I’m a pretty diehard Seahawks fan, but with the way the season has turned out this year, I’m glad I only ended up going to three games this year. I went to their first win, against the St. Louis Rams, and then to a close loss against our arch rivals, the Arizona Cardinals. And I went to today’s game, a snow-filled event that had everything going to the Jets favor, including:
It’s icy and snowy. Seattle isn’t used to such weather, while the Jets - and Favre especially - are.
The Seahawks had nothing to play for.
The Jets, tied with the Pats and the Dolphins, had everything to play for.
The Seahawks just aren’t that good.
Who would have thought that the Hawks would have held the Jets - and more importantly, Bret Favre - to only three points? The Seahawks ended up winning 13-3 in what is easily our best game of the season - not high scoring, but a battle against the only playoff contention team that we can now say we beat.
Football aside, I’m amazed that as many people showed up to the stadium as they did. Qwest Field was relatively crowded, despite the fact that we’ve had our worst season in years and the snow has been coming down nonstop for a couple days now. And most of you in other parts of the country may not realize this, but Seattle really does not get much snow at all. So when we do, even when it’s only a couple inches, the people here freak out - or drive in a way that’s not kosher for driving on snow. On Wednesday, the day that the weathermen predicted we would be hit with a “huge snow storm,” there was no snow. Yet, the very thought of snow kept literally half of the people out of the city that day. When snow hit the next day, no one showed up. And with extremely low temperatures for the area, another element we’re not used to for prolonged periods, the Seattle area has just been a mess - and it doesn’t look like things are going to get much better over the next couple of days. I honestly can’t recall the last time I saw this much snow in Seattle, and more is coming.
With that, enjoy the week, and Happy Hannukah! I’m not Jewish, but it starts Monday.
The Seattle Seahawks. Once again expected to win the NFC West and go to the playoffs for Mike Holmgren’s last season. Seattle sports fans have anticipated the beginning of football season for months, not because the Seahawks have consistently been our sole quality franchise over the last five or so years, but because we’ve already lost a basketball team and seen a potentially good Mariners team turn into the worst in the American League. Needless to say, I, along with many other fans, have been frothing at the mouth for this day.
I don’t follow football in the off-season too much, so I figured that the Buffalo Bills were going to be a pretty easy win for the Hawks. At the very least, going in, I expected an even-handed match. But Jesus Christ, the Seahawks looked like the Mariners: they were God-awful. Sure, the team has some excuses - Hasselbeck has been injured for weeks and has neither practiced himself or built up trust with his receivers; the receivers, of course, are a cluster, as both Branch and Engram are injured, leaving only Burelson and a bunch of rookies. But no one could have predicted a 34-10 ass raping.
Granted, the Bills look good. While they started off as poor as the Seahawks, they finally picked it up in front of their home team and went on to dominate in passing, running and defense. But the Seahawks looked downright terrible. When Hasselbeck had people open, he’d fail to convert. The receivers dropped what seemed like a hundred passes, and only so much can be blamed on rookie mistakes. The defense, understandably, got worn down as the offense failed to give them a rest, but things just went from bad to worse as the game went on. Ultimately, this was one of the worst Seahawks game in recent memory… what a way to start the season.
As a Seattle Seahawks fan, I am by nature a Lofa Tatupu fan. The young, under-sized linebacker has given a boost to the defense and has gone to the Pro Bowl all three years of his short career. In the offseason, Tatupu signed a new $42 million contract with the Seahawks.
So, I was saddened to see that Tatupu had been arrested for a DUI. This is old news by now, as this happened quite some time ago, but how utterly disappointing! What a stupid, stupid way to risk your career. Will the Seahawks can him? I can’t see them doing that, but Seattle has taken action in the past. Either way, I’m disappointed in the guy for not putting a tiny fraction of his salary to a pay for a driver.
By the way, if you like to know about celebrities who mess up their own lives, you should head on over to this celebrity DUI website. The website has much more content than that, but for my audience, I figure that’s what will be most appealing.
Don’t piss this referee off. Hell, you better be on your best behavior.
According to Reuters, a soccer referee in Malaysia pulled a gun and fired it into the air after issuing a red flag to one of the players - a suspension that cause several unruly players to get even more unruly. After the man was “attacked” for the call, he ran to his car and grabbed his service revolver. After all, he’s also a cop.
Officials have arrested the referee on tentative charges of unlawful discharge of a weapon, and are also holding several of the players on possible rioting charges.
Not an incredible story, but certainly a funny one. After all, I always thought the red card was the most serious punishment you could receive in a soccer game. Malaysia decided to add a new tier.
