06.30.06
Live Blog: Germany vs. Argentina
What kind of blogger starts to live-blog a game at the end of regulation?
Don’t answer that.
06.30.06
World Cup Quarterfinals
AFP/afp.comToday, the fun begins . . . and begins to come to an end.
With the World Cup quarterfinals on their way, I think that every game is up for grabs. Here are my thoughts about the matchups:
Friday, June 30, 11am: Germany vs. Argentina
I’m pulling for Argentina here. They’ve played some of the best ball of the cup, but Germany has the home-field advantage — something that can’t be discounted. Germany has a solid team; is it solid enough to stop Argentina’s magical passing game? I don’t think so, but it will be close. This may turn out to be the best match of the tournament.
My pick (holding my hands in the air): Argentina
Friday, June 30, 3pm: Italy vs. Ukraine
Italy will be weighed down by both injuries and emotional trauma, but they seem to make it through one way or another. I’m still angry about the Italian flop at the end of the Australia game, but it’s hard to see how the Ukrainians will be able to pull this one out; they’re up against the greatest thespians in the world.
My pick (holding my nose): Italy
Saturday July 1, 11am: England vs Portugal
If Portugal weren’t battered by injuries and red cards, I’d pick them to pick England apart. But Portugal could come out flat after their wild Round of 16 match against the Netherlands. England, meanwhile, has been utterly unimpressive throughout the tournament, but could get its act together. Tough call — this one could go either way.
My pick (holding my finger in the wind): Portugal England Portugal
Saturday July 1, 3pm: Brazil vs. France
Now, this one is interesting. France put on an impressive show against Spain, while Brazil has improved in every game of the tournament. Brazil is favored strongly, but don’t count out the French.
My pick (holding my fifth glass of pastis): France
Wait — did I really just pick France to beat Brazil? Yes, yes, I did!
Please don’t remind me of that on Sunday morning.
06.28.06
Down in the Flood
I’ve just come back from Manayunk, where the Schuylkill River has flooded Main Street.
I was able to get past the police lines, and took a series of photographs very close to the flooding. You can find them in this flickr set (here’s a link to the slideshow, if you prefer).
Of course, my camera was still on 1600 ISO — a setting used for very low-light situations — from the shots I took at the Espers show earlier in the week. Surprisingly, they still came out okay.
For those of you who know Manayunk, the flooding has occurred, so far, towards the Shurs Lane side of the street. When I was there (around 3-4pm today), the rest of Main Street was still open for business. I did see some water creeping into the parking lot by Green Lane.
From what I’ve heard on the radio, river levels are going to peak tonight, but the waters won’t recede for a few days.
Update: A very strong thunderstorm passed through the area last night, exacerbating the situation.
Manayunk is far from the worst area to be hit — it sounds like the most horrific flooding has occurred along the Delaware River. Philly Future is collecting links to photos and stories from local bloggers; Dan Rubin puts them in context with his characteristic panache on Blinq.
06.28.06
The Passion of Al Cabino
If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour. . . you’re gonna see some serious shit.– Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future
I have come across many worthy causes in my time, but few have been quite as worthy as this.
Al Cabino, passionate “sneakerographer” and “sneaker activist,” has launched a quixotic campaign to pressure Nike into reproducing the moon-boot sneakers worn by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future II.
Cabino contacted me a few months ago, while my blog was on hiatus. Launching into the third-person faster than Rickey Henderson, he wrote:
Internationally famous sneakerographer Al Cabino is fighting for your right to wear sneakers inspired by the film “Back to the Future Part II.” Cabino launched a petition requesting that Nike release a shoe modeled after the gray moonboots worn by Michael J. Fox in the 1989 movie. Nike originally created the sneakers for the film, but they were never made available to the public, something Cabino is hoping to change. So far, he’s collected more than 18,000 signatures from more than 50 countries. You can sign it here, so go, now. What are you waiting for! Your dream could be a reality!
06.27.06
A Few Questions Regarding the Merck Cyanide Spill
Note: please see update at bottom of post
I’m happy to see continuing coverage of the Merck cyanide spill in the Philly papers, but Sandra Shea’s article (if you can really call something that begins with the word “Eeeeew!” a legitimate act of journalism) raises more questions than it answers. Most of them center on the following paragraph:
In the case of the Merck release - which apparently happened June 13, though Merck didn’t discover it until a week later, after the fish-kill - authorities could tell something bad was happening not just because of the number of fish affected but because of the way the fish were acting: They were jumping out of the water and swimming upside down.
– “Agencies Downplay Water Mess”, Philadelphia Daily News, 6/26/06 [emphasis added]
Uh, hello? Are there any reporters in the house?
