Saturday I watched some soccer and recovered from the night out. Mostly kept myself occupied waiting to see the Sevilla v Barcelona match. BIG MATCH. Ended in more frustration. First, I have to say, I think this was a match that the ref stepped into which is rarely ever a good thing. Next, Sevilla had more chances to give their side an extra goal or two but in the end only scored the one goal in the first half. Barcelona was VERY lucky to only be down by the one at the break.
During the match one of the ways the ref "stepped into the game" was by stopping play too often, an example of this was when he gave Keita a yellow card for what was barely an offense at all. Personally, I don't think it should have been a call at all, much less a carded offense. Unfortunately only a few minutes later, after Barcelona had tied things up, Keita dove in with a hard tackle, which was definitely a yellow card offense...which meant he now had two...giving him reason to find a nice quiet place in the locker room to reflect. A tired Sevilla now had no chance against Barcelona. Luckily it remained tied at one at the final whistle. As much as I would have preferred a Sevilla win, this was especially painful because I'd prefer to see anyone but Real Madrid end up on top at the end of this season...and Barcelona have the best chance, so the tie hurt their chances as well. All the way around it was a hard ending.
After this, I had a match of my own and it was worth attending for the pre-game discovery alone. Someone "found" my lost (EPL) match ball. Granted it had my name and phone number all over the thing, but two or three weeks later it shows up at a match. As I approached the fields from the parking area, I discover someone bouncing a familiar red and white ball up the sidewalk on the way to their match (which happened to be against my team). After going to another field to return someones shin pads I had to borrow last week, I walked over towards the field we were about to use where there was a small group of players from both teams.
"Oh my gawd, someone found my ball, who found it?" I said, glancing "blindly" at the guy that had been bouncing it, his friend and then all the others. I got very little response other than a return glance and a slight grunt of sorts.
The match was pretty close for the first two-thirds, but in the final third we took over and won it. Made the win that much nicer. Funny thing is neither the ball nor the shin pads cost me very much. (I can only guess I accidentally left them on the pitch after a match where we were rushed off by the lights being turned off.) But the ball is a nice and expensive one, that was a gift from the traveling god(s), so losing it meant a lot more to me, it's a damn good match ball...and now it's back. (Probably to be lost again at an Over 30s match.)
Sunday, I watched a bit more on the tube, did some house work and computer work (organized and got rid of a lot of stuff I didn't need). My computer desktop was starting to look more like my desk's desktop. Then the wife and I went over to a neighbor/friend's place for a drink and to chat for a bit. Eventually we left to get some dinner and to watch "Blades of Glory". Another typical yet hilarious Will Farrell movie that had me laughing so hard at some points I hurt. Had to rewind it a couple times.
After the movie we watched the majority of the Grammy's. Mostly uneventful but thought Amy Winehouse did a good job considering and the Beyonce and Tina Turner bit was pretty cool. OH, and most of the Daft Punk performance was cool...really wish I'd seen them when they toured the U.S...oh and Herbie Hancock's rendition of Rhapsody in Blue (along with someone else I don't know) was pretty cool as well.
Some web discoveries to bookmark:
After keeping up with the FC St. Pauli match (another painful draw) with a gamecast and the UK forum posts I did some more exploring and found this (Unofficial) U.S. St Pauli Fan Site. The person that set it up seems to be translating local newspaper articles about the team and their matches. Useful for me since I've only received my news from the forum site which is not exactly complete either. Between the two sites I think it's a pretty good representation of what's going on with the team. I sent in my email to "become a member." Shall see what that means. They have "meetings" that maybe someday I could be a part of...if the timing is right. AND, I just read they have a "spring pilgrimage" that I'd like to be a part of, but that's less likely. Let's go Boys in Brown!!
Not really a new site, but one that I was recently reminded of is Where's George. If you aren't familiar with it, check it out as soon as possible and enter some bills in this thing. I have only had a few over the past few years that were entered by others but it's fun to watch where your money goes (or where it came from). Try it out...they have a Where's Willy version for you Canadians as well.
An interesting news story I found this morning is all about the world wide protests of "Anonymous" against the Church of Scientology. The story includes a link to the video of Tom Cruise which I heard people talking about a couple weeks ago, but I was never able to find online, evidently because the Church of Scientology had hastled the original posters of this video and made them remove it from their sites...or stop showing it on their television programs. I'm off to watch it now.More later...
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