I should have posted my prediction here so you all would believe me, but at IHOP this morning, I predicted to both my mother (who I was taking to thundering Qwest Field) and the IHOP host that the Seattle Seahawks would beat the second place Arizona Cardinals by a 20-point spread. Ambitious, maybe; optimistic, certainly, but given home field advantage, a need for revenge and the chance to clinch the division right here and now, I didn’t think it was unreasonable. My prediction came pretty close, as Seattle routed Arizona 42-21, a 21-point spread.
Kurt Warner didn’t look bad, other than the five interceptions he threw - a career high. He seemed to like Marcus Trufant as a receiver more than his own guys, as he lobbed easy passes to the Seattle defender all game long - including one that was returned for an 80-something yard touchdown, and another that killed the momentum gained when Arizona recovered an onside kick. Needless to say, even when the Cardinals got to 27-14, their closest point spread of the game, this Seahawks game was not that stressful. And that’s a good thing.
Had the Seahawks lost, the Cards would have had a tiebreaker over the Seahawks, they would have been only one game up on the Cards with a toucher schedule to go, and the Cards would get that tingly feeling thinking that they are actually better than the Seahawks. It’s cute to think they thought they would actually win the division… when I was down at the Grand Canyon in October, I remember reading a paper in Arizona that, understandably, was so excited and confident that this year was the Cardinal’s year. After all, they were playing well, on par with the Seahawks and so on and so forth. Again, it was just cute that they thought that success would carry through to the end.
Sorry Cardinals, but the Seahawks are NFC West Champions. Again.
I found this article on Yahoo! News this morning, which was originally written by Mike Klis of the Denver Post. In the article, Klis writes this:
The NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers decided to start their Monday Night Football game without the National Anthem according to the Denver Post. Bad enough football has taken away all our free time in the fall and early winter. Now, it’s going to take away our patriotism?
This time, it seemed like the NFL had gone too far.
And I have to ask Mr. Klis, “Are you f**king kidding me.” I hate how sensitive people are these days, and I really, really hate when people accuse others of being unpatriotic. I hate it when Republicans criticize others for questioning the President and policies and calls those critics unpatriotic - isn’t it more patriotic to question what isn’t right? (balance of powers, freedom of speech, etc.) I hate it when… well, I just hate unpatriotic talk altogether. Unless someone goes and joins Al Qaeda and actively fights in one way or another against the U.S., they’re probably not unpatriotic. And this story just rubbed me the wrong way.
The article stems from the NFL and Pittsburgh’s decision to forego the National Anthem at the beginning of the game after kickoff was delayed 25 minutes due to horrendous weather, including lightning, rain and near swamp-like conditions. No one wanted to be outside, and I doubt the person singing the National Anthem really wanted to be outside, either. Can you really blame them for wanting to jump right to game play rather than spend ten minutes of the National Anthem, commercial breaks and so on and so forth?
Klis finishes his article with this: “The NFL hardly seemed worthy of its red, white and blue insignia colors by canceling America’s most honorable song so the show could on two minutes less late.” Come on! If anything, the NFL is probably the “most patriotic” sport in the USA, and they pander to patriotic thinking more than baseball, basketball, hockey and any other sport. Missing the National Anthem for one game is not going to kill anyone, and does not imply that the people who made the decision are any less patriotic.
Okay, here’s what I have to say about marching bands: I don’t see the point. First off, I’ll note that I’m from the northwest, not exactly an area known for its marching bands or its interest in them. Apparently, in some parts of the United States, marching bands are big things, but up here, they aren’t anything spectacular. At football game halftimes, why would I want to listen to a barely audible band that walks around doing sluggish designs, et cetera, et cetera?
However, in this Cal vs. Washington State game, the marching band does something really, really awesome. In a homage to video games, they simulate - with their collective bodies - several classic video games. Which video games? Let us list them: Pong, Tetris, Mortal Kombat, Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, and various Mario stages. Don’t believe me? Watch the video below…
There are some movies that you hear about and hear about and hear about until you reach the saturation point and begin to believe that they will never see the light of day. Such is the case of Goal II: Living the Dream, a soccer film that was a hit overseas but has been struggling to make it to U.S. theaters since… well, I’m guessing around 1873.
Goal! (the original) was surprisingly good and well done, but it flopped magnificently in the United States. Right there, you knew that the sequels, which were already developed or in development, would have a hard time finding a distributor and release date. I thought for sure that we’d see this picture go straight to DVD, but instead the movie is getting a very small, 250-theater limited release through distributor Peace Arch Entertainment. Genius Products will handle the DVD releases.
Assuming that the sequel is even half as decent as the original, I would have gone another route: I would have renamed the film to something that isn’t nearly as cheesy (no matter how you look at the title, it is God awful) and marketed it to all those youth soccer leagues that are popular in the U.S. (how soccer continues to fail to turn those kids into adult soccer fans is a marketing travesty). Goal II: Living the Dream, with the right title and right promotion, could still have a chance.
As of now, Peace Arch plans to release Goal II sometime in the spring of 2008.
