MLS Playoffs – Whoyagot?

Major League Soccer has survived the contraction of the early aughts to emerge as a league with 15 teams.  This goes to 16 teams next year with two more expansion teams waiting in the wings.  In the bad old days, 75% of the teams made the playoffs, but nowadays a playoff berth is actually an achievement so the final 8 are pretty solid teams.  And the fact that going into the last two weekend’s of league play only two teams were eliminated from playoff contention made for a highly competitive and exciting finish.  While the Eurosnobs would like to mimic the Old Country and do away with the playoffs, let me add to the chorus and assure everyone that our way is better.

October Good for Lovecraft

Any month is a good month for the fiction of horror master H.P. Lovecraft, but October provides an added aura of foreboding.  Not that many of Lovecraft’s stories are particularly Halloweenish, and he was more apt to include ageless alien demi-gods in his fiction than ghosts or witches or the like, but there’s something about a gray stormy evening with a cold autumn wind blowing that makes passages of nameless horror especially tasty.  For this reason I’ve been re-reading at least one classic Lovecraft story each October the last few years.  (Having read virtually all of them the first time back in college.)

Ups for Sad on Vacation

Mark V. checked in with a heads-up on a new website featuring some of his youtube sketch comedy goodness.  It is Sad On Vacation (sadonvacation.com).   They have three clips up so far and are ambitiously laying claim to a weekly update schedule.  That’s good enough for us.  We’ve been to a couple of shows written by and or featuring Mark, George and Co. up in Chi-town and their brand of comedy gets the official stamp of approval.  The clips include Developmentally Disabled James Bond, Hey Look at Me (much respect), and Brownie Gun.

Mark’s current show at the Annoyance Theater is Salem! the Musical (he’s directing).  Read this review of the show, then drop Mark a line and give him some schtick for his hilariously inane and self-important rationale for avoiding background research!  Not watching/reading The Crucible – what a tool…  But seriously.    Go see it next weekend if you’re in Chicago.

So check out our newest addition to the blogroll and bookmark it for the future.  Sad On Vacation.

Can’t Blog Now… FIFA-ing

FIFA 10 dropped earlier this week, which partially explains the extended absence of posts.  That and some minor flu issues… 

Yes, this game is really, really fun.  After (ahem) only a few hours of dedicated play-testing, I can report a number of improvements over last year’s edition.  Team America is tougher for one thing (finally garnering some respect), and the game physics and passing seem more realistic.  Basically, everything mentioned in my demo preview still stands.

Soccer bloggers across the nation are watching their productivity decline.  It’s all reminiscent of the summer several years ago when GTA San Andreas came out, and suddenly a number of popular comic books were inexplicable delayed as the freelance community suddenly had something else to do.

Hit me up on PS3 for a match: MacShark_72.  But don’t bring the weak stuff.  I’m like the Cobra-Kai dojo – No mercy and I will sweep the leg…

Hoops Season Pending

Mike D in the House

A quick look at the official website schedule tells us we only have 12 days until the first televised Fighting Illini Basketball exhibition game.  Two weeks after that we have the season opener against SIU-Edwardsville.  For Illini fans, hoops can’t get here soon enough.  We can officially turn our attention to the four heralded freshmen and the talented junior trio of Mike, Mike, and D-Mac.

The Illini are a top 20 kind of team but may not start the season in the polls as it has become fashionable to stock a lot of mid-majors there (a trend Beemsville wholly endorses BTW).  But win against the cupcakes and come into December with one or fewer losses, and the Orange & Blue will get some attention.  If the freshmen can produce and no major injuries befall us, the Illini should contend for the Big 10 – and the conference will be as tough as it’s been in many years.  For a detailed scrimmage report from earlier this year, check out the Rube’s analysis.  More preseason coverage of Coach Weber’s team will be forthcoming.  Turning briefly to…

The 23 – October Edition

An eventful week for the US Men’s National Team saw qualification for next year’s World Cup overshadowed by the terrible news of a deadly car wreck that left promising forward Charlie Davies severely injured and a young woman dead.  Much has been written about this, so I won’t add to it; suffice to say that our thoughts go out to the affected families.

So Team America battled to a 2-2 tie against Costa Rica in D.C. Wednesday.  It was an emotional and error-plagued performance that really means nothing in the grand scheme other than putting the more-deserving Honduras in the World Cup instead of the Ticos.  The U.S. wins the hexagonal for the second straight cycle, which is the rough equivalent of winning your low-major conference tournament by 20 in March: you still know you’re going to get a crappy seed.  Also the U.S. lost defender Oguchi Onyewu to a knee injury that will keep him out for several months and puts his Milan career in doubt. 

