inside post is the right position to be in. Not even if he gives strange commands to the defense allowing opposing forwards to run around the box like gazelles in the savanna. Not if he gives his “deer in the headlights” look over 20 times during the course of the game. NEVER SHALL HE BE NAMED MAN OF THE MATCH.
However, I do get to recycle this picture:
So instead I’ll have to give the Monday Morning Pescadito Man of the Match award to El Pescadito. Did you see the acrobatic display he managed to put on? Hey Carlos, the Olympics are coming up, and the Guatemalan Diving Team doesn’t have much depth. Pun not intended, but I’ll leave it in there anyway.
While in the awarding mood, I think its time to hand out the Possibly Maybe Just Out of the Doghouse Award to FC Dallas head coach Schellas Hyndman. Much disliked for the supposed nepotism that brought him to PHP, he is nothing if not honest. Coaches are constantly put in a position that caused the previous coach to be fired. Normally when coaches are put in a scenario like this, they go the “it is just another normal game” routine. Everyone knows that’s bullshit. So Schellas just went straight to “don’t embarrass me like that”. The team was fired up, came out of the gates playing fast, strong, and tactically great. Of course people are human, so there was the inevitable second-half slump where we gave the ball away more, attacked less, needed the post to save the clean sheet, and generally looked unconvincing and less of an attacking threat. Thats why we have Abe Thompson, apparently.
Other random thoughts:
Dominic Oduro played great, no doubt. But to me he still showed some Thompson-esque touch along with some of his other, lesser qualities. It is proof that a striker can score some great goals while playing within his limitations. Even if we’re keeping Kenny, however, we’re right to go after a big threat striker.
My photoshopping skills aren’t up to the standards of SteveToro, so I won’t even try to put a Toja wig on Landon Donovan. For the first 20 minutes, I didn’t even realize he was playing. For the rest of the game, I didn’t really care. Pretty worthless for his standards, only looked dangerous a couple of times, which is a credit to Drew Moor.
I had wondered what the result of a Davino-Ruiz match-up would look like. The Mexican beat the Guatemalan hands down in a battle that was every bit as physical as I predicted. Can we refer to this as the Battle of the Usumacinta River? No? Ok, fine… Moving on…
We’re technically in a playoff position. Don’t celebrate. DC United and Chivas USA are on equal points and have played 2 fewer games. Toronto and Kansas City are also on equal points with 1 fewer game. Our best bet, in my opinion, is for the Galaxy and Real Salt Lake to tank. RSL has 5 more points but has played 1 extra game plus has played 11 home games (6-0-5) versus 8 road games (1-6-1). Chivas sucking it up without Brad Guzan would be most helpful as well. Oh, and we’ll need to keep playing well. One win won’t cut it. Oh, and we’ll probably need Kenny. Sigh.
Oh, yeah. We beat that Limey punk. What was his name again?
Minutiae
If I may risk further Romanian resentment, I’d like to add a sixth reason to not move to Romania which I forgot: Pălincă. Potentially one of the most vile substances known to man. The Scots have their Whisky (and the Irish their Whiskey). The Mexicans have their Tequila. The rednecks have their Moonshine. Painful all. The difference is, I’ve been able to at least stomach the latter beverages. Pălincă on the other hand I’ve never been able to keep down. Maybe this is because the sampling I had came in a plastic bottle and, I get the distinct feeling, was made in some Romanian relative’s back yard. Even the smell of the stuff makes me want to hurl. Wikipedia states that it is “almost always drunk in shot glasses straight up”, which should tell you how nasty it must be. If it was mixable, some dude trying to get laid would have concocted something to get chicks to drink it.
I’d put that great Facebook picture of us up, but not while the Romanians still hound the website looking for blood. I swear I typed that sentence before I realized the reference. Honest. Cinstit.
UPDATE: Someone thinks Hope Solo is hotter than Heather Mitts. Blasphemy.
And Your Weekly Namesake Update
Not a happy return to Frisco, wouldn’t you say? I spotted at least one dive (though it came from a legitimate foul). We all know how the rest of the game turned out.
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