Live Blog: Germany vs. Argentina
What kind of blogger starts to live-blog a game at the end of regulation?
Don’t answer that.
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06.30.06
Live Blog: Germany vs. ArgentinaWhat 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 My pick (holding my hands in the air): Argentina
Friday, June 30, 3pm: Italy vs. Ukraine My pick (holding my nose): Italy
Saturday July 1, 11am: England vs Portugal My pick (holding my finger in the wind):
Saturday July 1, 3pm: Brazil vs. France 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 CabinoIf my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour. . . you’re gonna see some serious shit. 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:
06.27.06
A Few Questions Regarding the Merck Cyanide SpillNote: 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:
Uh, hello? Are there any reporters in the house? 06.26.06
Robbed BlindIf 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 QuizIn his review of Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012, Jarhead author Anthony Swofford writes:
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 DestructionUn-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: 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! |