Frenzied Action

Quite a day for the USA.  In Pretoria, the drama unfolded like a well-told Hollywood story:  The underdog American team, branded the tournament sweethearts for unfair officiating in the second match against Slovenia, needed to beat the solid Algeria team in order to advance out of group C.  The same went for the Algerians; no points, no advancing.  The world watched as England played out a steady hand (or foot?) against Slovenia, leading 1-0 early on.  The tension built.  If neither the US nor Algeria could score, both teams would be out of the World Cup.

The match was frustrating for both teams.  The US got lucky with a wild shot off the cross bar, and the Algerians were lucky with a very questionable off-sides call.  89 minutes into the match, the score stood at nil-nil.  In a final, desperate attack, Clint Dempsey shot hard, the ball deflected back in front of the net.  Landon Donovan came in with the heart-stopping rebound and drilled in the glorious goal.

Wow.  No wonder he was so happy.

Pure, unbridled joy

(credit: unknown, but obviously not me)

If Pete Docter wrote this in a script for the next Pixar film, studio executives would have laughed it out of the offices for being too trite.  Beeyootiful.

Plus, I would be awfully surprised if this doesn't increase State-side interest in soccer.  Michael Bradley (I almost typed Baldy) plays for Borussia Mönchengladbach in Germany.  Donovan plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy team, so we've got MLS representation.  Who knows, maybe our passion will equal that of the French, but hopefully a little less pouty.  

When Life is Slow

It's hard to write a blog about interesting events when you aren't doing anything.  But sometimes you gotta squint, refocus, and change your f-stop to really see what's in front of you.  Even easier now with iOS video tap-to-focus!

In small, not-really-big-on-the-international-scene news, Germany overtook Australia in a daunting 4-0 victory.  Watching Podolski and Klose rail (and head) in shots past Australia's ailing defense was exciting, but goals three and four failed to make me sit up straighter.  I mostly felt bad for those tired legs.

And I didn't even care about soccer before!

Chris Johnson plays football

In other news, some friends are graduating from high school tomorrow and it brought back all my memories- Finishing up classes at the quickly-turning-to-crap Quakertown High School, sitting in Stabler Arena with 450 of my peers trying to listen to idiot speakers amble their way through pointless and poorly crafted speeches (one spent five minutes discussing the difference between Dr. Pepper and Mr. Pibb, the other asked us to picture what we want on our tombstone).

It'll be a good summer of grad parties.  But I'm mostly waiting to get back to D.C.  You know the feeling.

The Phillies curse

I don't think I'm supposed to see Halladay pitch.  Ever.  

Yesterday I was supposed to see him, but the game got rained out.  I was almost on the train, too, leaving for Philly, but some guy saved me and my friend from the trip.  Best worst news ever.

And then I got invited last minute today to see Halladay pitch, but for some reason the traffic was unbelievable.  I wanted to shoot myself.  Rather than an hour and a half (with traffic) it took a full three ungodly hours.  We arrived for the 6th inning, saw Halladay pitch two, and the Phils lost anyway.  To the Marlins, 0-2.  Awesome.

Halladay is just a dream.

Sometimes seeing it live just doesn't happen.

Part of seeing it live is being the first on the spot. I'm going to the Phils game tomorrow, so I've decided to try out mobile blagging. Blagging... It's bragging in a blog.

Well, because I'll be using my Samsung Behold, I can only blog 160 characters.  Sigh.