06.26.06
Robbed Blind
If you thought the officiating during Portugal/Netherlands was bad (and it was atrociously, horribly, comically bad), I hope you didn’t miss the coup-de-grace at the end of the Italy/Australia match. A veritable shiv to the heart, delivered only seconds away from the end of injury time.
Get ready for some well-deserved rioting in the streets of Melbourne.
06.26.06
Pop Quiz
In his review of Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012, Jarhead author Anthony Swofford writes:
Pinchbeck’s thinking suffers from the deep navel-gazing that comes so naturally to this son of urban humanist materialist liberals, the very class he disparages for their atheism, passivity and greed. Not that he is off the mark. Most of the people who once sang Beatles anthems and marched for civil rights are now more concerned with the stock market and real estate — not to mention the quality of the new sod job at the golf course — than with world peace or the welfare of indigenous peoples. But haven’t we known this for at least two decades?
– The New York Times Book Review, June 18, 2006
Based on this passage, which of the following statements appear to be true?
A. Liberals have really deep navels.
B. Urban humanist materialist sods tend to be liberal.
C. David Brooks better watch his back.
D. All of the above.
06.23.06
Movies: Favorite Opening Shots
Jim Emerson, the cinephile who runs rogerebert.com, has posed an interesting movie question:
What are your favorite opening shots?
It’s harder to answer than it sounds.
That’s because Emerson isn’t talking about credit sequences or opening montages; rather, he’s referring literally to the first shot of the movie. As part of Movies 101: Opening Shots Project (via), he has presented his own takes on the first shots of Touch of Evil, The Player, Boogie Nights, Birth, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Barry Lyndon. Now, he’s collecting favorites from readers, which he plans to post on his blog.
Emerson really wants us to discuss the first shot much as we would discuss a still photograph. It’s hard to do that from memory — unless you’ve got a photographic one. Rewatching at least the beginning of the film is pretty much a requirement of playing along.
But it’s a worthwhile exercise; you might find yourself surprised by the first shot in some of your favorite movies. Even if you remember the shot quite clearly, the experience of viewing it changes when you pause the frame and contemplate it as an opening shot.
The interpretative challenge is not only to describe what’s going on in the image, but also to show how it relates to the rest of the film. As Emerson writes, “the opening shot . . . can even be the whole movie in miniature.” An interesting side-question is whether or not it should be.
It’s hard to resist talking about opening sequences as a whole. In my first stab at this post, I succeeded only partially. The first eight reader comments were made before I edited this introduction heavily to make Emerson’s intent more clear. Those who described opening sequences, rather than opening shots, were following my erroneous lead.
Find some of my favorites after the jump. You are welcome to leave your own in the comments. If you want your words to be accompanied by the image you mention, please send me a screenshot.
Even if you comment here, please remember to send your favorite opening shots to Emerson through the email link on his post.
06.22.06
Merck’s Weapons of Mass Destruction
Un-fucking-believable. Via Philadelphia Will Do:
The Environmental Protection Agency identified a Merck and Co. Inc. research facility in suburban Philadelphia as the source of a cyanide-related discharge that killed more than 1,000 fish in the Wissahickon Creek last week.
According to officials in EPA’s mid-Atlantic region, a representative from Merck notified the EPA Tuesday that about 25 gallons of potassium thiocyanate was released into the sewer system on June 13 from a vaccine research pilot plant in West Point, Pa.
Merck spokeswoman Connie Wickersham said the discharge was not in keeping with company’s policies governing the disposal of chemicals.
Ya think?
I would write more, but I’m kind of foaming at the mouth over this.
I’m not even angry; the foam’s just a by-product of the CYANIDE IN THE LOCAL WATER!
Previously:
We’re All Going to Die
The Clean Party
06.22.06
We-e-e-e Are the Champions!
Commenting on the previous post, former TC contributor Rod sums up the U.S. - Ghana match in priceless fashion:
I just watched this travesty masquerading as a soccer match at a local lunch establishment. Here’s the thing: if the game of soccer was about knocking the ball around the middle of the field for 90 minutes with no aspiration to go any further than that, then the U.S.A. would be champions of the world. But unfortunately, there are these things called goals at each end of the pitch and you’re kind of supposed to aim for one of them, at least once or twice.
All of this is aside from the Ghanaian theatrics, which were very tiresome. If soccer was a falling over and rolling around on the ground contest, they would be the champions of the world. Except that Italy might beat them at it.
But really, this has to be down to Bruce Arena at some point, don’t you think, on a tactical level? It looked to me that throughout this World Cup the U.S. team displayed a total lack of imagination or initiative with regard to the attacking phase of the game. My English people demonstrate week in and week out that the long ball game doesn’t work, so why you’d want to copy that is completely beyond me.
The chicken sandwich was good, though. Spicy.
Ouch!