Movies: Zombieland

…directed by Ruben Fleischer, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin.  Zombieland is a light-hearted buddy comedy about the eventual Zombie apocalypse that will consume us all.  It begins with the standard zombie premise with which we’ve grown accustomed – a horrible viral infection turns people into ravening beasts and all hell breaks loose.  We learn from our narrator Columbus (Eisenberg) the rules to surviving in Zombieland, including 1) cardio, 2) the double-tab, and 3) seatbelts.

Columbus, it turns out, is the kind of young guy with a lengthy list of phobias and a penchant for World of Warcraft.  This actually serves him well, because he’s so cautious and paranoid he’s managed to avoid most of the mistakes that seem to have befallen the rest of the populace.  When he meets up with Tallahassee (Harrelson), he find a complete opposite in nearly every trait.  Tallahassee is fearless, somewhat careless, and an absolute zombie-crushing machine.  It’s your standard end-of-days odd couple, and fortunately for the viewer, the two actors have a good sense of timing and chemistry.

The two men soon meet up with a young woman called Witchita (Stone) and her twelve-year-old sister, Little Rock (Breslin).  These ladies eventually convince  the crew to head for L.A. (why anyone would want to go to an urban area in a true zombie infestation is beyond me).  

Pentagram: Qualification Complete

Team America is World Cup bound.  All the teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing about the squad’s inconsistent play, their inability to score goals from the run of play, Coach Bob Bradley’s squad selection – it can all go away, at least for a little while. The US beat Honduras 3-2 Saturday night in San Pedro Sula, the only team to win down there during qualification.  And they did it by battling hard, refusing to quit even after going down a goal, and riding the superior skill and tireless efforts of one Landon Donovan.

I ended up watching this game on my computer via alternating webfeeds from Central America and Iraq (of all places).  The quality was bad and the feed lagged at times, but at least I was able to watch.  Five point in your bound-for-South Africa Pentagram…

No Soup for WCQ TV

In a strange and annoying turn reminiscent of the mid-90s, US Soccer has managed to not have the second-to-last World Cup Qualifier broadcast tomorrow.  Oh, the game is available for viewing, via closed-circuit TV in a handful of bars across the country, but no pay-per-view, no web-cast, nada.  For me, this would mean a drive to Chicago if I really wanted to watch this game.  And I really want to watch this game – just not enough to spend six hours in the car.

It’s an important, vital match.  Win or tie and Team America is in the World Cup.  Lose and the last game against Costa Rica in D.C. next Wednesday becomes scary.  Just to review:  tomorrow I can watch Bahrain v. New Zealand or Denmark v. Sweden, or even freaking Liechtenstein v. Azerbaijan.  But no USA v. Honduras.

Video Pick: Donnie Darko

Written and directed by Richard Kelly, starring Jake Gyllenhall, Mary McDonnell, Maggie Gyllenhall, Jena Malone, Patrick Swayze.  For years, people whose opinions I value have recommended the 2001 film Donnie Darko highly.  Last weekend we finally sat down and watched it, so now I understand why.  This is one of those movies that defies convention:  Is it sci-fi?  Is it psychological thriller?  Teen drama?  You can tell the studio was having a tough time pinning Donnie Darko down as well – the trailers and on the DVD were just awkwardly awful.  (Note the dueling themes of the promo materials below.)

Pseudo-Horror Promo

The movie starts with young Donnie (Gyllenhall) waking up on the side of the road beside his bike.  He smiles to himself and pedals for town, and your immediately asking yourself what’s going on with this kid.  Writer/director Kelly quickly proves adept at holding back certain details of character and plot points until just the right moment, which adds to the mystery and suspense.  It turns out, Donnie has been taking psych meds to deal with his emotional and mental problems as well as seeing a shrink.  The Darko family is otherwise a fairly standard suburban crew.  Older sister Liz (M. Gyllenhall) is taking a year off before going to college, younger sister Samantha seems a decent kid, and Mom and Pop are supportive and perfectly normal.

So when Donnie gets into an argument with Liz, curses at the dinner table, and acts like a total dick to his mom, you have a tough time reading him.  Is he a spoiled kid or does he really have issues?  Turns out, it’s the issues.  That night a voice rouses him to a trance-like state and entices him from his room, telling him he needs to get out of the house.  Donnie follows, sees the source of the voice in the distance (a mysterious yet sinister figure in a bunny-suit), who tells him the end is nigh, about three weeks from now.  Donnie wanders off and ends up sleeping at the golf course.